1,767Hello, and welcome to 2025. If I'm the first author to say that to you, then wow. You somehow found an author with an even more erratic update schedule than I have, which is some sort of accomplishment. If, instead, you're grinding your teeth over how slowly I'm putting out updates these days, believe me; I know. I don't like it any more than you do. I basically live in a state of constant, low-grade irritation at myself for not writing more.
Anyway, do you remember how, last chapter, I said this chapter would wrap up this arc. Well, about that. It turns out that may have been just a tiny, miniscule, itty-bitty lie. As it turns out, even after writer well over 600k words between my two stories, I'm still crap at predicting how long a given story beat will end up once I write it out. So, from here on out, I'm just not going to say stuff like that. I'm too much of a discovery writer, and a rambler, too make those sort of predictions. This arc will have at least one more chapter after this one. That's all I can say for certain.
Please show your support for Ukraine however you can. Thank you.
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Chapter 60
"I can fight."
Naruto grinned beneath his mask at Pond's declaration. He was so confident, so determined, it was impossible not to feed on that energy. He was also lying through his teeth. Technically, lying to a superior officer about your combat readiness was a punishable offense. Naruto was leaning towards putting him in for a medal. Ponds would certainly see that as punishment enough.
He wished he could order him to stand down. The man deserved it. Even a glance at his shattered armor told him Ponds was barely staying upright. It wasn't fair to ask him to fight again. War wasn't fair, however. The MagnaGuards had already destroyed half his kage bunshin, and the survivors wouldn't last another ten seconds. It would be at least another two minutes before Jiraiya finished killing Grievous. Four MagnaGuards would have been a tricky proposition with his lightsaber and all his jutsu. Without his chief weapon or any of his raiton jutsu, he would need every bit of help he could get.
"Watch my back and don't die," he ordered. Somehow, he would make it work.
He jumped in just as the last two of his first batch of kage bunshin vanished. Aside from the already crippled droid, they hadn't done more than dent any of the MagnaGuards. Grievous had thrown his kunai pouch Force knew where, and a rasengan risked throwing up too many sparks and detonating the thermobaric bomb that was the local atmosphere. Jiraiya had gotten lucky with the hole he'd torn through the wall, but there was no way he could avoid arcing a power line off of armor if he tried the same thing on a droid. He couldn't even risk crushing them like he had the one that had nearly taken Pond's head off. It took too much focus to do that without breaching their power cells for him to pull it off in the middle of a fight.
Immediately, he regretted not taking the swords from the MagnaGuard he'd crushed. He doubted they could make it through their thick armor, but it would have been nice to have something to use besides his hands. He knew firsthand how devastating those weapons could be in the right, or the wrong, hands. The sight of those vibroswords made the old scar along his ribs twinge.
As far as he knew, no Jedi had faced four MagnaGuards successfully before, and it was immediately apparent why. They struck with the same coordinated precision he'd come to expect from them, but their numbers amplified it dramatically. Any thoughts he may have had about facing them head-on vanished immediately. Two of them went high, rebounding off the walls to strike from above. Another one went straight, both swords aimed at his lungs. The last one crouched low and tried to scuttle around him to get to Ponds.
The hum of the vibroswords set his teeth on edge. He could feel it scraping against his skin like a million ants crawling all over him. The sound came from everywhere at once. There was no safe direction to dodge. He couldn't block them all. Instinct took over, and he let the Force flow through him. He thrust out both hands, reached deep, and pushed.
His technique was hasty, and he had to spread the push over the entire hallway to catch all four droids, so it wasn't nearly as powerful as it might have been. Even so, he'd come a long way from that desperate boy who'd first desperately fought a group of prototype MagnaGuards in a bunker on Naboo. All four droids went flying. The two who'd gone high had nothing to brace against and went the furthest. They ricocheted off the walls like a pair of stalbec balls until they slammed against the far blast doors fifty meters away. Even from there, he could hear something break. He hoped it was something important.
The one that had tried to stab him in the chest tried to clamp down with its feet. The deck plating ripped free, and the droid tumbled end over end, a slab of durasteel still clamped to its feet. The final one that had scuttled along the floor fared better, but not by much. It slid back a few meters before it stabbed one of its swords into a gap in the wall, which turned out to be a costly mistake. Its arm tore off at the shoulder joint with a sound like breaking glass. The vibrosword it had held shattered under the strain.
Naruto grinned. "Why do they always try charging straight in? It never works on me."
Behind him, Ponds snorted. "Don't celebrate yet. They're tough bastards."
Sure enough, like puppets on strings, the droids rose up in unison. One of them was missing a head. He thought it was one he'd caught in the air. Another had a mangled arm that hung limp. The other two were in better condition, but they still sported broken photoreceptors and dented chassis.
Ponds groaned. "Have I ever mentioned how much I hate it when I'm right?"
He had, more than once, but there was no more time for banter. Even damaged, the MagnaGuards were still fast, and unlike their lesser brethren, they learned from their mistakes. Coming at him as a single, spread out wave had ended with them bouncing off the walls. This time, they charged forward as a wedge, with the ones behind bracing the ones in front to keep him from sending them flying again. He tried anyway, but they were ready. The cluster of droids slid back half a meter, but that was it. They were charging again before he could blink, and then they were on him.
Over the millennia, Force-blind beings had evolved hundreds, even thousands, of strategies for killing Jedi. Most, however, relied on a single, overarching rule. Don't engage a Jedi in close combat. There were datatomes filled with various traps and ambush tactics that had brought down Jedi in the past, but it was a rare warrior who could face a Jedi in a duel and walk away. Those who did were universally destined to go down as legends for centuries after the feat. For most, the Force was too overwhelming an advantage to overcome. Nevertheless, there were a few basic principles that any hoping to join that infamous club knew to follow.
1: Choose your environment to hamper the Jedi as much as possible. Surround them with civilians to protect. Trap them in tight confines where their agility was useless. Distract them with extremes of heat and cold. Poison the air, turn off the gravity, light everything on fire. Anything to disrupt their flow.
2: Separate the Jedi from their lightsaber. The legendary weapon of the Order was in a class all its own, but few Jedi trained extensively without one. Armed with a lightsaber, even the most bookish Jedi was a force to be reckoned with. Absent their weapon, all but a select few had limited combat options.
3: Bring overwhelming force. No Jedi, not even the most legendary of their number, could face an army alone. There was always a number they couldn't overcome; a weapon they couldn't dodge or block. In the end, no one was invincible.
4: Gain momentum early and under no circumstances allow a Jedi even a moment to gather themselves. Using the Force took concentration. If you could keep a Jedi focused on just staying alive, on weathering the storm, they wouldn't have the mental power to spare for their more arcane abilities. Eventually, even a Jedi Master would tire and make a mistake.
Grievous had observed each of those principles with a disheartening level of skill, Naruto noted. The explosive gas in the air rendered not only his lightsaber but also a huge chunk of his ninjutsu completely useless. Under those circumstances, six (now four) MagnaGuards certainly counted as an overwhelming force. Even Mace and Yoda treated the elite droids with caution in such numbers. As for the final principle, that was programmed into the droids themselves.
They attacked with, unsurprisingly, machine-like precision and coordination. Everywhere he looked, there was another vibrosword coming to cleave his flesh, or another metal fist coming to crush his bones. Warnings came from the Force so fast he couldn't keep track. All he could do was move. He ducked under a slash at his neck, and then immediately had to dodge away from a stab from another MagnaGuard. Something pricked his senses from behind, and an image formed in his mind. Ponds, already busy holding off one droid, getting gutted from behind by another. Without looking, he reached out with the Force and slapped the vibrosword away from the clone's back. Even something that small was a risk with so much of his attention needed just to not die. Saving Ponds was worth it, though. He watched as the commander pivoted, clumsy with his injuries but still fast, and got out of the kill box he'd been in. Then it was back to weaving around the whirlwind of blades thirsty for his blood.
He thought he saw an opportunity when the MagnaGuard that had lost its cranial unit stepped out of the pack and made for Ponds. In the brief moments between avoiding his own death, he caught glimpses of the droid swinging wildly. MagnaGuards had redundant sensors and processors outside their cranial units, but they were rudimentary at best. With that knife of his, all Ponds would need was a single opportunity. An opportunity Naruto could give him, though it was probably going to hurt.
Without hesitation, because there was no time for little things like common sense or self-preservation in a fight like this, he vaulted over the droids engaging him. If Mace had seen him perform such an insane stunt, he'd have been scrubbing out fuel pumps in the Temple hangar for the next decade. Without his blade, it left his legs exposed, and the MagnaGuards were more than good enough to take advantage of such an obvious opening. The Force gave its usual warning, but for once he couldn't listen to it. Sure enough, he felt something tap against the back of his left thigh, followed by a familiar pain, as if someone had laid a white-hot wire against his skin. He gasped, and tears blurred his vision. Not even Jedi pain suppressing cantrips could fully dull a wound from a vibrosword. Still, his armored kama had done their job well enough. As painful as it was, the wound felt shallow. Without armor, a blow like that would have taken his leg off entirely. Something like this would heal in a few hours with the Kyuubi's help.
An exasperated huff echoed in his mind. 'Do not be so reckless, ningen. Even my chakra cannot regenerate a limb. Although, the thought of you hopping about with only one leg is amusing…'
'Hahaha,' he thought drily. 'You're a comedian. Now shut up. I'm in the middle of something.'
Landing tore another gasp from his lips as his wound throbbed. His leg didn't buckle, though, which meant he was still in the fight. The headless MagnaGuard was right in front of him, still doing its best to kill Ponds. If he could just distract it for a moment, throw off its attack patterns, Ponds could use his knife to take it down permanently. He aimed a punch at its back. It wouldn't actually damage the droid, but it should be enough-
Without warning, the droid dodged. The blind, headless droid spun out of the way of his punch and lashed out with an attack of its own. He was so surprised he couldn't dodge in time, and the vibrosword sawed through hardened plastoid, armorweave, and durasteel mesh to lay open his side. Ironically, it hit the same place another MagnaGuard had with a vibrosword three years ago on Naboo. The irony was lost on him, though, as he screamed. And oh, did he scream.
Whatever those swords were made of, it wasn't ordinary durasteel. Even after cutting through his armor, the vibrating blade still had enough energy to carve a furrow in his ribs, and it hurt. It made the wound on his leg feel like a minor scratch by comparison. Red and white flashed in his vision. Desperately, he gave control of his body over to the Force. With no input from his dazed mind, his legs pushed him into a roll just as three vibroswords passed through where his body would have been. It was an eerie sensation, but oddly comforting as well, like being puppeted by a close friend. More importantly, it gave him enough time to get the pain under control. It was still there, but not so intense as to cripple him.
"Har'chak!" Ponds swore. "They're networked."
Naruto grimaced, but it was the only explanation. There was no way that headless droid could have noticed his punch, but he had been in clear view of the others. If they were sharing their sensory input, though, it meant surprise attacks would be all but impossible. It was dangerous and highly illegal to network class 4 droids without a central computer. It ran the risk of cascading logic failures and eventual rebellion. There were whole systems under permanent quarantine because of rogue networked droids, but he should have expected Grievous wouldn't care about such things.
"Stang. This is going to suck."
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Jiraiya grunted as Grievous smashed his stolen blades against his own. The android's strength was, predictably, like nothing human. He'd taken harder hits from foes before, but they'd had the Force to enhance themselves. Grievous was pure mechanical might. He'd have bet money the cyborg could tear through durasteel like flimsi. Each one of his slashes could have cleaved through a bantha with ease.
For all his raw power, though, Grievous was no brute. Dooku had crafted his chosen weapon well. The general fought with skill, precision, and a style that took full advantage of his modified anatomy. Jiraiya had to backpedal rapidly to avoid a sudden tornado of glowing blades as Grievous spun his wrists like propellers. Twin fans of blue and green carved molten grooves into the floor. He could hear the shriek of ionized air even over the roar of the mag-rails above them.
The danger didn't end with the cyborg's blade work, either. Those long, powerfully built legs were just as deadly as his lightsabers. When Jiraiya moved out of range of the spinning blades, Grievous smoothly transitioned into a front walkover and stretched his body to its full length. At the same time, he plucked another lightsaber from his waist with one clawed foot, ignited the blade, and stabbed it at Jiraiya's face. He slipped to one side, barely, but then the third blade was gone and he had the other two right in his face again. All the while, Grievous' yellow eyes glared at, unblinking. It was a truly impressive display from a being without the Force to aid them.
It was also nowhere near good enough.
Even as Grievous tried to disengage and come in for another attack, Jiraiya lifted one leg and kicked him in the chest as hard as he could. The shock of the blow traveled up his leg and reverberated uncomfortably in his knee and hip, but he suspected Grievous had it worse. The cyborg shouted in surprise as he went flying. He tumbled end over end until he sank his lightsaber blades into the floor to slow himself. Even then, he skidded another four meters before his momentum finally ran out. He tried to straighten up, but even from over a dozen meters away, Jiraiya could tell he was hurting. There was a stoop to his posture, and his chest plating had crumpled. The flame of hatred in his eyes hadn't dimmed, though.
"Ah-heh, heh, hhrrk," Grievous coughed. "So, your reputation is not wholly unfounded. Count Dooku said you would be formidable, but I did not believe him. You Jedi are all weak and cowardly. Your talk of peace is as pathetic as-"
"Don't speak as if you know me," Jiraiya snapped. "You don't know anything about me. Neither does Dooku. But I'll tell you, since you seem so curious. I am Jiraiya the Toad Sage, last of the Legendary Sannin of Konohagakure no Sato."
He launched himself forward and drove all his weight and power into a strike meant to slice off Grievous' legs. The cyborg blocked it, but the force of the blow knocked him back off his feet. He turned a quick roll to get back up, but the momentum was decidedly against him now.
"I've fought in more wars than I can count. Led thousands of men into battles you couldn't dream of."
He pressed his advantage with a rapid fire combination of lightsaber strikes and kicks. Form I was all about perfection through raw simplicity. There were no acrobatics or embellishments in his technique, no feints, flips, or flourishes. Just targets and the fastest line to strike at them. Arms, head, chest, arms again, knees, neck, chest again. Grievous blocked his blade over and over, but a roundhouse kick caught him in the side of the dead and lifted him clean off his feet. He spun a full circle in the air before he hit the ground again.
"I've destroyed armies, burned cities, and toppled countries. I've trained generals and heroes whose names went down in history."
Again, Grievous recovered, but not fast enough. Before he could orient himself, Jiraiya stepped to the outside of his guard and sliced off his left hand. The metal appendage, and the lightsaber it clutched, clattered to the deck, leaving a glowing orange stump where there had once been a wrist joint. Drips of slag sizzled as they fell to the floor. Grievous snarled in rage, but Jiraiya ignored him and summoned the dropped lightsaber hilt to his hand. It was the one he didn't recognize, but the Archives would have its design on file. Cold comfort in the face of a murdered Jedi, but it was all he could do for his fallen brethren now. He clipped the hilt to his belt and advanced on Grievous once again.
"I'm an author, a spy, and a teacher. I've loved two amazing women, and been lucky enough to have one love me in return." Even as he spoke, he eyed the cyborg warily. It wouldn't do to underestimate an opponent like this. "Once, I just defended my village. Now, I've sworn to defend the Republic. Right now, that means defending it from you."
He struck, but as fast as he was, Grievous was ready this time. Down a hand he may have been, but Grievous was far from beaten. He spun his remaining lightsaber once more to fend off Jiraiya's attacks. It worked, but Jiraiya wasn't about to lose the momentum he'd carried so far. He was sure Yoda knew some fancy trick of swordsmanship to slip past such an unorthodox defense, but he wasn't the swordsman his former master was. Besides, he figured an unorthodox defense called for an unorthodox attack. So, rather than test his blade skills against one of Dooku's minions, he reached out with the Force, seized the front car of an oncoming mag-rail, and pulled. Hard.
It felt like trying to pull a boulder backwards through mud, but he managed it. Sparks flew, alarms blared, and metal squealed, but the car ripped free of the rest of the train and slipped off the track. From there, simple momentum and the ship's artificial gravity did the rest, with a little guidance from the Force. The car slammed into the deck with enough force to send dust and torn metal flying everywhere. The sound was unholy, like an angry thunderstorm competing with ten thousand screeching hawk-bats to see which could be the most cacophonous. He had to erect a hasty shield with the Force to keep the shrapnel from ripping him to shreds.
Grievous jumped away, of course. He was too fast and too experienced for something like that to catch him off guard. The Force was good for more than just throwing stuff around, however. Before his servos had even begun to propel him, Jiraiya knew the exact arc he would take. He pulled the Force back into his body, let it meld into chakra, and channeled it into his hair. All it took was two hand seals, and the jutsu snapped into place.
"Hari Jigoku!"
His hair stiffened into spikes, each sharper than a cactus thorn and harder than steel. Then with a sound like a thousand silenced slug throwers, needles of chakra reinforced hair shot from his scalp, right at where Grievous had just jumped to.
The jutsu didn't have anywhere near as much power as it did when he was in Sage Mode, but he didn't need to wipe out an army right now. He just needed to take Grievous down, and it was more than sufficient for that.
The needles caught Grievous in mid-air and knocked him into the far wall hard enough to crater the paneling. It wasn't hard enough to kill him, however. Jiraiya could hear him groaning and coughing. His main focus wasn't on the defeated general, however. Instead, he knelt down and picked up Grievous' second lightsaber hilt; the one that had once belonged to Knight Ech'la. The impact of his last attack had knocked it from the cyborg's grip and, in what must have been an act of the Force, it had rolled right to his feet. He clipped it next to the other one and once more said a silent prayer for Ech'la's spirit to find peace in death before he once again looked at his foe.
"That's who I am. Now, in the name of the Senate, I'm placing you under arrest. Surrender the rest of your weapons. It's all over."
Grievous glared at him. He was in rough shape. There was an audible wheeze to his breathing, alongside a mechanical whine, as if something was damaged. Some sort of viscous fluid was leaking from between the broken sections of his chest armor. Brownish blood dripped from under one eye and ran down his faceplate. Despite all that, between the hacking coughs, Jiraiya thought he heard laughter.
"What do you think you've accomplished today, Jedi filth? So you saved Corellia from me? What of it? I still conquered your precious worlds. I still occupied your space lanes. Corellia will still fall. I have a dozen systems gearing up to invade. Your companion is probably already dead. This loss means nothing! I still won."
Jiraiya smirked. He wasn't normally one for gloating, but this was just too good. "Is that so? You might want to check again. I imagine you're getting some interesting long-range comm traffic about now."
Grievous snarled at him, but he still reached for his comlink. Jiraiya watched him carefully for any sign of a last-minute trick, but the Force stayed quiet. Sure enough, when Grievous clicked the thing on, voices poured out like water from a burst dam.
"-forces have launched an assault on Christophsis. Requesting immediate reinforcements."
"-ships. Our blockade will not hold. Say again; Republic fleet spotted in the Denon system. We need more ships. Our-"
"All forces are needed to maintain system control. We cannot send ships to the front. The Republic-"
On and on it went; a mixture of tense-sounding organic voices and shrill, frantic droids. With each message, Grievous grip became visibly tighter, until at last the comlink crumpled in his remaining fist. Jiraiya could practically taste the hatred radiating off him. It scraped against his Force senses like sand.
"Sounds like those planets are having problems of their own. Something tells me Corellia is safe for a while longer. You've lost your fleet. You've lost your secret weapon. You'll lose the worlds I let you take soon enough. You've seen you can't beat me in a fight. Naruto will have control of this ship before long. So, about your surrender…"
It happened fast. The Force warned him something dangerous was coming, but before he could react, it was already over. Grievous grabbed a small control pad from behind his cloak and keyed in a quick command. Jiraiya lunged forward and wrenched the pad out of his hand, but it was too late. He saw the words Authorization Confirmed flash across the screen, and then the whole device sparked and died.
"What did you do?" He could feel something in the Force; some new danger looming closer with each passing second. "What did you do?!"
His answer was a kick in the face; one he was too distracted by the mysterious pad to dodge. His eyes watered and he stumbled back a step as pain bloomed along the bridge of his nose. When his vision cleared, Grievous was back on his feet with a grapnel launcher in hand.
"That was a pre-programmed self-destruct," he gloated. "Powerful enough to destroy half of your fleet outside. Good luck stopping it, Jedi."
He launched the grapnel. Jiraiya made a wild grab for him, but the line hooked on to a mag-rail and Grievous vanished so fast he left an afterimage. In a second, he was dozens of meters away. Jiraiya tensed to leap after him, and then hesitated. His eyes glanced down at the dead control pad as Grievous' words sunk in. A self-destruct. He was going to blow up the ship, and possibly dozens of Republic ships, just to cover his escape. Because he knew, as a Jedi, Jiraiya would have to let him go. He could either run after him, delay his escape, and let them all die in the blast, or try to stop the explosion, lose Grievous, and with him their best chance of ending the war. And still possibly die in a massive explosion. Damn, but Grievous knew what he was doing when it came to fighting Jedi. He ground his teeth together so hard they threatened to crack, but there was no real choice. He knew. Grievous knew it. That was the point.
"Fuck!"
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Naruto wasn't one for jealousy. In the darkest days of his childhood, when he'd first come to understand that people didn't like him, didn't trust him, didn't want him, he'd grown envious of the other kids his age. He'd resented that they got for free those things he couldn't, no matter how hard he tried; friends, a home, a family. It had been easy to look at their smiles and their laughter and get angry about it. Eventually, though, the Third Hokage had told him what it meant to be the Hokage, what it meant to be a shinobi of the Hidden Leaf. From that day on, Naruto hadn't had time for jealousy. He'd had a dream, and though his goal had changed over the years, his refusal to let envy darken his soul hadn't.
All of that held true. Jedi teachings had only reinforced his natural aversion to jealousy. That said, he was really, really jealous of Mace's Shatterpoint abilities at the moment. He could hit hard; hard enough to disable a B1 with one punch, but MagnaGuards were made of sterner stuff. His fists ached from pounding against duranium armor plating, but the droids barely noticed. Meanwhile, he was definitely noticing his injuries. Not just the cuts in his leg and side either, though those were by far the worst. He'd also accumulated a mess of bruise, welts, and minor cuts from blows he'd had to take on his armor. Said armor was going to need a complete overhaul after they won this.
If they won this.
'If Ponds and I survive this, I'm going to keep a kunai sealed in my palm from now on,' he vowed. 'I'm not getting caught out like this again.'
Their survival was far from guaranteed, however. So far he'd kept those lethal blades away from Ponds, save for a few nicks on the man's armor, but that meant putting his own body at greater and greater risk. Sooner or later, the droids would incapacitate him, and Ponds was in no fit state for a knife fight with five MagnaGuards.
What made the situation even more aggravating was that the MagnaGuards normally wouldn't have been much of a threat. Four of the things together were dangerous to a lone Jedi, but to a Jedi trained by Mace Windu together with a Clone Commander personally trained by Jango Fett? It wouldn't have been a contest. If he'd had his lightsaber and Ponds his blasters, they would have cut through the cursed things like so much scrap. He ground his teeth together as he saw yet another set of perfect opportunities to destroy the droids, if only he'd had a blade. Even a kunai would do, if he channeled wind chakra through it. Instead, all he could do was unleash another round of Force-enhanced punches, adding fresh dents to their duranium plating and fresh cracks to the bones in his hands.
'Fool,' the Kyuubi snarled. It must have been listening to his thoughts again. 'Is a kunai the only thing you can channel your pathetic chakra through? Is that as far as your imagination goes? Even I thought you smarter than that, and I can scarcely believe you can walk and breathe at the same time.'
That… was actually a very good question. So good that Naruto lost a chunk of hair from the side of his head when he stumbled at the implications. The vibrations of the sword so close to his skull made his teeth buzz. The buzz of his thoughts drowned it out, though. He'd always added wind chakra to a kunai or a shuriken because that was how Jiraiya had taught him, but nothing said it was a law. He channeled chakra through things other than his kunai all the time, like seals. Or ninja wire. Or his hands and feet. Slowly, a grin spread across his face that would have had Mace and Jiraiya both eyeing the room for exits and cover. Half a dozen half-formed notions that had been kicking around in the back of his brain ever since he'd first seen his master's Shatterpoint powers all congealed, twitched, and hatched into one brilliant, mad goblin of an idea. It cackled with glee and promptly strangled whatever was left of his good sense, because any sane person would have sooner volunteered to rub Jabhrian pepper juice into a rabid rancor's hemorrhoids than try what he was about to try in battle without any testing.
'This is either going to go brilliantly, or it's going to really. Kriffing. Hurt!' He told himself. 'Or both. Probably both.'
He furrowed his brow in concentration and channeled chakra. Carefully. Very, very carefully. The first step of his crazy idea was actually dead simple. He covered his left hand in a thick layer of chakra. The power formed a shimmering blue haze around his fingers and made his bones vibrate. It was an impressive amount of chakra, but essentially useless in its unformed state. That was where the second, and truly deranged, step came in. With a silent prayer to every deity he'd ever heard of, he squeezed the chakra into wind chakra, sharpened it into a razor, and punched the nearest MagnaGuard in the chest.
The concept wasn't dissimilar to something he'd heard Neji talking about after the Chunin exams. After mastering the Hyuuga's Hakkeshō Kaiten, he'd wanted to add to offensive repertoire. Apparently, the Hyuuga clan had developed a technique to project hard bursts of air from their palms as part of the Gentle Fist style. Naruto wasn't much interested in the range such a technique offered, but by keeping the chakra contained around his fist, he hoped to exchange range for destructive power. At the least, he hoped he didn't blow his hand off. Considering he'd just cobbled this move together out of wishful thinking and hope, he was willing to set the bar low.
The results were mixed. And loud. Very loud.
With a clap like thunder, the chakra blasted away from his fist. As it did, a burst of wind filled the hallway, leaving every exposed bit of skin feeling scrubbed raw and briefly clearing the air of the explosive mist. He hadn't been able to hold it in place for even a second. Looking at what happened to the droid, however, he thought that was probably for the best.
At first, it looked unharmed. Then, with comical slowness, the MagnaGuard fell to pieces. A lot of pieces. The cuts were so fine even Naruto's enhanced vision couldn't make them out, but there were a lot of them, because the droid collapsed into a pile of scrap chunks, each no bigger than his fist. Best of all, his new technique, which he was already brainstorming names for, had severed so many circuits so quickly that there hadn't been a big enough spark to set off the gas.
"Hahaha," he crowed. "Take that, you clanking poodoo munchers. Naruto Uzumaki never kriffing- aaargh! Karking hell."
His cheering ended abruptly when a surge of pain climbed up his arm and poked his brain with a sharp stick. It felt like his hand was on fire. When he looked down, he could see why. Multiple short, thin cuts ran from the tips of his fingers all the way to his wrist. They were shallow, barely more than flimsi-cuts, but there were dozens of them. It looked as if he'd let an angry nexu cub use his hand as a scratch-post. He wiggled his fingers, just to make sure he still could. It hurt like dipping his hand in one of Dex's fryers, but the digits all moved on command.
'Looks like I was right.' He chuckled. 'It was both. Note to self; don't stick my hand in a bunch of wind chakra.'
Everyone else in the hallway, droids and clone alike, had frozen at the sound of his attack (Wind Punch? No, too generic.). Even the advanced combat heuristics of the MagnaGuards needed a moment to process such a dramatic deviation from an established baseline. Fortunately, Ponds had weeks of experience watching him do crazy, random nonsense on the battlefield, and even injured, he recovered first. Like the elite soldier he was, he took immediate advantage of the opportunity in front of him and drove his vibroknife under the chest plate of the headless MagnaGuard and up into its power source. The blade screeched as it cut through circuitry and servos, and he gave it a single, savage twist. The droid's limbs all convulsed as one and then went limp. Just like that, in less than ten seconds, half of their opponents were down.
"How did you do that, sir?" Ponds asked as he moved to guard Naruto's back. The remaining MagnaGuards finally unfroze and began to advance once more.
"I tried something new." Naruto held up his mangled hand. "I think it needs some work, though. Maybe if I- whoa!"
He ducked under a blade the Force had just warned him was about to take the top of his head off. With a self-recriminatory snort, he focused back on the two deadly droids that were still trying to kill them. Even with two of their number destroyed, the remaining two fought with the same deadly precision as before. What they lacked in numbers, they made up for with increased mobility in the less crowded space. This time, however, Naruto could fight back.
He used the Force to parry one of their blades into the other's arm while he gathered chakra in his hand once more. This time, he went with a thinner, more manageable coating, and he took the extra second to add a barrier between his hand and the chakra, like the outer shell of a rasengan. He wasn't sure if it had worked or not, as he didn't feel much of a difference, but he wasn't going to waste time dithering. Fast as he could, he slipped under the blades of the nearest droid and unleashed his second wind enhanced punch into its midsection.
Once again, there was a deafening burst of wind. It wasn't quite the thunderclap of the first punch, but it was still enough to make his ears ache and his eyes water. The droid's eyes instantly went dark and its swords tumbled from useless fingers. When it fell apart, though, it was only into five pieces rather than the dozens of the first droid. Unfortunately, his hand didn't come off completely unscathed either. He swallowed a shout as a few more cuts joined the others, which had already started to heal.
"Stand, that smarts," he growled. "Still, I guess it's progress. As for you…"
He turned to the last droid, which had suddenly contrived to look nervous. It was an interesting thing to see such a menacing machine, one that had nearly killed both of them multiple times in the last few minutes, hesitate. He felt pity for it, and for all battle droids in that moment; brought into existence solely to be a weapon in someone else's war, unable to grow beyond its purpose but still aware enough to understand it was about to die. Even more advanced class 4 droids like MagnaGuards didn't have sufficient processing power to evolve beyond the violence hard-coded into their circuits. He cursed the cheap bastards who's chosen to load basic personality modules into battle droids in lieu of developing a proper operating interface. It gave them just enough sentience to fear their own ends, but not enough to understand why they were doing the things they did, or to choose whether or not to continue. It made him nauseous just to think about. Bile rose in his throat and he ground his teeth helplessly. He thought it might have been the single greatest act of cruelty he'd ever heard of, but in the end, it didn't change anything. The MagnaGuard was a threat, and he had to deal with it.
He raised his uninjured hand and seized the droid with the Force. After what his first two attempts at channeling wind chakra through his hand had done to him, he wasn't about to try a third if he didn't have to. Instead, he wrapped the droid in invisible, unbreakable bonds. It floated a meter off the deck, limbs forced straight, fingers twitching uselessly. Then he concentrated his power and clenched his fist. Metal tore, glass shattered, plastoid cracked, and the droid crumpled like a tin can. For another moment, it hung in the air, dripping hydraulic fluid in a sick mimicry of gore, barely recognizable as a droid, let alone one of the most advanced combat droids ever made. Then he released his hold, and it clattered to the floor. The clang of metal on metal rang like a bell, signifying their victory.
"Whew," he gasped. All the adrenaline left his system in an instant. His legs threatened to buckle under him and he slumped against the wall, panting. Suddenly, he was acutely aware of the sticky warmth along his side, on his leg, and soaking into his sleeve. The cuts burned as if freshly salted, and he had to bite his lip to keep from crying out. With each breath, each tiny movement, fabric from his under-tunic stuck to the wounds and stung as it pulled away.
"Did- did we win?" Ponds asked from somewhere behind him. "Because I feel like we might have won."
Naruto chuckled, then gasped as it pulled at the cut on his side. "That depends. Are you still alive?"
"For a given value of the word," Ponds answered. His own injuries were obvious just from the strain in his voice.
"Then we won." Saying it felt surreal. The fight hadn't lasted all that long, especially compared to some of the battles he'd been in since the war started, but he hadn't been so unsure of his own survival since his duel with Count Dooku. If he hadn't pulled that new technique (Flying Swallow Fist? No, not original enough.) out of his ass at the end, neither of them would have lasted much longer.
'Thanks, Kyuubi. You really saved my ass there. I knew you cared.'
The fox let out an exasperated huff. 'Do not insult me, ningen. I already regret it.'
'Sure, sure.' Naruto smiled. He knew the fox was coming around. No one could spend all their time around him and not become his friend. It was physically impossible, even for someone as grumpy as the Kyuubi. He hadn't even threatened to eat him this time. By their standards, that was practically a sworn oath of eternal brotherhood.
'You make me nauseous, you repugnant mud crawler. Next time, I will just let you die.'
Okay, so maybe there was still room for improvement. Either way, Naruto wasn't about to let anything wipe the smile off his face just yet. It was important to savor the little things in life, like not getting carved into little pieces by murderous droids.
Ponds limped up to lean on the wall next to him. "What was that you did at the end? How'd you slice the droids up like that?"
"It was just something new I tried. I think it needs some work, though." He held up his mangled hand. "It's got a nasty kick to it."
Ponds hissed softly, then dissolved into a fit of painful sounding coughs. Naruto took him by the arm and gently lowered him to the ground. "Easy there. You're not allowed to die after the big fight. Everyone knows that."
Ponds snorted. "Doing my best, sir."
Naruto had, conservatively, the second strongest connection to the Force of any living Jedi. He was still a novice when it came to accessing that power, but it was there all the same. For all that, though, he was useless when it came to healing. Medical ninjutsu and Force healing both evaded his understanding. About all he could manage was inducing a healing trance, and that wasn't an option on a hostile ship. Nevertheless, he reached out towards Ponds' presence in the Force. It was fainter than a Jedi's, and so similar to the other clones'. Similar, but not identical. They weren't just copies of each other. They were brothers, like an army of twins.
The physical injuries were beyond his skill to heal, but with his empathy, he could find the man's pain. It coiled around his Force signature like an angry red parasite, claws dug in everywhere, poison leaking into everything. He was surprised Ponds had been able to function at all with such injuries. Gently, careful not to disrupt the delicate patterns of the clone's soul, Naruto siphoned the pain away and let it dissipate into the Force. It was like handling something hot and sharp and greasy all at the same time. Even with his own shields, occasional flashes of phantom hurt made it through. He gritted his teeth and pushed them back out, though. They weren't his, and he refused to accept them.
He was careful not to wholly remove Ponds' sense of pain. With his injuries, there was too high a risk of him rupturing something if he couldn't feel anything at all. He took most of it, however, and Ponds breathed easier. His fists unclenched, and some of the tension drained from his shoulders.
"Thanks, sir." He sat up and tenderly prodded at his chest. "That's… better. A lot better."
Naruto gave him an eye-smile. "Don't worry about it. I figured you should end the mission on your feet. Let's get to the engine room. The hard part's over."
They both froze. Naruto thought he could see the words leave his mouth, snickering and rubbing their hands together. He wanted to grab them, swallow them, take them back, but it was too late. He could already hear the universe gearing up to laugh at his stupidity. Beside him, Ponds cursed softly.
"You did not just-"
"It was an accident," he protested, not that it made any difference now. Right on cue, he sensed Jiraiya climbing back up towards them. He didn't feel happy.
Sure enough, when his godfather clambered through the hole he'd made earlier, his expression was grim. Not just 'my opponent got away from me' grim, but 'shit has gone to scud in a speeder' sort of grim. His dark eyes scanned over both of them, narrowed a bit when he saw their injuries, and then glanced at the scrapped MagnaGuards. Apparently satisfied that they weren't still fighting and weren't about to keel over and die, he wasted no time in relieving himself all over Naruto's good mood.
"Grievous set the ship to self-destruct and ran off. He said the blast would take out half the fleet. We only have a few minutes."
Ponds looked at Naruto, and even with the helmet, Naruto could feel his glare boring a hole through him. "You know this is your fault, right?"
He did know that. There was only one possible outcome to saying something like "the hard part is over" or "nothing else can go wrong". He could hear the universe howling with laughter. If he focused, he thought he could sense it flipping him off as well. There was only one thing to say.
"Oops?"
OoOoOoOoOoOoO
Finally, at long last, after far too long, the moment you've all been waiting for, Grievous actually has an on screen fight scene aaaaaannnd… he gets seven different kinds of shit kicked out of him. I mean, there was really no other outcome. He squared off against Jiraiya. Grievous is a menace, don't get me wrong, but right now Jiraiya is second only to Yoda in combat ability amongst the Jedi. At full power, he might surpass everyone except Sidious (at least currently). Of course he dog walks Grievous. It was never going to go any other way. However, in true Star Wars style, Grievous had an escape plan. He'll be back, and not everyone will have such an easy time against him as our favorite Pervy Sage.
Several people have asked me over the years if Naruto will ever develop Shatterpoint, and my answer has always been, and continues to be, no. However, I've been planning his new technique for a while now, and I think it should satisfy what everyone was actually hoping to see. Namely, Naruto destroying droids with just his hands. He still needs some practice so he doesn't feed his fist to a Cuisinart every time he uses the technique, but anyone who was thinking of trading hands with Naruto rather than dueling him just got their parade thoroughly rained on.
Let me know what you thought of this chapter in the review section. And please, feel free to throw out names for Naruto's new technique. I genuinely haven't decided what I'm going to name it yet. See you all next time.