Hidden in the Night Sky

Chapter 26: The Night is Darkest...

The moment that the two staves clashed, there was a second of silence. Immediately after, the water around them exploded, giving rise to a sizable wave. The second clash caused that forming wave to explode, sending droplets of water everywhere, each feeling more like a bullet as they impacted on those surrounding the two monsters that were locked in melee.

Both combatants flew back from the force of the second blow.

"Impressive," Sarutobi said. "You've gotten very strong, Naruto," he complimented, as he skidded a bit on the water before righting himself. There was a small explosion of water, making the burst of chakra he'd used to stop his momentum quite obvious. As the water moved quite violently still, his footing was quite unsure for all of an instant.

She narrowed her eyes at him and stopped herself by flapping the wings granted to her by Sleipnir. She clicked her tongue and dismissed the spear she'd used to block his attack. "Strong enough," she replied, "to kill you here!"

"I'll have to brave that danger. I reckon there's still a thing or two I can teach you," Sarutobi said, twirling Enma around for a moment before slamming the butt of his staff form on the turbulent water. A wave of chakra swept through it, rendering it fully still.

"Parlor tricks like that aren't very impressive," Naruto said, leaning back slightly. "Was that meant to intimidate me?"

Sarutobi laughed. "Of course not, silly child," he said. "Let's resume for now..." he said, throwing Enma upwards and bringing his hands together. A small flash of chakra and person-sized clouds of smoke heralded the arrival of four shadow clones. Sarutobi caught Enma before it hit the water, while each of his clones pulled seemed to each pull a different weapon from seals stitched onto their battlesuits. A sword, a pair of sai, a pair of nunchaku and a pair of tonfas. "I am called The Professor because I have learned, and mastered, quite a few forms of combat, and have taught them to many who are now recognized as masters. Let me give you a lesson in weaponry, Naruto."

Naruto's eyes narrowed. "Do you know what the difference between you and I is, Old Man?"

"That I earned my abilities while yours fell on your lap?" Sarutobi quipped.

"No. That I don't need to actually wield my weapons," Naruto said, waving both of her hands. "Bring forth spears and infuse them with blood! Bloody Dagger!"

Sarutobi and his clones had a few moments to react, but they all did, avoiding the rush of daggers that appeared around them and quickly closed in the rings they had formed, by either jumping out of the way or letting themselves fall into the water below.

Naruto herself floated back about the length of a step, her muscles tensing. Two had jumped, two had gone under and the original had blocked using his staff. She knew what came next, and she was absolutely correct, as a four pronged attack using several different avenues, each banking on the fact that there was no reason why they should fear hitting each other as they were just clones...

Of course, unfortunately for the old man, he wasn't facing a ninja, who would rely on their reflexes and training, and who would make a rookie mistake by forgetting the old man in the middle or even worse, rushing the old man because they thought him defenseless. Naruto used a move she'd copied off Nanoha and used Flash Move to get out of the way, leaping backwards. The clones' weapons clashed with each other in perfect harmony - even when they didn't care about hitting each other, the old man was just too skilled to be hit by his own attack. It was truly impressive.

It was also impressive to see the clones push off each other to avoid the supersized Enma that would've flattened them against the water. Naruto herself used another stolen technique, the Body Flicker, to move out of the way. Her body was already protesting it, and she knew she wouldn't be able to do it a third time, so when the other follow up came as he swept the staff around, she laid flat on her back against the water and watched it go right over where her chest had been.

The clones were on the move, and Naruto took to the sky, avoiding a barrage of shuriken and kunai, the water behind her exploding with enough violence that it covered her actions for a moment. It was all she needed to point one of her index fingers at a clone each. "Pierce through, Death Beam!" she called, and cast two spells simultaneously. Proving that even in mid air they weren't defenseless, the clones twisted to avoid the attacks.

Naruto growled and shot upwards, knowing that he had no way of following her. She did so fast enough that by the time she stopped, a few seconds after, she was already reaching heights at which she'd have difficulty breathing without a barrier jacket. "A million stars to light the night sky! Divine Shooter, GENOCIDE SHIFT!"

The night sky was, indeed, lit up by countless pink dots.

"Holy- that's a lot of bullets!" Arf shouted. "Yuuno, can you block this!? I don't think she's going to aim them!"

"Of course I can," Yuuno called, bringing both hands up, a layered green barrier appearing before him, "I hope," he muttered to himself.

Sarutobi's eyes narrowed. "Enma!" he called.

"Right!" the Monkey King answered, and lengthened to a truly ridiculous state.

Sarutobi looked at Yuuno. "That barrier looks solid. Is it?" he asked.

"Yes," Yuuno said. "What are-"

But by the time he'd questioned it, Sarutobi had already jumped onto the green platform made of magic, hefting his humongous staff. With nary a doubt, he began to spin Enma around, as the bullets approached.

They'd all converged on their position. They were spread out to such an extent that they would've hit anyone, even had they tried to dodge, but... instead of hitting any of the people below, the bullets were all caught by the spinning Enma, each batted away without much incident.

From high up above, Naruto growled in frustration. "Of course," she muttered, even as she sent another large volley. "If you wanna play it that way," she muttered, holding the Tome of the Night Sky in one hand and pointing the other, palm first, at where NachtWal told her Sarutobi was standing. "Burn hotter than the life-giving sun, destroyer of life! Annihilation Bolt!"

Down below, near the water, the others saw the power gather far above in a bright flash.

"Disperse!" Yuuno shouted, "it's too powerful to block!"

He didn't have to call twice, as they all used whatever techniques and abilities they could to clear the area, and not a moment too soon, as a massive bolt of lightning, as wide as the biggest tree in Konoha, cut through the space they'd been in, hitting the water with such force that it actually created a gigantic explosion before dispersing, sending a massive cloud of scalding hot steam into the air, forcing everyone to disperse even further.

Naruto flew down to try to capitalize on the broken ranks created by her attack, but when she pounced on Sarutobi, she found out that her attack hadn't dispelled the clones, or he had made new ones. She had tried to come down with all her speed and kick him in the head, a rather basic but satisfying move, only to find out he was ready enough with a shrunk Enma to block her, and that his clones were more than ready to pounce on the opportunity. She found herself in a rather awkward position, having been forced to manifest actual armor to block the simple weapons, which she found awkward to wear at best.

The lack of mobility bit her as one of the clones seemed to grab one of its brethren and swung him at her like a hammer. The hammer-clone came down on her like the lightning bolt she'd just thrown and she felt the armor crack and break under the pressure of his assisted attack... only moments before she felt two of her ribs caving in, piercing through one of her lungs.

The pain was rather unpleasant, but it woke her up from the daze she found herself in and she kicked off, dispelling the armor and taking to the sky once more, favoring her side. Before she could gather herself, she coughed, spitting a mouthful of blood. Moments after, she also vomited a mixture of bile and blood. Had her spell of flight depended on her and not NachtWal, she'd probably have already joined her vomit down in the ocean. She looked down and saw a sizable and ugly purple mark already forming on her stomach. There was a needle stuck at the center of the ugly bruise. "When did- how-"

"I told you I could teach you a few things," Sarutobi quipped. "You still think you can take me? If you give up right now, I promise I won't spank you too hard after this."

Naruto growled in frustration. "You're getting tired already, aren't you old timer!?" she nearly shouted. Though she seemed to want to give the appearance of being calm enough to banter, she was clearly anything but. "You want to end the fight now 'cause you can't keep going on for long!"

"On the contrary, I'm saving you the embarrasment," Sarutobi replied.

Naruto lost whatever shred of her temper was left and she rushed forward. This time, however, she was accompanied by not one but three floating spears beside her, making four with the one that had appeared in her hands, each red and pulsing. They clashed once more and the spears that floated along with Naruto began to flail about, seemingly randomly, though a skilled observer would notice the small weapons - needles, it seemed - that were being knocked out of the sky.

Yuuno winced.

Arf whistled. "Hot damn, the old man is good," she muttered.

Nodding, Yuuno concentrated further on the fight. "He's... he's intentionally bantering with her, keeping her from gathering her thoughts and concentrating properly. She's not experienced enough to see through his ploy," he muttered.

"But isn't she pretty much just letting the book control her?" Arf wondered. "I mean, if she got angry, it wouldn't really change anything, right?"

"That's what I thought, too... it seems she's more in control of herself than we thought... Or, perhaps, more in tune with the book than we believed."

Suddenly, they both felt the opening of a new channel and turned their attention to the new voice in their conversation, and they knew it was Lindy before she began to speak. The wonders of telepathy. "Reinforcements are inbound to your position. They are Konoha personnel. I've communicated with some of their officials, and they agree with me, this must be kept as much under wraps as we can keep it, so... only Konoha and TSAB personnel allowed. Try to keep everyone else out of this. We'll rejoin combat if our reinforcements can't handle it. For now, take a moment to rest, you'll probably need your energy."

"Acknowledged," both said, and immediately darted off, ignoring the fight before them and going in search of the new signatures to brief them on the situation.

Soon enough, they found a pair of men with questionable fashion sense running on the water. They descended and raised their hands, the universal sign for parley.

One of the men had bright silver hair visible even in the penumbra of the night that they hadn't even realized had set in, and the other had hair so dark it was invisible in the dark. Both, however, were rather visible due to the green jackets that they wore. Would probably be camouflaged a lot better in the forest, Yuuno realized. Still, there was work to be done.

Nanoha looked down. "I have a bad feeling," she muttered.

"So do I," Fate agreed, then the two of them looked upon the Avatar of the tome.

"There's something wrong," the Avatar muttered. "It's as if-"

"As if you'd been detected," someone interrupted, with a voice everyone involved knew very well.

However, the body attached to said voice was quite different. It was still recognizable as Naruto, yes, but it appeared as if she had... decayed. Her skin was pale, not just light, but with a greenish tint, she was as pale as a corpse. Her once almost-golden hair had lost all of its brightness and lustre, gaining a slightly greenish tint as well.

She was also wearing nothing, but her body lacked sexual features of anykind, instead just being marked all over with red lines in the shape of roots extending all over her body, from the tips of her toes to the tips of her fingers and stopping just below her eyes.

"What- Who-" Nanoha shook her head, while Fate seemed just as lost.

"... You have no right to wear that form," the Avatar said, her tone ice cold.

"Why not? It's mine, isn't it?" the pale Naruto asked, tilting her head to the side.

"How insolent..." the avatar muttered. "It isn't yours, it will never be yours. She will wake up... and you will be subdued."

"Are you going to betray me, then?" the pale Naruto asked, her eyes narrowing. "You will betray your mistress?"

"You made an error in judgment," the Avatar said.

"Oh? Then you will return them to the sleep I arranged for them?" the pale Naruto asked. "You are, after all, bound to follow my orders. It's in your programming, isn't it? You can't say no."

"I can't betray you," the Avatar explained.

Nanoha and Fate gasped. This was the worst thing that could happen and yet...

For some reason, neither of them felt compelled to draw their devices to defend themselves.

"I can't betray someone who never had my loyalty to begin with!" the avatar said, raising one hand. A large rectangle of light showed up, acting as a sort of screen, quickly filling up with numbers and figures, none of which made much sense to Nanoha or Fate, as they witnessed the inner workings of lost technology. "Begone from my sight!"

"How..!" the pale Naruto began to say, just before similar screens began to pop up around her. "How is this-!?"

"I am the Master Program, insolent virus," the Avatar said, her eyes narrowed. "You made a mistake showing yourself. Consider this a warning. I will not fail. I will awaken mistress, even if I must face deletion to do so!"

The screens broke apart and the shards began to stick to the pale Naruto's skin. She screamed in seeming agony, causing Nanoha and Fate to wince and look away.

"HOW DARE YOU, OBSOLE-"

However, her words were cut short as she faded away into glowing dust.

The Avatar took a deep breath.

"What... what was that?" Fate asked. "It couldn't have been..."

"Yeah, that looked nothing like Naruto at all, even though it sounded like her!" Nanoha added.

"It wasn't," the Avatar said. "It was just part of the corruption infecting the book, a virus spawned from it that intended to infect myself, as well. It's not much to worry about. Even though wwe've been detected, it seems as if Mistress' mind is on something else, and she can't spare the attention to realize what is actually going on. If we're lucky, she'll dismiss it from her mind entirely. If we aren't, then we'll have to hurry, we are now working under a much reduced time limit..."

"Then we should hurry," Fate said.

"Eheh, you've been working on your speed, haven't you?" Nanoha asked, though her attempt to keep them cheered up wasn't quite working, as she herself wasn't in very good cheer.

Sarutobi's eyes narrowed. He dived under the water just in time to avoid a massive conflagration that consumed the area he was standing in. He knew she knew where he was. Her spear broke the water's surface first, but Sarutobi easily avoided the tip, twisting slightly underwater so that it passed by his side harmlessly. The second one was unexpected, however, and it actually made a small scratch on his arm, which he hadn't managed to pull out of the way in time. Enma blocked the third.

There would have been a fourth and a fifth, but the reinforcements had arrived, as Sarutobi could tell from the shout that echoed even underwater.

"DYNAMIC ENTRY!"

And the Sonic Boom that followed Gai destroying the sound barrier and kicking someone in the same fluid motion. Truly, a sight for sore eyes and relief for lungs that were crying out for the surface.

It didn't take long for the Sandaime to burst out of the water. Both of the present jounin instantly moved to each of his sides. "Kakashi. Gai. Have you been briefed?"

"Affirmative," Kakashi said, neutrally. "I... I'm not sure it's a good idea for me to be here."

He was almost unrecognizable, in the shape of a bland, forgettable brunet. Oddly reminiscent of someone Sarutobi's mind could vaguely recall, but he couldn't quite put a name to the face in his mind.

"I agree, Hokage-sama," Gai said, his voice fully serious, a strange sight for any but those who had seen him during a war.

"We're just here to delay her and give the Knights time to get their act together. We'll take a break then. Kakashi, disguise yourself if you must, but I can't afford to bring any of quality lower than yourselves," Sarutobi spoke, twirling Enma, almost as if to rewarm his muscles after the momentary reprieve Gai had bought them. "And get ready - she won't be down for long."

"SON OF A BITCH!" Naruto screamed as she surfaced from the water with a gigantic explosion. "That hurt!" she added, as she focused on the three in front of her. With a growl, she pointed the tip of one of her spears forward. "You're acknowledging you can't handle me, old man!"

"Not without killing you," Sarutobi admitted. "You've grown very strong Naruto. Ridiculously so," Sarutobi admitted.

"Of course I am! I'm the strongest there is by default! I am the Ruler of the Night Sky!" Naruto shouted, blue flame blazing as it enveloped her, illuminating her in the darkness of the night.

"Well, she's got the ego of a big name ninja, that's for sure," Kakashi noted, idly.

"Her youth burns brightly," Gai said, slipping off his serious persona for a moment. "Truly, I am saddened that sickness took the wonderful ninja she could have been from us," he said, bowing slightly, "in order to show my respect for your overwhelming youth, Naruto-chan, I shall fight you to the best of my abilities!"

"See? He gets it," Naruto said, nodding in approval. "Of course, I don't think I know who you are..."

"That's okay," Gai said. "My name is Maito Gai, I shall be your opponent now!" Gai shouted. "Come dance, young one! I will teach you the ropes of Taijutsu!"

Naruto grinned.

She became a blurry shape in the sky for a second.

There was only enough time for Kakashi and Sarutobi to dive out of the way, and for Gai to make the sea behind him explode into a tidal wave as he leaped forward to meet Naruto's charge.

The place they met was marked with a shockwave that caused another tidal wave to raise. Sarutobi grunted with effort as he used a water jutsu to raise a wave of his own to counter it, lest it continue on and damage anything and everything on shore. The clashing of chakra and nature dispelled Kakashi's genjutsu.

"What horrendous physical strength," he heard someone mutter. "I can't believe he's matching her."

"He's not," Kakashi said.

Sarutobi glanced at Kakashi, Yuuno and Arf from the corner of his eye.

"Gai is only using as much strength as he needs, and relying on his skill to bridge the gap. Gai is not pushing his strength to the limit."

"What!? But he's going toe to toe with her!" Arf shouted. "And he's moving faster than Fate using Sonic Form, so how-"

"He's using something called the Eight Gates of Heaven. It's a technique that temporarily removes the limitations that our bodies place on ourselves," Kakashi explained.

"That sounds highly suicidal," Yuuno muttered. "Especially if what little I know of how chakra works applies."

"It is," Kakashi said, frowning a bit. "Gai is a master, though, and he can minimize the ill effects of the first few gates. Even so, he won't last long without using more of the Gates as the fight goes on."

"Then why aren't you helping him right now? You're fresh, right?" Arf asked.

"Well... I really don't want Naruto to recognize me," Kakashi admitted. "I'm not sure anyone wants that."

"What... you know her, then?" Yuuno asked.

Sarutobi shook his head. "Now is not the time. Kakashi, don a disguise. Pretend to be your own apprentice. She'll be angrier, but less angry than she'd be if she recognized you," he said.

"But I'm really curious," Arf said. "Why don't you want her to recognize you?"

"Hokage-sama is right, now is not the time," Kakashi said with a sigh. He wished he could use a genjutsu for this, but there was no way it'd hold through the entire fight. Thanking his lucky stars that his charge had never seen his face, he removed his mask and pulled a small black box which had a weird skin toned paste in it from his jounin vest. He applied it over the scar tissue surrounding his left eye.

"This should be enough," Kakashi said.

"It's water resistant?" Arf asked, almost incredulous. "As in, resists getting several thousand litres of water poured on you, I mean..."

"It'll hold," Kakashi said.

"The hair," Sarutobi said.

With a sigh, Kakashi puled out a kunai. He'd miss his hair until it grew back, but he chopped it off dutifully and let it fall on the ocean.

They were ready.

And it was a good thing that they were, because just then, they heard Gai roar as the morning peacock clashed against a barrier.

"Shit, he's up to the fourth gate already?"

The roar of the tiger disagreed.

"Make that fifth. Shit shit shit," Kakashi muttered.

"Let's move," Sarutobi said. "You two - try to get us reinforcements. I don't know if we can hold her down too long!"

Arf and Yuuno nodded.

There was another massive explosion.

Gai had just blocked a super powered Divine Buster with his bare hands.

"T-That's insane," Arf muttered.

Yuuno winced, seeing Gai's badly burned hand as he shook it.

Naruto herself had a rather large bruise on her cheek, but it was already fading, and at a visible rate.

The disadvantage of fighting a regenerating opponent was fairly obvious.

Still, as she was about to once more launch an attack, she quickly turned around and used a conjured shield to block a staff attack. "Hah, didn't get me this time!" she crowed in triumph.

She did so too soon, however, as she was quickly hit with a sandal to the back of the head, making her crash head first into her own shield, which broke under the pressure, and then against the adamantine staff of the Sandaime Hokage.

"GODS FUCKING DAMMIT!"

Nanoha rubbed her nose.

Fate, blushing brightly, picked herself up off the ground.

The Avatar of the Tome pointedly ignored both of them.

"They're pink..." Fate muttered, mostly to herself, shaking her head and slapping her own cheeks. "We should move."

"Fate-chan, if you just wanted to peek up my skirt, you could've just asked, you know," Nanoha said, rising from the position that the rough tumble they'd just taken landed her in. "What just happened? How can there be an earthquake here?"

"She probably took a very heavy physical blow to the face or back of the head, possibly both," the Avatar explained. "We are in her mind - if something hits her hard enough that her brain is rattled, then we would feel the aftershocks. She came close to unconsciousness."

"That's... that's good right? If she's unconscious, then-" Nanoha started, but then shook her head.

"It'd be worse, wouldn't it?" Fate asked.

"Yeah, I just thought of that. If she went unconscious, then the Defense Program would take over, right?" Nanoha asked the avatar.

"Possibly. I'm not certain right now," the Avatar said. "While I am still the Master Program and in control, I can't exactly tell you what the settings currently preset are - the configuration applications are corrupted, and so I cannot interface with them without administrator rights."

"Goodside is... I can see the last memory," Fate stated. "We can fly safely in here, right?"

"Well... we've already been detected by the automated system, so I wouldn't advise it, but you could if you want to," the Avatar explained. "Why?"

"Because I can see the memory we're looking for right now," Fate said, looking up. The other two did as well.

"Huh. We were never going to find it," Nanoha said. "It's a clever hiding place."

It was in the shape of a cloud. It was still recognizable as it shone with its own light in the strange sky, but it was something that could logically be in this bizarre world, so...

"I'll grab a hold of you two, so you can enter it without issue," the Avatar said, "but we must hurry. If we fly, we will shorten the time we have available until the mistress finds us herself."

Nanoha and Fate nodded.

"Sleipnir," the avatar muttered, six black wings sprouting from her back.

"I think they're bigger than Naruto's," Nanoha remarked.

"Don't tell mistress that, she might get offended," the avatar remarked. "Either way, let's hurry."

With a nod from all three to mark that they were ready, they all shot upwards, in the direction of the shining cloud.

The arms wrapped around her torso were preventing her lungs from expanding.

She couldn't breathe. Her ribcage was collapsing under the strain.

"Let me go!" she croaked, her voice hoarse, her throat barely able to push out the whisper.

"Never, little piggy," the oddly masked man stated. His breath tickled the back of her neck, but it only made shivers run down her spine, making her stiffen once more.

She couldn't breathe, she didn't know what was going on. Something was missing, something comforting, something terrifying, something was missing and she couldn't tell what it was.

Spots began to fill her vision, and the pressure around her ribs let up slightly. "Now now, don't want you dyin' early on me," the man said. "Well, what's it gonna be, boys? We cool, or are there goin' ta be corpses?"

"Let her go," one of her masks asked, advancing menacingly, "and you will be spared the torture."

"Oh ho, stay still there, and put that iron down," the man said. "I gots me a kill pill in one of me teeth, y'see," the man said, grinning widely as if to show the filling in one of his teeth, "so I ain't afraid of no torture. Bein' a dead man either way, I figures, yanno, I found me a cute little container wanderin' 'round at night, and like the responsible 'dult I am, I thoughts to myself, ey, sum'one's gotta take this here cutie all the way to her new home," he said, grinning widely. "'course, tha' new home could jus' as easily be a ditch sum'were if ye boys don' let me walk away."

The masks growled, but stayed their hands.

"Now that right'ere's some good boys," the man said. "'course, none of you bought that load of shit I just spat on ya," he said, chuckling. "I know how tough this little girly 'ere is. Ya think I didn't come prepared, ya fools?" the man asked, removing one of his hands from her torso and pulled out a kunai, which had everyone present tensing. "Now I need you to follow me on this'un, and follow close-like," he said, nodding at the masks. "This one here's aware she can get back up with a broken neck, y'see, an' I know slittin' her throat's just as useless."

The masks remained still.

"But one thing I do know for sho works," he said, twirling the kunai in his hand, "is dis 'ere compound, made specifically to kill'er kind, jus' in case one of ours went nuts. Figures it'd come in handy when I ran, huh? Sucks to waste this shit, but I ain't survivin' to regret it 'nyway," he said, chuckling a bit.

"You will not survive tonight," one of the masks stated solemnly, taking a step forward.

"Well, damn, guess this is a failure, then," the man said, all trace of silliness gone as he stood straight. "Well, kid, sad to say, but it is your own damn village that set you to die tonight," he said, biting down harshly at the same time the hand holding the poisoned kunai darted towars his hostage's exposed neck.

The world whirled, twisted, changed - moved - and suddenly she stared at the man, slumping to the floor, already dead, and where she had been.

"NO!"

Every sense left her as she broke free of the restraints she'd been placed in, barreling over the moving masks, but she was grabbed, her hands stretched.

The last thing she saw was a shock of gravity defying silver hair, and the body it was attached to, slumped in the ground next to her would be killer, bleeding from the side, the blood dark and thick with the consistency of ichor and the color of ink, and then the world went black.

Woo.

That took forever.

Also, some of you might be wondering what the hell just happened.

Well, I sorta died and went to hell, I could tell right away by the awful smell. The hell of having a new job, obviously.

Anyway, you might be confused as to what just happened in-story. Patience, young padawan, is the most valuable of virtues, particularly when it shouldn't be that long before an explanation comes.