43Chapter 1: The Golden Flame
Uzumaki Naruto. The boy who would go on to become a legend, and then be elevated to the altar of worshipped as a god.
He had been chosen as a vessel for Kurama, the greatest demon in all the lands, on the day he was born. He had overcome the hatred and fear of his countrymen to become the most adulated figure in his world's history. He had vapourised immortals, defeated enemies with god-like powers, gained near-divine powers of his own to beat actual gods.
Naruto was a man who had tried over his lifetime to keep every single one of his promises. He had saved the world multiple times, and more importantly; saved his best friend from the journey in darkness that he'd embarked on.
Said best friend looked like he was debating a return to the pathway of the 'Avenger'. Even behind the mask Sasuke was clad in, Naruto could make out the dissatisfaction on the Uchiha's face.
Or was it resignation? Sasuke looked like he'd begun wondering if it would've been worth it to give his body to Orochimaru to suffer through horrific and indubitably perverse acts, rather than do what he was doing now.
Which wasn't really all that bad, in Naruto's honest opinion. Sure, Sasuke had to dress up in tights, and put on a facemask, but they were actual superheroes fighting crime in a city in another dimension!
Maybe it was the mask? Sasuke had settled for a half-mask with stylized jagged wings at the sides, in dark black to match the rest of his bodysuit. Maybe he was having second thoughts? Naruto himself had quite like the red one with swirls at the temples.
"Naruto." The raven-haired man spit out the word like a cobra might its venom, disdain dripping from every syllable he uttered. "Are we really doing this?"
He'd asked this question every night for two weeks now, back when Naruto had just finished bingeing on the strange 'comics' that were published in this world. Naruto had been truly inspired by the adventures of these craped crusaders, and it had become a tiny obsession of his to be just like this - this Batman, who donned capes and scoured the city of Gotham at night in his quest to clear up the dark underbelly of the city.
He had to, in his free time, make the journey to America and meet the man who'd set him on this path. Even though his broodiness and lone-wolf act resembled Sasuke more than Naruto, his unyielding will and firm refusal to take a life was very similar to Naruto's own philosophy.
Sasuke, who'd repeatedly insisted that Gotham wasn't real, that he was absolutely sure that Batman didn't exist in this world, and neither did superheroes, had become more and more furious until the fury had collapsed into despair.
The Uchiha had been dragged into a bet that he would tattoo a toad across his buttock if Naruto, indeed, managed to meet Batman one day.
Naruto, for his part, had never stated that he'd meet Batman in this planet. After their own banishment and exile, Naruto had come to accept that the multiverse existed, and there had to be a dimension where Batman was real, and not merely a comic book superhero. Hell, there was probably a dimension where he was a fictional character, kicking ass and taking names!
"It's the Golden Flame, Hawk," Naruto casually avoided answering his question, while reminding his friend of the need to maintain cover. In this new world, they never knew who could be listening in.
He loved the names that had been bestowed on them by the newspapers, after their first successful sojourn. Naruto, with his dense flames of Kurama's chakra, which had been dialed up to eleven to mask his features, had earned instant fame as the wonderful Golden Flame, who appeared in a flash to rescue damsels in distress, and always left cheers and smiles in his wake.
Sasuke, to his delight, had been named after a bird. A noble bird of prey, of course, but a goddamned bird nonetheless. Oh, Sasuke could protest all he wanted that the Hawk was a legendary summon the Uchiha himself had once employed, but Naruto had caught him glaring at the newspaper headlines more than once.
"Naruto - " Sasuke started heatedly, but the blonde cut him off.
"Hawk," he asked mischievously, stifling the grin pulling at his lips. "Are you still angry that the papers called you my sidekick?"
The Uchiha went as still as a rock next to him. The wind blew gently around his face, making his dark hair sway around his mask. It wasn't enough to hide the grimace his friend was pulling.
"No," he answered so stiffly that he couldn't have convinced a child of his earnestness. Naruto could imagine what his friend wanted to yell, that he, Uchiha Sasuke, the last scion of the honorable house of Uchiha, the genius of his age, the avenger and savior of the world, was a goddamned sidekick to the dead last of their class. "It doesn't matter to me."
A lesser man would have been worried about being backstabbed by a slighted friend. It hurt to admit it, but once upon a time, Sasuke wouldn't have hesitated to do just that. Naruto would forever bear the scar from their last great fight, but those were scars well earned. Sasuke had promised himself he'd never repeat his history, and build a better legacy to his name.
Besides, Naruto would just track him down and beat the stuffing out of him until he capitulated back to his friend's side.
Almost like he was thinking the same thoughts, Sasuke sighed, the tension draining from his back. "It really doesn't, idiot. I'm better than that now."
Now. Naruto didn't comment on it.
"Bastard," he chuckled instead.
"I'll have you know my parents were married, unlike yours."
Naruto considered it progress that Sasuke could now crack such jokes, complete with a small smile on his face.
"Dead last."
The sting was taken out of their words by the quiet fist-bump they exchanged.
"Admit it, Hawk. You think this is fun too."
Sasuke shrugged, but Naruto knew he agreed. While stakeouts and recons weren't exactly fun, both of them were born and bred warriors. It gave them the simultaneous opportunity to stretch their limbs and to aid the long and often incompetent arm of law to bring justice to those in severe need of it.
The two of them settled in again to watch the junkyard. Boxes upon boxes sat arranged in towers that reached the ceiling, it was behind the cover of one of them that they purched on the pipes that ran along the top of the room. It was a cold, depressing place, one completely devoid of any natural energy that had been so rampant in his world.
Nothing of note happened. After a few moments, nothing continued to happen.
"My mask itches," Sasuke complained. Naruto twitched.
"We endure, Hawk." Isn't that what Killer B had always professed? Shinobi endure.
Sasuke flipped him the bird, but didn't speak further. For about ten minutes, when he broke the silence again.
"Naruto," Sasuke said again. "There is nothing going down tonight. Let's head back home and we can try again tomorrow."
"Golden Flame," Naruto corrected automatically, before dropping the cloaking jutsu he was under. Yes, the blonde enjoyed pretending that he was appearing out of thin air in a burst of golden fire wherever evil reared its ugly head. "Let's stay put a bit longer, Hawk. I've got a good feeling about tonight."
"Twenty more minutes, and then we're done."
"Thirty."
"Twenty."
"Twenty-five?"
"Twenty, and this isn't a bargain, you idiot!"
"Fine, fine. Sheesh, what's got you all worked up, my lord Uchiha?"
"It's Hawk. Don't blow our cover, stupid."
Naruto twitched, violently this time. He bit back his reply, though reply as the sound of a car's engine reached his ears. A triumphant smirk stretched across his face instead.
Steadfastly ignoring Naruto's triumphant smirk, Sasuke turned his Sharingan on.
"Four people - a driver and three passengers. The two females aren't human, like we suspected."
Naruto hummed in agreement, using his own sensor skills to ascertain the veracity of his friend's words. "We'll wait and watch," he ordered, making Sasuke straighten at his change of tone. "The women are oozing some sort of weird energy, we might need to release our seals to fight them."
The seals, ninety-nine of them, all of which he'd painted on to their bodies, were to contain their own powers. That which had once been a gift to save the world was now a curse which had forced them to leave their world behind and settle as shadows of their own self in this new one. Were Sasuke to release all of his, he would shatter the tiles under his feet. And the building underneath. And the block around it.
Not to mention the entire city.
Naruto couldn't even think about unleashing the power of the currently sleeping demon fox in his belly. The blonde was only borrowing his chakra, as the fox slept off the fatigue of the journey.
"Focus!" Sasuke snapped his ear. He batted at it irritably.
True to their predictions, a chauffeur got out of the front and opened the rear door. A dark haired young man climbed out, while the two women climbed out of the other door.
The two ninjas tensed, but it seemed that neither of the two were sensors.
The man might have been an archetypal pretty boy, but it was the women who caught his attention.
In his time in the Elemental Nations, Naruto had seen some pretty scantily dressed women. Their fifth Hokage herself displayed more flesh than considered decent amongst civilians, Kurenai Yuhii wore a dress that was essentially bandages wrapped around her frame, and the less said about Anko, the better.
The women seemed to be giving the last of the three a run for her money, because they were dressed in clothes that would not seem out of place in a strip club. The taller one with fair skin seemed to be dressed in little more than a brassiere and bloomers complimented by long stockings, while the olive-skinned exotic beauty was dressed in a ridiculous purple-and-yellow swimsuit-like getup held together by a metal ring near her not-inconsiderable chest.
Naruto could objectively admit that the duo were extraordinarily attractive, but he was more interested in how the clothing, while scant would not impede their fighting abilities. If the staff one of them carrying wasn't a giveaway, then the lean muscles they had on display and the predatory postures they held themselves in gave it away.
Both of them matched the profile of the mysterious women walking around Shinto Teito like they were nothing more than humans, while concealing powers not unlike the ones ninja possessed.
It was a bonus that they tied into the man the ninja had been investigating for the past week. Both men had something of a sore spot concerning hospitals, what with Tsunade and Shizune and Hinata being important figures in Naruto's life, and Sakura being the never-mentioned landmine between them.
A man who fed on the pain of the ill and the diseased for his own benefit, was a man they wouldn't hesitate to put down. If gone right, this would be their first major coup, a strike against their most dangerous opponent - one who may not have been physically powerful, but knew how to play the game of politics. A man who was possibly one of the key figures in Shinto Teito's underworld.
Higa Izumi was one of the most popular figures in the city, his company being MBI's direct competitor in the pharmaceutical sector. For the past year, the young man had quietly been amassing weapons in his home, while hiring hitmen and mercenaries into his retinue. Now they knew that he'd also been adding these women into his posse.
"Somebody else is on the way," Naruto whispered. "Due east, approaching fast."
She appeared in the room mere seconds later. The woman was clad in stark white, in a dress that seemed to be one continuous streak lined around her upper half, with a veil covering her head and streamers of cloth radiating from her back and twisting around her like so many live snakes. She was just as different from humans as the other two, and just as well-developed as them. Sakura would've loved to know what the hell they ate to make them so busty.
Naruto released the first three of his seals, and Sasuke must have released a few of his own, for the blonde sensed his friend's powers burgeon. The ground under them split open with a solitary crack.
They were instantly on guard for any reaction by the - presumed - hostiles. Still nothing; they couldn't sense any spikes in chakra.
"Number 10," the man drawled, unaware of the actions going on above him. "You're late. One might think you're not committed enough to our little arrangement. What a shame that would be, yes? Considering Miss Hidaka might just be at the critical point of her treatment…"
Number 10 bristled in reply. To Naruto's amazement, even her strange clothes seemed to arch and twist in displeasure around her, mirroring her reaction, almost as if they were sentient.
"Stop playing around, Higa! Tell me what you want, so I can do your dirty work for you!"
"How dare you talk to Master Higa that way?!" The dark-skinned woman was quick to defend her leader's honour. Reflexively, Naruto's grip tightened on the metal underneath him, but no metaphorical swords were drawn just yet.
"Calm down, Ichiya," Higa commanded. "Uzume knows the punishment for any transgressions, right? No visits to Miss Hidaka for a week."
His words seemed to drain the fight out of the newly identified Uzume. "You're a heartless bastard, Higa," she muttered. "If Chiho weren't under your care, I'd rip you open right here!"
Her comment seemed to rile up Ichiya further. "Like we'd let you!" she roared, bringing her fists up. "We'd terminate you before you'd even get a finger on him, bitch!"
Higa placed a hand on Ichiya's shoulder. To the surprise of the ninja, it was like a flick had been switched, and the formerly fierce female was looking up doe-eyed, at Izumi.
"Not heartless enough to extend your punishment, Number 10," he answered softly in reply. In contrast to his looks, his voice held a darkness to it that betrayed what a ruthless person this man voice. Naruto wondered what the man had gone through to forge him into such a hard person at so tender an age. "It is, however, a good night for you. It's an easy job - you'll be picking up and delivering a package to me before the sun rises."
"A package?" the veiled woman asked. "What sort of package are we talking about? What am I moving?"
"That's none of your concern, Number 10. The package is waiting for you at the docks, in the captain's cabin on board the S.S. Royal Emperor. You might encounter some resistance, but nothing that should give you any trouble. Leave no witnesses behind."
With those chilling last words, Higa turned away, motioning for his companions to do the same. They drove away as abruptly as they had arrived to participate in a meeting that lasted barely five minutes, but needed to be held away from the main city, and especially the cameras mounted all over the place.
Uzume stood silently in the middle of the room after they had left, illuminated by a shaft of silver moonlight streaming in through the windows around them. Without warning, her fists clenched, and the ribbons of cloth shot out to destroy the crates littered around the place with an anguished cry.
Naruto shifted, feeling uncomfortable. The blonde had always been empathetic, even before it had become a very real power of his on being augmented by the nine-tails and the Sage himself. Uzume was screaming of despair and fear, mixed with a healthy dose of self-disgust.
"We're following her," the blonde commanded, "this isn't quite what we're looking for, but we have to investigate this more." His morals would allow nothing less.
Sasuke nodded. They waited for the woman to regain her composure before they followed her into the night, making as much noise as stray leaves blown by the wind.
Like shadows, they darted after the veiled superhuman, leaping from edge to edge, running up walls and vaulting terraces. Their quarry, much like before, glided through the air with a grace no ninja had ever possessed. The city raced past below in blurred streaks of neon and silver, honking cars and the rumble of voices announcing that the heart of Shinto Teito was still awake despite the lateness of the hour. There was a sort of beauty to it that Naruto could appreciate, even though it was very different from that of his homeland.
They were at the docks faster than a car would have made it by the normal roads. Uzume wasted little time in tracking down the Royal Emperor, and made ingenious use of her powers to pull herself up on to the deck. Naruto and Sasuke stayed back, keeping a wary eye on the soldiers they knew were patrolling the ships.
They also kept a sharp eye on the figure that began trailing after Uzume as soon as she entered the docks. His estimations told him that the newcomer was on a different level than anybody they'd encountered on this planet, yet.
The blonde led the two of them away from Uzume, to the top of a crane that would allow them to view the cat-and-mouse game going on above them from up top.
The women, it seemed, were something of an old hand at espionage. They crept quietly from cover to cover, easily avoiding the human guards.
When Uzume went below deck, the two of them had no choice but to follow. They climbed up the side of the vessel and vaulted over the railing, before creeping down the stairs Uzume and her pursuer had taken. Sasuke had activated a cloaking jutsu of his own to match Naruto's. Uzume's other tail, though, seemed content to remain up top.
The corridor was dimly lit, by select lights at regular intervals, instead of all of them together, casting the cream-and-beige walls in an unfavourable light that made it seem darker and shabbier than it probably was. Crimson carpeting sped away under their feet, which made nary a noise on the velvet.
They arrived to witness a macabre scene - Uzume standing in the middle of a corridor with her arms outstretched, and two unlucky patrolmen suspended limply from her cloth. The bands around their face gave away the fact that they'd been suffocated into unconsciousness by the women.
"I'm sorry to do this to you," she whispered, twin blades of fabric rising up like spears to tickle the men's throat. Sasuke had no doubt that they were sharp enough to end the lives of the two men. "But my Ashikabi's life is at stake. I will go to hell a thousand times to see her healthy again."
Her cloth darted forward as if they were the Death God's knives themselves, but before they could land, Naruto was there. Uzume threw up her hands to shield her eyes, and when she lowered them, Naruto had firmly grasped the twin trails of cloth. And indeed the material in his hand was undoubtedly cloth, but hardened beyond anything humans could achieve.
Uzume gasped. "You - you're the Golden Flame! What are you doing here?!"
Naruto inclined his head - or the roughly triangular gout of flame that resembled his head - and spoke. "I am, Uzume. I would like to think that I just stopped you from doing something you would later regret."
Uzume reacted much like a cornered animal, trapped and hunted. "You don't know anything! I've done it before, and I'll do it again before all of this ends!"
There was the sound of a bullet, and then Sasuke had appeared as well, clutching the dual bullets of fabric that were meant for Naruto's chest.
"The Hawk!" Uzume took a step back, loosening her hold on the two men, who dangled precariously from six feet off the air. Real fear crept into her voice, and his eyes picked up the tightening of her thighs and calves, like she was about to make a dash for it.
"You're not a bad person, Uzume," Naruto said kindly, like she hadn't just attempted to shoot him through the chest. "You're just a good person who's caught in a bad situation."
Kakashi had taught him to spread his arms wide. Lower his voice a few octaves, and always maintain a gentle tone. Empathise, don't sympathise, his teacher had said.
"You don't know anything!" Uzume screamed. "You don't know what I've done, you don't know how many I've killed!"
Naruto walked forward slowly, his hands raised in front of his body. Uzume unconsciously hunched and tried to make herself as small as she could, but she didn't move from her place.
"And did you enjoy any of it? Or were you forced to do it to protect someone you cared about? That's when you really become strong, ya know, when you find precious people to defend?"
The blonde was within grasping distance now, and yet Uzume did nothing to move from her place. It probably helped that his cloak of chakra was literally radiating kindness and warmth, all of Kurama's chakra pouring out of Naruto, filtered by his own disposition and the Sage's additional power. And the seals keeping his power in check, of course.
Uzume collapsed into his friend's chest, throwing her arms around him and breaking down into hysterical sobs. Naruto wasn't fluent in crying women, but it seemed like most of her words vacillated between 'I'm sorry' and 'I'm such a terrible person!'
Her veil slid back, revealing a lovely women with a pointed face, and large, honest brown eyes. If they were the window to the soul, Naruto knew in an instant that here was a tortured one, seeking help before she was fractured beyond repair.
It was a shame. Naruto knew that Sasuke had been looking forward to fighting one of these creatures. While their bindings meant that they had to keep their eyes open while fighting even normal humans, these women would have been a chance to cut loose.
"Well, well, well. What a touching scene we have here."
Or maybe his friend's wish would come true tonight. The bogey that had been following Uzume ever since she'd entered the finally made herself known.
The dark corners of the hallway seemed to curl around her as she walked into view, dressed in nothing but the darkest of blacks. Long grey hair, tied in a ponytail framed a face that might have been beautiful, if not for the expression she wore.
Here was a woman who was raring to go for a fight.
"Karasuba!" gasped Uzume, hastily wiping her eyes and trying to marshal her fabrics into some measure of defense around - Naruto was gratified to notice - all three of them. "What's going on?"
Naruto stepped forward.
"Who are you? What do you want here?"
The grey-haired women caressed the hilt of her sword contemplatively. "I might ask the same of you, Golden Flame. You appear out of the blue all of the sudden, and then you take out thirty honest men together, men who were only trying to make a living…"
"Those men were anything but honest! They were gangsters and thugs who pushed drugs and beat on people to make money!"
"Details, details." There was a clicking sound followed by the screech of metal as she drew the end of her sword out of its sheath. "I don't care. All I want to find out is if someone worthy of a fight has finally appeared!"
There was no warning. One moment, she was standing around making conversation, and the next, Karasuba was rocketing at Naruto like a gun out of a bullet, her face set in a manic smile that promised blood and destruction.
And then she was thrown through the ceiling, blowing a complete hole through the wood and metal, as Naruto bent backwards neatly, rested on his hands, and then kicked her in the gut with both legs, with all the force of a charging rhinoceros on steroids. Cries of alarm went up as their cover vanished into thin air. The sound of a siren proved beyond doubt that any chance of covertly finishing Uzume's task was well and truly gone.
Uzume could care less at the moment as she simply goggled at Naruto, pointing between him and the hole above them. "Wha -? You - I mean -"
Naruto reached up to ruffle his hair, and laughed sheepishly. "I think I put a little too much juice into it?"
"Juice?" Uzume asked, like she couldn't quite believe what she'd just witnessed
"Hn," Sasuke said. "I was looking forward to a fight myself.
"Juice?" Uzume repeated disbelievingly, but anything she might have added was lost in a scream as Naruto grabbed her and flashed away to the safety of the harbor. Not a moment to seen, as a swathe of air screamed down on the S.S. Royal Emperor and went straight through it.
With the massive groan of a titan stretching its limbs, the ship split slowly into two. In an instant, there were twenty Golden Flames where there had been one, all of them rushing to the ship to save the lives of the guards aboard.
"Take this," Naruto tossed a small box at Uzume, which she caught out of reflex. It was a non-descript cardboard package the size of her fist. "Hawk, follow her to her destination. You know the mission parameters."
Sasuke nodded, annoyed that he wouldn't be taking part in this fight. Uzume was still staring disbelievingly at the carton, because Naruto hadn't once left her line of vision, and the door to the captain's room had been behind her all the while. And it had been locked as well.
His clones had simply climbed through the window, but she didn't need to know that.
"Just what are you guys?" she whispered, looking at them with wide eyes.
"We can get into that later," Sasuke said tersely. "Let's get a move on before the backup arrives."
Uzume nodded, her veil coming back up to hide her forehead. Without a backward glance at his friend, Sasuke shot off towards the east with the woman, while Naruto flashed back to the ship.
Immediately, he had his hands full of panicking humans. Never mind that they were on a sinking ship, their first instinct was to shoot first and then ask questions. So far he'd displayed a series of acrobatics and flexibility that would've made Orochimaru proud, and reaction times that any athlete in the world would sell their soul to the devil for.
"DON'T YOU IGNORE ME!" He pivoted out of the way of another thrust of Karasuba's nodachi, reaching out of instinct for kunai that he no longer carried.
He really needed to rectify that problem, he noted.
With no other weapon, he gathered chakra in his hand and threw the bullets he'd plucked out of the air at her. The force he'd applied made them just as fast as if they'd been shot from a gun.
Karasuba was caught so off guard that her counter couldn't catch all of them; she attempted to dodge the rest of them. Even so, her thigh was grazed by a lone bullet she couldn't avoid, leaving a jagged laceration and a trickle of blood in its wake.
The woman paused in the middle of the fight, relaxing her hold on her sword, which drooped towards the ground. She stared at the wound instead, with something akin to wonder. Naruto mirrored her action cautiously, but stayed alert.
He was unprepared for the grin that spread across her face, a combination of bloodlust and amazement and sheer disbelief. She looked like she'd discovered religion in the middle of their fight, if said religion involved lots of blood and sacrifice to some vengeful god - Naruto knew from unfortunate experience.
There was no hiding the madness in that smile; the woman was as mad as a hatter. In the middle of the fight, she spread her arms and cackled in delight.
"You! You are finally someone I can enjoy killing!" Her cheeks were flush with the rush of the fight, her pupils dilated and chest heaving with the spike of adrenaline (or whatever it was that ran through the nerves of her species). "Show me what you've got, don't you dare hold back!"
They met again with the force of crashing giants, fighting to gain dominance over one another. She was strong - stronger than anybody Naruto had faced in this world, but Naruto was the savior of his world for a reason. His full power would squash her like a bug in seconds.
Even then, he couldn't keep from cracking a smile of his own as he ducked and weaved around her attacks, parrying what he could with his bracers and slipping past what he couldn't. Karasuba couldn't land a clean hit on him, even though he would probably have a few bruises tomorrow. He relished the thought.
When strong ninja fought, they exchanged their ideals and principles with their fists and their jutsu. Karasuba, then, was nothing but a cold-blooded killer, the first enemy he'd fought who reminded him of the ruthless killers of his world. Every move she made was sleek and fast, designed to hurt him to the maximum while leaving her own openings solidly closed.
"More! More! You really know how to show a girl a good time, Golden Flame!"
Naruto had had the stuffing beaten out of him time and time again by Tsunade until he'd stopped trying to chat with his opponent in the middle of his fight. He'd broken 134 bones nearly twice each until the lesson had stuck, or as well as this particular lesson could stick to him. So he focused on leading the madwoman away from the sinking ship, leaping upwards and upwards until they were exchanging blows on the upturned edge of the ship.
"You're strong!" Karasuba yelled, while unleashing an attack that would have taken his head off. Naruto countered by skipping away and moving in to punch her in the gut. The woman was sent flying away, rolling head over heel until she flipped herself over and landed in a crouch. She was worse off amongst the two of them, her clothing tattered and torn and her porcelain skin blackened and grimy. "You're such a goddamned hero, aren't you? Let's see how you deal with…THIS!"
Her new target was a lone ferry out in the dark waters of the bay; Naruto was moving before she'd finished his slash.
Seals release - Move - TigerOxDogRabbitSnake - Great Breakthrough!
A wall of wind slammed into the wavefront of her attack, driving it off course to strike harmlessly against the water, which rose up in twin sheets with a roar. He emerged through the waves with not a drop of water on his being, running at Karasuba who stood stock still on the top of the Royal Emperor.
His punch caught her straight in the ribs, cracking bone under his fist. Naruto panicked as she felt her heart stop, but she was sent flying so fast that the shockwave cracked the cement under his feet, bursting open a hollow that looked like something heavy had fallen from a great height.
He swore, and vanished in a flash of gold.
"You're just in time, Number 10," Izumi turned the package in his hand over and over, his eyes boring into the Sekirei standing in time of him. "It's good to see you managed to get the package to me, though it remains to be seen whether it remains in one piece."
He slit open the cardboard covering, pulling out the padding with long fingers. Into his palms dropped a tiny vial filled with luminescent, electric blue liquid. It had been smuggled out of MBI by a covert operative, no doubt by some country who wanted the secrets of MBI's meteoric rise to power.
The operative was dead, and the secret was now Higa's. The secret to MBI's near-divine healing powers, which Takami had been too weak to, and Minaka not insane enough to branch into the power of instant regeneration.
Izumi had no such qualms. With this, Higa Corporations could reassume it's position at the top of the Healthcare Industry, not only in this country, but internationally. And soldier's that just wouldn't stay down would be perfect for the time when he usurped Minaka's obvious plans to install himself as the supreme power of this country.
It wouldn't do for some jumped-up, lower class scientist to assume the throne to their glorious nation, no matter how superior his intellect was. Higa, with his ancestry that could be traced back to family of the Emperor himself, was a much better choice.
The celebrations could wait though, he thought, smirking at the glaring Sekirei in front of him. What an addition she would have made to his corps, but no matter - she was just as bound to him as the rest of his own flock.
"But you weren't exactly subtle, were you, Uzume?"
"Number Four was there, you bastard! You knew MBI had a stake in this when you sent me!" She balled her fists, wishing she could slice the smug look off his filthy face. An invisible hand on her shoulder calmed her down, gave her strength. To her surprise, neither Toyotama nor Ichiya reacted, staring ahead quietly with blank expressions on their face.
Higa was too caught up in his arrogance to notice.
"And can you prove that?" Higa replied, winding her up by examining the vial between his thumb and forefinger with great feigned interest.
"Tch, that's enough posturing." A new voice interrupted their conversation, nearly making him drop his prize in shock. Before he could react, he was staring into mismatched red and purple eyes, multiple tomoe spinning in tandem around endless black pupils.
Higa felt like he was floating, his limbs heavy and head light as he followed the swirling of those commas, tracing steady circles along their orbits.
"Higa Izumi," the owner of the demonic eyes said, his voice deep as the devil's himself. "Let's have a chat."
Naruto reappeared in another blaze, arriving just in time to catch Karasuba against his chest. Fighting down the horror clawing at him, he immediately pumped the Sage's chakra into her body, healing the ribs he'd shattered and the lung he'd collapsed. Their physiology wasn't very different from humans, he realized, though it was a miracle that she'd taken an attack of that caliber and managed to keep her heart beating, albeit as weakly. They were a hardy species, whatever the hell they were.
He fought to slim his chakra into the thinnest threads he could, sewing together mesenchymal tissue and reinflating collapsed alveoli and draining fluid from them. Karasuba coughed weakly, blood trickling out of her mouth.
"Foolish girl," Naruto muttered as he worked. "You're never going to get strong if you fight like that…"
"Th - then how?" He was so shocked that he almost lost control of his chakra; Naruto spent a moment viciously wrestling it back under his control.
"Don't talk!" he admonished sharply. Karasuba giggled lazily, a bubble of blood forming at the corner of her lips and then bursting.
"Why…are you…healing me?" It was obviously costing her to talk, even though his treatment was taking. Already the lower segment of her lung had resumed normal architecture, and her heartbeat had picked up in pace and vitality.
"I told you to keep quiet, ya know?" Under duress, his old verbal tick slipped out of his mouth, making him curse. "I don't like killing unless I can help it."
"Weak…"
"That's what you think!" He focused for a second to pull a shard of bone out of her lung. "You can only be strong when you protect people you love!"
"Love…" She whispered, and Naruto was suddenly struck by how beautiful this woman was. Against the backdrop of the dark blood pooling around her, the women was startlingly pale with delicate features that would not have looked out of place on nobility. Her eyes were hooded with fatigue as she came down from her high, but even the dark bruise around them (Naruto winced), couldn't hide her attractiveness. "Yume…"
"Why don't you listen to what I say?" Tsunade would be laughing herself silly at Naruto having the tables turned on himself - he was equally bad when it came to hospitals. "Stop talking!" Deciding that it was better to talk himself rather than make conversation with a woman with a shredded lung, Naruto continued talking as he steadily worked on her. His clones told him that helicopters had taken to the sky, heading for their location.
"Don't hurt innocents when you're fighting," Naruto told her, much like an adult would tell a pre-schooler. "All of them have lives and stories of their own, people who care about them, who would be devastated if they were snatched away abruptly. Defend the weak instead. Power isn't a weapon, it is a gift to be used to protect those who can't protect themselves."
The sound of choppers cut off his speech; Naruto tutted, he'd only just been heading into a truly inspirational speech.
"You've stabilized enough to be taken to a hospital," he told her, giving a few final shots to her lungs and a cautionary shot to her heart. He was tempted to investigate the glowing core that rested beneath her breastbone, visible to his chakra but not his sight, but there wasn't time enough for that. "Take care, and always remember the time when the awesome Golden Flame kicked your ass right to the ground!"
He was gone in a flash of golden, the fires licking at the floor but not burning anything they touched. Karasuba painfully reached out to feel the waning spouts, sending tingles down her limb straight to her chest.
She was going to kill the Golden Flame, make him bleed to death, she promised herself. And then she would make sweet love to the dying corpse of her adversary, reveling in being one with her…
Ashikabi.
The nemesis of the Golden Flame was born as the sun rose over Shin Teito.
Notes: Hi, this is the Orange Maelstrom with my first work here!
I'm not a fan of author's notes, but I just wanted to say that I mean this to be a fun, if slow, writing exercise, that polishes my own skills at their own time. If there are question's unanswered, they will be answered over time, or they won't. If something doesn't make sense, either I'm screwing up, or Naruto can't tell from a limited perspective. I'm fine with immensely harsh criticism, but don't bother with things that haven't been touched upon yet.
If you feel I need to touch upon them, feel free to tell me.
Review!