Trust me, I'm as surprised as you are that I've managed to get another chapter out so quickly. There must have been extra caffeine in my coffee this last week, because I had two days where I put out over three thousand words each. To give you a sense of how inspired I've been, I haven't played Horizon: Forbidden West for the last three days because I've been so busy writing. I don't know how long this blitz of creative inspiration will last, but for now, I plan on enjoying it while it does.

Sadly, any joy I can take in posting this chapter is blunted by Russia's continued invasion of Ukraine. Once again, I urge any of you who have the means, please donate to one of the many charities that are working to provide relief to those caught in the warzone. Democracies only stand as long as people support them, and right now a Russian oligarchy is waging war on a democratic country. Please do what you can to help.

On a happier note, thank you to all of you who left reviews last chapter. Several of you guessed that the strange hunger Naruto sensed last chapter was Darth Nihilus, which would be awesome, but far too soon for such a villain. I had honestly not even considered bringing him into this story at all, but your speculation made me rethink that. I now have a plan for him, but that will be way, way down the road.

By the way, if you don't know who Darth Nihilus is, I strongly suggest you look him up. He's one of the best designed and most terrifying villains in Star Wars mythology.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

Chapter 23

Mace Windu sighed wearily as he surveyed the destruction left by the most recent terrorist attack on Naboo. The square had once been home to an open air market where most of the town gathered to shop or sell their wares. Now it was an empty, burned out husk. He had seen far too many such scenes in his life, and it never failed to grate on him that there were beings who would do such things. Even after more than 30 hours, he could still feel the echoes of pain and death in the Force, ripples from the attack that had yet to fade. Such senseless violence went against everything the Republic stood for, and the sight of it always motivated him to bring such criminals to justice. Lieutenant Typho, who was once again accompanying him, seemed to share his sentiments based on his own tired expression.

Even beyond the usual weariness and disgust he felt at times such as this, something else was bothering him. There was something about the attacks that didn't make any sense, and he said as much to Lieutenant Typho.

"What do you mean?" the one-eyed man asked.

"There are not enough casualties," Mace replied. At Typho's questioning look, he explained further.

"There must have been nearly three thousand people here at the market when the attack happened. It was packed tight, with no space for people to run. There were five shooters, each with a fully functional heavy blaster pistol. Given those conditions-"

"-there should have been dozens of casualties," Typho finished as comprehension dawned. "Maybe even hundreds. But there were only 9 dead and maybe 40 injured, and most of those were hurt by accident when everyone stampeded. Stars, it's the same with most of the other shootings. They also had lower body counts than you would expect."

"Exactly," Mace said as he frowned at the confusing scene before him. "Even if they were shooting blind, they should have been more accurate. Some of these blast points are three meters over the heads of anyone in the market that day. The shooters were missing on purpose, at least occasionally."

"But if they don't want to kill people, why shoot anyone?" Typho asked. "Why the other types of attacks, the bombings, and the arson? What does it all mean?"

"I do not know," Mace said, his expression grim. He was missing something, some obvious conclusion that he had yet to pinpoint. He could feel it lurking in his thoughts, a half joined-up puzzle whose picture was not yet clear. While he was normally content to let such things come to him in their own time, he couldn't help the swell of impatience he felt at this problem. The stakes were too high for him to be content with waiting for the next clue to present itself, but he had few other options.

"Any word on the attackers?" He asked. Typho shook his head.

"No. An off-duty security officer in the crowd killed one of them, but the rest fled. If they made it into the old sewers, they could be anywhere by now."

'Perhaps I should have had Naruto join me on the investigation after all,' he thought as he dismissed his irritation and impatience into the Force. 'He certainly has a unique way of looking at the universe; perhaps he might see something I cannot.'

Indeed, unique was hardly an adequate descriptor for his Padawan's… anything, really. He was totally unlike most Padawan's Mace had known, including his own former student Depa Billaba. He could still remember what she had been like at the start of her training nearly 30 years ago. A quiet, studious young girl; gifted, naïve, and deeply committed to the Jedi Code. Now she sat beside him on the Jedi High Council, a Master in her own right, wise, compassionate, and brave.

'Force, when did that happen?' He thought with wry amusement. 'And when did I become someone who things happened to thirty years ago?'

In contrast to his first student's calm manner, Naruto was like a summer storm in clothing; powerful, unpredictable, and chaotic, but also warm, friendly, and determined. He was very clever, far more so than he gave himself credit for. Indeed, it often concerned Mace at how dismissive Naruto was of his own intelligence. Since his earliest memories, everyone, even his own friends and teachers, had labeled him stupid. It had gone on for so long that he actually believed it. Thanks to several discussions with Jiraiya, Mace was well aware of how poorly Naruto's home village had treated him as a child, and he could see evidence of it every day. The boy was still just a little too desperate to please others, a little too surprised at being praised, and a little too wary of opening up to anyone. He desperately feared rejection, on a level so deep he was not even consciously aware of it, and while it was slowly improving, he still had a ways to go. Still, despite all of that, Naruto had truly astounding potential.

'Just like Skywalker,' his subconscious mind supplied, the treacherous thing that it was. Still, he could not help but notice the similarities between his own unconventional student and Kenobi's. That came with a healthy dose of guilt, though, when he thought about how he had acted towards Skywalker when the boy first came before the Jedi Council. How he had missed the obvious signs of trauma that came with a childhood of slavery he couldn't imagine, but he had. Hell, not only had he missed it, he had actually contributed to the problem over the years. He had been cold, harsh, and overly critical of young Skywalker, and all because of his own fears and stubbornness.

'Master Yoda was right,' he thought. 'We all owe Skywalker an apology. Certainly I do, for what it may be worth.'

A sudden flare of alarm coming across his training bond with Naruto cut his recriminations short. It felt as though something had shocked him, something dangerous. A moment later, the alarm flared higher, and when Mace reached down their fledgling connection, he heard the phantom sounds of blaster fire and screaming. He turned towards the speeder bikes without hesitation and began sprinting towards them.

"Come on," he yelled to Typho, who clearly had no idea why he was in such a rush. "The Queen is under attack."

That certainly got the younger man moving. He put on an impressive burst of speed to catch up with the Jedi Master, barking something into his comlink all the while. Mace couldn't tell what he was saying, but he wasn't concerned about it. The young lieutenant had a good head on him, and whatever he was doing was most likely going to help.

It was just as they reached the speeder bikes that Mace felt it. His bond with Naruto, which he had been closely monitoring the whole time, suddenly seemed to vanish. All sense of his Padawan just disappeared. For a split second, Mace's heart stopped. Icy fear seemed to freeze his blood, and one horrible thought welled up in his mind.

'Naruto is dead.'

Then reason reasserted itself. Mace forced himself to think logically about what he had actually felt. There had been no sudden spasm of agony from the bond, no sense of injury or feeling of pain. Indeed, as he let the Force calm his fears, Mace realized he had felt this exact thing many times before.

'He must have started using chakra,' Mace thought with relief. 'That always disrupts the bond.'

The entire thought process took scarcely a second, but Mace felt as if he had aged a decade in that time. Losing a Padawan was every master's greatest fear, and he was no exception. Still, he forced himself to carry on, until a few dozen seconds later, when he felt the bond surge back into being. He allowed himself a moment to sigh with relief, before he turned his attention back to piloting the speeder.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

A few moments earlier

Naruto moved as fast as he could, desperately blocking the storm of blaster bolts that threatened Padmé and the rest of the handmaidens. His lightsaber blurred through the air, batting the streaks of red death harmlessly into the ground or the sky. With the crowd still in the square, he didn't dare try to deflect them back at the shooters. With so much fire coming his way, doubted he could manage that even without the civilians to worry about. Indeed, the only thing that saved him from a swift death by plasma bolt was the poor aim of the shooters. Defense was not his preferred blade style, and he was paying for that now.

He winced as he felt people fall, either wounded or dead, through the Force. He couldn't even see the fallen through the crush of panicked beings desperately trying to escape. It was all he could do to keep his charge from getting shot. At least they had the presence of mind not to return fire. With so many innocents around, such a decision would have been disastrous.

"Kriffing hells," he swore. "Why are people always shooting at me? Am I really that unlikeable?"

His nervous humor aside, Naruto's mind was racing. He knew he couldn't keep up this defense for long. He had to get them to stop shooting, at least for a few seconds, and without too much collateral damage. So far as he could see, he had only one option.

With a strained shout, and a serious effort of will, Naruto used the Force to blast the shooters off their feet. Unfortunately, with so much chaos, and his attention mostly focused on defending Padmé and the handmaidens, he didn't have the time to focus his attack on just the enemy. Half the people in the square tumbled to the ground as if caught in a bomb blast, and Naruto winced at the ticking off he knew Mace would give him for such carelessness. Still, it did the job and gave him a few seconds to breathe. For Naruto, that was all he needed.

The instant the shooting stopped, seven kage bunshin appeared in a blur of shunshin. Without preamble, each clone grabbed hold of one of the royal entourage, and as one, they vanished just as quickly as they had arrived. Padmé and her handmaidens probably wouldn't be thrilled at being evacuated so unceremoniously, but at that precise moment, Naruto didn't care. The plan's execution took barely a second, from start to finish. At the same time, he summoned up his chakra and made his signature hand seal.

"Tajū Kage Bunshin no Jutsu."

Dozens of identical Narutos appeared throughout the square. At the original's command, they began guiding the bystanders out of the square, clearing the field of battle. Most of the people just stared at them in dumb shock, too ratttled to do anything but obey their hurried commands.

That was when things stopped going right for Naruto. If he was honest with himself, he was a little surprised that things had gone right for as long as they had. While he would fiercely deny it to anyone who asked, three whole, uninterrupted seconds of smooth sailing were probably a record for one of his plans. Usually he hit a snag around second one.

Here, the snag took the form of a blaster bolt that nearly gave him a third nostril. Without the Force giving him advanced warning, it was only his lightning quick reflexes that saved his life. Even so, Naruto could have sworn he smelled his hair burning.

"Sithspit!" He shouted as he dodged a few more shots and blocked a few others. "How are you guys back up so fast?"

The shooters, who had indeed recovered remarkably quickly, didn't answer. They didn't even give an indication that they had heard him. Their eyes, blank and bloodshot, just stared at him without blinking. Their pale faces showed only a mix of rage, pain, and confusion, while their hands and arms twitched so badly that half of their shots missed by several meters. Nevertheless, they were relentless, and they did what most poor marksmen did in a fight. They replaced accuracy with increased volume of fire.

Naruto cursed again as had to jump away from the hail of deadly plasma bolts. He didn't have the time to reconnect with the Force, and at this rate the attackers were going to kill someone else while trying to get him. Reluctantly, he snapped his lightsaber back onto his belt, freeing up his hands for use.

'I really need to learn one handed seals,' he thought as he bounced off a wall that was blasted to rubble a split second later. In midair he flashed through five hand seals and took a deep breath.

"Fūton: Daitoppa."

He exhaled a burst of gale force wind that once again smashed the shooters into the ground. It was the same attack that Orochimaru had used against him and his team in the Forest of Death during the Chunin exams, though in this case, it was not nearly as powerful. Naruto didn't want to risk collapsing a building or crushing an innocent bystander by overpowering his jutsu. Even with the reduced power, though, it was more than enough to leave his attackers battered and concussed.

He was, therefore, unpleasantly surprised when they once again stood right back up as if nothing had happened. He could see their injuries, including several fractured arms, what looked like a dislocated shoulder, and one scruffy looking man who was clearly standing on a broken leg, but they didn't appear bothered by what should have been crippling wounds.

"Okay, this is getting ridiculous," he muttered. "So they can't feel pain. That's just great."

Still, pain or no pain, their injuries were severe, and were commensurately slower for it. In the time it took them to get their weapons back up, Naruto created another dozen clones and then reconnected with the Force. A hurricane of fractured emotions radiating from the shooters instantly assaulted his senses. It battered against him, like dipping his mind into a whirlpool of toxic filth. The sheer wrongness of what he felt was staggering. Their minds had seemingly collapsed to where Naruto doubted they even knew what they were doing. It was only the adrenaline rush of battle that allowed him to focus through the mental onslaught.

'Something's not right,' he thought. 'These guys couldn't have planned this. They're barely even sentient anymore. I need answers.'

Through the storm of pain and all-consuming hunger, he noted his other clones had cleared most of the crowd out of the square, giving him plenty of room to work with. With a shake of his head, he focused and rallied his troops.

"Okay, let's take them down, but don't kill them," he shouted to his clones, and leveled his blade at the attackers. "Charge!"

Together, clones and original rushed at the group of nine shooters. Five of the clones fell to blaster fire before they reached their target, but it made no difference. Two of the remaining clones sped through a sequence of hand seals and pointed their open palms at the enemy.

"Fūton: Reppūsho," they yelled in tandem. Twin blasts of compressed wind shot out of their hands and slammed into the two nearest shooters with a dry thud and the crack of breaking bone. Both men flew backwards as if kicked by a Rancor, and their tumbling bodies toppled several of the others like dominos.

Before they could recover, Naruto and his clones were on them. Naruto's lightsaber darted out like an orange snake, neatly slicing through a man's blaster and scorching the hand that held it. He followed it up with a roundhouse kick to the man's temple. The attacker flew a meter through the air before landing in a crumpled heap. Whatever was wrong with their minds, they were still a dangerous threat and he was not about to risk people's lives by playing gentle with active shooters. He wouldn't maim or kill them, but they were going down. Hard.

Between his own efforts and those of his clones, the attackers were down and restrained within seconds. They had offered scarcely any resistance, with some of them still trying to shoot weapons that were already destroyed rather than attacking with their hands. To Naruto's mind, that just reinforced his belief that these people were not acting of their own volition. Something was influencing them, be it drugs, technology, or the Force.

He reached for the nearest attacker, a cadaverously thin man whose loose, sagging skin suggested a past of moderate corpulence, and turned him over. "Who made you do this?" He asked. "Who's responsible for these attacks?"

Rather than answer, the man started thrashing and groaning. Naruto could feel his fear and pain, both of them spiking to stratospheric levels. The dark, gnawing hunger he had sensed earlier seemed to increase a hundredfold into a black hole of craving. He shook the man firmly to get his attention.

"Talk, and I promise you'll get help," he said, and he infused his words with the Force to give them greater weight. "Tell me who did this to you."

For a moment Naruto thought he had gotten through to the man. His thrashing calmed and his eyes focused on Naruto's face. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but all that came out was a bloodcurdling scream of pain.

It was a scream that Naruto knew would haunt his nightmares for years to come. There was nothing human, or even sentient, in that scream, just raw, unimaginable, animal pain. The horror show only compounded when the rest of the attackers, all nine of them, began screaming too. Even those who had been unconscious regained their senses in order to scream their agony at the world. To make matters worse, as soon as he touched the man, he had felt the shadow of his pain. Even as he recoiled, gasping, the echo of it clawed at his mind, rooting him to the spot.

Naruto could only watch as they twitched and writhed before his horrified eyes. Several of them, acting with the monstrous strength available only to the dying, broke free of the clones and grabbed for their blasters. Paralyzed with shock and horror, Naruto and his clones could only watch as they each shot themselves in the head, apparently so desperate to escape their suffering that death was preferable.

The sight of their lifeless bodies shocked Naruto out of his stupor. "Get the rest of them," he yelled to his clones. "Keep them still." He focused and used the Force to drag all the blasters away from the remaining attackers. His clones simultaneously worked to pin down and immobilize them before they could try to hurt themselves some other way. It was all in vain, though.

Even as he reached out with the Force to do something, anything for the remaining attackers, they started to die. One by one, their screams petered out into quiet, pained whimpers before trailing off into a final death rattle. Naruto could do nothing but sit there, helpless and horrified, and watch the life leave their eyes. What was worse was that he could feel it. More than just feeling them die through the Force, which was bad enough, he could feel what they felt as they faded. The awful hunger, like an empty, bottomless chasm, seemed to rise and consume them. Every piece that remained of their twisted, mutilated minds vanished one by one, until nothing remained but the pain. Finally, mercifully, the hunger devoured that too, leaving nothing but a lifeless husk behind.

Within two minutes, all the screams had stopped, leaving only a terrible, empty silence, broken by the distant cries of the injured and frightened civilians.

As the last one finally died, he felt himself start to hyperventilate. Everything seemed oddly distant, as if it was happening to someone else, and he felt as if he were moving in slow motion. With the strange sort of detached calm that only comes when even raw panic is too mild a reaction, he noticed his heart was racing and his gorge rising. With an effort of will, he tore his eyes away from the fresh corpses and focused on calming himself down. He ran through several Jedi breathing exercises, along with a meditative calming technique that Jiraiya had taught him. It took a few repetitions, but eventually his heart rate dropped back down and the world seemed to snap back into some sort of focus. As it did, the cries of the various wounded civilians finally registered in his shocked mind.

"Help the wounded," he told his clones as he struggled to his feet. He managed to stand up without vomiting, a major achievement he felt, and walked over to the nearest injured person. It was a woman, maybe fifty years old, her hair rapidly running to gray. Or at least it would have been, had her blood had not dyed it red. She had a nasty gash on her scalp, down to the bone in some places, probably from someone inadvertently trampling her in the initial panic. Naruto checked for a skull fracture, found nothing, and gave her a quick bacta spray to help stop the bleeding before moving on. There were other, more gravely wounded people who needed his help.

Naruto did not know how long he labored, helping the injured. The time passed in a blur of torn flesh and pained whimpers. The odor of blood and burning hung heavy in the air, more taste than smell really. Amid such an assault on his senses, time seemed a petty and trifling thing. At some point the authorities arrived, and helped replace crisis with aftermath, but he paid them no real attention. Between those who had been shot, and those hurt in the mad rush to escape, there were dozens of injured to tend to. At some point after that, minutes or hours later, he didn't know, his master arrived and said something. He didn't know what. It didn't seem important. He just needed to keep helping the injured. That was what mattered now. He shrugged him off and kept working.

All of a sudden Naruto blinked and found himself sitting against a wall, his master looking at him with naked concern. He couldn't remember how he had gotten there, and everything was still a little fuzzy. Lucidity slowly dawned on him, and he realized Mace was saying something.

"-you hear me? Naruto, focus! Can you hear me?"

Naruto blinked at the tone of obvious worry he could hear in Mace's voice. It was almost tender, and it was certainly the most emotive he had ever known his master to be. It then dawned on him that a response was probably in order.

"I-I can hear you, master," he said. "I'm- what happened?"

Something very much like relief flickered across Mace's normally stony visage before he composed himself once more.

"You were in shock. When I got here, you were almost totally unresponsive. I had to use a Force suggestion to get you to sit down and snap out of it."

"I- I'm sorry" Naruto asked. He was still confused, and he tried to stand up, but Mace put a firm hand on his chest and pushed him back down.

"Padawan, do not be sorry. Be specific," he said, his voice calm and commanding. "Tell me what happened."

"They attacked. Those people- I need to- where's the Queen? The shooters, they-"

"Calm yourself, Padawan." The note of command was firmer now, and it cut through his panic and adrenaline to reach the discipline Mace had spent the past few months drilling into him. "You must calm down. Find your center. The situation is under control. Queen Amidala is safe. Now, tell me what happened to you, and. Stay. Focused. Do not let fear unbalance you."

Naruto nodded and tried to pummel his brain into functioning right. He was only partially successful, but it was enough for him to string words together.

"It- it was at the end of the fight, after I had them all down. I tried to interrogate one of them, but their minds… It was like they were shattered… Broken…"

"Focus, Naruto. Control your breathing. What happened next?"

Naruto took a shaky breath and continued. "They started screaming and flailing everywhere. Two of them shot themselves. They were in so much pain. I could feel it. I tried to connect with one of them, to see if I could help, and… It was awful. Like a dying animal, but there was… this hunger. There was so much hunger. It ate his mind. I could feel it. It was…"

At that point, the memories finally became too much for him. Naruto felt his stomach rebel, and this time he couldn't fight it back down. He turned off to one side and puked up his guts in a series of rattling heaves. Between retches, he noticed his master had put a comforting hand on his back and was sending waves of calm and peace down their link. It didn't take away the sudden nausea, but it took the edge off his growing panic.

"I'm sorry," he repeated once he had finally emptied his stomach of even the bile. "I should have done better. I shouldn't have freaked out like that."

Mace shook his head and gave him an actual smile. It was small and fleeting, but it had definitely been there. "Naruto, you have nothing to apologize for," he said. "You protected the Queen and her handmaidens. In less than two minutes, you evacuated the civilians. Even though you were in shock, you still helped the wounded. One of the medics told me you probably saved at least three lives with that alone. Your performance was more than satisfactory. Well done."

Naruto was quiet for a long moment while he digested that. As the words trickled their way through his remaining shock and into his brain, he could feel himself relax. No matter how he looked at it, he had done well, even if it had come with a hefty dose of mental trauma. Speaking of which…

"Master, why did I go into shock at all?" He could not keep the shame entirely out of his voice. He had sworn he would never freeze up like that again during his first C-rank, and now here was. It wasn't the most Jedi-like emotion, but if Mace noticed it, he made no comment. Instead, he looked at Naruto thoughtfully for a few moments.

"Naruto, have you noticed anything about your Force senses lately?" He finally asked. "Maybe you've been more attuned to people's emotions than before?"

Naruto thought about it for a second before nodding an affirmative. "I think so," he said. "I could tell that Padmé was using a decoy because I could sense her emotions in the throne room. I could sense the fear from the townspeople because of the attack when we were headed here. Stuff like that. I can usually tell what people are feeling if I'm close enough to them."

Mace nodded as if he had been expecting such an answer. "I think you are developing empathic abilities," he said. "It's a talent that some Jedi, such as Knight Secura have, one which allows them to sense other's emotions with far greater accuracy, clarity, and ease than an ordinary Jedi. It also would explain why you reacted as you did to those men's deaths."

"I don't understand," Naruto said with a frown. "Why would that make me go all… weird like I did?"

"Naruto, without proper training, empaths are very vulnerable to extreme emotions around them. When those men died, your ability allowed you to experience their trauma and pain in a far more intense and personal way than you were prepared for. Master Yoda or Knight Secura would be better able to explain it than I, but essentially your mind rebelled against those foreign emotions, and the resulting conflict overwhelmed you and sent you into shock."

"So… what? There's got to be some way to keep this from happening again, right?" Naruto asked, a little desperately. He had no desire to experience something like that ever again. Feeling someone's mind shattered, twisted, and then consumed by some unholy mixture of agony and hunger; just thinking about it nearly had him throwing up again.

"Yes," Mace answered, much to his relief. "There are several shielding techniques you can use to protect your mind and use your empathy safely. Again, either Master Yoda or young Aayla would be better teachers for this, but for now, I'll show you what I know. Are you able to do it now? It's best you learn this as soon as possible."

Naruto thought about it for less than a second before nodding.

"I can do it," he said. "We've still got a mission to finish, and I can't let something like this get in my way."

Mace gave him an approving look. "You never take the easy road," he said quietly before sitting down in a meditative pose. "Alright, I want you to center yourself in your mind and then find your emotions. That should be fairly easy for you."

For a moment Naruto wondered if his master had just made a joke, but he quickly dismissed the notion. If Mace Windu started developing a sense of humor, he was fairly sure his currently tenuous hold on sanity might slip entirely.

It took him several tries before he could enter his own mind, but eventually, he felt the physical world fall away. When he opened his eyes, he was in the typical flooded sewer tunnels that made up his inner world. In the distance he could hear the Kyuubi's deep, rumbling breathing, but it was a long way off. This far from the cage, the water on the ground was cleaner, and the walls weren't as damaged or industrial looking. Indeed, here they more closely resembled some sort of ruined stone carvings than they did a sewage tunnel. He looked at them curiously for a bit, before resuming his search for his emotions.

"I've got it," Naruto said once he had done as Mace had asked. His emotions took the form of a vast, glowing cyclone of mist and light, churning away in a chamber within his mindscape. Occasionally tendrils of lightning would flicker out into one of the half visible pipes that lined the walls, sending a pulse of light along its length. It felt wild, powerful, dangerous even, but also alive and vital.

"Now I want you to take your emotions and tag them," Mace said. "Imagine marking them with something to make them unique, your own, distinct from mine or anyone else's. Do not tell me what it is, just make sure that you can immediately tell them apart from anything else."

Naruto thought for a moment about how to mark his emotions. He wanted it to be simple, so he could maintain it easily enough, but also specific to him. He toyed with the idea of somehow writing his name on the whirlwind in his mindscape, but that felt a little childish, even to him. It would also probably take forever. After a few minutes, though, the perfect idea came to him. With just a few seconds of concentration, the sound of the whirlwind shifted from the howl of strong winds to music. Not just any music, though. It was the song of his Kyber crystal, and it was as unique and personal to him as anything could be. Every detail of his crystal, from its shape to its color to its symphony in the Force, was etched into his soul. As far as Naruto knew, he was the only person in the entire galaxy who knew or could ever know that song.

Once he was satisfied with his work, he withdrew from his mindscape and opened his eyes in the physical world once more. "It's done," he said. Mace nodded and helped him to his feet.

"Good," he said. "I want you to do that at least once an hour for the rest of the day, to help reinforce it. It is not a perfect solution, but it should at least let you distinguish between your own emotions and those you pick up from others. Controlling them, though, will be up to you for now."

Naruto nodded, and then nearly face-planted as a wave of weariness swept over him. Mace caught him by the shoulders and helped prop him up until he got his feet back under him.

"On second thought, it would probably be best if you rested for now," he said. "Experiencing what you did took a heavy toll. You can sleep in the speeder on the way back to the palace. The debrief won't be for hours. I will wake you when it's time."

Naruto just nodded, too tired for words. The hundred meter walk to the speeder felt like it took a month, but he eventually stumbled his way into a seat. At that point, he lost the fight to keep his eyes open, and he let his head rest on his master's shoulder. He was asleep before the engines even started.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

Naruto was still sound asleep when they reached the palace, something for which Mace was grateful. Being exposed to such grisly deaths as those men had suffered had clearly shaken his Padawan. Whatever protestations he might make to the contrary, Mace could tell that he was not, in fact, anywhere close to fine. He needed rest, and probably a session or three with the Mind Healers back at the Temple.

It was tempting to blame himself for not recognizing Naruto's budding empathic powers sooner, but he swiftly crushed that train of thought. Even looking back on it, there had been no real indication that he was developing such a skill, and no reason to think he would. Most of the time, such things manifested very young, and were therefore easy to spot.

Mace had never heard of a Force talent such as empathy manifesting for the first time in someone's teenage years, and had not even thought to look for it. To compound that, Naruto could be maddeningly tight-lipped about his own feelings. It was, he suspected, a mixture of the usual teenage male embarrassment at having feelings at all, combined with yet another relic of his abusive upbringing.

'Of course, of all the abilities he could have manifested, Naruto would end up as an empath,' Mace thought. 'For all that he doesn't like to talk about them, he is more attuned to his emotions than any Jedi I have seen before. Manifesting it this late must be a byproduct of using chakra all his life. It probably delayed some aspects of his development in the Force.'

Whatever the reason, what mattered at the moment was that Naruto was hurt. There had been a few long seconds there that Mace had feared the trauma may have scarred him permanently. As it was now, he was not as worried about that, but he resolved to keep a careful eye on his Padawan for the remainder of their mission.

Once the speeder had pulled to a stop, Mace picked Naruto up out of his seat and carried him to their quarters. 'He's grown again,' he thought as he walked. 'He is going to be as tall as Jiraiya at this rate.'

Once he had Naruto laid on a bed to finish resting, Mace immediately went to set up a meeting with Captain Panaka and the Queen. 'I sense that between us all we have enough of the pieces to get an idea of the complete picture,' he thought. 'May the Force will it, because whoever is behind this needs to face justice, and soon.'

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

The fight scene in the beginning of this chapter is, by my reckoning, my biggest and most complicated action scene so far. While I've written bigger ones since then, it still stands out as the first time I tried something with so many characters and moving parts. Please let me know what you think. I'm not wholly satisfied with my style of writing action, and I'd appreciate any feedback you can give me.

I also gave Naruto the same empathic abilities that Aayla Secura has in Legends. I wanted him to have one of the more "unique" Force powers, and empathy seemed the best fit for him. I didn't want to give him more direct combat power with something like shatterpoint, as he'll have more than enough of that as time goes on, and I didn't think I could consistently incorporate psychometry into the story in an interesting way. Empathy lines up nicely with the negative emotion sensing Kurama gives him in the manga, and I have a little headcanon that it was the influence of Kurama's chakra that led to Naruto getting this power. Tell me what you think in the reviews; do you agree, disagree, not care?

As always, thank you for reading, please leave a review, and until the next chapter, be well.