Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Toaru Kagaku no Railgun/Toaru Majutsu no Index
The Trinity of Tokiwadai
Chapter Thirty Four: Triptych of an Escape
Beta:
Naru was hanging out in her cell, literally, like she'd been doing for Science knows how long when suddenly the sound of nearby explosions let her know something was going on.
Wonder what it is. The battered blonde thought distractedly. Whatever it was she doubted it would affect her situation much. At least I hope so…
The shinobis were liable to take out any frustrations they might develop over whatever the disturbance was on her after all. So she hoped that whatever it was they would contain it soon.
Don't think like that! The voice of her inner demon demanded sternly and unexpectedly in the depths of her mind. Whatever it is, this is the opportunity I've been waiting for. It's time for us to make our break for it.
H-Hey Kurama. Been a while, buddy~ Naru replied with a mental slur.
There's no time for pleasantries! I've made a small hole in the seal they slapped on you. Big enough to get the chakra flowing again. Be thankful I learned something while being in those annoying ancestors of yours. Now, use it and get us out of this joint.
What are you talking about? Naru asked as she felt the sweet familiarity of her strength returning.
I'm saying that I'll keep working on the damned seal. The more chakra we have access to, the safer it will be. So until it's all gone, I'm gonna keep picking away at it. In the meantime, you break us out.
I dunno if I can do that. I-I'm just so tired…
Don't tell me that! Argh! Here let me give you a boost. Kurama said as he sent a burst of chakra through her system and straight to her brain, stimulating her brain chemistry.
Naru's breath hitched as a growl ripped from her throat, the demon chakra doing its work and stirring her into a feral rage. Before it could though, she used her Esper ability and seized control of it. Guiding its influence of her mind in just the ways she wanted, she used it to suppress the feelings of helplessness that she'd learned over her captivity and heighten her aggression, all whilst keeping it just right so she didn't lose her rationality. Back in the right frame of mind once more, she used her similarly returned strength to literally rip the hateful chains that had held her in place for all this time from the floors and ceilings. This left her without any support and she collapsed to her hands and knees in her own filth. Despite that Naru couldn't help but shudder with relief at even this small measure of restored freedom. A reaction that even her artificially induced rage could not suppress.
Thank you, Kurama. The Level 5 told her inner demon gratefully.
Just get going!
With a mental nod, Naru shakily got to her feet to do just that which was exactly when the door to her cell snapped open and a trio of shinobi stepped in. Naru didn't let them say or do anything before she poured her returned chakra into the chains that had imprisoned her, animating them in the process and proceeding to use them to rip the startled ninjas into bloody chunks.
A shuddering laugh spilled from her lips. She was at once relieved that her tormentors, some of them at least, were dead and disbelieving. Especially at how easy it had been to kill them.
Were they always this weak? And if so, what does it say about me that I let such weaklings catch me in the first place?
Worry about that later! Just get going already!
Naru nodded and began to move, the chains still animated by her will rattling as she moved them around her like a swarm of protective snakes.
Cheapskates. Naru thought as she eyed her current weapons.The idiots really should have used more of their anti-chakra Dark Matter to make these chains, but I guess the morons were confident their little seal would keep me helpless.
Whatever! Stop daydreaming and get us out of here. Kurama barked. Or did you forget we're still inside the enemy compound here!?
Sorry, Naru replied contritely as she stepped out of her cell and into a cell block with a quartet of shinobi rushing towards her.
Fear and anger stormed within her as she saw more of her hated captors. These four were even a little more prepared and managed to raise or draw their weapons, which sent a spike of fear through her which she ruthlessly counteracted by further using her chakra to alter her brain chemistry. Their better preparedness did not help them. They had barely even noticed her before her chains lashed out and snapped their necks with an echoing crack, causing them to crumple like puppets whose strings had been cut.
Seeing them go slack in death allowed her to relax a little in relief even as it satisfied her demon chakra induced bloodlust and brought a sadistic smile to her scarred face.
Walking over, she promptly looted their corpses for clothing. There was no way she was going anywhere dressed in only the rags that she was currently wearing. It took a few minutes but she ended up using the tee shirt of the lone woman in their number as an oversized dress to cover her ruined clothes, finally fully snapping the chains off her person in the process.
Now properly dressed, she proceeded to the now empty security station, its crew having been the seven fools she'd just killed it seemed. Looking over the surveillance footage being shown at the station's monitors, Naru quickly identified that the base was being infiltrated by MEMBER, another Dark Side cell she was somewhat familiar with. The dog drones they were using were a distinctive giveaway.
Each had shown up in specialized Powered Suits that Naru recognized as being armored with anti-chakra Dark Matter. What else could allow them to tank chakra coated blades and the ninja's brand of magic?
Wait a minute. If MEMBER has access to it… They're one of Crowley's personal clean up crews. They wouldn't deal with illicit goods, the risk of pissing him off would be too great. But that means… Science! We've been wrong all along. The Number 4 hasn't been making the stuff illegally. He must be producing it for the City's Directors. Probably as part of a project to counter the Level 5s.
As interesting as that is, is it relevant now? Kurama asked irritably.
Snarling, Naru filed the thought away for later. The fox was right. She could worry about whatever the City was doing later. Like when she wasn't in the middle of escaping from psychos who thought torturing little girls was a fun thing to do.
Returning to the task at hand, Naru took a moment to memorise a map of the facility, it looked like a underground bunker, conveniently pasted to the desk at the security station. Once she had her bearings, she rushed out of the cell block, but she'd barely stepped into the corridor beyond when she was halted by the last person she wanted to meet at the moment.
Standing just ahead of her was the humanoid alien that called himself Black Zetsu, sporting that inhuman smile that reminded her unpleasantly of a glasgow smile on its face.
"Running away?" Naru grunted at him, figuring he would be doing just that now that his little base was compromised and he needed to relocate.
"Sadly yes, my little Jinchuriki. Rest assured though," He held his arms wide in a welcoming gesture to her, "I was coming to pick you up, so you can fulfill your duty."
"What be your living battery?"
Impossibly, his grin grew even wider at her question and chuckling he replied. "No, no. I already have a bundle of the Kyuubi's chakra."
He thumbed the massive scrolls hanging from his back.
Fucker.
"Your purpose will be far grander than just being a source of the fox's chakra." The alien said with a dark glimmer to his unnatural yellow eyes. "A far nobler purpose indeed."
"Yeah, thanks but no thanks." Naru retorted, keeping up the bravado even as she had to suppress a full body shiver as her mind went wild with all the potential horror scenarios that the creep's statement might entail.
"I must applaud you however." The alien said, unfazed by Naru's rejection and in fact smiling in amusement at her defiance. "Breaching the Five Elements Seal? Performing such a feat is truly one worthy of your dead clan. Though I suppose I should be praising the Kyuubi instead. After all, a barbarian like you would never be able to understand the subtle intricacies of sealing enough, if at all, to accomplish something like this."
"Shut the hell up, you freak!" Naru snapped even as she had to admit he was right. Her handlers had tried to get her help in understanding some of the mechanics of the sealing magic used by her homeworld's shinobi once but despite help from Kurama, neither she nor the scientists assigned to assist her managed to make any headway.
Guess, we're busted huh? The blonde noted with another suppressed shiver as she realized her dangerous opponent appeared to be seeing through her with ease. Hey Kurama, what are our options here?
If you're asking about Frames, then we've only got enough chakra for the Jäger. The demon fox warned.
Just what I needed! Speed to bust out of this joint! Naru sent back even as she gathered the limited amounts of Kurama's chakra she had access to and formed it into her Jäger Demon Frame.
"Was that supposed to impress me?" The freak asked with a raised eyebrow.
Naru was about to retort. Say something hopefully witty to help her get some of her usual groove back so she could enter this fight with a modicum of her usual confidence instead of the shaken wreck she was at the moment. She however didn't get the chance as a explosion close by interrupted her before she could even open her mouth.
"Hmm… It seems they're close. I have no time to waste." The monster said absently. "Jinchūriki, now that you can walk, follow me. Your role is too vital to risk your capture."
"I don't think so, you freakazoid." Naru taunted with a fair approximation of her usual flair. "I know not to follow strangers, especially assholes like you."
With her piece said, Naru proceeded to set off running at the full speed that her Demon Frame allowed her or at least as much of it that she felt safe using in her current surroundings. To her surprise, Black Zetsu actually stepped out of her way and she rushed pass him only to find him standing in front of her again a moment later.
"What the hell!?"
It's some kind of space time trap. Kurama informed her with a growl. He's looped the space in the corridor. It's not a jutsu though, so it's gotta be…
"Magic!?" Naru howled in disbelief. "Since when do the shinobi use magic?"
"Since we got to this world and discovered its existence." Black Zetsu said with a shrug even as his shadow twisted and morphed into the shape of an ouroboros.
Why oh why couldn't he stick to his BS ninja jutsu!
"Now rest, Vessel. You still have your purpose to fulfill." Black Zetsu grinned as Naru's breath suddenly hitched.
It wasn't just the air in her lungs which seemed to be disappearing through. All the air in the hallway suddenly just began to be sucked towards the freak. Acting desperately, Naru tried to infuse the air with her chakra to manipulate it, but it escaped her grasp even as she reached for it. Instead it was being drawn into a portion of Black Zetsu's shadow which had shaped itself into a weasel whose body was coiled up to look like a spiral
A kamaitachi? Kurama gasped in surprise. Guess, they're actual mythological creatures in this world if they're being invoked in magic. That's quite a leg up from mere mid-tier summons back home.
Stop reminiscing and think of something before I black out or we're going back into a cell! Naru shouted back in her mind even as she slowly fell to her knees as she failed to even hold in her breath as it was pulled out of her lungs. Already black spots were filling her vision as she clawed at her armored throat.
Panicked, the blonde tried to lash out at Black Zetsu's idol with her Demon Frame's blades in a desperate bid to survive but despite slashing through the metallic floor of the corridor where the shadow was imprinted, the idol itself remained unscathed.
Not sure what you want me to do to be honest. I can't create oxygen out of thin air.
Naru's final thoughts as she lost the battle to stay conscious were an admonishment to her tenant. You're u-usele-
Fortunately for the Level 5, her descent into the realm of unconsciousness was brief as seconds later she was jerked back into consciousness when suddenly a loud, bright explosion went off right next to her and the corridor was transformed into a wind tunnel as the air stolen by Black Zetsu's spell was released. Unfortunately, this had the side effect of sending her flying and resulting in her crashing into a mass of something with the consistency of jello.
"Hey, watch where you're falling!" The voice of a girl that Naru found vaguely familiar said as she found herself shoved into a wall.
Regaining her senses, the Level 5 quickly caught a set of breathing gear tossed her way by a dog shaped drone which she hastily put on just in case.
"These are the Academy City interlopers that have overrun my base?" Black Zetsu asked incredulously. "A set of tin can dogs and a liquid metal puppet?"
"Hey, don't you dare look down on us you freak. We're MEMBER, one of the City's most elite teams." The girl's voice retorted from the vaguely humanoid liquid metal puppet that had shoved Naru earlier.
"Is that so?" The shinobi alien scoffed. "Well, I give you credit for disrupting my magic earlier by breaking my concentration but do you honestly think you stand a chance against me in a head on fight?"
"Who said anything about a fair fight?" A cultured voice form one of the drones said as it lunged at the abomination, only to be torn in two by a single sweep of Black Zetsu's hand which had distorted into a black blade.
"Human wave tactics are hardly fair but a valid tactic nonetheless," another drone finished as it too leaped to its death.
"Enjoy the dog pile~! Hey, Lazy Number Two-chan, run!" The puppet, that Naru belatedly remembered was the creation of Kouzaku Mitori's ability, informed her even as it dragged her away from the fighting. "Like the Professor said earlier over Baba's drones, we can't beat that monster in a fair fight. So we're buying time for you to run. So run!"
"What!? But…"
"Just do it okay! If you die, we're not gonna get our bonus so just get the hell out of here!"
Bonus? I'm just their bonus? That means…
Don't think about that now. Listen to puppet girl and RUN! The shadow monster is already almost done with the dogs.
A quick glance behind her told Naru that Kurama was right. Most of MEMBER's Type: Great Dane drones were already destroyed. Others were bounding down the corridors to engage Black Zetsu but at the rate they were being dealt with, he would be done with them entirely soon enough.
Naru gave a hasty nod and let loose with as much of the speed her Frame could reach inside the confines of a underground bunker and fled from the scene. Behind her she heard Kouzaku curse as she was forced to engage Black Zetsu with her puppet. If the splattering sound was any indication, it hadn't gone well.
"Professor! Use the damned Mimosa!"
"Deploying now!" A unruffled man's voice could be heard presumably from a surviving drone.
"No matter what toys you fools us- Ack!" Black Zetsu never got a chance to finish his sentence as a blood red chakra blade sheathed in earthen chunks stabbed him through his chest.
"Die you freak!" Naru roared as she pulled her blade free of her former captor, cutting a deep trench out of his torso in the process.
"Number 2 get out of there," the Professor warned as a cloud of something shot out of the wreckage of a number of the destroyed Great Dane drones.
Jumping away, Naru watched in satisfaction as the unknown particles proceeded to cause her hated foe's body to decompose right in front of her eyes.
"Ugh! W-What is this?" The shinobi stuttered as he staggered from the two brutal assaults, blood dripping down the side of his mouth and from his wound in the process.
"Just a little one of the City's toys is all." Kouzaku taunted by throwing the man's own words back at him. "Like it?"
"T-This body is at its limits," Black Zetsu noted with surprising calmness despite portions of his body visibly rotting. "That being the case, it seems this operation is a failure for now."
Turning to Naru, his inhuman yellow eyes narrowed at her maliciously. "But know this Uzumaki, I'll come for you another day. As I've proven, I can do it at any time. Isn't that right?"
Panic and anger spiked through Naru at that comment and this time they were too intense for her to suppress entirely. Bursting into laughter at her reaction, the alien vanished in a burst of smoke though his dark chuckling echoed all around them for a long moment afterward.
"Phew, that was a close one," Baba Yoshio, MEMBER's tech wiz, opined over one of his drones' speakers. "Anyways, Number Two just follow my drones and we'll escort you out of here."
Naru was tempted to tell him she didn't need his team's help but refrained. They had saved her thanks to their timely arrival so she was grateful enough to humour him. Following his dog like robot and Kouzaku's puppet, she quickly met up with the actual flesh and blood team who like Naru had seen in the security footage earlier were decked out in Dark Matter Powered Suits. If she were her normal self, the blonde would have cracked some kinda silly joke about that or fumed about what the existence of anti-chakra Dark Matter being used by the City to make weapons suggested. Instead, she just kept quiet and walked after MEMBER, safely ensconced in her own Jäger Demon Frame, too wary of an ambush to dismiss it.
Well, mostly kept quiet.
"Kouzaku, you mentioned I was the bonus?"
The actual Kouzaku didn't bother even looking at her but her puppet shot her a smirk even as it replied. "That's what I said. You see our objective was to get back at the shinobi for embarrassing the Superintendent by capturing you. Your rescue was basically just an afterthought. He actually preferred if we were more cautious and hit lesser bases first. If I were to guess, he was happy to let you stew in captivity as punishment for getting caught in the first place."
Sounds like him. Naru admitted unhappily.
"There's no need to be so uncharitable, Kouzaku-kun." The Professor chided. "It was not like you were without supporters, Namikaze-san. Monaka-sama offered us quite a bonus if we prioritized rescuing you as soon as possible."
"Which is why we're here," [Kill Point], the team's resident Teleporter, chimed in. "Thanks to that bleeding heart we're earning double what we would have just following the Superintendent's plan and all without going against his orders."
"Because, rescue or not, you're technically still throwing egg in the shinobi's faces by wrecking one of their bases." Naru reasoned stoically.
"Exactly," Baba said triumphantly. "Lucky break huh?"
"Yeah, lucky." Naru replied noncomittally even as she inwardly seethed at Crowley just abandoning her to her fate.
"Hey, cheer up girl," Kouzaku's puppet teased by hip bumping her. "We're almost out of here. There's an elevator just round the next corner which can take us all the way to the surface. Another few minutes and you'll be out of this hellhole."
That was good news. Unfortunately, Naru's crappy luck as of late was still acting up. As such, as they turned the corner instead of finding the promised elevator, they found a scene straight out of a horror movie. Filling the hallway leading towards their escape there was now some kind of slime creature, that's the only way Naru could describe it, that randomly shapeshifted portions of its amorphous body into parts of Zetsu's 'summons'. One moment there were a bunch of dog heads sticking out of the pinkish mass, then they bubbled away and were replaced by a massive bird's beak, then a beaver's tail, a shark's mouth or the powerful tail of a oversized crocodile.
"What the heck is this thing!?" Kouzaku cried out in alarm even as she shot at it with her grenade launcher to little effect and quickly put her liquid metal puppet in front of her like a shield.
"I guess this is his twisted attempt at making a 'boss' summon, right?" Naru theorized as she took a step back from the abomination, the sight of the thing making her feel a little uncomfortable. It was a tentacled slime monster after all, what Japanese schoolgirl wasn't unnerved by one of those?
Pretty much. You should be able to handle this though. Kurama assured her.
"Make sense Number 2!" Baba cried out in alarm as he threw the last of his Great Danes at the thing only to have them be torn to pieces by pseudopods tipped by shark heads.
"Ninja magic bullshit."
"These shinobi are quite the hassle," the Professor noted as he tossed a canister of something at the creature. "Trampling on the established understanding of science willy-nilly with their jutsus."
"Uh, Professor? Was that the last of the Mimosa?" [Kill Point] asked nervously as he fired his machine gun ineffectively into the monster. "'Cos I don't think that was anywhere near enough."
Unfortunately, Naru had to agree with the Level 3 Teleporter. While effective, the decomposing agent, whatever it was, had only managed to take out a small portion of the creature that filled the corridor ahead before running out. This left a lot of monster left for them to kill.
"I'm afraid so, Saraku-san." The Professor said with a shrug. "I guess the rest is up to you youngsters."
"We're screwed!" Kouzaku cried out in alarm. "Number Two! Do something!"
"Who's the secondary objective now?" Naru asked snidely under her breath, as she pointed all the blades of her Jäger Frame forward to form a roughly drill like formation, before using them as anchors to direct a large Spiral Force technique around her body with its focal point directly ahead of her.
With her drill ready, she burst into a sprint and charged the already regenerating mass of the slime creature. Her technique easily tore its way through the monster's amorphous flesh and forgoing the maze like corridors, Naru made a beeline upwards towards what MEMBER had confirmed was the surface of the underground bunker they were stuck in.
Even with her technique and her Frame's innate speed, it took her a good minute to make it out. And turning around, she was dismayed to find her escape tunnel was already filling in with the monster's regenerating flesh even as MEMBER struggled to follow after her.
I'm going to have to go back for them aren't I?
You don't have to if you don't want to.
For a moment Naru was tempted to just leave them, but then the image of her friends and their disapproval if they learned she did something like that crossed her mind.
Ugh, I'm too much of a good person! Naru groaned in frustration even as she raced back down the closing tunnel, cutting a new path where necessary and grabbing all four members of MEMBER with a set of newly formed chakra limbs.
"You four totally owe me for this!" Naru shouted irritably as she turned back around and raced back up the way she came.
Jumping back out the hole in the ground she'd made, Naru was disgusted to see the monster was already trying to grow its way out of its underground home and was using her hole as its exit vector. Heck, it was growing tentacles and was swinging them in the air like some sicko's version of a cheerleading squad.
Or maybe they're just trying to grab me, Naru mused as she leaped away from the reaching pseudopods with MEMBER still in her grasp.
Jumping a reasonably safe distance away. - It was at least too far away for the still growing tentacles to reach. For now. - Naru deposited the by now disorientated MEMBER on the ground and leapt once more into the air.
When she was above the hole in the ground, and just out of reach of the tentacles, she gathered all of her remaining chakra into a Demon Force the size of her own body and launched it at the slime monster below. Its tentacles tried to swat the mass of volatile chakra out of the air but they disintegrated into nothingness at a mere touch and the projectile successfully found its mark by shooting its way into the depths of the underground bunker where it detonated with enough firepower to trigger a minor earthquake and collapse the entire structure.
"Take that, you fucking hentai reject!" Naru spat as her Frame fell apart just as she landed back on the ground on the edge of the sinkhole she'd created and she collapsed onto her back. "Fuck tentacles."
I'm going to sleep, like, forever!
Good night.
Done and done! Thanks to the team of Nameless as always!
So, Naru hit her breaking point. Good thing she had Kurama there to keep her semi-sane. Currently, I think she's running on adrenaline. I think some therapy is going to be needed for the blonde loli of the Trinity.
Nameless: Adrenaline? More like hacking her brain chemistry to give her all the hormones! She needs it just to function, much less fight like she did. By the way, hormones, peptides and other chemicals really can do things as dramatic as letting one overcome what Naru went through, at least enough to function/escape/etc. Adrenaline is the most common example of such, but there are more and thanks to a little Esper ability assisted fine chakra manipulation, Naru can produce them on demand.
Huh, the more you know! Still, it should come crashing down on her at some point. You don't brush this off easily after all. Hopefully something comes up~!
Nameless: So the title is a reference to a triptych which are sets of three associated artistic, literary, or musical works intended to be appreciated together. With the middle piece sometimes considered the most important, something which definitely is the case in this chapter. Through what three works are you talking about? It was just one long run on scene! Yes, it was but embedded in that were three distinct and obvious phases: Naru's escape from the cell block, the fight with Black Zetsu, and the final escape.
And yes, Naru used a drill to pierce the heavens! Or the hentai slime in this case. She knows what happens to innocent japanese school girls when they run into those things!
Nameless: Poor Naru. First broken by torture then confronted by a tentacled slime monster? It really isn't her arc, huh? [Evil smirk]
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