A/N: Before we begin, please remember these battles are 'scaled', they seem cool but they are super low level... I'm sure Anko would break the boss in a kick or two if she was there. The dungeon/non dungeon worlds share a great similarity, but IN the dungeon world things can be waaaay different. (Because I'm lazy and I can) I am also not going to be displaying as many damage indicators in this chapter, mostly so that I can actually finish it. I spend far too much time on math and balancing. Also to the guy complaining about his kenjutsu skill being higher than his ninjato, I am not sure if I am accurately portray my opinion of this properly. From experience, quite a few things can be used to physically train your body with a weapon type to help build up the muscles and instincts needed. This does not translate straight into someones ability with a weapon, which could be different from what they learned with. This is also the reason his Kenjutsu skill hasn't been replaced by a kenjutsu style. Well that and I haven't found one yet, but I've got time for him to learn the basics anyways.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, or any of the other elements you see appear.

"Speaking."

'Inner Speech.' (This will be rare, I personally only acknowledge its use in checking if something is fit for public saying myself)

Game/Alerts/Jutsu

"Animal speech."

"Demonic and Summon speech."

The spitfire-rats seemed to have excellent aim with their Firebile, causing enough damage to the rope around Ino for her to pull herself free. We got close enough for me to take a heavy slice at the ropes binding the others, and Ino was forced to keep Diana and Kanemaru from falling as 2 of the scorch chanters lowered a spitfire down a rope to them.

The other spitfires were busy firing down at the nest of the fire-rats, as a dozen other airships landed crews onto the nest before engaging the few enemy airships against us. I sheathed my sword and used my good arm to help haul the others aboarb, Galefur helping to make it easier on us. When Ino finally managed to get on she dragged the others right up after her, taking the health potions and forcing them into the bleeding girl and ninken.

"The coward is running," Galefur snarled as he watched Gnarblaze run off towards another airship.

"Team," I call, addressing my party which was slowly coming back around. "Can you continue?" At their shaky nods, I gave a thumbs up to Galefur, "Let's get him."

Kanemaru

Health: 70/103 Chakra Pool: 15/35

Ino Yamanaka

Health: 120/195 Chakra Pool: 75/145

Diana

Health: 85/145 Chakra Pool: 105/130

"Diana tried to stop them with a Wind jutsu," Ino supplied at my questioning glance, since I hadn't seen Diana using chakra. "It's what caused most of the damage she took, Fire overpowers Wind."

I gave a wince, but I was glad that most of their injuries seemed to be superficial, since the health potion handled most of them. Thankfully they'd also get a chance to get a breather while we chased this rat down, though it was highly annoying as his airship wasn't able to get very high, but it was annoyingly quick in a straight line. We swiftly left the nest and most of the biggers hills behind, swiftly making our way to the trees lining the edge of this training ground.

Unfortunately the combination of a headwind, tons of trees at the edge of the rocky area, and bigger bulk led to us being unable to get him into attack range. I could even see the smug little rat smirk on his ugly face. And by the Log someone needed to have drowned that thing when he was born, it was a nasty piece of work.

If it wasn't for the fact that I was wide awake and had even given myself a pinch to make sure, I likely would not have believed what I saw when Gnarblaze's stupid laughter drifted back to us. "I thought you said we had the advantage up here," I complained to Galefur.

"We did have the advantage," he replied while glaring at an assembly of ships in the forest. "That bastard must have recreated his own."

Gnarblaze had walked us into a very annoying trap. Even as he transferred over to a much larger craft than his previous one, I realized we needed to leave. With at least a couple dozen airships, that were larger and seemed to have bits and pieces of metal in the front to ram, we wouldn't have a chance. In my impatience to chase the stupid rodent we had left all but one rather brave airship behind, though the crew of that airship was acting rather odd.

"Let's pull back, we can't fight all of them at once." I glanced back over to our allied ship. "And your people are acting weird."

"What?" Galefur asked, before he turned to stare at the airship which was starting to move forward. "No! You fools, don't do it!"

I realized just what they were doing when they lit their own airship aflame, directing it straight at King Gnarblaze and his ship. Galefur screeched out some orders towards our crew, and I felt the airship I was in shift and start to turn away, but I kept my eyes focused on the scene in front of me. I was just hoping those crazy rats did what they wanted to do.

It wasn't to be though, as several of the smaller enemy airships got between them and took the impact. Our brave little allies had managed to bring down 3 other ships, but Gnarblaze's was untouched. They did however buy us the necessary time to turn and start retreating, King Gnarblaze and his floating armada swiftly chasing after us.

Diana, sweetheart that she was, turned to me with a sad look. "They saved us from that trap."

"We should have brought more backup," I said with a wince. "That was a mistake that w-" I was forced to duck under a fireball that blew past where my chest had been. "Take us deeper among the trees," I shouted over to Galefur.

"Are you serious?" The rat looked at me in worry.

I nodded, "They won't be able to use their larger airships deep in the trees like we can. We can't attack them as effectively at range anyways."

Windseeker Galefur gave a grunt, but relayed the order among his people and assisted them in maneuvering it among the branches. We also gained a bit of height to keep us out of range, and I watched as Gnarblaze's ship had to follow along in the wider spacing, but many of his other airships followed us slowly, carefully making their way through. It seemed they were now chasing us rather than attacking, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

"What are we going to do Tetto-kun?" Ino was taking the time to check over my sling and bindings for me.

"We'll lead them closer towards the main nest. We don't have the full crew with us, but we do have someone coming." I glanced at Galefur who gave a firm nod. "Noxen and his bats are supposed to arrive soon. Since we don't have a lot of ranged jutsu we'll have to rely on the bats and the other rats to be able to fight in the air."

"Once Noxen arrives, we shall find a way to board Gnarblaze's airship and strike at him," Galefur confirmed.

I gave a laugh as the airship shifted to avoid another tree, "It probably won't take too much. We've just got to be sure to be more careful."

"Indeed," Kanemaru growled.

A fireball splashed off a tree a short distance away from us, reminding the team to keep their eyes on the enemy. I was forced to sit down since there wasn't much use for me to stand and present a target. This also cleared Ino's line of fire for using Mouth Shot to fire back.

We had been at it for almost 5 minutes when we heard the first engagement. It was a loud number of pained screeches filling that air that got me to stand back up and see what was happening. The closest pursuers behind us were already heading to the ground, their crews having been dragged overboard by swarms of bats.

"Greetings, hmm." I heard from beside the ship. I gave a slight shake and glanced over to find Noxen flying beside us, and several of our own airships were now entering the border of the forest from the hills. "We came to help our allies, hmm. We were not expecting you here. How interesting, hmm."

I shivered slightly at the tone of amusement in that bat's voice. "Hello again Noxen, how are you?"

"Good, hmm," the bat replied. "Cleared our tunnels for us, hmm. We shall assist."

The bat disappeared into the forest, and I saw several uses of the Wind Scythe come flying out, striking at the other enemy ships. A few went down, but their crews managed to disembark on the ground and proceed to group up. This meant yet more ground combat, and unfortunately it seems the majority of both forces had abandoned the fighting at the nest and made their way here.

A massive and vicious melee of rats began on the borders between the hills and forest, several skirmishes happening in the forest itself as the bats and rats led by Windseeker Galefur sought to wrest control from King Gnarblaze. Looming menacing above the battlefield was Gnarblaze and his flagship, the deck had multiple teams of bombers and spitfires that were raining attacks below upon the fighters.

"We have to stop them," I groaned. "Can we land on it?"

"No," Galefur replied, giving a calculating look at the enemy airship. "We can crash onto it though, but we wouldn't have the room to get into the air again."

"So once we're on it, we're stuck until we win?" Ino asked with a pale face.

Galefur nodded, and I glanced at my team. Kanemaru and Diana looked resolute, but Ino looked a little scared of the prospect. "What's wrong Ino-chan?" I asked her.

"We won't have an easy time retreating if we are going to lose," she told me. "And I've already seen that nasty rat up close, he's going to do a lot of damage to us."

I groaned slightly, shaking my head. "We have to beat him Ino-chan. Besides, this is our best chance, while all of his troops are distracted."

"Fine," Ino replied. "Just so you know, if anything goes wrong I'm blaming you."

I laughed at that. "Fair deal Ino, fair deal."

"Noxen!" I called out into the woods.

"What is it?" The large bat flew down from above us and stared at me. "I have enemies to kill, hmm."

"We're attacking Gnarblaze, don't let any ships close enough to escape with him," I informed the bat. "He's going down."

Noxen gave a short laugh, "I shall rule the skies, hmm. None shall pass in capable condition."

As Noxen flew off, I glared at the enemy ship that we turned to assault. It was large, and the deck seemed to be entirely covered in metal sheets. Where they got them I didn't know, but Konoha had several construction sites that they likely could have come from. The sheets making up the balloon for it had seemingly been stitched over several times to create a tight seal. There were all sorts of clothing lining where the sheets seemed to join, though I doubted those lacy things they stitched up were all that helpful.

As we closed in on Gnarblaze's ship, we were rammed heavily by one of his guard airships. Before we could even react a Wind Scythe from Noxen had ripped the thing apart, and managed to heavily gouge the side of the flagship, revealing several packs of spitfires that tried to fire out at us. We were thankfully just fast enough to avoid taking those fireballs, and we landed with a hard bounce upon the deck of the flagship.

I leapt out of the basket, drawing my ninjato and swinging it at the first rat I saw. As my enemy fell, I caught sight of Gnarblaze watching us from further back. A gust from Galefur using Wind Release: Breakthrough cleared out several of the rats in front of us, but they all ingited their auras to keep from being blow off the ship by another burst. Seeing as Galefur had given me a bit of space to advance, I charged back into combat.

I was thanking my bloodline heavily when a fire-rat got past my sword, slamming itself into my left shoulder. With Steel Release preventing a good chunk of damage from getting through, I didn't feel the stupid rat at all, so Galefur dragged it off my shoulder and tossed it to Kanemaru for me. The way my ally rat fought was highly evasive, and he seemed to prefer to leave the close fighting to others.

Ino had a Water Whip lashing out around here, smacking rats back and blocking several of the fireballs that were sent at us. When a pair of Firebile shot past us and ignited our airship, the unfortunate spitfire that had remained on it went up in flames. I gave a wince at the screaming of that rat, but I dutifully cut at another that tried to leap at me.

Gnarblaze seemed to be waiting for something, and when his eyes gleemed in malice when another airship approached I groaned. Luckily enough Noxen seemed to stay true to his word, as moments after I had spotted it he tore through the sheets keeping it afloat and I watched as it crashed to the ground below.

Diana had somehow ended up next to me during the fighting, covering my left side with a pair of kunai. We seriously needed to get her a proper weapon, like a staff or a spear or something. Though that was going to have to wait. 'And here comes the big guy,' I thought with a sneer as Gnarblaze decided to join the fray.

King Gnarblaze

Level: 5

Health: 150/150 Chakra Pool: 35/35

Strength: 8 Dexterity: 5 Vitality: 10 Intelligence: 1 Wisdom: 3 Chakra: 4

Info: The heir of Emberclaw, he grew with the attitude of a future ruler. Unfortunately he is almost as devoted to the Fire element as his father was. The Fire-Rat Brute's serve him as loyal guards.

Flame Aura: Passive.

Firefang: Igniting the aura around his fangs, Emberclaw lunges towards his opponent intending to cause severe burns along with potential disease. Damage: 15.

Great Firebile: A more powerful version of Firebile, a large fireball will be spat forth, causing small explosions on impact. Damage: 20.

Scorch Release: Firestorm: Calling the elements of Fire and Wind, this technique creates a raging torrent of wind with enough heat to cause lethal damage to unaware victims. Damage: Variable.

Defense of the King: Passive: Response teams will constantly seek to help their King in combat, watch out for attacks from behind. +1 Vitality.

"Whoo I have more health than boss," I snickered.

"You idiot," Kanemarue sighed as Gnarblaze screeched in anger.

Mini-Event: Battle aboard the Airship: The showdown has begun! Gnarblaze has called his people to battle. The airships on each side will likely seek to join the battle, be aware of falling debris.

Objective: Survival.

"I'm sorry," I cried out to the others as I dodged a Great Firebile and tried to move in closer.

Gnarblaze was an annoying little bastard, rather quick for his size. Though that wasn't saying much, considering he was up to about my chest, so while he was massive for a rat he wasn't very big at all. Unfortunately for me I just didn't have to speed to catch him with my blade, since I wasn't used to wielding it with one hand for extended periods of time. Without my other hand I just didn't have the strength to get a good speed and power behind my strikes.

This was offset slightly by the fact that I was definitely better in taijutsu fights than a smelly rat, thank the Log or my mother would train me into the dirt again. He wasn't going to be likely to land a Firefang while I was focused on him, though I was getting annoyed at the other rats who tried to jump into the fight.

I cut down a spitfire that had gotten between us when Kanemaru blew past, striking with Passing Fang into the group of rats that had surrounded King Gnarblaze. I ducked another Firebile before I rushed to help my partner, who was currently in a vicious fight with Gnarblaze and a brute. Stabbing the brute in the shoulder, I shoved him into Gnarblaze as Kanemaru bit at the brutes waist.

The brute was finished when Ino managed to wrap her Water Whip around it before proceeding to tear the damn rat off my sword. I wasn't given the time to comment about this as I was tackled to the ground by another brute. I tore the thing apart with my Steel Beast Claw before I grabbed my ninjato from where it had fallen.

"I'm getting seriously sick of this nonsense," I muttered when I saw several more airships flying towards us.

Galefur had thankfully made his ships rather obvious by flying white clothing as flags, but this meant I could tell that a majority of those rats flying towards us were enemies. I noted that even Noxen and his bats were having difficulty keeping them all away, and it seemed the bats had decided to try to cripple as many airships as possible by tearing the balloons apart. This caused more than a few to crash into the ground, but at least half a dozen had managed to either crash onto the ship or get close enough to jump.

Jumping away from a Firestorm, I kicked a bomber overboard as I took stock of the number of rats now covering the ship. Kanemaru and I were the odd ones out, locked in battle with Gnarblaze at the front of the ship. Galefur and the final scorch chanter from our ship were fighting over by the girls, who made heavy use of the kunai we'd brought with us. The reinforcements that had joined both sides were fighting over the back half of the ship, and Galefur's rats had managed to get between us and the enemy.

Unfortunately this meant that the more time I spent swinging at the enemy, the more of these nicer rats died. I slammed Gamer's Mind down as I got hit directly by a Great Firebile, attempting to brush off the pain and the 20 damage as I carved a nice line down Gnarblaze's left arm. I was unlucky enough to take a heavy hit from a brute on my left, which sent me sprawling to the ground again as I grit my teeth at the pain coursing through my arm.

Being forced to roll away from a barrage of Firebile didn't help my attitude, nor did seeing Kanemaru get sent flying back to the others. I sheathed my ninjato and pulled a kunai as I retreated back closer to my allies, dancing away from the attacks of Gnarblaze and the brute that had slammed me. Though nothing quite prepared me for a loud smashing noise, followed by half of the rats currently in the melee on the deck crashing into the lower floors.

"No. No, he's dead," Galefur whispered as I saw a vaguely familiar creature crawl out the hole in the deck.

"Not dead," the creature hissed. "Just hurting."

The small bit of dread I felt building got a lot more intense when I realized just what I was looking at. "Emberclaw? What the hell happened to you?"

The beast snarled as it locked onto me with a deadly aura. "Kill," he hissed out. "Kill."

His right forearm and fist seemed to be made of stone, and an insanely long and thick stone tail dragged along behind him. Emberclaw's chest was covered by plates of metal over a small layer of stone that protected his flesh. This was made all the more intense by the glowing red that came from his left eye, an obvious sign of a demon's influence.

Stone-King Emberclaw

Level: 4

Health: 130/130 Chakra Pool: 45/45

Strength: 4 Dexterity: 1 Vitality: 6 Intelligence: 1 Chakra: 6

Stone-bound: This creature is only alive by a combination of Demonic Chakra and fusing stone in place of body parts. This causes an affinity to Earth and extreme weight, along with increasing their durability by a certain degree. +1 Strength +2 Vitality -1 Dexterity.

Plaguestream: A jet of vile pours out, using the acidic properties to cause pain. Highly likely to cause disease. The liquid will ignite if hit with fire. Damage: 10.

Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall: The user creates a solid wall of earth as a form of defence. Chakra is either converted to earth within the body and then spat out to form the wall or the user can manipulate pre-existing earth to form the wall. The earth then instantly rises up and takes form. Cost: 15 Chakra.

Earth Release: Mudshot: The user fires mud straight from ther mouth at an enemy. This enhanced mud is able to capture and slow an enemy. Cost: 10 Chakra

Info: Through means unknown Emberclaw survived his last fight, and recovered... in his own way. This recovery had the side effect of making his one desire victory of the opponent that defeated him.

I was going to spend as much time as possible after this trying to perfect the Steel Release: Impervious Armour, along with Steel Shield and Steel Projectile, since these bosses were straight up bullshit. And to make things worse, we were all injured and tired. Though, speaking of my injury, Emberclaw seemed to be glaring at it for some reason.

"Yes, my arm is busted," I snapped at him after a moment. "You can think your brat for that."

Emberclaw sent a glare and Gnarblaze, who snarled in return before glaring at me. I started to gather my chakra into my fist while watching them, though they seemed to be communicating at the moment. A quick Observe onto Gnarblaze let me know that we had actually managed to do some damage to him during the fight, but not enough.

King Gnarblaze

Level: 5

Health: 110/150 Chakra Pool: 20/35

I was actually so distracted by gathering my attack that if it hadn't have been for the Wind Scythe from Noxen blowing through a Mudshot I likely would have ended up buried in it. Luckily I took it for the chance it was, and slammed my fist forward while releasing all the pent up chakra into my Steel Release: Shotgun attack. I watched in slight amazement as my attack ripped through a large portion of the rats in front of us, though Emberclaw had swept his tail out from behind him and created an wall of stone out of it to protect himself and his son. 'Well ain't that a nice trick,' I thought idly.

It was a shock when a shudder ran through the ship, and I quickly remembered just where Emberclaw had come from. "Please tell me I didn't just shoot the support for the ship," I whispered as another shudder rocked the ship.

"And the balloon," Ino replied with a squeak.

"Hold on with chakra," Kanemaru warned as we felt the descent begin.

I focused most of my remaining chakra into protecting my arm and bones with my bloodline, trying to balance my chakra output to hold tight to the falling ship that was starting to break. A giant crack was starting to spread, and the floor on each side was shifting. That didn't account for the deck breaking apart beneath us of course, but that was an entirely different matter.

"I'm sorry about that," I called as I jumped to another piece of the deck while the others scattered.

"Tetto-kun he was practically powerless up there," Ino yelled at me. "You ruined the battlefield."

I gave a slight wince as even as we felt the sudden stop into the earth, dropping us both to our knees and causing me to lose my grip on the surface and roll when the surface beneath us shifted again. Ino hopped off the new wall as I cleared my head, and gave me a stern glare. This was going to be brought up a lot from now on.

"Sorry," I repeated again. "Whoa, where is everyone?"

The airship had apparently been drifting during our fight, as we found ourselves among the wreckage filled landscape of hills. There wasn't a teammate in sight, but there were small skirmishes breaking out from the noise I could hear. I was praying Kanemaru was with Diana, I didn't want her to be stuck alone out here.

The hills weren't too bad, but the junk was laying in huge piles nearby. There was no way all of this stuff came from that crashed ship, and I realized they must have been stealing an awful lot of junk from people. Seriously, how the hell did nobody in a ninja village notice things like this?

Then again I was a resident of the place and still wasn't entirely sure where the trash was taken after collection. Was there a giant landfill out in the forest, or did we burn the stuff? The damn Academy didn't cover stuff like that, which was a shame seeing as I liked the random facts more.

I forced myself to pay attention to the surrounding by pulling Gamer's Mind up, reminding myself not to get distracted. Ino and I were making our way to where a bunch of explosions were ringing out, wondering what the hell was going on. I accidentally activated Steel Beast Claw when a rather long series of giggles suddenly replaced the noise of explosions echoing from around a large section of decking.

Kanemaru has leveled up!

"You can come out now Ino-chan, Tetto-kun," Diana's voice called out to us.

"Yes, please join us," Kanemaru joined in.

"Just what I did unleash," I whispered in slight awe as we climbed around the deck and got a look at the area.

Diana had apparently had a lot more explosive tags than she'd let on earlier. A happy feeling settled deep in my gut at the destruction that the other girl of my team had unleashed, I was such a great fan of explosions and fire. I was partially certain it was ingrained in me by benefit of being Irish, minus the body that is.

"You are never to leave me alone with her again," Kanemaru growled as he quickly raced over to me. "I mean, I know there were a lot of rats, but jeez."

I glanced around but there was no sight of anyone else around. "Where is Galefur?"

"Shortly before we were swarmed," Diana began, gesturing to the destroyed landscape around us, filled with heavy pits and broken wood, "I had seen Noxen fly overhead. He seemed to be diving towards something, so they shouldn't be too far."

"Unless Tetto-kun decides to drop another airship from the sky that is," Ino grumbled, arms crossed and glaring at me again.

I was entirely unfazed by her young glare, but I responded as expected. "I'm sorry about that."

Like I realized that I was going to happen. I figured game logic would still apply, since we were still in a dungeon, but luck didn't like me. I will also admit to putting a bit too much power behind my attack, but I was getting impatient with the stupid mass combat that was breaking out.

As we walked on, and carefully edged around the damage Diana had caused, I realized I was going to have to get used to that since some of the events of the future were massive fights. Stupid damn Academy getting us used to one on one combat, and 'rules' of fighting. We're training to be shinobi damnit, and there were no rules except don't get caught. Yes, I'd need to get used to all of these things.

A short ways from were we met up we ran into another small melee. A pack of fire-rat brutes were being swarmed by several teams of fire-rats and chanters. The smaller rats were being slapped aside, but those were mostly just minor hits as they did their best to avoid them. It thankfully didn't take long to deal with the things, and we now had our own little minions following us. If it wasn't for the fact that Gamer's Mind was still keeping me mostly calm I would likely be giving my best attempt at evil laughter.

Our next stop was when we came across a rather large barrier, the remains of most of the forward deck. I eyed it while trying to figure out just how we were going to get past that, it had most of the metal sheeting remaining and somehow managed to stretch between two hills to block our path. With all the junk around I was beginning to think this dungeon was really our new landfill and I just hadn't noticed it.

"Ok then," I called out, turning to the rats that were with us. "I want you all to concentrate your attack right there," I pointed at a bare spot of the deck, devoid of sheeting. "If you can't manage to get through it, Kanemaru can use Passing Fang to bust through."

My brilliant idea did show some merit, as the few spitfires and chanters stepped forward, their lesser brothers making way. Once the rain of Firebile had landed, the multiple Firestorms that hit the area managed to cause a large spread of highly weakened wood. Cracks were spreading throughout the visible area, and the wood was barely resisting crumbling.

Kanemaru wasn't even needed as I stepped up and kicked the gap open. When I saw what was on the other side, I stood still in shock and confusion. We were at the nest, which I could understand, but the nest was burnt, smashed, and otherwise wrecked while I could see Noxen and Galefur avoiding attacks from Gnarblaze even as he had to avoid the attacks of his own father, Emberclaw.

Ino summed it up quite easily for me. "Wait, what?"

End.

A/N: Apologies for the delay, but hey there ya go. Also I quite obviously got ideas for this dungeon from a couple of my favorite games, so yay if you saw it. I'll likely be showing stats in the next chapter, after the dungeon is completed and such. I would have thrown it on the end of this, but I wanted this out today and I am quite sleepy so... yeah. I totally love writing Noxen speaking for some reason, and I shall take any chance I can to get him to say boring things, hmm. It makes me amused, yes. :D