[Eclipsed] Chapter 8 - Lost

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Chapter 8 - Lost

“Flash has been knocked unconscious. I have rescued him now,” said Martian Manhunter. “As for Batman, he has been trapped. I’m heading towards him as we speak. He is stuck in concrete.”

Once he sent that telepathic transmission to the rest of his teammates, the Martian picked the unconscious Flash up from the flooded streets of Apokolips’ capital city and flew onto the rooftop of a tall building. 

“Ugh, what happened?” Flash asked. Being picked up from the water had shaken him awake. “Yuck, I have water even in my pants,” he said in disgust when he stood up and realised that his suit was soaked. 

“From the looks of it, Darkseid’s son must have cast a large water spell that washed you away,” said the Martian. 

“Oh, I remember now. Big Barda wasn’t kidding about his magic. . . Sorry, I messed up.”

He made a pained face, one that could be seen even through the mask covering his head. 

“Damn, Green Lantern is going to rip me a new one when he hears about it.”

“Green Lantern has bigger problems on his mind right now. He and Superman are on their way to stop a power plant from exploding,” Martian Manhunter said. “We should hurry up too. We have to rescue Batman.”

“Rescue Batman? Are you sure? He’s the type who’d rather die than ask for help.”

“He said he is stuck in concrete.”

Martian Manhunter and Flash stared at each other for a few seconds. 

“You’re kidding,” the speedster said. But when he remembered who he was talking to, he was forced to accept that that was the truth. J’onn J’onnz never made jokes. “How did that happen? How do you get stuck in concrete?”

“He didn’t elaborate,” the Martian said. “But he gave us his location. He is in the arsenal.”

“I’ll go on ahead,” Flash said and turned into a blur as he sped away before the Martian could give his opinion on it.

⁂

Thanks to Big Barda’s intel, all the members of the Justice League knew the layout of the capital of Apokolips, so it was not difficult for Flash to find the arsenal. He arrived at his destination in the blink of an eye. 

‘I see no robots or automated defence systems,’ thought the speedster as he blitzed all over the place, searching for Batman. ‘No Parademons either. Looks like they were all attracted by the battle happening at the palace.’

“Batman? Batman! Where are you?”

“Flash! I’m over here!” came a voice from a room whose large and thick gates were opened just enough for a man to pass through. 

Flash didn’t even consider the possibility that it may be a trap. He didn’t care about the fact that the room was covered in darkness either. Worried for Batman’s safety, he ran inside at full speed. 

“Ouch!” he cried out as he stumbled upon something and fell to the ground with a thud, rolling more than six times before finally coming to a stop. 

Simultaneously, a shout of pain came from behind him, followed by a scream of anger. 

“Argh! Flash, you imbecile!”

Flash stood up to his feet and looked behind him in disbelief. 

The thing that he had stumbled upon wasn’t a thing. . . it was Batman’s head.

“Oh my God, dude, I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you!"

“How did you not see me? Are you blind?!” Batman shouted at him. 

Hearing their shouts, J’onn J’onnz also came to check upon them. 

“Batman! Are you alright?!” the Martian asked.

“Do I look alright to you? I’m buried in the ground up to my neck, and Flash broke my nose!” Batman snapped, giving them both his infamous bat-glare. 

A sound like that between a snort and a cough came from Flash at the sight of it. 

“Are you serious right now? Are you laughing?” Batman shouted at him, incensed. 

“No, of course not. Why would I laugh?” Flash said, doing his damnedest to keep a straight face. 

Unfortunately, the sight of Batman buried into the ground up to his neck and him trying to appear fierce as he glared up at them while blood was flowing from his nose was just too funny. 

“Flash, when I get out of here-”

Despite the situation (or maybe because of it), Batman trying to threaten him while he looked like that was like pouring oil on the fire. As is often the case, the more you are not supposed to laugh in a situation, the harder it is to hold it in. It was the same for Flash now too. He lost it. 

“Bwahahaha!”

“-Do you hear me? I’ll make you wish you were-”

Flash was on the ground now, on all fours, beating the floor with his fist. 

“I’m so sorry! Ahahaha! Please! Please stop! Hahaha!”

“Does this look funny to you?! Huh?!” Batman shouted, but his scowl and his otherwise growl-like voice sounding like he had a cold and a clogged nose were too hilarious.

“Tell him to stop! Please! I can’t! Hahaha!” Flash begged the Martian while holding onto his sides, crying with laughter. 

For the first time since they met him, the Martian also looked like he was having trouble staying serious. His face morphed into that of several different alien species until he settled for that of a bug-like creature, one that did not have the ability to make any facial expressions. Alas, his little disguise wasn’t fooling anyone. The rocking of his body and the noises he was making were a dead giveaway that J’onn was laughing his ass off too. 

“Ahem. Flash. This is not the time,” Martian Manhunter coughed into his fist and said. "Come, let us dig Batman out."

⁂

While Flash and Martian Manhunter were having a rather light-hearted moment, things could not be any more different on the other side of the capital city, at the royal palace. 

Uzumaki Naruto and Darkseid were locked in a life-and-death battle. 

“Desaad! DESAAD!” Darkseid screamed when he saw Naruto’s flayed and melted skin regenerating like a miracle under the effect of the red cloak of energy and him standing up again like a zombie out of a nightmare. 

Giving up all pretence, Darkseid left a shockwave behind him as he flew away, desperate to put as much distance between him and Naruto as he could. 

Alas, he realised how foolish he had been to turn his back to the enemy only when he saw a crimson-red claw burst through his chest. Having gone into his version two Kyuubi mode once again, Naruto immediately caught the fleeing Darkseid from behind and thrust his clawed hand between his shoulder blades. 

Simultaneously, a portal opened behind Naruto’s back, and a powerful suction force pulled him in. 

Desaad’s voice rang from Darkseid’s Mother Box at that moment:

“The King is dead. Long live the king!”

Darkseid roared in anger, and a great amount of purple-black blood burst from his mouth. 

“Desaad, you wretched, miserable vermin! You dare betray me? YOU DARE BETRAY DARKSEID?”

Unfortunately for the God of Evil, Naruto’s claw had already pulverised his heart. Even he would not be able to survive that. 

“I will be back! Do you hear me, worm? I will be back, and I will give you a fate worse than death! Nobody crosses me and lives! Nobody. . . crosses. . . Dark-! “

Despite feeling the boom-tube sucking him in, Naruto could not bring himself to care. With his clawed hand shoved into Darkseid’s chest, he pulled the New God together with him into the abyss. 

As they were sucked into the portal, the scenery changed from the pits of fumes and fire of Apokolips to the vast, dark, absolute cold and emptiness of outer space. 

Darkseid screamed something at Naruto, but sounds do not travel in space. Nothing could be heard. 

Rage. Hatred. Bloodthirst. Malevolence. Many negative emotions were rolling off from Darkseid like a volcano. 

Although he was on the brink of death, Darkseid was not content with going down quietly. Naruto may have plunged his arm into his chest, but that also meant that the slippery shinobi could not dodge his Omega Beams anymore.

The God of Evil’s eyes glowed red with his Omega Beams one last time, and the deathly rays curved in the air and flew back, hitting Naruto in the back. But the blond had anticipated that Darkseid would do his utmost to drag him to death together with him, so he had been on his guard. The four tails of his version two Kyuubi mode spread out to cover his head and back, tanking the Omega Beams. 

Simultaneously, while his clawed hand was still in Darkside’s chest, a sphere of dark purple light took form in front of Naruto's mouth. 

His entire jaw cracked, splitting open half of his face when he opened his mouth far wider than a human should have been capable of in order to swallow that sphere of chakra. 

For an instant, his body swelled like a balloon and a massive blast exploded from his mouth. It was a ray of pure destruction. 

Had he been at full strength, his god energy might have preserved Darkseid and allowed him to block that bijuudama. But his heart had been gored out; he was already with one foot in the grave. 

The blast obliterated his head and upper torso, reducing them to nothing more than space dust. 

Knowing that Darkseid was an actual god, Naruto did not want to leave anything up to chance. He kicked the mutilated corpse away, and a second bijuudama appeared in front of his face, one that was far bigger than the first one. 

It was an attack that put nuclear explosions to shame. 

⁂

The blast of the massive tailed beast bomb annihilated whatever was left of Darkseid’s corpse, reducing it to atoms, and the shockwave coming from the explosion hurled Naruto away violently too. 

Due to being in space, there was no air. There was no friction. Outside of his will, his body accelerated at an incredible speed. 

Kurama was observing Naruto silently. Due to his Negative Emotions Sensing, the fox could tell what was going through his jinchuuriki's mind at that moment: in spite of the fact that he had just killed the worst enemy of his life, no joy could be found in him. No relief. No satisfaction. No content. 

With Darkseid’s death, Naruto’s rage subsided. . . only to be replaced by a mixture of sorrow and despair. 

Iruka-sensei, the only person who had tried to teach him anything in the Academy, the person he had looked up to almost like a father, was dead. So was Tsunade, the person whom he used to consider like an aunt or even a mother. 

His sensei, his friends, and the Elder Toads, who had tried their best to teach him their Sage Mode, were also dead. Everyone he had ever loved was dead. His home was razed off the surface of the earth. 

Drifting through space aimlessly, tears started flowing from his eyes and turned into ice crystals the moment they left his chakra cloak. 

For over a decade, Kyuubi had hated Naruto with every fibre of his being. However, after watching Darkseid enslave and brainwash him, his hatred turned into pity. He couldn’t bring himself to hate him anymore after witnessing how much he had suffered in his life. 

‘I have nothing left.’

‘Nothing.’

Naruto cried for a long time. He cried until he had no more tears left. 

Now, the fox sensed only gloom and a death wish coming from him. Uncharacteristically, Kurama tried to console him.

“It’s not like you to give up, Naruto. Not everything is lost. Not everyone on your planet died. And you still have that Kryptonian girl, don’t you? Weren’t you in love with her?”

"Was I?" Naruto replied. "Darkseid was awfully happy about me being together with her. . . How do I know that my feelings were not his doing? How do I know Kara’s feelings were her own and not something planted in her mind by Darkseid?"

Kyuubi didn’t know what to say in response. His attempt at consoling him ended up backfiring as Naruto succumbed even deeper into despair. 

"Don’t worry, Kyuubi. I won’t kill myself. I won’t take you to the grave with me. . . I will set you free."

“But- that would kill you!” Kyuubi said in confusion.

Didn’t Naruto just say he was not going to kill himself?

"Does it matter?"

Sensing that the fox was about to protest again, Naruto continued:

"It’s the least I could do after all you’ve done for me all these years."

Now that Darkseid’s brainwashing had been removed, Naruto remembered all the memories that Granny Goodness tried to wipe during the last two years. He remembered how hard Kyuubi had struggled to make him snap out of it. He remembered how many times he had survived only because of the fox. And he was also grateful that Kyuubi had shared his power freely with him in his battle against Darkseid. 

"Where do you want me to unseal you? What planet do you wish to go live on?"

Kyuubi did not have an answer. He had never thought that Naruto would offer to set him free. 

“Are you sure about it, Naruto? Give it some more time. Think about it again after you’ve calmed down some more. . . this isn’t the kind of decision you should take in a muddled state of mind.”

"Didn’t you want to be free? Can’t believe I lived to see the day you would choose not to get out of the seal."

Kyuubi growled. 

“I want to be free. But not at the cost of your life. I-, I don’t hate you anymore, Naruto. I don’t want you to die.”

Naruto did not say anything for a few seconds. 

"Thanks, Kyuubi. For everything."

Kurama let out a shuddering breath. An unknown emotion surfaced in his heart, one that he could not easily describe. Was it sorrow? Was it pity? Was it gratitude? 

"Call me Kurama. My name is Kurama."

⁂

He did not know for how long he had been drifting in space. He had no idea where Desaad had sent him with that Boom Tube either. 

Luckily, due to his chakra, he could survive without food and water far longer than a regular person would. After all, chakra was the essence of life, the mixture of physical and spiritual energy, the mixture of body and soul. And with Kyuubi at his side, he was not worried of ever running out of it.

Left with no other choice, Naruto started flying towards what he assumed to be the closest star he could see. 

Realistically, it was nearly impossible for regular objects to reach the speed of light in space through normal means. Therefore, Naruto prepared himself for a long journey. 

Time passed.

His beard grew until it reached his belly. His hair was now as long as his waist. His face became gaunt, and his muscles lost their pump. He became so thin that he could count his ribs. Although Kyuubi was doing his best to keep Naruto alive, that had a limit too in the absence of food. 

Judging by the length of his hair and beard, he had been drifting in space for years. 

If he had been alone, he would have long since gone insane or chosen to end it all rather than suffer through the complete silence, darkness, loneliness, and emptiness of space for so long. But Kurama was with him. 

Naruto’s own sorrow and bitterness gradually lost their intensity as months went by, but his decision to free Kyuubi never changed. That was the only thing that was keeping him going now. 

‘I would have never made it out of the wave mission when I was 12 if not for Kurama,’ Naruto mused. ‘All the more so in the coming years. He’s saved me more times than I can count. He’s also the reason I didn’t become Darkseid’s completely obedient puppet. Even now, drifting through space, all alone, for years, it’s only thanks to him I’m alive.’

He had passed through immense belts of radiation that would have melted a regular human’s flesh off and through storms of asteroids that would have pulverised even the greatest of Apokolips’ galleon-class spaceships without their energy shields. But he had survived through it all. 

He wanted to set Kyuubi free on a verdant planet, in a place he liked, in a place without people who would try to enslave him again and use him as a weapon.

⁂

A crew of people wearing black uniforms with yellow accents was fussing busily around a man, doing their best to restrain him. Their crimson-red skin, the deep wrinkles on their chins, and their four-fingered hands betrayed the fact that they were not human. 

As for the man they were tying up with all sorts of high-tech devices, it was a human male with blond hair and three whisker-like birthmarks on his face. It was none other than Naruto. If Kara were to see him at that moment, she might not recognise him with his malnourished body, long hair, and waist-length beard. 

The aliens had found Naruto by a miracle as he was flying through space at an incredible speed, all the while being asleep. 

Having spent years drifting through space, Naruto had made a habit out of sleeping for long periods of time, entire days at once, in order to conserve his energy as much as possible. Naturally, Kyuubi kept an eye on the surroundings while he was asleep. 

That being said, when the aliens captured Naruto and tied him like a dangerous animal, Kyuubi could have woken him up or dealt with them by himself. But the fox did neither. He decided to let them go on their way. It would not be too late to escape after they arrived on solid ground, on a planet. Therefore, he let Naruto sleep peacefully and enjoy the warmth and comfort of his little prison. Anything was better than living in the vacuum of space, where the temperatures were never above -250 Celsius degrees.

Kyuubi did not go to sleep together with Naruto. During his years spent in space with him, the two of them had formed a bond like never before. In the present, the blond trusted him to the point where he allowed Kurama to use his body as if it were his own. 

The fox focused his chakra into Naruto’s ears and eavesdropped on the conversation of the aliens who had captured them. Unlike Naruto, who needed a translating device to understand foreign languages, Kurama did not need any of that because he was a bijuu. He was a creature of nature, a being that came into existence from the essence of a planet. He could understand any language spoken by any living being in the universe. 

⁂

The large windshield in the pilot’s cabin became tinted as they received a transmission. The head of a bald, yellow-skinned alien man with red eyes appeared on the window as though it were the screen of a computer. 

“Captain, I want you to hear something.”

Loud sounds of a crowd booing could be heard. 

“They’re expressing their disappointment at the last specimen you’ve brought.”

“Great Mongul, please!” the captain of the ship said in a servile voice. 

“A dozen creatures you’ve found, and not one of them has been able to last more than two minutes with the Fire Princess!”

“I promise! The next one will be different! We’ve just found a creature who was sleeping in the vacuum of space, completely unharmed, with no special suit or protection!” said the captain quickly. “Once he receives some medical care, he’ll be guaranteed to give her the fight of her life!”

“He better,” Mongul said in a threatening voice and cut off the transmission. 

⁂

‘So they are slave traders,’ Kyuubi concluded after listening in on their conversation. ‘Should we break free now or should we wait?’

While Kurama was thinking about it, two red-skinned aliens wearing white coats came inside the cell, followed by four more individuals of the same species but wearing black uniforms and plasma rifles in their hands. 

They untied Naruto from his bonds and strapped him to a levitating stretcher before taking him out of the prison. 

Kyuubi waited patiently, not making any sudden moves. It turned out that he was right not to lash out at them because Naruto was brought into the medical bay of the spaceship. 

Thanks to his ability to sense negative emotions, Kurama knew that the doctors meant no harm, so he allowed them to inject him with a special serum. 

“Unbelievable! Rarun, do you see this?” one of the doctors pulled his colleague’s sleeve and called him over. 

The moment they injected the blond with their serum, his malnourished body started gaining fat and muscle mass at an alarming pace, inflating almost like a balloon. 

The second doctor started typing quickly on his computer as he analysed his patient’s vitals. 

“All the nutrients have been successfully absorbed and converted into energy by his body.”

The first doctor grabbed one more syringe and injected him with another dose of serum from before, watching in fascination how the young man’s body went through another metamorphosis. 

⁂

Kurama let Naruto sleep for another four days. The treatment that the doctors had administered over the last few days had made him look as if those years he had been stranded in outer space had all been a lie. He was back to full health, back to peak physical condition.

They had also shaved his waist-long beard clean and given his very long hair a buzz cut to clean him up, revealing the fact that he looked like a 25-year-old human male.

The aliens did not have the same beauty standards as humans, so they couldn’t comment on that, but they could tell from his chiselled muscles and from the fact that he had been able to survive in the vacuum of space for god knows how long with no equipment whatsoever that he had to be a very powerful specimen. 

The captain of the ship in particular was giddy with his expectations, happy at the thought of finally being able to present his cruel master with a worthy gladiator. 

Unfortunately, that anticipation turned into despair when a loud explosion shook the entirety of the massive spaceship. 

The captain and a large number of marines ran towards the prison ward of the ship with their rifles in hand, but, by the time they arrived, all the prisoners were gone. Not a single one of the creatures that they had captured remained behind. 

“Do not move,” came a deep, demonic-sounding voice, and the captain felt a clawed hand wrap around his neck. 

At the sound of that voice, all the soldiers abruptly turned around and aimed their plasma rifles at the source.

“Everyone put your weapons down!” the captain ordered in a shaky voice. His intuition told him that he was only one wrong word away from dying. 

“You’re slave traders. Normally, I would have killed trash like you on the spot. But for better or worse, you’ve saved our lives when we were drifting in space.”

“W-What do you want from me?” the alien captain asked. “Please don’t kill me. Let’s talk. If there is anything I can do, just ask.”

“Good. It seems like you’re a man of reason,” said Kyuubi through Naruto’s mouth. “I’m going to let go of your neck for now. Don’t harbour any delusions of being able to escape without my permission. Do not test me, mortal.”

“Yes, sir!”

Still in control of Naruto’s body, Kyuubi let go of the captain, who turned around slowly and took a step back. 

It appeared as though his threat was effective. The alien didn’t try to escape, nor did he order his subordinates to open fire on him. The captain’s terror only increased when he saw the young man’s feral appearance, with his red slit eyes, the animalistic marks on his face, and the fangs protruding from his mouth. He had seen and captured creatures from all over the galaxy, many of them with a far scarier physical appearance, but none of them had instilled as much terror into him as this young human male. 

Unfortunately, the captain’s subordinates were not as wise as him. The moment that Kyuubi let go of his neck, they raised their weapons and fired! . . . or at least they tried to. 

Kurama had sensed their negative emotions, and a nova of lightning was discharged from Naruto’s body. A chorus of screams came from the marines as they were electrocuted severely, their bodies spasming uncontrollably. Nevertheless, due to the fact that he was still feeling grateful to the aliens for saving him and Naruto from outer space, Kyuubi did not kill them. He only released enough Raiton chakra to knock them out cold. 

“Where is this place?” asked Kyuubi as though he hadn’t just taken out an entire squad of marines armed with plasma rifles without even lifting a finger. 

“This is Warworld,” said the captain. He was using every ounce of his willpower to stop his voice from trembling while speaking. “It’s an artificial planet, a planet whose orbit and location can be changed at will. It is also the seat of power of Great Mongul’s Intergalactic Empire.”

“Tell me everything there is to know about it. I’m warning you, I can sense whether you’re speaking the truth or not. If you hide any information from me, I’ll know that too, and you’ll pay dearly.”

“We are currently in the Milky Way Galaxy, in the Sentry Omega cluster, close to the Virmire planet [...].”

Kyuubi’s previous display of power and his killing intent were far too intimidating for the poor man to put up any resistance. Social, economic, political, and military intel, the captain of the ship did not leave anything behind. 

⁂

Later that evening, after extorting the alien captain of all the currency he had on himself and demanding a translation device from him, Kurama booked a room at a hotel in one of the better districts of Warworld’s capital city. 

Once he laid Naruto in bed, he switched his consciousness with him and awakened him from his slumber. 

“Kurama? . . . Am I still dreaming?” Naruto muttered when he opened his eyes and saw the pale green ceiling of the room, the pleasant, humid warmth of the air, and the delicate touch of the bedsheets on his skin. Where was the darkness? Where was the bone-chilling cold of the vacuum of space?

“You’re not dreaming, Naruto. You are saved. We were saved. A ship of slave traders happened upon us while you were asleep.”

“Slave traders?!”

“I’ve already dealt with them. We’re on Warworld right now; we are free.”

“Warworld, huh?”

“Have you heard of it?”

“Yes. It was one of the many planets on Darkseid’s ‘to conquer’ list,” said Naruto. “But we’ve never managed to find it because it’s an artificial planet. Think of it as a gigantic spaceship in the form of a planet. So every time we tried to launch an attack on it, Mongul would move his planet away from that location. We also tried to lure him out by liberating the planets from his empire’s control, but he never took the bait. He would just come after the bulk of my army left and reconquered his territory. Darkseid deemed it a waste of time and effort, so he decided to let them be for the time being.”

He stood up from bed and walked to the bathroom. 

It was strange to feel the ground under his feet after so long. 

“How long has it been, Kurama?”

“It appears that only 2 months have passed.”

“What? No way!” said Naruto in disbelief. “The beard and the hair I had would take years to grow. There’s no way only 2 months passed!”

“I know you’ve never been book smart, but even you should know about the space-time relativity. That old bitch on Apokolips didn’t only wipe the memories she thought of as unnecessary, but she also filled your head with all sorts of information needed for you to lead Darkseid’s army.”

Going through his thoughts, Naruto finally remembered what Kyuubi was talking about. The mere existence of mass influenced space and time. The higher the mass of an object, the bigger the influence it had over space and time. It was a well-known fact on all planets with advanced civilisations that clocks ticked faster in the planet’s orbit than they did on the ground. (1)

“We’ve been stranded in the deep, unknown space, away from any planets or stars for many years, despite flying at a very high speed,” Kurama said, “But for the world at large, only two months passed.”

“I see. . . Well, it doesn't really matter in the end, does it? It’s good that we’re on solid ground again. Now, I can finally set you free. So tell me, what planet do you want to go to, Kurama?”

 ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂

(1) This is true in real life as well. Time dilation is a real phenomenon.