Guess I'm back to an extent on here.
Some things are working, like notifications...
However issues such as stats are still broken going on two months not to mention there still other bugs and issues to sort out.
So I'm still in the middle of protesting of sorts.
So, not to ostracize, you, the readers, I've come up with a middle ground.
I will continuously update on Ao3 throughout the month if you want to keep updated on my stories and read them when they come out.
However, around the end of the month, I will have a massive dump of updates of whatever I've worked on, spacing out chapters if something had multiple releases in that time.
Sound reasonable enough?
Edit... Bonehead here forgot to mark everything back to In-Progress...
Story of my life.
"I'm back, Father!"
"Ah, you're home," A warm, gentle voice from a man with ebony skin turned from his work desk in his mechanical chair. "My dear Penny, how was your day? Did you learn anything exciting about our wonderful world?"
"Indeed I have!" Penny chirped, holding her hands behind her back as she greeted the man she called her father. "It was a wondrous day! I learned so much about interacting with people! And best of all, I made a friend!"
Laughing gingerly at his daughter's enthusiasm, Peitro smiled, watching her bounding form as she tipped back and forth on her heels. "Ah, that is fantastic to hear. Such skills are a great thing to… A friend, you say?"
"Yes!" Penny's smile brilliantly glowed, her eyes glistening with elation. "I found the two I rudely scampered away from and apologized to them like you said I should! They were so friendly and took me out to dinner with them! We had such a good time!"
"Oh, I see." Pietro laughed heartily, his eyes twinkling at seeing Penny's excitement. "I'm glad you finally made a friend. You must bring them over sometime! I would very much like to meet them."
"Shall I go ask about it tomorrow?" Penny beamed, jittering in jubilation at returning to invite her friends over.
"Perhaps if we have time," Pietro chuckled before moving forward in his chair, heading towards another side of the lab. "But we do have your weekly check-up and maintenance. And perhaps a few tweaks and upgrades I've been tinkering with that I would like to test. Enhancing your capacity even further."
"How exciting!" Penny happily trotted beside her father before a quizzical glance crossed her features. "Could it perhaps be a scan detection and analytical upgrade? There was so much today I couldn't decipher, and two individuals I could barely detect! Thankfully, they were Naruto and Blake's friends, but I fear if my systems aren't operating at peak condition, that could be disastrous! As you said, if I ever found any friends, I must cherish and take care of them!"
A confounded expression marred Pietro's face, stopping his chair in his tracks upon hearing Penny's question. Turning around to face Penny, who stopped and curiously glanced at her father, his mind processed what she had told him. "Penny, do you mind sharing your experiences with me today?"
"I would very much like to know about these friends of yours and what happened."
Golden eyes narrowed at the huddled figure before her. Gauging the person carefully, glad they had been disarmed due to their last encounter…
Her trust in her wavered. She may consider her a friend, but considering she followed her to Atlus under his orders…
Blake felt scorned by Ilia.
Not to mention she was with the criminal they ran into the club!
How did this partnership even begin?
Flicking his hand spiky golden locks, cerulean eyes glimmered over at his partner as she glared at the reptilian girl. Giving an exasperated sigh, he shook his head. "Hey, you know you said you were gonna talk to her, right? Be building and repairing bridges. Not glaring disapprovingly, ya know…"
Scowling at the interruption, her eyes shifted toward Naruto momentarily, annoyed that he had sat at the small table in their hotel room next to the strange criminal from the club in Vale. Unphased by her presence, accepting her offer, she pulled out a deck of cards from…
Her eyes narrowed as Naruto flushed, taking the hand of cards she dealt.
Why did she have that there?!
And her scroll! Why was she keeping things there when she had a purse?!
"Could you be any less suggestive? For Oum's sake!" Ilia snarled, her eyes squinted at her multi-haired partner, noticing her grin and twinkle in her eyes. "I swear, I regret this partnership with you! Why are you the way you are?"
"And exactly why are you working with her, might I ask, Ilia." Blake scowled and caused Ilia to flinch and shrink back, her gaze drawn back to her old friend. "After our last encounter, I earnestly doubt you've left the White Fang's ranks… And to see you working with someone affiliated with the criminal underground of Vale leaves me with far too many questions about what Adam is possibly up to… What is the High Leader of Vale doing…"
"Adam was promoted to the High Leader of Vale since you left." Ilia interrupted, grimacing as those words left her lips.
She knew Blake's reaction would be visceral.
And she wasn't wrong.
Blake's scream echoed through the hotel.
Rage filled every fiber of her being.
She couldn't contain it, and she paced uncontrollably in the room…
And flipped the table Naruto and Neo sat at, nearly tossing it out of the room, shattering it on the floor from the impact.
As two sets of eyes were glued to her heavily breathing form, another glanced at her.
He could feel the negative swell of emotions welling within. Brewing inside.
It was like a dam within her, and it needed a release. If she kept it contained…
With a soft sigh, Naruto flashed a faint but warm smile. "Got that out of your system? Or do you need to go out and let off some steam?"
Golden eyes crossed into ceruleans. Her breath was still panting. She nearly verbally lashed at him.
But she held her tongue as her gaze was caught within his…
Trapped within its warm embrace.
As if he knew…
Of course he would…
He could feel her negative emotions. Why was she surprised he could feel her turmoil and only wanted to help her?
It was so him, but…
"No…" Blake gazed downward, clenching her fist as she bit her lip, the anger within refusing to relent. "I can't… Accept that Sienna rewarded him for killing all those people! How does this progress Faunus' rights? All it does is give humans more reason to hate and fear us! Treat with trepidation and disrespect! It feels so counterproductive…"
"And like anything was working before, Blake! It wasn't, and you know it!" Ilia hissed, her eyes glistening with a seething hostility. "Yes, Adam went too far! But what choice do we have if we don't take matters into our own hands? Protests and talks didn't work! We've been disparaged for so many years, taking the jobs that no one wants… No one cares or blinks an eye when a tragedy involves our people! They even make fun of it!"
As Blake blanched and shrunk from Ilia's seething retort, Naruto's head noticeably jerked.
This argument was similar to the one he had interrupted when she had intended to capture her and return her to the White Fang. However, this was something new within her intent he hadn't noticed before…
His intent firmly focused on the infuriated Faunus as she continued to fume, feeling the negativity of her matching Blake's… And exceeding it.
He frowned at this feeling within her…
She was speaking from personal experience.
"Now, of all places, I'm back home! A place I never wanted to return to! All because of your issues with Adam!" Ilia spat, her eyes glistening before she bit her lip, her face contorting with mixed emotions. "Why did you have to come here of all places? With… Whatever he is for I can make heads or tails of him with the menagerie of scents coming from him and that strange other form of his!"
Curling further into herself at hearing she was here watching her on Adam's orders. She was brought here, the place where her parents perished in that tragic accident…
And that man had the gall to try and keep the mine open after but only closed it due to public outrage and due to the perceived danger.
Blake's eyes flickered as she straightened her posture. Her eyes glinted as her gaze firmly met Ilia's.
And she spoke with conviction.
"I came here not only to get away from him but because I know how much needs to change, too, Ilia." Her eyes shifted ever so slightly to Naruto, trying to be discreet, before taking a deep breath and closing her eyes, a warmth spreading within.
A strange warmth...
A belief that she didn't know where came from. She had seen some bizarre feats, but something of this magnitude? She knew it shouldn't be possible.
Yet... Something within believed.
And Blake smiled, her eyes opened, glistening with a vivid hope. "I know it can be done. Change is possible, Ilia. For the first time in a long time, if we just work for it and believe… That maybe…"
"You seriously think he can help?" Ilia scowled, narrowing her eyes following where her friend's gaze had traveled, and glared at Blake before turning her gaze over to Naruto and then gesturing toward him. "Blake, seriously! Wake up! Do you think someone like him can do anything about our people's plight?"
"Hey, wait a minute here," Naruto interrupted, squinting his eyes at being brought into this conversation and drawing their attention to him as he stood away from the broken table. "I can understand the hesitancy to trust or believe in me. That's fine. I get it! What I don't get behind is why you are rejecting what Blake said outright? She's not wrong, ya know?"
"It does take a lot of work. Compassion and understanding, too!" Naruto added, finally flashing a brilliant grin that only deepened Ilia's scowl. "And maybe a little forceful negotiations to knock some sense into some people… Some can just be really, really hard-headed. Not willing to listen to anything until ya make 'em listen. …have a lot of experience with that… But if there is one thing I do know, it is that people can come to understand one another. You better believe it!"
Squinting, still untrusting of Blake's travel companion, Ilia crossed her arms. Sizing up the blonde enigma before her, gauging him carefully, she scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Whatever. It's nothing I haven't heard before. It's not going to change unless we make it change… Not without a miracle…"
"He does those."
Eyes snapped to the melodic voice that echoed from the other side of the room.
The hair on the back of her neck stood on end.
Her eyes narrowed as she found the source of the voice.
And it enraged her.
"YOU CAN TALK!" Ilia bellowed, eyes blistering with impassioned malice. "This entire time, I believed you to be mute! Yet you could talk! You… Don't you shake your head at me! Don't point to him either!"
Tapping her throat, Neo slyly grinned at the seething Ilia and back at Naruto. She enjoyed the ire coming from the Faunus. It made her feel alive! But alas…
She had a point to make.
"Twenty-one years… Born mute… All the lien in the world… Never found a solution… He…Fixes with a single touch." Neo spoke, her heterochromatic gaze boring into Ilia's before it shifted toward Naruto, gazing upon him. "If capable of performing such a miracle… Perhaps he's capable of more? Why not find out?"
As Ilia's eyes bolted between the two, trying to comprehend her words, Blake's shimmering gaze fell solely onto Naruto.
He had…
Healed this woman from being a mute?
Why didn't he say anything about that before? And what was the full extent of his abilities?! She remembered he was able to regenerate and stop the blood loss to the wound on his arm, but to recover someone's vocal cords and make them functional?
What was he?! What was the limit to his absurd abilities?!
And why did he seem to be a walking mystery she wanted to solve that kept getting more and more complex?!
Shifting her gaze to the peculiar woman, then towards Ilia, Blake's lips puckered. An introspective expression flashed, and her eyes flickered. "Why not come with us then?"
"What?" Ilia hissed, eyes narrowed as she immediately faced Blake. "What makes you think I would…"
"You are here to keep an eye on me because Adam ordered you, are you not? To capture me if you have an opportunity?" Blake retorted, ears flickering as she gazed down at the chameleon Faunus, who flinched and turned her gaze away. "You lost that opportunity, as I know you are here now. You won't be able to fade back into the shadows without me knowing you are there. So why not join us and do your job? …While I show you precisely why I believe there may be hope for change."
Squinting her eyes, gnarling and twisting her lips, Ilia's eyes glistened. Turning her gaze back to Blake's confident, golden gaze…
Ilia snarled.
Why was this her lot in life?
So that's why everything feels so… Peculiar.
"Yeah," Naruto sat on the roof of the hotel, staring at the shattered moon, frowning at the strangeness of the situation he found himself in. "We're in a completely different world than our own. Don't know how we got here after our fight with Sasuke, but we have to find a way back."
Letting the cold, night air gently waff around him, Naruto inhaled before scowling and spitting the bad taste back out.
How he hated the taste of the air here. It wasn't good in Vale either, but here…
At least it wasn't affecting his senses there…
It was tough to concentrate and feel the world…
Could it be? It's possible…
"Kurama?" Naruto blinked, hearing Kurama mutter to himself after a slight pause, and broke his attention from the moon. "What's up? Thought of something I missed?"
This is something you wouldn't be aware of, so you couldn't miss it… Because it directly deals with Father.
"With old man Sage?"
SHOW SOME RESPECT, BRAT!
Seeing him chuckle and scratch his head, making the fox growl under his breath, muttering bitter comments about his vessel mentally on how to torment him later. Naruto only grinned. "Sorry, but you know me."
Kurama scowled.
It was the unfortunate truth…
What you aren't aware of is… Is that Father… Isn't entirely human.
"What?!" Naruto shouted, his eyes flickering in and out at the revelation. "What do you mean?! Wait, does that mean…"
Kaguya was an alien, yes. She came from another world. She came to Earth for reasons Father never knew…
Scowling at this epiphany, Naruto kept quiet and let Kurama continue. Content on listening until the Nine-Tails told the whole story.
Wanting to know everything and how it related to his situation…
Their powers were always unique compared to those who wielded chakra. You have experienced that yourself, even if it mixed well with chakra and enhanced its abilities.
Taking a moment on that, Naruto could only nod. It was somewhat unique in how it compared to how he used it, even compared to his Sage Chakra. It didn't feel quite the same, and there was something more to it.
I wonder if, perhaps, when we were left so close to death, it awoke those latent powers of Kaguya and transported you across dimensions? But even then, why can't I sense my other half…
"You can't sense your other half?" Naruto looked perturbed, squinting as he looked upon the advanced city before him. "What does that mean?"
I don't know… What I fear is that any theory we have may just be that… I've always been able to sense my other half, even when it was inside the belly of the Shinigami. If I can't sense it…
What is happening, and where exactly are we?
"Huh, didn't expect you to join us?" Naruto tilted his head, blinking at intermittent intervals at the sight of the short-stack woman joining Ilia after leaving their apartment. "Can I ask why?"
"If you only knew…" Ilia muttered as Neo grinned happily, holding up a finger.
Ilia immediately grimaced as a memory surfaced before violently shaking her head. Her eyes shimmered as she gripped her arm and looked away distantly.
How that woman with seething hatred in her eyes swept in so soon after the news that Blake had left them. She hardly had any time to process it. And she had so easily been tossed aside, and everyone had been overwhelmed in moments…
And now Adam his knee to her will whenever she beckoned…
Keeping him under her control with her deplorable methods. Stating she would help with his one major flaw…
His emotions. If only there were a way to break free of the control she held over the White Fang in Saunus…
Blake's ears twitched, and her eyes fell upon Ilia. That distant gaze she held made her scowl.
What had happened since she left?
She wanted to ask more. However, her attention was brought back to the multi-haired woman. Drawing forth her scroll from her purse this time, she simply smiled at a singular photo.
It was over a woman.
One obviously Naruto didn't recognize as he looked further confused. But with the swiftest of movements, before she could even react, Ilia had lunged for the scroll…
Only to have a heel pin her to the wall by the throat, a nasty snarl coming from Neo. "No…"
"Ilia!" Blake intercepted her friend as Neo let her off the wall, being at her side and grasping her by the shoulder. "What was that? And why did you…"
"Threat," Neo spoke, holding her scroll out once more, showing the photo more prominently. "She took control of the underground recently… Along with them , apparently."
Carefully analyzing the woman with fiery amber eyes in the picture being displayed to him, Naruto furrowed his brow and crossed his arms. "Let me guess… Took notice of me after what happened in the club?"
Nodding in confirmation, Neo kept her gaze focused on Naruto patiently. It was all she needed to answer…
Letting out a groan, tilting his head back, and rolling his eyes, he palmed his face. If it wasn't one thing, it was another…
"Well, should have expected that. I did put a mob boss in jail…" Naruto exhaled in exasperation, looking down at Neo before pointing his thumb at Ilia. "Guessing she's forcing you to follow me much like her. So that makes me wonder… Why are you telling me this?"
Her continuous smile was off-putting. Naruto was slightly unnerved as she tapped his chest. "More dangerous than her. Felt such overwhelming power when you performed your miracle…"
"And you are my ticket to regaining the freedom I've been denied for the second time in my life."
Today was going to be so exciting!
Her eyes gleamed radiantly as she hoped through the streets.
It didn't take long to finish her maintenance. And father wanted her to invite her new friends over!
She didn't question why he seemed so fascinated by them or what he discovered in her memories! But she wanted to introduce her friends to him!
But where were they?
They weren't at the hotel or the restaurant! Nor at the Airbus station! Perhaps they were at the park again, training?
"Oh, I wish I registered their number…" Penny pouted before snapping her fingers in excitement. "Oh, I got it! I'll hack the system and locate Naruto or Blake's scroll so I can locate them! Father said I should only do it in an emergency, but…"
Finding a network terminal in Atlas wasn't difficult. They were plentiful thanks to Atlas being the world leader in technology. There was a terminal in nearly every building. So, finding one wasn't an issue…
But should she hack the network? Just find her friends? It would make it faster, and she wouldn't have to search for so long…
"Father always says work smarter, not harder." Penny nodded sagely to herself, coming to a terminal at the Airbus station, and a sly grin crossed her lips. "Well, here goes!"
Her eyes flashed a dazzling green. Screens of information flooded her vision. They were easy to navigate. She had done this before, but never in these circumstances…
And this was exciting! Oh, there it was! That was his scroll! Now, where was his location…
"Huh? What is this?" Penny noticed a bizarre, static screen pop up and scrunched her face. "Wait… Who are you? AH!"
"Ah, there you are, my dear…" A sinister laugh echoed chillingly. "You made this all too easy for me."
"Time to make Pietro's hope turn to despair!"
"You seriously don't have a plan?"
Ilia seethed at the sight before her, finding it annoying that they were going back to whatever it was that he was trying to teach Blake yesterday! Some sort of sensory training from what she gathered, feeling it was necessary to pick up where they left off yesterday and continue training after what Neo had told them that woman was keeping an eye on them.
Not that she could fault him on that decision…
It was wise…
It bothered her how quickly Blake picked up on whatever this method was, as it helped her pick up on their presence yesterday. And within that short time, a day after not being able to detect them through the woman's bizarre illusions, she was able to pick up and recognize who she was?
That was irritating!
Now she learned they came here without any plan. Just to help him come to an understanding of their plight by taking him directly to one of the primary sources?
Why didn't he know of the Faunus issue? What kind of backwater hick wouldn't know of the racial problems that were rampant across Remnant?
How was that even possible?!
Why was he so clueless?!
And why was the strange woman here?! Wasn't she working for…
"When you put it like that, it sounds bad," Naruto chuckled, running his hand through his locks. "We have an idea of what we are looking to accomplish here. But mostly… I'm here to learn more about everything around me and find a way…"
"Naruto!" Blake sharply snapped, cutting him off before he could say anything more.
She really didn't want Ilia to learn about what he was. After that strange girl had already caught on that his Aura was unique, she felt it was not only in his best interest but hers to limit who knew. And the last person she wanted to know was someone that would have to report to Adam …
And now that they were being kept track of, it bothered her even further. He had piqued this woman's interest with his actions, and she wanted to know whatever information she could glean about him to determine if he was a threat or ally with him. And while this woman was trying to turn the situation around on her…
She still had to report to her!
They didn't need to give any unnecessary information!
Frowning at Blake for interrupting him, Naruto squinted at her momentarily. He understood why, but she was a little intrusive.
It wasn't like he would tell them he was an alien! He just had learned someone in his world was an alien, and how surprising that was…
And that he was the inheritor of those alien powers…
Weird how that worked now that he thought about it.
"You know I'm not gonna say more than necessary, right? Secrecy is my profession, although I might not be the greatest at it." Naruto scowled at her, making Blake cringe and look away before returning his attention to Ilia. "As I was saying… Was that an explosion?!"
Narrowing his eyes, jumping up as Blake's ears flattened on her head, Naruto gazed upon the city, seeing smoke rise in the distance. His gut clenched, and he gnashed his teeth as the others looked on warily.
The smoke seemed to be coming from the Airbus station if his sense of direction of this place was correct. The first place he met…
Suddenly, Naruto had a bad feeling about this.
With stats still broken, if you would so kindly, R&R? Engagement is the fuel for us writers, without it, many stories would not continue.