Ello again! What's up?

Okay, so I've been giving it some thought here, and I was wondering if you guys think if I should update the rating to 'M'. Things standing as it is, I feel like I am pushing the boundary a bit when it comes to the rating. I dunno, if I update it to 'M', I'll be able to explore more vividly into matters, but on the other hand, I might lose some of my audience. So, are you guys pro, or con?

Also, reasons at the post AN.

CHAPTER

TEN

APRIL 26TH, 2525

INSURRECTIONIST BASE, PLANET SARUTOBI

"Fight me for it."

Naruto's lips tightened. Not even ten minutes alone on this planet and some kid was challenging him to a fight.

"Really?" The blond drawled slowly, focusing on the black-haired teen in the moonlit clearing. "A fight."

The Spartans' fist tightened. What should I do?

"Holy crap. You're actually thinking about this."

The demon fox's grinding voice broke through into his mind, interrupting the blonds thoughts. "That's a first."

Naruto sighed, both to the fox and himself. "So, what's that's supposed to mean?"

"...You aren't exactly the brightest."

The Spartan coughed, ignoring the demon and giving the black-haired teen his full attention. "No."

In response, the teen's fists clenched in what could be anger while Naruto carried on. "Firsts thing first, I'm going to go into this building. I'd rather not get into a fight with some random kid who wants one."

The teen let out a sound that could be only compared to a angered wolf and narrowed his eyes to a glare that was shooting daggers at the Spartan. "Well why the hell not?"

Naruto scratched the back of his blond head, and lightly tugged on a handful of hair that grew out a few inches. "Because I don't want to right now. Besides, why not just look in the base?"

The boy phased out of existence, causing the Spartan to raise an eyebrow. Did he just run away? Nah, he-

The blond's thoughts was interrupted by a flying kick that was aimed directly at the Spartan, connecting with a considerable amount of force which sent Naruto staggering back. After he got his composure back, he glared at the black-haired teen, who was content with doing the same back at him.

"I will not take no for an answer."

With this, Naruto frowned. Kyuubi, I need your help.

"Well, brat, a shinobi's fighting style is the complete polar opposite of a Spartans. While you're bulky and slow, their nimble and fast. So you just need to land a couple hits and you'll be fine. Well...mostly."

Mostly?!

The shinobi flew towards Naruto at almost unreal speeds, but not fast enough to escape the Spartans eyes. Naruto took another step back, narrowly avoiding a clenched fist. Before he could take yet another step back, a second fist was launched towards him. Realizing that he couldn't dodge another attack, he snapped his arms in a defensive manor, taking the hit.

The black-haired teen grimaced in pain and let out a grunt as a crack snapped rather loudly. The black-haired teen stumbled backwards onto the ground, clutching his wrist and heaving in breaths.

The force of the attack, however, sent Naruto sliding backwards into the wall of the base.

After a moment, both of the teens stood there. The stranger teen glared more daggers at Naruto.

The raven teen's hair shadowed over his eyes. After a few moments of silence, it was finally broke by the shinobi. "What the hell?"

Naruto shook his head quickly, trying to fend off the numbing pain that resided in his arms from the blow of the punch. "Tell me what you know," the blond scowled out.

This is getting me nowhere. The kid is probably bluffing anyways.

The gasps for air coming from the boy stopped, and was soon replaced by shakes of what could be anger.

"You call that a fight?!"

At that, the boy snapped his head up to glare at Naruto with his jet, obsidian eyes. "I'm not done here!"

His black eyes snapped to a dark shade of red with two tomoes surrounding each pupil.

Shit! The sharingon! Brat, he's an Uchiha!

"Yeah, like that helps!"

"Katon!"

At the recognition of the flashing of hand signs, Naruto rushed forwards towards the boy with a fist clenched held behind him.

You idiot! Don't run towards him!

"Gōkakyū no Jutsu!"

A massive ball of inferno death blazed towards Naruto. "Shit!"

Realizing he had no chance of dodging the blast, he swung his fists directly in front of his face, hoping to take the explosion head on. As it hit, Naruto started grinding his teeth in pain as the fire singed his skin to the point of first degree burns. Bright yellow light blocked his vision, even with his eyes squeezed shut. "Ugh!"

The fire evaporated, leaving the blond shirtless with patches of red burns scattered across his torso. His green pants bore holes, but were still sturdy enough to hold up. Naruto stood his ground, hissing in pain as the Kyuubi slowly started to regenerate and heal his injuries. He let his arms drop to his sides, and he glared at the boy.

"Okay." Naruto grounded out as he narrowed his eyes, "Lets go."

He rushed towards the Uchiha, who stood there, frozen in shock that someone actually managed to stand up to his justu with anything less than a second degree burn, ignoring the stinging pain that the burns brought him. The boy stepped back, but Naruto managed to snag him by his collar and yanked him back. He made a fist and lifted it behind his head.

And hit him squarely in the jaw.

If it weren't for the fact that the Spartan had held a stone grip on the boy, the Uchiha would have been sent flying backwards. Instead, he grunted loudly in pain as blood spattered across Naruto's cheek.

"Now," Naruto narrowed his eyes, "who are you?"

"..." Uchiha glared at the Spartan, with nothing less of contempt.

Said Spartan rolled his eyes and dropped him on the spot. "Fine." He turned towards the base, his wounds finally healed.

"...Sasuke..." The raven haired teen, who's name was apparently Sasuke, finally groaned out. Naruto turned his head back with a grin. "Now, was that so hard? You're lucky I didn't punch you as hard as I could..."

Sasuke coughed up a fair bit of blood, most of which stained the ground dark red. He got up to a kneel, his black hair shiny with grease and sweat that over shadowed his eyes. Naruto turned on the spot, and entered the base.

"He's where?!"

Kelly winced at the rather shrill voice of her fellow Spartan, who in her opinion, looked out right pissed. "Well..." She shot a glance at John and Sam, who stood behind her in the room, back at Atlas.

John took the time to speak, his voice stiff, and rather dry, "Naruto's out on a...reconnaissance mission." That left a sour note on the Spartans tongue. In actuality, the so-called reconnaissance mission was rather a cop-out by Dr. Halsey so it wouldn't look bad to the reviewing officers. 117s' frown deepened at the prospect of getting Naruto out of trouble. Really, at this point he should at least be, well, competent at this point. Not that he would ever say something like that to a fellow Spartan, nor to his other comrades, but still.

"Really." Veronica narrowed his eyes, "They're trusting Naruto of all people for something like this? Not to speak ill of him behind his back, but he sucks at reconnaissance."

Sam winced. While John as strict and static, in most cases at least, Sam was more lax, letting things slide more easily. "Well..."

Before he could speak, he was promptly cut of by the other male spartan. Kelly shifted her eyes to meet the ill Spartan. "I'm sure that he'll be fine. Who knows what Halsey's thinking, she must have a plan."

Veronica narrowed her eyes, anger seemingly burning off her. Before anyone could continue, she plopped down onto her bed, taking a swig of water from the table side beside her. She gazed out the window into the black abyss, littered by twinkling stars. She sighed. "Dammit... I feel so useless."

John and Sam exchanged glances, both standing stiff and rather awkward, and both itching for the door behind them. Kelly took a step further, sitting down beside the down-trodden Spartan.

"You're just a little sick. The doctors say that you'll make a complete recovery, it just takes time." The female Spartan turned to face Veronica, her eyes full of sympathy. The bed-ward Spartan 345 took another sigh. "Everyone has been in and out on missions, and even the others have gotten their MJOLNIR armour, and I'm just stuck here..."

Kelly shot a glance at the two male Spartans, who stood awkwardly by the corner, inching towards the door every second, before wrapping an arm around Veronica. "You're not the only one who came down with the disease. People have died, and others have been lost beyond recognition. You got off lucky."

Veronica looked down without saying a word, the only thing heard was the light roaring of the engine of Atlas. A few seconds had past before she spoke again."I know..."

The dark crevasses of the base didn't exactly help Naruto's search. If anything, it made it even more frustrating as the Spartan squinted in the dim room, hoping to make out anything he could. With a groan, he pressed his fingers to his eyes, making a rather feeble attempt to dull the throbbing pain that was beginning to form. "Damn...I'm still not used to the augmentations..." he muttered

BANG!

"Shit!" Naruto's heart leaped as his eyes darted towards the source of the sound as the area around him shuddered as a distinct explosion rocked the area not to far off. At once, the blond-haired teen shot off towards where ever the sound came from. He bolted around a corner.

"What are you doing?!" Naruto glared at Sasuke, who stood by a decently sized hole in the wall to his right.

"Getting in."

"Well get out!" Naruto shot back, "This isn't child's play, you could get killed!"

"Tch." The raven haired teen pointedly turned his back to the Spartan and stepped further into the base through the hole.

"The kid's got spunk, I'll give him that."

Naruto shook his head at the demonic whisper from the back of his head. "If he want's to die, then it's his problem."

Click.

Naruto froze on the spot as he felt something cold pressed onto the back of his skull. After a moment of confusion, nearly all colour drained from his face as hit heart dropped. "Oh shit."

Suddenly, a harsh and violent whisper hissed into Naruto's ear, full of cold indifference.

"Make any move and I'll blow your fucking head off."

The Spartan forced himself not to flinch as the man behind him slowly moved a magnum to his temple, pressing the metal roughly into him.

"You'll die where you stand, UNSC scum."

The man spat Naruto's allegiance as if it were the plague. So full of fury, so full of despise.

"I-"

"Shut up!" The man pressed the weapon even harder into Naruto as he interrupted the blond. "You have no idea what I've been through, what you guys did to me!"

He's going mad!

"Well, it's been fun, but...bang."

Naruto squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the shot to go off.

Shit!

Silence. Then...

Thump.

The Spartan slowly opened his eyes, the cold metal baron from the back of his skull.

"Really? You couldn't last without me, could you?"

Naruto began grinding his teeth together at the drawling voice, growling in anger to hide his relief.

"And who exactly asked you to help, huh?"

"Tch." Sasuke pointedly turned his head to the side, "Well, you owe me now."

Naruto mentally cursed. Out of all the people that could have saved him... Speaking of which,

"Oi! Why the hell didn't you help me, you furry bastard!"

"Cause," The Spartan could have swore the demon shrugged. "I sensed the Uchiha brat, even from in here. There wasn't a need for my help."

"You lazy bastard!"

Sasuke rose an eyebrow at the blond's sudden declaration. "What?"

Said blond looked almost sheepish for a couple moments before shaking his head. "Nothing."

The boy looked doubtful for a second, but it vanished as he directed his attention towards the body of the Innie. "So, what are you going to do with him?"

"What do you mean?"

Sasuke visibly deadpanned at the response. "Are you going to interrogate him our not?"

Realization filled the blonds face. "Oh. Do you have anything to tie him up with?"

"Course."

After tying the man up and roughly tossing him into a corner rather haphazardly, Sasuke was already prodding at the man's shoulder. Almost instantly, the man jerked awake and thrashed wildly with a insane glint in his eyes.

"YOU MOTHERFUCK-"

The man was cut off instantly, the insane look in his eyes gaze way to fear. Naruto snapped his gaze to Sasuke as waves of wrath seemingly pored into the Insurrectionist. The man was now a shaking mess, silent to the bone. After a moment of wheezing and sweating heavily, he looked into the eyes of the Uchiha.

"W-who-"

Sasuke didn't seem to be in any mood to chat. "You will tell us why you are here."

Naruto still held his gaze to the raven teen, with an uncertain glint in his eyes. "Sasuke, what was-"

"Now!" Sasuke gave Naruto indication that he was heard.

The Insurrectionist glanced wildly from Naruto to Sasuke with a fearful look on his face. The man spoke. "I-I..."

Suddenly, his head hung towards the floor, all movement ceased from the man. No one moved for a moment , before Sasuke pushed his index into the man's for head, lifting it back up. Both the Spartan and the shinobi grimaced. Blood trickled down the mans chin and side of mouth, and the mad glint in his eyes was left with a dull, lifeless gaze.

Naruto began to speak. "Did...did he-"

Sasuke let the mans head go as it flopped back to its original position. After a second, the body thumped over to the side, awkwardly bent due to his hands being tied up. "He bit his tongue."

Naruto could have almost flinched, if it wasn't for his many years of training. However, he was still speechless. "...what did you do?"

The blacked haired Uchiha looked back at Naruto with unfazed eyes. "Killing intent."

"I-"

Sasuke reached into his pocked and pulled out an ID. He passed it to Naruto. "This is in your language, Naruto."

Leaving it at that, he took the card from Sasuke, still shaking slightly. He cleared his throat.

Ignoring the slight headache that came from translating English to Japanese, he read it allowed. As he read, he pursed his lips even more. "Chief Petty Officer First Class Peters. Which means that he was most likely in charge here."

Sasuke held an annoyed grimace on his usually stone-strait face. "If he was in charge, these 'Insurrectionists' must really be digging around for any help they can get."

Turning away from Sasuke, he instead focused on a chip on the bottom. He turned to a door to his left. "With any luck..." He pressed the chip to the small, black box that was near the middle left of the door. The red light turned green.

Beep.

Naruto heard a quiet click as the door opened ajar. Quietly opening the metal frame, he slipped in the room, and was face-to-face with a com-link.

Mildly surprised, he figured that there was a little emergency power in this section.

After looking up and around the room, his eyes finally lay on a document. Curiosity getting the better of him, he snagged the document and ripped up open. He was soon face to face with a printed off sheet of paper.

APRIL 20th, 2525

Lieutenant Fornell,

No results as of today, we are slowly running out of leads. There is almost no trace of the Forerunner artifact anywhere on this planet. Inhabitants of this planet seem to have no idea of what, or who, the Forerunner's are. Preparing for one final search.

~Chief Peters

Naruto squinted his eyes. "Forerunner..." he murmured under his breath, his mind coming up blank. "Where have I heard that before..."

"Well maybe if you actually payed attention for once, brat, you would know."

"Kyuubi?" The blond scratched the back of his neck, closing his eyes in thought. "What'd you mean?"

"The Forerunner's were once a proud race, both strong and had technology that you humans would call magic. They died out millions of years ago, the only proof that they even existed is in artifacts, scattered across the Galaxy."

"So what you're saying is these Innies are here for the artifact?"

"What do you think? Now look at the other papers." The beast scowled in the back of Narutos' mind, causing said blond to sigh in annoyance before flipping to a second sheet at random.

March 27th, 2525

After landing on Planet 419, many of us were...confused at the likeness between the inhabitants of this planet, and ourselves. After a couple days of enquiring into the question, I have come to the conclusion that these 'men'** are descendents of Forerunners who may have stayed behind, or was stranded upon this planet many years prior to these 'men'.

**Referring to the astonishing likeness between humans and 'shinobi'.

This discovery may lead to the conclusion that there is artifacts located upon this planet. Further research is required.

"No way..."

"Who are you talking to?"

Naruto coughed, his anger rising to a boiling point at the already familiar drawling of which is Uchiha Sasuke. "Myself, now shut up."

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Both teens jumped at the sound of the comm-link, and Naruto scrabbled towards it.

"What's that?" Sasuke was at his side, looking at the flashing green light. Naruto's face began to form a panicked grimace. "It's a comm link."

"Well? Are you gonna answer it?"

"I don't know! If I don't answer they'll think something's up!"

"Then answer it!"

"Then answer it!"

Without giving it a second thought, Naruto slammed the answer key and the face of a man came up via hologram. The blond froze at the sight.

The man had to be around his forties, from what the spartan could tell. His light, sandy-grey hair crawling to the back of his head as bald-spots formed, and light wrinkles spotted his cheeks and forehead. His eyes, however, were dark and alive. The only sign of his youth shone in them, gazing down at the two teens.

After a long moment of silence, a smooth voice, another sign of his forgotten youth, shattered the quietness. "Well? What happened?"

With an act that even a child would disapprove, Naruto spoke.

"Well..." The blond winced, raking his mind for some liable excuse as to answer the mans question. "There was an attack, but everything under control. No need to send any men or...stuff."

The elderly man studied Naruto for a moment, then shifted his eyes to Sasuke. "You two weren't apart of the team that was sent to Planet 419. And you're wearing the UNSC..."

Realization dawned upon the man.

"So the UNSC has discovered the location of the base."

"Shit!" Naruto scowled, flinching towards the comm to shut it down. Before Naruto even got close, however, Sasuke snagged his hand. "Idiot! Use this chance to pry information from him," was growled in the spartans ear.

The man continued talking. "So that means you took the base. May I ask how? ODST?"

"Yeah."

"So the UNSC is training their Navy well. I'm impressed."

"Careful brat," Demonic whisperings echoed in the back of Naruto's mind, "He's taking the news well. He's up to something."

"What's your plan?" Naruto blurted out, unable to hold the question any longer. "Why here?"

The mans eyes shifted to the pile of documents in Naruto's hand. "If you read those, you should know already."

"The Forerunner artifact? What's so special about that?"

"Think brat! What was the Forerunners' most known for?!"

The blond Spartan froze, one day's lesson finally coming back to him. "Weapons..." he whispered.

"That's right."

Sasuke was pretty much bashing his head against the wall. "The hell are you guys talking about?!"

The insurrectionist paused. "No matter the base, we have other leads." He turned away from the comm-link before turning back. "Oh, before I go, tell...Halsey that Nathan sends his compliments."

With a click, the hologram faded to nothing.

"Well. This will take some getting used to."

The helmet seemed to amplify Johns already deep voice into a echoing boom. Flinching, then winching in pain at the amplified movement, he commanded his brain to salute towards Mendez. "Sir!"

Mendez laughed in his chair. "That's quiet enough John. I'm retired, so I don't want any of that crap."

"Sorry sir..." John winced at the glare of the once-officer.

"So," Halsey spoke to the side of Mendez, "What do you think? Pretty good, huh? I think I outdid myself there."

"There's always room for extra training, but I think we taught all what we can teach. All that's left is experience."

John looked up in a rare show of surprise. "Wait, does that mean-"

"Yes," Halsey grinned, "The Spartans are ready for action."

Oh my god. Hi. I'm not dead. I'm sorry about this being about a million months too late, but I've been...otherwise busy. I've sorta lost interest in what I was writing, and honestly? I'm getting more and more disappointed in how it's turned out so far. I was close to putting this story on Hiatus more then once before I got over it and decided to put some time into writing. Chapter 11 will be...who knows, I still need to get the outline done, and tonight was kinda me getting my writing mojo back all of a sudden.

Also, on another note, I need someone to help me a little with this. I'm having issues finding a beta for crossovers, and I wouldn't mind someone helping me out by co-authoring this story. If you're interested, PM me and I'll respond.

Over and out,

~Riley