Welcome to May, and to the longest chapter of this story so far. This arc grew far beyond my initial estimate, and I wanted to wrap it up and move on. This chapter takes this story over 200k words, another milestone I did not expect. Concision has never been my strong point, though, so this was probably inevitable.

Once again, please show your support for Ukraine however you can. Things only get better if we work for them.

Now, onto the chapter.

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Chapter 27

Mace had to fight the urge to growl as he raced through the narrow passage after Jenna Zan Arbor. The entire operation was blown to pieces. Three Royal Guards were dead. Two more wounded. Potentially thousands of battle droids were hunting for them. His Padawan had run off without explanation or backup. And to cap it all off, he was now chasing one of the most dangerous women in the galaxy down a dark corridor with no idea what lay ahead. He only knew that if he did not catch up to her, people would die. He had seen the lives balanced on the shatterpoint, and Zan Arbor was more than capable of taking them.

For now, though, he dismissed all of those concerns as useless distractions. He could not solve those problems until he had solved this one, so he anchored his whole being in the present. If there was to be a later, he first had to survive the now.

Priority one was catching up to Zan Arbor. He did not expect that would take long. It took a rare athlete to keep pace with any Jedi, let alone a Master, and Zan Arbor was not that athlete. She was fairly fleet, but he could already hear her footsteps growing closer. He would catch her in less than a minute, he estimated. Of course, catching her came with its own complications. Namely, surviving whatever trap she no doubt had waiting for him. He would just have to trust in the Force to guide him. It always had.

As he had expected, Zan Arbor came into view just a few seconds later. Before he could yell at her to stop, though, she skidded to a halt and turned to face him. He slowed to a stop himself and held his lightsaber at the ready. All of his senses flared into high-alert at the unexpected turn of events.

"Surrender. In the name of the Republic, you are under arrest. Come quietly, and I will guarantee you a fair trial."

She sneered and let out a derisive laugh. "Oh, I don't think so, Master Jedi. I have no intention of going back to prison. No, I think you're going to let me go."

Mace tensed and tightened his grip on his lightsaber, but he made no move to attack. She had not yet offered him violence, and besides, a woman like her would have taken measures to ensure he could not just strike her down. A trap linked to her vitals, perhaps, or some prearranged catastrophe only she could stop. He did not like the implications of her statement, nor her unwavering confidence. It was never good criminals like her were confident. The shatterpoint around her had not resolved. If anything, it had grown stronger, more obvious. All of his instincts, honed over decades of missions, screamed that he had made a terrible mistake.

"Why would I do that?" He asked. He had to keep her talking. The more she said, the more information he could gather, and the more time he would have to formulate a plan. Zan Arbor smirked and kicked a crate by her foot. It fell open, revealing some sort of cylindrical device, about half a meter tall, with a bulge running around its middle. The moment he saw it, the shatterpoint shifted from Zan Arbor to the device.

"Because you'll be too busy disarming this bomb. It goes off in fifteen minutes, and when it does, it'll contaminate this entire base, not to mention all of Theed and everything in between."

Mace grit his teeth. "Contaminate? This is a bioweapon. But I recognize the design. This is not your work. You mentioned a partner?"

Zan Arbor actually giggled and clapped like a child. "Hahaha, very good Master Jedi. So there is a brain under all that scowling. Yes, dear Granta shared his designs with me. I added my own touch, of course, but the man does have creativity. And such a lovely hatred of Jedi. Even stronger than mine, in fact. It's a pity he couldn't be here for this, but I'm afraid he's far too busy playing with your little Padawan."

Mace stiffened, and ice crawled up his spine. It took all of his iron hard discipline to keep his bearing. Naruto was not ready to face an experienced Jedi killer like Granta Omega, not without backup. The boy was going to get himself killed with his recklessness.

Right then, as if the universe had been waiting for that exact thought, he felt his Padawan bond with Naruto erupt with sudden shock and pain. Wherever Naruto had gotten to, he was in trouble.

'Naruto can take care of himself much better than most Padawans,' Mace reminded himself. 'I cannot help him if I die here. I need to keep her talking.'

"How did you both end up with Black Sun?"

Zan Arbor rolled her eyes and spoke as if she were indulging a small child. "Black Sun hired him to help them conquer this damp little backwater. He must have recognized that such a project was practically begging for my talents, so he broke me out of that dreadful prison camp Qui-Gon threw me in. I heard he died here. Pity I couldn't watch."

"What is Omega planning?" He asked.

"Oh, a great many things, I'm sure. I do hope he remembers to collect the data I asked for as he kills your Padawan. Naruto, was it? Anyway, you Jedi so rarely have the decency to die in a laboratory setting. It would be criminal of me to waste such an-"

She paused abruptly and glanced down at the bioweapon. When she looked back up, her mask of false cheer was gone, and a cold, detached air had taken its place.

"Very clever. Trying to keep me here until I have to deactivate the bomb myself, or else die in the blast. A good plan, but I think not. Goodbye, Jedi. I look forward to studying your death."

With that, she turned and ran off down the tunnel, leaving Mace alone with the bomb.

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Granta Omega.

The name alone acted like a bucket of ice water thrown on Naruto's head. This was the man who had captured and tortured Anakin on two occasions and had nearly killed Master Yaddle. He was the closest thing to the bogeyman that the Jedi had, aside from the Sith.

The shock of hearing his enemy's name had one benefit, though. His scattered, muddled thoughts instantly snapped into something at least adjacent to clarity, spurned on by adrenaline. He still could not move, but at least now he could string a coherent thought together in less than five minutes. With his brain more or less back in action, his training kicked in. As per usual, the pressure of a sudden, life-or-death situation kicked his already busy mind into overdrive. Fortunately, Granta seemed preoccupied with something on the computer console.

'Step one, self assess,' he thought. 'I've been hit with a stun baton, hard. Definitely got a concussion, maybe a skull fracture. Kriff, that hurts like a bitch. Muscles are still paralyzed, but I can already feel my toes. I guess the Kyuubi is making himself useful, for once. Maybe a minute until I can get up, maybe more. I won't be much use in a fight, though.'

He grit his teeth and tried to wiggle his fingers. The effort involved sent a fresh torrent of pain through his head and tore an involuntary groan from his mouth. Granta must have noticed the noise, because he turned his attention away from whatever he had been doing at the terminal and looked over at Naruto. When he spotted his feebly twitching fingers, he rolled his eyes and walked back over to Naruto.

"Don't bother. Your feeble efforts won't get you anywhere, Jedi." As he spoke, he calmly stepped on Naruto's fingers, breaking two of them. "You're going to die here, Jedi. So just lie there and enjoy your last few minutes while I make some final arrangements. Oh, and if you're hoping for rescue, don't bother. Your master is busy dealing with my partner, and those irksome Royal Guards have no way of getting through the blast doors. I will not suffer interruptions."

Naruto had to bite back a scream as two of the fingers on his left hand snapped under Granta's boot. It wasn't a debilitating injury like his head wound was, but it certainly wouldn't help him in a fight.

'Okay, step two,' he thought, trying to ignore his growing desperation. 'Play for time. Get him talking until I can stand, at least.'

"What are you… doing here?" He bit out through the pain and numbness. "Why Black Sun? Why… Naboo?"

Granta snorted in contempt. "Do at least try to think. With the resources of Black Sun behind me, and mind control drugs my partner and I have developed here, I could raise whole armies of assassins in mere weeks. Totally obedient, nearly undetectable. The galaxy has so many poor, downtrodden people that no one would miss. I could have decimated the Jedi Order, avenged my father, and seized more power than you could comprehend."

"Your… partner? Who… would work… with you?"

At that, Granta smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. It crawled across his face like a fungus, devoid of any warmth or humanity. "You may have heard of her. Jenna Zan Arbor. She's currently keeping your master busy, so we can have this oh so pleasant chat."

Naruto swallowed hard, his throat suddenly bone dry. If Granta Omega was the bogeyman, Jenna Zan Arbor was at least as bad, and probably worse. From his studies he knew she had devastated whole worlds for profit, and she had a predilection for experimenting on Jedi. If Mace was tangling with her, then he would likely have his hands full.

"As a matter of fact, she's the reason I didn't just shoot you in the head and be done with it," Granta continued. "She asked that I gather as much data from your death as possible. She's ever so fascinated by what makes you Jedi tick, and I figured it might come in handy, so here we are."

He pressed a couple of buttons on the console and flicked a switch. Naruto heard the faint, rising whine of something powering up. Up on the ceiling, four pairs of red optical sensors flickered into life, and a moment later, four large droids dropped from above and landed on the floor hard enough to crack the duracrete. They were imposing, standing just a hair shy of two meters tall, with long, powerful looking limbs. Their abdomens were narrow, while their shoulders were wide, and their whole bodies looked heavily armored. Their faces were eerily skull like, with large, glowing red eyes and mask like vocabulators. Overall, they were not like any other droids Naruto had seen before. If he had to guess, he would say they were a Holowan Laboratories product, maybe even part of the IG line, but not a model he recognized.

Each droid carried a different weapon. One had a long electrostaff, vibrant electricity crackling at either end. Another held a pair of vicious looking vibroswords, whose high-pitched hum set his teeth on edge. The third wielded two E-5 blaster carbines as if they were pistols. The final droid carried a fearsome-looking TL heavy repeating blaster rifle.

"Do you like them? Advanced processing core, reinforced chassis with duranium armor plating, the latest in heuristic learning programming. They're brand new; prototypes, really. It took some doing, acquiring them, but I think it'll be worth it. I programmed them myself to fight Jedi, and they can learn as they go. What do you think?"

"Why are you… doing this? The Jedi never did… anything to you." Naruto thought he could see how this was going to go, and he didn't like what he saw. His best chance was to buy as much time as he could to recover before Granta loosed his droids on him. From Anakin's stories, if there was one thing that could get Granta Omega raving, it was talking about the Jedi.

As he had expected, Granta's face turned purple and twisted with rage. "Nothing. You call how the Jedi treated my father nothing. They humiliated him! Exiled him! MURDERED HIM! And then they had the gall to cover it up and call him a criminal, call him Fallen. I'm doing this so I can wipe every one of you karking Jedi out of existence!"

By the end of his rant, Granta was practically frothing at the mouth. His mask of cheerful insouciance had shattered, and in its place was a seething madness that lit his eyes like fire. Naruto flinched and eyed him warily. He realized too late that he may have miscalculated. Granta's hold on reason was obviously tenuous, and pushing his buttons may not have been wise. If he snapped before Naruto was ready, things could get dicey. He might just decide to kill him, or worse, take out his ire on the hostages still in their cages. What made it even more unsettling for Naruto was that he still could not sense anything from the man at all. He should have been a raging maelstrom of wrathful insanity, but he remained a virtual ghost in the Force. It made predicting his behavior a matter of uncertain guesswork.

Fortunately, rather than devolve further into his obvious madness, Granta seemed to realize his slip and reigned himself back in. As Naruto watched, he carefully reapplied his guise of sanity. The broken fire vanished from his eyes, and body relaxed into a less threatening posture.

"Anyway, none of that really matters to you now," he said, his voice still raw from screaming. "Here's what's going to happen now. I'm going to leave. You're going to stand up, and these droids of mine are going to attack you. Once they're done killing you, and believe me they will kill you, they'll transmit all the data from the fight to my ship, where I will use it to improve their combat programming so they can kill more Jedi in the future. And just in case you were thinking of dying straight away to deny me the data, for every minute you survive, I'll spare ten percent of my test subjects. The rest will die as soon as you do. What will it be, little Jedi?"

Granta shot him one final, mocking grin, and sauntered off towards a side exit. When he reached for the panel to open the door, however, he jerked back in surprise and drew a blaster pistol as a kunai buried itself in the controls in a shower of sparks.

"You're not going anywhere," Naruto said as he struggled to his feet. "Whether or not your droids kill me, you're still going down for this. Now, let's go."

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Mace worked furiously to disarm the bioweapon in front of him, but he was not making any progress. Wary of traps, he had to proceed with a maddening degree of caution; one that would have taxed his patience even without the steadily dwindling timer. Even once he had opened the bomb's casing, he faced such a complicated array of wires and components, only half of which he even recognized, that he was at a loss on how to proceed. Mace was a skilled enough engineer, but he was no Skywalker. This was beyond him. Zan Arbor had made more than just a few adjustments to Granta Omega's original design. So far as he could tell, only the dispersal mechanism and the power core remained unaltered. Everything else, from the trigger mechanism to the multitude of fail-deadly safeguards, was completely different and highly tamper resistant. He counted at least eight separate circuits connecting the timer to the trigger alone, any one of which could set off the bomb. Clearly, Zan Arbor had never intended for him to actually disarm the device.

Even so, he persevered. He had no other option. Without the technical expertise he needed to disable the bioweapon properly, he instead relied on the Force to guide his hand. One by one, relying on the most minute signals from the Force, Mace began isolating and disabling the various pathways to detonation. It was slow, painstaking work, and the focus required was giving him a headache, but he ignored it. The constant sense of pain and danger coming from the Padawan bond was also distracting, but he ignored that, too. Duty came first, always. All that mattered was keeping the bioweapon from detonating. He could help Naruto deal with Granta Omega after he saved the continent from Zan Arbor's bomb.

Perhaps, if he'd had more time, he could have done it. With his shatterpoint ability to guide him, Mace thought he might have been able to successfully disarm the bomb in ten minutes, perhaps fifteen at the most. Sadly, he had less than two minutes left on the timer, and was barely a quarter of the way done with his work. As the time relentlessly ticked away, he began to cast about for alternative solutions.

'As a last resort, I can just stab it with my lightsaber,' he thought. 'It will explode, and I will almost certainly die, but maybe, if I am fast enough, I can destroy enough of the biotoxin to save everyone else.'

It was a grim sort of thought, but he was in a grim situation. If it came down to it, he was more than prepared to give his life to save his Padawan and the others. It was a sacrifice every Jedi was willing to make. Before it came to that, though, he was going to try everything else he could think of.

'I just need some way to contain the blast. Some sort of airtight vessel, or maybe…'

His mind lit on an idea so unlikely that, had he been even an iota less desperate, he would have dismissed it out of hand. As it was, he didn't see any other choice. Trusting that the Force was guiding him, he reached into the pouch on his belt and withdrew the storage scroll Naruto had made for him on the flight to Naboo. Using it was risky. He had been practicing with it ever since Naruto had given it to him, but he was still far from proficient. He had yet to successfully seal anything larger than a credit chit into the scroll, and even that failed half the time. At the moment, however, he didn't see that he had any better options. He had to neutralize the bomb, and quickly, before Naruto wound up in over his head.

Once again, as if the universe enjoyed affirming his worst fears, he felt a fresh surge of pain and distress echo down his bond with Naruto. Whatever he had gotten into, he was now in serious danger. That alone was enough to remove any lingering doubts Mace had about his plan. He unrolled the scroll and glanced at the timer. There were just under 90 seconds left.

'I suppose there's nothing like a field test,' he thought as he focused on generating chakra. He had improved over the last week, but it still took him almost a minute before he had a stable enough pool. The moment he did, he placed his hand on the sealing array and channeled his chakra as Naruto had shown him. There was a whooshing noise, and a cloud of white smoke erupted around him. Mace coughed and waved his hand to disperse the smoke. When he did, however, his heart sank. The bomb was still in front of him, its timer steadily counting down. He had fewer than thirty seconds now. Without hesitating, he focused his chakra once more and tried again.

Whoosh. Smoke. The bomb was still there. Twenty seconds left.

Again. More smoke. More failure. Fifteen seconds.

Again. Nothing. Ten seconds.

'Last chance,' he thought as he brought everything he knew about chakra to mind. It responded to willpower. He knew that, so he focused on every reason why he wanted, needed, to seal the bioweapon into the scroll. The unknown millions across the continent who would die if he failed. The innocent hostages whom he was here to rescue. The brave Royal Guards who had trusted him to lead them wisely. And, foremost of all, his reckless, brave Padawan, whom he was growing genuinely fond of in spite of himself. Naruto's vast potential, his magnetic personality, and his mind-boggling stubborn bravery had all conspired to slip through his typical detachment and forge an emotional bond to go right along with their growing Master-Padawan bond. He could save all those people. He would save all those people. With those thoughts fixed firmly at the front of his mind, he summoned up all the determination that had propelled him through life thus far, the sort of determination to which you could moor a starship, and pushed his chakra into the scroll one last time.

Once again, smoke billowed from the scroll, accompanied by the now familiar whooshing noise. This time, however, he felt something different, like some sort of twisting sensation. With his lightsaber ready, just in case, he brushed the smoke aside to check on the results. Sure enough, the bomb was gone. When he glanced down at the scroll, he saw the sealing array had shifted to indicate there was something contained within. He absently resolved to eject it into a star at the first opportunity.

Without even realizing it, Mace released his hold on his chakra. It was only when he felt his arms seemingly double in weight that he realized how much energy sealing the bioweapon had taken out of him. His whole body felt wrung out, as though he had been working hard for several days without food or sleep. Obviously, his chakra control needed work, if such a simple technique wore him out this much.

He had no time to recover, however. No sooner had he reconnected with the Force than he was inundated with a flood of pain, fear, and desperate determination from his bond with Naruto. It was a confusing mess of sensations, and their bond was still too new for him to glean more details, but he did not need them. All that mattered was that Naruto was badly hurt, in terrible danger, and Mace was going to save him. Again.

Pure, old-fashioned adrenaline, combined with a hasty, on-the-fly Jedi restoration cantrip, pushed him to his feet and propelled him back down the hallway he had come from earlier. With every sharp pant that came from the bond, a matching stab of self-recrimination rose to meet it.

'How the hell did this happen?'

That one thought kept echoing over and over in Mace Windu's head as he sprinted as fast as he dared through the labyrinthine hallways of the Black Sun hideout. How did this happen? How did he let this happen? Over and over, the same question pushed its way into his mind, but he ignored it. He had something more important to focus on.

That being the bond with his Padawan. A bond which now echoed with pain. A bond which, the sly voice of fear whispered, seemed a bit fainter than it had just moments ago, a bit weaker. Almost as if Naruto were-

'No!' He crushed that thought before it could even fully form and pushed himself even faster. 'He will be fine. You just have to hang on. I'm coming for you, Naruto, just hang on!'

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After Naruto threw down his challenge, he wasted no time in trying to back it up. With the new method Mace had helped him discover, he should theoretically be able to switch between chakra and the Force in an instant; quick enough for combat. So far, he was still a little shaky on the technique, but necessity would have to take the place of practice. He wasn't sure just what sort of capabilities these new droids possessed, but Granta Omega was not one for idle threats, and he knew how to fight Jedi. If he was confident the droids could kill Naruto, then it would be a poor idea to treat them lightly. Even fresh, he would be wary of facing such opponents. Now, with his head wound messing with his coordination and slowing his reactions, he was in very real trouble.

As such, Naruto went all out from the start. He didn't want to give the droids time to get a read on his combat abilities and counter them, so he molded chakra, crossed his fingers, and performed his signature jutsu.

"Tajū Kage Bunshin no Jutsu."

The sudden flood of two dozen identical clones had Granta reeling back in shock, his mouth hanging open, which was exactly the sort of reaction Naruto had been going for. The droids were harder to read, but he was hoping such an abrupt change in battle conditions would give them pause. His clones, acting on the orders he had created them with, each pulled out a kunai and leaped into the air. As they descended towards the droids, their kunai flickered with a blue halo as they channeled wind chakra through them. Naruto had yet to fully master the technique, and could not make the chakra flow as sharp or as even as he wanted, but he was hoping it would suffice to cut through the droids' more vulnerable joints. After all, he figured, every armor had its weak points.

Even as his clones made to attack the droids, Naruto had his own target; Granta Omega himself. While he hoped the clones could destroy, or at least damage, some of the droids, their primary function was to serve as a distraction. If he could just get to Granta, then he could force the man to shut down his droids and free the hostages. He darted through the crowd of clones and rushed towards him, lightsaber already moving to destroy his blaster. The droids were busy. Granta was too stunned to react in time. It looked for all the world as though his hasty, slapdash plan was going to work. Naturally, as had been the norm for the entire mission, that was when it all went wrong.

Before Naruto even got within two meters of Granta, the droid with the two blaster carbines opened fire, shooting with a speed no organic being could hope to replicate. It laid down a withering storm of blaster bolts at the clones, each fired with deadly accuracy. As bunched up as the clones were, they didn't last long. Most died in the first second, with the lethal streaks of red plasma often dispatching two, or even three clones at once. Those few that survived the initial barrage fell moments later, picked off by precise shots to the head.

At the same time, as Naruto went to destroy Granta's blaster, a crackling electrostaff swung with startling speed to block his strike. He expected his lightsaber to shear straight through the weapon, but to his surprise, the searing bar of orange plasma stopped dead, barely leaving a mark. There was no time for him to process his shock, however. A flicker of movement in the corner of his eye was the only warning he got before the vibrosword-wielding droid was right next to him, its blades already moving to cut him in half. With head still swimming from the earlier blow, all Naruto could manage was a clumsy lunge away from the swords. It saved him from being bifurcated, but he was too slow to avoid the blow entirely. One of the blades tore across his left side, and a line of fiery agony bloomed in its wake.

"Aagh." Naruto instinctively pressed a hand to the wound, and felt blood, warm and sticky, already soaking his tunic. His mesh armor had kept the blade from cutting through his ribs, but it was still a nasty, painful wound. Not immediately life-threatening, but not an encouraging sign of his chances against Granta's droids, either. He jumped backwards to gain space, and used it as an opportunity to reconnect to the Force and reassess the droids. To his dismay, it didn't look as if any of his clones had done more than scratch the droids' armor before they perished.

'Kriff,' he thought. 'I can't afford to create more clones. Those things move too fast; I need my precog. I'll just have to pick them off one at a time. Because that'll definitely be easy.'

He didn't have time for further thoughts, though, as the Force sent him a warning just in time for him to dodge away from an incoming sphere of shimmering blue energy that was speeding towards his head. It was traveling slowly, for a blaster bolt, and Naruto ducked out of the way with ease.

Boom!

The giant, searing-hot hand of an explosion slammed into his back, and flung him forward several meters. He just barely turned his unexpected fall into a clumsy roll, and gasped with pain as his bruised, scorched back came into contact with the floor. Behind him, three of the cages had been torn to shreds, along with the hostages inside of them. As he came out of the roll, he saw the gently smoking barrel of the TL heavy repeater, from whence the concussion blast had apparently come.

"I thought you were going to save all these people, little Jedi," Granta said, his voice high and taunting. "I must say, you're not off to a great start."

"Shut up, you sick bastard! You're gonna pay for everyone you've murdered. I'll make-"

Naruto had to cut his rant short when the carbine-wielding droid opened fire at him with a series of rapid shots. If he had thought the B1s from earlier had tested his defense, they were nothing compared to the barrage from this one single droid. Where the B1s had gotten by on massed fire and confined quarters, with little accuracy to speak of, this thing combined deadly speed with the unnerving precision of a machine. In mere seconds, he found himself blocking desperately just to stay alive. One bolt singed his elbow, and another grazed his right knee, forcing him to draw on the Force to shove the pain aside.

It proved to be nothing more than a distraction, however, as the electrostaff-wielding one darted forward and jabbed Naruto in the side with its weapon hard enough to knock him off his feet. He felt one of his ribs break, and the arcing energy danced across his body in little rivers of agony. Once more, he had to turn his fall into a roll, this time to avoid the follow up strike that would have crushed his head.

No sooner had he regained his feet than he saw the heavy repeater pointing his way, the barrel glowing with the telltale blue sheen of a charging concussion shot. Fueled by nothing but instinct and adrenaline, Naruto jumped straight up and let the shock wave of the explosion carry him up into the support beams of the ceiling, where the droids had been hiding before Granta activated them. At the same time, he palmed a smoke capsule and tossed it into the middle of the four droids to obscure their vision. The thick, billowing gray clouds would not hide him for long, not from advanced optical sensors, but it would give him a few seconds.

'I've got to destroy the one with the repeater,' he thought. 'That last shot killed another four prisoners. It'll destroy the whole room if it keeps this up. I just need to distract the other three, and then I can get in a clean strike.'

His fingers trembled from pain and blood loss as he prepared his distraction. Between the Kyuubi and the Force he had managed to stay conscious so far, but he couldn't afford to take any more wounds. Already, he could feel the gash on his side sapping his strength, while his head swam from what he was now sure was a skull fracture. Sadly, he didn't really think he was going to have much say in the matter. He couldn't hide forever, and the smokescreen was already clearing.

Just before the smoke could thin to where it would reveal his position, Naruto threw the kunai he had prepared right at the feet of the droids and made a single hand sign. The three explosive tags he had wrapped around the handle flowed briefly and then detonated with enough force to send all four droids tumbling backwards. Their armor absorbed most of the blast, but it was enough to buy him the opening he needed.

A fraction of a second after the tags went off, Naruto jumped from his perch in the ceiling supports down towards his chosen target. It was a far cry from his usual grace; more of a half aimed fall than a precise leap, but gravity and his lightsaber worked together to compensate for his injury-induced clumsiness. His blade carved straight through the TL repeater and severed one of the arms holding it. His knees buckled under the force of his landing and his side felt as though he had just laid it open anew, but Naruto refused to let that stop him. With a raw shout that was half determination, half pain, he lunged upwards and stabbed the droid right through the center of its torso. It felt like forcing a sword through a thick plank of hardwood, but the duranium armor could not stand up to a direct strike from a Jedi's weapon, and he saw the orange glow of his blade as it emerged from the droid's back. The impaled droid jerked its limbs for a moment, as if trying to still attack him, but the stab must have destroyed some vital system or other. A moment later, its glowing red optical sensors flickered and died.

Naruto gasped in exhausted triumph, but his victory would prove to be a costly one. The Force sent a warning, and he could hear the blaster firing, but his arms felt as though they were encased in lead. He simply couldn't move them fast enough, no matter how hard he tried. All he could do was watch, as if from a very great distance, as the first bolt streamed past his face, and the second slammed into his right forearm.

The force of the shot tore his lightsaber from his grasp and sent it clattering across the floor. Only his armored gauntlet, one of Kakashi's gifts to him, saved his hand from likely amputation. Even so, it didn't stop the pain. Someone had lit his arm on fire, or else dunked it into molten lava. That was the only explanation for the torrent of agony that raced from his elbow to his fingertips. The smell of cooked meat filled his nose, and it took a moment for him to process that it was coming from his arm.

His already shaky legs weren't up to the task of keeping him on his feet, and so the impact of the shot spun him around to land on his butt. In front of him, he saw the droid with the vibroswords jump into a graceful arc. An arc, he realized dimly, that would end with those swords slicing through his neck. He also saw Granta Omega, standing in front of rows of his caged victims, grinning with manic glee at the prospect of watching a Jedi die.

That wasn't right. Naruto had promised that he would save those people in the cages. He'd promised that he would make Granta pay for his crimes. If he died here, then all the hostages would die too, and Granta would get away. That was unacceptable. It could not happen. So Naruto decided to make sure that it did not happen, and step one was not getting his head cut off.

He could feel the fox battering furiously at its cage, desperately trying to get him to use its power, but he ignored it. It was practically a habit by now. Instead, he recalled his first time using the Force without meditating, when he saved Ahsoka and the rescued slave women from the Black Sun gangsters nearly a year ago. He brought forth the same sort of feelings now; his will to protect others, his determination to keep his promises, and desire to see Granta Omega face justice for all the atrocities he had committed. Then, in a single, timeless moment, when everything else fell away, he forged all of those feelings into a shining star of power, reached for the Force, and pushed.

The two vibroswords were a bare millimeter from his throat when he acted. They shattered like glass under the sheer power of his Force blast. His attack tore the droid holding them to pieces and hurled them back across the room so fast they practically left vapor trails. The other two droids had just enough time to brace themselves against the sudden assault, but they still went sliding across the floor and into the row of cages. The bars bent from the impact, but it wasn't enough to disable the two droids.

Granta did not have the reaction times or the strength of his droids, however. He sailed through the air and landed in a crumpled heap by the same exit he had tried to escape through earlier. The memory of his shocked yelp would bring a smile to Naruto's face for years to come.

Despite his impressive display of power, it by no means spelled victory. Despite being shoved across the room and slammed into durasteel bars, the two remaining droids were still operational. Their armor was battered and their movements were jerky, but they were far from defeated. As he watched them recover from his attack and walk towards him, Naruto finally felt the icy grip of despair. He didn't have the energy for another Force attack like that. Already, darkness was encroaching on the edges of his vision. Everything was fuzzy, and a persistent buzz filled his ears. There was simply no way he could destroy the final two droids, not in his condition. Despite his best efforts, despite giving it everything he had, he could not keep his promises. He was going to die here, surrounded by people he had failed to save.

Just as he prepared himself to face his death, he felt something. Something in the Force, something coming his way. While his thoughts all felt slow and sticky, he recognized the feeling almost immediately. It was the relentless will and drive of his master, and it was headed right for him. A renewed sense of strength and hope flowed down the Padawan bond, stilling his trembling limbs and dulling the pain of his injuries. Accompanying the soothing balm was, to Naruto's immense surprise, his master's voice echoing in his head.

'You just have to hang on. I'm coming for you, Naruto, just hang on!'

It was the first time either of them had managed to send actual words through their bond. More important even than that major milestone were the words themselves. His master was coming for him. Everything would be alright. All he had to do was stay alive for a few minutes, and then Mace would arrive to help him.

'I can do this,' Naruto thought, his renewed sense of hope sitting in his chest like a warm fire. He summoned his lightsaber back to his hand, and the snap-hiss of the blade igniting might as well have been a chorus.

"Alright, you walking scrap heaps, time for round two."

The next few minutes of his life were a chaotic blur of movement and pain. Despite being buoyed by the knowledge that help was on the way, Naruto's injuries were no less severe, nor the droids any less deadly. In the future, Naruto would only ever be able to recall the fight as a series of brief flashes of clarity interspersed amongst a mess of noise and color like rocks in a river.

He remembered desperately blocking blaster fire from one droid while the other rushed in to attack with its electrostaff. Over and over he felt a snap of pain as the crackling polearm scored a glancing blow, but he refused to drop his lightsaber.

He remembered using the Force to pull the droid with the two blaster carbines towards him. It dug its feet into the floor, leaving deep grooves, and Naruto ended up flying towards it, but the result was the same. He landed a blow, severing its left arm at the elbow joint. He had been aiming for its head, but considering by now he was seeing triple, he was just glad he'd hit the droid at all.

He remembered very clearly the moment when the sparking end of the electrostaff slammed straight into the still bleeding wound on his side. The pain was indescribable, like taking another one of Sasuke's chidori while also being torn in half. It was so bad that he actually blacked out for a moment. Only the feel of his burned back slamming into the cold bars of the cage the droid had flung him into snapped him back to reality.

Most of all, though, he remembered thinking that his master could really stand to hurry the fuck up, because he didn't know how much longer he could keep going like this.

After what could have been minutes or hours, Naruto really couldn't tell anymore, the door to the room shattered, and a violet glow lit the room. To his eyes, which refused to focus, it looked like a purple meteor smashed into the droids. One of them fell into two pieces, bisected from top to bottom. The other lost its legs and then its head to a single, sweeping flourish of violet light. Naruto blinked and squinted to try and bring his vision into focus, but it was futile. With the droids gone and his master there, whatever had been fueling him for the past few minutes was finally leaving his system.

"Hey, master. You took your time," he said. He tried to say more, but his tongue seemed to have gone on strike. The world started tilting crazily around him, and a black fog was swallowing everything. His eyelids grew heavier and heavier, and the last thing he saw before he drifted into darkness was Mace rushing towards him, a concerned look on his face. Then everything was cool and dark, and he knew no more.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

When Naruto woke up, he fully expected to find himself in his mindscape, with the Kyuubi ready to deliver another mocking lecture. It was, therefore, a pleasant surprise when he instead woke up in a soft bed, covered in warm blankets, with rosy, late afternoon sunlight streaming in through the windows. Grogginess clung to him like a cobweb, and he had to poke his brain with a stick a few times until it shuddered and wheezed into some sort of reluctant facsimile of awareness. He wasn't sure where he was, or how he had gotten there, but he could feel his master's presence nearby, sending him feelings of rest and calm. While the chains of exhaustion kept him firmly moored in place, that was okay. Mace was telling him he was safe, so everything was alright.

He wondered where he was, though. As he burned off the fog of sleep, he noticed the overly white ceiling, the faint electronic whir of machinery, and a tinge of antiseptic in the air. When he finally turned his head, he also noticed an IV in his arm, the tube hooked up to a bag of faintly yellow liquid. Clearly, he was in a hospital of some sort.

That realization blunted his feelings of general contentment somewhat. Hospitals were to be avoided, or failing that, escaped. Ending up in a hospital was one of the surest ways to put him in a bad mood. That feeling only intensified when the rest of his body chose that moment to wake up and demand its share of attention. For the most part, it did this by hurting.

His whole torso ached, especially where that vibrosword had sliced him open. His head throbbed in time with his heartbeat. His forearm felt raw and tender where he had gotten shot. He had a dry mouth and a sweet taste on his tongue. He thought he recognized it, but he didn't know from where. A thousand other minor aches and pains all sounded off, accompanied by a backup tune of general exhaustion and weakness. Clearly, any plans he might have had to escape would have to wait. All he could really do at the moment was give voice to what he was feeling.

"Oooww," he moaned. A moment later, he heard someone moving out of his field of view. When they stepped around to where he could see them, he was greeted by his master's grim visage. Right now, though, Mace's normally unreadable face showed hints of concern, relief, and something else that Naruto couldn't identify. They were subtle hints, but for a man who normally made droids look expressive, they might as well have been glowing signs.

"You're awake. How are you feeling, Naruto?"

"Like a Hutt sat on me. How long was I out?"

"Almost twenty-four hours."

Mace didn't elaborate, and instead just fixed him with a penetrating stare. After a while, Naruto squirmed uncomfortably. He had a feeling he knew what was coming next, and it wasn't anything he wanted to deal with- ever, actually. Still, he didn't think he could avoid it.

"No, you cannot avoid this," Mace said, apparently reading his mind. "You ran off alone, with no explanation, no idea what was waiting for you, and no thought given to any potential traps or ambushes. You nearly got yourself killed. Explain."

Naruto winced at the cold, clinical tone Mace took with him as he laid out his actions. He had to admit, when put like that, it didn't sound good, but he wasn't going to just meekly accept a lecture. He'd had good reasons for what he had done.

"I didn't just run off on a whim," he said. It was a struggle to keep his tone respectful; a struggle he was losing, judging by how Mace narrowed his eyes. "I could feel everyone they were keeping prisoner. When that lady, Zan Arbor, used her wrist computer, I felt they were in danger. They were being tortured. I had to do something. I promised I would do something!"

He had worked himself up to a shout by the time he had finished speaking, and the unexpected burst of emotion left him panting and wrung out. He had to run through a breathing exercise to calm himself down and find his center again. Mace just sighed and punched the bridge of his nose.

"Naruto, I am not angry that you went to save those people. That was noble and selfless of you, and I'm proud to see such traits in my Padawan. I am upset because you did it in a reckless, ill-conceived manner that put the entire mission at risk. I was right there. Captain Panaka, Lieutenant Typho, and nine other Royal Guards were right there. Why did you not ask any of us to follow you, to watch your back?"

Naruto opened his mouth to retort, but nothing came out. There was nothing there. Looking back, there was no reason he couldn't have done that. Just like that, all the fight drained out of him, and he slumped back into his pillows. Mace took his silence as a chance to keep talking.

"You let yourself get caught up in the moment and you acted on your emotions rather than controlling them. You cannot let that happen, Padawan. Next time, the consequences could be more severe."

"But I've always used my emotions. They make me stronger. Even Master Poof said that the Jedi should explore using them-"

"As fuel, Naruto. That does not mean surrendering to them and letting them dictate our actions. Perhaps emotions can be a source of strength, as you have shown, but only if you master them. When you let them steer your decisions rather than fuel your determination, you make stupid, sloppy mistakes like you did."

Naruto glanced away, unable to meet his master's eyes any longer as the sheer weight of just how stupid he had been sank in. He had fucked up, and it had nearly gotten hundreds of innocent people killed. Shame, hot and sharp, burned in his gut. Mace sighed again and reached out to squeeze his shoulder, simultaneously sending a wave of reassurance down their bond.

"Do not be too hard on yourself, Padawan. This situation is, at least partially, my fault."

"Your fault? What are you talking about, master? I'm the one that ran off like an idiot."

"And I am the one who should have seen that you were in no state to go on that mission. You were still shocked by what you felt during the assassination attempt on Queen Amidala. Your empathic powers are still untrained, and I knew that there were traumatized prisoners in that base. I should have known that being that close to them, feeling their pain so acutely, would distract you and compromise your judgment. I should never have taken you in there, and for that, I am sorry."

Naruto didn't know how to respond to that. Part of him wanted to object that there was no way his emotions had compromised him going into the mission. After all, he had told his master he was fine, and he was no liar. Looking back on the long list of poor decisions he had made, though, he couldn't find it in him to stay indignant. More importantly, Mace was apologizing to him. That was not how things worked. That was the opposite of how things worked. He was the one who apologized to his master, not the other way around. Still, it had happened, and now he had to respond to it.

"I- um. It's… fine, master. I should have been more careful."

Mace nodded. "We both should have done better. Speaking of which, what specifically did you learn from this?"

"Uuumm, that I need to work on my defense?"

Naruto got a faint sense of exasperated amusement from his master. The older man gestured for him to keep talking.

"Back in the Temple, you asked me why I chose to specialize in Juyo. I chose Juyo because I thought it was the best fit for me, but… maybe I was wrong. For the whole mission, I've been on the defensive in every fight I've been in. If I had been better at, maybe I wouldn't have gotten hurt so bad."

"It took this to get that lesson through to you?" Naruto could only scratch the back of his head in embarrassment. Mace shook his head but didn't press the issue.

"Juyo is a good fit for you, Naruto, but not on its own. Your natural fighting style is more defensive than you realize. When we get back, I will help you learn more about Soresu and Shien. You might also seek out Master Unduli and Knight Kenobi. Both of them are experts at the various defensive forms."

Naruto nodded, grateful for his master's understanding and willingness to help. "So, does this mean I'm not going to be punished?"

Mace gave him another long, blank stare. "I think the beating you took should serve as an adequate lesson on why you should not run off like that," he said after a long silence. Naruto perked up at the idea of avoiding whatever special hell his master might otherwise have put him through; but then Mace kept talking.

"Of course, I will have to let Jiraiya know you dropped your guard and let someone get the drop on you. I imagine he will have a few things to say about that."

Naruto wilted in despair. "He's going to hollow out my soul," he said tonelessly. Jiraiya would no doubt take great pains to ensure that he never so much as contemplated running off blindly again. He loved his godfather, but the man tended to express his concern by training him into the ground over and over again until he deemed his skills adequate.

"Perhaps," Mace said.

'Never do something like this again, Naruto,' He added over their bond. 'Seeing you in such a state was… unpleasant. You are lucky to have survived, and I do not ever want to see the day when that luck runs out.'

Hearing Mace's voice through their link was a new and somewhat odd experience for Naruto, but one he cherished. It was a sign that their bond as Master and Padawan was growing stronger. He wasn't sure if he could send words through himself, but he tried it anyway.

'Yes, master. And thank you for saving me.'

Mace nodded once and gave his shoulder another squeeze.

"Get some more rest, Naruto. I have to go speak to the Queen about our mission, but I am sure she will want to visit you later."

Naruto nodded sleepily. What little energy he'd had was already fading. He laid his head back on his pillows without complaint, and he was asleep before Mace had even left the room.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

It had been a long few days for Padmé Amidala. From the attempt on her life to finding out that Deyne Tapalo was complicit in some of the worst crimes in Naboo's history to the stress of dealing with the fallout from the raid on the Black Sun base, this was the hardest week she'd had since the Occupation. There had been bright spots, such as when she had seen just how many people the Jedi and Captain Panaka's team had saved from the secret compound, but even that had been marred with tragedy. Many of those people, both human and Gungan, had already suffered experimentation and exposure to whatever cocktail of drugs Black Sun had been using to brainwash and enslave their victims. Most would recover, but they were looking at years of physical and psychological effects. Others, tragically, had not been so lucky. Seven of the freed prisoners had already perished from the withdrawal effects, and the doctors told her that at least a dozen more were unlikely to survive.

Then there was the situation with Granta Omega and Jenna Zan Arbor. She didn't even want to think about either of those headaches right now. No, right now she had finally found the time to take a break and was going to the hospital to visit Naruto. She was in her handmaiden disguise, and she had somehow convinced Captain Panaka that she would be safe enough without an escort.

When she opened the door to Naruto's room, she was unsurprised to see him out of bed, fully clothed, and using some sort of knife to try to pry the window open. Of course, he was a poor patient.

"What exactly do you think you're doing?" She asked, making him jump. He turned around and immediately greeted her with one of his strange eye-smiles, not even attempting to hide his knife.

"Padmé! It's good to see you. Hey, can you help me with this? The stupid window's jammed shut. I can't open it."

"Absolutely not! You are injured. You're supposed to be resting. Get back in that bed right now until a doctor says you can leave."

"Aawww, come on Padmé. I'm completely fine. Besides, hospitals suck. I don't need to be-"

"Now, Naruto. Or do I have to let Master Windu know about this?"

Naruto grumbled and griped, but eventually, with her sternest glare and multiple threats, she herded him back into his bed. He glowered at her, but she just arched an eyebrow and stared back.

"Don't look at me like that. I saw you when they brought you back. Shot, cut to ribbons, electrocuted, head split open, bleeding everywhere. You were nearly dead. The doctors had to put you in a bacta tank for ten hours. By all rights, you should still be in there. You had me, and everyone else, absolutely worried sick, so the least you can do is lie down and listen to the doctors."

"Yes, mom," he sighed. She reached out and flicked him on the ear, eliciting an indignant yelp. It wasn't especially mature, but it felt good to be a little childish after the strain of the last year.

"Be polite, or I won't tell you about what's been going on," she said, confident that would get his attention. Sure enough, he perked up and looked at her pleadingly. Really, he was far too adorable for his own good sometimes. She had missed their back-and-forth teasing over the last few days, and it felt beyond good to relax and banter with this boy who had somehow become her friend in record time.

"So, tell me. What happened to the hostages? And Deyne? And Black Sun? And-"

"Whoa there, slow down," she laughed. "Deyne will be charged with… well, basically everything there is. Murder, treason, kidnapping, conspiracy, you name it. He's awaiting trial, and I expect he'll never see the light of day again. The people you rescued have a long road ahead of them, but most will recover. I'm afraid some were already too far gone, though. The doctors did their best, but…"

Naruto slumped back in his bed, his face despondent. Padmé hated to see the look in his eyes, as if some small part of him had flickered and died at the news.

"Hey, don't blame yourself. You did everything you could. None of those people would be alive if not for you."

"Yeah, I guess," Naruto said, before he shook off his depression. "Anyway, what happened with Black Sun? Did my master get Granta and Zan Arbor?"

Now it was Padmé's turn to look grim. It was just her luck that he would ask about the one topic that was giving her the biggest headache at the moment. She was half-tempted to avoid the question, but she couldn't. After everything he had done for Naboo, he deserved answers. He would find out soon enough.

"Zan Arbor got away. By the time we had secured the base, she was long gone. She's probably off planet by now. The Guards captured a dozen Black Sun operatives, including a high-ranking lieutenant, as well as Granta Omega. We took them into custody, but…"

"But what, Padmé? What happened?"

Padmé sighed and rubbed her temples. "Chancellor Palpatine got word of it and demanded that they be extradited to Coruscant to stand trial for crimes against civilization. He wanted to make an example of them, to show that the Republic can still stand up to organized crime and corruption. I agreed and sent them on a transport, but I just got word an hour ago. The ship never made it to Coruscant. A Republic patrol ship intercepted a distress signal in the Narvath sector, but by the time they arrived, all they found was a debris field."

"So they escaped then?" Naruto asked, more than a hint of bitterness in voice. Padmé shook her head, though.

"No. The investigation is ongoing, but initial scans indicated the use of illegal disruptor weapons; the sort only major crime syndicates could get a hold of. It looks like Black Sun got word of the Chancellor's plan and tied up loose ends."

They both sat in silence for a while after that. It was the sort of news you just didn't know how to react to. After a minute, Naruto summed it up about as well as it could be.

"Well… that sucks," he said. She just nodded. There was nothing else to say about it, really. It was an ugly end to an ugly story, and that was it.

She stayed and talked with him for as long as she could get away with. Her responsibilities as Queen loomed in her immediate future, but for now she just relished in talking and joking with Naruto. Finally, though, she could not put off leaving any longer. As she got ready to leave, Naruto tugged on her sleeve to get her attention.

"Padmé, could you do me a favor? After you leave, could you contact Anakin? He thinks of you as his first real friend, and I know it would mean a lot to him if he could hear from you."

Padmé could only stammer in surprise. The request had caught her completely off guard, though looking back, she supposed it shouldn't have. Naruto had previously expressed his disapproval of how she had never talked to Anakin after he left Naboo. He apparently took her shocked silence as indecision, because he pressed a piece of flimsi into her hands.

"This is the contact code for Anakin's personal holocomunicator. He and I use it to stay in touch when he's on missions. You don't have to decide now, just please think about it. Okay?"

Padmé's hand closed automatically over the small slip. "Okay," she said. "I'll think about it."

Think about it she did. All the way back to the palace, her thoughts kept coming back to the piece of flimsi in her pocket. Even when she was back in her role as Queen, managing the storm that had arisen from the events of the past weeks, Naruto's request stayed in the back of her mind. She didn't know why she was so apprehensive about it. It wasn't as though he had asked her to take a swim with a colo clawfish. She supposed it was her own shame in neglecting to contact the boy who had done so much for her and her people holding her back.

'This is ridiculous,' she thought that evening as she finally stood in front of her holotable. 'I've faced down armed battle droids and Force-wielding assassins. I will not let my own nervousness defeat me. If he's angry at me, well, it's not like I don't deserve it.'

She punched in the contact code and waited. It only took a few seconds before the call connected and a figure sprang to life above the table.

"Hey, Naruto! How's… the… P-Padmé? I- uh, is that you?"

It took a moment before Padmé recognized the person before her as Anakin Skywalker. She had known, intellectually, that he must have grown in seven years, but seeing it for herself was still shocking. Gone was the short, round cheeked, sandy-haired kid who she had met on Tatooine. In his place was a tall, athletic teenager, well on his way to becoming a handsome, powerfully built young man.

After a few seconds, she realized that she still hadn't said anything. "It's me Ani. Naruto gave me the contact code. He and Master Windu leave tomorrow, so they should be back on Coruscant sometime after that, I guess. It's good to see you. You've… certainly grown."

"Well, I- uh, yeah. Obi-Wan says I'm going to be taller than him by the end of the year. It's- wow, it's great to see you. Uumm, how have you been?"

Padmé had to suppress a giggle at how adorably awkward and nervous Anakin was. It was comforting to know that she was not the only one unsure of how to talk after seven years apart. As they slowly caught up, though, their conversation steadily became easier. Her nerves receded, and her smile became natural instead of forced. Maybe Naruto had been right, and there was still a friendship there after all.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

As Darth Sidious surveyed the events of the past few days, he could not stop a satisfied smile from creeping across his face. Everything had proceeded exactly as he had foreseen; a welcome return to form after the many unpleasant surprises of the past year.

Despite his foolish obsession with petty revenge against the Jedi for his father's death, Granta Omega had proven himself as useful as he could have hoped. Indeed, his decision to bring in Jenna Zan Arbor had paid off more than Sidious would have expected. She had been essential in giving Omega the time he needed to complete his task.

The droids Omega had used against the Uzumaki boy had not merely been transmitting the data from their battle to Omega's ship. They had also, through a secret, highly encrypted, private holonet relay, transmitted the data to Sidious himself. It was a veritable treasure trove of information about the boy's current abilities, past training, and future potential. It was a pity the droids he had arranged for Omega to acquire had been destroyed, but they had served their purpose. Not only had they gathered the information he wanted, but they had proven their worth as prototypes for the elite droid unit he had tasked Darth Tyrannus with assembling.

Omega had done well to leak Naruto's involvement back to Black Sun. The organization did not tolerate humiliation, not even from Jedi. This was the second time the boy had interfered in their affairs, and they would make convenient tools to dispose of him in the future.

And he would dispose of the boy. Reviewing the battle, Sidious was reluctantly impressed. He was not much now, but with only a year of training, and barely three months as a Padawan, Uzumaki displayed remarkable power and skill. If given a chance, he could grow into quite a threat, one whose future remained stubbornly clouded to Sidious's foresight. He would have to wait awhile, probably until Windu let the boy go on a solo mission, but Uzumaki had to die.

'That will be for the best, though,' he thought. 'Waiting gives me more time to study these strange powers of his. I'm sure I can replicate them, given time.'

Aside from gathering data on Uzumaki, the operation on Naboo had yielded a number of useful results. Palpatine had gained no small amount of sympathy as a result of the troubles on his homeworld, especially from the Core senators, who feared Black Sun and organizations like it as practical bogeymen. People were now openly talking about the need for greater security and more power for the government to keep them safe. He had also weakened Amidala's position and made it more difficult for her to oppose him should she become Naboo's Senator as he expected. Overall, the political gains for Palpatine had been considerable.

In addition, he now had Granta Omega tucked away at the Mount Tantiss facility on Wayland. As both a Force Blank and a gifted scientist who despised Jedi, he would no doubt prove to be a most useful asset. His research into brainwashing and mind control was especially interesting, though not immediately useful. Sidious would have liked to have acquired Zan Arbor as well, but the woman had fled before he could arrange her extraction.

'No matter. Tyrannus can always lure her into the Separatists,' he thought. 'Yes, the Force is with me. There may have been setbacks this past year, but they were merely opportunities in disguise. The Plan is on track. I merely need patience. In a few years, Uzumaki will die, and I will rid myself of this irksome uncertainty about the future.'

It never occurred to Sidious that waiting to strike at Naruto might very well be a mistake.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

That wraps up this arc. Hopefully this chapter answers any questions you may have had as to what's going on. This is the first one of Sidious' machinations Naruto has encountered, but it certainly won't be the last. Please leave a review to tell me what you think, or to ask any remaining questions you may have. See you next time.