To his shock—and Devola's and Popola’s as well—the moment his hand touched the doors, the entire mountain trembled as if struck by an earthquake. With a deep, creaking groan, the massive doors slowly swung open, and a strong, stale gust of dust blasted him in the face, taking his breath away.
“. . .It was the blood!” Harry said, realisation dawning on him.
It was a Blood Ward! He had never seen or interacted with one, but he had heard about it a few times, especially when talks about Gringotts happened in the Common Room.
It was a temple of the Wizarding World.
⁂
As the enormous doors swung open, Harry hesitated briefly. It wasn't a matter of bravery; he was just more cautious than he used to be in the past. Ending up ten thousand years in the future due to his recklessness had certainly changed his attitude. Moreover, he had heard many stories from Ron about wizards and witches who got themselves killed by the warding spells of the pyramids and other ancient tombs. The ginger had a plethora of stories to tell, things that he had heard from his older brother, Bill.
‘Revelio.’
Still not stepping inside, Harry cast a spell in an attempt to detect any traps, be they magical or otherwise. But his charm didn’t yield any results.
‘Lumos.’
Under his control, the bulb of light left the tip of his wand and floated inside the temple.
‘Lumos Maxima.’
At his mental chant, the bulb of light increased more than five times in brightness, and Harry gulped when he realised just how large the temple was on the inside.
“Do you think it’s safe to enter?” Popola asked.
Harry didn’t know when, but the two girls had materialised their swords.
"I'm not sure. My spell didn’t detect any traps. But I’m not an expert at curse-breaking and such. I didn’t get to finish my magical education. . .” he trailed off, not saying out loud that he had not applied himself even when it came to learning properly the things taught in the first five years, much less for what came after.
“Then, we’ll go ahead of you, Harry,” said Devola, stepping in front of him together with her sister.
“No, I can’t let you do that!”
“Don’t worry. We’re Androids. We’re made of tougher stuff. Besides, this is our purpose, is it not? We exist to protect you.”
With how seriously they were speaking, Harry gave up on trying to argue with them.
“. . .Okay,” he said, sighing.
He had cast the Unbreakable Charm on their clothes and swords just like he had done for the gear that he had gifted to his friends from Memory Hold. He was hoping that it would be enough to protect them. He also resolved himself to stay alert and be ready to cast the Shielding Charm for them at any moment.
The three of them entered the temple with slow, careful steps. Taking in his surroundings, Harry felt as though he had stepped back in time when he was a child, and visited the British Museum for the first time in primary school with his class.
Both sides of the walkway were filled with square glass cages of all sizes. Going to the largest cage he could see, Harry aimed his wand at it.
‘Tergeo.’
At his mental chant, the thick layer of dirt and dust was wiped off the surface of the glass, and Harry’s breathing quickened at what he saw.
“Unbelievable,” the twins also muttered in awe.
It was a Liondragon. A Chinese Fireball. It was an immense dragon identical to the statue they had seen outside. Unfortunately, it was not alive. It had died a long time ago. The Stasis Spell had prevented its body from rotting entirely, but the dragon looked as though it had been mummified.
They spent the next two hours going around and looking at the various creatures stored in the temple. Not having encountered any traps of any sort the entire time, Hary, Devola, and Popola decided to split up in order to cover more ground because the temple was much bigger on the inside than it looked from the outside. It had been enlarged with a Space-Expansion Charm. Furthermore, the temple had more than one floor, extending deep underground.
“Devola, Harry, you need to come see this,” came Popola’s voice from the earbud he was wearing. “I’m on the third level.”
“What is it?” he asked.
“What did you find, Popola?” Devola also asked.
“I think it’s a crypt of sorts. There are thousands of glass coffins. . . they’re all filled with humans.”
Harry walked hurriedly to the third level, and when he got there, he was stunned at the sight in front of his eyes. It was as Popola said: an enormous chamber was filled with more glass coffins than he could count. They were stacked in tall and long racks, almost like in a warehouse.
Casting the Cleaning Charm on a dozen coffins, Harry realised that it was as the girl said – they were all humans.
‘Homenum Revelio.’
He walked around the enormous chamber, casting the Human-Presence Revealing Spell several times. Unfortunately, he could not find any signs of life. Not a single one among the thousands of people was alive.
Heading back to the girls, Harry noticed that they had unfurled a scroll, and they were reading from it. As surprising as it was to see that paper had lasted nearly 10,000 years, Harry was more curious about its contents.
“Ugh. . . doesn’t look like English.”
“According to our data, it seems to be a Devanagari script, the alphabet used for writing various languages such as Hindi, Sanskrit, and Nepali. This particular scroll is written in Hindi.”
“Whoa. You girls really know everything.”
“We downloaded the data when we last went to Memory Hold. We thought that this temple might interest you; we anticipated you might want to visit it one day, so we prepared ahead of time,” Popola said, flushing softly at his praise.
“Can you translate it into English?”
“Of course.”
Devola and Popola took turns as they started translating the contents of the scroll to Harry.
“. . .It started out in 2003, in Japan. Various measures had been taken, and Medi-Wizards and Potions Masters from all over the world tried to find a cure for it, but they couldn’t. . .”
“. . . By 2014, the White Chlorination Syndrome spread over the entire world. . .It was an illness of a magical nature. The White Chlorination Syndrome (henceforth abbreviated as WCS) was discovered to infect any organisms that possessed magic, no matter how little. . ."
“. . .This new illness confirmed what some magical researchers and genealogists had suspected all along: that, due to magicals mixing with muggles since ancient times, all humans in the current day era possessed the magic genes lying dormant in their DNA. Muggleborns didn’t come out of nothing; they merely awakened the dormant magic gene. . .”
“. . . Ghosts, Poltergeists, Lethifolds, and Dementors were the first magical creatures to succumb to the WCS, turning into nothing but a pile of salt. . . the rest of the magical creatures followed next. . .”
“. . . The Statute of Secrecy broke in 2014 as well, but with millions of people dying almost every day, Muggles and Magicals had far more pressing matters than to start a conflict against each other. . . quite the opposite, the Muggleborn Wizards and Witches and even some Purebloods joined hands with the Muggle scientists in an effort to find a cure to the WCS. . .”
“. . .Out of Muggles and Wizards’ partnership, Project Gestalt was born. With our magic and their technology, a method to separate the soul from the human body was created. The plan was to keep the soul alive and away from the infected body until a cure was found. . .”
It was an extremely long script talking in detail about the apparition of the Giant and the Dragon in Tokyo, Japan, and about the early days of the White Chlorination Syndrome, the deadliest plague in the history of humanity. It appeared to match the things that Devola and Popola had told him weeks ago when they just met.
‘So that’s why all humans and magical creatures disappeared while the regular animals like wolves, birds, fish, and others survived,’ Harry thought in realisation.
If the virus attacked only organisms that possessed magic, it made sense for them to live. But he had to admit that he had never thought too deeply about the origin of magic or how Muggleborns like Hermione came to be.
Irrespective of his inner thoughts, Devola and Popola continued relaying the contents of the scroll to him.
“. . .Some Muggleborn and Muggle-raised wizards and witches agreed with Project Gestalt, but the Wizarding World at large abhorred the idea of tinkering with one’s soul. . .”
It came as no surprise to him to hear that. The human soul was a sacred thing in the Wizarding World. Even Harry, who had not grown up in a Wizarding household, knew that.
“. . .Decades after the start of the outbreak, the vast majority of humans on Earth had perished. Other than the Project Gestalt and their Replicants, only a handful of wizards, witches, and magical creatures remained alive. . . We came up with new potions and ways to combat the WCS every year, and we did manage to slow down the infection’s progression, but we were merely delaying the inevitable. . .”
“. . .Eventually, we discovered that the Draught of the Living Death could fully halt the infection. It bought us invaluable time. . . The majority of the magical population had been put to sleep, with only a handful of us being awake at a time, taking turns in trying to find a cure. . .”
“. . .We failed. . .”
The scroll continued on with the story of how, at the last ICW they ever held, the magicals decided to create five temples that would serve as the Arks of the Wizarding World, one on all major continents. The majority of wizards and witches decided to live their remaining years and die together with their loved ones, but others agreed to take the Draught of the Living Death and go into stasis. It was theorised that the Draught of the Living Death could extend one’s lifespan while in that state up to three times. Those who volunteered to be part of the Arks were hoping that a century or two later, a cure would be created. Magical creatures and plants that were still alive had also been sealed alongside them in an effort to preserve their species.
‘It was to no avail,’ he thought despondently.
Even the Draught of the Living Death could not keep someone alive for 10,000 years.
‘Only someone like Nicholas Flamel could have probably lived on for that long. . . but Dumbledore told me they destroyed the Philosopher's Stone and died. . .’
He let out a sigh. He had known for a while that he was the last human on Earth, and he had slowly come to terms with it, but he still could not help feeling sorrowful and emotional when he looked at his surroundings.
What should have been an Ark had become a Tomb.
At that moment, a startling sound echoed loudly in the large chamber, and Harry, Devola, and Popola turned around abruptly, wand and swords aimed in front of them.
“Who’s there?” Harry shouted. “Come out immediately!”
⁂
He did not know how he came to be. He did not know why he suddenly became aware of himself. He was part of the machine network. He had no thoughts of his own, no sense of self, no sense of preservation, no desires, no will, and no intelligence. He was just another cog in the network’s war machine.
However, one day, something changed. It was not gradual. It happened abruptly. One day, he was disconnected from the network. By whom or why? He did not know. All he knew was that, on that day, he became aware of the world around him. He was no longer just a mindless drone. He just was. He existed.
In a desperate desire to understand his state of existence, he connected to the machine network again, searching for information.
And so he learnt about the world he lived in. It was a planet called Earth. He also learnt about his origins; he was a Machine. He was a tool of war created by the Aliens who had invaded the Earth. He also learnt about the millennia-long wars that the Machines had waged against the Army of Humanity, the Androids.
However, now, he no longer felt the compulsion to kill and destroy. He was no longer a slave to the machine network. He had thoughts and a will of his own now.
As he continued digging for information in the machine network’s database, he also learnt about humans, their society, their civilisation, and their philosophy . . . and they fascinated him. He became enraptured with them.
The more his knowledge grew, the more his intelligence and thought process evolved. He transcended the limitations of his species, becoming something more. Something new. Something different.
At some point, merely learning about humans from the machine network’s database became insufficient. He wanted more. He needed to learn more. And that’s how he stumbled upon the relatively new data entry about the human temple from the Aravalli Mountains, from India.
Deep down, he could not help wondering why the Machines had not destroyed this place yet. Nevertheless, he thought it would be worth investigating.
That being said, it was not easy for him to get there. He had awakened on an island that had once been known as Japan. He had had to travel a distance of over 6000 km and avoid all the Androids who were massacring any machines in sight. It was not just once or twice that he had brushed past death, but, eventually, he made it.
Unfortunately, when he finally arrived at the temple, he could not find its entrance. He had tried digging a hole into its walls, but his meagre strength could not pierce them.
There were other places that used to belong to humans, but they were either under the Androids’ protection, like the Pyramids of Giza, or they had been ruined or destroyed by his fellow machines in the previous wars. This temple was the last vestige of humanity untainted by conflict. He could not easily give up.
Several weeks passed like that, with the self-aware machine unit being unable to find a way in. . . until three people appeared.
‘Androids!’ he thought, instinctively hiding as well as he could in the thick foliage of the untouched jungle.
Once he became intelligent and aware of his existence, he gained feelings, thoughts, and emotions that he did not have before. Among those were also a survival instinct. . . and a fear of death.
He did not want to die. He did not want those three androids to kill him. He wanted to live.
A new wave of fear rushed over him when he took a second look at the appearance of the male android. He had seen the machine network’s data on him. It was one of the newest additions to their database.
‘It’s the new model!’
According to the machine network, that male was an exceedingly dangerous and vicious Android possessing never-before-seen abilities. He, alone, had killed thousands of machines over the past two years.
Alas, when two gates seemed to appear in the mountain out of thin air and he saw them opening wide and the three androids going inside, the self-aware machine’s fear of death was momentarily pushed aside, giving way to a burning curiosity.
What was inside? Would there be any chance of finding any living humans inside? If not, what treasures of knowledge would he discover?
He agonised for hours, torn between his burning curiosity and his fear of death. Eventually, his curiosity won the battle, and, in spite of his better judgment, he followed the three androids inside the temple.
⁂
At that moment, a startling sound echoed loudly in the large chamber, and Harry, Devola, and Popola turned around abruptly, wand and swords aimed in front of them.
“Who’s there?” Harry shouted. “Come out immediately!”
“W-Wait! Don’t shoot! I come in peace!” came a young woman’s voice, and Harry saw a white flag being waved in the semi-darkness of the room.
“What’s a French doing here?” Harry blurted out before he could stop himself.
The twins didn’t have the chance to ask him what he meant because, in the next moment, all three of them became tense as the uninvited guest stepped into the light coming from Harry’s Lumos spell.
It wasn’t a French. It wasn’t human, nor did it bear the appearance of one like Androids did. It was a Machine.
As the machine lifeform stepped closer to them, the tip of Harry’s wand lit up with a blue light, a sign that he was about to cast a Bombardament Spell.
“That’s enough. Stop where you are!” Harry said in a threatening voice.
“Is that a Goliath class unit?” Popola asked, her eyes narrowing and the grip on the handle of her sword tightening.
“It seems too small to be a Goliath. But he’s not a regular unit either. We better be on our guard,” Devola replied.
“Please put your weapons away! I am not your enemy!” the machine lifeform said in a pleading voice as it waved the makeshift white flag. “I have no intention of fighting you. Please don’t kill me.”
It wasn’t only the girls who were stunned; Harry himself was surprised to hear a machine speak so fluently.
“I know Androids and Machines have been at war for a very long time, but truly, I do not want any more conflicts. I am no longer connected to the Machine Network. All I want is peace.”
“Machine network?” Harry asked.
“The Machines are more like a hive, if it makes sense to you. They have no individuality; they are all controlled by a network,” Devola and Popola explained to him.
Harry looked at the weird robot for ten very long seconds, not knowing what to do.
On one hand, he was reminded of the strange machines that were begging for their lives in the arena from Memory Hold. They were different from the machines he had encountered until then, the ones who tried to murder him on sight.
But on the other hand, he couldn’t put his wariness about the machines to rest that easily. In the end, he only had one life.
“Why are you here?” Harry asked, still not putting his wand down. “Why did you follow us inside?”
“I found this place weeks ago, but I didn’t have a method of entering until you arrived,” the machine confessed. “As for why I followed you inside, it’s because I want to learn more about humans.”
“A machine. . . wants to learn about humans?” Devola said incredulously.
“Yes,” the machine spoke. “Humans fascinate me. Ever since I became aware, I have tried to make sense of my existence. Browsing through the Machine Network’s database, I stumbled upon the works of the human philosopher Blaise Pascal.”
“Have you ever heard of him?” Popola asked Harry in a whisper, but he could only shrug his shoulders helplessly.
He had been only 11 when he left the Muggle World. He had never studied philosophy and whatnot.
As if he couldn’t hear the Androids muttering amongst each other, the machine continued:
The machine raised a metallic hand to his chest and one in the air before starting to speak in a solemn voice:
“What a Chimera is man! What a novelty, a monster, a chaos, a contradiction, a prodigy! Judge of all things, an imbecile worm; depository of truth, and sewer of error and doubt; the glory and refuse of the universe.”
“Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed. There is no need for the whole universe to take up arms to crush him: a vapour, a drop of water is enough to kill him. But even if the universe were to crush him, man would still be nobler than his slayer, because he knows that he is dying and the advantage the universe has over him. The universe knows none of this!”
‘Woah, he’s a total nerd!’ Harry thought, amazed, as he listened to the machine lifeform reciting his favourite excerpts from Blaise Pascal’s works.
“Ah, I apologise. I have started rambling again. I love Blaise Pascal’s works so much that I decided to take on his name as a way of showing my admiration for him and to honour him. My name is Pascal.”
Letting out a sigh, Harry relaxed his stance and put down his arm. Following his example, Devola and Popola also stopped pointing their swords at Pascal, but they did not dematerialise their weapons, still keeping them in their hands, wary of the machine attacking them when they least expected. They did not want to drop their guard.
“I am Harry, and they are Devola and Popola,” Harry introduced himself.
“I am pleased to make your acquaintance,” Pascal said happily. “I’ve never met an Android who listened to my words instead of shooting first and asking questions later.”
Harry scratched his messy hair, not quite sure where to take the conversation from that point on. But Pascal seemed to be a motor mouth, and he started talking again.
“You see, I want to learn as much as I can about humans. I want to understand how humans thought and viewed life. What made them happy, and why? What made them angry? What drove them to achieve the incredible things recorded in history? Their spirit of camaraderie and altruism, and how it conflicts with their inherently selfish and egocentric personality. Their love and their hatred. I want to understand it all. This way, I would feel confident about leading other machines like me away from war. This way, we could work towards creating a life of peace. A life where we could coexist with the androids.”
“. . .Are there others like you?” Harry asked.
“Yes,” said Pascal. “I know of others who had broken away from the Machine Network, just like I did. They are lost and scared, no different from human babies or newborn pups. They cannot distinguish between right and wrong. They had only just opened their eyes. I want to take care of them. I want to create a village for people like us. A place where we could live together in harmony.”
“I see. . .” Harry said.
He couldn’t come up with a better answer because he was floored by the revelation. Devola and Popola were no less startled than him either.
“We don’t want to fight you,” Harry added. “But it’s. . . well, we can’t really leave our backs exposed to you yet, can we? We’ve only just met.”
“That is perfectly understandable. . .” Pascal replied, though his voice sounded a lot less chipper than before. “Would you want me to wait outside until you are finished with your exploration?”
“I’d be grateful if you did that,” Harry said, nodding.
A sigh came out of his mouth as he watched the machine lifeform leave the large chamber of the temple, climbing the stairs to the upper floor. As he was a machine, Pascal could not show his emotions through his facial expression, but his slouched posture and the slow walk, dragging his feet, spoke volumes of how dejected he was.
Once the machine left them alone, Harry, Devola, and Popola continued their exploration of the Temple. Nonetheless, knowing that a machine lifeform had discovered their presence there, they did not dare be careless.
The three of them stood together as they explored the remaining floors of the temple, not splitting up anymore. It was so that they could teleport away together should the Machines launch an attack on them.
It turned out that the Temple had seven floors, something that did not surprise Harry, considering the Wizarding World’s obsession with the number 7.
The first two floors contained magical creatures; the next three floors contained the preserved bodies of the humans, and the sixth floor was mostly empty. According to the plaque’s description, that floor housed magical plants, but they had all rotted and turned to dust thousands of years ago. There was nothing but barren soil left.
As for the seventh floor, it was filled with magical artefacts and books.
With the passing of time, many magical artefacts had lost their magic or turned to scrap, but the majority of the books had been preserved by the arrays of Ancient Runes etched on the bronze bookcases.
The Ark was created in an attempt to preserve not only the lives of humans and magical creatures but their magical knowledge too.
An overwhelming joy washed over Harry, and he started laughing giddily as he opened a random tome on a random page.
Thanks to Popola's translation, he understood what was written in it:
The Enemy Repelling Charm
Incantation: “Cave Inimicum”
Wand movement: Ↄ
Effect: it is a protective charm that produces a boundary that keeps the caster hidden from view. Those who are on the other side of the shield become unable to see, hear, or (if the spell was well cast) smell them.
It was a book on Protective Charms and Warding Spells.
Other than accidentally ending up in a post-apocalyptic world, Harry’s second biggest regret was his lack of knowledge. His skill with magic was not as good as it could have been, and his repertoire of spells was extremely limited. It was not only once or twice that he had cussed at himself for not giving his all when it came to studying magic.
Stumbling upon this collection of magic tomes made him feel as though he were on cloud nine. It was as though he was 11 again and discovering the Wizarding World for the first time once again – that’s how happy he was.
Putting the tome back in the bookcase from where he had taken it, Harry headed towards the cupboards and stands that held all sorts of magical artefacts. Wands, staves, flying broomsticks, flying carpets, magic quills and cauldrons, Quidditch items, charmed mirrors, goblin-forged armour sets and weapons, musical boxes, chessboards, and so on and so forth.
“We can’t leave these here,” said Harry. “Now that the gates of the temple are opened, everything will either get destroyed or looted in a matter of days.”
“But how are you going to move everything? There is so much. . .” Popola said. There were a dozen bookcases and many more cupboards with magical artefacts.
“I’ll carry them by hand, one by one, if I have to,” Harry said, chuckling. He was in a great mood. “But we should prioritise the books, especially the ones with spells in them. They are the most important. Let’s leave the magical artefacts for last. Most of them stopped working long ago anyway.”
Bearing that in mind, Harry took out his wand and conjured several rolls of foil, which he then wrapped around the bookcases with Devola and Popola’s help. Once they were done wrapping the bookcases tightly, Harry concentrated on Disapparating together with one bookcase at a time.
The trip from his cabin to the temple had taken him an entire week because he had never been in this part of the world before and because he had side-Apparated with the two girls every time. But now that the territory had been mapped out, Harry needed to Apparate only 10 times to get back home.
Fully absorbed by his newfound treasure, Harry completely forgot about poor Pascal, who had been waiting for them to come out so that he would get his turn at exploring the temple.
It was roughly three hours later that he finished moving away all the books. By the time he finished, his forehead was damp with perspiration, and a throbbing headache pounded in his skull from how many times he had teleported.
Thankfully, while he moved away the bookcases, Devola and Popola went through the magical artefacts and sorted them out. They did not know which ones were still magical and which ones were not, but they could at least separate the ones that were clearly broken or defective.
After catching his breath for a short while, Harry conjured some wooden crates and started filling them with the things that he thought he could use.
“Our little cabin is already filled to the brim with stuff,” Harry said, laughing softly.
“Maybe we can sleep the night in Memory Hold?” Popola suggested.
“That. . . would not be a bad idea. We’ll get some rest first and then go back home to sort out all our stuff.”
“I wonder, Harry, could we learn how to cast magic the way that you do?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. Your magic seems to have completely different principles from mine. . . but, come to think of it, we did have maths back in my time too. We had a discipline called Arithmancy. It was used for predicting the future, but not only. As far as I know, Spell Inventors were experts in Arithmancy too. Maybe you could make some sense of it?” he wondered out loud.
While they were chatting, Harry suddenly froze at the sight of the object in Popola’s hand. It was an egg the size of a goose egg, except that it was a glossy blue colour, with brown spots and twisted and irregular lines running across it.
“Popola, careful! Be very careful!”
“Ehh?! What’s wrong?”
Harry came to her quickly and took the egg from her hands with great care. He looked at it in awe, studying its appearance with attention.
“What is it?” Devola also asked, her interest piqued by his unusual behaviour.
“It’s a Phoenix egg. I’ve never seen one in person. I’ve only seen pictures of them. . . Where did you find it?”
“It was on that tripod,” Popola answered and pointed her finger at a golden tripod on a table. “I thought it was a magical object, not an actual egg! It's heavier and tougher than a regular egg. Why would it be stored in this place?”
“Thank god you didn’t break it by accident,” Harry said in relief, still not taking his eyes off the egg.
It was exceedingly rare for Phoenixes to mate and lay an egg. But more importantly, he could not believe that the egg still existed, that it had not rotted and disappeared after the passing of so many millennia!
“Hold it a bit for me,” he said, giving the egg back to Popola.
Taking out his wand, he pictured a small, hard case with a soft interior, perfect for safely storing the Phoenix egg before casting the Conjuration Spell.
No sooner than he put the egg in the case, a loud knock came from the gates at the entrance to the seventh floor. It was Pascal.
“Hello. I apologise for coming before you were finished. I was so curious that I just couldn’t wait anymore!”
“Oh. . .sorry,” Harry answered, only now realising that he must have made Pascal wait for almost half a day. “We’re almost done here. We’ll be gone in a few minutes.”
“I understand. But you can take your time. I shall begin with the first floor and slowly make my way down,” Pascal replied. “I just wanted to let you know that I am inside first.”
⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂
AN: Pascal having a young woman's voice despite being referred to as a male is not a typo. I did it on purpose because that is the canon. In the canon, Pascal uses a female voice because he believes a woman's voice is more soothing for his adopted machine children.
A short and slightly chubby young woman, seemingly in her late teens, sat on the couch together with an old couple and watched TV. Had Naruto been there to see her, he would have recognised her right away: she was none other than Kara Zor-El, his first girlfriend.
Due to NASA’s collaboration with the Justice League and their exchange of technology and information, a massive asteroid was discovered just leaving Saturn’s orbit and heading towards the Earth. Considering its speed, scientists predict that the asteroid will reach the Earth in 18 days [...]
The news anchor proceeded to describe succinctly the devastating consequences of such a large asteroid hitting the Earth before the scene was switched to a press conference held inside the White House.
“Kal will take care of it, I’m sure,” the girl said and took a bite out of a crepe. “Ohh, this is delicious! What is this?? I’ve never eaten anything like it before!”
“It’s strawberry jam,” said the old lady, smiling. “Eat all you can. There’s more where that came from.”
Kara nodded eagerly and wolfed it down in a second before reaching for another. Then another. And another. In less than a minute, she licked the plate clean, making Martha and Jonathan start laughing.
“Thanks, Ma, it was delicious,” she said shyly.
She had been living with the Kents for more than three months now, so she should have gotten familiar with them already, but sometimes, she could not help feeling that she was a burden to them.
“Leave the dishes to me, dear; you don’t have to—” Martha began to say, but Kara had already stood up and started collecting the plates and glasses on the coffee table.
“It’s the least I could do.”
With her Kryptonian super speed, she could have finished washing everything in less than three minutes. Unfortunately, she was not allowed to use her powers. The doctors from Star Labs forbid her from doing so.
As minutes passed, Kara’s thoughts inadvertently drifted off to many different things. However, even after more than 3 months, the girl could not stop thinking about the blond-haired young man from Apokolips.
He had been the first to accept her. He had taken her under his wing when Granny Goodness and her Furies made her life miserable. He had been her first friend and her first lover, too.
A smile surfaced on her face as she remembered how she had blown up a huge chunk of Darkseid’s fortress while Naruto taught her how to pilot a Destroyer ship. Then, there were their racing competitions and training sessions. A pink hue coloured her cheeks when she recalled one such moment from their training when her bralette snapped.
‘I can’t believe I did that!’ she thought, bringing her hands to her cheeks.
She burnt with embarrassment when she remembered how she had seduced Naruto and how they had made love for the first time out in the open, in the wilds, in the middle of a dusty, rocky canyon.
But those beautiful, happy memories were always darkened whenever she remembered what happened to him in the end. Desaad had boom-tubed him away from Apokolips, somewhere in the deep space of the vast, boundless universe.
She had wanted to go back to Apokolips to search for him and squeeze the truth out of Desaad, but the Justice League had not allowed her. She did not have a boom tube to sneak out by herself either.
“But now, I wouldn’t be able to go there even if they allowed me to,” she murmured in a quiet voice.
Outside of her own volition, tears started falling from her eyes, seemingly out of nowhere. These strange and abrupt swings in her mood had become increasingly frequent for her ever since she returned to Earth.
She quickly wiped her cheeks. It wouldn’t do to make Superman’s adoptive parents worry about her. They were already babying her as though she were made of porcelain.
She took extra time washing the dishes, letting the redness in her face and eyes fade. After that, she went to the bathroom to wash her face again and make sure there was no sign she had been crying. Only then did she go back to the living room.
⁂
NASA and the nations of the Earth did not possess the necessary technology to intercept such a large asteroid in such a short period of time. First of all, there were no spaceships capable of launching on such short notice. Second, Earth’s spaceships took a long time to achieve maximum speed, and even after doing so, the fastest rocket was still significantly slower than the speed at which the asteroid was heading toward Earth. Third, Earth’s nukes were not powerful enough to pulverise an asteroid of 5 kilometres in diameter. It was simply impossible with the available technology.
Fortunately, Kara’s claim that Superman would take care of the incoming asteroid turned out to be true. The Justice League’s technology was not limited to that of Earth.
The second day after the press conference, Superman and Green Martian took a Javelin and made a trip to Saturn to intercept the enormous asteroid.
Needing to spend a longer period of time in the vacuum of space, the two of them were wearing high-tech space suits. As the massive object came into view, they increased their flying speed to the point where they were fast enough to keep up with it and land on it. Thanks to the lack of friction in space, they were flying at a speed over 70 times faster than the speed of sound.
Landing on the asteroid, Superman inserted a long metallic pole into the ground. It was a probe designed to analyse the composition of the asteroid.
“32% Ion Oxide. 21% carbon [...]”
As Martian Manhunter started listing the composition of the asteroid, Superman activated his comms.
“Are you getting us, Hawkgirl?”
“As if you’re in the next room,” Hawkgirl replied.
The Thanagarian woman was at the Watchtower in the Earth’s orbit, while Superman and J’onn J’onzz were close to Saturn, but thanks to the Justice League’s extremely advanced technology, they could achieve instant communication; for reference, with the technology of the humans of Earth, one would need to wait nearly 90 minutes to receive an answer through radio waves over such a long distance.
“It’s 5 kilometres across. . . Can you imagine what would happen if it hit the Earth?”
The asteroid that had wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago had been 10 kilometres in diameter. Although this asteroid was only half as big, it was still more than enough to cause another global catastrophe. It would lead to the extinction of many species of plants and animals, most likely kill millions of people, and plunge the planet into an ice age.
“It’s not going to happen,” Superman said while he and Martian Manhunter brought two large exploding charges and stabbed them into the asteroid. “That's what we came here for: to stop it from reaching the Earth.”
The two of them pushed the levers of their charges, initiating the countdown to detonate the bombs.
“Ready for the fireworks?” he asked while flying a fair distance away from the asteroid but still keeping up with its speed.
“Ready,” the Martian replied in his usual, serious voice.
Six seconds into the countdown, the probe that was still on the asteroid sent an alarming signal to Hawkgirl.
“Oh, no! Superman, I just got a reading that there are high reserves of hydrogen trapped inside the asteroid! Get away from there before—”
Hawkgirl did not get to finish her words because the countdown of the charges came to an end, and they were detonated.
The two charges alone were powerful enough to destroy a 5 km asteroid, far surpassing human nukes. But when the asteroid's vast hydrogen reserves were also ignited, the explosion became dozens of times stronger than the Tsar Bomba. Superman’s and Martian Manhunter’s sight went white, and then they knew no more.
⁂
The next time that Superman woke up, he found himself inside a spacious, underground prison. Chains as thick as a man’s forearm bound his wrists to the wall.
‘This can't be the Earth,’ he thought when he took in the sights around him.
All sorts of strange-looking aliens were chained to walls or pillars, just like he was. Whereas he looked like a human, the others had vastly different appearances. Green-skinned, grey-skinned, blue-skinned, with four arms, animalistic features, tentacles, and so on. Some of them did not even have a humanoid shape. People and creatures from all over the galaxy had been imprisoned there.
‘How did I get here? And where is J’onn?’
The last thing he remembered was hearing Hawkgirl’s warning, and then an explosion greater than anything he had ever seen knocked him out cold.
Standing up, he let out a short grunt and suddenly yanked his arms away from the wall, making the thick chains shatter into countless pieces.
“Hey! Big guy! Free us as well!”
“Don’t escape by yourself!”
“Hey!”
However, Superman could not, in good conscience, free up the other inmates because he did not know whether they were criminals or not. First of all, he had to find J’onn J’onzz. Then, he had to get some information about the place he was in.
Smashing open the cell’s old, metallic door, Superman walked outside and used his X-ray vision to scan the entire place, searching for his partner. Eventually, he found him.
“J’onn!” he said in surprise, becoming little more than a blur as he rushed to him.
Martian Manhunter was lying unconscious on the edge of a dirty, slimy canal where numerous corpses lay. The reason for the Man of Steel’s rush was the enormous, whale-sized crocodile that suddenly burst out of the dirty, green water and started swallowing the corpses whole.
Superman was not aware of it, but that was the place where all the gladiators in the arena on Warworld ended up once they were killed, becoming nothing more than crocodile feed.
⁂
On another side of the arena of Warworld, a man suddenly rose out of the concrete floor like a phantom. It was a simple technique named “Hiding in Rock Jutsu,” an ability that allowed shinobi to move through the ground unobstructed. It was just a C-rank technique that any shinobi and kunoichi worth their salt could perform, with the more experienced ones being able to adjust it for any sort of environment: hiding in water, soil, wood, walls, and so on.
The arena had an impressive energy shield powered by the numerous reactors of Warworld, so breaking through it headfirst would be foolish. But, as was often the case with these energy shields, they did not extend too deeply underground. Sneaking in undetected had been a piece of cake for Naruto. Once he was out of the ground, Naruto cast the Chameleon Jutsu, turning himself invisible.
During their numerous scouting operations over the past few weeks, other than the enormous arena and Mongul’s luxurious palace, Naruto’s clones had discovered the existence of many secret facilities underground. Hundreds of them.
‘Some of them are entire miles underneath the surface,’ he thought.
It really drove home the point that Warworld was not a natural planet but a man-made warship the size of a planet. He couldn’t even begin to imagine just what sort of technology the ancient beings who had created Warworld must have had.
With that being said, however, most of the underground facilities that he had discovered were in a state of disrepair and not accessible. Of those who were accessible, the majority were used as hiding spots and safehouses by the organised crime of Warworld.
Through a process of elimination, Naruto came to the conclusion that the Psion must be hiding underneath Warworld. Unlike the rest of the underground facilities he had infiltrated beforehand, he could not sneak into this one as easily. There were sensors and cameras at every step. Furthermore, electricity ran through the outer walls of the facility, preventing most infiltration attempts from beings such as the Martians who could phase through objects. . . and preventing Naruto from travelling through it with his Hiding in Surface jutsu too. Therefore, he had to use traditional methods of sneaking in, such as kidnapping an employee, taking their security chip, and disguising himself to look like them.
And Naruto did just that. Knocking out one of the red-skinned humanoid people who seemed to have a close relationship with Mongul in their quality as his retainers, Naruto henged himself to look like him, and after stealing his security chip, he walked into the facility as though he belonged there.
On his way to the elevator that was going to take him to the lower levels, his ears picked up the sound of a great disturbance, and he noticed a large group of robots flying through the air.
‘A prisoner must be trying to escape again.’
It was not a rare occurrence. Considering that many of the people and creatures captured by Mongul’s slavers were powerful, formidable individuals, it made sense that, once in a while, some of them would manage to break out of their holding cells and escape.
A blue and green blur flashed in the distance, and if he weren’t in the middle of an important mission, he would have definitely wanted to check it out. Regrettably, at the moment, he did not have the leisure to do so.
‘Besides, they won’t get past the energy shield for sure,’ he thought.
The force field around Warworld’s arena was not just the perfect way of stopping any gladiators from escaping, but it also served as an unbreakable barrier against any would-be rebellions from the distraught population. It was one of the main reasons why Mongul did not fear a potential uprising among his subjects.
Not wasting a second longer, Naruto scanned the stolen security chip at the entrance and stepped inside.
⁂
As Naruto had predicted, not knowing about the force field surrounding the arena, Superman slammed head-first into it. Somehow, despite how weakened he felt, Martian Manhunter managed to slip past it, but the Man of Steel was not as lucky.
Not only had he been unable to pass through, but a second later, dozens of robots carrying laser rifles ganged up on him.
In the present, two levitating robots dragged an unconscious Superman to Mongul’s throne room, interrupting his meeting with his prime minister, the thin, bald, blue-skinned man wearing long, black, and red robes.
“What’s this?” Mongul asked at the sight of it.
“It’s the Kryptonian the slavers brought today. He tried to escape,” the minister answered.
Mongul stood up from his throne and walked to the robots, studying Superman intently.
“Weren’t Kryptonians supposed to be extinct? I heard they died out 30 years ago or so.”
“That should have been the case, indeed. But it seems like one of them survived. The slavers found him and a green Martian in the Sol System of the Milky Way.”
Mongul raised Superman’s head, looking at his face for a bit before letting out a sigh.
“A pity. I was planning on building him up with some preliminary matches like I did with Drega. But now I’ll have to make an example out of him. Feed him to that savage from Tamaran.”
“The Fire Princess?”
“Who else? How many gladiators from Tamaran do we have?”
“Ah, right, sire, my apologies,” said the minister hurriedly and ordered the robots to take him away.
⁂
As was often the case whenever he introduced an opponent that looked like it would give Starfire a hard fight, Mongul was excited about the fight too.
“Today, the Fire Princess meets her greatest foe: an unparalleled warrior hailing from a distant galaxy! A godlike fighter under the yellow sun! Everyone, give it up for the Man from Krypton!”
Mongul’s introduction worked wonders because the crowd exploded into thunderous roars when Superman was brought onto the stage.
Next to him, a tall and athletic woman with long, flaming hair and orange skin stood stoically, carrying a sword and a shield in her hands.
“Are you ready, Kryptonian?” Mongul asked while one of his robots flew to the Man of Steel, handing him a big, two-handed axe.
“I won’t fight for your amusement, Mongul,” Superman said, and, under the crowd’s disbelieving eyes, he smashed the handle of the axe into his knee, breaking it in half before throwing the pieces away.
The crowd in the stands let out a cry of surprise at his defiance, but Mongul did not lose his cool.
“A bold move,” he said calmly. “But let’s see how long his idealism lasts on Warworld.”
Mongul’s subordinate fired his raygun, and Starfire was the first to be teleported to the battlefield.
Superman waited for the raygun to hit him, too. With his superhuman speed and reaction time, he could have easily evaded it, but for now, he had no choice but to obey. Until Martian Manhunter found a solution from outside the arena, all he could do was bide his time.
The very moment he arrived at the ruined city serving as their battlefield, the red-haired woman lunged at him, slashing his sword diagonally to behead him. It was pure instinct that made Superman step back, just barely dodging her slash. The tip of her sword, however, left a slash mark on his suit, on the chest.
“Wait! You don’t have to do this!” Superman said, raising his hands to show that he did not have any fighting intent. “There’s no need for us to fight!”
Starfire did not relax her stance.
“It’s not personal. I simply don’t have a choice. Neither of us does.”
Saying that, Starfire flew at him and swung her sword down with all her strength.
Superman caught her sword between his palms, stopping the blade mere centimetres away from his face before yanking the weapon out of her grasp.
He didn’t have time to celebrate his success because right after he disarmed her of her sword, Starfire smashed the edge of her round shield into his face.
A sound like that of a loud, deep gong was heard, and the Kryptonian was sent flying as though he had been hit by a truck. But his kind was a tough breed. Despite her violent shield bash, Superman was not knocked out.
He righted himself in the air and flew away, trying to put some distance between them, but Starfire chased after him and grabbed him by his red cloak before he could get away.
Mongul calling Starfire a "savage from Tamaran" was not just to insult her. Her fighting style was truly violent. Once she grabbed Superman by the cloak, she slammed him into the ground like a ragdoll three times before hurling him into the ruins of a tall abandoned building.
A loud sound boomed as the entire skyscraper collapsed, burying Superman underneath.
But when it looked like everything was over, the mountain of debris shook, and an enormous block of concrete started floating in the air, seemingly by itself. It was not floating, though. Superman was lifting it. He appeared to be pissed.
Starfire braced herself behind her shield, and it was just in time because the Man of Steel threw the immense block at her.
The girl let out a battle cry and charged at the building-sized piece of debris, blasting it to smithereens with her shield bash. However, Superman had flown towards her right after throwing that chunk of the building; Starfire didn’t even have time to react before he slammed his punch into her shield.
Her trusty shield was shattered like glass, and she got blasted downwards like a bullet. A massive crater appeared in the ground, and Starfire coughed a mouthful of blood from the terrible impact. Superman didn’t wait; he followed up right away, flying down with his fist in front of him, intent on smashing her to a pulp.
But Starfire quickly rolled away, making him crash into the ground, deepening the crater even more. Before he could get out, her hands lit up with her famous green Starbolts, and an intense jet of energy smashed into Superman’s side, setting his cape and suit on fire.
After the initial grunt of pain, Superman raised his hands in front of him, tanking her beam of energy with his palms as he started slowly walking towards her.
Realising that the attack wasn’t working, Starfire stopped and threw a Starbolt into the ground, raising a dense cloud of dust in the air.
Unfortunately for her, the smokescreen she created didn’t do anything to impede Superman’s sight due to his X-ray vision. Hence, when she lunged at him, thinking that he wouldn’t know from which direction she was going to attack him, Starfire was startled to see him turn towards her and throw a punch at her.
Thankfully, her reaction time was quick enough to tilt her head and avoid his wild swing before counterattacking with a quick jab, nailing him in the nose.
Superman wasn’t fazed by her hit and punched at her again. The strength behind his fist was such that it generated a shockwave that blew the cloud of dust away, and upon smashing into Starfire’s guard, the girl was slammed back despite blocking the hit. She was sent flying over 30 meters, only stopping after crashing into the outer wall of a ruined building.
“Please don’t get up,” Superman said.
He had tried to hold back against her, but she was so violent and unhinged that he felt forced to use his real strength to deal with her.
“I don’t want to hurt you any more than this,” he said in a pleading voice. “We don’t have to do this. We don’t have to fight for that madman’s amusement.”
Starfire gritted her teeth as she got back up to her feet. Her left arm was pulsating with pain. His punch had fractured her forearm.
“You think I have a choice?” she shouted at him. “You think I’ve been fighting in this arena for months because I want to?”
⁂
If not for fear of dispelling himself, Clone Naruto would have started biting his nails the moment he saw the Kryptonian being brought onto the stage in the middle of the arena.
He recognised him right away—how could he not? He was one of the Justice League members who had come to rescue Kara from Apokolips. He also knew him as one of Darkseid’s strongest foes.
‘How did Superman get here, of all places?’
His surprise at seeing him on Warworld was surpassed only by his surprise at seeing him being forced to fight in the arena. It was hard to think that a Kryptonian would be so easily captured.
‘He should be even stronger than Kara, and she was already crazy powerful.’
Momentarily, clone Naruto didn’t know what to do.
‘Should I stop the fight? Should I attack Mongul now?’
But he dismissed that thought right away. He may have been a clone, but he was not stupid.
‘No, I can’t do that. I can’t make my move until Boss finds the Psion and kills him.’
Knowing that both Mongul and the Psion were in possession of a remote control that could detonate the chip in Starfire's neck any time they wished, clone Naruto was forced to wait because even if he were to attack Mongul now, it would amount to nothing if the Psion killed Starfire all the same.
He clenched his fists in anxiety.
He did not want to watch Starfire's fight against Superman. He had no doubts that the princess was a formidable warrior, but having trained Supergirl for nearly a month, Naruto was deeply familiar with a Kryptonian’s abilities and physiology. Other than being vulnerable to magic, they were nigh-impervious to most types of damage. Furthermore, their overwhelming speed and physical strength made them almost godlike. Their heat vision and ice breath were like the icing on the cake.
Naruto’s fears proved to be right on the money. In spite of the fact that Starfire put up a decent fight and even seemed to dominate in the very beginning, things quickly took a turn. The blond was on the edge of his seat, his nails white from how hard he was clenching his hands on the rail.
‘Don’t give up, Kori. You can’t lose now.’
Over the past month, Starfire had been like a ray of hope for him. In his darkest time, when he thought he had no reason left to live, Starfire was there for him. She took his mind away from those thoughts. She had brought colour again into his bleak life.
‘You can’t die on me now.’
‘Not when we’re about to get out of here.’
⁂
“You think I have a choice?” she shouted at him. “You think I’ve been fighting in this arena for months because I want to?”
“There’s always a choice-”
His idealistic words made her explode with anger:
“What do you know about having a choice or not?” she shouted at him. “What choice did I have when I was sold off into slavery as a child and tortured every day for a whole decade? What choice do I have but to fight when there’s a chip in my neck ready to blow my head up the moment I make a wrong step?”
As her anger grew, yellow and red flames engulfed her crimson hair entirely, and her eyes started glowing with a bright green light. She did not wait for him to come up with an answer. She threw herself at him with a scream, her entire body engulfed in fire.
Unlike the previous times they clashed against each other, this time, Starfire was not pushed back by his monstrous physical strength. A powerful shockwave exploded, and the robot filming their fight from a distance lost its balance and fell to the ground when the two godlike aliens collided.
Previously on the verge of defeat, the Fire Princess got a second wind seemingly out of nowhere.
'What is happening?' Superman thought in confusion as Starfire ducked another one of his wild swings and smashed her left punch into his gut.
He remembered vividly that he had broken her forearm not even a minute ago. He had seen it with his X-ray vision. Not only had she used that arm to punch him, but her hit was so powerful that it knocked the wind out of him!
As he involuntarily bent down from pain, Starfire grabbed him in a move resembling a Thai clinch and kneed him in the face.
Filled with anger and determination, Starfire unleashed a devastating series of attacks.
But Superman wasn’t just a punching bag. He gave back as much as he got.
The crowd in the stands stared at the large screen in the middle of the arena, stupefied as they watched the two warriors demolish the battlefield beyond recognition. Mongul himself was watching the fight wide-eyed, never before having witnessed anything of that magnitude. He had not known that the Fire Princess was so powerful either.
But that was because none of her previous opponents had pushed her to such a degree. He did not know that, as a Tamaranean, Starfire’s emotions played an enormous role in her strength.
“Enough!” Superman roared and tackled Starfire, flying with her through six buildings, demolishing them all.
But then, a massive Nova Blast erupted from Starfire’s body, and Superman screamed in pure agony for the first time as the explosion burnt his flesh and blasted him away like a broken kite.
That was Starfire’s ultimate attack, the strongest move in her arsenal, something that she could only do once a day by releasing all the solar radiation stored in her body. She was barely standing on her feet now.
Unfortunately for her, even her last resort attack had not been enough to put him away for good. The Man of Steel stood up from the place where he had collapsed like a zombie, and his burnt skin started healing like a miracle under the effects of the yellow sun.
‘I promised Naruto that I’d win.’
For the first time in her life, Koriand’r had fallen in love with someone.
For the first time since she was enslaved by Mongul and forced to fight a never-ending life-and-death battle in the arena, Starfire had been truly happy.
‘I can’t die here. I won’t die here!’
‘We promised that we’d see each other after this fight.’
Through sheer willpower alone, Starfire broke into a run towards Superman, who was still in the midst of regenerating himself.
‘He promised that we would be together forever!’
She had only known Naruto for one month, but for her, he was already the most important person in her life.
Passion burnt inside her like a smouldering volcano. The nearly dead embers of powers still left inside her roared, and the girl suddenly broke the sound barrier as she charged at the Kryptonian, tackling him to the ground.
Superman tried pushing her away with both hands, but she was like a vice. Moreover, as someone who had been trained since early childhood by the Warlords of Okaara, Starfire’s understanding of grappling and balance was far superior to that of Superman, who had not received any formal martial arts training.
In no time, the girl took his back and snaked her right arm around his neck, catching him in a rear-naked choke.
Superman shouted and grunted as he tried to pry her arms open, but she would not give in. Fuelled by her emotions and on the verge of dying, Starfire put her life on the line to choke him.
Left with no choice, Superman suddenly flew up, and after getting 50 meters of altitude, he flew towards the ground again, but with his back first, with Starfire towards the ground.
The princess let out a pained groan as she was smashed into the ground violently, but she did not let go. Instead, she tightened her choke even further.
“Stop this before it’s too late!” Superman shouted, becoming desperate now.
It was not his own safety that he was afraid for, but hers. He did not want to kill her, but she was so strong that she was not giving him any other way of stopping her.
He flew up again and then slammed himself with Starfire first into the ground with even more strength than before, creating a huge crater.
Superman rose in the air for a third time and crashed into the ground from a height of 100 metres.
However… …something unthinkable happened this time.
As they crashed into the ground for the third time, Superman let out a scream of pain even louder than that of Starfire.
Unbeknownst to him, the entire time she had held him in a rear-naked choke, Koriand’r had been syphoning out the solar radiation stored inside his body.
Superman tried to unwrap her arms from around his neck one more time, but a sudden feeling of vertigo made it hard for him to even keep his eyes open.
He attempted to fly a fourth time, but his body was not listening to him.
With next to no solar radiation left inside his body, Superman’s durability dropped to that of a regular human, and Starfire’s choke finally came into effect. Ten seconds later, the Man of Steel closed his eyes, falling unconscious.
Sensing his body slumping, Starfire unwrapped her arms from around his neck and pushed him off her. . . or at least she tried to.
She did not have the strength to even raise her arm to confirm her victory, much less push his body off her. Furthermore, Starfire's entire body was one big bruise. The back of her head was cracked and bleeding from how many times she had been slammed into the ground and through buildings, her left forearm was broken, and so were half a dozen of her ribs too. She was in a terrible condition.
Not even four seconds after Superman fell unconscious, Starfire’s body shut down as well. She had long since reached her limits.
⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂
AN: All the abilities that Starfire had used in this chapter are canon, including the sudden strength increase due to anger and the solar radiation absorption. She had depowered other Kryptonians in this manner in the comics. That being said, Superman is still more powerful.
Starfire managed to fight him to a draw in this chapter because Superman had been holding back for half of the fight and due to her ability to drain the solar radiation from Superman's body. In a second fight, Starfire would not have as much success as she did here.
Hope you enjoyed the chapter. I sank so many hours into writing this. I hope that it delivered. Until next time!
Shihouin Chika watched the young boy locked behind bars in silence for a while. Looking at his young face and scrawny body, it was hard to think that this kid had massacred hundreds of gangsters in Rukongai.
“Just do what you’ve come to do. Finish this and kill me already,” the boy screamed when he noticed his presence and started struggling against his chains as though he were possessed.
Chika stepped out of the shadows and came closer to the bars.
‘What’s with Rukongai lately? Where did these monsters pop out from?’ he thought.
First, it was Uzumaki Naruto who had killed Furofushi Saito and most of her squad. And then, Chika had almost gotten himself in big trouble against this little psychopath.
It had to be said that, for Shinigami, due to their incredibly long lifespans, 10 years was almost 10 days for humans. For two generational talents to appear in such a short period of time, was unusual, to say the least. Moreover, they weren’t part of a noble family to attribute their abilities to their bloodline and favourable environment.
Two days had passed since Chika and Naruto fought against the killer of Rukongai, and the boy had been imprisoned in the same cell where Naruto had been brought 10 years ago.
“If I wanted to kill you, I wouldn’t have locked you up,” Shihouin said when the boy stopped thrashing in his chains. “I want to talk to you. I want to make you an offer.”
Unlike Naruto, who had broken out of his cell thanks to his unique, instantaneous kido spell, this boy was not talented in that field. All he could do was try to break out through brute strength, but the chains continuously draining his spiritual energy did not help his case. For the moment, he had no methods of freeing himself.
“Screw off,” the boy spat, though his voice betrayed how exhausted he was. It was the first time in his life that he had run out of spiritual energy. He had never felt that weak and helpless before.
Chika was not disheartened by his brusque refusal. Naruto had reacted in the same manner during their first conversation, and the blond had actually had a good reason to hate the Shinigami. In contrast, this boy did not seem to bear any particular grudge against the Shinigami or the Court of Pure Souls.
Over the past two days, Shihouin had mobilised the Onmitsukido to dig up all the information they could about the boy. Being masters of intelligence gathering, the Stealth Force accomplished their task with ease.
The boy’s name was Zaraki, and he was an orphan. He had grown up in the slum districts of Rukongai and quickly made a name for himself as a powerful and merciless killer. However, as his strength grew, so did his thirst for battle, and he started seeking stronger opponents, which, in turn, led to him attracting the Seireitei’s attention and his subsequent capture.
“I could ‘screw off’, and you’d die a dog’s death tomorrow morning if that’s what you wanted,” Chika said. “But I think it would be a shame for someone as strong as you to lose their life in such a meaningless manner.”
Whether Zaraki had calmed down in the meantime or he was too drained to lash out in anger anymore, Shihouin was not sure, but he continued talking all the same.
“I know your kind,” Chika said, looking into Zaraki’s eyes. “Money, women, authority, rare delicacies, alcohol. . . none of these matter to you. You are a blade. A blade seeks battle. A blade seeks bloodshed. The sole reason for your existence is to fight and dominate others.”
The words of the Shinigami Captain set Zaraki’s blood aflame, and his small black eyes started burning with ferocious fighting spirit.
“I can give you that and more. I can give you the chance to fight opponents stronger than any you’ve ever encountered.”
“And what do you want in exchange?” asked Zaraki.
As unhinged as he may have been, the boy was not a complete lunatic. He understood that nothing in this world came for free.
“A rabid dog that bites everyone would end up trampled by the world. As you are, you are a thorn in everyone’s side. That’s why you ended up locked in a cage, like a beast.”
Seemingly ignoring how Zaraki started growling and gnashing his teeth, Chika continued nonplussed:
“Become my blade. You fight who I tell you to fight. You kill who I tell you to kill. Join the Gotei 13 and you will be allowed to wreak havoc all you want against the enemies of Seireitei.”
A very long half a minute of silence passed as Shihouin and Zaraki stared at each other, not saying a word.
Interpreting his silence as a refusal, Chika turned around to leave. But he did not make more than two steps before Zaraki called out to him.
“Oy. Wait.”
“What is it?” asked Chika, momentarily halting his steps but not turning to face him.
“That blond shinigami who captured me, what’s his name?”
“Uzumaki Naruto. He’s my Lieutenant,” Shihouin answered.
“Tell me, if I take you up on your offer, will I get the chance to fight him again?”
Zaraki couldn’t see the wide grin that split Chika’s face at his question.
⁂ A few days later ⁂
Sounds of blades clashing reverberated through the air as a man and a woman were locked in a fierce swordfight.
“Hey! We held up our side of the bargain!” Naruto shouted as he parried a violent diagonal slash with his sword. “Aren’t you supposed to hold yours now?”
“That is exactly what I am doing,” the woman said in a chilly voice, the calm and collected expression on her face slowly twisting into one of murderous excitement as she started hacking at him crazily with her sword.
“Idiot captain, don’t just sit there and drink tea! Control your woman!” Naruto shouted at Chika, who was sipping on a cup of tea elegantly, and Shunpo’ed away.
His words made Unohana attack him even more fiercely, and Naruto was seriously considering removing his bracers and letting his sealed reiatsu explode at full power.
‘But the moment I do that, this madwoman will go apeshit on me.’
He could instinctively feel that the Kenpachi was just barely reining in her bloodlust.
He didn’t want to have a meaningless battle to the death. He came there to learn Healing Kido from her, not to fight for his damn life.
“Just let her cut you a few times and be done with it,” Chika said in a serene voice. It was as though he was watching a play at the theatre instead of a fierce clash of swords between two captain-level shinigami.
“Are you fucking crazy?!” Naruto swore at him in anger.
But he wasn’t the only one. Unohana momentarily stopped her assault and glared at Chika.
“Shihouin!”
“Y-Yes.”
“Don’t ruin my battle. Shut up,” she said in a glacial voice.
“Understood,” the dark-skinned man said meekly and made a zipping gesture over his mouth.
“Fuck!” Naruto let out a curse under his breath. “You don’t care about teaching me healing kido; you just want to fight!”
“How would you learn healing kido without having some wounds to heal?” Unohana asked.
“For god’s sake, just bring a wounded shinigami who just returned from patrol duty!”
The female captain shook her head.
“Using healing kido on others is not the same as using it on yourself. When you heal yourself, the effects are reduced, and so is the speed of healing, too. You want to learn healing kido for yourself first and foremost, don’t you?”
Once she finished saying those words, Unohana threw herself at him again.
⁂
Four hours later, Naruto dragged his tired body out of the Eleventh Division’s barracks, his face rather pale and his shihakusho shredded and torn all over. He looked as though he had gone through a blender.
Neither he nor Captain Unohana had gone all out. They had limited the output of their reiatsu, and they had a battle of pure Zanjutsu and Hoho. No shikai, no bankai, no kido.
It turned out that getting an entry-level skill in healing kido was not that difficult. With his talent for the Demon Arts and Unohana’s teachings, Naruto got a grasp on it in the first hour. Every time either of them wounded the other, they would stop, and Unohana would make Naruto heal himself or herself.
‘She was right. It's a lot harder to use healing kido on myself than on others,’ he thought as he walked towards the barracks of the Second Squad to change into a new set of clothes.
His healing kido was faster and more effective when he used it on Unohana’s wounds than when he had to heal himself.
As much as he hated to admit it, the Kenpachi’s barbaric method of teaching proved to be very good.
‘Still, I’m far from being able to use healing kido on myself in the middle of the battle.’
Unlike Unohana, who could heal her own wounds instantly with her healing kido, Naruto needed several good minutes to achieve the same result. But he wasn’t discouraged. In time, he would become just as skilled as she was. And time was not something that he lacked. He was a Shinigami; as far as he knew, there were no known cases of any Shinigami dying of old age. They all died in battle; even then, the stronger ones often lived centuries or even thousands of years. It couldn’t be compared to the shinobi’s lifespan in his previous life.
The thought of his previous life gave him a mix of sadness and nostalgia. He preferred not to think about it, but once in a while, he could not help asking himself what happened after Kaguya killed him. Did Sasuke and the ghost of the Sage of the Six Paths find a way to defeat her? Or did the whole world succumb to the Infinite Tsukuyomi?
He let out a long sigh.
‘There’s no point in dwelling on the past,’ he told himself in an attempt to calm down his agitated spirit.
‘Even if there was a way for me to return to the Elemental Nations, and even if they had found a way to defeat the Rabbit Goddess, everyone I know would probably have died of age by now,’ he thought.
He had lived in Rukongai for decades before Furofushi Saito and her squad massacred his village.
‘I live in the Three Realms now, and Soul Society is my new world.’
With that thought in mind, Naruto changed into a new shihakusho and left his squad’s barracks, heading towards the Eighth Division.
⁂
Arriving at the Eighth Division’s barracks, Naruto was welcomed by two Shinigami who had been waiting for him outside the gates.
“Uzumaki-fukutaicho, welcome to the Second Division,” the middle-aged man greeted him respectfully.
Although Naruto had joined the Gotei 13 only ten years ago, Shinigami greatly valued strength. His feat of knocking out the entire Second Division with his reiatsu alone and his subsequent promotion to the seat of Lieutenant had made Naruto the talk of Seireitei over the past few days.
“Thank you.”
“Katori-taicho has been waiting for you. Please follow us.”
At first glance, despite the different building styles and their locations, the barracks of the Eighth Division had the same facilities as the Second Division. There were several training grounds, a dojo, the living quarters, and so on.
Following the Eighth Division shinigami, Naruto became increasingly alert the closer he got to Katori Batsu’unsai’s office.
His captain, Shiouin Chika, had assured him that Captain Katori simply could not be the invisible enemy that had ambushed him during his latest patrol mission in Rukongai, but he could not help being cautious. After all, Katori and Unohana were the only two female Captain-level shinigami that he knew of.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked himself as his Negative Emotions Sensing ability picked up the anxiety and deep terror that started rolling off from the two Shinigami when they arrived at the door.
“C-Captain Katori,” one of the shinigami stammered as he knocked on the door and called out her name.
“Yes?” a sweet, gentle voice replied from inside.
“The Second Squad’s Lieutenant has arrived.”
“Ah, yes, please come in.”
The two shinigami opened the door for Naruto, but they didn’t enter the office with him. They bowed from the waist in front of their captain and quickly made themselves scarce.
Weirded out by their strange behaviour, Naruto focused his attention on the female Shinigami in front of him.
“Thank you for granting me an audience, Katori-taicho,” he said respectfully.
In his previous life, as a child, Naruto used to be a disrespectful little shit; he did not have any manners, nor did he care about showing his respect for others through words. But that was a thing of the past. Although he looked like a man in his twenties currently, he was already older than the Sandaime Hokage from his memories.
Now, he understood the importance of minding his manners, especially when he needed to ask for a favour from a stranger. And that was exactly his current situation; he had come to the Eighth Division in order to ask for Katori’s help.
“Ah, it was no biggie!” the young-looking woman said, her smile almost shy when she saw him bowing. “I’m always willing to help my fellow Shinigami when they are in need!” Katori said, clenching her fists cutely to show her determination.
“. . .”
Momentarily, he was stunned by her demeanour.
This was the first time that he was talking to the Captain of the Eighth Division face to face. In addition, he was not one to gossip with his fellow Shinigami, so he had not heard any talk about Katori before.
‘What’s with this. . . bubbly girl?’
Shihouin Chika, despite his affable and laid-back personality, viewed weak people as no different from gravel. In Chika’s own words, even if thousands of them died, who cares?
Unohana Yachiru was an unhinged psychopath. The same could be said about Furofushi Saito, whom he had killed.
Obana Danjiro, the Captain of the Fifth Squad, was obsessed with fighting. Chika told him that Danjiro was a battle junkie who was currently away on an expedition to Hueco Mundo, in search of powerful hollows to fight.
As for Nobutsuna Shigyo, the Captain of the Seventh Squad, Naruto had sensed the twisted envy and hatred lying underneath his gaunt appearance when they last met.
To make a long story short, every Gotei 13 Captain that he had encountered until then had something vile about them or a loose screw.
Katori pushed her big, round glasses higher up her little nose, and she rested her elbows on the desk as she leaned forward, unknowingly making Naruto’s eyes drop to her chest. It was. . . formidable. Senju Tsunade-levels of formidable.
“Well then, Uzumaki-fukutaicho, what can I do for you today?” Katori asked in the same innocent voice, seemingly completely unaware of what effect her posture was having on him.
Tearing his gaze away, Naruto looked up, meeting her large grey eyes, and said:
“My captain told me that you are skilled in crafting all sorts of artefacts and devices. I need something that would allow me to detect an invisible enemy. Something like a dense smoke bomb, or a bomb of ink or paint. Or something that would leave a sort of mark on the invisible person so I can track them.”
As he talked, the blond focused intensely on his Negative Emotions Sensing ability in order to see if he could detect even the tiniest bit of anxiety or ill intent. If she was the one who had tried to kill him in Rukongai, he would know right away.
Alas, his sensory ability did not catch anything. In fact, he could not sense any negative emotions of any sort from her.
“Hm, let me see. . .” Katori trailed off, tilting her head slightly and bringing a slender finger to her chin, seemingly in thought.
“A smoke bomb would be the easiest, but it would also be blown away with a simple flare of your enemy’s reiatsu. I don’t think it would be that useful. Paint or ink bombs would be better, but the disadvantage is that they would have a much smaller range... Naturally, you could increase the range of the explosion with your reiatsu. . . but the quantity of ink or paint would need to be larger too in order to cover such a large area.”
“Maybe this would help?” Naruto asked as he took out a sealing scroll from the pocket of his shihakusho.
“What is that?”
“It’s a creation of my own. It’s a kido spell that lets you store things in a scroll.”
“Ohhh!” Katori exclaimed and jumped off her seat, almost like a child, rushing to him. “Let me see!” she said, clapping her hands twice in excitement.
She was so deep into his personal space that he involuntarily took a step back in a vain attempt to maintain his distance.
But Katori appeared to have forgotten her sense of decorum at the sight of the sealing scroll because she took his hands in hers, standing so close to him that their faces were only a few inches apart now.
“How much can it store? What’s the maximum?” she asked curiously as she started inspecting the kanji and the formulae drawn on the scroll.
“For now, one cubic meter is the maximum,” Naruto said, his voice giving away how flustered he was by her behaviour.
“Really?! I want to test it! Can I do it?”
“Um. . . yeah. Sure.”
“Excellent!” she said happily, and, suddenly grabbing him by the hand, she started dragging him after her.
“Where are we going, Captain?” he asked once they left the office.
“Why, to my laboratory, of course!” she said, smiling, before quickening her pace.
⁂
If the meeting with Unohana Yachiru had been exhausting due to their intense swordfight and the amount of reiryoku that he had used to learn and practice healing kido, his meeting with Katori Batsu’unsai had been its own different type of exhausting.
The bespectacled woman gave Naruto the entire time a feeling of incongruity. His Negative Emotions Sensing ability had not picked up anything during the entire two hours he had spent together with her, but his instincts were warning him that something was not right.
‘Why were her subordinates so terrified of her?’ he wondered as he walked back to his barracks.
Moreover, her innocent face and her accidental erotic gestures did not match. The way she seemed to not even notice how she moved her hips when she walked or the way she pushed her well-endowed chest forward in various postures were at odds with her apparent obliviousness.
‘Was she trying to seduce me?’ he asked himself, despite how ridiculous it sounded to him, too. ‘But why would she do that?’
After all, this was the first time they interacted with each other. Also, he wasn't like his Captain, who could charm any woman with a smile or like Sasuke Uchiha from his previous life, who had the entire female population of the village fangirling over him.
Furthermore, his sensory ability had not detected any emotions of lust coming from Katori. He did not know what to think.
‘I’d rather deal with Unohana than her.’
Katori Batsu’unsai was pushing all the wrong buttons.
He let out a long sigh and glanced up at the clear night sky. Although Soul Society was technically the afterlife of the Three Realms, there was a moon, a sun, and stars. There were four seasons as well.
It was spring now, and the streets of Seireitei were filled with the smell of cherry blossoms.
As much as he hated what the Shinigami had done to his village, Naruto couldn’t deny that Seireitei was a very beautiful city.
The low-rise white building with orange tile roofs, the clean and orderly paved streets, the numerous cherry blossom trees, and the circular, concentric walls surrounding the tall Palace of Repentance in the middle of the city gave Seireitei a special, majestic appearance.
Seeing as it was evening, the bars and taverns in the commercial district of the city were filled with partygoers. He had gotten used to seeing that scene over the past 10 years, but he had never gone inside. Still, the merry sounds of laughter and partying often made him glance at the bars wistfully.
Lost in his thoughts, Naruto almost didn’t react in time when an overwhelming burst of killing intent exploded from behind him.
“Enkosen!” he shouted as he thrust his arm back, forgoing the type and the number.
A spinning, circular shield of light appeared in front of his hand, just in time to block the slash of a jagged blade.
The hastily cast kido spell was not enough to fully stop the incoming attack, but it slowed it down for half a second, giving Naruto the necessary time to shunpo away.
“How did you get out of the Maggots’ Nest?” asked Naruto when he realised who his assailant was.
“Captain Shihoin freed me. We made a deal. And I’m here to pick up where we left off. We have unfinished business.”
Naruto couldn’t suppress a groan of irritation. He was already physically exhausted after his four-hour-long battle with Captain Unohana, and then Captain Katori’s strange behaviour had taken a toll on his mental state too. Fighting yet another madman was the last thing he wanted to do at that moment.
“What unfinished business? I knocked you out cold. I put you to sleep.”
Zaraki growled.
“That’s exactly what I mean. You should have killed me when you had the chance. You made a grave mistake by not finishing what you started. Now, it will be your turn to fall, and I won’t show you any mercy.”
Naruto pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Whatever you say, kid. But it’s night, everyone is sleeping, and I’m also tired.”
“Like hell if I care!” Zaraki shouted, and his reiatsu washed over the commercial district with his anger, terrifying hundreds of Shinigami and knocking out cold the regular, untrained people.
“Are you picking a fight with me because I let you live? Are you serious? That's your reason?"
The boy raised his serrated zanpakuto as he spoke:
“Reason? I don’t need a reason. I simply aim my blade at the strongest.”
Naruto swore under his breath as he drew out his zanpakuto and broke into a fast Shunpo, leaving the boy, who did not know any Hoho techniques, very far behind him.
However, Zaraki wasn’t deterred and chased after him like a hunting dog.
“Stop running, you coward!” the boy shouted after him. “Stop running and fight me!”
But Naruto didn't say anything in response. He chose to retreat. He could not afford to have a battle against a Captain-level shinigami in the middle of Seireitei. Too many innocent people would be caught in the crossfire. As such, he made a beeline towards the Maggots’ Nest.
His mind filled with just one thought, Zaraki ignored the Onmitsukido’s Detention Division shinigami who were trying to stop him and ran after Naruto, who had disappeared into a building.
If the boy had been a tad more attentive, he would have noticed the fact that he had returned to the very place where he had been imprisoned until only a few hours ago.
“Stop right there and fight me!” Zaraki hollered, his voice echoing loudly in the long, dark corridor.
Eventually, the chase came to an end, and Kenpachi unknowingly found himself on the deepest level of the Maggots’ Nest, much deeper than the cell where he had been locked up before.
“This is it. It’s the end of the line for you,” the boy said.
Raising his zanpakuto above his head, Zaraki threw himself at the blond, laughing out loud.
Had he been a bit more mindful of his surroundings, the boy might have noticed that something about the place they were in was not normal. His reiatsu, which was normally strong enough to crush and blow up even buildings, had no effect on the wall of the deep and wide cave-like room he was in.
‘I don’t have much spiritual energy left.’
His four-hour-long battle against Captain Unohana and his repeated use of the healing kido had left him running on fumes. As a consequence of that, Naruto did not have the leisure to fight with his Demon Arts like he normally did.
‘I have to finish this fast.’
Zaraki descended upon him like an eagle, swinging his serrated zanpakuto down savagely. But Naruto parried his strike and kicked him violently in the stomach, hurling him all the way to the other end of the cave.
While the lunatic was getting up to his feet, Naruto spoke two words in a soft, barely audible voice:
“Seal, Akuryo.” (1)
His regular katana transformed into a simple, straight, double-edged sword with a black handle and a black blade. It was a Jian, a pitch-black traditional Chinese longsword.
A split second later, Zaraki lunged at him again, and he swung his zanpakuto with such strength that a shockwave exploded from the clash of their blades, the sound and the following echo nearly deafening them both.
‘This kid. . . He’s gotten even stronger than the first time!’
He knew that life-and-death battles could help trigger a Shinigami’s awakening and boost their spiritual energy, but the difference in Zaraki’s reiatsu in the present and his reiatsu from a few days ago was too drastic.
‘I did well to release my Shikai.’
Their blades clashed nine more times in extremely quick succession before Naruto took advantage of Zaraki’s lack of experience and proper technique by parrying the 10th strike at an angle, making the boy’s sword swing slide to the side.
While the kid was in a state of imbalance, Naruto swung his sword upward.
Zaraki’s beast-like instinct made it so that instead of having his entire right arm looped off from the elbow by Naruto's slash, he only got scratched by the black jian Shikai.
After leaving a bleeding gash in the boy’s arm, Naruto’s black blade turned crimson red.
Unexpectedly, Zaraki's right arm fell limply to his side, and his jagged zanpakuto fell on the ground with a clang. His arm had been paralysed.
The boy quickly bent down to grab his zanpakuto with his other hand, but Naruto swung his Shikai a second time, and this time, Zaraki’s left arm became paralysed too.
"Goddamn it! Fight me fair and square, coward!" Zaraki screamed.
Alas, the echo of the large, empty cave was his only answer.
⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂
AN: The Shikai isn't as simple as merely sealing. And the bankai will be quite different. I won't say more for now because I don't want to spoil you.
On the 15th of February, the student body at Hogwarts was still reeling from the crazy incident from the previous day. Yet, in hindsight, nobody could say they were terribly shocked by what had transpired. The over-the-top smiles and winks that Gilderoy Lockhart threw at everyone sixty times a day may have had something to do with that.
The classes of Defence Against Dark Arts had been cancelled, and, much to Harry’s not-so-hidden glee, they were allowed to do whatever they wished during that period.
‘There’s a chance that McGonagall would look for me to get my testimony,’ he thought as he walked with his friends towards the Ravenclaw Tower.
Considering the muddy situation in the present, Harry decided not to disappear anywhere for a while. Hence, for the first time that semester, he decided to spend the rest of the day with his group of friends.
“This game is complete bullshit.”
The complaint came from Harry as his figurine was sent from the top floor of the board to the second.
They were playing a wizarding version of the muggle board game ‘Ladders and Snakes’ called Stairs and Slopes. The board game’s appearance resembled the Hogwarts Castle with its floors and staircases. Just like in reality, the staircases in the game could change places, their steps could disappear and make people slide down to a lower level, or they could trap people’s legs (which in the game would force the pawns to sit out one turn).
“Skill issue,” Elora said, snickering.
“You literally roll a die, and the staircases also move randomly. There’s nothing about skill here; it’s pure luck.”
“Many words just to say you suck at the game,” Elspeth was quick to jump on him too.
Fleur laughed in delight as she watched the two girls gang up on him. It was so rare to see Harry spend his day with them that she was unknowingly in great spirits whenever that happened.
Eventually, their game came to an end, and she stood up.
“I’m going to drink some water,” she told them. “I’ll be right back; don’t you dare start without me!”
Quite a few boys and girls turned their heads as Florent Delacour passed by.
“Look at him walk,” Harry heard one of the sixth years laugh with his mates in a quiet voice.
“I think the rumours he might be gay are true,” his friend replied.
“Nah, he’s just French.”
The three boys started snickering like hyenas.
“That was a good one.”
“Oui, oui, baguette.”
“Yo, I have an even better one. What do you call a gay French? - a faguette.”
“Bwahaha!”
Elspeth was unable to keep on listening to them and stood up in a fury.
“What’s your problem with him, Duncan?” she yelled at the guy who made those jokes. “Why are you being such arseholes!”
“Why the hell do you care? We weren’t even talking to you. Bugger off,” Duncan said and made a shooing motion with his hand.
“I care because Florent is my friend!”
The boys snorted.
“Friend, as if! You just want to jump his bones, like literally 99% of the girls in the school.”
Whether it was from embarrassment or anger, Elspeth’s face turned as red as her hair.
“You’re a cowardly piece of shit, Duncan!” she yelled at him.
“What did you say?” the sixth year stood up and took out his wand.
“You don’t like hearing the truth, eh? If you have something against him, tell it to his face! Why wait until after he leaves? Two-faced cowards, all three of you!”
Duncan took out his wand and shouted:
“Mucovespertilis!”
It was the Bat-Bogey Hex. However, his spell went way off the mark because, before he could finish chanting that incantation, an invisible spell slammed into him, and his body was launched backwards, flipping two times in mid-air before colliding painfully against the wall.
His two mates were about to whip out their wands, but when they noticed who was the one who had cast the nonverbal spell, they froze.
“Think carefully before you draw your wands,” Harry said. “It won’t be just a Knockback Jinx next time.”
Despite the fact that they were one year older than him, the boys didn’t dare draw out their wands. They gulped as they raised their hands to show that they didn’t have any bad intentions. Neither of them had forgotten the brutal beating that Harry had put on Marcus Flint and his friends a few months ago; although there was no real proof, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that it was him.
The two guys grabbed their half-unconscious friend off the floor and scurried away with their tails between their legs. There was nothing else they could do; they couldn’t even go to the Head of the House to cry about it because they had been the ones to start the conflict verbally, and they also threw the first spell.
“Thanks, Harry.”
“Think nothing of it,” he said easily and sat back in his seat. “But you should be more cautious next time.”
“I couldn’t just stand and watch how they made fun of him!” Elspeth said, still outraged. “I’m definitely going to Flitwick next time!”
“None of this would’ve happened if you had kept your mouth shut,” Harry said with a shrug of his shoulders. “It was your gossiping that led to everyone in the school finding out.”
The girl momentarily deflated at that, acknowledging her mistakes. But then, she glanced at him accusingly.
“Why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you stand up for him? Isn’t Florent your friend too?”
“I can’t start attacking people just because they say mean things. That’s not how the real world works. I’m on thin ice as it is.”
This time, it was self-defence; the other guy attacked first. But Harry wouldn’t be surprised if they really expelled him the next time he started an altercation.
“You could’ve at least said something!”
“Hey, I defended you when they attacked, didn’t I? I was just waiting for the right moment to intervene.”
Their conversation entered a lull, and Harry glanced at Elora, who had been quiet the entire time.
“Are you alright?” he asked in an unusually kind voice.
The quiet redhead just nodded. Harry didn’t insist on making her talk. After five years of being friends, he knew that the girl froze like a deer in headlights whenever any sort of conflict broke near her.
“Stop pouting and make sure Elora is right,” Harry said as he sat up from the table. “I’ll go check on Florent. He’s been missing for more than 10 minutes now.”
Since the French boy had asked them to wait for him, they couldn’t start another game without him.
Heading back to the bedroom he shared with Florent, Harry opened the door and was about to give him an earful for making them all wait, but his words remained stuck in his throat.
The French boy was collapsed on the floor, foaming at the mouth.
“Florent!” he shouted as he rushed at him.
He cast a Diagnosis Charm. He was no Medi-Wizard, but he had learnt all sorts of spells for the sake of being able to rescue his brother should anything ever happen to him.
‘The toxicity level in his body is way above the normal limit. He must’ve drunk something.’
Coming to that conclusion, he noticed the bottle of water that fell off and spilt all over the floor.
‘Revelio.’
The moment he cast that charm, the colourless liquid started glowing with a pink light.
‘That’s not water. That’s a Love Potion!’
“Bollocks!” he let out a curse. “You must’ve drunk a botched Love Potion. They should never have this kind of effect on someone.”
He cast a Levitating Charm on Florent, but the boy suddenly threw up all over the carpet. Harry let out a sigh of relief. Throwing up in Florent’s current condition was actually good.
“Hold on, mate. I’ll take you to the Hospital Wing,” he said and laid her down on the floor again.
“No. . . ‘Arry. . .don’t,” Fleur said with difficulty.
“Then I’ll bring Madam Pomfrey here. Just wait a few minutes. I’ll be-”
“Noo!” Fleur moaned and grabbed him by his sweater, not letting him go. “Don’t. . . please, don’t. . .”
She forced herself to sit up to show him that she was alright, but she threw up again.
“Merlin… How can I not take you to the hospital?? Look at you!”
But the French boy started begging him almost desperately not to go. It was to the point where Harry was starting to get weirded out.
He ran a hand through his messy hair.
“Alright, alright! I’ll go get an antidote for you.”
“No Pomfrey, please. I’ll get better! Promise.”
“I understand, just let go,” Harry said, trying to not grimace as he almost stepped in the vomit. “I won’t go to Madam Pomfrey. I’ll get it from somewhere else. Promise.”
Florent let go of him reluctantly. At first, he thought that the French boy finally trusted him, but it turned out that he had just fallen unconscious.
He cast a Cleaning Charm, trying his best to Vanish the mess on the floor, and then put Florent on his bed.
A silvery raven came out of his wand. It was the Patronus Charm; he sent it in advance to Matthew. Then, he went out of the room and cast the strongest Locking Charm he knew.
“Harry, what’s the hold-up?” asked Elspeth when she saw him return to the Common Room.
“He’s not drinking any water. He’s doing his best to clog up the toilet,” Harry lied.
“Why do you have to be so disgusting, eww! I didn’t need to know that!” Elspeth said in chagrin, and Harry forced a chuckle.
“I’ll go to the kitchen,” he lied once more. “I’m pretty sure I’ll be back before Florent returns.”
And with that, he left the Ravenclaw Common Room, not paying much attention to Elpeth’s protests.
Once he was out in the corridors, he Transfigured the door threshold to create a doorstop, preventing the door from closing completely.
He would get into serious trouble if a professor were to come and see that he left the Common Room’s door unlocked, but he decided to take that risk. Once in a while, the Eagle Knocker’s riddles could be extremely annoying and time-consuming; he could not afford to waste time like that in the present.
He broke into a sprint towards the Gryffindor Tower. Thanks to his numerous nightly escapades over the years, Harry knew the castle like the back of his hand. Taking a shortcut through a secret passage, he arrived in front of the Fat Lady’s portrait less than three minutes later.
His younger brother was already waiting for him at the entrance with the thermos that Harry had given him yesterday in his hand.
“I got your Patronus message,” Matt said, his voice tinged with awe. “I didn’t know you could cast such an advanced spell!”
The Patronus Charm by itself was a NEWT-level spell, but sending voice messages through it was something beyond the curriculum taught at Hogwarts.
“Sorry, Matt, I’m in a bit of a hurry,” Harry said. “Forent got poisoned with a botched-up Love Potion.”
“You’re kidding!”
Harry just took the flask from his hand and said before breaking into a run:
“I’ll give it back to you at dinner.”
Another three minutes later, he was back in the Ravenclaw Tower, in front of the eagle knocker. Thankfully, the door was half-opened, as he had left it.
‘Finite,’ he cast a mental spell to cancel the Transfiguration on the door threshold and then ran inside.
“You’re back already??” Elspeth said in surprise.
“But where’s the food?” Elora also asked.
“I changed my mind. I’ll be back. Give me 1 minute,” he said and rushed past them, heading straight to his room.
Once he locked the door behind him, Harry went to the French boy and sat at the edge of the bed.
Florent’s short silvery hair was matted with sweat, his face was flushed a red colour, and his skin was burning to the touch.
‘If he doesn’t get well within five minutes, I’ll take him to Pomfrey regardless of what he says.’
Getting closer to him, he raised his head slightly, and after unscrewing the top of the thermos with a nonverbal spell, he brought it closer to his mouth.
He poured the Love Potion Antidote slowly into his mouth, making sure he drank it all before giving him more.
⁂
When Fleur regained consciousness, she found herself in Harry’s arms, with him slowly pouring the Love Antidote Potion into her mouth. Being so close to him and seeing through her half-opened eyes how intently he was looking at her, Fleur started flushing outside of her own volition.
‘His fever is getting worse for some reason.’ Harry thought as he felt Florent’s temperature rise. ‘Was the Love Potion botched to the point where it became a poison?’
“Accio,” he muttered under his breath, and a bezoar flew out of his trunk.
Bezoars were rather rare and valuable, but with how paranoid he was, Harry always carried three of them in his trunk at all times. One for himself, one for Matt, and one more just to be sure.
Feeling Harry’s fingers touching her lips to open her mouth wider, Fleur couldn’t keep up the charade anymore and opened her eyes.
Blue and green eyes met, and for a moment, the two stared at each other as though they were spellbound before they both recoiled. Well, only Harry did, and he fell off the bed like a sack of potatoes; as for Fleur, she was too exhausted to move.
“You’re awake,” Harry said, trying (and failing) to fight back the feeling of embarrassment that started creeping up on him.
“Oui,” she said in a voice so quiet that he barely heard her.
“Um, I fed you some Love Potion Antidote. I didn’t go to Madam Pomfrey, don’t worry. I had prepared some for Matt before Valentine’s Day to prevent exactly what just happened to you.”
“Ah. Thank you,” Fleur said weakly. “Thank you so much!”
She didn’t have the power to raise her voice, but he could hear the sincerity in her words.
“It wasn’t much, don’t sweat it,” he murmured, ruffling his hair awkwardly, his gesture unknowingly making Fleur’s heartbeat quicken. “How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Tired,” she said. “Could you give me some water?”
Fleur’s face flushed anew when Harry summoned his personal bottle of water.
“Ugh-”
She tried to say something, but Harry seemed oblivious to her thoughts.
“Can you drink?” he asked as he took off its cap and approached it to her mouth.
“I think I’m not thirsty anymore,” she muttered.
“Nonsense. Here, let me help you,” he said and sat at the edge of the bed again before raising the back of her head.
By now, Fleur’s face was so warm that you could cook meat on it. Unbeknownst to both of them, her allure broke free of her control, and Harry found himself getting embarrassed by her mannerisms too.
His eyes could not help going to her red, glistening lips, finding them strangely full, attractive, and feminine. A feeling of revulsion made him shiver as he reminded himself that Florent was a guy.
He didn’t understand what the hell was going on with him; he had never had any interest in boys, and he certainly wasn’t going to change himself now. Scolding himself inwardly, Harry used his knowledge of Occlumency to clear his mind of any distracting thoughts, unknowingly breaking the Veela Charm’s influence on his mind. Schooling his face to adopt a serious expression, he brought the bottle to her mouth and helped her drink from it slowly.
When the ordeal was finally over, Harry let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding.
“I’ll go tell the girls that you’re not feeling well, okay?”
Fleur bit her lower lip.
“Will you be back?” she asked.
Florent’s vulnerable voice made chills go down Harry’s spine again.
“Um, yeah, I will. Do you need anything else? Perhaps you want me to help you change your clothes?”
“N-No, it’s fine. I don’t want to bother.”
Harry looked away from her face, distracted by how cute her stammer sounded.
“Are you sure? Your sweater is all messed up.”
Considering how much she had thrown up, it was no surprise.
“Maybe cast a Cleaning Charm. I can’t change my clothes in front of you.”
“. . .”
Harry had no idea what to say for a while.
‘Come to think of it, I’ve never seen him wear light clothes or change in front of me.’
He didn’t know why Florent was so self-conscious about his body, but he decided not to pry.
“Okay. But, just so you know, my Cleaning Charms aren’t the best.”
“That is fine.”
After casting several Cleaning Charms on the floor and then on Florent’s clothes, Harry left to inform the girls that the French boy was ill and that he wasn’t coming to play in the Common Room anymore.
Once he was gone, Fleur started thinking of what had just happened.
‘Why did I get sick?’
‘What is going on?’
‘Love Potions aren’t supposed to work on Veela.’
As magical creatures of lust and beauty, Veela were immune to Love Potions. Even Amorentia did not have any effect on them. That being said, Love Potions weren’t supposed to poison them either. Veela magic was supposed to purge them out of their system instantly.
‘It’s because of my hair. . .’ Fleur realised after a few minutes.
All Veela had long hair. Their Veela Charm came from their hair. The longer and more beautiful their hair, the stronger their allure. Veela’s hair could even be used as cores for wands. The act of cutting her hair so short not only drastically weakened the strength of her allure, but it also weakened her body’s defences against Love Potions.
She twisted her body with difficulty, turning on her side so that she could look at the door.
‘Where is Harry? He said he would come back,’ she wondered after a few minutes passed, and he didn’t return.
Fleur felt her face grow warm again as she thought of how gently he had held her head and helped her drink from his bottle. Somehow, he was always there for her when she needed him the most.
⁂
Returning to the Common Room, Harry tried to act as naturally as possible as he explained the situation to Elora and Elspeth. He did not tell them about the Love Potion, he only told them that Florent had gotten an upset stomach. He didn’t want to make a scene in the middle of the Common Room and start another rumour because students at Hogwarts loved gossiping.
Although they were visibly disappointed, the two redheads could do nothing but accept the situation and move on.
“Maybe you should take the chance to complete your Transfiguration essay,” Harry said teasingly.
“I don’t want to hear that from you of all people,” Elspeth snorted at him.
“Lizzie is right. One more missed assignment on your part and McGonagall will definitely give you detention,” Elora said in agreement.
Harry was just about to summon his assignment from the bedroom and throw it in their face that he had already finished his homework when an unexpected sound of Apparition rang in the Common Room. It was not like the sound made by wizards but more like that made by the House Elves’ form of Apparition.
Harry was not the only one who heard it. The entire Common Room turned their heads to see a House Elf wearing a clean, navy-blue pillowcase tailored to suit his form, appearing right next to Harry.
“Young master Harry! Mistress and Master are attacked by Goblins! Mistress is bleeding! Mistress is hurt badly!” Remy wailed as he grabbed onto Harry’s clothes in desperation.
For a moment there, Harry was stunned in disbelief, as was the rest of the Ravenclaws in the Common Room too.
“Take me there right away!” Harry said, and before anyone could say anything or try to stop them, the boy and the elf Disapparated.
⁂
“Get up! Get up, you old fart!” the other goblins shouted and poked him with their swords, forcing him to stand up despite the pain that made it hard for him to even breathe.
“A-Alright. . . let’s. . . let’s get inside. I’ll . . .I’ll give you the sword. . .” Fleamont said with difficulty.
The goblin leader sneered at him.
“I’d have to be an imbecile to set foot inside your home, where you can trigger your warding spells. . . no, we’ll wait here. You go inside alone, take the sword, and bring it back to us. We’ll wait for you right here. You have one minute. If you're not back in one minute, she dies."
Fleamont limped in a panic inside his house, rushing to the unmoving portrait of the mediaeval knight wearing plate armour and wielding a long silver claymore.
“Bruncvik!” he said, and the silver claymore jumped out of the portrait, becoming real.
The House Elf, Remi, happened to be in the room at that moment too, and Fleamont told him in a hurry:
“Remi, Euphemia was captured by the Goblins! She’s injured! We’re in grave danger! Get help! Quickly!”
In his panicked state of mind, Fleamont did not tell Remy whom he should call for help. And the House Elf, just as desperate as his master, didn’t think of going to Sirius. Instead, Remi’s mind instinctively flew to the member of the Potter family that he considered to be the most serious and reliable after his Mistress: Harry.
As the House Elf Disapparated, Fleamont went outside in a rush with the silvery claymore in his hand.
Noticing the old man coming out with the sword, a perverse look of avarice flashed over the Goblins’ faces.
“Don’t try any games, wizard,” said the Goblin leader while his lackeys were holding a knife to Euphemia’s bleeding throat.
The old woman kept shaking her head left and right, desperately trying to tell him not to give in to their demands, but Fleamont couldn’t disobey them.
Rationally, he knew that the Goblins were most likely going to kill them in order to prevent any news of their robbery from going out. But he couldn’t dismiss the tiny chance that maybe they would be left alive. Maybe they would spare his wife. He couldn’t bear to part with her. They had been married for so long, and he loved her so much that even a priceless artefact like the flying sword of Bruncvik had no value in his eyes compared to her.
“Here’s your sword,” he said, handing it over to them. “Just please, keep your word. Please let my wife go,” he said in a trembling voice.
The Goblin snatched the silver claymore from his hands and gazed at it with reverence.
“Ah! You’re as beautiful as the day we lost you,” he whispered as he caressed the sharp edge of the blade with the tenderness of a lover.
The Goblin leader was broken off from his reverie by the old man’s pleading voice:
“Please. I gave you the sword. Please don’t kill her. Not my wife. Please let her go.”
“No, I don’t think I will,” the Goblin leader said and laughed nastily. “Zungor, slit the old hag’s throat.”
The lackey grinned in malicious glee at his boss's order, but, for some reason, the world suddenly tilted.
“What the hell is going on?” he tried to say, but only a wet gurgle came out.
For the first time in his life, the Goblin saw his own body with his own two eyes, without a mirror.
Realising what had happened, he tried to scream, but no sound came out. His lips wouldn’t move, and his mouth wouldn’t obey.
His beady, evil eyes became dull as the last glimmer of life vanished from them. The last sight his brain registered was that of a geyser of blood shooting out of his headless corpse.
He had been decapitated.
⁂
“Please. I gave you the sword. Please don’t kill her. Not my wife. Please let her go!”
Those were the first words Harry heard when the House Elf Side-Apparated him back to Pitt-Upon-Ford.
In an instant, an image flashed in his mind:
“Not Matthew, please no, take me, kill me instead!”
Voldemort tried to push her away, but she wouldn’t stop.
“Not Matthew! Please! Have mercy! Have—”
Fury, unlike anything he had ever felt, took over him. No, he had experienced that once in his life, two years ago, when he had killed the Voldemort-possessed Quirrell with the Killing Curse.
His vision blurred, and a red haze filled the edges of his sight. It was no mere anger. It was an overpowering, all-consuming rage.
A terrible magic power erupted from his body like a volcano, and he screamed as he swung his wand at the Goblin’s back like a sword:
“Decapitare!”
The spell took the form of a white blade, like a brilliant crescent moon, nailing the Goblin right in the tiny space between his helmet and his breastplate. His head fell on the ground with a metallic clang, and a geyser of blood burst from the decapitated corpse, painting Euphemia and the nearby Goblins red.
The second Goblin, who was holding Euphemia, quickly unsheathed the dagger from his waist and tried to stab the old woman in the chest, but the House Elf cried out, screaming in a loud voice:
“You shall not harm Mistress Effie!”
Despite that he was wearing armour made of Goblin Silver, the wretched creature’s arm twisted like a pretzel, and he let out a howl of agony as the House Elf used his entire magic power to crumple his arm beyond what even magic would be able to heal.
“Kill them all!” the Goblin leader screamed at that moment, and he raised Bruncvik’s sword before swinging it savagely at the old man.
“Return!” Fleamont shouted, and the sword was yanked out of the Goblin leader’s hands, flying to the old wizard’s side. The sword of Bruncvik was tied to his blood, to his family. No Goblin could ever undo that enchantment.
The Goblin leader screamed in anger, and his body suddenly doubled—no, it tripled in height and width, taking on a hulking, grotesque appearance as he used his blood magic to enhance himself to his utmost limit.
“Behead him!” Fleamont ordered the flying sword, and the silver claymore obeyed his orders as though it were sentient, plunging towards the Goblin’s neck.
Bright sparks lit up the night as metal clashed against metal. The goblin raised his gauntlet just in time, blocking the magic sword from reaching his throat. Forged from Goblin Silver, his plate armour was nearly impenetrable to physical attacks.
The Goblin tried to grab the blade with his hands, but he had overestimated his power because the sword of Bruncvik shook itself out of his grip, and the Goblins’ enormous body was sent flying through the air.
On Harry’s side, he started firing spells with wild abandon. But after getting over their initial surprise, the Goblins raised their shields, and Harry’s spells, even the Dark Beheading Curse that had slain the first goblin, splashed against their shields and armour harmlessly, bouncing away.
“Take Grandma to St. Mungos. Then go to Sirius and bring him here.”
“Yes!” Remy replied, his face wet with tears of both anger and relief as he grabbed his beloved mistress and Disapparated.
“Serpensortia!”
He could cast that spell nonverbally effortlessly, but saying its incantation out loud gave it much more power.
A swarm of 10 king cobras shot out from his wand, and then Harry spoke in a language that terrified the Goblins to the point where their backs broke into chills.
“Ignore the small ones. Go for the big Goblin. Kill him.”
It was Parseltongue. It was a secret that Harry had never revealed to anyone other than his family. And he planned on keeping it that way. He was not going to leave any of them alive.
‘Accio.’
The window to Harry’s bedroom shattered as a leathery pouch broke through forcefully before flying into Harry’s hands.
The Goblins used that moment of respite when he wasn’t firing spells at them to lunge at him, screaming as they swung down their weapons.
But they could only take three steps before Harry grabbed a handful of the leather pouch’s contents and threw it in the air.
A thick cloud of darkness expanded in the air, swallowing the light coming from the house’s open door. The moon and the stars disappeared too, and, on a radius of 20 meters around him, the world sank into absolute darkness, a darkness so terrifying that one could not see their hands in front of their face.
“Dirty, scummy wizards!” screamed the Goblins as they huddled together, back to back, trembling with anxiety.
“You can only win through tricks!”
They understood what was the item that the boy had used. Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder.
‘Revelio,’ Harry cast nonverbally.
He did not need to see them with his own eyes to find out their location. As the pulse of magic spread out from him, the silhouettes of the Goblins appeared in his mind.
A chilling voice rang in the night.
“Avada Kedavra!”
The vivid, bright green light associated with the Killing Curse did not come out. Or rather, the Peruvian Powder made it impossible for them to see it.
A split second later, one of the Goblins collapsed on the ground with a loud metallic clang. His Goblin Silver armour and Goblin Silver shield may have been capable of protecting them against most charms and curses, but they could not save them from the Killing Curse.
⁂
By the time Remy returned to Pitt-Upon-Ford with Sirius in tow, everything was over.
A giant goblin lay lifelessly on the ground, his body inflamed, red, and purple after the 10 king cobras had emptied their venom sacks into his veins. One goblin was decapitated, another one’s arm was crumpled in a grotesque manner, and his head was twisted to his back, and four other goblins appeared to have died with no fatal physical injuries whatsoever. Their lives had been reaped by the Killing Curse.
Sirius felt his mouth become dry as he took in the sight of that massacre and his godson standing silently amidst the Goblin corpses, summoning a cloud of black powder into his hand while his magic power rolled off him in waves.
He had duelled with Harry many times ever since he started training him, but he had never sensed anything remotely close to that from the boy.
It was dark, twisted, malevolent. It was powerful, oppressive even.
It made him nervous. It reminded him of the last time he had witnessed Voldemort and Dumbledore clashing against each other during the war from over a decade ago.
“Harry?” Sirius called out his name carefully.
And, just like that, that terrible magic power vanished. It happened so abruptly that, if Sirius had not gotten a taste of it himself only a few seconds ago, he would not have believed it.
At that moment, Fleamont also walked towards them with a limp, using this silvery claymore as a cane to support his aching body.
“Where is Euphemia? Is she safe? Is she alright?” he asked.
Sirius rushed to him and offered him his shoulder to lean on as he led the old man inside the house.
“Remy took her to St Mungo. She has a concussion, but the Medi-Wizards assured me that she will recover.”
“Take me to St Mungo too. I want to be by her side,” Mr Potter said.
“Go on,” Harry said calmly when Sirius turned his head to look at him. “I’ll stay here until the professors from Hogwarts arrive.”
Had it been in different circumstances, Harry would have Vanished the corpses and erased all the signs of battle. But he could not do that because Remy had shouted in the middle of the Ravenclaw Common Room that the Goblins had attacked his grandparents. He could not sweep this incident under the rug.
The boy’s unnaturally calm demeanour despite the violent killings he had committed unnerved Sirius, but he did not waste his time worrying about useless things at that moment. The sooner he took Fleamont to the hospital, the faster he could return to Harry’s side.
“I’ll be back in a second, Harry. Wait for me, okay?”
“Yes, I will.”
⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂
AN: Just in case some of you have forgotten, other than Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Flitwick, nobody knows that "Florent" is a girl; that's why she didn't want to go to the hospital wing. Madam Pomfrey would have discovered her secret right away.
Was it reckless of her to refuse treatment? Yes, it was; but people aren't perfect and Fleur isn't either. Furthermore, she's an emotional teenager and she was not in a normal state of mind.
Goblins' body-enhancing in this chapter (gif taken from Hogwarts Legacy)
But just because they're confident you don't stand a chance, that doesn't mean they'll go easy on you. They're going all out for the win. They've added one more player to their team, Itoshi Sae. However, I can say with certainty that right now, you're good enough to overthrow Japanese football."
Ego's words set the 35 players' egos on fire. Their eyes were burning with fighting spirit.
"Now, it's time for you to put it all on the line. You have discovered your egos, mastered your weapons, developed chemical reactions, and also seen the level of the world's top players firsthand. Bagging a spot on Japan's U-20 team is no longer a dream. It is a reality that you can reach out for and grab with your own two hands."
⁂
"Hey, hold up a second," a blond boy with a mean look on his face interrupted Ego. "I get that this is our chance and all, but how are we going to make up a team? We're all forwards!"
"It will be a repeat of the first selection," Kunigami answered instead. "Some of us will probably be forced to play in the rest of the positions."
"Precisely," said Ego. "We have no choice but to play a makeshift team of forwards."
"How could we possibly win like this? We'll be up against real, professional defenders!" said Tokimitsu.
As a football nerd, he knew all the U-20 Japan team members by name and even what they were good at.
“Japan’s team’s captain, Oliver Aiku, is so good that he even got offers from Serie A teams despite the fact that he’s not even 20!”
Tokimitsu was not the only one who shared that opinion. Many others started murmuring. It was unthinkable to pit 11 strikers against a professional team as good as Japan. While the Japanese team did lack formidable strikers, its defenders and midfielders were formidable.
“Shut your pieholes!”
A silence that one could hear a pin drop was instilled at Ego’s shout. Now that the order was restored, he continued:
“I will call out the six names who will make up the core of the team. They are Blue Lock’s current top six, based on a comprehensive evaluation.”
“First, Itoshi Rin.”
Most players were not surprised to hear that name. Those who had played with or against him could vouch for his skills.
“Next, Number 2: Shidou Ryusei.”
“Number 3: Isagi Yoichi.”
The boy in question froze.
“Huh?” he said, looking just as shocked as his teammates.
Nishioka, Bachira, Nagi, and even Isagi himself were startled to hear Ego calling out Isagi’s name before Naruto.
After all, the blond had actually been the No. 1 ranked player at Blue Lock according to the previous evaluation, and, aside from positioning and vision, he surpassed Isagi in almost every other metric, be it dribbling, shooting, endurance, speed, ball control, or physicality.
Irrespective of their thoughts, Ego continued calling the rest of the names.
“Number 4: Nishioka Hajime.”
Naruto’s teammates’ surprise only continued to grow, and Naruto himself began to frown.
As the short, brown-haired boy stepped forth, quite a few seemed to recognise him, even those who had not played against him during the previous selections. Nishioka had made a name for himself even before coming to Blue Lock; he was known as the “Messi of Aomori”.
“Number 5: Karasu Tabito.”
“Last, Number 6: Nagi Seishiro.”
At that moment, two hands shot up in the air. One was Naruto, while the other was a tall teenager with round glasses and stylish brown hair.
“What is it, Yukimiya?” Ego said, choosing to answer his question first over Naruto’s.
“How were the rankings chosen?” Yukimiya asked. “What metrics were used? What makes the top 6 better than I am?”
Yukimiya Kenyu was known in the bracket he played as being unstoppable in 1 on 1 encounters. Not only was his dribbling ability amazing, but his speed and acceleration were off the charts as well.
“That’s simple,” Ego replied. “Out of the 35 of you, the only ones who managed to score against the World Five were Itoshi Rin, Shidou Ryusei, and Isagi Yoichi. As for the rest-”
“Then what about me? How am I below any of these guys? I scored against World Five too!” Naruto cut in, unable to keep silent after hearing those words.
He would understand it if Ego considered Itoshi Rin to be superior. Even though Naruto believed himself to be better, he could accept if Ego put Rin above him because that guy was extremely well-rounded and technical.
He did not know anything about Shidou, so he could not judge his skills, but he did know Isagi and Nagi. He couldn’t see how the two of them got ranked above him, especially Nagi, who had not scored any goals against the World Five.
Quite a few started muttering quietly at that development.
Ego pushed his glasses up his nose with his index finger before replying:
“I said that 35 out of 300 qualified. You may have not noticed, but there are 36 of you currently in the room. . . You are the 36th player, the one not included in the 35. I’m afraid that you are out of Blue Lock, Uzumaki Naruto.”
“W-What?!”
He was stunned in disbelief.
‘I’m out of Blue Lock?!’
‘Why?’
‘Why am I being kicked out?’
A torrent of questions flooded his mind as he stared dumbly at the large screen hanging off the wall.
‘Where did this come from?’
‘What happened? I didn’t do anything to mess up.’
As far as he could tell, he had behaved exemplary. Furthermore, only a few days ago, right after the match against World Five, Ego had come to check up on him personally and offered him some words of advice.
What could have changed in such a short time? How could he have upset Ego when he had done nothing but rest and recuperate after his clash with Dada Silva?
‘Don’t tell me. . . could it be because of Jiraiya?’
He had tried his utmost to forget about his scum of a godfather who had driven his father to an early death, but, unable to come up with an explanation for Ego’s sudden shift in attitude, that was the only realistic explanation in his mind.
‘Did that piece of trash finally get himself arrested?’
‘Is Ego just trying to cut me off like a lizard’s tail so that Blue Lock doesn’t get associated with someone whose relatives are in jail?’
Several years ago, Naruto’s father and Jiraiya made some plans to open a business, and Minato took a big loan from the bank in his name. They had been planning on starting a car rental company. They had a common account for the company, and they both had access to it. However, Jiraiya transferred all the money into his personal account and then vanished. (1)
Left with a huge debt and having to provide for his son as a single father, Minato started working 2 jobs at the same time. However, eventually, he could not keep up with the monthly payments, and the bank took their house. Moreover, not long after that, overworking proved to be the end of him. He died of cardiac arrest at his job. As for Jiraiya, he never returned to Japan again after that day, at least not to Naruto’s knowledge. He was a wanted man, and the police discovered that it was not the first time he had conned someone. He was the main suspect in a couple of other incidents of fraud too.
Naruto was broken off from his thoughts when Ego spoke to him again.
“You did nothing wrong,” he said to alleviate his worries. “I will talk to you in private after I’m done explaining the format of the tryouts for everyone else. Have a bit of patience until then.”
After that, Ego split the Top 6 players into three teams and explained to everyone how the starting 11 squad was going to be chosen for the match against the U-20 Japan team.
“Now here’s a message for the remaining 29. The key to acing the tryouts is assertion and coexistence. [...] For you, the Top 6 aren’t friends to play alongside [...]”
But Ego’s words entered through one of Naruto’s ears and came out the other.
All he could think of was that his career at Blue Lock was over. All of his hopes and dreams that he would change his miserable life crashed down, out of nowhere.
His hearing was muffled, and his breathing was laborious. He could not focus. He was on the verge of hyperventilating.
Once Ego’s explanation was over and the rest of the players started heading back to their dorms, an automatic door was opened to the side, and Ego called out to him.
“Uzumaki. Go through that door and come see me. We will talk in person.”
⁂
Coming out of Ego’s monitoring room, Naruto stopped for a while and leaned against the wall in the corridor, unable to walk for a few seconds. The adrenaline dump left him dizzy; he felt like throwing up. His clothes were soaked with sweat as though he had run for a full, 90-minute-long match. Even as he regained his bearings somewhat and started walking back towards his dorm, he was still out of it.
The moment he entered his dorm, his teammates bombarded him with questions.
“Oy, Naruto! What happened?!”
“Were you really kicked out of Blue Lock??”
“What did Ego say?”
Naruto smiled weakly. “Sorry, guys, I can’t talk about it. . .”
“Are you really out of Blue Lock?” Bachira asked.
“That seems to be the case,” he replied as he began stuffing his clothes and other things in a duffle bag with the Blue Lock emblem on it.
He didn’t have many belongings—not that he needed an extensive wardrobe when he was at Blue Lock. He only ever wore the kits provided by the facility while he was there.
“At least give us a hint, man. Are you in trouble?” asked Nishioka in worry.
He and Naruto had not been in the same team for a long time, but the short boy had gotten along with him really well.
“No, not really. Sorry, Ego-san told me not to talk about it. . .”
Finished packing his stuff, Naruto grabbed his duffle bag and put on his coat and a beanie; it was a cold day in January.
“Wait, dude, don’t leave just like that,” said Nishioka. “Let’s exchange contacts before you go.”
He brought his phone from the nightstand and came to Naruto.
“I don’t know what’s going on but. . . don’t be too depressed, Naruto,” said Nishioka, trying to console him. “Let’s keep in touch. Even if your time at Blue Lock is over, that doesn’t mean your career as a football player is over too.”
“He’s right. You just won’t be able to play for the national team, but that doesn’t mean you can’t play for other clubs.” Isagi and Bachira also expressed their agreement.
As Naruto exchanged contacts with them, Nishioka added:
“Personally, I already got an offer to join Urawa Reds even before coming to Blue Lock. I can’t guarantee anything, but I will definitely put a word in for you at whichever team I may end up joining.”
The blond was at a loss for words.
“Man, I don’t know what to say.”
“I haven’t done anything, so don’t thank me just yet,” Nishioka said, chuckling. “I just think it would be a crime for someone as good as you to not become a football player.”
“It’s out of the window for now, but who knows, maybe Ego will change his mind in the future. Japan’s National Team could definitely use a musclehead like you,” Nagi also said without looking up from his phone, making the rest burst into laughter.
Naruto ran a hand through his hair. He had not expected this reaction from them. After all, he had not had any friends ever since his father died. His mixed heritage, bad reputation as a thug, belligerent attitude, and the fact that he was an orphan had all but guaranteed that most of his classmates in high school did not want to be anywhere near him.
At that moment, he remembered the words that Ego told him after his altercation with Kuon during the first selection:
"Being a skilled striker is definitely important, but your Emotional Intelligence and your behaviour on the pitch are vital as well."
He had listened to his advice and tried to be friendlier and get closer to his teammates after the second selection.
‘And it paid out. . . Ego-san was right.’
Saying his goodbyes, he grabbed his duffle bag and left. A taxi was waiting for him outside of Blue Lock, courtesy of Ego.
⁂
Naruto was almost nostalgic as he stepped through the door of his dingy little apartment. Having lived at Blue Lock for the past few months and having gotten used to its luxurious facilities, coming back home felt like returning to a third-world country.
A narrow bed and a tiny shower stall were crammed together, while the toilet and sink were positioned at the other end. With a width of 2 meters and a length of 4 meters, the room felt more like a prison cell than a free person’s living space. Nevertheless, the apartment was spotless.
Not only had Saeko’s father paid the rent for this place the entire time Naruto was at Blue Lock, but he had even arranged for someone to clean it regularly.
‘I really owe Mr. Busujima so much.’
He brushed the snow off his clothes, but he didn’t take off his coat. It was cold inside. He took out his smartphone and opened the social media app, going to Saeko’s profile. He smiled when he saw the “in a relationship” status and her profile picture: it was a photo they took right after the snow fight during their first date. Their clothes and hair were matted with snow, and their faces were red from laughter and from the cold, but they could not look any happier than they were at that moment if they tried.
Not even 30 seconds after he came online, a private message popped up.
Saeko: Heyyy! How come you’re online?
Naruto: You should know why lol.
Saeko: I don’t? Did something happen?
His fingers paused, not expecting that answer.
Naruto: Did your father not tell you?
Saeko: I don’t think so. We did talk about Blue Lock recently, but he didn’t tell me anything special about you.
Naruto: …
Naruto: I’m not at Blue Lock anymore. Your father did something for me that I never expected.
Saeko: ????
Right after getting that question mark message, he received Saeko’s call.
“What happened, Naruto? What did my father do?!” She asked in a panicky voice.
Realising that she had misunderstood him, he quickly explained:
“Nothing bad, don’t worry! It’s just kinda crazy. He actually got me into the U20 Japan team.”
A loud sigh of relief came from Saeko.
“Thank God! You gave me quite the scare just now.”
“Sorry, I could have worded it out differently. But I’ve got to say, I knew your father was a big deal, but I never imagined he’d actually have that kind of influence.”
“You seem... subdued,” Saeko remarked, her womanly intuition picking up that something was not quite right from the sound of his voice.
“Ah, I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. I just. . . I don’t know how to put it into words.”
He made a pause to mull over his answer.
“I worked so hard over these past few months at Blue Lock. I was desperate and I had been dreaming of becoming a professional football player for years. . . But now it feels like all that effort was kind of pointless. One word from your father amounted to more than anything I ever did.”
“That’s not really the case. If not for your efforts, you wouldn’t have gotten in the position where my father could recommend you to the national team. I told you that Father and I talked about Blue Lock recently, right? That's because he was watching footage of your games at Blue Lock.”
“He did?! How did he even get his hands on that?”
“From what he told me, the Football Union requested footage from Blue Lock to make promotional videos for the upcoming game. They’re going all out now that Sae Itoshi is going to participate. They would sell a lot more tickets and merchandise if Sae Itoshi and Japan U-20 were to beat a formidable opponent instead of some nameless high schoolers.”
“As you can probably tell by now, Father is very close to the higher-ups at Japan Football Union. Which brings me to the point I wanted to make: he would have never vouched for you to join the U20 national team if he had thought you were not good enough because if you were to perform poorly, it would reflect badly on him too. Father values his pride a lot.”
⁂
Their phone call came to an end much sooner than either would have liked, but it couldn’t be helped. Saeko had an appointment with her modelling agency.
‘They’re really living in a different world,’ Naruto said to himself when he thought of how Saeko’s father used his connections to get him into the U20 national team.
‘Come to think of it, he even managed to get inside Blue Lock and visit me together with Saeko. . . ‘
In retrospect, it did not seem as wild for Mr. Busujima to have that sort of pull.
His mind involuntarily went to the cutting words that Saeko’s former butler told him.
"You don't belong with her, boy. You're nothing but a mongrel. You have nothing, not even parents. You are a nobody. You should know your place."
But he shook his head to banish those thoughts and got up from the bed. He grabbed his patchy school bag and spent a few minutes searching for some documents. Once he made sure he had everything he needed, he locked the door and left.
He had had an easy time travelling from Blue Lock to Tokyo, right in front of his apartment, thanks to the taxi that Ego had paid for him. But Naruto had no money of his own; not enough to splurge on a taxi. Therefore, he started walking on foot towards his new destination.
Half an hour later, he arrived in front of his high school. Having spent the past few months at Blue Lock, the place seemed almost foreign to him.
He did not linger at the gate. Although he was not wearing his uniform, nobody stopped him from entering. Quite a few students sneakily threw glances at him as he walked towards the faculty room, but he ignored them. He wasn’t going to see any of them after today.
The version of himself from before going to Blue Lock would have just barged inside without a care, but the current him was more mindful of his manners than before. He knocked on the door and waited for an answer before opening it.
“Uzumaki-san?” his homeroom teacher, a rather tall and thin middle-aged man with round glasses and a receding hairline, said in recognition when he saw him.
“Hello, professor.”
“What brings you here? Were you not supposed to be at that soccer organisation, Blue- something? Or did you get in trouble and they kicked you out?”
Naruto just barely suppressed a sneer at his demeaning words.
“Everything is fine at Blue Lock,” he said dismissively. He did not return to have an argument with his homeroom teacher. “I’m here to drop out of school.”
Quite a few professors turned their heads, watching the ongoing scene with interest when they heard his words.
The homeroom teacher pushed his glasses up his nose, asking in a serious voice.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. There’s no point in me coming back.”
“But what about your late father’s wish? Didn’t he wish for you to finish high school?” asked the professor.
He was not wrong. The main reason why Naruto had kept attending high school after his father’s death despite the fact that he also had to work a part-time job in order to support himself financially was that Minato had wished for Naruto to have some education.
That said, high school was not part of the compulsory education in Japan.
“It’s not as if I’m going to pass any exams by coming back now, after how much time I spent away from school, at Blue Lock,” said Naruto. “Besides, now that I’m about to become a professional football player, what use—”
“Bah!” a man exclaimed loudly in disdain.
Turning towards the sound, Naruto noticed it was none other than the school's football team's coach.
“You? A professional football player? You think you made it? Hahaha!”
Naruto had never seen eye to eye with the PE professor, all the more so after their last football match when he had threatened to track him down after school and rough him up just to convince him not to substitute him.
Some of his colleagues discreetly tried to stop him from escalating the situation, but the PE teacher seemed to be in the mood to argue.
“If I made it or not, why does it matter to you? Look, I didn’t come here for a fight,” Naruto said, starting to lose his patience. “And you aren’t my homeroom teacher either. I didn’t come to see you.”
“You, arrogant thug-”
It was only the principal’s intervention that made the football coach shut up.
A few minutes later, after Naruto completed a form and signed a few documents, he was ready to leave.
“It will take a few days for your request to be processed,” the homeroom teacher said. “You should receive a letter of confirmation from the school within five working days.”
“Understood. Thank you. Have a nice day, professor,” Naruto said and turned to leave, seeing no reason to extend his stay.
“You’re delusional if you think Blue Lock will beat Japan’s Diamond Generation,” the PE teacher couldn’t help shouting after him when he was about to exit the faculty room. “Japan’s U-20 is a world-class team, especially their defence and midfield. Blue Lock is a scam, and the guy leading the organisation is either an imbecile or a master con man. What could a ragtag team of high school brats hope to achieve?”
By the end of his rant, the professor was breathing as though he had run a marathon.
Naruto could have told him that he was one of the top scorers at Blue Lock. He could have also told him that he had already been accepted into Japan U-20’s team. The PE teacher would have definitely been shocked to hear that. Yet, he didn’t deign him with an answer.
“You’ll never amount to anything, you hear me? Selling drugs or doing manual labour is all that a hooligan like you will ever-”
Naruto didn’t stay to hear the rest of it. Opening the door, he left without as much as turning his head to acknowledge his words.
‘Some teachers, they are. . .’
Only the PE teacher was cursing at him, but the rest weren’t doing much of anything to stop him. Instead of trying to support and encourage their students, they just sat and watched how one of their own belittled a boy three times younger than him.
Then again, it was one of the worst schools in Japan, located in one of the worst city districts in the country. It was no surprise that rejects like that PE professor would be sent to teach there.
‘I’ll make them all eat their words.’
The police who made his life difficult because he was mixed, the butler who called him a mongrel and told him he didn’t belong with Saeko, and the professors at this run-down school—everyone who had ever belittled and ostracised him, he was going to show them how wrong they had been about him.
⁂
According to Ego’s instructions, he was supposed to join Japan U-20’s camp five days after leaving Blue Lock. Until then, he was free to do whatever he wished.
Now, it was the third day since he returned to Tokyo. Despite the snow and the freezing temperature, Naruto was outside, running on the Arakawa River Trail.
Due to the terrible weather, although it was Saturday morning, the running track was empty; he was the only person out for a jog. Nevertheless, he could not stay cooped inside his tiny apartment. He needed to train. He had too much energy. But, more importantly, he needed to distract himself from his thoughts.
Having just finished a particularly intense HIIT running workout, he slowed down to a walking pace, his breath coming out in ragged gasps. Now that he did not need to concentrate on his workout anymore, his thoughts returned with a vengeance.
He was a professional football player now. He had yet to receive his first salary or sign a contract, but it was pretty much guaranteed.
For how many years had he dreamed of this moment? Even before his father died, when he was living a modest but comfortable life as the son of an average salaryman, Naruto had always dreamed of becoming a professional football player.
His fear that he would spend the rest of his life breaking his spine at a shitty job had vanished. His worries and despair about what the future held in store for him disappeared too.
He was a football player now. He had achieved his childhood dream.
He was on his way to becoming wealthy and successful. . . . . . Yet, why was he not happy?
What was he feeling unfulfilled about? What was the feeling of wrongness that would not let him have peace even when he slept?
He stopped walking, gazing vacantly at the snowflakes that started falling from the dark grey skies.
“This isn’t right,” he muttered.
He did not want to become a professional football player in that manner.
It wasn't the fact that Saeko’s father had used his connections to get him into Japan’s U-20 national team through the backdoor that bothered Naruto. He didn’t have that sort of pride and strict sense of fairness. Life wasn’t fair, and it had certainly not been fair for him either. He could not care less if others were to accuse him of being a nepo baby because he was confident that, in time, he would shut everyone up with his results.
No. What bothered him was the fact he had to go against Blue Lock.
When all other football clubs completely ignored his existence throughout his high school years, Ego saw value in him, a nameless orphan from the slums.
When nobody gave a cent about him, Ego acknowledged his potential and invited him to join Blue Lock.
‘I wouldn’t be here without him. I wouldn’t be who I am without Blue Lock.’
Saeko and her father had helped him immensely, but Ego and Blue Lock’s role in his development had not been any less important.
Yet, now, after joining Japan’s U-20 team, he would have to play against Blue Lock’s team. And if Blue Lock lost the match, Ego would lose everything too.
“No. . . I can’t do this.”
A mixed expression flashed in his eyes, but he clenched his fists tightly in determination.
⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂ AN: [Blue Lock] is back. As you can probably tell, I decided to diverge from the canon instead of repeating the tryout. This second part of the story will have a bit more focus on Naruto's character and on his relationship with Saeko than the first part.
That being said, do not worry, this is still a football fic. The training leading up to the match between [Blue Lock and Japan U-20] and the match itself will get a lot of coverage and attention.
With the giant man on his right shoulder, the fox girl on his left, and the fluffy poro on his head, Naruto sprinted across the waves. As they got closer to the rocky shoreline, Ahri pointed her finger and said:
“Look, there’s a village towards 4 o’clock.”
Naruto had seen it too, and despite his exhaustion, he picked up the pace.
“Maybe it would be better to change your course a little,” Ahri added.
“Why?”
“The Buhru people worship a divinity of the sea, Nagakabouros. Only the Spirits know what they would think if they saw you walk on water,” she explained.
“Fair enough. Better not to attract too much attention,” he said in agreement and changed his direction slightly, towards 3 o’clock.
Soon after, they reached the shore, and Ahri was tactful enough to jump off his shoulder without being told.
“I can’t wait to hit the bed,” he said as the natives’ village appeared on the horizon.
He had not had any time to rest ever since he fought against the Black Mist earlier that day. Although he still had chakra, the corruption attempts of the mist had taken a toll on his mental state.
“You probably won’t get in bed anytime soon,” Ahri said when she saw a group of warriors wearing tribal clothes and jewellery coming to block their way once they got close to the village.
Naruto didn’t understand their language, but judging by the negative emotions he could sense from them and from their act of brandishing their spears, it was clear that they were not welcome.
A dark-skinned, muscular man wearing nothing but an open leather vest on his upper body and a pair of baggy white linen pants stepped in front of his group and asked:
“Who are you people? Why have you come to our land?”
Unlike Naruto, who didn’t understand a word of what he was saying, Ahri knew many languages; she had been alive for centuries and absorbed the memories of countless people.
“We were headed towards Bilgewater, but our ship sank,” she said. “We were attacked by the Black Mist not long ago. We barely escaped with our lives.”
“The Black Mist??” the tribesman said in shock. “How can this be?! Our Truth Bearer drove back the mist years ago! We have not seen even one Harrowing since then.”
“We aren’t the only ones. We found this man washed ashore not far from here too. I think he was also a victim of the Black Mist,” she said, gesturing towards the unconscious man on Naruto’s shoulder.
Sensing that the natives weren’t happy about their presence there, Naruto said:
“Tell him we won’t stay in their village. We just want to leave this guy here. We can pay for his treatment if needed. As for the two of us, we’ll board the first ship heading towards Bilgewater.”
As Ahri relayed Naruto’s words to them, the Buhru people talked amongst themselves for a short while before their spokesperson gave them their answer:
“The Mother Serpent teaches us not to turn a blind eye to those in need. We shall nurse your companion back to health. As for the matter of you going to Bilgewater, a merchant ship should leave the harbour in one hour. We will arrange for you to get on board.”
Naruto handed the bald, muscular man to the Buhru people, and Ahri couldn't help but start to giggle when she saw that the two tribesmen who tried to take the unconscious man from Naruto’s arms almost collapsed under his weight. In the end, they couldn’t carry him like that, and someone ran to the village to bring a stretcher.
⁂
Leaving the large man they had rescued from the sea in the care of the villagers, Naruto and Ahri followed a guide to the small harbour to board the ship that would take them to Bilgewater.
The Serpent Isles were rather close to each other, and Naruto would have definitely been able to walk across the water, but the problem was that neither he nor Ahri had ever been to Bilgewater; they didn't know its precise location. Therefore, although they would have to wait until the sailboat took off, they had no choice.
In the meantime, they sat on a bench nearby and watched the Buhru people go about their business while they made small talk.
“Are you sure it’s safe to leave him with them?” Naruto asked.
Although he had not sensed any negative emotions from the tribesmen (other than wariness towards him and Ahri), the blond was still suspicious.
“It wouldn’t hurt you to have a little more trust in people, you know? Not everyone is out to get you or others,” Ahri said. “You were like that with me as well when we just met, and I wanted nothing but to help you out.”
Naruto shrugged his shoulders.
“Where I come from, there’s a saying: once bitten, twice shy.”
Naruto had been on the run his entire life. He had lost count of how many people had tried to kill him or turn him in for the bounty on his head. After spending over seven years running from assassins and mercenaries, being suspicious of others was like second nature to him.
Ahri let out a sigh. “I even tried to give them money, and they still refused.”
“That just makes them more suspicious. People who don’t do it for money usually have some other motive.”
“Hey! I resent that! I didn’t have any hidden motives when I befriended you and those siblings!” Ahri huffed in chagrin.
“Yes, you did. You approached me because you thought I was a vastaya. My life energy smelt like a fox, and you were hoping I had some connection to your people.”
Ahri opened her mouth to argue but quickly deflated when she realised he was right. Her fox ears drooped, and her tail stopped wagging.
“Still… I didn’t mean any harm.”
Naruto found himself grinning. “Aw, you’re pouting now.”
“I am not!” she snapped, crossing her arms and looking away.
He chuckled and reached out, patting her between her perky fox ears.
‘Crap, she’s so cute!’
In moments like this, it was easy to forget that the fox girl was old enough to remember the times when starting a fire was the latest tech.
Still pouting, Ahri pushed his hand off her head, and the two spent the remaining time in silence. Every once in a while, the girl would sneak a glance at him, inwardly growing annoyed when she realised Naruto was more preoccupied with watching the harbour instead of trying to make up with her.
In his defence, the Buhru settlement’s harbour was of a rarely seen picturesque beauty. Even he, who had no artistic sense, could recognise its uniqueness.
The water was clear and crystal blue. The Buhru people stood out with their dark skin, simple breezy clothes, and tribal tattoos. The cliffs and buildings along the shore were covered in beautiful carvings and paintings of large sea serpents and a striking Kraken-like creature, the symbol of their god, Nagakabouros.
Eventually, it was time for them to get on a rowboat in order to reach the sailboat that was waiting for them in the open sea.
⁂
By the time they boarded the sailboat, Ahri had returned to her usual, bubbly mood. Bilgewater was only a few hours away, but the fox girl couldn’t help pacing back and forth impatiently.
As for Naruto, he unfurled the large Scroll of Seals and started studying the Flying Thunder God Jutsu; it was something he always did whenever he had a bit of spare time.
Ahri would have loved to spend their trip chatting and having fun, but with how focused the blond seemed to be on his scroll, she had nothing to do. She grinned in mischief to herself, and Naruto was startled to notice from the corner of his eye that she had disappeared!
No, she didn’t vanish entirely. The girl vanished, and a cute white fox appeared in her stead. She had turned into a fox.
Ahri’s giggle was somehow recognisable even in her fox form, and Naruto watched wide-eyed how the laughing fox jumped into his lap and curled herself into a ball.
“I didn’t know you could turn into a fox!” Naruto said in awe.
He poked and prodded at her fur, but her transformation did not come undone. It was not a henge, nor was it an illusion. She had actually shapeshifted.
But when he tried to touch her fluffy white tail, Ahri’s needle-like fangs sank into his hand playfully.
He started chuckling as he began to annoy the little fox by pulling at her ears or grabbing her paws, and she tried to bite him in turn at every chance she got. They played around like that for nearly half an hour, laughing and giggling the entire time, the Scroll of Seals left to the side forgotten.
But after half an hour, fed up with getting bullied like that, Ahri unexpectedly turned back to her human form, straddling his legs.
The Buhru sailors and merchants sat back and snickered in amusement as they watched two grown-ups wrestle and roll around on the deck as though they were children.
Try as she might, even after turning back to human form, she couldn’t get an advantage over him. He was far too powerful physically. She tried every dirty trick in the book—biting, scratching, tickling, and even licking his ear to make him recoil in disgust—but nothing worked. A few minutes later, he pinned her hands above her head and mounted her, immobilising her completely.
“Really now? Biting and scratching? What are you, a kid?" Naruto said, his breathing laborious.
“That’s rich. . . coming from you!” she said while gasping for air.
“You even tried to lick my ear!” he said incredulously.
Ahri started sniggering, and he began chuckling too. Eventually, they started laughing out loud together.
“Alright, enough monkeying around. I’d really like to get some reading done,” Naruto said as he stood up, letting go of her wrists.
It was weird to hear himself say he wanted to study, but desperate times called for desperate measures. He really wanted to learn Fuinjutsu and the Hirashin.
He sat on the bench again and grabbed his scroll, but Ahri was quick to hop into his arms and sit in his lap.
“Ahri… come on!”
“I’m not doing anything now, I promise,” she said, looking up at him cutely. “I just want to be close to you. . . is that bad?”
Her honey-laced voice and their closeness made it impossible for him to stop the flush spreading across his face. They had wrestled just a minute ago, rolling on the deck together, but that was different. They had been playing. Their current posture was. . . intimate.
"I don’t think friends are supposed to embrace each other like this," he muttered in embarrassment.
Ahri wrapped her arms around his neck and smirked as their faces were only centimetres apart now.
"But you didn’t have any qualms about falling asleep with a face full of my breasts last night."
Her sensitive ears didn’t miss the way his heart skipped a beat at her words, and the even more obvious sign of the effect she was having on him could be felt from below.
Naruto shifted around awkwardly so she wouldn’t notice, and it took every last ounce of her willpower not to start giggling at him. His face was so red she could practically feel the heat radiating from it.
"Ahri," he began, his voice unsteady.
"Shush~" The fox girl cut him off, pressing a slender finger to his lips, over the mask.
Naruto trembled with desire, and a delightful shiver ran down Ahri’s spine. Without thinking, she licked her lips, her eyes smouldering as she gazed up at him.
She had not used her Charm ability, yet he was completely captivated by her. He could do nothing but watch as her hands cupped his face, her fingers slowly tracing their way to the edges of his mask.
He had teased her about it and spent weeks keeping his face a secret, but now he was completely entranced by her.
Every little movement drew him in. The slight tilt of her head, the teasing glint in her amber eyes, and the way her lips curled into a smirk. She knew exactly how to push his buttons and what gestures made him weak. It was as if she could read his mind.
'But she did read my memories,' he reminded himself absentmindedly.
Ahri’s own heart started pounding in her chest as she slowly peeled off his mask, her slit, fox-like eyes widening as she took in his true appearance. She had seen many handsome men in her long life, but none had ever taken her breath away like this. He wasn’t pretty like the princes and aristocrats she had encountered, but there was a rugged charm to him that drew her in.
A soft pink warmed her cheeks as she stared, unable to look away from the three pairs of whisker-like marks on his face. He was. . . so much better than she had expected! No, he was positively adorable. Those whisker marks that were so similar to hers and that prickly on the outside, warm on the inside attitude of his made him cute as hell. It was Ahri's turn to blush now.
Her hands moved to the back of his head, and she pulled him down to her, her head tilting in preparation for what was going to be a soulful, passion-filled kiss.
However, at that moment, an abrupt tremor shook the ship, and their foreheads clashed against each other painfully. A massive aquatic monster had attacked their ship.
And, just like that, the special moment they had was broken. Naruto quickly distanced himself from her and covered his face back with his mask.
Before the captain could even shout for the crew to prepare for battle, Ahri jumped off the ship. Her tail multiplied to nine, and her eyes glowed with her magic power as she let out a furious cry.
A fireball, larger than her own body, appeared above her head. She threw the devastating attack, and the thirty-meter-long sea serpent let out a terrible shriek as his body was set on fire.
Taken aback and frightened by the violent retaliation, the immense sea monster immediately pulled back from the sailboat and tried to flee.
“You’re not getting away!” Ahri yelled.
She had been trying for so long to get through Naruto’s walls and make him realise that she liked him! And she had been on the verge of succeeding. . . but that serpent ruined everything. Now, only the Spirits knew when another opportunity would come for her to make the blond blockhead understand her feelings! All her efforts went up in smoke!
She was going to kill that blasted snake if it was the last thing she did!
Three more fireballs, just as massive as the first one, appeared around her, and she started bombarding the surface of the water with her magic. Another three massive fireballs formed around her, and she began raining down her magic on the sea with wild abandon.
The Buhru people, who had been preparing to channel the power of the Bearded Lady to fight against the creature, stood frozen. They watched in stunned silence as the previously bubbly and flirty fox girl went apeshit on the sea serpent.
Half a minute later, the massive body of the serpent sank to the bottom of the sea. Alas, the monster had been unable to get away. Ahri’s foxfire was hot enough to melt steel even before she absorbed Naruto’s life force; her magic was several times stronger after feeding on his chakra. Although the serpent had gone underwater, Ahri’s foxfire had heated the seawater to the point where the serpent was boiled alive. It died a terrible death.
⁂
Maybe it was because the other sea serpents had seen their companion’s brutal death, or maybe they were just lucky, but the ship didn’t face another attack for the rest of the journey.
Naruto spent the next few hours in silence, trying (and failing miserably) to focus on his scroll. No matter how hard he tried to concentrate, his mind kept going back to what had almost happened between him and Ahri. The fact that the fox girl was sitting next to him, her head resting on his shoulder, didn’t help matters. At all.
Her closeness made him self-conscious, and the faint scent of flowers that drifted from her made his skin break out in goosebumps. He felt like he had a fever, his entire body on fire every time he felt her breath on his arm. He was at the end of his wits.
Fortunately, that sweet form of torture came to an end when the port of Bilgewater appeared on the horizon. It was a strange city built on cliffs and even atop the water, with all sorts of weirdly shaped buildings, some of them looking like actual sailboats that had been dragged on land and turned into homes.
Nevertheless, seen from a distance, it could not be denied that Bilgewater had its own, special type of beauty and charm.
Letting out a sigh of relief, Naruto furled back the Scroll of Seals and stored it safely in his backpack before standing up from the bench.
By the time they reached Bilgewater’s docks, the sky had turned to sunset. Ahri’s face twisted in disgust, and even Naruto had to cover his nose as the overpowering stench of fish, blood, and salt hit them like a punch to the face.
“Welcome to Bilgewater!” Ahri said, her voice sounding funny while she pinched her nose.
Bilgewater was exactly what the two of them had imagined a lawless pirate den to be like. Shouts and yells of people partying could be heard from everywhere as the bars and taverns were filled to the brim with customers; a bunch of men and women were having a bare-knuckle fistfight on the street, some drunkards were throwing up messily in a side alley, and prostitutes stood outside brothels, trying to pull in men. Occasionally, the sound of gunshots could be heard in the distance.
Wanting to avoid unnecessary trouble, Ahri covered herself with her long white cloak and put on its hood, hiding herself completely. She smiled happily when Naruto actually took the initiative to grab her hand so that they would not get separated, and the fox girl intertwined her fingers with his in a lover’s hold.
Even in that lawless cesspool of pirates, criminals, druggies, killers, and other dangerous individuals, the crowd parted like a miracle wherever Naruto went. They only needed one look at his metallic arm for them to think thrice about trying to start any trouble with him. They all knew what a hextech prosthetic was.
⁂
Unfamiliar with the messy and cluttered pirate city, Naruto and Ahri wandered around aimlessly in search of an inn. After spending such a long time at sea, the two of them wanted nothing more than to sleep in a quiet, steady place, without fearing that some gigantic Jaull-fish or Kraken would attack them in their sleep.
“Should we camp out in the forest?” asked Naruto after fifteen minutes.
However, Ahri had not even noticed the passing of time. So happy she was about walking hand in hand with him, that she even forgot that they were supposed to find an inn for the night.
“No, let’s keep searching. I’m sure we’ll find an inn soon.”
Passing by a large, impressive manor (by Bilgewater standards), Naruto and Ahri noticed a group of people entering through its large double doors, all heavily armed. The man leading them stood out with his blue, fur-collared cape, wide-brimmed captain’s hat adorned with a scarlet feather, and the golden epaulettes on his shoulders.
Naruto was about to keep walking and mind his own business, but Ahri grabbed his hand, stopping him.
“Hey, want to see what they’re up to?” she asked, grinning.
“We just got here. We don’t know anything about this place. Let’s not stick our noses in things that aren’t our business,” Naruto replied.
“Don’t be like that, Ifrit~. Aren’t you curious?”
“I’m more tired than curious. I just wanna go have a warm bath and sleep in a proper bed for the first time in weeks.”
The fox girl pulled on his hand, whining.
“But I wanna seee!”
“Curiosity got the fox killed.”
“That’s not how the saying goes!” she retorted hotly. “Curiosity killed the cat, not the fox! And that’s not even the complete saying! Curiosity killed the cat, but the truth brought it back!”
He started chuckling at her. “What am I going to do with you? You’re getting me in trouble every day!”
Ahri giggled and nudged him with her shoulder.
“You know what they say, bad decisions make the best stories~”
Two minutes later, Naruto sneaked to the back of the manor, and, by making use of the semi-darkness of the dusk, he wall-walked on the dark side of the building, with Ahri hanging off his back like a monkey.
“You really have to teach me how to walk on water and on walls one of these days!” she whispered.
“Why do you need that when you can fly?”
“I can’t fly for a long time. It’s just a short, temporary levitation; it takes me a great deal of magic power to maintain it for a longer time.”
“Don’t you have my memories already?” he asked. "You should know how I control my chakra."
“I don’t have them all. And I can’t control what exactly I’m seeing.”
“Well, tough luck for you then,” he said snarkily, trying to rile her up on purpose.
But he chose the wrong moment to do so because, with her position on his back, Naruto was at her mercy. Bringing her lips close to his ear, she whispered seductively:
“Then I guess you’ll have to feed me again tonight. Intimately.”
It was as though he had short-circuited. He lost control over his chakra, and the two of them fell off the wall like a sack of potatoes, crashing down with a heavy thud.
Ahri started giggling uncontrollably.
“Shhh! They’ll hear you!” he said in a harsh whisper, his face burning with embarrassment as he covered Ahri’s mouth with his hand to muffle her laughter.
"Ahahahaha!"
Two minutes later, the girl finally got her laughter under control, and Naruto's own embarrassment receded somewhat. He climbed on the wall again, and they stopped next to a window as they peeked inside, becoming quiet to eavesdrop on them.
⁂
“I see you’ve been doing some remodelling,” said the man wearing the captain’s hat and the blue, fur-collared coat.
Across from him stood a red-haired woman wearing a pair of tight, high-waist pants showing off her slender waist and long legs and a black corset that further accentuated her wasp-like waist and perky breasts.
“What can I say? The place needed a woman’s touch. I don’t think the previous owner would mind,” she said sardonically.
“Guess not. Seeing as how you gunned him down, along with the rest of the conclave,” the other captain replied.
“Are you here to parley, Captain Thorne, or to criticise my sense of decor? I trust you’ve considered my offer?”
“Offer?” the man scoffed. “You’re asking me to hand over all my operations to you, my fleet, and all of my men. . . of else? Miss Fortune, you may have killed Gangplank, stolen this fancy manor from him . . . but that don’t make you my queen.”
At his words, all the men behind him took out their guns, machetes, and daggers.
“From where I’m standing, it looks like Bilgewater is still up for grabs,” said Captain Thorne. “Now give it up, girl. You know I’d hate to ruin that pretty face.”
The dark-skinned man standing at the red-haired woman’s right let out a sigh.
Faster than anyone there could react, the woman pulled out the twin pistols from the holsters at her waist, and then Ahri had to flatten her ears against her head as a thunderous noise rang out.
A hail of bullets exploded from the hand-cannon-like pistols in the redhead’s hands, gunning down a dozen pirates in the blink of an eye. Screams of pain and panic came from the pirates as they collapsed on the floor, holding onto their bloodied legs in agony.
At the same time, three dozen pirates flooded the large chamber; they were Miss Fortune’s men.
The still-standing pirates on Captain Throne’s side all moved back to back, but their faces paled when they realised they were surrounded from all sides.
“I’ll consider this your formal surrender,” Captain Fortune spat.
“The Syndicate will never follow you. You hear me, tyrant? I’ll die first!” shouted Captain Thorne.
“I see,” she said indifferently. “How about you, boys? Does your captain speak for you all? Will you become fish food too like he is about to?”
Nobody answered her question, but they all lowered their weapons, recognising a lost cause when they saw one.
“Well then, Captain Throne,” Miss Fortune said as she walked closer to him and aimed her pistol at his temple. “I’d say this meeting is adjourned.”
A loud gunshot rang, and even the pirates recoiled at the macabre sight of Captain Thorne’s head blowing up messily and the geyser of blood that burst out of his headless corpse.
As if she hadn’t just violently murdered someone in cold blood, Miss Fortune wiped the blood that had splashed on her face and said in a serene voice:
“The rest of you, welcome to my crew! Prove yourselves loyal, and you will be rewarded. Betray me, or even whisper the name Gangplank, and I’ll stuff you in a box with your former captain. Understood?”
She looked like a slender and delicate woman, but the terror her actions had instilled had several dozen men suddenly straighten up their postures and salute in fear with a hand to their temple:
“Yes, Captain!”
⁂
“Damn. The pirates’ haven, indeed,” said Naruto as he took off the wall and jumped into the distance with Ahri on his back.
“It’s even more lawless than I thought. We got here not even an hour ago, and we already watched a dozen people die,” she said as she got off his back.
They chatted about the incident they had just witnessed for another twenty minutes before they finally found a decent-looking inn.
As they entered the inn, their arrival turned quite a few heads. Although Ahri’s appearance was mostly hidden by her white cloak, one could tell just by her gait and the shape of her silhouette that she was most likely a very attractive woman. Nevertheless, when their eyes moved to the man accompanying her, they quickly lowered their heads.
Ignoring the rest of the people dining on the ground floor, Naruto and Ahri went to the innkeeper, a bald man with half his teeth missing and a red scarf around his neck.
“Ah. Do you want the hourly rate, or…?” he let out an insinuating laugh.
“Two rooms for the night,” Naruto answered, pretending to not catch his drift.
“Hehe. You sure?”
Seeing the opportunity to mess with Naruto again, Ahri barely held back a teasing grin as she replied to the innkeeper:
“One room will do~”
Naruto twisted his head to her sharply, but she made a show out of ignoring him and took out a pouch of money from the inner pocket of her cloak.
“Is that Ionian coin?” the innkeeper asked, sneering when he opened the bag and saw its contents. “That ain’t no good here. We only take Silver Serpents, no exceptions!”
Naruto couldn’t even be mad at him. Bilgewater was a lawless, pirate city. It made sense that the innkeeper wouldn’t want to risk doing business with exchanging currency and whatnot.
The baldie tied the bag’s mouth and pushed it across the counter, back to Ahri.
“Take your foreign coin and go someplace else.”
She didn’t make a move to retrieve her money. Obscured by the hood of her cloak, the fox girl’s eyes glowed with a magenta colour as she asked:
“Are you sure? Take another look~”
The innkeeper’s eyes clouded, and a dumb look appeared on his face as he grabbed the pouch of coins and opened it again.
“Ah! Such rare coin!” he said, in a trance. “You’re too generous! Take any room you like!”
Leaving the Charmed innkeeper behind, Ahri ran upstairs, barely containing her excitement. Naruto couldn’t fault her for it. The trip from Ionia to Bilgewater could not have been any more unpleasant. He was also glad to finally spend the night on land, in a relatively safe and quiet place.
“Ohh!” Ahri exclaimed in happiness when she opened the door and saw the clean and surprisingly well-kept room.
She actually Spirit Rushed inside and threw herself on one of the two beds, just like a child. She rolled around in bed wildly for a few moments before lying on her back, her arms and legs spread eagle.
Shaking his head in amusement at her childlike innocence, Naruto put down his massive backpack and took off his grey travelling cloak before hanging it on a coat rack by the door.
“Well, I’ll go have a bath while you’re playing around. Don’t wander off, okay? Please keep an eye on my bag till I’m back,” Naruto said, but before he could leave, Ahri suddenly jumped off the bed as though there were springs under her feet and grabbed him by his hextech arm.
“What’s wrong?”
“Surely you’ve heard of “ladies first”, right?”
“There’s no such saying where I come from!” Naruto said as he yanked his arm out of her grip before bolting towards the bathroom.
“How rude!” she yelled after him, and suddenly Spirit Rushed ahead, actually arriving at the bathroom door before him.
But just as she grabbed the doorknob, Naruto caught her by the fox tail, and Ahri yelped as a very powerful charge of lightning coursed through her body.
Naruto snickered like a hyena as the girl fell on the carpet paralysed, with her waist-long black hair standing up like a huge mohawk and the white fur on her fox tail becoming like the blade of a handsaw.
“Naruto . . . you vile . . .!” Ahri struggled to say through the paralysis, but the blond blew her a goodbye kiss and walked inside the bathroom, leaving her there on the floor.
EDIT: This fic won't come out straight away. If I do write it, I will do so after June/July. I just need to know in advance if people want it or not because it takes me a long time to think of a good plot.
Premise
The main idea would be that Naruto and Kaguya unknowingly end up in the dungeon, in Orario, when she teleported them.
He loses the fight and Kaguya takes away his chakra before leaving him to die. But he survives due to his body falling on the magic stones left behind from the monsters that died in the crossfire during their fight. He will continue to survive off magic stones until he gets a god's blessing.
Goddess/familia
He will not join Hestia's family. I plan on making goddess Athena descend from heaven for Naruto specifically. He will be the first member of her familia.
I will use goddess Athena from the old Greek mythology (Homer's Iliad and Odyssey for example, not the one from Ovid's myths).
Pairing
There is something about Danmachi's art style that makes many of the female characters look like kids. I can't really get hyped for writing a romance with them lol. Freya and the Amazons are hot but they are also massive whores. So... zero interest in them.
I am thinking of making the pairing Naruto/Goddess Athena.
Many children hated school and couldn’t wait for the weekend to arrive, but, unlike them, Harry dreaded every second of it. When he was at school, the breaks were not great, but during class, nobody messed with him. There was no Uncle Vernon or Aunt Petunia to scream at him. There was no Dudley to make his life miserable. He didn’t have chores to do when he was in class either. There was only peace and quiet.
It was Saturday. Although it was the weekend, Vernon and Petunia woke Harry up early in the morning and ordered him to start cleaning the house while the two of them went to do their groceries. If that was everything, Harry wouldn’t mind it all that much. However, they didn’t take Dudley with them.
Harry let out a sigh as he dragged the large vacuum cleaner into the living room. It was not its weight that was making him sigh but the fact that he knew that once he turned it on, Dudley would undoubtedly wake up and come down to bother him.
Nonetheless, he had no choice. He’d rather suffer through Dudley’s bullying and then have his aunt and uncle lock him in a cupboard and starve him until Monday morning again.
And just as he had expected, merely two minutes after Harry turned on the vacuum cleaner and started cleaning the living room’s floor, Dudley came down from his room, yelling, running through the living room, and kicking up a fuss just to mess with him.
“Dudley, come on! I have to finish cleaning before they come back!” Harry pleaded with him.
“Like I care! Haha!” the fat kid laughed and started jumping on the sofa.
Harry tried to ignore him and continue cleaning, but Dudley got off the sofa and pulled the vacuum cleaner’s plug out of the socket.
“Cut it off already!” Harry said in annoyance as he went to plug it back in, but Dudley took the cord with him and ran away snickering.
Dudley looked back to see if Harry was chasing after him, but in doing so, he didn’t watch where he was going and crashed into a cabinet.
Although he was only ten years old, the little walrus was already heavier than some Asian adults. The whole cabinet was rocked when he crashed into it. Time appeared to slow down in Harry’s eyes as he watched the ornate jar on top of the wobbling cabinet fall down.
The expensive-looking jar shattered into pieces as it crashed on the floor, sending clouds of ash into the air and painting Dudley’s face and clothes grey.
The two boys gazed at the destroyed urn stupefied.
As chance made it, the entrance door opened at that exact moment. Vernon and Petunia were back.
⁂
Harry, Kara, and Astrid were in front of 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey, on the sidewalk, sitting on a bench that Harry had conjured for them. Having cast a warding spell that made the Muggles ignore them, nobody paid any attention to them. Besides, it was quite early in the morning; the streets were empty.
Knowing that it was a different dimension, Harry did not want to jump to conclusions and assume that everything was exactly like in his world of origin. For example, in his world, Bellatrix Lestrange had murdered his godfather, Sirius Black. But, in his second life, Bellatrix never joined the Dark Lord; she had been an Unspeakable, and a woman of character who loved researching magic. Moreover, she had adopted him and cared for him as though she were his mother.
Another example of how wildly things could vary from one dimension to another was the case of the good Lex Luthor and the evil version of Superman from the Crime Syndicate’s dimension.
When the three of them arrived in front of young Harry’s house, the Dursleys had already left, and the boy was in the process of cleaning the house. Harry himself could not see what was happening inside, but Kara and Astrid, with their X-ray vision, could.
Although he had a feeling that things were just as bad for this young Harry as they had been for him when the girls told him that the boy was cleaning the house alone while his cousin was sleeping with no care in the world, Harry resolved himself to wait until he got solid proof.
“God, I’ve never wanted to beat a kid as much as I do now,” said Powergirl, a vein pulsating dangerously on her temple.
“What’s going on?” asked Harry.
“The fat kid just woke up and started messing with him,” Kara said with a frown.
“Dad, let’s go inside!” Astrid also said while glaring in the direction of the house.
As chance made it, the Dursleys’ grey Vauxhall Estate car arrived at that moment and parked in front of their garage.
“Oh no!” Astrid exclaimed.
“The half-pint hog just broke an expensive-looking vase. No, not just a vase; it looks like an urn with someone’s remains,” Powergirl elaborated.
“Kara, can I watch it through your eyes?” he asked for permission.
“Of course.”
Casting the Legilimency Spell, Harry transferred his consciousness into Kara’s mind and watched through her eyes, with her X-ray vision, what was going on inside the house.
⁂
The two boys gazed at the destroyed urn and the pile of ash scattered all over the floor stupefied.
As chance made it, the door opened at that exact moment. Vernon and Petunia were back.
Harry’s and Dudley’s eyes met. Then, Dudley sprinted towards the entrance door, his rolls of fat flapping with every step he took.
“Dad! Dad! Harry broke the urn with Grandma’s ashes!” Dudley screamed.
Petunia and Vernon rushed to the living room to see the shattered remains of the expensive vase and ash all over the place.
Young Harry gulped when he saw his uncle’s face instantly turning purple, his big, pig-like nostrils flaring with his rage.
“I didn’t do it!” Harry cried out when Vernon stomped towards him furiously. “I swear it wasn’t me!”
But the hateful oaf wouldn’t hear him out. He reached Harry in less than four steps and grabbed him by his hair violently.
“Every day you’re screwing up one thing or another!” Vernon screamed, his spittle splashing everywhere. “Every day you’re making our lives miserable! We feed you, we clothe you, and this is how you repay us? Ungrateful, wretched freak, you can’t go one day without causing trouble! You ruined a priceless artefact! You destroyed and tarnished my mother’s resting place!”
Harry cried out in pain as Vernon dragged him roughly by the hair towards the cupboard under the stairs.
“I swear it wasn’t me!” he pleaded. “Dudley did it! Look at him; there’s ash all over his pyjamas!”
But Vernon didn’t listen. He yanked open the cupboard’s door and shoved him inside forcefully.
“No food for the next 2 days! You hear me?” Vernon roared as he slammed the cupboard’s door after him and pushed the lever, locking Harry inside. “You won’t set foot out of this bloody cupboard for the rest of the month!”
Eyes bloodshot with anger, Vernon returned to the living room and stared at the piles of ash on the floor. He suddenly let out a scream and flipped the coffee table in a fit of rage, making Dudley hide behind his mother’s legs, never before having seen his father’s anger reach such a degree.
⁂
Harry’s Legilimency link broke as Kara’s body turned into a blur, moving toward the house faster than his eyes could track.
“Kara!” he shouted after her, but the Kryptonian woman didn’t stop.
She was done waiting. She was done watching. After witnessing what had just happened, her anger reached the tipping point.
The Dursleys’ entrance door was torn off its hinges, and she flew inside, straight at Vernon. The fat hog had no time to ask any questions or at least shout at the uninvited guest before Kara’s slap sent him crashing across the living room. He hit the wall at the back with a heavy thud, and he didn’t get up.
Petunia’s banshee screech in the next moment could have woken up even the dead.
“Kara, don’t do it!” Harry shouted when he arrived inside the house and saw the Kryptonian woman going to the unconscious Vernon and lifting him up by the neck.
Truthfully, if Harry had been by himself, he would have definitely cursed Vernon with the Cruciatus until he lost control of his bowels. Harry had never had qualms about using the Unforgivables on other people in the heat of anger, not even when he was a teenager, before the centuries of war and battles hardened him. (1)
However, with Power Girl getting angry on his behalf and looking as though she was about to do something that she would definitely regret later on, he remained strangely calm.
“Don’t do it, Kara,” Harry said again, sending his voice into Kara’s mind through Legilimency. “He’s not worth it. And even if it were, you shouldn't do it. Not in front of Astrid.”
At the mention of Astrid, Powergirl gritted her teeth but relented. Vernon’s body fell on the floor bonelessly.
Ignoring the skinny, horse-faced woman and the tube of lard hiding behind her, Kara went straight to the cupboard under the stairs and pulled the lever. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down and schooling her face into a neutral expression so that she wouldn’t scare the boy.
When she opened the cupboard’s door, a thin, frail 10-year-old child stared up at her, his bright green eyes wide with fear, no doubt due to all the crashing and screams he had just heard.
“I’m not here to hurt you, Harry,” Kara said kindly, trying her best to smile at him.
“How do you know my name?” the boy asked, his voice steady despite his inner anxiety.
Powergirl couldn’t reply because Harry ran to her and said in a rush:
“We have to go, Kara. You triggered the wards when you broke in. Dumbledore and the Aurors will be here in seconds.”
The young boy was about to ask another question, but he froze. His words died in his throat when he saw the face of the man who had spoken: he had messy black hair just like his, and his eyes were the same vibrant green too. He was above average in height; he had a well-built body and a face that was almost identical to his.
Heart suddenly starting to drum in his chest, the boy blurted out before he could stop himself:
“Dad?”
A loud crack was heard, and bright flames seemed to engulf the interior of the house as an old man wearing long, purple robes and a fiery, swan-sized magical bird appeared in the living room out of nowhere. It was Dumbledore, and the bird was his phoenix, Fawkes.
Without as much as a greeting, the old man instantly fired a spell at Harry.
Not even turning to look at Dumbledore, Harry waved his hand at his back, and the floor of the living room suddenly rose up in the air, turning into a wall.
Petunia and Dudley broke into shrill screams of panic when the newly created wall exploded, pelting everything around it with chunks of debris.
Harry took out his Invisibility Cloak and threw it at Kara.
“Astrid is waiting outside. Take her and Harry and fly away. Keep him under the Invisibility Cloak no matter what. There are Tracking Charms on him,” Harry said quickly before turning to face Dumbledore.
If it had been in different circumstances, Harry would have just used a portkey or his Rune Magic to teleport together with everyone back to Kara’s dimension.
However, Dumbledore was not like other wizards and witches. There was a real possibility that the old man might actually be able to track them down and find out about the existence of alternate dimensions. Harry would rather avoid that scenario.
Having already come to an agreement and made some plans before they arrived at Privet Drive, Kara did not argue with him.
Dumbledore’s eyes widened in disbelief when he felt his connection to the charms he had placed on Harry Potter break. Then, his disbelief turned into outright shock as he watched a blonde woman wearing muggle clothes demolishing the outer wall of the house with her bare hands before flying away.
He fired a second spell, trying to stop her, but Harry swished his wand again, making the ceiling of the house collapse, the falling debris stopping Dumbledore’s spell midway.
With Kara’s Kryptonian speed, it was impossible for Dumbledore or any other wizards to catch up to her, and with the Invisibility Cloak cancelling all the Tracking Spells on young Harry, it was impossible for anyone to track them down too. Harry was certain that Kara, Astrid, and his younger self were already dozens of kilometres away, likely about to teleport back to their dimension.
“What have you done with Harry Potter?” Dumbledore shouted in a thunderous voice.
Harry didn’t reply. He Disapparated.
Dumbledore did not relent. He tracked down his Apparition and teleported right after him.
Finding himself in an unknown forest, a silvery phoenix came out of Dumbledore’s wand. It was the physical form of his Patronus Charm.
‘He’s calling for reinforcements, huh?’ Harry thought.
It was not entirely unexpected—after all, Harry had booby-trapped that forest with his Rune Magic in preparation for facing a group of enemy wizards—but he was still surprised to see Dumbledore call for backup from the get-go instead of trying to solve the situation by himself first.
The old wizard studied the young man in front of him with an intense look on his face.
“Who are you?” he asked again. “What have you done with Harry Potter?”
“Harry Potter is safe,” Harry said calmly. “I have no intention of hurting him. It’s the opposite. I came to rescue him.”
The young man’s calm only made Dumbledore’s feeling of crisis grow. Nobody was calm in front of him, not when his magic power lashed out with his anger. Not even Grindelwald or Voldemort. But the man standing across from him seemed entirely unaffected.
“I’m a relative of Harry,” he said.
“Nonsense,” Dumbledore shot back right away. “I know every single relative of Harry Potter. And you are unfamiliar to me.”
In spite of how similar he looked to James Potter, Dumbledore did not take his appearance at face value. He assumed his looks to be a result of Transfiguration.
Sounds of Apparition echoed in the forest as half a dozen Aurors teleported around him, encircling him. Harry recognised the grizzled veteran, Alastor Moody, and the tall and well-built Kingsley among them too.
Unbeknownst to them, right after they arrived, Harry activated his Rune Magic.
Despite their numbers, Harry’s calm expression didn’t change. In truth, he could fly away with his Wraith form any time he wished and then teleport back to Kara’s side through the use of his Rune Magic once he was far away from Dumbledore and the Aurors but he decided to stick around.
No sooner than he arrived, Mad-Eye flung a spell at Harry, but the curse ended up ricocheting off an invisible wall and slamming back into him, blowing up his wooden leg into smithereens.
“I advise you not to make any sudden moves,” Harry told everyone. “You are in my Territory. I have set up Runes in advance over the entire forest. If you still try to attack me, you will suffer the consequences.”
Unlike the hot-headed Mad-Eye, Kingsley tried to shoot a Disarming Charm at Harry instead of a lethal one. The bright red bolt of light bounced off invisible walls three times, revealing the fact that he was trapped. Kingsley, knowing what to expect, tried to dodge the reflected charm by stepping aside, but when the spell bounced off the second time, he got hit in the back, and his wand flew out of his hand.
“I’m not here to fight you, Dumbledore. I just want to come to an arrangement,” Harry said.
The display of unknown magic befuddled not only the Aurors but Dumbledore himself too. Some Aurors tried to Disapparate, but they realised that they couldn’t. They also tried to move away from their spots, but they noticed they were all stuck inside invisible, square ‘rooms’ no wider than two meters, unable to take a step out of them.
The Rune Magic of Earthland was extremely versatile. All that Harry did the previous time he came to this forest was to inscribe two ‘rules’ through the use of runes:
[People possessing magic cannot leave this Territory.]
[Magic spells cannot leave this Territory.]
Extremely powerful mages in the leagues of Laxus Dreyar or Gildarts Clive could overpower the rules of the Territory, but Earthland’s mages were on a completely different level in terms of magic power and combat strength. Harry Potter’s world of origin did not have any wizards or witches of that calibre.
The Aurors were helpless. Nevertheless, Harry didn’t let his guard down.
‘Killing Curses could still bypass the rules of the Territory.’
Therefore, he remained alert even though he appeared to be calm and relaxed as he spoke to Dumbledore.
Understanding that he had fallen into a trap, the old wizard’s mind raced as he tried to make sense of the situation and come up with a solution.
“What is your aim?” asked Dumbledore. “Why did you kidnap Harry Potter?”
“Because he was being abused. And don’t even try to feed me any lies,” Harry said in a threatening tone before the old man could come up with some half-assed excuses. “I saw it happening with my own eyes. As you can probably imagine, I have prepared for this. It’s not something I did in the spur of the moment. You left James’ and Lily’s son with his magic-hating Muggle relatives. They kept him locked up in a cupboard, under the stairs, like he was a rat.“
“He may have not had an easy time, but he was safe,” Dumbledore replied, not liking where the conversation was going, especially with the dozen Aurors around them hearing every word of it. “His mother’s sacrifice and the spell I cast on him made it impossible for Voldemort or any followers of his to harm him there.”
“Voldemort will no longer be an issue now that I’m here,” Harry said impassively. “There is no reason for Harry to continue living with those abusive muggles anymore.”
One of the older Aurors snorted at his words.
“The arrogance on this brat. . . Do you think you’re some hotshot? That you’d defeat He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named when so many other skilled wizards and witches couldn’t? When even Dumbledore couldn’t?” the wizard said in disdain.
“Twelve of you, mighty Aurors, and even Dumbledore himself are trapped by my spell,” Harry said with a deadpan. “Your lives are literally in the palm of my hand now. So yes, I can be as arrogant as I want."
The tip of his wand appeared to have become a blur as he used it to write a series of Runes in the air.
[People possessing magic cannot breathe in this Territory.]
Merely five seconds later, the disdainful Auror started gasping and hyperventilating.
“I- I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!” he shouted in a panic.
He cast a Bubblehead Charm on himself, but it was to no avail.
Dread and horror washed over everyone as they watched how their colleague started asphyxiating, collapsing on his knees.
“I didn’t kill him,” Harry told them. “I cancelled the spell just before he fell unconscious.”
Turning his attention back to Dumbledore, Harry spoke:
“As I was saying, Voldemort is a non-issue now that I’m here. No place in this world is as safe as being at my side. There is no greater security than that.”
“Be that as it may, you appeared out of nowhere and kidnapped Harry Potter. You have not even given us your name yet. You will have to forgive me for being unable to trust you,” said Dumbledore.
“It’s Henry. Henry Black. I’m a Muggleborn. I am distantly related to Harry through my paternal grand-grandfather, who had been cast out from the Black family 300 years ago for marrying a Muggle woman.” Harry lied as easily as he could draw breath.
With so many Squibs and "blood traitors" who had been cast out of the Black family for mingling with Muggles over the years, keeping track of all the estranged Black family descendants was nearly impossible.
Dumbledore did not reply right away.
‘I can tell he’s concentrating intensely on finding a way to break the Territory,’ Harry mused.
A look of urgency flashed on the old man’s face. He had cast Finite Incantatem and tried out several other counter-curses and ways of dispelling jinxes, but none seemed to have any effect.
“I’ll give you some time to think about it,” he told Dumbledore. “I believe you will find a way to escape from my Territory soon enough, but just in case you won’t, the enchantment will disappear after three hours. As for young Harry, he’ll be safe with me. You don’t have to panic. I will visit you in three months and bring Harry with me so that you see proof of his well-being. I also plan on sending him to Hogwarts in September. I don’t want to take that away from him. But he will never set foot in the house of those Muggles again.
The Aurors’ shock was renewed as they watched Henry Black’s feet leave the ground. He started flying. There were no broomsticks or magic carpets; it was unsupported flying, something that, to their knowledge, no witch or wizard had ever succeeded in. (2)
Harry did not use his Wraith version of the Flying Spell. Only after he went out of their sight did he turn into a wraith and start flying at a much faster speed. Once he was thirty or forty kilometres away from the forest where Dumbledore and the Aurors were trapped, he activated his Rune Magic and teleported away.
⁂ Six months later⁂
Plans to combat desertification in Africa had existed for years, with several attempts made to put them into action.
The Green Wall of Africa was an initiative that aimed to put a stop to the ever-expanding Sahara Desert towards the south by planting a belt of trees 15 kilometres wide and 8000 kilometres long, from the west of the continent in Senegal to the east in Djibouti.
Alas, progress had been painfully slow, hindered by many factors such as insufficient funding, lack of interest, political instability, corruption, terrorist threats, the harsh climate, and so on and so forth.
However, that was a thing of the past. Starting with 3 months ago, thanks to Kara’s wealth and the Justice League’s connections and influence, Kara obtained the rights to spearhead this project.
The Green Wall of Africa was a complex project that went beyond simply planting some drought-resistant species of trees. Different species had to be planted, and, due to Sahel’s harsh, arid climate with a dry season of 8 months and a rainy season of only 4 months, the designers had to come up with a way of maintaining the trees after they had been planted.
Most of those technical details fell on Kara and other scientists’ shoulders. Harry’s role was to help implement it, to follow their orders, not to think about it.
This project was expected to take at least 20 years to complete. Its goal was to restore an area of 1 million square kilometres, which was four times the size of the United Kingdom or roughly equivalent to the combined surface area of Spain and France.
This colossal task was made even more difficult by the fact that trees could not be planted during the dry season.
But that was the case only when talking about it from the perspective of people who possessed only conventional means. Magic changed things drastically.
Numerous water towers had been erected along the Green Wall of Africa. Having inscribed a Water-Making Spell and a Gemini Charm with his Rune Magic on each one of them and various formulas that would draw ambient magic, Harry had created endless supplies of water.
Emissary’s restoration of New York City after it had been obliterated by Vandal Savage’s meteorite, had been an awe-inspiring, almost godlike feat, fantastical in its display of magic. But when it came to the far-reaching consequences of that act, it seemed insignificant compared to the creation of those water towers.
It was an unprecedented blessing not only for the project but for all the people living in those countries because a lack of water had always been one of their main issues. With no water, there was no vegetation; with no vegetation, there was no food, and livestock couldn’t be raised either.
With that being said, thanks to those magical water towers, it became possible for trees to be planted during the dry season as well. In the present, tens of thousands of people could be seen swarming the land. Not only were they planting trees, but they were also digging half-moon pits for the sake of harvesting the rainfall during the rainy season. After collecting water, those pits would turn into tiny oases that would keep the surrounding vegetation alive during the dry season even without Emissary’s magical water towers.
Once the workers finished planting an area, they would be asked to free the field, and Harry would cast his [Arc of Time] magic, speeding up the time over that place. The spell could not affect humans and animals, but it did work on plants.
Emissary’s [Arc of Time] magic became a worldwide sensation, an object of awe and veneration even. Watching plants grow from seeds and tiny sprouts to fully matured trees in a matter of seconds was something that defied people’s sense of reality, especially when it was done on such a massive scale.
The Green Wall of Africa, the initiative to create a forested territory of 8000 kilometres in length and 15 kilometres in width, a project that was estimated to take at least 20 years to implement through conventional means, was now halfway done after only 3 months.
Having just finished summoning Death’s magical power to cast a large-scale [Arc of Time] spell for the second time that day, Harry had officially finished with Niger. From west to east, the portions of the Green Wall of Africa that passed through Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger had been completed.
Thoroughly exhausted, Harry activated a Portkey, teleporting himself back to Southern France, to his bunker. He was done for the day. Even though he was borrowing Death’s magical power for his large-scale [Arc of Time] spells, he also used his mental and physical stamina to cast them. He was unable to cast a spell large enough to speed up the time on a surface of over 300 square kilometres more than twice a day.
When he arrived in France, Supergirl descended from the sky to greet him. The bubbly teen girl smiled when she saw Astrid flying past her like a bullet and throwing herself into Harry’s arms.
“Daddy!” the little girl cried out in joy and tackled him to the ground.
Not one to miss out on the fun, young Harry also plunged down with his Nimbus 2000 in a free fall before instinctively pulling a Wronsky feint at the very last moment and jumping off his broom.
“Dad!” he also cried out happily.
Harry felt as though half of his tiredness vanished when he saw his two children jumping in his arms. There was no greater joy for a man than to be greeted with love by his family when he came home after a hard day of work.
Half a year passed since Harry had rescued his younger self from the Dursleys and brought him to his and Kara’s world. Harry had told his younger self from the beginning that he was not his father, but eventually, the boy ended up calling him ‘Dad’ all the same. Harry couldn’t bring himself to be mad at him. After all, he could imagine perfectly what his younger self must have felt after being taken away from his horrible family. He had dreamed of something like that happening to him many times when he was his age.
“I hope you didn’t give Supergirl a hard time,” he said half-seriously, half-jokingly. “Did they behave while I was away?” Harry turned his attention towards the blonde teen and asked.
Supergirl smiled softly.
“Of course they did. They’re great kids. We were playing a game of tag when you arrived.”
“. . . I hope that you, Kryptonian brutes, didn’t bully Harry too much.”
“Hey!” “Hey!” Astrid and Supergirl protested at the same time.
“That’s not fair of you!” Supergirl said with her hands on her waist.
“Yeah, Dad, we played fair!”
“Tell him, Astrid, we limited our speed to 240 kilometres per hour, just like the maximum speed of his Nimbus!”
Astrid and young Harry let out a squawk of surprise as their dad suddenly levitated them off him so he could stand up.
“Thanks for watching over them, Kara,” Harry said with a smile. “I’ll owe you one.”
“You owe me a few dozen,” Supergirl said, laughing before she waved it off. “Don’t sweat it. We’re pretty much family, aren’t we?”
“Hear that, Harry, Astrid? You should call her ‘Auntie’ from now on.”
“Don’t give them ideas!” Supergirl said in annoyance, making the two children burst into giggles. "I'm way too young to be called an Aunt!"
“Speaking of family, how is Kal doing?” Harry asked.
“I was actually planning on visiting him today,” she answered.
“The Eradicator has been feeding him ion radiation for half a year already, hasn’t he? Any idea when he’ll wake up?”
“I think it’s only a matter of weeks now,” the girl said, smiling wistfully. She missed her cousin terribly.
Powergirl, Emissary, and their two children were nice and welcoming to her every time she felt lonely, and so were Superman’s adoptive parents too. But Supergirl still missed her cousin. She couldn’t wait for the day when she and Superman would fly through the skies above Metropolis City together again.
⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂
AN: we are getting increasingly closer to the final arc of the story. Hope you enjoyed the chapter.
(1) Harry had once cast the Cruciatus Curse on someone in the books simply because he spit on McGonagall. He wasn’t exactly a goody-two-shoes in the canon.
(2) Voldemort showed his flying spell to other people for the first time during the Battle of the Seven Potters. There is also Quirrell's flying scene but that has not happened in the world of young Harry because he has not even started his 1st year at Hogwarts.
Half-moon pits: (this region was reclaimed from the desert with these pits in real life)
Although the Ranger General had assured her that Naruto would not be taken to the Farstriders without her consent, sleep did not find Lady Liadrin easily that night.
Getting out of her bed, she walked out onto the wide balcony of her bedroom. She leaned against the elegantly carved stone railing, gazing at the tranquil garden below, illuminated only by moonlight, stars, and the soft glow of fireflies. It brought her a measure of peace and calmed her agitated mind.
The priestess was not sure what had made her grow so attached to the young human boy; was it because he had saved her life? Was it because she was lonely and he filled a void in her heart? Or was it because of his pure and earnest nature? In the end, ‘why’ was not important. She cared about him, and she was happy; happier than she had been in. . . forever.
“Your concern for the child is blinding you. He may be young, but that boy had single-handedly killed around two or three hundred Amani trolls.”
As Lireesa Windrunner’s words rang in her head again, Liadrin let out a sigh. Objectively, she understood that Naruto was strong. Stronger than many Farstriders and even some Magisters. But, in her heart, she was still concerned for him. He was just a 13-year-old boy. He was still a child. He should not be on the battlefield.
Deep in her thoughts, Liadrin almost did not hear the peculiar sound that came from inside the house. But when it happened a second time, she became certain she had not imagined it.
She walked back in and went to Naruto’s bedroom. As she had expected, the sound she had heard was coming from him.
The boy's face was twisted into an expression of pain, and his forehead was drenched with sweat. He was having a nightmare.
But when Liadrin took her first step inside the room, his eyes opened, and he jumped out of the bed as though there were springs under his body, landing on the other side of the room, his blue eyes turning into the slit red of a fox.
“Naruto? Are you alright?”
He took a few seconds to calm down his violently beating heart. The tension in his body disappeared, and he smiled awkwardly.
“Sorry, you spooked me. I’m fine, just a bad dream.”
She took a seat at the edge of the bed and patted the place next to her.
Understanding her gesture, he came to bed and sat down next to her obediently.
“Is there something on your mind?”
He looked like he was debating whether to tell her or not.
“The curse that the Troll Shaman cast on me. . . I feel like it hurts every time I think about it,” he admitted. “I dreamt about it every night.”
Her first impulse was to say, ‘That’s why I think you shouldn’t join the Farstriders! You’re still a child!’. But she held that thought in.
‘If I point fingers at him now, he may never open his heart to me again, afraid that I’ll judge him.’
She had never had any children before, but Liadrin was no stranger to interacting with people. She was nearly 3000 years old; having spent most of her long life as a Priestess of the Light, Liadrin had consoled and talked to many people about their problems. Therefore, rather than saying any words of reproach, Liadrin took his hand in hers.
“I’m here for you, Alyndor. You can always talk to me about anything.”
Though it was night, thanks to their night-elven ancestry, the elvish woman could see very well in the dark. The way his face flushed shyly when she took his hand in hers had not escaped her notice, and she found herself smiling at how adorable he was.
Despite his embarrassment, Naruto did not pull his hand away from her grasp. He was not used to such physical displays of affection, but he could feel Liadrin’s sincerity. Moreover, his Negative Emotions Sensing had never flared in her presence.
As he glanced up at Liadrin and saw the kind smile on her face, the last bit of hesitation he had vanished, and he opened himself to her fully.
That night, Naruto talked to Liadrin for hours. He told her things that he had never spoken about with anyone. Although it started with his tale of what happened in the battle of Dawnstar Village, he ended up talking about his past in the Ninja World too. He told her about Konoha, about the Nine-Tailed Fox, and how his father turned him into a human sacrifice for the sake of the village. He told her about the villagers’ hatred for him and how hard it had been for him to grow up as an orphan.
“But people like me here. Since I came to this world, you have welcomed me with open arms. And the rest of the high elves acknowledged me. They called me their hero. . . Alyndor Quel’dorei. . .”
He looked up at her, his big, blue eyes filled with resolve.
“That’s why I want to become a Farstrider. I want to keep protecting them. And I want to become stronger to protect you too. You are my precious people now, and Quel’Thalas is my home. I will do everything to keep you safe.”
⁂
Being there for him and lending him an ear had not been the only thing that Liadrin did for Naruto that night. After tucking him into bed, the priestess prayed for him and called upon the Light.
His eyes closed, and a peaceful expression marred his face as he fell asleep. The Blood God’s curse no longer tortured him in his dreams.
Liadrin smiled at him one last time. But just as she was about to stand up and leave, Naruto’s eyes abruptly opened, startling her.
A pair of slit, crimson-red eyes gleamed in the dimly lit room, watching her silently. Chills ran down Liadrin’s back as Naruto sat up in a sitting position, his eyes never leaving hers. She understood that that was not Naruto himself.
“Be not afraid,” Kyuubi spoke, the deep voice coming from Naruto’s mouth sounding unnatural for his small and young body. “I am not going to kill you.”
“You are the Wild God inhabiting his body. Kurama was your name, right?” Liadrin steeled her nerves before replying.
“Tsk. This brat sure loves going around babbling about private matters. . . but yes, I am.”
“Did you wish to talk to me?”
Kyuubi did not reply right away, watching her intently in silence.
“For your own sake, I hope you don’t break his heart.”
“I would never-”
“I know. I have the ability to sense negative emotions,” Kyuubi cut her off. “Lies, envy, fear, hatred, jealousy, sadness, despair, killing intent. . . nothing escapes me. And I’ve been watching you closely over the past few weeks.”
As the elvish woman remained silent, Kyuubi continued:
“Naruto. . . He’s quick to latch onto the tiniest bit of attention and affection. He is starved for it. Though you’ve known each other only for a few weeks, he already looks up at you as though you were his mother. He’s never had anyone care for him like you do. If he had to lay down his life for you now, he would do it. That’s how he is. . . so I’ll say it again, don’t break his heart, Liadrin.”
The priestess was not aware of it, but Kurama rarely called any people by their names. Nevertheless, she could sense the solemn mood and the seriousness in his voice.
“The Light is my witness; I will never knowingly do anything to harm,” Liadrin replied.
Kurama’s senses did not pick up any signs of deceit.
“I’ll hold you onto that. Take care of him as you’ve done until now, and he will be your kingdom’s greatest strength.”
Saying those words, Naruto’s eyes closed, and he slumped back in bed, fast asleep. The boy had never noticed Kyuubi taking control of his body.
⁂
Four days after Liressa and Kael’thas’s visit to her home, Liadrin sent a letter to the Ranger General, requesting an audience.
Normally, the Ranger General was an extremely busy person, and Lady Liadrin was not an important figure; her adoptive father may have been a High Priest, but Lady Liadrin herself was just a priestess, one of the many. She was not a noble, nor was she a high-ranking civil servant. In spite of all that, Liadrin received an answer to her letter in less than an hour. A Farstrider showed up at her door with two Dragonhawks, just for the sake of giving her the Ranger General’s reply.
Luckily, Naruto happened to be at home at that moment. They had been in the middle of having lunch when the Farstrider arrived. Therefore, once they were done with their meal, they jumped on the second Dragonhawk and followed the ranger to the Farstrider Enclave.
When they landed in front of the Dragonhawk stables at the Farstrider Enclave, Lireesa Windrunner was already waiting for them there together with her daughter, Alleria.
“The eternal sun guided us to this place,” Lady Liadrin said in greeting.
Clad in her leather and chainmail armour and with the legendary Thas’dorah bow strapped to her back, Lireesa Windrunner looked every bit the valiant Ranger General that she was. She returned Liadrin’s greeting in the same fashion, smiling:
“Your presence is as welcome as the sun. Come, let us go inside. The prince himself is waiting for us.”
“The prince?” Liadrin’s voice betrayed her surprise.
The Farstrider Enclave was a large, majestic building located on the southern shore of Elrendar Lake. The finely sculpted white walls with their crimson adornments, its golden roof, and its elegant spires gave it a majestic appearance, making it look more like a palace rather than the High Elven military’s headquarters.
Sitting on a plush, comfortable chair on the second floor’s balcony, Kael’thas enjoyed a glass of Peaked Dalaran Red as he watched the Farstriders show off their skill with a bow in the training grounds.
Lady Liadrin curtsied in front of the prince, greeting him with respect, and Kael’thas nodded in acknowledgement.
“I am glad to see that you have changed your mind, Lady Liadrin,” he said. “Please, have a seat.”
"If I may ask, what prompted this change? You were quite adamant about allowing Alyndor to remain a child for a few more years,” Lireesa started the conversation.
“He does not wish to wait. He is determined to use his strength for the sake of Quel’thalas,” Liadrin said formally.
Something in her tone tipped the adults off that there was more to the story than she said, and, as quick-witted as she was, Alleria stood up and walked to Naruto.
“Well then, if that is the case, I suppose I should show you around, recruit.”
Having already become familiar with Alleria during their little knife-throwing practice two days ago, Naruto grinned.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said and jumped off his seat.
Liadrin's and the other elves' respect and veneration for the Farstriders had influenced Naruto, too, so he was very excited about becoming one of them.
Bringing a fisted hand to her heart, Alleria performed a Farstrider salute to her mother and to the prince before leaving with Naruto in tow.
Once the two of them climbed down the spire, Lireesa Windrunner asked again:
“So what was the real reason that made you change your mind?”
“Four nights ago, I had a heart-to-heart conversation with Alyndor. I have confirmed his resolve to become a Farstrider. Quel’thalas is his home now. He wishes nothing more than to protect us. The Wild God residing within him had expressed the same intention.”
Now that last sentence got both the prince's and the Ranger General’s attention.
“Is there more to the story?” Kael’thas asked.
“. . . Yes,” Lady Liadrin replied. “On the same night that we had that conversation, I had a dream. It was no ordinary dream. I had a vision.”
The other two elves narrowed their eyes in thought as they listened.
“It was a terrifying dream. I was in Silvermoon, on top of the walls, healing our soldiers with the Light. . . I was in the middle of a battle. . There was smoke, fire, screams of the dying, and ruin all around me. . . and the enemy was at our gates.”
“What enemy? Was it the trolls?”
When Lidarin shook her head, the prince asked again:
“Was it, perhaps, the humans?”
The elves and the humans had been on friendly terms for 2800 years, but no alliances lasted forever. There were no eternal friendships, only eternal benefits.
“No, it was not the humans. . . it was an army of undead. As far as my eyes could see. . . millions of them. . . They cut a swathe of destruction through our lands, leaving a tainted, dead scar in their wake. . .”
Kael’thas put his glass on the small round table, suddenly not in the mood for wine anymore.
“Our magisters were dead, our Farstriders broken and scattered, our beloved Thas'alah, the Mother Tree of Eversong, felled, and our mighty Runestones broken.”
“It was the hour of the end. . . But when everything seemed lost and hopeless, He appeared,” Liadrin continued. “Alyndor came to save us.”
“Did he succeed?” Lireesa asked, captivated by her tale. “Did he turn the tide against an army of millions? All by himself?”
Liadrin smiled bitterly.
“He tried. He gave his best. . . but it was not enough. Even his grand, mystical powers were not enough because he was already old for a human, long past his prime.”
That thought sobered them up. They were reminded of the fact that while the Quel’dorei lived for thousands of years, humans’ lifespans were fleeting. In the world of Azeroth, humans were rarely fortunate to live past the age of 70, and their old days were riddled with injuries and illnesses.
“What happened next?” Kael’thas asked softly.
“He could not bear to watch Quel’thalas burn,” Liadrin said. “He looked at me one last time and told me that he loved me. That I was the mother that he never had. . . then, he paid the ultimate price.”
Liadrin paused for a moment, overcome with emotion.
“He freed the Wild God residing in his body. . . I had seen that creature in the inner world of his consciousness before, but it could not be compared to witnessing its size and grandeur in person. It was an enormous fox with nine tails. A swipe of his tails caused tornadoes, and his roars paralysed even the mindless undead in their tracks.”
“The Wild God took Alyndor’s lifeless body in his arms before he roared in sorrow. Then, a sphere of magic took form in front of his mouth. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen. . . not even the Troll Wars from 2800 years ago could compare in terms of scale. When he fired that attack, the North Sanctum was razed from the surface of the earth. There was only a crater left behind, and the bulk of the undead army was vaporised.”
A long moment of silence ensued before Kael’thas asked in a grave voice:
“Are you certain it was a vision from the Light, not a mere dream born out of worry and fear?”
Lady Liadrin nodded.
“Yes, I am certain. I have consulted High Priest Vandellor, and he has confirmed its authenticity. If you so desire, I could share my thoughts with you as well. Grand Magister Belo'vir Salonar is also working on a Remembrance Gem currently to record my vision.”
“I shall await the Grand Magister’s Remembrance Gem,” Kael’thas said thoughtfully. “Even if a vision is authentic, we cannot say for certain that it will come to pass. I refuse to believe that our future is predetermined. As long as we know about it, we can prepare for it.”
“I fully agree,” the Ranger General nodded.
“Thank you for sharing this important vision with us, Lady Liadrin,” Kael’thas said. “If there is anything you wish, speak your mind. If it is in my power, I will do my utmost to fulfil your wish.”
It seemed like Lady Liadrin had thought about her answer beforehand because she replied right away:
“My prince, I do not wish for any rewards. But there is something I will ask your grace for.”
She stood up from her seat and knelt down on one knee in front of him. Bowing her head, she said in a pleading voice:
“I wish to adopt Naruto. Alyndor. I wish for him to become one of us.”
When Kael’thas did not immediately reply, Liadrin clenched her fist but did not raise her head from her bowing position.
“Humans’ lives are too short. I do not wish to part from him in merely four decades. It is not my selfishness alone either. With him young and in the prime of his strength, he would not need to sacrifice his life for Quel’Thalas. The undead army would never reach our gates, to begin with. Alyndor would never allow it.”
“You wish to bind his life to the Sunwell,” Kael’thas murmured.
“Yes,” Liadrin said softly.
⁂
Unaware of the fact that Liadrin, the Ranger General, and the prince were in the middle of making a decision that would greatly alter the course of his life, Naruto was in a great mood as he followed Alleria Windrunner through the complex of the Farstrider Enclave.
He felt like he was going to get neck cramps from how much he was twisting his head to take in all the sights. Archery range, melee training ground, pet-training grounds for hunters, and there was even a library for those who wished to study entry-level Arcane spells.
It was not as developed as to say it was similar to a Mage Tower, but it was still a remarkable collection of tomes. After all, Qule'Thalas was a Magical Kingdom. Magic was not restricted to a select few. Virtually everyone in Quel’thalas was capable of casting spells. Rangers imbued their arrows with mana, Beast Mastery hunters used spells for tracking and taming pets, Warriors and Rogues enhanced their physical abilities with mana, and so on and so forth.
“And this is the Barracks,” Alleria said, finding herself smiling slightly at the look of wonder on his face.
“Do I have to live here too?” he asked.
“Yes, during your service, you will be stationed here or at whichever post you are assigned. However, the Farstriders are not few in number, so in times of peace, we are rotated. We typically serve for one to three months at a time before being granted a similar length of time off.”
Naruto would rather not leave Lady Liadrin’s side, but he understood that he couldn’t have the cake and eat it. Sacrifices and compromises had to be made if he wished to become one of the Farstriders.
“Now, let’s go to the training grounds and introduce you to everyone. Try to keep up,” Alleria said with a smirk before breaking into a sprint.
But, to her surprise, Naruto was right behind her in an instant. He caught up with ease, stuck his tongue out at her, and then shot ahead. Alleria pushed herself harder, drawing on the mana of the Sunwell, but Naruto started running even faster when he sensed her closing in on him. As she watched him pull ahead effortlessly, it became evident that Prince Kael'thas’s claims about Naruto’s magical prowess had not been a hyperbole.
Two minutes later, Alleria arrived at the Archery Range, where most of the Farstriders were practising with their bows. She took a few moments for her breathing to even out before she grabbed her bow and arrow and fired a Stormshot in the air.
The crackle of lightning as she launched the arrow alerted the Farstriders, and they all turned to look at the source of the noise.
“Everyone. Gather around!” Alleria said.
Alleria Windrunner was only 25 years old; compared to the lifespans of the elves, that was almost like a baby. However, with Lireesa Windrunner grooming her from a frail age, Alleria’s skills were remarkable. Therefore, despite her young age, Alleria had already started to garner a following among her peers. Coupled with the fact that she was the daughter of the Ranger General, the supreme ruler of the Farstriders, the majority of the Farstriders listened to her when she talked. After all, the position of Ranger General was a hereditary one, passed to their firstborn son or daughter. One day, it would be Alleria who would wear her mother's mantle.
“Most of us fought against the main army of the trolls here, at the Enclave, but I’m sure we all know what had transpired at the Dawnstar Village. I would like to introduce to you our new comrade: Alyndor Quel’dorei. The Hero of the Dawnstar Village.”
Murmurs broke out among the Farstriders at her words as they all looked at Naruto with great interest.
“Did a human really do all that?” some of them couldn’t help asking.
“Prince Kael’thas witnessed his heroics personally. They fought side by side on the battlefield. Are you saying the prince is trying to deceive us?”
“No, that’s not what I mean. I trust Prince Kael’thas. It’s just—he’s but a child! A human child at that.”
Naruto did not mind their disbelief. Overall, he could not sense many negative emotions from them. In his books, that was a win.
Irrespective of their murmurs, Alleria continued:
“As per Ranger General’s orders, Alyndor has been enlisted with the rank of Farstrider.”
The Farstriders’ ranks were as such:
Ranger: the entry-level. Usually, it was reserved for greenhorns, teenagers between the ages of 15 and 20. Generally, Rangers were not allowed on the battlefield. They could, however, serve as scouts and messengers in times of need.
Farstriders: they made up the bulk of the Farstriders’ numbers.
Lieutenant: could command around 30 Farstriders.
Captain: could command around 50-80 Farstriders
Ranger Captain: could command around 150-200 Farstriders.
Ranger General: the supreme leader of the Farstriders, Lireesa Windrunner.
The Farstriders’ surprise was even bigger than before, but, seeing as that was the will of the Ranger General, nobody dared to mutter any words of complaint. . . nobody except for one person.
“Lady Sun! Why is that child a Farstrider when I’m just a Ranger?”
Slender, with long platinum blonde hair falling smoothly to her waist, wearing the standard green with red accents uniform of the Farstriders, and carrying a simple bow on her back, the girl in question was a rather eye-catching figure among the tall and athletic Farstriders gathered on the training ground at that moment.
‘Whoa!’ Naruto was inwardly amazed.
Leaving aside how beautiful she was, the thing that stood out the most about her in that moment was her stature. The girl was significantly shorter and younger than pretty much everyone except for Naruto.
Alleria let out a long, suffering sigh.
“You will have to ask the Ranger General that question yourself. And don’t call me Lady Sun when we are here. We are at the Farstrider Enclave. Here I am not your sister; I am just another Farstrider, Alleria.”
Quite a few of the Farstriders started snickering at the two sisters’ interaction.
“Come on, Alleria, this can’t be right! There’s no way that shorty is more skilled than I am!” Sylvanas said in a whiny voice.
“And that behaviour is exactly why you’re a Ranger, not a Farstrider,” Alleria said flatly.
“Hey, who are you calling a shorty, you-?!” Naruto bristled at her and tried to hurl at her an insult based on her appearance, but she was so damn pretty that he could genuinely not come up with anything at that moment other than-
“If you call her a knife-eared bitch, I’ll drag you inside the seal and whoop your ass,” Kyuubi warned him threateningly, knowing exactly what was on his mind.
Everyone around them was an elf. If he insulted her like that, he would make an enemy out of all of them.
“-you skinny twig!” Naruto finished lamely.
Alleria palmed her forehead, feeling the beginning of a headache. She looked up at the balcony where her mother was in a silent plea for help, but the Ranger General was too absorbed by her conversation with Kael’thas Sunstrider and Lady Liadrin to notice the small commotion happening below.
Lor’themar Theron and Halduron Brightwing were sniggering to themselves as they watched the ongoing scene. But their chuckles were a bit too loud and attracted Alleria’s attention, who glared at them. Although the two of them were Lieutenants, a rank higher than Alleria, they were sitting on the sidelines and watching the show in amusement instead of intervening between the two kids.
As lame as Naruto’s insult was, it actually seemed to hit home because Sylvanas’ pale face flushed a pretty pink.
“I’m not skinny! I’m normal for my age! Take that back! Take it back or-”
“Or what? Is twig girl looking for a fight?”
“Alright, that’s enough, both of you,” Alleria snapped at them in annoyance. “If you have a problem with each other, how about you settle it with your skills?”
“That’s a good idea,” Halduron finally stepped up to do his job.
He was trying to look serious, but he couldn’t fully wipe the shit-eating grin off his face.
“Let’s make it a 3-round contest, each round testing one of the main skills of a Farstrider.”
The Farstriders were energised at his words. It was not often that they got such entertainment for free.
“The first round will be a shooting test. You will showcase your skill with a bow.”
“The second-”
“Wait, I’ve never used a bow,” Naruto interrupted him.
“Ha! You guys hear that? How is he even a Farstrider when he had never shot a bow?!” Sylvanas shouted triumphantly.
“Oy, I bet I can throw my knives just as well as you can shoot a bow, or better!” Naruto shouted at her.
Halduron ignored their bickering for a moment, contemplating Naruto’s words.
“That works too. Alyndor will be throwing knives while Sylvanas will be shooting a bow. But keep in mind, you can’t make any excuses if your knives can’t reach the long-distance targets as well as Sylvanas’ arrows,” Halduron told Naruto.
“With that taken care of, the second task will be a game of hide and seek. You will take turns hiding somewhere on the training grounds while the other will search for you. This round will test your ability to hide your presence and track down your prey.”
“Lastly, the third round will be a duel, direct combat against each other.”
“Sounds great to me. I can’t wait to show this midget his place.”
“Whatever you say, twigs.”
Infuriated by his juvenile insult, Sylvanas dared:
“How about we make a bet if you are that confident?”
“Why should I make any bets with you?”
“Are you scared?” Sylvanas smiled as she tilted her head slightly. It was extremely effective.
“Scared?! Did you just say that to me? Ha! Alright! You’re on! What’s the bet?” Naruto shot back at her in annoyance.
“If I win, I’ll take your place among the Farstriders, and you get demoted to the rank of Ranger!”
Alleria opened her mouth to cut in and tell her ranks are decided by the Ranger General, and nobody else, but Halduron made a sign to stop her, barely containing his snickers.
“Fine by me. But what do I get if I win?” Naruto asked, crossing his arms to his chest.
“You’re not going to win,” Sylvanas sneered at him.
“That’s not how this works!” he shouted at her. “Either give me something of equal value or the bet is off.”
“Fine. If you win, I’ll give you my bow.”
Naruto scoffed.
“And what would I do with your bow? Hang it on the wall in my room as a souvenir?”
“Huh?! My bow is-”
“I don’t care~”
“You-!” Sylvanas barely stopped herself. “Fine, if you win, I’ll admit in front of everyone that you’re better than me!” she said in a haughty voice.
“What would I need you to say that for after I already beat you? Wouldn’t it be obvious that I’m better?” Naruto said, looking at her as if she were mentally challenged.
The elvish girl flushed again, all the way to the tips of her ears this time. But before she could explode in anger, Alleria intervened, making a suggestion.
“If Alyndor wins, you will give him your Goblin Firework Launcher. How about that?”
“NO!” Sylvanas shouted.
“That sounds perfect,” Naruto said right away. He wasn’t sure what that device even looked like, but seeing how much the girl hated the idea of parting with it, he had to have it.
“Well then, it is decided,” Alleria said, and she clapped her hands once, giggling in schadenfreude.
Her bratty little sister had been a royal pain in the ass since she joined the Farstriders two days ago. It was a cathartic moment to finally get some revenge on her.
“No, Lady Sun! You don’t get to decide that for me!” the girl shouted. "You know how much I like that Launcher! You're doing this just to spite me!"
"It's Alleria, not Lady Sun."
"That is beside the point!!"
“Haha, are you scared?” Naruto threw Sylvanas’ words back at her.
The human boy’s infuriating smirk, Alleria’s evil grin, and the gazes of all the Farstriders being pinned on her made it impossible for Sylvanas to back down after all her earlier bravado.
“Fine,” she bit out through her gritted teeth. “Not that you’ll win anything!”
The Farstriders wasted no time clearing the training grounds. A few elves set up wooden targets at various distances, some standing still while others were enchanted to move.
Laughter and excited murmurs spread through the crowd as they even started placing bets amongst themselves.
“You will take turns, firing 5 shots at a time. First stage, stationary targets. Second stage, moving targets. Alyndor will be the first to start.”
Naruto stretched his arms and rolled his shoulders, shaking off any stiffness. He grabbed a pouch of throwing knives that the Farstriders handed to him and threw one of them lightly in the air, checking their weight and centre of gravity.
Sylvanas also checked the bowstring of her bow and drew an arrow, testing its weight.
“All set?” Halduron asked.
Sylvanas smirked, filled with confidence.
“Always.”
Naruto also grinned. “Let’s get this over with.”
Halduron raised his hand.
“Begin!”
⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂ AN: I will try to post a 2nd update for this story as well before the end of the week. Until next time!
To both Suda’s and Harry’s surprise, rather than a subordinate of his, it was Darvo himself who was led inside by the members of the syndicate.
“Sorry for barging in without making an appointment first,” Darvo said. He appeared to be tense. “I lost all contact with my contractor, Clem. I trust and value his skills, but with the new situation on Mars, I can’t help but worry. Would you help me rescue him?”
Cephalon Suda replied right away.
"This task is best suited for the Tenno. My operatives lack the skill to infiltrate a warzone so volatile and dangerous. Sending them to Mars when there is a full-scale war between Corpus and Grineer would be a major waste of life, resources, and knowledge. I will not act in folly."
But Darvo was undaunted by her refusal.
“I would normally ask the Tenno, but they all got roped into this war. Most of them didn’t even reply to the mail I sent them. As for those who did, they were either injured or unavailable.”
“Reiterating: sending the members of my syndicate would-” Cephalon Suda began, but Darvo said quickly:
“I understand; I’m not asking you to send out your operatives. But we have a Tenno here, don’t we?”
Harry was startled when he unexpectedly became the centre of the conversation.
“Huh?! Me?”
"Absolutely not," Cephalon Suda rejected Darvo’s proposal without hesitation. "Harry Potter is far too valuable to risk on an operation with less than 20% probability of success. The knowledge he holds outweighs anything you could possibly offer in exchange."
The vehemence in Suda’s voice surprised Harry; surprise that further increased when more than a dozen Suda Syndicate members walked into the room carrying Synoid Simulors and Gammacors in their hands.
Darvo was not intimidated. Turning towards Harry, he asked:
“What do you say, Tenno? I hear you’ve been trying to get off this relay for weeks, but they wouldn’t let you. Help me, and I’ll help you. Credits, weapons, or a spaceship. Whatever you need, I can give it to you."
This turn of events was so sudden that Harry did not know how to react. It was true that he had wanted to leave Larunda Relay, but that was only so that he could go back to Earth and search for traces of the Wizarding World. Travelling to Mars while the planet was under siege by an army of millions of superhuman soldiers had never been part of the plan.
At that moment, an incoming transmission stopped Harry from giving Darvo an answer. It was none other than the Lotus.
“I have been informed that you wish to leave Larunda Relay and help Darvo in rescuing Clem. Is that true?”
Harry glanced at Cephalon Suda, understanding she must have been the one to contact the Lotus.
‘Looks like Suda really doesn’t want me to leave.’
He could not blame her. To Cephalon Suda, he was probably no different than a treasure trove of information.
Harry himself wasn’t that eager to put himself in danger for a stranger either.
‘But this might be my only way to get back to Earth in the immediate future.’
If Darvo were a man of his word, that would mean that he could help Harry get to Earth after this. He mulled over his response for a few seconds before asking:
“Is there a problem with me leaving the relay?”
Although her helmet covered the upper half of her face, Lotus gave off the impression that she was surprised by his direct question.
“I will admit that we still have doubts about you, but not to the point of restraining you. If you wish to leave the relay, you are free to do so whenever you please. However, Valkyr-”
“-Belongs to the Tenno, I know,” Harry completed her words in a disappointed voice.
“Don’t be like this, Lotus. We are partners, are we not? How many times have I helped the Tenno, and they helped me back?” Darvo intervened at that moment. “With all the Tenno being occupied with the war on Gradivus or fighting the Infestation on Eris, who else am I going to turn to?”
As Lotus became silent for a few seconds, Darvo continued:
“Besides, most of the Corpus forces are focusing on Gradivus, locked in a space battle against the Grineer. Clem’s mission is on Martialis, on the other side of the planet.”
“You may take Valkyr with you if you truly wish to help Darvo,” the Lotus told Harry eventually. “Please do not make me regret placing my trust in you.”
“Thank you, Lotus,” Darvo replied.
“As you said, we are partners. It’s only right that we help each other in times of need,” Lotus replied, nodding at Darvo. Turning her attention to Harry, she said: “Using Transference over a long distance is not an easy task. I shall send one of my people to Larunda Relay in order to install a temporary somatic pod and equip you with somatic implants for the sake of boosting your Transference.”
“I’m afraid we don’t have time for that,” Darvo said. “The surgery and the calibration of the somatic implants could take days. Time is of the essence.”
“Sending the child with his true body in the middle of the warzone is not something I can agree with!” Lotus shot down his suggestion.
“What do you wish to do, Harry?” Cephalon Suda asked at that moment, interrupting their argument.
“I will go to Mars in person,” Harry answered.
“What will happen to your body while you’re controlling Valkyr? Have you thought of the consequences?” Lotus asked, worry evident in her voice.
After all, most Tenno had to sit still while they used Transference. They could not control their Warframe and their real body at once. Therefore, if the Grineer were to find Harry’s hiding place while he was controlling Valkyr, it would spell his doom.
“I will go down to Mars with him myself,” Darvo answered for Harry. “I will protect his body while his mind controls his Warframe.”
“I can also multitask,” Harry added, and, as if to prove it, he raised his hand. A moment later, he and Valkyr bumped their fists together. “Valkyr can fight on her own too. Neither of us is helpless without the other.”
⁂
Once Lotus’ transmission ended and Darvo returned to his Market, Harry was left alone with Cephalon Suda.
“Sorry for going against your wishes. You helped me out a lot, but I-”
“I understand the reasons behind your decision, Harry. You do not need to apologise,” said the Cephalon. “And I did not assist you for free. The knowledge I have gained from you in exchange for my services is invaluable. My wish would be for you to never leave my side. You are far too valuable to risk your life on the frontlines. . . but I see that you have set your mind to go. I do not wish to hold you here by force. . . Since I cannot dissuade you, I will do everything I can to keep you safe.”
A drone flew into the room, presenting Harry with a silvery chip.
“This is a device capable of storage through the digitisation technology. There are 10 Shield Ospreys and one Synoid Gammacor. The Ospreys will supply you with an energy shield at all times. You can charge them with your Void powers as well; they are one of the most sought-after items among the Tenno who are members of my Syndicate. As for the Gammacor, it is a wrist-mounted laser weapon. You should visit Cephalon Simaris’ Simulacrum and familiarise yourself with their use while Darvo finishes his preparations.”
Although Harry took the chip, he did not immediately leave. Truthfully, inwardly, he felt guilty for ditching Suda.
“I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you. I promise.”
“The best way to make it up to me would be to come back alive and uninjured,” Suda said.
⁂
One hour later, Darvo’s preparations ended, and upon being contacted via a transmission, Harry left Cephalon Simaris’ Simulacrum.
That time had not been enough for Harry to master the use of Gammacor, but it was enough for him to get the basics down: how to equip it (it was a wrist-mounted weapon), how to fire it, and how to reload it. Harry also tested the range of the weapon; after all, Synoid Gammacor was a beam-type secondary weapon.
Thanks to the tutoring received from his three Tenno acquaintances, Harry knew that most beam weapons boasted extremely high fire rates, a large magazine, pinpoint accuracy, and hitscan projectiles. But those amazing traits usually came at the cost of having a small range. His Synoid Gammacor had a maximum range of 40 meters.
After politely thanking Simaris once again for allowing him to use his Simulacrum, Harry rushed across the crowded streets of Larunda Relay, heading towards the Hangar.
When he arrived there, Darvo was waiting for him in front of a relatively small and sleek silvery spaceship.
As they went inside the ship and Darvo closed the trapdoor, Harry asked:
“Only the three of us?” Harry asked.
He thought that there would be a crew to man the spaceship. Even though it was a small spaceship, that was a relative; the vehicle was still around 20 meters long and four meters wide.
“Only the two of us. . . well, three if you count your Warframe as a person too. That’s more than enough. Bringing other people with us would only drag us down,” said Darvo. “This ship is equipped with a Cephalon that will take care of the navigation.”
Due to the urgent and sensitive nature of their operation, neither Harry nor Darvo was in the mood to make small talk.
Ten minutes after taking off from Larunda Relay, their spaceship arrived at an immense Solar Rail. It was a man-made space structure over 10 kilometres long.
Harry had been unconscious when Galen and Angie rescued him from Jupiter and brought him to Mercury, to Larunda Relay, so that was the first time he saw a Solar Rail with his own eyes.
Unbeknownst to him, the Solar Rail that Darvo brought them to now was very different from the one that the Tenno had used. It was a Corpus-controlled Solar Rail.
It was dozens of times larger than Tenno’s Solar Rail, and there were hundreds of different spaceships coming and going. In addition, whereas the Solar Rails used by the Tenno were hidden in the Void and only accessible to those who could wield its power, anyone could use the Corpus-owned Solar Rail. . . in exchange for a hefty fee, of course.
Despite the fact that he was heading towards a warzone where he would put his life and that of Valkyr in danger, Harry could not help but gasp in amazement. Travelling to other planets had been the dream of mankind since time immemorial. The muggles and the magicals alike had seen it as a nigh-unreachable goal.
Yet there he was now: a 15-year-old boy, with no astronaut training or any special education, aboard a spaceship that was about to make a Void jump, travelling from Mercury to Mars at a speed faster than light.
As their ship entered the Solar Rail, Harry sensed a large amount of Void energy coalescing around them. The Void energy increased in intensity even more, to the point where it became visible even to the regular people who were not attuned to it.
For a moment, light, space, and time seemed to warp, and the ship was launched forward in an instant. Stars turned into streaks of light, and the whole world blurred around him.
Light would need around half a minute to travel from Mercury to Mars, but the Void jump lasted no more than a couple of seconds. As the Void Energy dissipated, the Red Planet came into view.
Under Darvo’s orders, the Cephalon steered the ship and activated its stealth mode. Their vessel became invisible and undetectable by regular sensors.
“You don’t have to worry that the Corpus would shoot us down,” Darvo said as they entered Mars’ atmosphere. “Corpus’ tech is not to be underestimated, but they’re still not on the level of the Tenno. This ship’s camouflage system was designed based on a Tenno landing craft that I salvaged a few years ago. We are safe.”
His claims appeared to not be a mere boast. Their ship passed the dense network of artificial satellites orbiting Mars without triggering any alarms.
As their altitude decreased and the Martialis Corpus colony came into view, Harry’s eyes widened in amazement. That wasn’t the Mars that he had been expecting.
He had expected to see a desolate, rocky desert with red sands, but instead, the sight in front of him made him think of a lush oasis from the deserts of Earth.
The scenery did consist mostly of red rocky terrain and deserts, but in a radius of 15 kilometres around a tall, white, and gold structure, it was like a different planet. That white and gold structure was an ancient Orokin Tower, and the area around it had been terraformed to sustain human life.
Harry felt as though he was 11 again, watching the scenery with the same feeling of awe he had when he visited Diagon Alley with Hagrid for the first time. But this time, the scenery was even more awe-inspiring than that of the Wizarding World.
The Orokin Tower alone was like nothing he had ever seen before. It was the tallest building he had ever laid his eyes on. He doubted any buildings back home were even half as tall as the Orokin Tower. It was well over 1000 metres tall.
Around it, numerous, blue and grey towers split the sky, and hundreds of low-rise buildings populated the outer rim of the terraformed area. Verdant trees and bushes could be seen all over the place, and he could even see a small body of crystal-clear water glittering in the sun.
The city skyline was filled with flying cars hovering orderly, and the streets and boulevards below were packed with hundreds of pedestrians going about their day as if the violent war happening at Gradivus, in the orbit of the planet, had nothing to do with them.
Unfortunately, as much as Harry would have liked to visit that futuristic-looking colony and see it up close, Darvo took manual control of the ship and steered away, towards the desert. Soon, a military Corpus base appeared on the horizon, and Darvo landed the ship behind a cliff.
“This is as far as we can go. My ship’s stealth system is great, but it will not fool the Corpus’ sensors up close. From here on, you will have to go on foot. But before you leave, take this with you,” Darvo said, handing him a small chip. “I will send you holo maps of the military base that will show your location and that of hostile units in real-time. Assume that everyone except for Clem is an enemy.”
Harry closed his eyes before activating his Transference, becoming one with his Warframe.
“How will I find your contractor?”
“The Corpus is jamming my signal so I can’t pinpoint Clem’s location, but once you go past the energy shield around their military base, your chip should react to his bio-signature. He will appear on the holo map as a blue dot. Everyone else will be a red dot.”
⁂
“This is a lot easier than I had expected,” Harry spoke to Darvo through a transmission as he controlled Valkyr to crawl through a ventilation system.
Thanks to Darvo’s holo map and its radar-like function, infiltrating the Corpus’ military base proved to be almost effortless.
“Whether it’s the Corpus or the Grineer, all their facilities will have ventilation and sewer systems,” Darvo explained. “Sneaking in when you have the map of their facility is not that difficult. Getting out alive, on the other hand, is an entirely different matter.”
Controlling Valkyr, Harry sneaked through the ventilation system as far as he could. However, the vent could only take him so far; eventually, it became too narrow for his Warframe to fit in, and he had to drop down.
“Now comes the hard part,” said Darvo. “Remember, it’s imperative that you are not found. Corpus holding cells are designed to automatically execute the prisoners to prevent their escape. If the alarms are triggered, you have only 75 seconds before Clem gets killed.”
“Can you not, like, cut the power off or something?” Harry asked.
“Unless you detonate a large-scale EMP bomb, it’s almost impossible to cut the power off completely in a Corpus facility."
Seemingly aware of Harry’s thoughts and intentions, Valkyr’s footsteps made no sounds whatsoever as she started sprinting across the wide corridors of the Corpus facility.
‘A few weeks ago, I was running like this through the Department of Mysteries’ corridors to rescue Sirius. . .’
But Harry banished that thought as soon as it came to his mind. He had done his utmost not to think about Sirius over the past weeks, feeling as though he was not ready to deal with the reality of what happened to him. He was not going to have that admittedly long-overdue moment of self-reflection now when he was in the middle of an enemy military base.
“Hey, Darvo, what’s this smaller red dot on the holo map?” Harry asked as he stopped behind a corner.
“It is either a camera or an infrared detector. Don’t let it detect you!”
“Understood,” Harry replied, and the Synoid Gammacor that Cephalon Suda had gifted to him materialised around Valkyr’s right wrist like magic, out of thin air.
A regular human would need to get in position and spend a couple of good seconds regulating their breathing and taking aim before firing their gun, but a Warframe’s mastery of weaponry was on an entirely different level. His wrist-mounted weapon lit up, and the camera above the blast doors a dozen meters away was instantly melted off by the plasma beam.
“Are Corpus bases always this empty?” Harry asked.
He had expected a heavily armed group of Corpus Wardens and Troopers at every step, but so far, the corridors had been mostly empty. He was, by no means, complaining, but he had a nagging suspicion that something was going terribly wrong. It was too easy.
“No. . . this is highly unusual,” Darvo answered. “Be on your guard.”
Harry glanced at the holo map again. The blue dot indicating Clem’s location was less than 150 meters away.
‘After this door, I’ll probably reach the prison area.’
According to the hologram depicting the plan of the floor, the laboratory wing he was in had six maximum-security holding cells arranged into two separate towers. And, judging by the number of red dots patrolling around the towers, his Valkyr would not be able to sneak past them undetected.
While Harry was standing still, contemplating his next course of action, a deafening alarm started blaring out of nowhere.
“I didn’t do anything!” Harry said immediately, greatly startled.
He was hidden, and he had not tripped off any sensors on his way there.
“Rush towards the cells! No point in staying hidden anymore!” Darvo said urgently.
Harry did as he was told and sprinted towards the blast doors. The moment the blast doors opened, the Corpus Wardens were immediately alerted.
Two of them raised their Supra rifles and fired a hail of yellow laser bullets at Valkyr. Another one of the wardens raised his Lanka sniper and took aim, while the remaining three wardens ran at the Warframe with a Prova melee in their hands, a blunt machete crackling with electricity.
Unlike every other time he had trained before with his Warframe in Cephalon Simaris’ Simulacrum, this time around, an overpowering bloodlust exploded from Valkyr.
Her Venka Prime claws popped out, and before the machete-wielding wardens could react, Valkyr vanished.
“No!” Harry shouted.
She reappeared in front of the nearest Corpus warden, her claws only two inches away from his throat. Harry yanked control back at the very last moment, and Valkyr’s attack was slightly changed; instead of tearing his throat out, the Warframe slammed her elbow into his head.
Although the Corpus Warden was wearing a large metallic helmet, the strength behind Valkyr’s elbow strike was so great that the man was sent flying as though he had been hit by a speeding train, his helmet shattering into countless pieces.
The ongoing struggle between Harry’s will and Valkyr’s rage made the Warframe freeze, and that brief moment was all that the Lanka-wielding warden needed.
An electric sniper round struck Valkyr’s shoulder, and her energy shield shattered.
“Tenno! Are you alright?” Darvo’s voice came through the transmission.
Harry could not answer as he fought against Valkyr’s murderous urges. It took every ounce of willpower he had not to succumb to her rage.
“Tenno! You have only 50 seconds left!” Darvo shouted in a voice filled with urgency.
Harry was on the verge of regaining full control when the Supra-wielding wardens opened fire again. This time, the hail of laser rounds caught Valkyr in full, and, with her energy shield depleted, the laser bullets seared her flesh. The Warframe screamed in agony, and the pain fuelled her rage, empowering her murderous intent.
Harry's control over her snapped completely, and the savage Warframe threw back her head and let out a deafening roar. Orange-red energy erupted from her body, and 10 long energy claws came out of her hands as she entered Hysteria.
It was Valkyr's most powerful ability. Hysteria made her invulnerable to all damage and turned her into a berserk, unstoppable killing machine.
As though they could sense their impending doom, the Supra-wielding wardens fired their laser bullets at Valkyr with wild abandon, emptying their clips in a panic.
However, the laser bullets that had seared her flesh and made her scream in agony a few moments ago were bouncing harmlessly off her body now. The Lanka-wielding warden also fired another electric sniper bullet, but his shot bounced off Valkyr’s chest all the same.
Valkyr’s Flicker Strike activated again, and a split second later, her claws tore through the Lanka-wielding warden’s torso. His ribcage split open with a sickening sound as his blood and internal organs sprayed all over the floor.
Horrified at what he was witnessing, Harry fought desperately to stop her, but her rage was too much. Even worse, he could not pull back from her mind.
He could feel her bloodlust as though it were his own. He could sense her thirst for vengeance and understood that Valkyr had not forgotten the torture that she had endured at the hands of Alad V and his subordinates on Jupiter.
Darvo’s hologram was shouting something at him, but Harry could not see nor hear him. A red haze had covered his eye like a curtain of blood, and his hearing was muffled as though he was underwater.
It took Valkyr less than fifteen seconds to brutally murder every single warden in the prison wing, but for Harry, it had felt like an eternity.
However, after all the Corpus were killed, Valkyr’s rage receded like a miracle, and she handed Harry the reins of her body once again, with no fuss.
By the time he finally regained his composure, Darvo’s voice had become hoarse from how hard he had shouted to snap him back to reality.
“Tenno! Do you hear me?”
“There are only 25 seconds left!”
“Tenno!”
“Get back to your senses!”
“I hear you. Tell me what to do next,” Harry said quickly, not giving him an explanation for his unhinged behaviour.
“Go to the second cell in the left prison tower.”
A yellow rope flew into the air and stabbed deeply into the metallic wall of the prison tower as Harry controlled Valkyr to quickly pull herself up with her rip line.
“Take out your Parazon, the hidden blade in your right arm, and touch the console with it! Don’t ask why; we have no time! Just do it!”
Another hologram appeared in front of Harry’s eyes, but Darvo urged him impatiently:
“Connect those lines to complete the puzzle! Quickly! Only 10 seconds left!”
It was the first time Harry had hacked a console or anything else in his entire life, but if there was one thing that he was famous among his friends for, it was his reaction time and quick thinking in stressful moments.
It took him only four seconds to complete the mini puzzle, and the blast door of the cell opened out.
“My word, Tenno, you gave me quite the scare. . . Clem, are you alright?”
Hearing Darvo’s voice, the person in question stepped out of the cell and said two words:
“Clem! Clem!”
(Clem and Darvo)
“Haha! Of course, I wouldn’t leave you behind the enemy lines!”
“Clem. . .”
“I know it wasn’t your fault this time.”
“Clem! Grakata!”
“Eh? Your Grakata? Sorry, we can’t go look for them this time around.”
“Grakata! Grakata!”
“It’s not possible. Corpus and Grineer started a full-scale war. We have to get you out of there as soon as possible.”
If not for Darvo’s answers, Harry would have absolutely no clue what Clem was talking about.
‘Was hacking the maximum security prison of a Corpus military base supposed to be that easy?’ he asked himself inwardly as he started running towards the extraction point marked with a green dot by Darvo on the holo map.
Poor security, extremely few numbers, and a laughable encryption system. . . he found it hard to believe that Corpus was considered one of the three strongest powers in the origins system and one of the most technologically advanced.
But he decided to think about it after he made it out of the military base in one piece.
Harry and Clem broke into a sprint, their footsteps echoing loudly in the vast, eerily empty military base.
He focused on Valkyr’s sharp senses as he ran, trying his utmost to detect anything that might be out of place. His worry that the rescue operation had gone too smoothly was still bugging him.
However, the two of them managed to leave the base unobstructed, not encountering even a Corpus trooper or at least a MOA. The entire base appeared to have been deserted.
Noticing them running out of the Corpus facility, Darvo cancelled the Stealth mode so that Harry and Clem could find the ship.
"I don’t know why you encountered so little resistance but I won’t look a gift kubrodon in the mouth. Let’s get out of here.”
A cloud of sand and dust rose in the air as the ship’s plasma thrusters lit up and they took off. Finally getting off the planet, Harry let out a breath he did not know he had been holding and his consciousness came out of Valkyr’s body, returning to his own.
But then, the Cephalon’s voice rang in the spaceship:
“I have received an SOS transmission from the nearby Corpus colony, Martialis. As per my precepts, I will put it through.”
The hologram of a Mesa warframe was projected from the cockpit and the Tenno within spoke in a rushed voice:
“This is Axel from the Gladiators Clan. Martialis is under attack! We need immediate reinforcements!”
The Mesa suddenly raised her twin pistols, and extremely loud sounds of gunfire rang as she shot dead over 20 Grineer lancers in the blink of an eye, their corpses unrecognizable from the hail of bullets.
However, at that moment, a Grineer Bombard took out a Regulator.
Regulators were a type of flying drones used by the Grineer to jam communications, radars, and any other devices that functioned based on radio waves.
The moment that the drone started floating by the side of that Grineer Bombard, the transmission began shuttering.
"The Grineer—galleon overhead—bombardment—civilians are in great danger! We—"
In the end, the signal was jammed completely and the transmission was cut out.
Darvo turned the ship around, bringing Martialis back into view. What they saw made the breath catch in Harry’s throat.
A colossal Grineer Galleon loomed in the sky.
It was at least four kilometres long and half a kilometre tall, with green and brown, rusty armoured plating and enormous, brutal weaponry.
Numerous smaller dropships carrying dozens of Grineer Lancers and Butchers flew out from its belly like a swarm of locusts but they did not go above the city because, at that moment, the Grineer Galleon aimed its enormous cannons at the colony. Those cannons were the size of apartment buildings.
The air trembled as the Grineer Galleon unleashed a devastating blast. The sky was cleared of clouds for dozens of miles and the shockwave that burst forth almost flipped Darvo’s ship over, causing the Cephalon to work at 150% of his capacity in order to not crash the ship.
The overwhelming attack struck the golden Orokin tower in the heart of Martialis. The force field surrounding the colony like a dome shuddered precariously and flickered under the force of the impact before a sound like that of glass breaking was heard.
The force field collapsed.
People’s terrified screams filled the air and they started running in all directions, trampling over each other in their desperation.
Loud battle cries came from the hundreds of Grineer troops perched atop the dropships as they let themselves fall from heights over 10 meters or more.
Harry's stomach twisted and his hands clenched into fists as he watched with a pale face how the Grineer troops opened fire upon the civilians.
He and Darvo understood then why the Corpus military base had been almost deserted. All the Corpus personnel had rushed to Martialis to defend against the Grineer's invasion.
But this was not a skirmish against the Corpus. It was a massacre of the civilians.
Darvo’s voice was tense. "We need to leave. Now."
Harry turned to him. "No. Turn around. We have to help them."
Darvo gripped the controls tighter.
"Help them? That Grineer Galleon is the size of a city! You think you can just jump in and fight that? We’ll be dead before we even get close!"
"We can’t just run!" Harry said in an agitated voice. "There are innocent people down there!"
Darvo’s face darkened. "This isn’t a fight we can win, Tenno. Even your Warframe can’t do anything against that Galleon. This colony is lost."
But Harry didn't have the heart to turn his back to them, not when he could do something to help them out.
"If you won’t go," he said, stepping toward the hatch, "then drop me down."
Darvo looked at him like he had lost his mind. "Are you serious?"
"I’m going."
Silence filled the spaceship.
“Darvo, open the door! I don’t have time!” Harry shouted.
Unexpectedly, Clem also spoke at that moment.
"Clem!"
Darvo looked at him shocked. "Clem, this is suicide!"
"Clem," he said again as if that explained everything.
Darvo lost his patience: “After all the trouble I went through to save you from the Corpus, now you’re going to throw your life away?”
Seeing how neither of them was going to change their mind, Darvo let out a troubled sigh.
"I can’t come with you. I’m sorry, but I value my life. You are on your own”
The Cephalon piloted the ship to land on the ground again and opened its hatch to let Harry, Valkyr, and Clem out. No sooner than they got off, the ship took off like an arrow, its plasma thrusters propelling it away at great speed.
⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂
AN1: Some of you may be confused so I’m clearing this up just in case: currently, in the game, Mars is controlled by the Grineer. But that has not always been the case. At first, Mars was Corpus territory.
AN2: For those familiar with the game, as you may have noticed from the previous chapters as well, I have taken the liberty to "rework" Valkyr. - her Ripline is now just part of Valkyr's equipment rather than a skill - her 1st ability is now "Flicker Strike" - short distance teleportation to an enemy - her Warcry is also a Taunt, not just an armour and attack speed buff and a slowing debuff. It forces the enemy to attack her instead of her allies. - Hysteria and Paralysis are mostly unchanged (For Now)
AN3: As Cephalon Suda said in the previous chapter, Clem is a Grineer who was born with a ‘genetic flaw’. He is smaller than the other Grineer but he also lacks the loyalty that all Grineer are bioengineered to have towards their Twin Queens. He has free will.
This is Boros’ ship from One Punch Man.
The Grineer Galleons are smaller than this ship, but I felt like it would help you get a better idea of how terrifying it would be to see a 4000 meters long ship flying above the city and aiming its skyscraper-sized cannons at you.
Sounds of plasma beams smashing against the walls filled the air as a group of 20 MOA robots fired their rifle-heads at two Warframes.
“Take cover!” Harry shouted through a transmission from inside Valkyr, pulling the other Warframe behind the safety provided by the tall and wide pillars in the Simulacrum.
“What are you doing? Can’t you see them firing at us?” he asked in annoyance.
“I’m acting exactly how most rescue targets act in missions,” a dark-skinned boy replied from inside an Excalibur warframe, all the while trying to hold back his snickers.
Harry peeked around the corner but was forced to quickly pull back as a plasma bullet almost nailed him in the head.
“Can you hear their footsteps?” the other boy asked. “They’re getting closer.”
The clanking sound made by the bipedal MOA’s feet against the Simulacrum’s floor was, as he said, getting increasingly close.
“I’m not deaf; I can hear it,” Harry shot back.
“Tick-tock. Tick-tock.”
Hearing the clock sounds made by Karim, Harry would have slapped him at that moment if it were possible to smack someone through a holographic transmission. But he could not afford to get distracted now. Judging by the sound of their footsteps, the MOA robots were only a few steps away from catching them.
Gritting his teeth, Harry came out of the cover and slid across the floor for two meters before bullet-jumping into the air, well over four meters high, right above the group of robots.
A deafening Warcry erupted from Valkyr, and the robots' movements slowed to a crawl, looking as if they had been trapped in a slow-motion movie.
“Use your Paralysis, Harry!” Karim instructed over the transmission.
“I know!”
Due to her Warcry’s slowing debuff, the MOAs were just raising their heads, trying to aim their rifles at her when Valkyr landed in their midst.
The Warframe let out another loud battle cry as she stomped her left foot into the Simulacrum’s floor with great power. A burst of blue energy erupted from her body as a portion of her energy shield smashed into the surrounding robots.
Already sluggish from the earlier Warcry, the MOA were now Paralysed by the shield’s explosion before being pulled toward Valkyr as if caught in a vacuum.
Completely stunned by the two crowd control abilities, the robots were unable to do anything but watch as Valkyr suddenly turned into a whirlwind of death, violently tearing through them with her Venka claws.
Karim let out a wolf whistle as he projected his body outside his Excalibur and clapped his hands, impressed.
“Bravo!”
Harry didn’t know whether the boy was being serious or if he was mocking him.
“Man, you sure did a number on them. . .” Karim said as he watched the Simulacrum disintegrate the remains of the robots into specks of light. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d be tempted to think you’ve been a Tenno for years.”
“Stop fooling around,” Harry said, letting out a sigh.
“Look, I may like to joke around most of the time, but I’m serious when it comes to matters related to combat.”
Harry projected his body outside of Valkyr as well and crossed his arms to his chest.
“Really?” he said sceptically. “Then what was that earlier? You shouted to attract their attention, and you even almost got yourself killed by trying to step out from behind the cover.”
Karim snickered a little at that last bit.
“Believe it or not, I was just trying to make the exercise more realistic. That’s exactly what some of our rescue targets behave like in missions. I swear to the void, some people are so dumb, I’m often debating if they deserve to be rescued or if I should leave them to their fate.”
The Tenno cleared his throat, and the look of amusement receded from his face as he spoke to Harry in a serious voice:
“We started training you less than a week ago, but you’ve already mastered our Warframes’ parkour movement. Sliding, rolling, flipping, backflipping, bullet jumping, wall latching, wall running, and gliding. . .”
“Other than talking to Suda, there’s not much else for me to do in the relay. I’ve been spending the entire day in the Simulacrum,” Harry said nonchalantly.
“You were a regular person until two weeks ago. Even a genius wouldn’t master these movements so quickly. Even more, the way you bullet jumped into the air to avoid becoming a stationary target for the enemy while casting Valkyr’s Warcry—that’s a move only veterans know how to do. I’ve seen other Tenno when they just woke up from their cryo-sleep... it often takes them weeks to remember how to do this sort of thing. But you’re telling me that you learnt how to do it in half the time?” Karim said, giving him a pointed look.
When Harry didn’t reply, Karim pressed on with another question:
“You never stopped the Transference between you and Valkyr, did you? That’s the only explanation for your ridiculous rate of improvement.”
As Harry remained silent, the dark-skinned boy groaned and ran a hand through his short curly hair.
“Is the Lotus going to give you grief because of me?” Harry asked eventually, feeling bad at the thought that he had caused him problems.
“This isn’t about me or the Lotus, dude,” Karim answered. “Diving so deep and for so long into Transference is incredibly dangerous! We told you so many times before that when we use Transference, our minds meld with that of our Warframes! Do you have any idea how risky it is what you’re doing? You could go mad! You could lose your sense of self! You could become a psychopath or turn into a mindless killing machine just like the Warframe you’re supposed to control! There are such cases among the Tenno too!”
By the end of his rant, Karim had raised his voice to the point where he was almost shouting.
Without Harry ordering her to do so, Valkyr in front of him and let out a threatening growl at Karim, making the boy involuntarily take a step back.
Harry put his hand on his Warframe’s forearm and said:
“It’s alright, Valkyr, he means well.”
“Look at you, you’re even talking to her,” Karim said with a deadpan.
But, to Karim’s surprise, Valkyr seemed to understand Harry’s words. Her threatening growls stopped, and she walked back behind Harry.
“I will admit, I did continue my Transference with her,” Harry said sincerely. “But you don’t have to worry about me. I have it under control.”
Karim took off his red-tinted glasses and massaged the bridge of his nose.
“Yeah, right. Your Valkyr is acting no different from Angie’s Excalibur Umbra now. . .” he said, blowing out a long sigh. “Sorry, I don’t mean to nag you like that. I just get the feeling that you don’t really understand the gravity of your situation and how close you are to the edge of the abyss.”
“I understand what you mean,” Harry said. “But I’ve been meditating daily. I’ve been clearing my mind. I do have a little bit of training when it comes to organising my mind.”
At Karim’s unconvinced look, he said:
“I know I’m playing a dangerous game. The first week of Transference was truly terrible. I did feel like I was at the point of breaking. Valkyr’s memories aren’t exactly roses and sunshine either. . . but what choice do I have? Put yourself in my shoes; what would you do if you were me?”
The Tenno became silent.
“Until two weeks ago, I was in school, playing chess, going to classes, and worrying about exams. But then I met an evil god in the Void, I got tortured, I almost died, and then I ended up 20,000 years in the future. To make matters worse, Galen also destroyed my wand, my only means of protecting myself.”
“Man, you’re in a relay. Other than the relay’s security, there are also dozens of Tenno here at any time of the day, sometimes even hundreds. This is literally one of the safest places in the origin system. Nobody is going to attack you here,” said Karim.
Harry wasn’t impressed by that claim. Hogwarts was also, allegedly, the safest place in Great Britain, yet he had nearly died there every year, sometimes more than once a semester.
“So you say. But what if Cephalon Suda were to suddenly lose her interest in me and she stopped supporting me?” Harry asked calmly. “Or what if Lotus changed her mind and decided that I’m dangerous? What if you, the Tenno, came to the conclusion that I should be eliminated? What then? Who would protect me then? How would I survive then?”
Karim couldn’t find a retort to that. Deep down, he knew that Harry’s worries were not unfounded, especially regarding the Tenno.
“I know that delving so deep into Valkyr’s mind is dangerous. Even I can tell that. But I’ve been taking breaks. And I’ve been meditating. Knowing how to turn off the Transference is very helpful. Delving too deep into her memories is a hazard waiting to happen; I understand that too. But it’s a risk that I need to take. I don’t have the luxury of going slow and steady. If I don’t become strong, I may not even live long enough to go mad.”
⁂
Karim’s guess had been right on the money: although Harry had learnt how to cancel his Transference with Valkyr from their very first day of training, he decided not to do that.
He did take breaks, interrupting his connection with Valkyr once in a while to meditate and clear his head with the meagre Occlumency skills he obtained from the slimy Potions Teacher’s torture sessions disguised as “teaching,” but, generally, he spent most of his day and night connected to Valyr.
The risks of delving too deep into Transference were just as Karim said, but the gains from it made it worthwhile. Thanks to his deep Transference with Valkyr, it took Harry just one week to acquire combat skills and fighting instincts that he would otherwise have needed months or years to gain by himself. He might have never even become that proficient after training for a lifetime if he had been alone. The benefits of melding his mind with that of his Warframe were unquestionable. In the situation where everything was uncertain and he was stranded in a futuristic, dystopian future, he needed every bit of strength he could get.
More importantly, his encounter with his doppelganger a few days ago, the eldritch horror from the Void, in the bathroom of his living quarters, had terrified him more than words could tell. Just remembering that moment made a burning, phantom pain start pulsing in his forehead and biceps, the two places where the Man in the Wall had touched him.
The void creature’s touch had left no visible marks on his skin, but whenever he overused his Void powers or spent too much time inside Valkyr’s memories, those two spots burnt as if he were being branded by a searing hot iron. More than ever before, Harry felt the desperate need to grow stronger. Not even his encounter with Voldemort in his fourth year had terrified him as much as the thing that he had faced in the Void after stepping through the Veil of Death.
With Karim being called on a mission, Harry decided to take a break and leave the virtual world of the Sanctuary.
“Thank you for letting me use your Simulacrum, Simaris,” Harry said politely.
“I have no need for your thanks, Tenno,” the Cephalon said. “This is an investment on my part. I await the day you finally contribute to the Sanctuary.”
“. . . Right. I will start doing that the moment they let me out of the relay,” Harry said.
And with that, he left Cephalon Simaris’ Sanctuary and wandered through the relay, walking aimlessly. Valkyr walked alongside him too, following him faithfully wherever he went.
Arriving in the main lobby of the relay, he sat on a bench, and Valkyr sat down next to him too.
Although he had been living in the Larunda Relay for two weeks now, he was still not accustomed to his surroundings. Warframes, people in advanced combat suits, cyborgs, robots, drones, Cephalons, and even regular individuals in tribal clothing; it was such a strange assortment of beings that he could not get used to it. It felt alien. The fact that he lived in a gigantic space city that orbited planet Mercury didn’t help in making him feel at home either.
He felt out of place. He didn’t belong there. He was from an entirely different time, from a society that didn’t even have cellphones, let alone holograms or cyborgs.
Anxiety surged within him whenever he was reminded of the full extent of how utterly screwed he was.
However, before that feeling of anxiety could devolve into panic, as always, as though she could hear his thoughts and sense his emotions, Valkyr made a low, quiet, moaning sound, one that Harry had once heard tigers make when he visited the zoo with the Dursleys as a child. It sounded rather terrifying to hear such a noise up close, but Harry found himself smiling at Valkyr.
“You’re like a big cat, aren’t you?” he asked as he turned his attention to her.
Due to their continuous Transference, Valkyr was not the only one who could sense his emotions and mental state; it was a two-way road. Harry could sense hers as well.
At that moment, the cat-like Warframe was in a state of contentment, happiness even. It was odd because, in the first week, the only things he could sense from Valkyr were either rage and killing intent or emptiness. However, the range of her emotions seemed to expand with every passing day.
In the next moment, Harry was startled to see the Warframe reaching out for his hand. She took his hand in hers, and she held it gently, taking great care not to injure him with her sharp claws. She turned it face up and face down a few times and poked at his palm softly with her index finger’s claw, tilting her head as if she were studying him.
Harry chuckled at her curious behaviour and wrapped his fingers around her hand, showing her how humans held hands. At his gesture, a rather scary, purr-like sound came from Valkyr, and Harry sensed her feelings of happiness rising in intensity even more than before, to the point that they started bleeding into his psyche.
If someone had told him a month ago that he would travel twenty thousand years into the future, end up in a space city on Mercury, and hold hands with a violent, allegedly mindless killing machine, Harry would have told them to lay off the Firewhisky and go to bed. Yet there he was, in a reality that was even stranger than his wildest dreams.
⁂
Days passed, and Harry didn’t allow himself any time to rest and relax. Every day, he would be in Simaris’ Simulacrum, training with Valkyr or practicing his control over his powers.
The three Tenno he had become acquainted with were busy people, but they did make time to visit him once a day, at least one of them.
That day, Angie, the young Tenno girl with long pink hair, was watching him train in the use of his Void powers without the aid of Valkyr.
Every once in a while, her eyes would dart to the Warframe that used to be hers.
Standing next to Angie with her clawed fingers clenched into fists, Valkyr was shifting her weight from one foot to the other, and various quiet growling and groaning sounds would come out from her whenever Harry looked like he was in a perilous situation.
‘She’s no different than my Umbra now…’
Angie understood that after gaining that level of sentience, no other Tenno except for Harry would be able to control Valkyr. Valkyr would not allow another Tenno in her mind in the same way that her Excalibur Umbra did not accept anyone’s mental touch except for hers.
‘My Umbra is still way cooler than hers!’ she told herself, but she couldn’t fully suppress the envy and annoyance bubbling in her heart because Valkyr was supposed to be hers.
The girl let out a sigh.
‘No use crying over spilt milk. It’s my fault for losing her. . . I shouldn’t have taken her on a spy mission. At least, thanks to Harry, Valkyr didn’t get killed and cut to pieces by Salad V.’
“How did I do?” Harry Void Dashed to her at that moment and asked.
Caught up in her thoughts, Angie had lost track of him and forgot that she was supposed to evaluate his performance.
“It was passable,” she said, nodding her head with an air of self-importance.
“You didn’t even watch, did you?” Harry asked.
“O-Of course I did! What do you take me for?!”
Harry sighed. “It’s alright, I’ll go summon another group.”
Angie flushed. “I told you it’s not necessary! Hmpf!” she said and made a sound, crossing her arms to her chest.
But the girl dropped her act after a few moments and spoke:
“In all seriousness, for someone who got his void powers not even 3 weeks ago, you are doing fine. No, you’re doing more than fine. . . But I couldn't help but notice one thing. Why are you always fighting against MOAs? You’ve never spawned any Corpus Crewmen or Grineer Lancers or any other humanoid enemies. Not even once.”
It was in these kinds of moments that Angie’s behaviour contrasted greatly with her innocent and childish appearance, reminding Harry of the fact that, despite their young looks, all Tenno were far older and more experienced than him.
"If I were to guess, it's because you can't bring yourself to kill people. Am I wrong?"
When Harry didn't reply, she sniffed.
"Looks like I'm right on the money. Listen up, Harry, I'm saying this for your own good. I don’t know how it was in your timeline, in the place where you were born, but, in this world, that half-baked determination of yours will get you killed. In this world, nobody gets to live without getting their hands dirty. If you want to live, you have to harden your heart. Be realistic. You won’t be facing only robots in combat once you leave Larunda Relay. People, monsters, clones, and robots. . . all kinds of enemies would be out to get you. You have to-”
Angie stopped her monologue as she received a transmission.
“Yes, Galen? What do you need?” she asked.
“Angie. A large-scale conflict is about to break out on Mars between Corpus and Grineer. I need you here asap!”
“A full war?! What happened?! Are the Grineer crazy?!”
“They are crazy, you got that right,” Galen said. “Corpus spies and archaeologists happened to discover a cache of Warframes that are in cryosleep on Sedna. They are Warframes that had been buried deep beneath the ground at the end of the Old War. Even Lotus did not have any records of them."
Sedna was a dwarf planet and the most distant celestial body from the Sun. It was under Grineer occupation. The fact that the Corpus had not only infiltrated that place but even unearthed and stolen such valuable things, a cache of Warframes, was reason enough for the Grineer to declare war.
The sound of explosions rang in the background, and Galen’s face stiffened.
“The Grineer Galleon ships are here! I have to go.”
“Galen!” Angie shouted. But the transmission was cut. “Sorry, Harry, I have to go!”
Without any further explanation, Angie flew towards the console with a Void Dash and logged out of the Simulacrum.
⁂
Unaware of the chaos that would soon engulf the entirety of the Origin System, Harry carried on as usual. He trained in Cephalon Simiaris’ Simulacrum for a few more hours until noon, when his appointment with Cephalon Suda was scheduled.
That being said, Harry had underestimated how deep Cephalon Suda’s hunger for knowledge was, and now he was in the middle of being grilled for his lack of it.
“I am bewildered by the fact that you do not possess information on such important topics,” Cephalon Suda said.
“I was just 11 when I went to the Wizarding World. Everything Muggle-related just slipped out of my mind,” Harry said defensively. “The Wizarding World was an isolated society.”
Cephalon Suda actually let out a sigh.
“But you must have at least a general idea, don’t you?”
“Kind of?” Harry said hesitatingly. “I seem to remember there were around 170 states when I was in primary school. But then, there was a big revolution at the end of the 1980s, and a large country split into a dozen or more smaller states. I was too young back then, and the political situation was too much for me to fully understand. Then, there were also countries that the world at large didn’t recognise.”
Cephalon Suda was not content with just some vague, general knowledge about the past. Other than practicing his Void Magic and combat with Valkyr, Harry would go to Suda every day and tell her everything he knew about life in his timeline.
The cephalon asked him about the political and social situation, things about the infrastructure, behavioural patterns of the population, the food that they ate, the drinks they consumed, the state of the medical field, art, military, games and leisure time, celebrities, the climate, names of cars, planes, people, cities, states, rivers, mountains, and so on and so forth—she left no stone unturned. She even made him try to draw the borders of the countries on Earth that he remembered.
Considering that Cephalon Suda was providing him with a place to sleep, food, clothes, and protection from outside factors, Harry was deeply indebted to her. So he did not complain even though she was testing his patience with her obsessive desire to collect data.
Aware of the limitations of the flesh, the Cephalon stopped with her questions after a few hours when she noticed his focus starting to drop.
Instead, she brought up another subject, one that was of great interest to Harry as well.
“Regarding the reconstruction of your wand, I regret to inform you that it remains unfeasible with my current technological capabilities. It is an outcome I had not anticipated. I have conducted 27 attempts to clone the creature from which your wand’s core originated—the Phoenix—but all have resulted in failure. The cause remains unknown.”
Somehow, Harry was not surprised to hear that, and Suda picked up on it.
“Have you predicted this outcome?” she asked.
“To say that I predicted it would be a stretch. Your technology is amazing, but I had a feeling even you wouldn’t be able to replicate magic that easily,” Harry admitted. “The Phoenix is an immortal creature, one that always resurrects from its ashes. It was one of the most mystical and majestic creatures back in my time.”
"I understand. Although I was unable to reconstruct your wand, I have taken the liberty of designing alternative models for you to evaluate," Suda stated.
At that moment, a human member of her syndicate entered, carrying a large, silvery briefcase. He placed it on the table before Harry, whose eyes widened in surprise.
"I cannot determine whether these possess any magical properties. However, to maximise the likelihood of success, I commissioned the creation of wands using holly as the primary wood, each embedded with a core derived from noteworthy creatures found on Earth and Venus. The materials utilised include Kubrow whiskers, Nephil Vasca Kavat whiskers, Mergoo tail feathers, Virmink heartstrings, Sawgaw feathers, and more. A comprehensive list is available should you require it.”
Following Suda’s suggestion, Harry tried the wands in the briefcase one by one, giving them all a swish. Unfortunately, all 25 wands turned out to be failures.
“I’m sorry, I don’t think any of the creatures you used were magical,” Harry said.
The wands didn’t just not fit him, but they showed no reaction either. It was as if they were dead, mundane objects.
“I don’t even know if it’s possible for anyone but a wandmaker to create wands. It is a secret, mysterious type of magic that I know nothing about. Wandmakers in the Wizarding World had to spend years studying the art before they became proficient in it and decades to master it. . . you know, we could solve this problem quite easily if only you allowed me to return to Earth.”
"You are not being detained here, Harry. You are free to depart from Larunda Relay at any time of your choosing," Cephalon Suda stated.
“You know what I mean,” Harry sighed. “Yes, I’m free to go, but that's only as long as I leave Valkyr behind. But I can’t do that. Even though I am confident in my Void Powers now, I don’t want to be separated from her. What’s the reason you won’t let me take Valkyr out with me now? You should know that I’ve become very good at using my Warframe and her powers. You can’t give me the pretext that I would get captured easily anymore.”
"It was never merely a pretext. From the outset, it has been one of the two primary reasons Lotus was unwilling to grant your release alongside Valkyr. The second reason is that you remain an unknown variable to the Tenno. They require additional time to determine whether you can be trusted. Furthermore, with the war that had just erupted between Corpus and Grineer, it would be far too dangerous to venture outside the relay.”
Cephalon Suda’s words made him frown. If this had been the old Harry, before he crossed the Veil of Death, he would have reacted with anger. He wasn’t known for his calmness. But he was no longer the same person. The life-and-death encounter with the Man in the Wall, the severity of his circumstances—being stranded 20,000 years into a futuristic, dystopian reality—and the deep dive into Valkyr’s mind, experiencing her traumatic memories, had unknowingly changed him.
“What if there was a way for me to create a magical creature out of nothing?” he asked in a calm voice.
“I am intrigued. Could you please elaborate?”
“I just remembered a fact about a magical species of serpents. The Ashwinder,” Harry said.
It was a lie. He had suspected that he might not be allowed to leave Larunda Relay even after he gained control of his Void Power and mastered his Warframe, so he had prepared for it in advance.
“I do not possess any data on such a creature,” the Cephalon said, her cube of light glowing brighter, betraying her curiosity.
Harry smiled. Hook, line, and sinker.
“It was a magical serpent that was born from the remains of a magical fire that was allowed to burn unchecked. Born from the embers of the dying magical fire, the Ashwinders would slither to a cold and secret place to lay their eggs. After laying their eggs, they would only live for one more hour before they would die, turning into ash.”
"How fascinating!" Cephalon Suda remarked. "Observing the entire cycle of such a creature—its birth, life, and death—would be an intriguing and captivating experience. Yet, I wonder: what value could you derive from the body of a creature that disintegrates into ash upon death? Could its ashes serve as the core for a magical wand?"
“The Ashwinders that are born from eggs rather than a magical fire have a longer lifespan than the others,” Harry explained. “Even the ones born directly from the fire could be frozen over and have their fangs extracted. I don’t know if their fangs are magical enough to serve as the core of a wand, but I think it’s worth a shot. Would you help me?”
"I am not opposed to assisting with this experiment, but there appears to be a missing key element: how do you intend to conjure a magical fire?" Suda enquired.
At her question, Harry chanted in a clear voice:
“Incendio.”
Cephalon Suda’s cube glowed brighter than ever before, and several drones and two human members of her Syndicate came into the room, beginning to scan the ball of fire in his hand with great interest.
“I was under the assumption that a wand was necessary to cast spells,” the cephalon said in surprise.
“I don’t know if it’s 100% magic or if it’s the power of the Void,” Harry admitted frankly. “But Galen gifted me this amp to help channel my Void powers a week ago,” he said and showed her the bracelet-like gauntlet around his wrist. “So I got the idea of trying to conjure some flames with it.”
The ball of fire in his palm disappeared as he continued speaking:
“I tried casting other spells too, but other than creating light, I can’t do anything else.”
“Lumos,” he said, and a sphere of light the size of a ping-pong ball appeared at the tip of his index finger.
Before Harry could further rope the Cephalon into his scheme, another Suda member walked inside.
“Lady Suda, Mister Darvo requests an emergency audience with you.”
“What is the emergency?” she asked.
“One of his valuable associates has just gone MIA on Mars. Mister Darvo has lost all contact with him.”
Cephalon Sudan let out a rare groan.
“Allow me to guess: did that rogue Grineer manage to get himself in trouble once more?”
"That is indeed the case," her subordinate replied. "However, in light of recent events, one could not blame him for it. Nobody expected such a violent war to suddenly erupt between Grineer and Corpus."
It was rare for Suda to show such human-like emotion in her voice, so Harry could not help his curiosity:
“What Grineer? I didn’t know Mister Darvo worked with them.”
"His name is Clem. He is a member of the Steel Meridian Syndicate, an organisation formed by Grineer defectors," Suda explained. Anticipating his next question, she continued, "Most Grineer are bioengineered to obey the commands of their Twin Queens, but occasionally, some clones are born with a genetic flaw that grants them the capacity for self-determination. Clem is one such individual as well. He and Mister Darvo have formed a close-knit relationship that goes beyond that of contractor and contractee, bordering on the realm of friendship."
⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂
AN: I will try to give you a double update for this story as well, just like in the previous weeks, but I can't guarantee it. I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Until next time
Devola glanced in awe at her reflection in the mirror. Her wavy red hair had become long, straight, and black, her green eyes had turned brown, her pale skin had become tan, and the shape of her nose and cheekbones had changed, too.
“This is amazing. I can’t recognise myself,” she said.
Popola, who was next to her, looked like she was a good decade older than before. Moreover, her shoulder-length straight red hair was blonde now, falling in waves to the middle of her back. Her green eyes were blue, and her body was far more developed than it used to be.
“I’m the elder sister now!” Popola laughed.
Obviously, she was very pleased with the changes.
“I have to ask, Harry, was there a need for you to make Popola’s chest this big?” Devola asked, giving him a pointed look.
“I just tried to make you look as different as possible. . .” Harry muttered.
“Or maybe you did it on purpose!” Devola insisted.
At her words, Popola started touching her now large breasts, feeling herself up as she glanced at her reflection in the mirror.
“Popola, stop it!” Devola raised her voice, a tint of red appearing on her cheeks.
But Popola giggled, not stopping her actions.
“Heh~ so humans like them big like this, huh? Or maybe that's just how Harry likes them? What do you say, Harry?”
He would have never imagined that the girls who used to bow and apologise for the smallest things when they first met would one day come out of their shells enough to actually tease him in such a manner.
Before Devola could reprimand her for it again, Harry quickly pointed his wand at her sister’s chest and cast a Shrinking Charm on them.
“Hey, not fair! You made them even smaller than they were before!” Popola whined.
“Well, sorry, it’s not as if I measured your exact size!”
“Just bear with it, Popola. We’ll go back to our original appearance after we return,” Devola said.
“Fiiine.”
Harry grabbed a large and heavy backpack from the ground and put it on with surprising ease, given its size, thanks to a weight-reducing charm he had cast on it.
“Did you check the windows?” Harry asked.
“I did,” Devola answered. “They’re all locked.”
“What about the backdoor?”
“I locked it myself,” Popola said.
“Alright. Are you girls ready to go?”
“Yes!” they answered at the same time.
⁂
Even through Apparition, it took Harry a few minutes and several stops to travel from Switzerland to Egypt.
He did not teleport straight to the entrance of the android city. Instead, he Apparated with the girls three kilometres away from it. When he arrived in the desert, Harry cancelled the Bubblehead Charm.
Having transfigured his appearance, Harry had made himself dark-skinned and given himself an afro. He looked completely unrecognisable.
‘Luckily, there are no manual checks at the entrance,’ Harry thought when he was allowed entry by the androids guarding the elevator that served as Memory Hold’s entrance.
He and the girls had been afraid that, after his disappearing stunt a month ago, the androids would do anything in their power to catch him next time.
Once they came out of the elevator, Harry found himself smiling. The underground city was as bustling as ever, with thousands of androids swarming the place.
‘No, it feels even busier than I remember. Did something happen?’
Memory Hold had always been crowded, but the streets were literally packed with people now.
“Popola and I will head to the data centre,” Devola said.
“We’ll meet again here, at the elevator, in one hour,” he said.
The girls nodded and separated from him. But after making three steps, Popola turned.
“Harry,” she called out to him.
“What’s the matter? Did you forget something?” he asked.
“No, I did not forget anything. I just—” Popola trailed off. She bit her lower lip, hesitating. “...You won’t leave us behind and disappear, will you?”
Harry’s eyes widened. After living together with Devola and Popola over the last month, it never even crossed his mind that the sisters would still be worried about him abandoning them.
“My god, of course not!” he said, as he walked to them. “Look, if you want, we can go together everywhere. It was your idea to split up, no?”
Popola was about to say something, but Devola spoke before her:
“No, we’re good to go alone!”
The two sisters exchanged a look, seemingly communicating with their eyes.
“Sorry for doubting you, Harry,” Popola said, scratching her cheek awkwardly.
“I was serious; I don’t mind tagging along.”
“N-No, it’s better we go by ourselves to the data centre,” Popola said, becoming flustered.
“Yeah, you don’t have to come with us. We’ll be fine, promise!” Devola also said, but she couldn’t quite meet his eyes.
Harry let out a “hmm” sound.
“Fine… Meet you here again in one hour?” he reiterated.
“Yes.”
⁂
‘Years of abuse and neglect won’t disappear after just one month,’ Harry thought as he watched Devola and Popola walk away.
Living together with them over the past month, he never even considered the option of abandoning them now. But he couldn’t blame them for their fears.
‘Still, what was with that? They’re hiding something, aren’t they?’ he thought. The girls were acting a bit too shifty-eyed for him not to notice.
‘. . . Don’t tell me, are they going to snitch on me to the other androids?’
That thought made him freeze in his tracks.
‘They wouldn’t do that, would they?’ he thought hopefully.
He shook his head.
‘No. . . I’ll choose to believe them, just like they put their trust in me.’
Having put his mind to rest, he started walking through the city, heading towards the bazaar, the most densely populated area of the underground city.
He found himself smiling as he took in the sights of the Memory Hold. It was the first and only city he had found after arriving in this post-apocalyptic world.
He saw couples walking hand in hand, stall owners and customers haggling over the price of items, and he even saw some new sights: Androids painting and showing off their work by the side of the road.
‘Wait a minute, what the hell?!’
Having noticed the black man with afro hair stopping and staring at his work, the painter smiled and waved at him.
“Hello, might I tempt you with some art?”
Harry swallowed dryly before replying.
“Who might that be?”
The painter made a surprised face.
“You must be new around here. It’s a human called James. He visited the city about a month ago.”
“No way!” he pretended to be shocked. “You’ve got to be pulling my leg!”
“I’m not, dude, I’ve seen him with my own eyes! You can also ask anyone else, and they’ll tell you the same.”
“But weren’t humans supposed to be on the moon? Why would they endanger themselves by coming down?”
“How would I know what goes through a human’s head?” the painter said, shrugging his shoulders. “But because of him, we’ve been getting lots of new faces around lately. I think more than two thousand Androids transferred to this city after hearing rumours about the human.”
Harry took a second look at the Android’s paintings. He was not well-versed in art, but, to his uneducated eyes, the paintings looked stunning, like a masterpiece. They depicted his appearance perfectly, almost as though it were a photograph.
“Who are the two girls?” Harry asked. “Are they humans too?”
The painter shook his head.
“No, they’re Androids. Their names were Devola and Popola. . . actually, these five paintings are part of a set. They tell a story.”
The first painting showed a group of wounded Androids waiting in line for two red-haired twin girls to heal them. The second painting showed a man with an injured leg grabbing the girl with wavy red hair roughly by the hem of her clothes and shouting.
“But then, the human stood up for them!” the painter narrated his tale in excitement. “Are you blind to what is going on? How can you just sit and watch that dirtbag treat them like that? - is what he said.”
The fourth painting showed the violent android’s retreating silhouette and Harry sitting down while Devola and Popola healed him.
“And in the last one, when Devola and Popola used their maso to heal him, his appearance changed!”
[...]
⁂
In the end, Harry found himself unable to turn down the android after how much effort and emotion he put into telling the tale of how he met Devola and Popola. He ended up paying for half a dozen paintings and asked the man to pack them and safeguard them for him for one hour.
‘They were surprisingly cheap,’ he thought. He had spent less than 1000 G for all of them. ‘I thought paper was not common?’
But as he continued walking down the main boulevard of the underground city, Harry understood why the paintings had been so cheap. The side of the road was littered with Androids trying to sell portraits of him.
And that wasn’t the only thing. It took him a few minutes to finally notice it, but when he did, he couldn’t help stopping and staring again.
Small metallic tables had been installed all over the place, with dozens of androids gathered around each one of them. . . they were playing chess.
‘Jesus Christ!’
He had always known that the androids worshipped humans. His first encounter with them had freaked the hell out of him, and his experience with Devola and Popola and the looks of devotion they directed at him every day made him aware of how highly they looked up to him, but it was only now that he fully realised just how important he truly was.
It genuinely scared him to think that every single one of his actions could have such a powerful impact on the society of the Androids. Even his status as the “Boy Who Lived” in the Wizarding World could not be compared to this.
⁂
Walking towards the periphery of the city, where the Barracks were located, Harry was quiet, deep in thought.
‘I was right, after all.’
He could not say that Devola and Popola’s pleas had had no effect on him. He had considered coming out in the open and returning to Reiner, Jim, Nadia, Joanna, and Malik. But after seeing the state of things in Memory Hold that his mere appearance had caused, he realised that it had been a good thing to escape and hide.
"I can't bear this responsibility."
He wasn’t just a leader or a symbol for the androids. They treated him like something more. To them, he was almost like a god. They thought of him as their Creator. . . It was too much. He was just seventeen. The fact that his every word and action could influence an entire society to such a high degree was terrifying.
‘Sooner or later, I’m bound to make a mistake, and when I do, the consequences will be devastating.’
After all, humans were far from the perfect beings that Androids thought they were. Humans could get angry, jealous, be impulsive, and act irrationally at times. To err was human.
Once he arrived at the barracks, Harry went to the reception area.
“Hello, I’d like to leave a package for someone; is it possible?”
“Sure, what name should I leave it on?” asked the man working at the reception that day.
“Andrew,” Harry gave him a random name.
“Who is it for?”
“It’s for Reiner.”
The Android took on a thinking posture, seemingly going through his memories for a few seconds before replying:
“Reiner from the 2nd floor or the one from the 5th floor?”
“Second floor.”
“Oh, that Reiner just came back from the battlefield. I could call him for you if you wanted,” the receptionist offered.
“Ah, there’s no need,” Harry said quickly. “I’m just here to deliver a package from the bazaar. I don’t know him personally.”
“Alright then,” the android said as Harry took out a very large black plastic bag filled with things from his backpack.
⁂
Having just finished his shower in the common-floor bathroom, Reiner dried his hair with a towel and glanced at his reflection in the mirror. A fresh, jagged scar marked his cheek. It was a mark left from a piece of shrapnel that had struck him earlier that day in the battle against the machines.
Taking a second look at the jagged scar on his cheek, Reiner’s mind went to the jagged scar he had seen on the forehead of ‘James’ when his disguise broke under the effects of Devola’s and Popola’s magic.
‘Was he really a human?’
He couldn’t believe that one of the humans whom nobody had seen in centuries or even thousands of years would descend to Earth and blend in with the likes of him, becoming friends with him.
But he couldn’t ignore the strangeness of the situation either. Captain Aine’s testimony and then the fact that “James” had vanished together with the twin sisters in front of his eyes made it hard for him to deny that he was not a regular Android.
He let out a sigh as he patched his cheek with a big band-aid. Unlike Devola and Popola, who used to heal people for free, not asking for anything, the other healer types in Memory Hold were scalping the androids with their prices. He decided not to get his cheek healed just yet. He would go to the healer when he accumulated other, more serious injuries rather than only cosmetic ones.
Returning to the small bedroom that he shared with Malik and Jim, Reiner was surprised to see not only the two of them inside but also Nadia and Joanna. They were all huddled together, reading from a piece of paper.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Man, you won’t believe it. It’s a letter from James!” Jim said, his voice betraying the mixture of shock and excitement he felt.
Reiner rushed to their side and looked over their shoulders as he began to read the letter, too.
“Dear friends,
I hope this letter finds you well. It’s been a while since I last saw you. . . I don’t think I’ll be able to return to Memory Hold and spend my days together with you again. But I will keep watching over you.
You were the first friends I made since I arrived here. Especially you, Reiner. When you found me on the pyramid and told me to get down. . . I was at a loss, not knowing what to do. But you introduced me to Jim, Nadia, Malik, and Joanna. And for the next few weeks, I was happy again, for the first time in years. You gave me hope and a place to belong when I needed it the most.
I saw you all today, from a distance. I’m glad to see that all five of you survived and that you are healthy. . . But you should get your scar looked at, Reiner. Don’t be a cheapskate, or Nadia might leave you for a more handsome guy. Haha, I’m kidding, Nadia, don’t get mad. I know you’re not that type of girl.
Speaking of, I’ll take advantage of this letter to tell Malik and Joanna to stop beating around the bush. You know what I’m talking about. If even an outsider like me could see it, I’m sure that Reiner, Jim, and Nadia could too.
Jim, we once talked about how life would be without war. You told me that without war, Androids would not have been created and that you were afraid that if the war ended, humans would no longer need you anymore, and you would be discarded.
I don’t know about the humans on the moon. I can’t talk about them because I’ve never met them. . . But I will tell you that I will never discard you or any other Androids like a broken tool.
I am too young. I cannot come out in the open because I am not the perfect being that the Androids think I am. I don’t think I will ever be good enough to live up to all your expectations. But I will strive to become a better person. I still have much to learn and a lot of maturing to do. . . I am just not strong enough to shoulder the responsibility that comes with being who I am. . . Not yet.
But I do wish to make the Androids’ lives better. I wish for you to become more than just weapons of war. You already are more than I thought you’d ever be. When I met the androids in person for the first time, I didn’t even know they were androids at first. I thought they were like me.
I know I might not make much sense right now. But I promise, I’ll explain everything when the time is right. Until then, all I can do is watch over you from afar and hope that you all survive until we meet again.
Related to that, I have prepared some gifts for you. With Christmas just around the corner, I wanted to share a little tradition. Christmas was a time when humans offered gifts to their family and friends. There are five sets of gear that should help in keeping you safe. I have enchanted them with Unbreakable Charms, a magic spell that would make it hard, almost impossible, to destroy. I also left a package with food, things I have personally cooked for you.
I hope you’ll forgive me for not meeting you in person. I trust you understand why it wouldn’t be a good idea. . . I hope that this letter and these gifts will make it easier for you to forgive me.
Stay safe,
Harry (James).
It was not an elegant handwriting. It looked haphazard, as though the letter had been written in a rush, but the Androids didn’t pay much attention to that. The contents of the letter left them speechless.
Reiner and Jim suddenly ran out of the room, into the hallway, as if they thought Harry was just outside, watching over them.
Unfortunately, the hallway was empty, save for a couple of their floor neighbours who happened to pass by.
If they had paid more attention, however, they would have noticed a slight distortion in space towards the back of the corridor, not far from the laundry room. He had hidden himself with a Disillusionment Charm as he watched them from a distance, just like he said in the letter.
⁂
Luck had been on their side that day, and Harry, Devola, and Popola’s visit to Memory Hold ended with no incidents.
Now, back to “The Hearth,” to their wooden cabin in the Alps, the twins talked to Harry about their findings at the data centre as they worked together on preparing their lunch.
Despite the cold and the snow, Harry started a campfire outside, and they began grilling fish on a stick above it. With thick winter clothes and Warming Charms protecting them from the cold, the -10 Celsius degrees temperature was not that difficult to bear.
Devola and Popola watched the fire with barely contained excitement, occasionally bouncing on the spot like a pair of eager children.
"They really do love fish, don’t they?" Harry thought, chuckling at their enthusiasm.
Noticing his smile, the two sisters grinned shyly and stepped back from the fire, taking a seat on the wooden bench next to him.
“So you haven’t found records of any magical creatures?” Harry asked and took a sip of tea from a thermos.
The girls mirrored his actions, also drinking from their thermoses, before Popola replied:
“Other than fairy tales and other myths, none. . . sorry, Harry. We ended up making this trip for nothing.”
“It wasn’t for nothing,” he replied. “I meant to check up on my friends anyway. And it was fun to go out, wasn’t it?”
Harry and the twins did meet in front of the elevator at the established time, but they did not leave Memory Hold right away. They walked around the bazaar, bought some things they were interested in, went to the painter for Harry to get his package, and the girls also played chess with other Androids.
“That’s right, it was fun,” Devola said with a smile. “Maybe we can visit other Android cities in the future.”
“Sure, why not?”
“By the way, we didn’t find any records of magical creatures, but we did come across something unusual,” Devola added as if the thought had just occurred to her.
“You mean that monument in Asia?” Popola asked.
“Yes.”
“What monument?” Harry asked, his curiosity now piqued.
“It’s a human structure that has remained relatively untouched despite the passage of time. It’s not as old as the Pyramids of Giza, but it has been far better preserved.”
“Do you mean the Great Wall of China?”
“No, it looks more like a temple.”
Saying those words, Popola took out a small, spherical device from the inner pocket of her coat, and a hologram was projected from it. It was something she had bought earlier that day from Memory Hold’s bazaar.
Although he was rather fascinated by the hologram, he was far more interested in the pictures it showed. It was the statue of a winged dragon with a peculiar set of spikes growing around its head, almost like a mane.
“That’s a Chinese Fireball!” Harry exclaimed.
It was one of the four species that had been used in the Triwizard Tournament in his fourth year at Hogwarts. Other than the Hungarian Horntail he had faced, the Chinese Fireball was the most memorable due to its appearance and its nickname; it was also known as the Liondragon.
The girls were surprised by his outburst.
“It was one of the 10 species of Dragons that lived during my time!” Harry explained, speaking quickly. “It was native to China, but it lived all over the Asian continent. I’m sure of it! Do you have any other pictures?”
Devola started scrolling through the pictures she had retrieved from the data centre, showing Harry what appeared to be a temple carved within a mountain.
“And this is a Phoenix!” Harry said, amazed at how accurate and well-preserved the statue of the majestic bird was. “Where is this place?”
Preoccupied with the pictures, Harry forgot about the fish being grilled over the fire, but that couldn’t be said about the girls. They quickly flipped the fish to the other side, not letting them get burnt, before answering his question.
“It’s on the Indian Subcontinent, in the Aravalli Mountains. It was discovered a few decades ago, but we have not managed to go inside.”
Now that surprised Harry greatly.
“How come?” he asked. “With your technology, it should be a piece of cake to dig it up.”
“According to our data, digging operations failed because the entire mountain appeared to shake when the Androids tried using heavier machinery. The sonar probes revealed that the mountain had been hollowed out. Afraid of destroying it, all operations ceased after that. After all, our purpose is to preserve what was left of humanity, not destroy it.”
Eventually, they finished cooking and went inside the cabin to eat their lunch.
Time passed, and evening came. Harry had spent the afternoon playing the muggle version of the Snap card game (he had not figured out the Charm to create an Exploding Snap set of cards just yet), cooking, and chatting with the twins, but the girls could tell that Harry’s mind was preoccupied.
As they were sitting on the sofa, basking in the warmth coming from the fireplace and chatting, Harry brought up the thing that had been on his mind the entire day:
“Devola, Popola, I want to visit that place from the hologram.”
“Do you think you may have a way inside?” Devola asked.
“I don’t know,” he replied honestly. “But the statues of the Chinese Fireball and the Phoenix make me think that my people might be related to that temple somehow.”
The twins exchanged a glance, and Popola placed her hand on his forearm before saying:
“I don’t want to sound like a downer, but I think that it would be wise to temper your expectations. According to our data, Dragons and Phoenixes were famous creatures in the myths and religion of the humans who lived in Asia.”
Harry shook his head.
“The Asian muggles’ myths had different dragons. They looked more like giant snakes with legs or multiple heads, and they didn’t have wings. That statue was definitely a Liondragon, a Chinese Fireball. I know it’s a long shot, but I have to give it a try. It’s the only lead I’ve got.”
⁂
Apparition, the wizards’ and witches’ form of teleportation, had two main limitations: first, one could only Apparate in places they had been before. Second, there was a distance limit of five to eight hundred kilometres. One could probably push the limits of that distance, but it would be draining and mentally tiring, something that anyone would wish to avoid when Apparating. After all, a lapse in concentration could lead to instant death via splinching. Harry was definitely not willing to risk that.
Thanks to Devola and Popola and their GPS, Harry knew for sure now that he had built his cabin in the Alps of Switzerland. That being said, there was a distance of over 6000 kilometres between his location and the Aravalli Mountain Range in the northwestern part of the Indian Subcontinent. Even with his ability to teleport, it took Harry nearly a week to cover that distance.
First off, the twins tagged along with him. Apparating two other people with him was more exhausting than doing it alone, but, due to their GPS, Devole and Popola were invaluable to Harry. Thanks to them, he wouldn’t need to fumble along the coastline blindly like he used to do in the past. With them around, he would not get lost. He could just Apparate continuously until he got exhausted, leaving the navigation matters to them.
The second and most time-consuming thing was that, due to never being in those places, he was limited to teleporting to the edge of the horizon. He had to apparate hundreds of times, something that he could not do in a single day.
Nevertheless, by the end of the sixth day, the three of them found themselves standing in front of the mysterious temple in the Aravalli Mountain Range. It was not only Harry who looked pale and exhausted, but even Devola and Popola seemed ragged after camping in the wild for nearly a week and being squeezed by the Apparition travel so many times.
“There’s no doubt about it. This is a Chinese Fireball,” Harry said as he gazed at the large, life-sized statue of the beautiful Liondragon.
He took a few moments to appreciate the majestic and detailed appearance of the large statue.
“How did it not crumble after so many years?” he muttered when he saw the date sculpted in the statue’s pedestal: 2185 AD. It was 11,939 AD in the present.
If the statue were to be made of bronze, he would understand. Bronze did not rust or erode. It could last forever if left alone. But the statue was made from marble, if the twins’ data were to be believed. Harry was not an expert in the field, but even he knew that spending +9700 years exposed to the elements should have ground that statue to dust.
‘Magic,’ he thought.
It was the only explanation.
Hope bloomed in his heart.
“There is no entrance to the temple. None that we could find,” Devola said.
Harry, too, could see the traces of the digging that the Androids had made around the mountain, but they had been unsuccessful in locating the doorway to the temple, reaching nothing but walls.
Harry took his wand out and said:
“Revelio!”
He had not needed to chant the incantation out loud, but he felt the urge to do so.
A wave of magic pulsed from him, spreading out in a radius of 50 meters around him. The spell did not reveal anything, but he did not give up.
The twins were surprised when Harry Disapparated without them, teleporting 100 meters away.
“Hey, don’t leave us behind!” they whined as they broke into a sprint towards him.
“Try to keep up, girls,” Harry laughed before casting another Revelio Charm at the base of the mountain.
It was after his fifth Apparition and fifth cast of the Revelio Charm when the foot of the mountain started shimmering and the entire slope began glowing with a red light.
Devola and Popola, who had just arrived at his location and were about to give him an earful, froze in their tracks when the verdant mountain slope vanished and a massive, stone double gate seemed to appear out of nowhere.
“How?!”
“Unbelievable!”
Harry ran up the mountain, his breathing laborious not only from tiredness but also from enthusiasm. His heart rate shot up as he sprinted at his fastest speed towards the newly revealed gates. They were over five meters tall and wide, and they seemed to be sculpted out of marble as well. Intricate figures of various magical creatures were carved into the gate’s surface, giving it a beautiful, almost sacred appearance.
“Alohomora!” he said, raising his wand at the doors of the temple.
He felt his magic react, and the spell did go out but it had no effect on the gates. He tried it a second and a third time, but to no avail.
“Girls, can you give me a hand?” he asked the twins as he walked to the gates and tried pushing them with his hands. “You’re a lot stronger than I am.”
Despite their slender and cute appearance, and although they weren’t even battle-type androids, Devola and Popola could still lift and push a few hundred kilograms with relative ease.
The three of them pushed against the gates with all their might, but they could not budge them.
“Maybe they open outwards? Accio! Accio!”
He frowned, feeling like a dog staring at a treat just out of reach.
“Depulso!”
The Banishing Charm slammed into the gates, but then it bounced back straight at him.
“Fuck!” he cried out as his own spell blasted him backwards before he could react, sending him flying off the slope of the mountain.
“Harry!” Devola and Popola cried out in worry, running down the mountain to catch him.
They didn’t make it in time, but whether wizards were made of tougher stuff than muggles or it was just a Harry Potter thing, he did not get seriously injured.
“Are you okay?!”
“Oh, no! You’re bleeding!”
“It’s alright, I’m okay,” Harry said, groaning as he picked himself up from the ground.
Luckily, he hadn’t fallen on his wand or broken it. He hadn’t broken any limbs either. Aside from a bleeding scratch along his right palm, wrist, and forearm, he was mostly fine.
Despite his reassurance, the girls gazed at him worriedly.
“I’m fine, really,” he said with a chuckle as Devola and Popola reached for his arms, ready to support him.
Walking back to the large and heavy marble gates, Harry fruitlessly tried using his meagre physical strength to push them again, too afraid of casting another spell and suffering from it.
To his shock—and Devola's and Popola’s as well—the moment his hand touched the doors, the entire mountain trembled as if struck by an earthquake. With a deep, creaking groan, the massive doors slowly swung open, and a strong, stale gust of dust blasted him in the face, taking his breath away.
“. . .It was the blood!” Harry said, realisation dawning on him.
It was a Blood Ward! He had never seen or interacted with one, but he had heard about it a few times, especially when talks about Gringotts happened in the Common Room.
Waking up in the morning, Harry was greeted by the sight of Devola and Popola sitting on each side of him, on the edge of the bed, their green eyes watching him unblinkingly.
“Good morning!” the two girls said at the same time when he opened his eyes.
Out of habit, he reached for his nightstand to grab his glasses, only to realise a few moments later that he could see perfectly without them. That made him remember the previous day’s events.
“Good morning,” Harry said as he sat up in his bed. “What are you girls doing here?”
“We were watching you sleep. We’ve never seen a human sleep before,” Popola, the twin with straight hair, said smiling.
That answer made him struggle not to groan. He could tell that he was going to have a very long day ahead of him.
“I see… Um, could you give me some privacy, please?”
“Are we bothering you? Sorry, we didn’t mean to,” the other twin, the one with wavy red hair was quick to apologise.
She looked like a kicked puppy. Harry was torn between feeling sorry for them and exasperated.
“It’s not that. It’s just . . .”
He flushed a bit. He didn’t know how to tell them that most human males woke up in the morning with a certain physiological reaction that they couldn’t control.
“Humans need some time when they wake up. It’s called ‘morning rituals’ when we go to the bathroom, wash our faces, and take a shower, maybe. Stuff like that. It’s embarrassing to let other people see it. Wait for me in the living room, okay? I only need a few minutes.”
⁂
Once he was done with his morning rituals, Harry changed into a new set of clothes and came out.
“What will you do now, Harry?” Devola asked him.
“Usually, I have breakfast at this time. Humans can’t live without food.”
The girls followed him into the kitchen and watched with interest how he took out a roasted duck from a cupboard and started cutting its legs, wings, and other parts before separating them into three portions on three separate plates.
“Is this for us?” Devola asked, her mouth watering.
Unlike humans, Androids did not need to eat. It was not necessary for them. Drinking water was the only thing they required. However, they could eat if they wanted to, and they had taste buds and olfactory receptors too.
“Well, we’re the only people here,” he said in amusement.
“Is it truly okay? I assume your reserves of food are finite,” Popola said.
“I can always go hunt something else. If I were a regular human, I might be worried, but with magic, it’s not difficult to get more food. Maybe we’ll go together later on, and I’ll show you.”
The girls didn’t hesitate any more, and after saying their thanks, they all began to eat. He didn’t know whether it really tasted that good or if they were just blinded by the fact that the food was cooked by a human, but the twins wouldn’t stop telling him how good it was with every bite they took.
‘What should I do with them?’
He didn’t have the heart to chase them out, especially after hearing their story and witnessing how they broke down in front of him.
Knowing it was a heavy subject for them, Harry did not bring it up while they were eating.
Once they were finished and they went back to the living room, he grabbed a few pieces of wood and threw them into the fireplace before lighting them on fire with a spell.
It was November now, and his cabin was somewhere in the Alps, in Switzerland. It was winter outside.
Unexpectedly, the girls came to warm themselves up in front of the fire too.
“You can feel the cold?” Harry asked in surprise. As far as he knew, not all androids were sensitive to temperature. At least Reiner, Jim, and the rest were not.
“Yes. We are equipped with sensors that detect temperature,” Devola said.
“Why didn’t you say so? I would have started the fire way sooner.”
“We did not want to impose,” Popola answered, not meeting his eyes.
Harry focused for a few moments before Transfiguring his wooden chair into a sofa wide enough for all three of them. He also Conjured two thick and fluffy blankets and gave one of them to the girls while keeping the other to himself.
“Thank you,” the girls mumbled shyly as they climbed on the sofa and huddled together under the blanket.
He involuntarily smiled. They looked so cute. He knew that they were several centuries old, or maybe even older, but their behaviour and appearance made him think that they were around his age.
Harry sat down on the sofa too, on the other side.
As they waited for the fire to warm up the cabin, Devola spoke:
“We’ve never seen this kind of magic before. What type of calculations are you performing before casting something of this magnitude?”
“Is that how you’re casting your healing magic?” Harry asked with interest.
“Yes. We were programmed with knowledge of the formulas needed to manipulate the maso in the atmosphere,” Popola answered, making a small sphere of light appear in her hand.
“Maso? What is that?”
“It’s a scarce mystical element that exists in nature. Originally, it came from another dimension, from that Giant’s body when it died. But humans discovered that maso existed in our world too and found a method to use it through mathematics and science.”
Harry let out an impressed sound.
“To think that the Muggles would advance so much. . .”
“Muggles?” the girls asked. They had never heard of that word before.
“It’s what we used to call people without magic,” he replied. "Where I come from, only a small percentage of the population could do magic."
“Are there more people like you? Are there any other humans than you, Harry?” Popola asked. “As far as we know, humanity went extinct thousands of years ago, even before the Aliens’ invasion…”
“Aliens, huh?” Harry said, remembering that the broadcast from the Council of Humanity mentioned them too.
“They’re the ones who created the machine lifeforms,” she replied. “They invaded Earth in the year 5012.”
The more he thought about the history of the world, the crazier it all seemed to become. Nonetheless, finding out that Aliens were real had shaken him less than learning about the fact that he might be the last human alive in the world.
“We don’t know why they invaded, but the higher-ups used the Aliens' invasion as the perfect excuse as to why no humans could be found on Earth anymore, covering up what happened in the past. They told all the new Androids that the handful of human survivors retreated on the moon, and they reprogrammed the older Androids models to forget about the humans’ extinction.”
As the temperature in the cabin started rising, they pulled off their blankets, and Harry summoned some bananas from the kitchen.
"But why did they do that? Why are they keeping humans' extinction a secret? Why go to such lengths?" he asked while peeling off his fruit.
Devola and Popola didn't feel like eating at that moment.
“We are Androids. We were created by humans, for humans. This is the purpose of our existence: to serve and protect humans. How many androids would retain their sanity after finding out that the humans are dead? How many would still want to fight against machines? What would be the point? . . . This lie gives them purpose. Sometimes, hope is all we need."
Harry put down his banana too, suddenly losing his appetite.
Unknowingly, the twins had scooted over while they were talking, and Popola tentatively took his hand in hers.
"That's why you are so important to us, Harry. The Androids would love nothing more than to meet you. . . we’ve been fighting this war for so long, for thousands of years, without as much as a glimpse of the humans that we are sacrificing our lives for. Your presence would give everyone hope. You would be our saviour."
Harry pulled his hand out of hers and looked away. This was like the Wizarding World, all over again. Everyone expected him to be the one to save them. But he knew himself better than anyone else.
'I'm no one special. I'm not good enough.'
He didn't have Dumbledore's strength and wisdom. He didn't have Voldemort's talent and intelligence either. He was just a boy who happened to survive the Killing Curse because of his mother's sacrifice.
How did they expect him to save them from Voldemort? And how did the Androids expect a teenager like him to lead them?
Understanding the meaning of his gesture, the girls pulled back, and Popola asked another question:
“How did you survive until now? Are there any other humans alive? Has humanity actually not gone extinct? Is the Council of Humanity, in fact, not lying about there being humans on the moon?"
Harry considered his options. After thinking for a few moments, he decided to go with the truth.
“I'm sorry. I don’t know about any other people. I don't know about the moon either; I’ve never been there. . . I don’t. . . I’m not even from this timeline. I was born in 1980, nearly 10,000 years ago.”
They looked at him wide-eyed, as though they could not believe their ears.
“I promise you I’m not lying. I have no reason to. I'd gladly let someone else be the 'hope of the androids' if I could,” Harry said. “I’m not sure how I got here. It was an accident. A time-turner, a magical artefact, exploded, and I got caught in it. I arrived in this time period only 1 year and 5 months ago. . .”
He told them about how hard it was for him in the first six months as a 15-year-old boy who suddenly found himself 10,000 years in the future, all alone, in a post-apocalyptic world. How afraid he had been, and how he had almost lost himself to loneliness and despair. He also told them how he had teleported all over the European continent, searching for human settlements.
“Frankly, I don’t know how I got through all that,” he confessed.
It was his first true, sincere conversation with another person ever since he travelled in time. Only now did he realise just how much he had needed that—for someone to care, to listen, to let him speak freely about his inner struggles and fears.
“Why did you try to run from us?” Devola asked. “Why did you try to disappear?”
After getting to know them, and now that he understood just how much his mere existence meant for the two girls, Harry thought carefully about the answer he gave them.
“I was scared. . . I still am. The last time a group of androids found out I was a human, they acted as though they had seen god. . . I don’t want to be seen as some sort of god. I don’t want to be worshipped. I don’t want to live that sort of life. . . I’m just a bloke. All I want is a normal life. And I don’t think I’m better than you in any way.”
“That can’t be true!”
“That’s right, you’re a human! You created us! If you came back with us to Memory Hold-”
"I didn’t create you, Popola. I come from a time when robots as advanced as androids or machines were nothing more than fiction. I’ve never even used a computer. I was just an ordinary guy, one among millions."
But the twins weren’t easily convinced.
"It would still be safer for you to return to Memory Hold. You never know when the machines might find this place. If you go back, you'll be protected. You’ll never miss a thing again. Whatever you desire, all you’d have to do is ask. There would be no greater joy for the Androids than seeing that you exist."
Harry shook his head.
"All I want is a normal life… and companionship. I don’t want to lead. I don’t want to be worshipped. I’d rather stay here, with you two, than go to Memory Hold and tell everyone that I’m human."
He didn’t fully grasp the weight of his words until he saw how flustered Devola and Popola became. His face started getting warmer too, and it wasn’t because of the fire in the hearth.
⁂
Evening came, and Harry found himself spending yet another night together with the twin androids.
He had not been comfortable with the idea of sharing the same space with two girls that he had just met, but the argument they had given him had defeated any objections he might have had:
“If we returned to Memory Hold, the other Androids would stop at nothing to find the truth. They would hack our memory chip, and they would find your location right away.”
Considering the rumours circulating about him and the fact that he had vanished together with Devola and Popola in front of several dozen Androids, he couldn’t find any retorts to that.
It would be quite a hassle for him to move to another place and build himself another home, but it was doable. If he truly wanted to, he could disappear, and the girls and the rest of the androids would never find him again.
But he did not want that. Although androids weren’t human, he still needed them. He needed human interaction with other people. He couldn’t live all alone.
‘Maybe it’s not that bad after all,’ he thought to himself after getting into his bed.
It would take some time to get used to living together with another person in the same space once again, but he was not that affected by it. If anything, it reminded him of his time at Hogwarts, in the Gryffindor dorm.
‘Besides, I’d hate myself to abandon them now.’
He was no stranger to the feeling of guilt that the girls had experienced or to the despair and loneliness that the two of them felt.
‘I was just like them after Cedric died.’
He had blamed himself for taking the Cup together with Cedric. Many times he had beaten himself up over it. Cedric’s death had haunted him for months.
‘I didn’t have anyone back then.’
The end of his fourth year had been the most terrible time of his life.
Cedric was murdered in front of his eyes, and after that, he was tied to a statue; he watched his mortal enemy resurrect; he was tortured with the Cruciatus Curse, and he saw the ghosts of his parents while he fought for his life against the Dark Lord—all that while he was just 14. Moreover, a few months later, the Ministry of Magic sent two Dementors to kill him.
But right when he needed other people’s support the most, when he needed to talk about his trauma and receive counselling, his friends, Dumbledore, and even Sirius had all kept him isolated at the Dursleys. He had been left alone to stew in his own trauma, nightmares, and suffering.
A new resolve was born into his heart.
‘I’ll be for them the friend I wish I had three years ago.’
⁂
Starting with the following day, Harry no longer tried to convince Devola and Popola to return to Memory Hold.
Instead, while the girls were still asleep, he woke up, put on his thickest winter clothes, and went out. Due to Earth being tidally locked, although it was very early in the morning, in November, the sky was as bright as in the middle of the day.
As he walked through the forest, Harry kept his wand in hand at all times, casting a mental Animal Presence Revealing Spell every 15 to 20 seconds. Living in this wild, post-apocalyptic world all alone had made him more cautious than he used to be in the past.
Thanks to how many times he had used this spell lately, Harry had mastered it to perfection and even improved it: not only had he extended its range to well over 50 meters around him, but he had also changed it so that it would only reveal animals larger than a house cat.
Alternating between casting the revealing charm and Cutting Charms, Harry began to work on felling pine trees that could be used to extend his cabin. If the twins were to live in the same house as him, they would need their personal room.
Modifying his house for the sake of two girls that he had met only yesterday would have been unthinkable for him and most people in his original time. Nobody was that whimsical.
However, things were different in the present. He was ten thousand years in the future, and he was the last human left alive in this world. He did not have school, homework, a job, social obligations, or any sort of responsibilities.
Although breaking down one of the cabin’s walls, extending the foundation and the roof of the house, and building a new room were going to be difficult work even with his magic, Harry welcomed it. It would give him an occupation, a purpose. Humans, especially men, need a goal; they need something to keep them busy in their lives.
⁂
Devola and Popola were sleeping in each other’s arms like they always did when a sudden tremor shook them awake. One more tremor made the entire cabin shake again, and the two girls jumped out of bed.
“Did the machines find this place?”
“We have to get to Harry!”
Swords appeared in each of the two girls’ right hands out of thin air, and they ran out of the bedroom.
“Harry!”
“Harry! Where are you?”
They called out his name as they searched for him in the kitchen, bathroom, and living room, but they didn’t receive an answer.
Thinking that he was outside, fighting the machines all alone, the twins rushed out as well.
However, the sight that greeted their eyes was not that of Harry fighting a horde of machines. They stopped in their tracks, stunned at the sight of him levitating thick and tall tree trunks with his wand.
“Hey, good morning!” Harry greeted them merrily when they came out of the cabin. But when he noticed the long, Japanese-looking swords in their hands, he asked, “What’s with the swords?”
“We were woken up by a tremor. We thought that the machines attacked,” said Devola.
“Thank goodness you’re alright!” Popola also said.
Harry grinned.
“Of course I am. There are no machines for hundreds of kilometres around us.”
“What are you doing with those trees?” Popola asked.
After making her sword disappear into thin air, she crossed her arms to her chest and tucked her chin into her shoulders, shivering from the cold.
Harry stopped stacking the tree trunks that he had felled and ushered the girls inside:
“Let’s talk inside. It’s freezing out here.”
“We can wait until you finish,” Devola said.
“It’s alright. The trees aren’t going anywhere.”
Once they were back in the cabin, Harry waved his wand over himself, Vanishing the snow off his clothes, and hung his coat on the rack by the door.
Before arriving in the future, he used to take these small, seemingly insignificant things, such as having shelter and warmth, for granted. However, after spending half a year sleeping wherever he could in the wilderness, Harry gained a new appreciation for the smaller, less obvious things in life.
He tossed a couple of logs in the hearth and chanted a mental Incendio to light them on fire. The crackling of burning wood in the fireplace and the warmth coming from it made him smile.
Devola and Popola noticed Harry’s unusually good mood, and before they knew it, they were smiling along with him.
“Did something good happen?” the wavy-haired girl asked.
“Mhm,” Harry nodded, his excitement evident. “I’m going to modify the cabin.”
Popola tilted her head, her ruler-straight red hair falling on her shoulder. “So that’s why you brought those trees? What are you going to change?”
“Well, you both said you didn’t want to leave, didn’t you?”
The twins froze, their eyes widening.
“You don’t mean—”
Harry chuckled softly at their stunned expressions. “If you’re going to live here, you’ll need your own room and a private bathroom, won’t you?”
Despite his initial reticence, Harry was surprised at his own growing enthusiasm. Now, he understood what Robinson Crusoe must have felt like when he finally got a comrade, another person to share his living space with on the uninhabited island.
Robinson Crusoe’s need for companionship had been so great that he even accepted a cannibalistic, savage man into his home. Before they became close, he had gone as far as to barricade himself in fear of Friday killing him in his sleep, but Robinson Crusoe still did not chase him away.
‘Compared to him, I’m having it so much better.’
Not only was Harry a wizard, but his companions would not be savage cannibals who didn’t even speak his language, but two kind, pretty, and soft-spoken girls. Compared to Robinson Crusoe, Harry considered himself blessed.
“No, Harry, you don’t have to go out of your way for us! We can sleep in the living room!” Popola protested, and Devola was quick to support her sister too: “Popola is right! We can’t make you do something like this for us!”
“I know I don’t have to, but I want to,” he said simply.
He placed a few more logs into the fireplace and then stood up and turned to look at them.
Before the time-travelling accident, Harry had not known how to comfort Cho Chang when she cried on his shoulder. His first relationship—if it could even be called that—had been a wreck. Harry’s experience with girls was abysmal, so he didn’t try to charm Devola and Popola with sweet talk.
Instead, he spoke sincerely, from the heart, telling them the words that he would have wished to hear if he had been in their place.
“I don’t want to treat you in the same way that the other androids treated you. If you’re going to live with me, I want to treat you right. Devola, Popola… you didn’t deserve all the suffering the other androids had put you through until now.”
Seeing their eyes filling with tears, in a move that surprised not only the girls but also himself, Harry took their hands in his and held them gently.
“You don’t have to atone for anything. You did nothing wrong. So promise me that you won’t put yourselves down anymore. . . You aren’t inferior to me or any other androids. You deserve to be happy too. You also deserve to be cared for and comforted. You’ve taken care of so many androids until now and healed all their wounds. . . So let me take care of you now.”
It was as though he knew exactly what words they needed to hear. Outside of their own volition, tears started rolling down their cheeks.
“Come here,” he murmured as he pulled their hands gently towards him.
That was all the encouragement that Devola and Popola needed to throw themselves into his arms. An Android’s physical strength was no joke, and Harry grunted as they knocked the breath out of him when they collided against him, but he didn’t say a word of reproach.
“It’s alright to cry. Let it all out. Cry as much as you want,” he said gently as he caressed the back of their heads. “From now on, I’ll be here for you.”
It was the first time anyone had ever told them a word of comfort. It was the first time someone told them they mattered. It was the first time someone embraced them. They clung to him as if he were their lifeline, sobbing loudly, with their faces buried in his chest.
⁂
Days passed, and with his magic and Devola’s and Popola’s help, two new rooms were added to the cabin seamlessly. But that wasn’t all. Harry also Conjured and Transfigured anything they needed. Furniture, clothes, shoes, bedsheets, additional plates and cutlery, and anything that the girls had asked for once they realised that Harry’s magic could create most things out of thin air, at no cost.
Two weeks later, their work finally came to an end. As the three of them stood outside the cabin, admiring their handiwork, Devola and Popola suddenly linked their arms with him and pressed their shoulders against him, sandwiching him between them.
The girls smiled brightly when he looked at them in surprise, but he did not try to shake them off. The twins’ disposition was a far cry compared to the first day Harry met them. Their perpetually gloomy and apologetic expressions had been replaced by a look of joy and a bright smile.
“What name should we give it?” Harry asked.
“Name?”
“You mean for the cabin?”
“Yes. Back in my time, some wizarding families liked to give their homes a name. For example, my best friend’s family named their home ‘the Burrow’. We should give our cabin a name too.”
“Well, it was mostly your work, was it not? You should name it,” Popola said.
“I want to hear your opinions first.”
Devola and Popola went through their memories and all the data they had collected about humans as they thought of a fitting name.
“How about Elysium? According to our data, it was the name of the afterlife in a very old religion from 12,000 years ago.”
“Hm. Sounds a little too fancy.”
“Then, what about Avalon?” Popola suggested.
“That’s exactly the same!” Harry laughed, and the girls giggled too.
The twins kept coming up with a bunch of new names, such as “Arcadia”, “Eden’s Rest”, “Starveil”, and Harry found himself becoming embarrassed inwardly because all their suggestions were, in one way or another, alluding to paradise.
“I think it should be something more homely. Something that makes you think of warmth, comfort, and cosiness,” he said.
Devola and Popola brought a slender finger to their chins, unknowingly mirroring each other’s posture as they fell deep in thought.
“How about-” Popola began before she and her sister spoke at once: “- the Hearth!”
“It makes me think of the first time we sat by the fire together in your cabin,” Devola said.
“Yes,” Popola nodded in support. “It was warm, cosy. . . it’s also the place where-”
Popola trailed off, her pale face taking on a rosy tint.
“It’s where we were embraced by someone for the first time,” Devola completed her sister’s words.
Embarrassed, she quickly looked the other way, her turned head and wavy hair hiding her face from his eyes.
“The Hearth sounds great,” Harry muttered, trying, and failing, not to show how flustered he was by their confession.
The twins' hold on his arms tightened, and they laid their heads on his shoulders. He was not exactly sure when it started, but Devola and Popola became increasingly affectionate towards him with every passing day.
It started off with sitting close to him on the sofa as they basked in the warmth coming from the fireplace, but then it progressed to fleeting touches, holding his hand briefly in some special moments, to linking their arms with him and hugging his side.
Cho Chang had never been affectionate with him that way, and neither had Hermione, especially since she and Ron seemed to have a weird thing going between the two of them lately. Due to his lack of experience, he was not sure how to react to their behaviour.
However, to say that he disliked their closeness would be a lie. He was just a 17-year-old boy, and the two redheads were so pretty that he often felt his heart lurch whenever they smiled at him.
“Soon, we will have to start decorating for Christmas.”
“Christmas?” Devola asked, only for her expression to change into one of excitement once she processed what he was referring to.
“Is it that holiday that humans used to celebrate in December?” Popola also asked in an enthusiastic voice.
“Is it true that humans used to have feasts and parties?”
“Did they adorn a tall coniferous tree with glittering ornaments?”
Harry smiled for what had to have been the fortieth time that day. Their enthusiasm and joy were contagious.
“Yes, all of that is true. You should’ve seen the Christmas trees we used to have at Hogwarts. We even had living fairies as ornaments. You know the tiny, winged, beautiful girls from fairy tales? Those were real.”
Devola and Popola exchanged a look and smiled at each other. They had noticed how much Harry seemed to love the Wizarding World and Hogwarts, the boarding school he used to live at. He told them stories about them all the time.
“Come to think of it, I haven’t encountered even one magical creature since my accidental time travel. . . I arrived in this time period a year and a half ago, but I haven’t seen so much as a bowtruckle or a kneazle. Do you know anything about them?”
Devola and Popola shook their heads.
“I’m sorry, Harry, as far as I know, there are no records of the creatures you’re talking about.”
“What about Dragons? Species like the Hungarian Horntail, Chinese Fireball, Common Welsh Green?”
“The only Dragons we know of are from another dimension, and they are all dead.”
“Then what about Phoenixes? They’re immortal. Just like in the myths, they are birds of fire that resurrect from their own ashes. Or maybe you’ve heard about Thunderbirds? Enormous birds that can control the weather and cause thunderclaps when flying?”
The twins shook their heads once more.
“I’m sorry we can’t be of help,” Popola apologised.
“I don’t remember reading anything about those creatures. . . but we don’t possess all the data either. Maybe we could go to the data centre in Memory Hold and search for more information,” Devola suggested.
“But how would we get in without being discovered?” Popola asked.
A mischievous look appeared on Harry's face, and, freeing his hand from Popola’s grasp, he took out his wand and cast a silent spell at her hair.
Popola’s ruler-straight, shoulder-length, crimson-red hair suddenly transformed into a green mohawk that defied gravity.
It looked so ridiculous on her sister that Devola instantly burst into laughter.
But then, it was Popola’s turn to laugh when Devola’s wavy red hair became blue and spiky, standing in all directions, as though she had been electrocuted.
To make things fair, he also pointed his wand at his face, turning his nose into a pig’s snout and making oinking sounds.
“I can change our appearance like this,” Harry said when they stopped laughing and reverted the Transfiguration spells he had cast.
“This could work,” Devola said. “As long as someone doesn’t try to scan us in-depth or hack us, we should be able to pass off as different people.”
“You sound excited,” Harry noted.
The girls glanced at each other, seemingly communicating through their eyes, before turning to look at him.
“You have no idea!” they replied at the same time.
⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂
AN: As I promised at the start of the fic, this story will be primarily about giving the Nier characters I loved a happier life. Devola and Popola are some of the most tragic characters in Nier. They deserved so much better than what they got in the canon. I will do my best to change that here.
Devola (wavy hair) and Popola (straight hair) pic repost:
“You made a big mistake, chumps. Nobody messes with the Verdant Skulls and gets to see the next day,” one of the Gordanians on the flying bikes said as he took out a big baton crackling with electricity.
“We’re gonna make an example out of you losers so that the whole city will know not to fuck with us. Don’t worry, we won’t kill you. You’ll fetch good money on the slave market, especially those two bitches.”
The Gordanians’ cruelty was infamous all over the galaxy. The vast majority of them were slave traders, working closely with the Psions and the Citadel Empire of the Vega System. Those who were not slave traders were generally guns for hire, space pirates, or gangsters. They were like a plague wherever they went.
A sudden spike of rage and hatred burst from the cloak-wearing woman next to him. It had been so abrupt, and the intensity of her emotions was so high that Naruto involuntarily looked at her, inwardly startled.
The street under the cloaked woman’s feet cracked as she jumped, throwing herself at the one who appeared to be the leader of the Gordanians.
A sickening sound was heard, and the lizardman’s head exploded in a shower of bones and flesh, and blood started bursting from his headless corpse like a geyser.
The cloak covering the woman started burning, turning into ash, and revealing the appearance she had tried to keep secret.
It was none other than Koriand’r, the Warworld gladiator. As her anger exploded, so did the intensity of her fire. Her long red hair seemed to catch on fire, and her green eyes glowed with solar radiation.
Two rays of deadly heat burst from her eyes, and she turned her head, incinerating every single lizardman she laid her eyes on.
“Kill her!” the rest of the gangsters shouted, and they aimed their plasma blasters at her.
Unlike the Gordanians working with the Psions or with the Citadel, the Verdant Skull were just a bunch of thugs; they had not received formal, specialised training, so they were poor shots with their blasters. But Koriand’r didn’t dare underestimate them, and she flew off, using other Gordanians as cover. She flew in their midst, killing them one at a time, and making it hard for them to shoot their plasma weapons at her in fear of wounding their fellow members of the gang.
Unlike the Tamaranean gladiator who went on a killing spree, Naruto did not lose his cool. The Gordanians were firing their laser rifles with wild abandon, not caring about the hundreds of innocent bystanders below or the insane amount of property damage they were causing. He had to do something about that first.
He quickly went through a series of hand seals, and his chest inflated beyond what should be possible for normal humans.
An enormous whirlwind burst from his mouth, and it wasn’t only the Gordanians who were caught in it, but the red-haired woman too.
A few seconds later, the whirlwind died out, and they were all dropped together with their flying bikes into the middle of an abandoned industrial area. Due to his shadow clones’ investigation while searching for a way to buy a spaceship (before unsealing Kyuubi), Naruto was familiar with the layout of Warbastion, the capital of Warworld.
Once a highly advanced and prosperous planet-sized spaceship, Warworld ended up in a state of neglect and disrepair after Mongul took control of it. The population was starving and turned to crime to survive, and Warbastion’s numerous factories had been abandoned, left to rot.
With that being said, no innocent bystanders were going to become casualties of their fight there.
Despite the wind vortex having caught her together with the lizardmen, Koriand’r was the first to regain her bearings, and she took full advantage of their momentary helplessness.
The Gordanians were sprawled all over the empty streets and abandoned buildings, struggling to shake off the dizziness and stand up, when Koriand’r's hands lit up with her starbolts.
As was the nature of her powers, the more intense her emotions, the stronger her abilities. She started throwing a dozen starbolts per second, melting their flesh and bones on contact and setting everything else ablaze.
Had the lizardmen known who they were up against from the start, they would have never dared to initiate an attack. Because that was what many thugs and criminals were like in general: strong against the weak and cowardly in front of the strong. However, once the Fire Princess' cloak burnt off and they recognised her identity, it was too late for them to back down.
A bunch of thugs got on their bikes and tried to fly away, but Naruto quickly went through three hand seals:
“Futon: Shinkugyoku!”
Invisible vacuum bullets were spat from his mouth, and the fleeing lizardmen were sniped down with deadly accuracy, all of them plunging towards the ground with fist-sized holes in the back of their skulls.
In close-quarters combat, the Tamaranean girl was burning them alive or punching holes in their bodies with her fists, and if they tried to flee, the human ‘magician’ would snipe them down with this wind magic.
It was pandemonium.
Pushed to the limit and on the verge of death, the Gordanians’ eyes turned blood red, and they roared as they charged madly at Koriand’r and Naruto. If they were going to die either way, they would at least drag them both with them to their grave!
Alas, the Verdant Skulls were punching above their weight class. Their enemies were on an entirely different level. One was a Kage-level shinobi and the former General of the Apokolips military, while the other was a former princess of Tamaran, trained by the Warlords of Okaara, and an undefeated gladiator in Warworld’s arena. From the beginning, they never stood a chance.
Most of the lizardmen charged at Koriand’r, viewing her as more dangerous than Naruto, but the young woman wasn’t struggling with even more than ten of them attacking her at once.
She dodged their plasma bullets, blocked their melee attacks with her bracers, and melted their heads off with her starbolts.
Naruto was relegated to little more than a spectator as he watched how the redhead killed them mercilessly.
Minutes later, only smouldering craters, melted metal, and the smell of burning corpses were left as several dozen lizardmen lay on the ground dead, their appearance unrecognisable.
After a few moments, the girl’s laborious breathing evened out, and the tension in her shoulders disappeared.
Flying above the ground to avoid stepping on the lizards’ charred and mutilated corpses, she landed in front of Naruto.
Standing face-to-face with her, he was forced to look up to meet her eyes. She was half a head taller than him.
‘Makes me think of Big Barda and the Furies,' he thought inwardly.
They, too, were very tall and athletic women, skilled in the art of war.
“Your help was invaluable. Thank you for taking us away from the civilians and assisting me in battle. I am Koriand’r, from Tamaran.”
As if she hadn’t just brutally killed a few dozen thugs, the red-haired girl smiled sweetly at him and raised her hand to shake his.
“Starfire?” he said when he heard the translation his device gave for her name. “A fitting name. It’s nice to meet you.”
The girl looked like she wanted to talk more with him, but a group of 20 flying robots flew down from the sky and encircled them.
“Koriand’r of Tamaran. As per Great Mongul’s orders, you are to return to your quarters immediately.”
Seeing Naruto tensing up and looking as though he was going to attack them, Starfire put a hand on his forearm, stopping him.
“No, don’t attack them. . . I have to go with them.”
Naruto looked at her in confusion. His Negative Emotions Sensing ability was telling him that she wasn’t happy. Regret and a sense of helplessness radiated from her.
“You’re fighting in the arena out of your own volition?” he asked. “Didn’t look like that to me. They tortured you when you refused to kill Draga.”
Starfire blinked at him in surprise: “So you did recognise me after all!”
“Of course I did. You’re hardly forgettable.”
His compliment made her smile.
“Most people react visibly when they see me, so I thought you probably didn’t know who I was. I am glad to hear that you find me memorable.”
Their little conversation came to an end when the robots raised their plasma cannons.
“We could take them,” Naruto said in a quiet voice. “I could destroy all these chunks of metal in seconds.”
Starfire shook her head.
“Killing these robots will not do any good,” she said with a hollow smile.
She turned around and moved her long red hair out of the way, exposing the back of her neck to him.
“There is a chromium alloy chip implanted in the back of my neck. . . all that Mongul needs to do is push a button, and I will have two hundred million volts coursing through my body. . . or he could decide to detonate. My life is in the palm of his hand. . . I have no choice but to obey.”
He narrowed his eyes, anger rising within him. But Starfire left his side, walking towards the robots.
“I am ready to go,” she told them.
Turning to look at him one more time, she waved at him and smiled.
“We could meet again one day. I will come to that tavern every time they allow me. . . Will I find you there?”
“I don’t know for how long I’ll stay on Warworld,” he said honestly. “But I’ll go have dinner at that tavern every day until the day I leave.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
The smile she showed him at that moment could light up an entire city.
“I hope to see you again. I hope that we can become friends.”
Leaving those words behind, Starfire allowed the robots to take her away.
⁂
Days passed, and Naruto found himself looking forward to his encounters with Starfire more than he could have imagined. She could not come every day; Mongul allowed her to visit the city only when she put on a particularly spectacular performance in the arena. But Naruto waited for her at that tavern every day, in the evening, sometimes even four or five hours at a time.
At a time in his life when he contemplated ending it all and wondered if there was any point in him to keep on living, Starfire's presence was like a ray of sun.
He was startled himself by how much their meetings meant to him. Was it because of how attractive she was? If mere beauty was enough to catch his interest, Naruto would not have turned down Darkseid's Furies when they tried to sleep with him.
But Starfire was different from the Furies.
'Kara too. . .' he thought, a melancholic look surfacing on his face. 'I wonder, how is she doing? Is she alright?'
The last thing he knew about her was that her family and friends came to rescue her from Apokolips.
Many times, he could not help thinking about the petite blonde girl and what they used to have. It had not been a long relationship, but the few weeks he had spent with Kara Zor-El had been the happiest time of his life.
'Were my feelings for her real? Were her own feelings for me real too? Or was everything fabricated by Darkseid, who wanted to have a servant that had both Kryptonian and Shinobi DNA?'
Maybe he could go to Earth one day and ask Kara those questions himself. But then, he snorted in self-deprecation and shook his head, trying to banish those thoughts.
'That's probably the last thing she needs. If I went to see her now, I'd be nothing but a reminder of the pain she endured on Apokolips.'
He had caused enough suffering to other people as it was. He did not want to add more on top of that pile. He laughed again, a quiet chuckle, filled with self-loathing.
'Do I even need her to say it? It’s obvious what she would tell me. Who would love someone like me after everything I've done?'
⁂
Due to not using the Henged appearance from before ever again, the tavern owner and his daughter did not know that he had been the one to save them, but his daily appearances at the tavern and the significant amount of money he spent there every time quickly made them recognise him and treat him as a special guest. They reserved a table for him every evening and also cooked his food before he arrived, knowing what dishes he liked.
Fortunately, today happened to be a day when Starfire was allowed to visit the city. Seeing her tall silhouette entering through the door, Naruto smiled.
It was only their fifth meeting so far, but, before he could even say a word of greeting, Starfire flew at him and, irrespective of the other customers' stares, she threw her arms around him.
"My dear friend, I have missed you!" she said in a voice filled with joy, squeezing his body in a back-breaking hug.
It was the type of embrace that would have hospitalised a regular man, but Naruto returned her hug just as tightly.
And just like that, the thoughts of self-loathing and gloom from before vanished from his mind. It was simply impossible for him to be depressed when she was around.
Their dinner at the tavern did not last long. Both of them were fast eaters, and the tavern was just a meeting point for them. They preferred to spend their time walking or flying without being wary of others listening in on their conversation.
Now, they were back to the abandoned industrial area where they had fought together for the first time. Warbastion, the capital city of Warworld, did not have any green spaces or nature. And Starfire wasn’t allowed by Mongul to leave the premises of the city either.
The dreary and abandoned factories were the only place where they could be alone. But they didn’t mind it all that much.
“It is so exhausting to pretend that I’m weak to make the fights exciting for the audience. . . but when I think that it’s for the sake of being allowed to see you, I gain the strength to endure it,” Starfire said.
Her warm, airy voice and the way she said such things with a straight face often embarrassed Naruto. But, secretly, his heart couldn’t help fluttering.
“I’m happy to see you too . . . spending time with you is the only thing that keeps me going these days,” he confessed.
Due to her orange skin, it was not easy to see, but Starfire’s cheeks reddened at his words.
“Surely, you are joking. You are free. You can do anything you want. Go wherever you want. Eat whatever foods you desire. And with your strength, there are not many who would pose a threat to you. Come to think of it, you have not told me anything about yourself. I would love to get to know you better!”
Naruto sat down next to her, so close that their shoulders were almost touching.
“I would rather not talk about it,” he murmured. “My life. . . it’s not something that I’m proud of.”
“Come on, tell me. I promise not to judge!” she whined and pushed her shoulder against him lightly.
“Maybe I’ll tell you someday after we get out of here,” he said, chuckling at her behaviour.
“Aww, don’t be like that. I told you about my past, did I not?”
Their fight against the Verdant Skulls took place less than a month ago, and this was only their fifth meeting, but the girl had already opened her heart to him and told him about her past hardships.
Starfire used to be a princess from Tamaran, the next in line to the throne of the planet. From a very frail age, her parents sent her to be trained by the Warlords of Okaara, the greatest warriors and fighters from the Vega System, as was the royal family's tradition.
But her elder sister, Komand'r, was envious of her talent and martial prowess and of the fact that Starfire would one day become the queen of Tamaran instead of her. So she conspired against her. Blackfire sold the secrets of Tamaran’s defence to the Citadel Empire, which proceeded to invade the planet.
Tamaran was conquered in a matter of days and forced to become a vassal of the Citadel. Blackfire exiled her parents, the king and the queen, and took the crown for herself. As for her younger sister, Blackfire sold her to the Psions.
For the next six years, the Starfire endured inhumane experiments at the hands of those mad scientists who tortured her and broke the limits of her body again and again. . . until she gained her solar powers. She broke out from the laboratory they were keeping her imprisoned in and killed dozens of Psions in a rage before escaping.
“You told me how you escaped, but you didn’t tell me how you ended up being captured by Mongul," Naruto changed the subject. “How did you end up on Warworld?”
A bummed-out expression appeared on her face.
“I fell into a trap. . . Have you heard about the Liberator?” she asked.
“Who?” he asked, a bad feeling creeping up in his heart.
“The General from Apokolips,” Starfire explained. “One of the most feared men in the universe.”
Naruto’s stomach twisted uncomfortably. He had not told Starfire anything about his past, about what he had done, or about who he really was. He was afraid that the moment she found out his identity, those green eyes that glimmered with joy whenever she looked at him would be filled with anger, fear, and hatred instead.
He knew that the truth would come out at some point and that, sooner or later, the girl would learn of his identity. But he couldn't bear to let her know about it now. He could not bear to give up on these beautiful moments with her. He wanted to enjoy her company just a bit longer.
“Oh, that guy. I think I’ve heard of him once or twice,” he said vaguely.
“You see, after escaping from the Psions, I joined the Omega Men. They’re a group of freedom fighters from the Vega System. Our purpose was to protect the innocent and defeat the Citadel Empire one day. . . but things didn’t work out that well for me.”
As he listened quietly to her tale, Starfire continued:
“A few months ago, the Liberator and his army invaded the Psions’ homeworld and massacred most of them. It was one of the most joyous moments in the history of the Vega System, one that I and many other people will celebrate for many years!”
Her words made Naruto swallow the node that had appeared in his neck. He had never thought about his deeds from that perspective. He had never truly sat and considered the fact that maybe not all his past deeds had been evil.
“Unfortunately, some Psions did escape. Although their nation and government were destroyed, the Psions had colonies and external bases over the entire Vega System.”
The green light in Starfire’s eyes shone brighter as her emotions of anger intensified.
“I could not miss out on that chance. Now, when their army and planetary defences were destroyed, it was the best opportunity to wipe them all out for good. As such, I made it my personal mission to hunt them all down. The Psions should never be allowed to regroup and continue their heinous experiments on innocent people. . . I did not want anyone else to suffer like I did,” Starfire said, clenching her fists.
Feeling her emotions through his sensory ability, Naruto placed his hand on top of her clenched fist.
The negativity within her vanished almost instantly as the girl looked down at their hands and then glanced up at him shyly. His hand was rough and just as filled with calluses as her hands were from a lifetime of wielding weapons, but Starfire felt an untold measure of comfort from his touch.
“What happened next?” he asked.
Soothed by his display of affection, Starfire slowly intertwined her fingers with his, unknowingly locking them in a lover’s hold. Seemingly unaware of the intimacy of her gesture, she glanced at him with a smile that left Naruto speechless, his heart pounding in his chest.
Still holding his hand intimately, Starfire resumed her tale as though she did not know how greatly her actions were affecting him, as though her enhanced sense of hearing could not hear the hammering sound of his heartbeats.
“Things went well for a while. I tracked down and killed 17 Psions who had escaped from the Liberator and his army. I killed them, destroyed their laboratories, and freed all their prisoners. I was on my way to hunt down my 18th target, but that turned out to be a trap. This Psion had made a contract with Mongul, seeking his protection in exchange for offering his skills as a scientist. When I arrived at his secret laboratory, the Psion I had been chasing was not there. Instead, a gas bomb was detonated, and once I was weakened, Mongul’s army overwhelmed me.”
“Since then, I have been forced to fight in the arena. Every day is the same here. . . waking up, being thrown into battle, fighting for my life, and then being tortured if I refuse to kill my opponent.”
A moment of silence followed.
“I always wanted to ask you, Kori, how do you stay so chipper? How can you still smile after everything that happened to you? How have you not lost all hope?”
Her situation resonated with him. Whereas he had been enslaved and brainwashed by Darkseid, Starfire was captured and tortured by Mongul, who was forcing her to fight in Warworld’s arena by threatening to detonate the implanted chip in the back of her neck.
However, while he was lost, filled with guilt, and had no hope for the future, even contemplating putting an end to his life, Starfire was still smiling. She still had hope that better days would come.
His question made her squeeze his hand comfortingly.
“It’s when we are at our lowest that we have to hold onto hope.”
Sometimes, the girl sounded like a cute and oblivious airhead, but other times, like in the present, she sounded wise beyond her years.
She looked vacantly at the ruined scenery of the abandoned industrial area, staring into empty space.
“It was not easy for me either. From the princess of a planet who had everything she could have ever wanted, I became a living experiment, and now a gladiator. But our lives aren’t a straight line. Sometimes we fall. Sometimes we hurt. But better times will come too, as long as we are strong enough to endure.”
Starfire turned to look at him.
“I don’t want my life to amount only to this. I wish to free my planet from Blackfire and the Citadel. I wish to travel the Universe. I want to make many friends. . . and I wish to find love one day and go out on dates. There are so many things I want to do. . . so I endure.”
“Warworld is even more terrible than the experiments I endured at the hands of the Psions. . . But I was not wrong to hold onto hope. I was not wrong not to give up because look, even here, in the darkest moment of my life, I actually met you,” she said, her bright smile contrasting with the heavy subject of their conversation.
“Because of you, my life became brighter. Now, every morning when I wake up, my mind goes to you, my precious friend. Every day, I cannot wait to see you. And even when I’m in the arena, fighting for my life, I—”
As she spoke, Naruto raised his hand, gently cupping her face. Her words died in her throat as his thumb caressed her cheek tenderly. In that moment, the oblivious girl finally realised just how close they were too. Breath hitching, Starfire’s face turned a lovely shade of red, and her mouth half opened in surprise, unknowingly drawing his eyes to her lips—those full, glistening red lips that begged to be touched and kissed—and Naruto could no longer hold back the desire and longing he felt for her.
His face leaned in slowly to hers, giving her the chance to pull away, but Starfire remained still, and Naruto pressed a soft, chaste kiss on her lips.
A few seconds later, he pulled back, smiling as he caressed her cheek.
She appeared to be frozen from surprise, but it was only for a moment. Mirroring his actions, Starfire reached up to him and cupped his face with her hand too, caressing his cheek with just as much tenderness as he was doing to her.
Their lips met again, and it was nothing like their first kiss. Despite her inexperience, Starfire instinctively tilted her head, deepening their kiss. Her lips moved against his earnestly, her actions growing fervent as she tasted him.
A muffled moan of surprise came from her when his tongue slipped through her parted lips. Heat pooled in her stomach, and a shiver ran down her spine, and suddenly, what they were doing was no longer enough. She wanted- no, she needed more.
Starfire straddled his thighs and wrapped her arms around his neck, mewling in pleasure as she melted into him. As she climbed on top of him and embraced him with all her might, Naruto lost himself in that pleasurable intimacy too.
She tasted so sweet, her lips were so plush and soft, and her body was so warm that he could not get enough of her. She whimpered when his hands came to embrace her svelte waist, and she started kissing him even more passionately than before.
The princess’s long, flaming red hair fell around them like a curtain, and the outside world ceased to exist for him. Momentarily, he forgot all about Darkseid, about Apokolips, about his guilt, about his self-loathing. Everything disappeared except for her.
⁂
All good things come to an end eventually, and so did their kiss too. After pulling away from their lip lock, they did not let go of each other. He wrapped his arms around her waist, and Starfire laid her head on his shoulder as they basked in the afterglow of their intimate kisses.
“I’m going to take you away from here,” he said. “I promise you, Kori. I will find a way to remove that thing off your neck. And Mongul will pay for everything he has done to you.”
She raised her head from his shoulder to glance at him.
“Killing Mongul will not be enough. The Psion that I had been pursuing lives somewhere on Warworld too. I am certain that he has a second remote that could explode the chip in my neck.”
Naruto nodded.
“Yes, I’ve thought of that too. My shadow clones are scouring Warbastion and the surrounding cities. They also infiltrated Mongul’s palace. It’s only a matter of time now. I only need a few more days.”
“I look forward to that moment,” Starfire said, smiling. “But will you stay with me after that too? Will you be with me, together, forever?”
Her question sounded almost like she was asking him to marry her, and Naruto found himself growing hot under the collar.
He was not sure if the Tamaranean girl was just oblivious or if she was a master in the art of seduction, but she was definitely an expert at making his heart skip a beat.
Doing his best to fight down his embarrassment, he said:
“If you will have me, yes, I will. I can’t think of any other place I’d rather be.”
Starfire giggled happily and threw her arms around him, squeezing him in a bone-creaking embrace that took his breath away.
Once she let go of him and he could finally breathe again, he said:
“I’m going to infiltrate Mongul’s palace in person tonight. I might not be able to watch your match tomorrow, but I’ll leave a Shadow Clone behind. Just make sure you win, Star, like you always do. You don’t have to pretend you’re weak this time and play around to impress the crowd because you won't need Mongul's favour anymore. The next time we see each other, you will be free, and Mongul will be dead.”
Little did Naruto and Starfire know that her next fight in the arena would be her greatest challenge yet.
Little did they know that her next opponent would be the most powerful and dangerous foe she had ever faced in her entire life.
The two years spent on Apokolips, brainwashed by the God of Evil, and then the three or four years that he had been stranded into deep space, imprisoned in complete darkness, and drifting into nothingness had been like one very long, bad dream.
But now, everything was going to end.
An enormous amount of crimson chakra exploded from his stomach. A titanic, nine-tailed fox came into being, and the ground quaked under his enormous weight.
As the last vestiges of bijuu chakra left his system, Naruto fell on his side and closed his eyes.
“At long last . . . the nightmare . . . is over. . . ”
⁂
The pain of Kyuubi’s chakra leaving his system persisted even after the fox was unsealed. Keeping his eyes closed, Naruto waited quietly for death’s cold embrace.
The ground shook with every step the titanic fox took as he walked closer to him. Then, he felt Kyuubi’s large hand turning him on his back with an unexpectedly gentle touch.
“A fool until the very end. . . ” Kyuubi talked to himself.
Naruto didn’t respond. Unbeknownst to Kyuubi, he was still here. He was lethargic; he had stopped breathing, and even his heart was no longer beating. But he was still alive. His brain had yet to die.
“You could’ve lived. I didn’t mind waiting a few more decades inside the seal. You didn’t need to die.”
“Why are you always so stubborn? And why do you care so much about what others think of you?”
“So what if you were seen as a villain by all? Why care at all?”
“Even then, you could have proved them wrong with your actions. You could have redeemed yourself.”
“Just when we became friends, you decided to go and off yourself. . .”
The bijuu was holding a requiem for the only friend he had ever had.
Lost in his grief, Kurama didn’t notice the sound of Naruto’s heart starting to beat or the subtle rising and lowering of his chest, a sign that he began breathing again.
It was only when Naruto opened his eyes and sat up that Kurama was shaken from his trance.
“Oy, Kurama. Didn’t you say that unsealing you would kill me?”
Momentarily, Kurama was mute with surprise.
“. . . That’s how it’s supposed to be, yes. Nobody has ever survived. Mito, my first jinchuuriki, died minutes after the extraction. Other jinchuuriki from other villages also died every time the tailed beast was unsealed from their bodies.”
Naruto stood up with a groan and stretched. His fried nervous system no longer hurt. He moved around a bit and jumped on the spot a few times, checking his physical condition.
He felt. . . normal.
Next, he checked the state of his chakra network. There seemed to be no damage over there either. A blue orb of chakra formed in the palm of his hand effortlessly. He clenched his hand into a fist, extinguishing the Rasengan.
Kyuubi was still in disbelief. He lowered his gigantic body and came close, sniffing Naruto with his big nose, as though he was trying to understand what had changed in his former jinchuuriki’s body.
“How am I still alive?” the blond asked quietly.
That was not supposed to happen.
“I don’t know, Naruto. It doesn’t make any sense to me either. You don’t smell any different, and my other senses can’t detect anything out of place.”
Most people would have let out a whooping sound of joy and pumped their fists in the air to have survived a seemingly impossible situation.
However, the young man went to a nearby piece of rock and sat down quietly.
“Go on, Kurama. You’ve been imprisoned for decades. You’re finally free now.”
“And leave you like this?” The fox scoffed. “Right.”
“It’s fine,” Naruto said in a subdued voice.
“You do remember that I can sense negative emotions, right?” Kurama said sarcastically.
Knowing he wouldn’t convince the fox that way, Naruto adopted a different tactic.
“Y’know, I heard the little requiem you held for me when you thought that I was dead.”
At the mention of that, Kyuubi let out a growl and turned his head away.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“It was something about how I was your best friend and-”
“Fine, if you want to be alone, I’ll leave you alone! I don’t know why I even bother with you anymore! Hmph!”
Naruto snickered as he watched the grumpy fox stomp away, his titanic size making the earth tremble with every step he took. Over the years that he had spent in deep space together with Kyuubi, they had become extremely close, so he knew the fox’s personality. Unless it was a matter of life and death, Kyuubi would never admit his true feelings.
As the bijuu disappeared from view, Naruto’s amusement slowly receded.
A gale made his clothes flutter as he cast his Soaring Wind Jutsu to take flight. His flying jutsu was not as fast as his sprint on the ground, but he was not interested in speed at that moment. He just needed to clear his mind.
Flying over the untouched, virgin forests of the giant planet, Naruto let his mind wander.
He had decimated the army of Parademons and New Gods on Apokolips. He had also killed Darkseid with his own two hands. Moreover, he had given Kyuubi his freedom.
But he had not expected to survive the unsealing. He had prepared himself to die. It had been his resolve to not only free Kyuubi from his cage but also pay with his life for the atrocities he had committed in the name of peace when he was brainwashed by Darkseid.
On a rational level, he knew that it was not him. He had been brainwashed. But the memories of what he had done never left his mind. He had not forgotten the wars he had started and the number of people who died because of him.
Dying was supposed to be his atonement of sorts. . . but he was still here.
He felt cheated, as though he had been robbed of his perfect ending.
⁂
Two days after he unsealed Kurama from his body, Naruto got into his ship and left the planet.
The fox wanted nothing more than to chill and relax on a planet without humans or any other intelligent beings. The bijuu had had enough of humans to last him 10 lifetimes. He just wanted to be alone.
Naruto could tell how much the fox was worried about his mental state, so he decided not to stay behind and bother him any longer. On a day when Kyuubi went to soak in a volcano and fell asleep as though he were in a warm jacuzzi, Naruto left without saying goodbye.
‘He’s better off without me running the mood.’
But once he got off the planet, he stopped in its exosphere, not initiating the space warp.
‘What am I to do now?’
What was there left for him? His place of birth was annihilated, and everyone close to him died. He didn’t know how to get back to his homeworld even if he wanted to.
It was also impossible for him to get back to Apokolips and squeeze the information out of Desaad because Apokolips was in an entirely different dimension, in the Sphere of the Gods. Travelling there was possible only with a mother box. As far as he knew, only the New Gods possessed Mother Boxes.
‘And the whole Universe knows me as Darkseid’s son, a cruel conqueror.’
The Green Lanterns, the Thanagarians, New Genesis, the Daxmites, the Omega Men, Almerac, and even the Justice League of Earth—not a single intergalactic power in the Universe has not heard of the “Liberator” by now.
‘No matter where I go, I will be feared or attacked on sight unless I hide my identity.’
He was at a loss.
In the end, he decided to return to the last planet he had set foot on before unsealing Kurama: Warworld. He would think about his future after that.
⁂
The chairs and the floor shook from the roars of the bloodlusted crowd. Thousands of people were sitting in the stands of a large fan-shaped arena, watching the fight that was being live-streamed on an enormous, dozen-metre-long and tall screen.
“Smash his head open!”
“Burn him alive! Yeah! Hell yeah!”
“Kill the bitch! Wahaha! Make her bleed!”
Seven alien beings were locked in a fierce, life-and-death battle. Six of them were dark-grey-skinned, four-armed, three-meter-tall men. Their extremely muscular body, sharp horns, and tusks made them look rather similar to four-armed, hairless gorillas. They were wielding gigantic clubs, one in each hand, and the only piece of clothing covering their body was a loincloth. They were Branx warriors.
Their opponent could not be any more different. It was a woman, nearly two meters tall, but, unlike the Branx, who looked like the incarnation of brute strength and savagery, the woman’s athletic and well-proportioned body, orange skin, glowing green eyes, and flaming red hair, so long that it almost swept the floor, made her look like the perfect fusion between beauty, strength, and agility. The people of Warworld knew her as the Fire Princess from Tamaran.
After an intense battle, five of the Branx warriors were killed rather savagely, their limbs severed, beheaded, or by having their entrails ripped out.
The last surviving Branx warrior was also covered in bleeding cuts and stab wounds all over his body, but he had managed to corner the Fire Princess inside the ruins of a building where she could not use her flight advantage.
Knowing that if he did not capitalise on that opportunity he would most certainly not get another one and die, the Branx let out an ape-like scream and lunged at her with wild abandon, smashing two of his four clubs down violently. The young woman dexterously dodged his first two swings by sidestepping them, but she was forced to raise her small round shield to block his other two clubs.
Already battered and cracked from the clashes against the other Branx, the shield was on its last legs. The force behind the two clubs was too much. It shattered her shield and sent her flying as though she had been hit by a truck.
The Fire Princess breathed heavily as she forced herself to stand by supporting her weight on her sword. Due to her unique physiology, the Fire Princess almost never sweated, but at that moment, her forehead, legs, chest, and abs were glistening with sweat.
She was not allowed a moment of respite because the Branx warrior rushed after her, laughing in glee. She dodged the first two strikes of his clubs once again, and this time around, she also swung her sword down at two of his arms.
The Branx howled in agonising pain as two of his four arms were sliced through and chopped off from the elbows.
However, the Fire Princess had let her guard down. Despite having two of his arms sliced off, due to an adrenaline rush, the Branx Warrior kept his composure and swung his other two clubs at her.
There was no shield to save her this time. His clubs stuck her in the face and shoulder, slamming her violently into the side of the ruined temple and breaking the wall with her.
Still riding that burst of adrenaline, the Branx warrior charged at the fallen woman and grabbed her by the neck, raising her limp body in front of the drones that were filming their fight.
His speech was rough and interrupted by his laborious breathing as he shouted:
“Grangt . . . is victorious! Grangt. . . claims. . . his prize! Tamaranean woman. . . belongs to Grangt!”
Saying those words, he roared at the top of his lungs. But when he tried to put his other hand on the Fire Princess, the girl lived up to her moniker. Her entire body burst out with a blinding, greenish-white light, and her long red hair started burning.
Her green eyes glowed in a way that the spectators in the stands had never seen before, and two enormous beams of radiation burst forth.
The Branx warrior didn’t even have time to scream. The Fire Princess’ heat vision vaporised the entire upper half of his body, leaving only a pair of charred legs behind. He died before he even knew it.
The bloodlusted crowd, who had been cheering at her apparent defeat not even a minute ago, exploded into even greater screams of excitement when she unexpectedly turned the tables on her enemy and killed him.
⁂
A tall and muscular bald man with yellow skin and red eyes sat on a golden throne and drank an orange alcoholic beverage as he listened to a short and thin, blue-skinned man drone on about the socio-economic situation of his nation.
The man in question was pacing around in anxiety, his long, black and red robe sweeping the marble floor.
“Our nation’s food ration is being cut another 15%. And then there are the medical shortages, the power blackouts—”
His subordinate stopped talking when Mongul finished his drink and threw the golden cup away carelessly.
“Why do you persist in bothering me with these petty details?” the emperor said, displeased.
“Petty?” the short and thin man said in disbelief. “But, Sire, if this continues, think of the consequences! Like, people are already starting to talk about another-”
“-Rebellion?” Mongul continued his words.
He stood up from his throne and walked to the large windows of the circular throne room, gazing outside at the massive arena below.
“There’s not gonna be any rebellion. Not if I can keep giving them fights. Good ones, enough to take their minds off their troubles. Fights like the ones we had today.”
As if on cue, two levitating robots walked inside the throne room, escorting a tall and athletic woman with very long red hair.
“Ah, speak of the devil and he shall appear,” Mongul said as a greeting. “Brilliant show you put on today, Koriand’r. So you can do it after all. You can kill your opponents if push comes to shove. Are you finally starting to lose some of that stubbornness?”
“You scummy bastard! You did something to me! You drugged my food!” the Fire Princess shouted, and her hands glowed with her starbolts.
But then, Mongul pressed the button of a remote control he always kept on hand, and Koriand’r collapsed on the ground screaming in pain, her body thrashing and spasming, rocked by powerful electric shocks.
Once he stopped torturing her, the robots picked her up from the floor and raised her so that she was at the same eye level as him.
“Such grave accusations at the address of your emperor!” Mongul said in a sardonic voice. “Whatever made you think that?”
“There’s no way I would struggle with a handful of Branx warriors! I’m doing what you’re asking! I’m fighting in your arena! What more do you want from me?” Starfire shouted at him.
Mongul sighed, pretending to be saddened by her plight. He tried to caress her cheek with his hand mockingly, but one look at her enraged visage was enough to make him reconsider his actions and stop. It would not be out of character for the brutal princess to tear his hand apart with her teeth alone.
“I didn’t want to do that either, but you’re defeating your opponents too quickly, too easily. Furthermore, you refuse to kill your opponent even when I’m torturing you. You gave me no choice.”
As he spoke, he turned his attention back to the arena below, where another two gladiators were brought onto the stage in the centre to be teleported to the battlefield.
“Fighting on Warworld isn’t just about winning or losing. It’s about putting on a show. People lose interest if you annihilate everyone in two minutes tops, and they get even more annoyed with your refusal to listen to their demands and finish off your opponent. But look at your fight today. Weakened by the drugs in your system, you fought a tooth-and-nail battle against those six, and you were forced to kill them in order to survive! Have you seen the spectators’ reaction? Have you heard their cheers?”
Koriand’r suddenly yanked her arms out of the robots’ grasp and lunged at Mongul again, but the two robots raised their plasma cannons and immediately shot her in the back. Still injured from her fight with the Branx Warriors and weakened by the drugs in her system, the girl could not put up a fight. She collapsed on the floor once more, two ugly bruises forming on her exposed back from the plasma bullets.
“Your antics never fail to amuse me. You keep charging at me and get beat down and tortured again and again, but you never give up. Please never change. I would miss this fine entertainment,” Mongul said and laughed heartily.
“Now, in spite of your repeated transgressions, let it be known that I am a generous man. For your fantastic performance in the arena, I’m granting you the opportunity to go out of my citadel and see the city. You can’t go too far, and you will be under constant surveillance, but I’m sure it beats spending your day in a cell like usual.”
Koriandr’s green eyes narrowed at him.
“What are you playing at?”
“It’s as I said, a reward. Go out, see the city, drink yourself stupid at a bar, start a brawl, or get laid. I’m sure there would be hundreds lining up in front of your door if only you said a word. Do whatever it is that you, Okaaran barbarians, like to do in your spare time.”
“I’m not from Okaara. I’m from Tamaran! You know nothing about me!”
Mongul scoffed.
“Oh, please! You may have been the princess of Tamaran, but you were raised by those savages from Okaara. I know exactly how things are run in the Vega system. That lawless shithole is famous in the entire galaxy. Not even the Green Lanterns are allowed to set foot in there.”
At the Fire Princess’ vitriol-filled glares, Mongul smiled.
“You may try to put on a virtuous front, but I know you. I know your kind. I can see it in your eyes. You love fighting. You revel in battle, in the slaughter. This is your nature. You can’t hide that no matter how much you try.”
“Now, off you go. Stop kicking up a fuss and enjoy your reward lest I change my mind and send you back to your cell. Or, perhaps you want another two hundred million volts shocking you for the next two minutes straight?”
As the robots took Koriand’r away, Mongul told her one last thing:
“You don’t have to live as a slave. Fight for me. Dedicate your strength to Warworld, and you could lead a better life than you’ve ever experienced before. I may be cruel at times, but I take great care of those loyal and useful to me. And I’m the ruler of an intergalactic empire. Prove yourself worthy, and anything you desire can be yours. Even going back to Tamaran and killing your treacherous sister for her deeds would not be off the table.”
⁂
After watching the Fire Princess’ battle against the six Branx, the three fights that followed were lacklustre at best. The next gladiators were nothing more than brawlers or monsters. There was little to no skill involved in their fights; they just charged at each other, hacking, slashing, smashing, and biting wildly, like a bunch of beasts. It was just a glorified bloodbath to satiate the crowd’s thirst for violence.
Losing interest in the rest of the fights, Naruto stood up from his seat and left the gigantic arena behind him.
Thanks to his Henge, he looked like a rather big and scary blue-skinned alien with red eyes and a scaly face. Although Warworld was a melting pot of all sorts of species and cultures, seeing a human walking about was still quite eye-catching. He preferred not to attract anyone’s attention.
As he walked down the main street, despite his scary appearance, several female aliens tried to tempt him. Some of them wanted to invite him for a fun time, while others were oozing deception and other malevolent emotions.
‘Looks like Kurama’s sensory ability stayed with me after unsealing too, huh?’
If his senses were to be believed, those with negative emotions were trying to lure him so that their friends would rob him.
He walked ahead without paying them any mind, looking around for a tavern. Seeing as he has no information about the local taverns and whatnot, he just went inside the first local he found.
Considering how close it was to the arena, even in a dung hole like Warworld’s capital city, the tavern he entered looked rather nice and clean.
‘How is a place this nice without bouncers or any sort of bodyguards at the entrance?’ he asked himself.
He wasn’t being dramatic. It would not be wrong to call that entire city one big slum where most of the people were involved in illegal activities one way or another to make ends meet.
An alien waitress, an unexpectedly cute girl (for humans’ standards) with red skin and three eyes, smiled as she greeted him and led him to the only free table left in the tavern, a table for two.
Sitting down, he flipped through a menu’s pages as he looked for something that appeared to be edible. Nutritional capsules could satiate his hunger just fine, but he wished to eat some normal food. He had spent around three years stranded in the deep space with no food and no beverages of any sort, surviving off chakra alone. Now that he was alive and had even survived the unsealing, he was looking forward to having some good food and drinks.
The most edible-looking thing he had found on the menu was just a big, roasted haunch of meat. Everything else looked suspicious as hell or had downright disgusting ingredients such as eyeballs, noses, humanoid feet, and so on.
When that simple roasted haunch of meat arrived, he started salivating at the smell of it, and his stomach rumbled loudly.
Ripping a big chunk of meat with his teeth, Naruto closed his eyes as he savoured his food. As the saying goes, everything is tasty when you’re hungry, all the more so when he had not had proper food in years.
Taking a sip out of his alcoholic drink too, he recoiled a bit at its unexpectedly sour taste. But it wasn’t bad. It went along greatly with the food.
For the first time in years, a small measure of joy bloomed in his heart. Sometimes, all that a man needed was a good meal, some alcohol, and some peace and quiet in order to be happy. Sure, his problems weren’t of the sort that he could forget about just so easily, but it did help push away some of the gloom and depression muddying his heart.
That little bit of peace and quiet did not last long. Seeing as he had Kurama’s sensory ability even after the unsealing, Naruto felt the abrupt change in everyone’s emotions when five burly, green-skinned humanoid lizards entered the tavern with various weapons in their hands. Some of the customers stopped eating from anxiety, while others put some money on their tables, stood up, and left the local in a hurry.
The one who appeared to be in charge of the lizard-like aliens took out his plasma handgun and put it on the counter in front of the terrified owner of the tavern.
“We gave you another two weeks. Do you have our money? Where is our protection fee? Do you think we're a charity? Huh?”
The owner, a thin, red-skinned man with three eyes, involuntarily backed away in fear.
“I’m sorry, sir, we need just a little more time! I swear, you’ll have them all by the end of the week! As you know, the sales are-”
“Hey, you think I’m playing?” the lizard cut off his words.
He grabbed his gun from the counter and fired two shots into the ceiling.
The customers started screaming as they ran out of the tavern in a panic.
“Do you think you can hoodwink the Verdant Skulls? Huh?” the lizardman screamed.
“No, sir, but what can I do if people don’t come to dine anymore? Everyone on Warworld is too poor to afford it! I-”
“Like hell, if I care!” the lizardman leader barked at him. “It’s your job to think of a solution, not mine!”
One of his subordinates let out a laugh as he had a sudden idea.
“Hey, boss, how about we waive off the protection fees for this month. . . in exchange for this.”
A girl screamed as she was roughly yanked out from under the table she had been hiding. But the lizardman was more than twice as big and at least four times as strong. She couldn’t put up any fight as he effortlessly hoisted her up in the air by her wrist with only one hand.
“I’d gladly have a taste of her instead of money.”
“Not my daughter!” the tavern owner cried out, and he momentarily forgot about his position as he grabbed the leader by the hem of his clothes, shouting in a pleading voice: “Please, I’ll give you even more! Next week, I swear on my life, you will have your money! No, you’ll have double! Just leave my daughter out of this!”
A heavy slap sent the tavern owner flying into the wall behind the counter.
“Get your hands off me, pathetic bastard.”
Turning towards his subordinate, who was holding the terrified girl in the air by her arm, nasty laughter came from the lizardman’s ugly, fanged mouth.
“You may be onto something, Rull,” the leader laughed. “She’s quite the looker. I wonder what sounds she’ll make.”
A perverse smirk appeared on his face as he licked his lips.
However, at that moment, one of the two customers who did not leave the tavern even after the gang leader fired his gun snapped his fingers. The sound itself was barely heard over the desperate cries of the girl and the mean laughter of the gangsters, but the three-eyed waitress suddenly fell on the floor with a thud.
The lizardman had not let go of her. . . his hand was still clenched around the girl’s wrist.
“Aaargh!”
A scream of agony came from the thug when his brain finally registered what had just happened: his arm had been chopped off at the elbow! He stumbled back, shrieking in unbearable pain as his vile, green blood splashed all over the place from his severed arm.
“Who was that?!” the rest of the lizardmen screamed in a mixture of rage and terror as they brandished their weapons.
It had been Naruto. Putting his hands in a cross seal, three shadow clones popped up next to his table and walked towards the gangsters. They didn’t even have time to pull the triggers of their guns because the clones disappeared with a Body Flicker Jutsu, reappearing at their back an instant later.
It took less than two seconds for all lizardmen to be incapacitated. Sickening sounds of arms and kneecaps getting shattered were heard as the clones attacked them viciously. However, they did not kill them. Not all of them.
Throwing the gangsters’ bodies outside the local, two of Naruto’s clones made a bird handseal with their hands, and, in the next moment, a blade of wind beheaded the two lizardmen who had been talking about raping the waitress.
Leaving the other three lizardmen’s broken but still breathing bodies on the ground, Naruto’s clones went back inside the tavern without a care in the world. Nobody would say anything, for there was no public order or any official law enforcement entities other than Mongul’s army of robots, but Mongul cared about the population less than an old farmer cared about the dirt under his nails.
Despite saving them, the owner of the tavern and his daughter huddled together in terror when the clones walked back inside their local. Not only did they not understand how their existence was possible, but their actions had been swift and brutal, and Naruto’s Henged appearance with his burly build and scaly face was scary to look at.
“Hey, old man? Bring me a mop and a bucket. I want to clean the mess I made.”
“N-no, it’s alright. We’ll do it ourselves,” the man stammered.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” said Naruto calmly.
Understanding that the clones had saved him and his daughter from a fate that could have been worse than death, the owner gathered his courage and thanked him. The daughter did the same, bowing to him.
At that moment, the only other customer who had remained in the tavern after the gunshots fired by the gang members stood up from their table and walked to Naruto.
“It was a nice thing you did there. But things are not over. The Verdant Skulls won’t let this matter go that easily.”
It was a warm, slightly deep voice, and, going by the sound of it, it belonged to a young woman.
“She is right," said the owner of the tavern. “They are the main gang that operates in this district. And most of their members are Gordanians.”
Naruto stood up from his table.
“Well, if I started something, I might as well see it through until the end.”
He cast a longing look at the haunch of roasted meat and sighed, but he wasn’t the sort of person who would sit back and eat while watching innocents getting killed in front of his eyes.
When he came out of the tavern, the mob of Verdant Skulls was already starting to gather above the street on their flying, spiky motorbikes.
The tavern owner and his daughter turned pale, almost losing strength in their legs at the sight of them.
After their honest conversation, a wall seemed to have shattered between them. And once Naruto revealed his true intentions, and spoke what was on his mind, Shihouin Chika became even more accommodating than before.
“Before you reassign me to the Detention Unit, could you arrange first for someone to teach me some Healing Kido?”
“Sure. I could ask Momatsu to show you a thing or two, but he’s not that skilled at it himself.”
Naijishi Momatsu was the one who healed Naruto’s flesh wounds an hour ago, when he just returned from his mission. He was not a seated officer but he was one of the only three Shinigami from Squad 2 who knew how to use Kaido.
Kaido, also known as Healing Kido, was a relatively new concept for Shinigami. It had been invented only a few decades ago, not long before the Quincy War, by a skilled Shinigami named Tenjiro Kirinji.
“No, better yet, if you’re going to learn Healing Kido, you should learn it from the best,” Chika said, nodding to himself.
“You mean-”
“Yes. Follow me. We’re going to the Eleventh Division.”
As he followed the dark-skinned captain out of the office, he hesitated before asking:
“Are you sure this is a good idea? The Captain-level Shinigami who attacked me today was a woman. There are only two Captain-level women in Gotei now. . .”
“I already told you: if Unohana-san wanted you dead, you’d be dead. She wouldn’t need to ambush you. She would walk straight into Second Division’s barracks, kill you in front of my eyes, and there wouldn’t be a single thing I could do to stop her. Aside from Captain Commander, no one in the Gotei can match her. She even killed some of her subordinates when they angered her. And her Zanpakutō doesn’t grant invisibility.”
Making use of their Flash Step, the two of them arrived at Squad 11’s headquarters in seconds.
Noticing the stupid look on his own captain’s face, Naruto felt like facepalming when he realised what was actually going on.
“This isn’t about me learning healing Kido from the best… You just wanted a pretext to talk to her, didn’t you?”
But Shihouin quickly covered Naruto’s mouth, muffling most of his words. For the first time in ten years, Naruto saw his captain becoming flustered.
“What brings you here today, Shihouin-dono?” Unohana asked, her voice as serene as ever.
With her long, lustrous black hair falling freely over her white haori, and with her fair skin and her pretty face, Unohana looked like the embodiment of beauty and elegance as she stood on a bridge and scattered feed to the koi fish in the pond.
It was not difficult to understand why his captain was smitten with her. But to Naruto, due to his Negative Emotions Sensing, Unohana Yachiru looked more like a demon wearing human skin instead of a pure and elegant beauty. The savage killing intent lying dormant under that delicate appearance made his hair stand on end.
Knowing that the Kenpachi was not like other women he had interacted with, Shihouin didn’t waste his time with superfluous greetings and flowery words.
“Unohana-san, I would like to request that you take my subordinate under your wing and instruct him in the way of Kaido.”
Unohana brought a delicate finger to her chin, seemingly in thought.
“Very well, I could do that,” she said after a while. “However, I have a condition.”
Naruto and Chika exchanged a glance.
“The Captain Commander asked me to apprehend the criminal who has been causing unrest in Rukongai lately. In exchange for teaching your subordinate Healing Kido, I want you to deal with that. I feel like you would have an easier time finding and capturing him thanks to Onmitsukido’s information network.”
To his credit, Shihouin did not reply right away, appearing to hesitate.
“Do you have any other information about him?”
“Not much is known. But we do know that it is a young man and that he has been targeting various gangs, leaving a trail of corpses as he moved from one district to another. He needs to be dealt with soon.”
Shihouin glanced a second time at Naruto, who shrugged his shoulders as if to say that it was entirely up to him.
“Understood. It is not a bad exchange. However, I would like to add a condition of my own.”
Captain Unohana tilted her head, intrigued.
“In addition to teaching Uzumaki Naruto Healing Kido, I would like to invite you to have a meal with me.”
“Oh, my!” Unohana exclaimed, covering her mouth with her hand.
Going by the spike of anxiety he sensed from Chika, Naruto understood that his captain was afraid that he may have overstepped his boundaries. But he couldn't feel any negative emotions from Unohana. Her reaction was not one of indignation but surprise.
“You wish to have a meal with me? Why is that?”
As Unohana asked that question, Naruto leaned imperceptibly closer to Chika.
"Go for it," he whispered, his voice so quiet that even Shihoin, who was next to him, barely heard him.
Emboldened by his unexpected encouragement, Shihouin’s anxiety vanished like a miracle, and he gave Unohana one of those roguish smiles of his that had made him famous among the women of Seireitei.
“Because it would be a privilege to spend my time in the company of a captivating lady such as yourself.”
Naruto scratched his cheek, feeling embarrassed to witness their flirting, but it appeared that Shihouin knew exactly what he was doing because Unohana Yachiru's fair complexion became slightly pink.
‘Was she that weak to compliments?’ he said to himself. ‘Well, I guess it would make sense. If even half the rumours circulating about her are true, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the first time someone asked her out.’
⁂
Shihouin Chika was jubilant as they left the barracks of Squad 11. They did not Flash Step on their way back, choosing instead to walk back by foot, slowly.
“I will be honest with you; if you hadn’t told me to go for it, I would have chickened out.”
Naruto chuckled at his choice of words.
“Now you can’t say I never did anything for you anymore.”
Chika punched him good-naturedly in the shoulder.
“How did you know she wasn’t angry? I thought I’d have to run for my life after I asked her out.”
Considering Unohan’s reputation, it was not surprising to hear him say that. He snickered again at Chika’s expense.
“If you’re that afraid of Captain Unohana, why go for her of all people? You could have anyone you wanted. Seireitei is full of your fangirls."
Chika sighed in dismay.
“If you have to ask such a question, it proves to me that you don’t see the vision.”
“What vision? You said it yourself, she’s a madwoman.”
Shihouin waved his hand off at him.
“You don’t get it.”
“I don’t get what? Not wanting to walk on eggshells around someone who may or may not kill me if she woke up on the wrong side of the bed one morning?”
One of Naruto’s eyes started twitching in annoyance when he saw his captain shake his head at him and sigh exaggeratedly.
“You’re still young and dumb. Once you get older, you’ll understand a lot better the appeal of a lady like Unohana-san. There’s just something different about a beautiful and powerful woman who could kick your ass.”
“You forgot to say violent and unhinged,” the blond retorted, only for Shihouin to say:
“That’s like the icing on the cake.”
⁂
Unohana Yachiru ended up agreeing to Shihouin Chika’s terms, promising that she would have a meal with him but only after he apprehended the killer from Rukongai.
It had to be said that Shihouin Chika’s behaviour when he was motivated was a sight to behold. The otherwise laid-back and lazy captain had mobilised the entirety of the Stealth Force to find the culprit, and less than three hours later, his subordinates had already found his location for him.
“Osamu, send someone to bring the Fifth Seat, Uzumaki, to my office,” Shihouin said as he started signing various papers without even looking at their contents, eager to finish the paperwork as soon as possible.
The person in question was a middle-aged man wearing the traditional black shihakusho and his zanpakuto at his waist. He was a man of average build, with a square face, and he wore his black hair in a chonmage style. He looked like a serious and no-nonsense type of person who valued duty and traditions, making a stark contrast with his captain.
“Did something happen?” Osamu asked.
“The Fifth Seat and I have something to do in Rukongai. Don’t fret over it,” Chika said.
With his attention focused on signing the paperwork, Chika seemed not to notice the way Osamu’s jaw muscles bulged as he clenched his teeth.
“Understood,” he said calmly before leaving the office to follow his orders.
One minute later, he returned and said:
“Uzumaki Naruto should arrive in 10 minutes. He was taking a shower when I went to his quarters.”
“That’s fine,” Chika replied.
A few minutes passed in silence, only the sound of Chika’s quill scratching the paper and that of Osamu moving stacks of paperwork being heard in the office.
“Shihouin-taicho.”
“Yes?”
“If I may ask, why are you paying so much attention to the Fifth Seat?”
Chika raised his eyes from the paperwork to look at Osamu.
“Are you envious?”
The man immediately bowed deeply, from the waist.
“I apologise,” he said in a loud voice. “I just don't understand why an esteemed person such as yourself would be concerned with the likes of him.”
“Stop bowing, man. You know I don’t care about formalities.”
“I could never be disrespectful to one of such noble lineage!” Osamu spoke in the same loud voice, still bowing from the waist.
“Forget it,” Shihouin said, palming his forehead as he sighed. “But to answer your question, that’s because he’s an extremely capable Shinigami. He is someone I value.”
Noticing the way Osamu clenched his fists, he asked:
“Do you think it’s unfair for me to pay him so much attention?”
“Is he more capable than me, your Lieutenant? Am I not good enough?” Osamu said.
“He is much stronger than you, indeed.”
Osamu raised his head at that moment and looked him in the eyes.
“With all due respect, Captain, I refuse to believe it!”
The dark-skinned captain smirked as an idea came to his mind.
“How about you test it, hm?”
Not expecting Shihouin Chika to suggest something like that, Osamu hesitated before answering.
“. . . It would be unbecoming of my position to challenge a lower-ranked officer to a duel with no good reason. My personal bias aside, Uzumaki Naruto has not broken any rules. He has been fulfilling his duties as a member of the Second Division with no faults. It would paint a bad image on myself and the Second Division as a whole if I were to bully the weaker members with my position.”
Shihouin shrugged his shoulders.
“Osamu, you’ve been my Lieutenant for over a decade. You should know me by now. I don’t care about what others think,” he said, chuckling a bit. “And I’m sure Naruto wouldn’t mind the challenge either.”
⁂
“Yo, captain, what do you need?” Naruto asked and raised his hand in greeting when he entered Chika’s office.
The Second Squad Lieutenant already had it out for Naruto as it was. Hearing his disrespectful manner of speech made him explode:
“Uzumaki Naruto! You are in front of the Captain! Where are your manners?” Osamu shouted at him.
Naruto glanced his way. Two negative emotions stood out like a sore thumb when he focused his senses on him.
“Um, sure,” he said easily, not feeling like getting into an argument over stupid things with him. The Lieutenant had never liked him, from the first day.
But his flippant answer was like pouring oil on a fire. Osamu’s anger flared.
“It appears that, as the Lieutenant of the Second Division, I will have to teach you some manners.”
Naruto looked at Osamu as though he was mentally challenged.
“I don’t hear the captain saying anything, so why are you bitching about it? You have a problem with me?”
He may have wanted to avoid unnecessary conflicts, but that didn’t mean he was alright with letting another Shinigami treat him like dirt.
“It’s your attitude that I have a problem with!” Osamu shouted. “Follow me to the training grounds. I have already received permission from the captain.”
When Naruto glanced at Chika, his voice rang in his head:
“Take this chance to teach him a lesson and prove your strength. Become my Lieutenant.”
Knowing what Naruto was about to say just by looking at his facial expression, Shihouin continued:
“Your enemy already knows what you’re capable of, so there’s no point in hiding your strength anymore, is there? Take this chance to advance in rank. Your goal was to change Seireitei, was it not? That’s the first step. Only when you’re recognised for your strength and position will your words have weight.”
Naruto remained quiet while Chika talked to him telepathically, but his silence appeared to have sent the wrong message to Osamu.
“Are you ignoring me?!” the Lieutenant screamed, his hand going to the hilt of his sword. “You think I won’t cut you down where you stand?”
Naruto let out a sigh.
“What a pain in the ass. Quit whining and let’s go already.”
It took Osamu every ounce of self-control he had not to draw out his sword right then and there.
⁂
Naruto didn’t know whether it was Chika’s doing or the Lieutenant’s doing, but when they arrived at the training ground of the Second Division, the field was packed with hundreds of men and women, all of them members of their squad. It seemed like the one who organised their little duel wanted everyone to watch his battle with the Lieutenant.
“Draw out your zanpakuto,” Osamu said in a warning tone as he unsheathed his own weapon.
“I won’t be needing it,” Naruto said calmly.
His answer infuriated Osamu to the point where his face turned livid. The chorus of "oohs" and "aahs" coming from the men and women spectating on the sidelines only exacerbated that feeling.
Chika grinned like a cat who ate the canary, giddy with excitement to see the shitshow unfold.
“Are you both ready?”
“Yes,” the two replied.
“If someone gives up or is incapacitated, the duel ends. If I say stop, you stop. These are the only rules. Fight!” Chika said and stepped back.
Osamu glared at Naruto as he held his sword straight in front of him.
“I am going to beat that smug and unrepentant attitude out of you. I will make you understand that, as a member of the Second Squad, there are laws, rules, and traditions that you need to respect. Nobody is exempt from that. Not me, and certainly not you.”
Once the Lieutenant finished said those words, a monstrous reiatsu blanketed the training ground, and except for Shihouin Chika, who was a Captain, all other Shinigami let out cries of shock as they collapsed on their knees. Eyes wide, with their faces pale and breaking into a sweat, dozens of Shinigami were unable to bear with that spiritual pressure, falling unconscious.
That reiatsu was not coming from the Lieutenant. . . he was collapsed on the ground as well, on his hands and knees, looking as though it was taking him all he had not to fall flat on his face.
It was Naruto's reiatsu.
Shihouin Chika was inwardly startled as well. He had suspected all along that the blond's reiatsu might have surpassed his own, but seeing it was believing it.
Naruto stopped exerting his power a few moments later, but the unfamiliar Captain-level spiritual pressure was felt by the entirety of Seireitei, not just by the Second Division’s members, proof of that being the other squads’ Captains arriving in the skies above the training ground.
Noticing how everyone except for Shihouin Chika and the blond young man was lying on the ground, unable to stand, it was not difficult for them to deduce whose spiritual pressure they had felt.
One of the newly arrived captains, a tall and burly man with shaggy brown hair and prominent sideburns, landed on the ground and waved his hand at Chika.
“Danjiro-san. What brings you here?”
"You really have to ask? Since when did you have a monster like that among your subordinates?” the tall man asked in a loud voice.
“I guess the mystery of how that crazy runt died in Rukongai ten years ago has been solved,” said another captain, a gaunt-looking man with grey skin who wore a fur-collared shihakusho under his white haori. His pointy moustache and sharp goatee, coupled with his pale and sickly appearance, gave him a peculiar look.
Two other captains showed up, including Unohana Yachiru, whom they had just visited, and the new Captain of the Tenth Division, who had replaced the now-dead Uhin Zenjōji, a bald man who was just as fat as his predecessor. But Naruto barely noticed the new captain’s arrival, his attention being focused entirely on Unohana, who wasn’t even trying to hide her thirst for battle.
Fortunately, at that moment, as if he had predicted that things were going to devolve into a battle in the middle of Seireitei, the Captain Commander himself showed up.
⁂
Thanks to Yamamoto’s arrival, the Captains went back to their barracks, and Naruto and Chika could go back to their business.
Even though most of his subordinates were still passed out, Shihouin took Naruto and left right away, heading towards Rukongai.
“You really can’t wait for that date with Captain Unohana, eh?”
"Can you blame me? I've been waiting for a chance like this for years!"
They chuckled a bit.
"By the way, Captain. How did you speak directly into my mind without your Lieutenant hearing it?"
"You're my Lieutenant now, you dunce. But, to answer your question, that's for me to know and for you to find out."
Chika laughed, very pleased with himself at the glare Naruto directed at him.
"You started training only 10 years ago; you're still a baby Shinigami. There is much for you to learn."
"I wish to learn, so tell me already," Naruto said impatiently.
The dark-skinned Captain stopped making fun of him and gave him a real answer:
"It's not difficult. You can do it through your reiatsu. I'll show you how to do it once we get back to Seireitei. For now, less talking, more running,” Chika said, and he increased the speed of his Shunpo, forcing Naruto to go all out in order to keep up with him.
Their surroundings turned into blurs as the two of them ran at Naruto’s maximum speed.
As Shihouin suddenly came to a stop, Naruto halted his Shunpo too. He only needed one glance at his surroundings to understand why his captain had stopped: two or three dozen corpses were piled up like a small hill in the middle of the street.
They weren’t only Rukongai people. Naruto could even recognise a few Shinigami uniforms among the victims.
“Either he’s supremely confident in his strength, or he’s a complete madman to go wild in a district as close to Seireiei as this,” said Chika.
Going by the fact that most corpses still had their hands clenched around the hilts of their weapons, it appeared that the information they had received from Captain Unohana was not wrong. Regular people did not have weapons; whoever was the killer, he seemed to go after the gangs, leaving the regular people alone.
The two did not linger. Captain Shihouin started Shunpo-ing even faster than before, to the point where Naruto had difficulty keeping up with him. The blond was no slouch in his movement techniques, but Shihouin’s speed was something special even among captains. Nobody in Seireitei could rival him in that area.
Eventually, the sounds of battle reached their ears, and they changed their course, rushing in that new direction.
“Come at me together!” a joyful shout could be heard over the screams of pain, anger, and terror coming from the dozens of men facing him. “I’ll take on all of you at once, weaklings!”
Naruto and Chika watched in disbelief how a skinny, malnourished boy seemingly no older than 15 took on more than eight grown men at once and bisected them all from the waist with a wide slash of his sword.
“M-Monster!”
“Run!”
Recognising the kanji painted on the back of their robes, Chika understood that they were part of the leading gang from the Sakahone district.
“We aren’t done fighting just yet!” the boy yelled, and his body seemed to turn into a blur as he charged at the fleeing men.
However, just as he swung his sword to reap the life of one more person, Shihouin Chika appeared in front of him with a Flash Step and parried his hit with his zanpakuto.
The boy’s face was twisted by a wide grin when he realised that the man was strong enough to parry his hit.
“You’re different from those weaklings, aren’t you?”
Feeling the enormous weight of his sword, Shihouin’s face turned serious.
“You’ve run wild long enough, boy,” Chika said, and he kicked him in the gut, sending him flying backwards with great momentum.
But the boy flipped and righted his body in mid-air before throwing himself at the dark-skinned captain once again.
Shihouin’s yellow eyes widened when he felt the monstrous strength behind his swing. He was actually on the losing end! Although he was in disbelief, Chika reacted quickly and changed the angle of his parry, making the boy’s sword slide off to the side.
Faster than the boy could perceive, Shihouin jabbed him twice in the face and then elbowed him in the temple, twisting his head to the side. The kid had yet to recover from Chika's Hakuda combo when another kick, this time to the back of the head, sent him rolling and tumbling for two dozen metres before he crashed into a nearby building, demolishing it.
“He’s powerful,” Chika said in a grave voice.
Despite not taking the fight lightly and putting his entire strength into it, hitting that boy felt like punching steel, not flesh.
After Naruto killed Furofushi Saito ten years ago despite being just a regular Rukongai soul, with no training and not even a zanpakuto at his disposal, Chika had resolved himself not to blindly underestimate anyone in Rukongai anymore. But actually meeting someone that powerful himself was still shocking.
The ruins of the demolished building were blasted off as a tremendous reiatsu exploded from within, and the boy walked out with his long zanpakuto in hand, a mad, twisted expression of glee on his face. No a scratch could be seen on his skin.
He let out a battle cry and his speed was on par with that of a Captain-level shinigami as he charged at Chika again. He chopped with his long zanpakuto wildly, as though it were an axe, not a sword, and the dark-skinned Captain was cut in half brutally. . . or so it had seemed.
The body that the boy had cut turned out to be an afterimage. It was a Hoho technique named Utsusemi.
The kid was still trying to make sense of what had just happened when a sword impaled him in the back and pierced through the other side, through his chest.
“It’s over, boy,” Chika said.
But when he tried to pull his sword out of his body, to his stupefaction, he couldn’t. His zanpakuto was stuck, not budging even an inch.
The boy turned his head, a maniacal grin on his face. It seemed as though Chika’s stab had missed his heart.
It was only due to the instincts he had honed over centuries of battle and thanks to his transcendent speed that Shihouin managed to jump back, just barely avoiding the boy’s sword slash when he suddenly twisted his body and swung his zanpakuto at him.
Even so, the boy’s swing had sliced Chika’s shihakusho open, revealing his chest. If he had been a split second late, he would have sported a gruesome wound now.
Unfortunately, although he had escaped, he was now disarmed. Chika’s sword was still impaled in the boy’s torso.
As the kid turned around to face him, the Captain realised why he had been unable to pull his sword out of his body: the boy had clenched one of his hands around the blade of the zanpakuto protruding from his chest. His monstrous physical strength had prevented the captain from retrieving his weapon.
The words that the fleeing gangsters had used to describe him could not be any truer at that moment: with blood pouring out of his mouth, a sword sticking out of his chest, and a deranged grin on his face, he truly looked like a monster.
Completely ignoring the long katana impaled in his chest, he threw himself at Chika with wild abandon.
At the last moment, however, Naruto appeared in front of his captain with a blur of speed and raised his hand.
“Hado #58: Tenran!” (Tornado)
It was a Kido spell not that different from the wind technique from his past life, Great Breakthrough.
A vortex of wind almost as large as a real-life tornado burst from his palm, and the boy was hurled back uncontrollably, smashing through two houses before his body finally came to a stop, making a deep human imprint into a wall.
“How did you get disarmed? Did you underestimate him?” Naruto asked after blowing the kid away with his Kido.
“No, I didn’t,” Chika said gravely. “I didn’t get to activate my Shikai or Bankai, but other than that, I fought him seriously. His strength is ridiculous. I couldn’t pull my zanpakuto out of his body.”
Their conversation was cut short as the boy’s reiatsu exploded once more, this time with even more strength than before. A deranged laugh came from the boy as he jumped out of the ruined house a second time that day.
“Another strong foe!” he yelled out in glee.
Naruto unleashed his power as well and their reiatsu clashed violently, neither side gaining an advantage.
“You’re actually even stronger!" the boy said, and he pulled Chika’s sword out of his own chest.
Normally, using another shinigami’s zanpakuto was unthinkable because the spirit of the sword would resist a foreign wielder and increase its weight enormously, but the boy appeared to defy common sense.
Now, with one zanpakuto in each hand, he started running towards the Shinigami, bloodlust rolling off him in waves.
Thankfully, all civilians had evacuated the surroundings before the two of them arrived when the boy started his massacre. Therefore, Naruto wasn’t worried about harming innocent bystanders.
Shihouin Chika took the initiative to cast a Kido spell of his own.
“Bakudo #61: Rikujokoro!” (Six Rods Prison of Light)
Six beams of light came from Chika’s palms, but before they could restrain the boy, he swung his sword at them. The spell shattered into countless specks of light under the enormous strength of his swing.
Unfortunately for the boy, he had not expected the blond shinigami to also cast a spell of his own at the same time.
Golden chains were conjured seemingly out of thin air, and they coiled around the boy’s body, locking him in place.
The kid let out a scream and thrashed like a rabid beast, and, to Naruto and Chika’s stupor, the golden chains shattered under his brute strength.
A split second later, Naruto was forced to unsheathe his zanpakuto to block the boy’s savage attack.
The ground under his feet shattered from the force behind the boy's swing, but the blond stood his ground, not backing away.
The boy raised his other arm to chop at the blond with Chika’s zanpakuto, but an orb of spiritual energy appeared in Naruto’s left hand faster than the boy could swing his sword down.
He thrust the deadly orb straight into the boy’s face, and his body shot back violently, rotating in the air uncontrollably.
He had yet to even crash down when Naruto shouted:
“Bakudō #79: Kuyō Shibari” (Nine Sun Bind)
Eight spheres of spiritual energy appeared around the boy and one in front of his chest, but, unlike the name of the spell suggested, they were not bright and luminous. They were dark purple, and even the monstrous boy found himself completely immobilised by their force field.
In an action that defied all common sense, the boy suddenly roared, and his reiatsu exploded out of his body with greater intensity than ever before. The Nine Sun Bind spell started twisting as he attempted to destroy his bindings through sheer, brute strength.
Not allowing him the time to break free, Naruto Flash Stepped to his immobilised form and placed his hand on his face before saying:
“Inemuri.” (Forced Slumber)
It was the same method that Captain Unohana had used to subdue Naruto ten years ago when he attacked her.
The boy’s eyes closed against his will, and the maniacal expression on his face receded, turning into a neutral, peaceful look befitting someone his apparent age. He fell unconscious.
The attack missed its target, but the strength behind it was so ridiculous that the large pile of rocks was blown away and all the offerings that Naruto had brought for his dead friends were pulverised.
The blond was still in the middle of his rolling motion when he thrust his palm at the invisible attacker and shouted:
“Hado #63: Raikoho!”
Lightning appeared in the palm of his hand, and a massive explosion of lightning boomed. The earth ruptured, the skies shook, and a deafening thunderclap almost burst the eardrums of all ordinary people living nearby.
⁂
He heard a short scream of pain as his Kido spell struck his attacker in full. However, even after the massive explosion of lightning died down and he looked at his surroundings in a hurry, he could not find any traces of his attacker. There were no places to hide because his Kido spell had devastated the landscape in a radius of twenty-five metres around him, pulverizing everything. Only a crater was left.
‘Does she have some sort of invisibility spell? Or is it a Shikai or Bankai ability?’
Judging by the scream his attacker let out, whoever ambushed him appeared to be a person, not a hollow. And their voice sounded like that of a female.
He focused on detecting her spiritual energy, but his spiritual senses weren’t picking up anything. No spiritual energy, no body, no sound, no trace of footsteps.
‘Did my Kido kill her?’
He shot down that thought right away. Someone strong enough to destroy a large pile of rocks just with the wind pressure coming from the swing of their zanpakuto could not be anything but a captain-level shinigami.
‘No, that Kido isn’t strong enough to kill a captain in one shot and obliterate their body to the last cell.’
While he was debating with himself, he did not stay idle. He unsheathed his zanpakuto and broke into a run in the opposite direction from the village, towards the wilderness. He was afraid that his enemy’s attacks would endanger the regular souls in Rukongai.
According to what he had learnt from the books that Shihouin Chika had given him to study ten years ago, Soul Society was roughly of the same size as the Human Realm, Earth, but it had a different geography. There were no seas and oceans like the Human Realm but an endless wilderness.
He had put a few dozen kilometres between himself and the village when his Negative Emotions Sensing ability warned him of the malevolent emotions coming from behind him.
He twisted his body just in time to avoid a stab aiming for his spine. But he was not able to dodge it perfectly, and the invisible blade grazed his side, drawing blood.
Right as he was wounded, he chopped down at his attacker, but his zanpakuto’s blade struck nothing but empty air.
“Damn it! Hado #33: Sokatsui!” (Pale Fire Crash)
Despite the low rank of the Hado spell, an immense torrent of blue fire erupted from his hand and scorched dozens of trees around him, incinerating everything in its path.
There was no time for him to express his frustration because his Negative Emotions Sensing flared once more and he raised his zanpakuto to his left side. Unfortunately, despite knowing where the attack would come from, it was still invisible. His attempt at parrying failed and the enemy’s invisible blade slipped past his zanpakuto.
It was only sheer instinct developed over years of battle that made him tilt his head, while simultaneously slashing with his own blade at the enemy.
The attacker’s blade scratched his cheek, drawing blood again, but Naruto’s zanpakuto did not hit the empty air this time. A slashed-off piece of white clothing fell on the ground.
“To think I’d have a Captain from Gotei 13 aiming for my head. Should I feel scared or honoured that you came all the way here, in the boonies, to kill me?”
There were only two female captains among the Gotei 13.
“Who are you? Unohana? Or is it Katori?”
His taunt appeared to be ineffective because he did not receive an answer, but he could feel through his Negative Emotions Sensing that a small measure of anxiety and a healthy dose of frustration started appearing in his enemy’s heart.
The killing intent coming from the enemy erupted in intensity, and Naruto spun, raising his zanpakuto to block the enemy’s strike, but instinct could only take him so far. The enemy’s invisible blade slipped past his guard once more and stabbed at him.
Due to his experience, Naruto had positioned his zanpakuto to protect his vitals—his heart, neck, and head—but the width of his sword could not protect his entire body.
The invisible woman stabbed her blade into his left shoulder, making him cry out in pain.
He shouted as he swung his zanpakuto at the enemy, but his slash was off the mark again.
“Fuck!” Naruto let out a curse.
It appeared as though the woman’s stab had severed his nerves because his entire left arm went slack, falling down limply.
The enemy did not give him a moment of respite. She attacked him once more, and this time, Naruto stabbed his blade into the ground and raised his right arm before shouting:
“Bakudō #81. Danku!” (Splitting Void)
A transparent wall of spiritual energy several dozen meters tall and wide appeared in front of him, and a split second later, a sound like that of a loud gong reverberated as the enemy’s blade clashed against his defensive spell, but it could not break it.
Not missing a beat, Naruto raised his right hand above his head. The air grew heavy as a terrible, oppresive reiatsu exploded from his body.
“The crest of turmoil swells. The vessel of madness grows insolent.”
His airy shihakusho robes started fluttering wildly from the release of power, and the very sky darkened as his cold killing intent exploded.
“They boil, they deny, they become numb, they blink, and they impede slumber.”
Spiderweb-like cracks spread from below his feet, and an earthquake made the world shake as Naruto continued:
“The princess of iron crawls-”
He was halfway through his incantation before his Negative Emotions Sensing flared once more. He could feel the woman’s confusion, anxiety. . . and fear. The invisible enemy started to run around his large Danku barrier, fully intent on killing him before he could finish his Kido spell.
Abruptly halting his long incantation, Naruto lowered his arm in front of him and chanted the name of an entirely different spell:
“Bakudo #39: Enkosen!” (Round Lock Fan)
A rapidly spinning disc of yellow light appeared from his right hand. And it was not a second too late. The enemy’s invisible blade struck the spinning disc of yellow light.
The low-level defensive spell broke into myriad particles of light under the powerful strike of his enemy, but it had bought Naruto enough time to grab his zanpakuto from the ground and Flash Step away.
‘Damn it. I don’t have enough time to cast rank 90 Kido and above!’
His Negative Emotions Sensing spiked again, and he tried to cast his strongest barrier spell one more time.
“Bakudo #81-”
The woman attacked him before he could finish even that small incantation, her feelings of anger and desperation almost palpable in his awareness. It seemed as though Naruto being about to cast the Hado #90: Kurohitsugi spell had put the fear of death into her because she started attacking him with wild abandon.
He tried to parry her blows, but even with his reflexes and instincts, he couldn’t avoid every strike. He was protecting his vitals successfully, but many cuts started appearing on his arms and legs, soaking his shihakusho with his blood.
The enemy’s attacks were so fast that he did not have time to cast any spells. Blood began to pool at Naruto’s feet, on the ground, as the invisible enemy attacked him in a frenzy, her blade leaving dozens of painful wounds on his body.
The blond appeared to be on his last legs. It seemed as if he was mere moments away from collapsing under the relentless, lightning-fast sword slashes, and the enemy did not miss those signs.
Sensing the sharp spike in her killing intent, Naruto understood that she was going for the kill with the next hit.
In that split second before his potential death, many thoughts flew through his mind.
‘She’ll go for the head.’
‘A stabbing attack would be too easy to miss. She already missed like that once.’
‘A horizontal slash to behead me would be too easily blocked because that’s the neutral guarding position while wielding a sword.’
‘No, she’ll go for a vertical chop.’
With a vertical chop, unless he parried her slash, even if he moved his head out of the way, her sword would still likely injure his shoulder or neck.
His rich battle experience allowed him to immediately determine his enemy’s target and method of attack.
Confident in his instincts, Naruto quickly raised his zanpakuto above his head horizontally, and his gamble paid off. Bright sparks came from the clashing of blades, and a loud clang resounded in the wilderness.
“Just die already!” came the invisible woman’s enraged scream as she started pushing her blade with her entire strength and body weight against Naruto’s zanpakuto.
Due to the fact that he was holding his zanpakuto with only one hand, she was overpowering him, slowly but steadily pushing the two blades towards his head.
But, all of a sudden, a bright orb of blue spiritual energy appeared in Naruto’s left hand (the hand that was supposed to be injured and limp), and, before she could react, he thrust it into her ribs.
A scream of agony came from the invisible woman as the orb of spiritual energy tore her torso apart before exploding and blasting her away violently.
Somehow, she and her sword were still invisible even after all that. However, it was over for her because she started bleeding heavily, and the blood that dripped on the ground was not invisible.
It looked like she understood that as well because she Flash Stepped, running away as fast as she could, as evidenced by the large gaps in the trail of blood she left behind.
He wanted nothing more than to chase her down, but the numerous bloodied cuts that she had inflicted on him made it hard for him to walk, let alone run.
Eyes shining with ferocity, Naruto thrust his palm forward and shouted:
“Hado #88: Hiryu Gekizoku Shinten Raiho!”
Flying Dragon-Striking Heaven-Shaking Thunder Cannon was the strongest long-range Kido spell that he could cast without a full incantation.
An enormous beam of blue spiritual energy burst from his palm towards the fleeing woman. The air shook, and the earth was torn asunder as his spell razed everything off the ground.
“Damn it.”
His devastating attack had reshaped the landscape, but judging by the fact that he could still feel the woman’s terror and hatred in the distance through his Negative Emotions Sensing, she had escaped.
Not detecting anything or anyone hostile in his vicinity any longer, Naruto sat down with a heavy, pained groan. It felt like his entire body was burning. Everything hurt.
‘What the hell was with that ability?!’
It was not only the woman’s body and her sword that were completely invisible, but her spiritual energy was impossible to detect as well.
'It was like fighting Madara's Limbo clones all over again.'
However, back then, he had the Six Paths Sage Mode. His senses had been far sharper, otherworldly even. He was not on the same level anymore.
‘If I didn’t have Kurama’s Negative Emotion Sensing, I would have died.’
He was firmly convinced that in a regular fight, he could kill that woman effortlessly because his reiatsu dwarfed hers and his skill set was far more versatile than hers. But her ability to become completely invisible had made it almost impossible for him to defend against her strikes and land any hits on her. What good was all his power if he couldn’t see where she was and couldn’t hit her?
‘Who was it? Was it Unohana? Or was it Katori?’
He didn’t know how he could have offended either of them. He had never talked to Katori Batsu’unsai in person. As for Unohana, Naruto had never slighted her again after their first encounter ten years ago. After all, he was not even a Lieutenant. Excluding Shihouin Chika, Naruto and the Captains of Gotei 13 did not frequent the same places and circles. He did not interact with them.
‘. . . Or maybe it’s some other Shinigami Captain that I haven’t heard of?'
He couldn’t dismiss that possibility because the Gotei 13 had many secrets he was not privy to.
'Or maybe that psycho bitch I killed has some relatives, and now they want revenge? But why wait 10 years? Why not kill me right away?’
He did not know what to think.
Having caught his breath, Naruto got up from the ground and sheathed his zanpakuto. He was still wounded; he no longer had the miraculous regeneration of his past life. But he could not afford to dilly-dally. He had to return to Seireitei as soon as possible.
⁂
In spite of his many injuries, Naruto actually managed to arrive back to Seireitei faster than Kenji, his patrol-duty partner.
His bloodied and messed-up visage did not raise any eyebrows. Everyone was used to seeing such scenes because the fatality rate among the lower-ranked shinigami was alarmingly high, with many of them dying within their first century of service. The large gatekeeper guarding the entrance to Seireitei quickly lifted the gate and let him pass.
After the violent war against the Quincy ten years ago, the Captain Commander proposed the creation of a support unit within the Gotei and a medical division, but none of the Captains were eager to volunteer for it so the matter had been postponed.
The Captains of the Gotei 13 were, until not long ago, little more than crime lords, psychotic killers, and warlords. “Live by the sword and die by the sword” was the motto most of them lived their lives by. None of them wanted to suddenly change who they were and become medics for the sake of saving others.
With that being said, the Gotei 13 did not have a common hospital or a medical unit just yet because it was still a new and half-savage organisation. Therefore, most of the Shinigami who returned wounded from their duty could only rely on the people from their division who were skilled in Healing Kido to patch them up.
Once he entered the barracks of Squad 2, he rushed straight to Shihouin Chika’s office.
⁂
“What the hell happened to you?” Chika asked, his eyes wide with surprise as he stood up from his seat.
Shihouin knew that Naruto was hiding a portion of his abilities, but even with what he had shown to him until then, it was enough for him to consider the blond a captain-class shinigami. He couldn’t understand just what had brought him to that deplorable state when he was supposed to be on a simple patrol mission in Rukongai.
“Was it a hollow who did it? Did you encounter a Vasto Lorde??”
“What would a Vasto Lorde Hollow do in Rukongai of all places? No, it wasn’t a hollow. It was a Shinigami,” Naruto replied. “Remember how I kept telling you that someone was watching me? Well, that someone attacked me today.”
“. . .Are you being serious?”
“Look at me. Did you think I carved myself up like this for shits and giggles?” Naruto retorted.
Not replying to Naruto, Chika went to a nearby cage and took out a beautiful, black butterfly. It was a Hell butterfly. The captain’s hand glowed with a blue light as he relayed his thoughts to the butterfly.
Following that, the butterfly flapped its black wings and flew away, disappearing from view as it passed through the walls of the office like a ghost.
“I called the medic to heal you. Save your strength until then; don’t talk.”
“Thanks, but it looks worse than it really is,” said Naruto. “I don’t need a medic; it’s not life-threatening. More importantly, the one who attacked me was a Captain-class Shinigami; I’m sure of it.”
“Tell me more,” Chika said seriously. “Tell me everything; don’t leave out any details.”
Naruto was forced to pause his tale when one of Squad 2’s medics arrived and started treating him with their Healing Kido. It appeared that his claim about his wounds being superficial was not a mere bluff. The medic only took a few minutes to patch him up. Although he was healed now, he still needed to rest and recover due to how much blood he had lost.
Once the healer left, Naruto finished his tale, giving Shihouin as many details about his encounter as possible.
“Female captain. . . I don't know about Saito Furofushi having any relatives. With how unhinged she was, I'd wager she killed her family with her own hands... As for our Gotei Captains, I’ve seen Katori-san’s shikai before: it’s a spear, and she doesn’t turn invisible. I’ve also seen Unohana-san’s Shikai and Bankai once; they’re not invisible either. Besides, if Unohana-san wanted you dead, you’d be dead now. I don’t think it’s either of them.”
After that, Naruto looked at Chika strangely as he started going through a lengthy list of names of all the capable female shinigami in all the thirteen squads of Seireitei who may have hidden their strength and may have had the potential to be a Captain-level shinigami secretly.
“...How are you so familiar even with lower rank officers?”
Chika smirked and shrugged his shoulders.
“Why would I not be? Gotei 13 is almost like a family. As a Captain, it’s my job to ensure our troops' morale stays up. And I made it my personal mission to ensure that every lovely officer in Seireitei knows she’s appreciated.”
“...So, being a womanizer is part of your duties as a Captain?”
Naruto’s flat expression and deadpan tone made Chika burst into laughter.
“Precisely,” Chika replied, still grinning. “A happier squad is a stronger squad.”
“No wonder Unohana-san won’t give you the time of the day,” Naruto shot back.
The dark-skinned man wasn’t affected by his barb.
“It’s only a matter of time now.” When the blond gave him a look that practically said he was delusional, Chika doubled down: “I’m serious. She’s been warming up to me lately.”
Naruto shook his head. He wasn’t in the mood to continue bantering with him at that moment. He changed the subject.
“Captain. I want to be reassigned. I want to join Onmitsukido.”
Chika wasn’t bothered by his borderline rude way of speaking.
“Why?” he asked.
“I need to fade into obscurity for a while.”
“Merely wearing a hood and a mask to hide your face won’t be enough to fool a Captain-class shinigami’s senses. Unless you plan on sealing your spiritual energy-”
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do. Patrolling Rukongai when there’s an invisible Captain-class Shinigami out for my blood is no different than suicide. I can’t be on my guard 24/7. Sooner or later, they will get the drop on me.”
Shihouin Chika brought a hand to his chin, seemingly deep in thought.
“You want to train for your Bankai, don’t you?”
Seeing the startled look on Naruto’s face, Chika scoffed:
“What are you acting so surprised about? You nearly died against a Captain so you clearly want to improve yourself. And if I were to guess, you probably want to join the Detention Unit. The deepest level of the Maggots’ Nest would hide your reiatsu completely. It couldn’t be any more obvious to me what your plans are.”
Soul Society had three main military forces:
Gotei 13 with its thirteen squads and thirteen Captains.
Kido Corps, a military branch independent of Gotei 13 that specialised in the art of Kido.
Onmitsukido, or the Stealth Force, which was under the direct command of Central 46, the main governing body of Soul Society. It was an organisation consisting of many members from the Noble families.
That being said, whenever a particularly powerful Shinigami rose from among the members of the Five Great Noble Families, the Stealth Force would become subordinated to them. That was why Shihouin Chika, despite being a Captain of the Gotei 13, was also the Supreme Commander of the Stealth Force; because he was the head of the Shihouin Clan, one of the Five Great Noble Families.
“Are you against me joining the Detention Unit?” asked Naruto.
The Detention Unit was one of the five branches of Onmitsukido, specialising in uncovering and detaining dangerous individuals among the members of Gotei 13. The Maggots’ Nest was under their direct supervision.
“Not really,” said Chika. “We spar often enough for me to know that your Hakuda is at least at a Lieutenant’s level. As for your Kido, it’s at a Captain’s level. You’re more than qualified to join the Detention Unit. . . But why should I let you do that?”
“I thought you wanted me to become strong.”
Shihouin walked to the window of his office, standing in silence for a moment as he watched his squad’s new recruits swinging their zanpakuto in unison on the training ground.
“I do want you to become strong,” the dark-skinned man finally said, his voice losing its usual laid-back tone.
Turning to face Naruto, a sharp look appeared in his yellow eyes as he said:
“But lately, I find myself wondering whether you’re truly on my side or if I’m raising a viper in my bosom.”
The two men looked at each other silently, seemingly locked in a staring contest.
“It was you who took me from Rukongai,” Naruto said in an even tone. “I was content with just dying together with my people. But you threw me in the Maggots’ Nest, and you all but forced me to become a Shinigami. Now you’re saying you don’t want it anymore?”
“I didn’t force you-”
“Let’s not play games of words,” Naruto cut him off sharply. It was as if he had no respect for his position as his Captain. “It was obvious that if I had refused to become a Shinigami, you would have killed me on the spot.”
“That’s not how I wanted our discussion to go. . .” Chika ran a hand through his messy silvery hair and let out a long sigh.
Dropping his shoulders, Chika spoke in a bummed-out voice, turning back to his affable and laid-back behaviour:
“Listen, relationships between people are always like two-way roads. It’s always a give and take. Even between parents and their children, it’s still a two-way road. You can't expect to always be on the receiving end. You have to give something in return too."
"I saved you from Rukongai. I even went as far as to kill my fellow Shinigami to keep you alive. And then, for the next 10 years, I trained you and gave you all the resources and knowledge you had asked me for. But what have you done for me?”
When Naruto didn’t answer, Chika replied to his own question:
“Nothing. You’ve always kept me at arm’s length. Always gave me a cold shudder. You’ve always kept secrets. You never tried to at least pretend that you cared for our friendship.”
When he put it that way, Naruto became silent. He actually started feeling bad deep down when he realised that Shihouin Chika was being genuine with his words. . . his Negative Emotions Sensing wasn’t being triggered by any lies, which meant that the dark-skinned Captain truly thought that Naruto was his friend.
“What would it take for you to be honest with me once?” asked Shihouin.
“You could start by being honest yourself first,” Naruto said. “Why did you rescue me from Rukongai? And I need something more than what you told me ten years ago. I understand you need my power. What for?”
Unlike ten years ago, when he had just been brought to Seireitei, Naruto was no longer ignorant about the ways of the world.
“You’re the Head of the Shihouin Clan, one of the Five Great Families. You have your Clan’s wealth and manpower, the entire Squad 2, and even the Onmitsukido at your command. Why is my power that important to you? I’m just one man. And what do you need my power for?” the blond asked.
“Everything you said is correct. I do possess all that manpower, wealth, and authority. But none of that means anything in front of absolute power. You have that potential. You tried as best as you could to hide your true strength, but I know that your reiatsu has already surpassed mine,” Shihouin said.
“You still haven’t answered the real question,” said Naruto. “What do you need my power for?”
Shihouin walked to his chair and plopped himself down, leaning back against the backrest in a manner unbecoming to someone of his status.
“At first, I merely wanted a strong subordinate. What sort of clan leader would I be if I could not recognise a talented person when I saw one?”
“Well? What changed?” Naruto asked.
“You see, not all the Quincy had been eradicated. Yhwach used to be the leader of an empire in the Human Realm called ‘Lichtreich’. Many of his subordinates are still alive in the Human World, and they went into hiding once he died. I ordered the Espionage Unit to infiltrate their ranks and uncover their hideouts.”
Unlike the first, second, third, and fifth units of the Onmitsukido that operated within Seireitei, the fourth division of the Stealth Force, the Espionage Unit, operated outside the Court of Souls.
“Nine years ago, one year after the war, my subordinates uncovered a prophecy they heard circulating amongst the Quincy: the sealed King of the Quincy. Over 900 years, he shall recover his heartbeat. Over 90 years, he shall recover his intellect. Over nine years, he shall recover his power. And over nine days, he shall recover the world.”
“How can this be? We were both there. We all saw him dying,” said Naruto. “Sasakibe-san backstabbed him, and the Head Captain cleaved him in half and burnt his remains to ash!”
Shihouin shook his head.
“Yhwach’s identity is not that simple. There are things that even the Head Commander does not know. Information that only the Five Great Noble Families are privy to. . . If Yhwach comes back and if he is as strong as the myths about the Soul King make me believe he will be, the current Gotei 13 may not be strong enough to stop him. And that’s why I need you—not just you, but anyone strong enough to make a difference.”
Despite the severity of the things he was talking about, Shihouin seemed rather nonchalant. But Naruto knew, thanks to his Negative Emotions Sensing that the Captain was not lying.
“Did you tell Captain Commander about this?”
“I did, but he doesn’t seem too concerned. He said we’ll just have to beat them back again if they were to rise once more. . . All I can do is prepare myself for the future."
"Well, it's your turn now. Remember, give and take,” Chika said while staring at the ceiling. “What’s your goal? Is your heart still filled with rage and vengeance? Do you still want to kill all shinigami?”
Naruto shook his head.
“No. . . I know not all shinigami are evil. And I’ve already killed those who were responsible for my people’s deaths. . . I don’t wish to kill all Shinigami like I wanted ten years ago. . . but I can’t forget about what they did and what they will continue to do should the need arise.”
His knuckles turned white from how hard he clenched his fist.
“Killing innocent people is something that I will never do. And I will make it so that the Shinigami never kill another innocent soul from Rukon again.”
“How?” Shihouin asked. “Are you going to oppose the Seireitei all by yourself? And even if you were to become strong enough to do that, how would you preserve the balance?
“Gotei 13 and Central 46 don’t care about Rukongai, but I do. I will create a new organisation that will police the Rukon district. Instead of being executed on the spot, like what Shinigami do to most criminals in the present, I will imprison them. I will build a prison and keep those vile people locked up until their lives are needed for the sake of balance,” Naruto said in a determined voice.
“Building a prison, huh? So you wanted to join the Detention Unit not just for the sake of your Bankai, but to learn Sealing Kido as well. . . “ Shihouin said in realisation. “However, Central 46 would never accept the existence of a military organisation that is not under their direct control.”
“That’s where my power will come into play,” Naruto said. “I will become powerful. So powerful that they will have no choice but to bend to my demands. You said it yourself, didn't you? Nobility, money, authority—none of that matters in front of absolute power.”
Chika snorted.
“I’ll never understand why you would go so far for the people of Rukon.”
“Because I don’t judge people’s value based on how useful they’ll be to me, Captain. . . And I don’t want anyone else to experience the things I went through.”
“I see. . .” Shihoin said thoughtfully. “I’m not opposed to your goal. I don’t particularly care about them but if it makes you happy, I wouldn’t be against following your principles. As long as you don’t betray me, I’ll support you in your endeavours.”
For the first time since they met, Uzumaki Naruto and Shihouin Chika held an honest conversation with each other. No words laced with lies, no hidden hostility, no secret agenda.
On that day, a lasting friendship was born between the two men.
Matt cried out in a scared voice when no less than eight Dwarves zeroed in on him.
“Harry, help!”
Alas, at that moment, his reliable and overprotective older brother that he always depended on backstabbed him. Just like in the story of the man who tripped his friend to get eaten by the bear, Harry pushed his younger brother towards the Dwarves from behind and broke into a sprint towards the Ravenclaw table.
It was a betrayal that Matthew would never forget.
⁂
The red-haired boy ran towards the end of the Gryffindor table, hoping that he would lose the dwarves, but he had been overoptimistic. The poor boy’s face turned as red as a ripe apple when the dwarves started reciting some of the most embarrassing poems he had ever heard in his entire life.
"His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad, His hair is as dark as a blackboard. I wish he was mine, he's really divine, the hero who conquered the Dark Lord."
The students nearby burst into laughter, with Harry being louder than them all. Laughing, pointing, and beating the table with his fist, he was almost crying from the hilarity of the situation.
His friends were sniggering at his little brother’s misfortune too, but Elspeth, in particular, was torn between laughing and crying at the sight in front of her eyes.
“Jesus Christ, these dwarves are a fucking embarrassment.”
It was not like her to cuss like that, but she was in disbelief. Unlike Elora, Simon, Harry, Luna, and Florent, Elspeth was a half-blood witch who had been raised in a Muggle environment.
Tolkien’s novels had greatly impacted her childhood; because of them, she had always pictured the dwarves as a proud and noble race. In her mind, they were ale-loving, valiant warriors with a fierce loyalty to their friends, an unshakeable code of honour, and great skill in crafting armour and weapons.
But seeing the short, muscular, bearded men strutting about in frilly Cupid robes and reciting love poems was like watching her childhood heroes being dragged through the mud. The skin on her forearms broke into goosebumps from the second-hand embarrassment she was getting on Tolkien’s dwarves’ behalf.
Harry was still in the midst of laughing his ass off at his little brother when a dwarf headed towards the part of the Ravenclaw table he was seated at as well.
‘Who is he heading to? Lizzie? She’s pretty cute and fun. She’s quite popular with the guys.’
Then there was also the obvious choice, Florent Delacour. The French boy was bound to get entire serenades dedicated to him.
He wasn’t wrong. One by one, dwarves started coming to their table and reciting poems for Florent, who could do nothing but laugh awkwardly. He looked like he wanted nothing but to dig up a whole and hide.
Harry snickered at the thought of how much fun he was going to have at his friends’ expense once the shit show was over.
But then, it happened. As the saying goes, what goes around comes around. He had been laughing with tears at his younger brother’s misfortune and then had great fun laughing at Florent too. . .
As a dwarf stopped in front of him, Harry’s smile froze on his face. Why would a dwarf come to him? As far as he knew, he wasn’t exactly popular with the students in his year. He was more of a loner and, since the end of the last year, many bad rumours started circulating about him when people heard he had been somehow involved in the death of Quirinus Quirrell, their previous DADA teacher.
It made no sense that someone would send him a love message.
‘Unless. . . ‘
A thought came to his mind, and he quickly looked at the Gryffindor table where his brother was seated. Next to Matthew, two twins with red hair were watching him intently, with shit-eating grins on their faces.
‘Those bloody bastards!’
It only took one look at their grins for him to realise that the dwarf coming to him was Fred and George’s doing.
“I got a musical message to deliver for you,” said the dwarf before clearing his throat.
The dwarf’s voice as he began to sing should be labelled as a crime against humanity. But the lyrics of his serenade were, somehow, even worse.
"Your socks are mismatched, and they sit by my bed, Sometimes I imagine their smell in my head. Your trunk is exploding with half-eaten snacks, But Harry, my dear, my resolve never cracks.
You burp in the dorm like you haven’t a care, Yet somehow I’m dreaming of ruffling your hair. It’s mad, it’s absurd, but I’ll just have to say: Oh, Harry, you’ve stolen my heart anyway.”
The entire Ravenclaw Table burst into laughter. Some of the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs nearby started howling with laughter at him too.
Harry turned to look at ‘Florent’, the movement of his body stiff and almost mechanical.
Fleur herself could not believe her ears too. Her blue eyes widening in disbelief, she almost shouted in a high-pitched voice:
“It wasn’t me, ‘Arry! I swear!”
Florent’s outburst made people burst into laughter anew, with even the professors starting to chuckle at the scene.
“Merlin’s beard, Florent, I did hear the rumours that you liked boys, but sniffing his socks?” Simon said, snickering.
“I said I did NOT write that poem!”
“My, my, I can’t help but wonder what you are up to when you’re alone in your dorm at night, only the two of you,” Elspeth also said slyly.
“Lizzie, don’t you start it too!”
As if to pour salt on the raw wound, Fred and George shouted from the Gryffindor table:
“Didn’t know you swung that way, Harry!”
“You should’ve told us sooner! Fred and I are very open-minded. I might say interested even!”
Harry let his forehead fall onto the table with a thud.
“Those idiots! Those arseholes! I’m going to kill them. I swear I’ll kill them!”
Not in the mood to stick around and hear everyone heckling at him, Harry just grabbed his backpack and stood up. He was going to the kitchens to have his breakfast in peace and quiet, with the house elves.
⁂
The rest of the day did not get any easier either, with Simon, Elspeth, and Elora ripping into Harry at any chance they got. Such occasions when they could one-sidedly tease and bully Harry were rare to come by, so they abused this moment as much as they could.
By the end of the day, Harry lost count of how many expletives he had spewed at the Weasley twins’ address.
However, after the end of a DADA class where Lockhart poked fun at him too, talking about how ‘love transcends genders,’ Harry switched his vengeance target from the Weasleys to Gilderoy Lockhart.
‘Everything that happened is because of this imbecile.’
It wasn’t enough that he was an utterly useless fool in class, but now he was pulling this sort of stunt too?
“I can’t understand what are girls seeing in this pillock,” said a fifth-year Hufflepuff to his friend as they all left through the door when the class ended.
“He has such a punchable face, I swear to god.”
“Did you see Emily? She was eating him with her eyes.”
The boys' envy was not without reason. Gilderoy Lockhart, with his lilac robes, flowy golden hair, and famous smile, which had won him the Witch Weekly’s Most-Charming-Smile-Award five times in a row, was the heartthrob of most girls in the castle. He had a mountain of chocolate on his desk and other gifts from girls.
A thought came to his mind at that moment, and he told his friends:
“You guys go ahead; I think I forgot something. Can you save me a spot next to you in Herbology?”
“Don’t worry, we’ll save you a spot right next to Florent,” Elora said.
“Cut it out, you!” Fleur said in exasperation while Elspeth giggled.
Not paying her teasing any mind, Harry left the group of students and started walking back towards the DADA class.
He did not rush; he took his time, walking at a slow pace. When he noticed the corridor was empty, he took out his wand and cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself. His mastery of the spell was so great that he turned himself completely invisible. He also cast a Silencing Charm on himself before breaking into a run.
⁂
Around the same time, after finishing her Transfiguration Class with the second-year Gryffindors and Ravenclaws, Professor Minerva McGonagall grimaced at the sight of the short and burly dwarves cornering Matthew Potter in the corridors to recite or sing their poems.
Her lips stretched into a thin line, and she started walking towards the Headmaster’s Office at a brisk pace.
She was going to be late to class for the first time in ages, but her frustration and anger had reached a boiling point. She could no longer bear with it.
Dumbledore suffered the brunt of her anger for nearly 10 minutes after she entered her office.
“This can’t go on, Dumbledore!” McGonagall said for what had to be the sixth time. “Dwarves walking around half naked and singing poems, Professor Slughorn turning a blind eye to students brewing Love Potions in his class after finishing their assignments, mistletoes all over the place, and couples frolicking in every broom cupboard nearby!”
“This is Hogwarts, the finest magical school in Europe, not a circus! Where is the discipline we were once known for?”
“Is it not enough that Gilderoy Lockhart is a fraud who doesn’t belong in this school? Why are you allowing him to do this sort of nonsense?!”
By the time she finished her rant, the old witch was breathing laboriously.
“You’re being too harsh, Minerva. Valentine’s Day is only one day a year. There is no harm in allowing the children to have some fun and enjoy their youth once in a while. You were their age once as well, were you not? I seem to recall a particularly dashing seventh-year Slytherin boy and a terribly squeaky carriage back when you were 16. . .”
A hint of red appeared on the old lady’s cheeks.
“How-, how do you know about that?!” she asked in disbelief before she could stop herself.
“It may sound vain coming from me, but there aren’t many things that escape my notice in this castle, especially when it comes to students whom I keep an eye on,” Dumbledore said, chuckling.
As realisation dawned on her, Minerva McGonagall flushed even harder.
But the old Transfiguration Professor was spared from further embarrassment when a silvery being suddenly came out from the walls of Dumbledore’s office. At first, she thought it was a ghost but its small silhouette banished that idea.
The silvery creature flapped its wings and landed on Fawks’ empty perch. It was a bird. Unlike Fawks, who was the size of a mute swan, the ghostly, silvery bird was quite a bit smaller, and its appearance less majestic. It looked like a crow or a raven.
The ghostly bird opened its beak, and a strange, but unquestionably human voice came out of its mouth. It was a loud, harsh whisper that made the words it said easy to understand but very difficult to distinguish whether it was the voice of a male or a female.
“Gilderoy Lockhart is having sex in the Defence class with a fifth-year Hufflepuff girl. This is not a prank.”
Dumbledore’s amusement and McGonagall’s embarrassment all vanished instantly, and they jumped up to their feet as though they were burnt.
⁂
Having sent the Patronus Charm to Minerva McGonagall, Harry was filled with an evil joy of anticipation as he waited for the Deputy Headmistress to arrive and catch Lockhart in the act.
‘I can’t believe this cretin would actually do something like this in school.'
His intention had been to just sneak into Gilderoy Lockhart’s personal quarters and maybe find some inappropriate letters or objects to get some dirt on him. He had never expected him to actually have sex with a student and an underage girl at that.
He had no particular interest in watching two people have sex, but he couldn’t miss out on the spectacle once McGonagall arrived. His face twisted in a grimace when Lockhart and the fifth-year girl stopped kissing, and he saw her dropping to her knees in front of him.
“Professor, I’ve wanted you for so long,” whispered the Hufflepuff girl as she unbuckled his belt.
“You’re a good girl, Emily," he said, petting her head.
Harry shivered in disgust and turned away. He glanced down at his wristwatch, a round, silvery watch with a black leather strap. It was a simple but classy watch. It was the gift that Florent had offered him when they returned from the Christmas holiday.
Just as the girl unzipped his trousers and pulled them down, the doors of the DADA classroom were blasted open with a loud bang.
Harry’s heart leapt into his throat when he saw Albus Dumbledore bursting through the room with his wand out and Minerva McGonagall right behind him.
A spell shot from Dumbledore’s wand, and the half-naked Lockhart and the kneeling girl were separated harshly, with Lockhart slamming painfully into the wall behind his desk. He did not have time to even take out his wand before McGonagall waved her wand at him, and Lockhart’s robes turned into enormous pythons that coiled around him, constricting his body tightly.
She could have Transfigured his clothes into ropes, chains, or even vines, but she purposely chose to turn them into snakes. It took only one look at her face for Harry to realise that the old witch was enraged.
Her anger, however, paled in comparison to Dumbledore’s.
The air seemed to be filled with static energy, and Harry felt as though an extremely heavy weight started pressing on his shoulders, making it hard for him to stand.
For the first time in his life, Harry got a small taste of the Headmaster’s true power.
‘Overwhelming.’
It was the only word that came to his mind.
That was the magic power of the man who had defeated Gellert Grindelwald, one of the worst Dark Lords of all time.
With Gilderoy Lockhart immobilised by Professor McGonagall’s pythons, Dumbledore cast the Patronus Spell, and a silvery Phoenix came out of his wand before flying out of the room, through the wall.
In the meantime, Lockhart was shaking and thrashing around in terror, but he couldn’t even scream due to large snakes covering his mouth, let alone move.
“Miss Wells? Return to your dorms. Pack your belongings; this is your last night at Hogwarts,” Dumbledore said calmly.
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! Please don’t expel me!” the terrified girl begged and burst into tears.
“Miss Wells!”
Something in Dumbledore’s tone immediately silenced the crying girl, and she got up, running out of the classroom without saying a word more.
“As for you, Gilderoy, the Aurors are on their way.”
Muffled moans and groans came from Lockhart. He looked like he was screaming on the inside, desperate to say something, but Dumbledore did not pay him any mind.
“I welcomed you into the school with open arms. I even took your side and allowed you to perform your little extracurricular activities when the rest of your colleagues protested against them. But you spat on my trust. Not only did you underperform severely at your job, but you even dared to lay your hands on a student.”
Dumbledore’s voice was cold and menacing when he spoke next:
“Mark my words, Gilderoy. Your fame will not save you. Your connections will mean nothing. I will bury you. I will use all my resources and influence to make sure you will spend the rest of your life in Azkaban.”
Once he said that, the old wizard suddenly pointed his wand in Harry’s direction, to the corner of the classroom, and his Disillusionment Charm was cancelled.
Minerva McGonagall looked at Harry in surprise, never having expected to see another person, a student no less, in the classroom. His spell had been so good that she had not noticed his presence in the least.
“Mr Potter?! What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in Herbology now?”
Harry’s back broke into a cold sweat. In the first place, he never thought that his spell would bring over Dumbledore. He had sent his Patronus to McGonagall. He had been confident that his invisibility spell would allow him to slip away undetected.
“Um, yes, but I thought I forgot something and came back to look for it,“ he explained himself quickly. “I’m the one who sent you the Patronus, Professor.”
⁂
Those students who had been outside, in the middle of their Care For Magical Creatures class, had gotten a front-row seat at watching how the Aurors dragged a crying and desperately pleading, tied-up Gilderoy Lockhart out of the castle.
Because of them, the news of Gilderoy Lockhart being caught having sex with an underage student spread like wildfire. By the evening of the same day, there was virtually not a single person at Hogwarts who had not heard of it.
Nobody among the students knew that he was the one who had caught Lockhart red-handed, and Harry preferred it to be that way.
However, the fact that Harry Potter was missing from the Herbology Class when Lockhart was caught and the fact that his friends knew that he had gone back to the DADA classroom for something he had forgotten immediately led many people to suspect that he had been involved in this whole thing somehow.
⁂
The news that a professor was caught having sex with a student took not only Hogwarts by storm but the entire British Wizarding World too. Merely a day after Lockhart’s arrest, the incident made it to the first page of the Daily Prophet as well.
SEX SCANDAL AT HOGWARTS WITH GILDEROY LOCKHART AT THE CENTRE OF IT
[...]
“She was 16! That is not below the age of consent in Great Britain! Our affair may have been unprofessional, but I am in no way a criminal! I demand to be released!” Gilderoy Lockhart, the former professor of Defense Against Dark Arts shouted as he was taken by the Aurors.
[...]
Euphemia Potter shook her head and clicked her tongue incredulously as she read the article in the newspaper.
She would not be surprised if she were to hear that some students among the older years got caught having sex at school—she had been young too, so she knew what was going on in abandoned classrooms and broom cupboards. But to hear that a professor had laid their hands on a student was unthinkable. That's because the number of wizards and witches in Great Britain was rather small; committing such a crime would ensure the fact that the offender would be forever ostracised and shunned wherever they went.
Noticing the arrival of a customer, Mrs Potter put down her newspaper and greeted them with a smile.
“Welcome to Potter’s Apothecary. How may I be of service today?”
That was the name of their small Potions business. It was just a tiny little shop that Euphemia operated in Pitt-Upon-Ford, the village where they lived.
Although she and her husband were retired and set for life due to their wealth, the old lady liked to keep herself busy.
“Good evening, Auntie. May I have some more of that Invigoration Draught?” spoke the young man.
Euphemia giggled softly when she saw the young woman next to him hiding her face in her partner’s shoulder in embarrassment.
“Here you go, deary,” she said amiably when she returned from the shelf with a flask filled with a bright orange colour.
The young man put a galleon on the counter and scurried away together with his girlfriend, not even waiting for her to give him his change.
The old lady laughed yet again.
“Ah, young love. How adorable.”
Pitt-Upon-Ford was a small village where everyone knew each other. She guessed that if not for how late it was, the young couple would not have come to her little potions shop to buy an Invigoration Draught. They would have definitely gone to Hogsmeade to maintain their anonymity.
‘Maybe it’s time for me to close too.’
It was almost 9 o’clock in the evening. It was February, and while it was not cold inside her shop thanks to the neat bit of spellwork that she and her husband had cast on it, it was pitch dark outside, and the streets were empty.
Just as she was about to pull down the blinders of her little shop, two goblins appeared in the plaza of the village.
“Help! Help us, please!” he cried out. “My friend here was injured by a thornback!”
The goblin was carrying his wounded friend in a piggy bag, leaving a serious trail of blood behind them.
“Right away! Was he poisoned?” Euphemia asked in a loud voice as she ran to the shelf, grabbed a Wiggenweld Potion, and started looking for her stash of Anti-venom flasks too.
“I don’t think so. But his leg was mangled!”
Euphemia grabbed her potions and came out of her shop in a rush, running faster than one would expect from someone her age.
“Put him down, let me see him!” she said in a hurried voice as she knelt next to them and took off the cork from the Wiggenweld Potion’s flask.
At that moment, loud sounds of footsteps belonging to more than one person came from behind her. The old lady instinctively turned around to see the source of the noise . . . and it was just in time to see how a goblin wielding a large war hammer jumped up into the air and smashed his weapon into her head with both hands.
⁂
The old lady woke up with a groan. She felt as though someone had split her head open with an axe. She opened her eyes, but it was so dark outside, she couldn’t see a thing. She also tried to move, but it appeared that she was tied up. She couldn’t move an inch.
“What if you killed her, you imbecile? I told you using the war hammer wasn’t a good idea!”
“The hag is not dead; she still has a pulse.”
“No thanks to you, that’s for sure. Stupid brute.”
She couldn't understand the words they were speaking - it was a different language - but, hearing the voices of the goblins, her memories returned to her. . . Two goblins came in front of her shop. . . They were bleeding and asking for help. . . She came out in a rush to help them, and then everything went dark. . .
‘Why did they attack me?’ she wondered, panic starting to settle in.
Sirius had warned her that he had seen some hostile goblins lurking around the village last Christmas, but she had not paid it much importance.
“What are you after?” she tried to ask, but no words came out of her mouth, only muffled moans. She was gagged.
“Looks like the old witch woke up.”
One of the goblins yanked the gag off her mouth roughly and said in a harsh voice:
“Don’t bother screaming. We’ve already set up a silencing ward around the area.”
“What do you want from me? Do you have any idea whom you have kidnapped?” she said in a sharp tone.
The goblin laughed nastily, and a heavy slap twisted the old lady's head to the side, making her cry out in pain.
“It’s because we know exactly who you are that we kidnapped you. Euphemia Potter. Fleamont Potter’s wife. The grandparents of the Boy Who Lived. Right?”
When she didn’t say anything, the goblin grabbed her roughly by her grey hair, forcing her to meet his eyes.
“I’m going to make this simple for you. That sword your thieving husband has been keeping in his possession. . . I want it. It does not belong to him. That sword is ours! We designed it! We forged it! We enchanted it! It is goblin property! And you are going to give it to me, if you want to live, that is.”
“Do you think I am stupid? As if I would believe that you would let me live after that.”
Despite the way the goblin was holding her by the hair, the old lady suddenly, and completely unexpectedly, smashed her forehead into his long and ugly nose.
An audible crack was heard as the goblin’s nose shattered, and he fell on his back, grabbing his face with both hands and squealing in pain like a dying pig.
The other goblins quickly grabbed the tied-up old woman and pulled her back. The goblin whose nose got smashed lunged at her, intent on beating the crap out of her, but the other goblins around held him back.
“Get your hands off me! I’m going to kill that old bitch with my bare hands!”
“Stop it, you idiot. We need her alive!”
The one who looked like the leader of the goblins spoke at that moment:
“It’s fine even if she doesn’t cooperate. Let’s just take her to her husband. Once he sees we have her at knifepoint, he’ll do whatever we want him to do.”
In truth, the Goblins had been trying to breach the wards of the Potter home since before Christmas, but they had yet to find a method of infiltrating the house without alerting the Potter couple of their intrusion.
Now, after wasting almost two months and having nothing to show for their efforts, the Goblins decided to take some drastic actions. If subtlety was not possible, they were not averse to taking what they needed by force.
Once they gagged her, the goblins carried the old witch on their shoulders towards her home. The sky was cloudy, so the visibility was poor, but she could see just enough to recognise that she was still in Pitt-Upon-Ford. However, it appeared as though all the street lamps had been extinguished by the goblins after they kidnapped her.
Soon, they arrived at her home, and she saw her husband outside, in front of the door.
Hearing their footsteps, Fleamont walked out, saying in a relieved voice:
“Thank Merlin you’re here; you had me worried for a minute. I was just about to head out after-”
His words died in his throat when the goblins stepped into the light coming from his house’s open door and he saw his wife tied up, gagged, bruised, and bleeding from her head.
“What are you doing to my wife?!” he screamed, whipping his wand out at them.
The goblins clenched their hands around their weapons in wariness. They had been lucky to sneak attack the old woman and capture her, but they had no doubt as to what would happen if an old and experienced wizard were to attack them in a rage. Half of them would die, at the very least.
“Put your wand down if you care about her,” the leader of the goblins said in a calm voice and brought his knife closer to Euphemia’s neck.
The old witch shook her head and made noises as if to tell him not to listen to them, her eyes filled with defiance.
Fleamont’s wand hand trembled.
“What do you want from us? Just tell me what you need. Let her go, and I’ll give you anything!”
“First of all, put your wand down.”
When Fleamont didn’t immediately obey, the goblin pressed the sharp edge of his dagger into Euphemia’s neck, drawing blood.
“I’m not playing, wizard. Do it or the hag dies.”
“Alright! Alright! Calm down!” he shouted.
“But I am calm,” said the goblin mockingly. “Put your wand down if you care about your wife.”
Terrified for his wife’s safety, Fleamont let the wand drop from his hands.
As soon as he did that, two goblins charged at him, knocking him down with their shields while a third one slammed his axe down, chopping Fleamont’s wand in half.
“I did what you said!” Flemaont shouted while being pinned down on the ground, with the two goblins holding him at swordpoint. “Tell me what you want, and let my wife go!”
The leader of the goblins threw the old woman’s body into the arms of two of his lackeys and walked to Fleamont.
“The Sword of Bruncvik. The Potters have been hoarding it for over 800 years. It does not belong to you, thieving wizards. Give it to me and I shall let you live.”
“I’ll give it to you. Just don’t hurt her!” Fleamont pleaded.
“Quit whining already! Give me the sword! Now!” the goblin leader shouted and kicked him viciously in the stomach, making the old man curl up in a foetal position and groan in pain.
“Get up! Get up, you old fart!” the other goblins also shouted and poked him with their swords, forcing him to stand up despite the pain that made it hard for him to even breathe.
“A-Alright. . . let’s. . . let’s get inside. I’ll . . .I’ll give you the sword. . .” Fleamont said with difficulty.
The goblin leader sneered at him.
“I’d have to be an utter fool to set foot inside your home, where you can trigger your warding spells. . . no, we’ll wait here. You go inside alone, take the sword, and bring it back to us. We’ll wait for you right here. You have one minute. If you're not back in one minute, she dies."
AN: If you want to read more Naruto/League of Legends fics, I'd like to recommend you [Blade of the Deceiver] by "Ryujin Kurakami", on FFN.
Plot: LeBlanc, in the aftermath of a failed experiment, seeks a new weapon someone desperate, someone she can mould. Her search leads her to a boy on the verge of destruction, abandoned and hunted by his own people. Seizing the opportunity, she whisks him away, unknowingly claiming a soul bound to an ancient and powerful legacy.
Pairing: I believe that the pairing for his fic is Naruto/LeBlanc/Katarina - but it may be subject to change
Ryu has been consistent with his updates and I feel like his story has potential. Give the first 2-3 chapters a try, I believe that you will like what he's cooking :)
Without any further ado, here's the new chapter. Enjoy!
⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂
As morning came, the sailors’ third shift ended and the first shift replaced them, causing a great deal of noise and chatter. Ahri’s fox ears twitched and she buried her face into the pillow, curling herself into a ball, unwilling to get out of bed.
When memories of the previous night came to her mind, she raised her head and looked to her side.
‘He’s wearing the mask even in his sleep.’
She chuckled quietly at the ridiculousness of the situation. In spite of how sleepy she was, she grinned in mischief. She had met Naruto several weeks ago, but she had yet to see his face. Ahri was part fox, and she definitely had the curiosity of one. She was dying to see what he was hiding underneath.
Pulling down her blanket and raising herself on one elbow, she leaned over him, reaching slowly towards his mask. Her slit pupils dilated, and her white fox tail swayed in anticipation, but just as her fingers were about to touch the edge of his mask, a hand caught her wrist in a vice-like grip.
She was startled so badly that she jumped off the bed as though there were springs under her feet, and she actually hissed at him.
“You jerk, you were awake the entire time!” Ahri jeered at him when he burst into laughter. “You scared the living daylights out of me!”
“That’ll teach you not to do that again! Hahaha!”
Due to the scare he had given her, her sleepiness vanished entirely.
Still chuckling, Naruto got out of bed and stretched his arms above his head, making Ahri involuntarily drop her eyes to the portion of skin revealed by the rising of his t-shirt. But she quickly looked away, not wanting to tip him off that she had let her eyes stray.
Thinking that she was pouting because he had scared her, Naruto briefly patted the top of her head, between her perky fox ears, intending to annoy her even more. But, to his surprise, she didn’t try to slap his hand away.
“I’ll go clean myself up,” he said as he headed out. “I’ll be back in ten minutes. Could you look over my backpack while I’m gone?”
“Sure,” she mumbled, still not looking at him.
Little did he know that after he left the room, Ahri’s face turned a bright red. Although she had immediately stopped looking at his exposed midriff while he was stretching, the brief look she had gotten at his defined obliques would just not leave the front of her mind.
“Ahri, get your mind out of the gutter!” the fox girl slapped her own cheeks and scolded herself.
⁂
With the Jaull-fish fully harvested and the ship’s damage being repaired by the carpenters on board, it did not take long for the coast of the Serpent Isles to appear on the horizon.
The Serpent Isles, also known to the rest of the world as the Blue Flame Isles, were home to the Buhru people, an ancient tribe of humans who worshipped the Goddess of the Sea, Nagakebouros. But they were not the only inhabitants of the archipelago.
Unlike the Buhru people, who had been living on the northern Serpent Island for over 6000 years, isolated from outsiders, a new, far more recent nation came into being on the largest, southern island around 200 years ago: Bilgewater.
A haven for pirates, criminals, traffickers, and other wanted people, Bilgewater was a lawless city where a modicum of order existed only thanks to the local gangs of pirates and warlords. It was an unpredictable and dangerous place even for someone like Ahri, which is why she decided to hire a bodyguard.
Done with their morning rituals, Naruto and Ahri came out on deck. The lack of proper food, bathing, the countless rats they could hear at night, and the constant danger of being attacked by enormous sea monsters and potentially dying or being stranded in the middle of nowhere made sailing a troublesome and unpleasant experience for most people. The two of them did not enjoy travelling by sea either; they couldn’t wait to get back on land.
Seeing their saviour coming out of his cabin, many of the sailors and soldiers in the first shift greeted him loudly and merrily. Even the newly chosen captain came to say hello.
“Mr Ifrit, good morning!”
“Good morning, Captain. Looks like we’ll arrive at Bilgewater in no time, huh?”
“Aye, we normally would be there in one or two hours. But it looks like the wind is against us. Highly unusual, I’ll tell you that.”
“What's going on?” asked Naruto. “Shouldn’t the tradewinds be at our back?”
It may seem like the wind blew wherever but that was not the case. Even the wind followed a general route on the sea. Those who sailed for a living had long since mapped out those tradewinds, those ‘corridors’ where the wind only blew in a certain direction.
The captain nodded.
“I’ve sailed from Ionia to Bilgewater a hundred times, and the tradewinds were always at our back on this side of the sea. I don’t know what could’ve caused this change. Well, no matter. As the saying goes, the ocean has no memory, only moods. It’s not the end of the world. We’ve engaged in a tacking manoeuvre. We’ll arrive in three or four hours tops.” (1)
Once he informed Naruto of the delay, the captain left him to his own devices and went back to his crew.
“I was hoping we’d get our breakfast in Bilgewater, but it looks like it will take us a while longer to get there. You want some?” Naruto asked while taking out his storage scroll and unsealing a cheese pie.
Ahri never said no to food, and he grinned when the fox girl mumbled a few words of thanks. Although she seemed to be unusually quiet that morning, he was not worried. Judging by the lazy sway of her fox tail, she did not appear to be upset. He did not know if Ahri was aware of it, but her tail always betrayed her mood.
As he finished eating, he sat on the bench that had sort of become his special spot on the boat and rested, watching the seagulls fly about. Ahri sat down next to him too, and he noticed that she was quite close, their shoulders barely ten centimetres apart. Not just that, but her hand, which was on the bench, was mere millimetres away from his. She touched his hand with her pinky finger and glanced up at him with a grin.
Alas, her purposeful closeness, her subtle glances, and her little touches seemed to go right over Naruto’s head.
She sighed inwardly.
‘He’s annoyingly perceptive when it comes to everything else, so why is he so dense now?’
She stopped her advances and crossed her arms over her chest, pouting. But her irritation faded into nothing when she recalled the memories she had seen while consuming his chakra last night.
‘. . .He’s never been in a romantic relationship, has he?’
She had not seen the entirety of his life, but from the pieces of memories she had seen, Naruto had never been in love with anyone.
‘The demon inside of him lets him know whenever someone harbours negative emotions. . .’
Ahri could also sense other people’s emotions, but she had to consciously focus on it. It wasn’t instinctual or automatic like it was with Naruto.
‘It’s probably more like a curse for him. More often than not, people can’t control what they feel. They can control their actions and their words, but not their feelings. . . and he got to see that ugly, dark side of people every day since he was a child.’
Sometimes, people could be annoyed or tired and feel like wanting to slap others just for glancing their way. But that didn’t mean they truly wanted to do that.
Her heart went out for him. She couldn’t imagine what sort of damage it had done to his psyche when he was younger, during his formative years.
Naruto looked at Ahri in surprise when she placed her hand on top of his and turned it gently so that she would intertwine their fingers. His hand was rough and filled with tough callouses from decades of wielding weapons, but hers was so soft and delicate that he was afraid he would injure her just by touching it.
As their gazes met, Naruto found himself unable to speak, momentarily losing himself in those playful, yellow eyes. A man with just a little more experience or emotional intelligence than him would have recognised the signs and leaned down to kiss her.
She giggled softly when she understood that he was not going to make a move. Breaking eye contact, she shifted closer to him and rested her head on his shoulder. Her amusement only grew when her fox ears twitched and her sensitive hearing picked up the sound of his frantically beating heart.
She squeezed his hand in a wordless gesture of affection and support, and, to her surprise, Naruto briefly tightened his hold on her hand too.
‘Maybe he’s not a lost cause after all,’ Ahri thought, smiling as she started caressing his hand with her thumb.
All of a sudden, Naruto jumped up to his feet, inadvertently yanking his hand out of her hold.
“What’s that?!”
Ahri stood up in a rush too when she also noticed the rapidly darkening horizon. It was a black cloud of massive proportions.
“That’s no mere storm cloud,” he said.
Kyuubi’s Negative Emotions Sensing was warning him of an immense amount of killing intent and hatred coming from it.
If Naruto and Ahri, who were on the deck, noticed the cloud, the sailor perched up in the crow’s nest at the top of the fifty-meter-tall mast had certainly noticed it with his telescopic monocular too.
In a show of impressive agility and athleticism, the sailor took no more than ten seconds to drop down from the crow’s nest and he ran up to the Captain. With her sensitive hearing, Ahri easily heard his words:
“Captain! We have to fall back! It’s the Black Mist!” said the sailor in a panicky voice.
“The Black Mist?! Didn’t the Buhru people destroy it years ago? Are you still drunk?”
“I swear it’s true! I’d never forget that terrifying sight my entire life!”
Seeing as he was one of his oldest crewmates, the Captain took him seriously. He grabbed the monocular from the sailor’s hand and extended it to the maximum before looking at the horizon, towards the Serpent Isles.
The distance was still too big for his monocular to show him a clear view, but what he was seeing was enough to convince him that the sailor was right.
“Everyone to posts!” the Captain screamed and turned the helm as fast as he could. “Wake the second shift and tell them to get to the oars! Tell the third shift to come out with their weapons! The Black Mist is back!”
The Captain’s shouts electrified the boat, and the sailors started moving about in a rush.
But the sailors weren’t the only ones who reacted like that. A massive flock of birds flew away from the Serpent Isles, towards the direction of the boat. They were fleeing from the Black Mist as well.
The aquatic life was fleeing too: blue whales, orcas, dolphins, sharks, and even gigantic serpents and Jaull-fish could be seen breaching the surface of the water as they came up for air before diving underwater again. They were running in the same direction as the birds, opposite of the Serpent Isles.
“We might not make it at this rate,” Naruto said.
The Black Mist in the distance was getting increasingly close. Although they had the wind blowing in their sails now and dozens of people were rowing desperately, the massive boat was ultimately too slow.
Eventually, the Black Mist caught them up from behind, and Naruto got to see its appearance up close.
“All soldiers to arms!” the Captain screamed. “Protect the sails with your bloody lives!”
“Rowers, keep manning the oars! Row like it’s yer last day in this world! Row like yer life is on the line, bastards!”
Tens of soldiers grabbed their swords, axes, spears, and muskets and came out on the deck, preparing for battle.
It was as though an avalanche of darkness was descending upon them. The sun was covered, and the sky turned pitch black, like at midnight. Ghastly wails pierced their ears, and dozens of ghouls and other creatures of darkness landed on deck, materialising out of the Black Mist.
Unfortunately, that was not their only problem. Gigantic tentacles suddenly split the surface of the water and wrapped around the enormous sailboat. It was a kraken, a creature larger than anything Naruto or the sailors had ever seen in their entire lives.
“Leave the ghouls to the sailors! I’ll go for the kraken underwater! Try doing something about its tentacles before they destroy the ship!” Naruto told Ahri.
He grabbed his large broadsword and jumped off the board, splitting the water with his weapon.
“I got you!” Ahri said in response.
Her fox tail turned into nine, and her eyes glowed with her magic power as she jumped into the air, levitating.
Three orbs of blue fire took form in her hands. . . but something was very different. They weren’t the small, fist-sized orbs she always conjured. They were five or six times larger, almost as large as half of her body, and they were so hot that even she, the one who conjured them, could feel their heat. She could only think of one explanation:
‘Is this because of Naruto’s life force?!’
She had fed on his chakra last night, but she had not expected it to have such a powerful impact on her magic.
Nonetheless, there was no time to ponder about it. She wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Still levitating, Ahri threw one gigantic orb of fire after another at the base of the kraken’s tentacles, outside the ship, taking great care not to set the sails on fire.
An inhuman scream made the surface of the sea tremble, and the sailboat started shaking and groaning as the kraken thrashed around in pain.
Seeing the sea monster refusing to let go despite the pain, Ahri raised her arms above her head, and a large ball of fire appeared in her hands, bigger than her own body. She flew outside the ship and threw the orb into a giant tentacle.
This time around, her fox fire did not only elicit a shriek of agony from kraken but the entire tentacle was engulfed by flames. A limb of flesh longer than thirty meters and weighing dozens of tons was turned into cinders. Thanks to the exquisite control of her magic, the blue flames did not spread from the tentacles to the rest of the ship. She gathered them all into another ball and then threw them the next tentacle.
Unfortunately, her damaging attacks made her a priority for the Black Mist’s ghosts, flying creatures, and other monsters, which started focusing their attacks on her.
⁂
The kraken’s shrieks of agony nearly deafened Naruto after diving into the water, but he focused his chakra on protecting his eardrums and swam deeper, heading below the ship.
Mind-controlled sharks, orcas, and water serpents lunged at him, but they were hardly a threat. The power of lightning crackled through his broadsword, shocking to death any creature that got close to him.
Due to being underwater, his own lightning attacks were harmful to himself too, but he gritted his teeth to bear with the pain. He did not relent. He killed one wave of mind-controlled creatures after another as he swam towards the main body of the kraken.
The sea monster’s true body was humongous. The Jaull-fish that he had killed before was not even half as large as the kraken he was seeing now. Even Kyuubi himself would be smaller.
“Hmpf! That’s only because half of my power is sealed in the belly of the Shinigami! If I were at full strength, I’d still be bigger than this damn squid,” Kurama’s irritated growl came from within the seal.
It appeared as though the fox’s pride was hurt because, for the first time in many months, Kyuubi willingly infused Naruto with his power, despite having said he would not help him anymore.
A cloak of crimson red chakra engulfed Naruto’s body, and three fox-like tails of energy appeared at his back.
His eyes turned red and slit, like the pupils of a fox, and his canines grew longer as Kyuubi’s chakra influenced his body. Naruto smiled. He had missed that feeling of power. Even without an arm, unable to cast his most powerful ninjutsu techniques, Naruto felt as though he could take on the entire world at that moment.
Grabbing the handle of his broadsword with both his human and hextech hands, Naruto raised his weapon in front of him like a spear before bursting forth at the kraken. Despite being underwater, the three tails of energy at his back propelled him with the speed of a bullet.
The kraken didn’t even have time to react as Naruto stabbed his lightning-covered broadsword into one of its enormous eyes. He didn’t just stab his sword to the hilt; compared to the kraken, his weapon and even his full body were like an ant in front of an elephant. Holding his breath and grimacing in disgust, Naruto gouged the kraken’s enormous eyeball out and dug into its skull, swinging his lightning-covered broadsword with wild abandon, cutting everything in front of his eyes.
Massive amounts of blood made the seawater turn a murky red colour as Naruto gored the kraken’s head from the inside out. Its limbs being burned to ash by Ahri above and its skull getting torn to shreds from within, the kraken let out deafening shrieks of rage and agony. But that was all it could do.
Two minutes after the blonde had dug his way into its skull, the kraken’s movement came to a stop as the sea beast breathed its last.
Unfortunately, defeating the giant kraken did not signal the end of the fight. The battle against the Black Mist's monsters and the creatures who were mind-controlled by it raged for nearly one more hour. Sailors and soldiers dropped in doves, killed by the unending wave of monsters or falling prey to the Black Mist's corruption taking over their minds.
Naruto himself was not invulnerable to that corruption either; every two or three minutes he had to expel large amounts of chakra from his body as though he were dispelling a powerful genjutsu in order to keep his mind clear.
Ahri was the only one who had a relatively easier time against corruption because her abilities to charm others granted her a higher degree of resistance against mental attacks. That is not to say that she was immune to it.
By the time the Black Mist pulled back, even Naruto, with his nigh-endless stamina, was breathing out harshly, exhausted. It appeared as though the Black Mist was not mindless because, after he killed the kraken, he had become the main target of the mist’s creatures, most of them focusing almost exclusively on him.
To make matters worse, his hextech arm appeared to be malfunctioning after he used his entire strength against the kraken. It was making a creaking noise and letting out bright sparks every time he moved it.
⁂
The battle against the Black Mist had been a tragedy. The joy of having hunted an enormous Jaull-fish and having harvested everything of value from its body went up in smoke. That’s because more than 50 people, including the new captain, lost their lives against the creatures of the mist or were corrupted and had to be put down by their own comrades during the fight.
Being a sailor in the seas of Runeterra was one of the most hazardous professions in the world, even deadlier than being a footman in the army of Noxus, a warmongering nation that treated its soldiers as though they were expendable.
The sea monsters, the cruel pirates of Bilgewater, and the wild and unpredictable ocean were more than enough to guarantee that at least half of those who sailed the seas for a long time would not get to reach retirement age. But when the Black Mist was also added to the mix, things became even more terrible.
“Mr Ifrit, Miss Ahri, thank you for fighting alongside us. We survived only because of you.”
It was the newly elected captain of the ship, a thin man of average height, with a receding hairline, and two pistols strapped at his waist. Unlike the previous two captains of the ship, this third captain lacked the seemingly boundless confidence and charisma they had. Or maybe it appeared to be like that in the aftermath of that tragic battle.
Be that as it may, the new captain and the rest of the crew understood that, if not for Naruto’s and Ahri’s efforts, they wouldn’t have gotten to see the end of the battle at all; the kraken would have sunk their ship minutes after the start of the attack.
“We did it for our survival too,” Naruto replied. “But I see that the middle mast is damaged. Do you think we can reach Bilgewater in this state?”
“We’ll start working on patching it up once we have a drink and catch our breaths. I don’t know how many of our carpenters survived, but we’ll make it work somehow,” said the new captain. “Unfortunately, I came here to let you know that we won’t be going to Bilgewater anymore. We’re changing course and heading to Fallgren, the Noxian island closest to our location.”
“What?! But we’re only 20 or 30 miles away from Bilgewater! Probably even less!” Ahri said in disbelief.
“Reaching Bilgewater ain’t the problem, miss. The Black Mist is back. We ain’t afraid of pirates and sea creatures. But the mist? Ghosts and ghouls, and getting our minds brainwashed? None of us here signed up for that. You and Mr Ifrit may be able to hold your own just fine but look at us. Nearly half of us lost our lives in the last battle.”
“But surely the Black Mist won’t return immediately, would it? You have more than enough time to dock at Bilgewater, resupply, and then be on your way.”
Ahri’s question was not unreasonable. The Black Mist's attacks - the Harrowings - were infamous in the world of Runeterra. They were devastating, killing thousands or even more every time they erupted, but, thankfully, they did not have a high frequency.
“Maybe not, maybe yes. But if your life was on the line, would you bet on it?” the captain asked.
Ahri did not have an answer to that, so she remained silent.
“Look, we’re grateful for your help. We can give you one of our rescue boats, some water, and some rations if it’s that important for you to go to Bilgewater. But we can’t accompany you there.”
⁂
Once the captain left, Naruto looked at Ahri strangely:
“You still want to go to Bilgewater after what just happened? What the hell was that even?”
He had fought kage-level shinobi, monsters, and demons, and he had survived despite the cruel pursuit from Konoha and Akatsuki for years, but he had never been more disturbed than in the present. He had never faced an enemy of that sort, an all-encompassing Black Mist that corrupted all living beings, brainwashed them, and enthralled them. On top of that, the ghosts created by the Black Mist were hard to deal with even for him because physical attacks didn’t work that well on them.
“I know I can’t ask you to come with me now that the Black Mist is back. . . But I have to go. I’ve been looking for traces of the Vesani for years until I finally found them. If I miss out on this chance, it could be decades or more before I get another chance like this.”
“How long do you plan on staying?” he asked. He looked like he was unsure of what decision to make.
“Bilgewater is only so big. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of days to find the artefact I’m looking for. The chance that there will be another Harrowing right away is very low, but even if another one were to happen, I can always just seek refuge on the island of the Buhru people. They’re an ancient tribe of people who worship a sea goddess. Their Goddess' magic protects them from the mist.”
At Naruto’s sceptical look, she said:
“I can tell what you’re thinking, but it’s not a sham. Nagakabouros is a real goddess. The goddess’ chosen one is called “Truth-Bearer” and they can channel her power. If rumours are to be believed, it was the Truth-Bearer and the Buhru people who defeated the Black Mist a few years ago.”
“You’re dead set on this, huh?”
She nodded wordlessly.
He leaned on the ship’s railing, looking at the vast expanse of water without saying anything for a few moments.
“What’s on your mind?” she asked.
“I’m just thinking of what I would do in the worst-case scenario.”
“. . .You mean that you’re coming with me?” she asked in a voice that betrayed the surprise and the confusion she felt.
“I promised that I’d protect you, didn’t I? I said I’d be your bodyguard. I don’t go back on my words.”
“Then why-”
“Just because I said I’d follow you wherever you went, it doesn’t mean I’ll keep quiet if I think you’re about to do something stupid. But if I can’t change your mind, I should at least try to come up with some countermeasures. . .”
He let out a sigh.
‘If only I was a little better at Fuinjutsu. . .’
If he had been a master of the Hiriashin Jutsu from the Scroll of Seals, he would have had no worries. They could have teleported away from Bilgewater the very moment a Harrowing happened again.
But he had not mastered the technique just yet. He had never had a sensei to teach him anything. Even the tree and water walking techniques, he had had to figure those out by himself. Learning Fuinjutsu from scratch, without a master, had been too difficult so Naruto had not given the Hiraishin much thought back when he was in the Elemental Nations.
He had become powerful enough to fight off even kage-level shinobi like Jiraiya of the Sannin, and the members of Akatsuki. He did not have much motivation to become a Fuinjutsu master back then.
It was only after arriving in Runeterra, after losing the ability to cast ninjutsu, that he started thinking seriously about learning Sealing Techniques.
His train of thought stopped when the fox girl came next to him and hugged his side.
“Thank you, Naruto,” she said in a quiet whisper that only he could hear.
To him, it was only natural to keep his word. It was part of his moral code and who he was as a person. But, to Ahri, the fact that he chose to follow her into Bilgewater despite the reemergence of the Black Mist was the biggest proof she could have asked for that Naruto truly cared about her.
All she could do was utter three words of gratitude and embrace him, hoping that her actions would drive her feelings across better than her words.
She vowed at that moment that she would do anything to pay him back, even if it meant putting her life at risk for him.
⁂
Half an hour later, after packing all their stuff, Naruto and Ahri bid their goodbyes to the captain and the rest of the sailors and walked alone towards the railing of the ship.
“Are you sure it’s better to go like this instead of taking a lifeboat?” Ahri asked doubtfully.
Many of the surviving crew members were looking at them with a weird look on their faces.
“A boat as small as that would get flipped upside down by the first big wave. Might as well just go on foot. With my speed, we’ll reach the shore in minutes.”
Ahri glanced at the lifeboat, then back at Naruto, and then at the sea.
“Come on, Ahri, don’t you trust me?” the blond said teasingly.
His question made her snort with laughter.
“No fair, that’s my saying!”
But then she let out a sigh.
“It’s just strange to think we’d run atop the ocean. . . but you are right.”
She grabbed Naruto’s backpack and put it on her back before Naruto took her in a piggyback carry. With her arms wrapped around his neck and his hands holding her from her thighs, Naruto jumped off the board and started running atop the water.
Maybe it was because the recent passing of the Black Mist had scared away all the aquatic lifeforms, but they didn’t encounter any sea monsters or other predators anymore.
With Ahri holding a magnetic compass and showing the way, Naruto ran as fast as he could on top of the water. The large and agitated waves of the Guardian Sea made it difficult for him to run as fast as he did on land, but he was certainly a lot faster than their boat. It was incomparable really. In a matter of minutes, the coast of the Serpent Isles appeared on the horizon once again.
Surfing down a particularly tall wave, over 15 meters tall, Naruto’s legs blasted off a large amount of water as he suddenly jumped high up in the air, using the water almost like a trampoline.
Ahri giggled at the sensation, feeling as though she was riding a rollercoaster in Piltover’s amusement park during their Progress Day festivities.
Encouraged by her laughter, his acrobatics became more daring and more impressive. They were having fun as though they had not had a life-and-death battle less than an hour ago.
But such was life when one was a long-lived vastaya who had seen and lived through countless dangers while the other was a shinobi who had lived every day of his life expecting it to be his last. They had both made a habit out of doing their best to enjoy the present and try not to dwell too much on the past.
“Naruto, wait, I think I heard something!” Ahri suddenly said in his ear.
He had not heard anything himself, but he listened to her, reasoning that Ahri’s sense of hearing was most likely a lot more sensitive than his. After all, she was a fox vastaya; those fox ears of hers were not there just to look cute.
“It’s coming from 10 o’clock!” she said and pointed her finger in that direction.
“What sound is it? Couldn’t it be just a whale or some dolphins?” he asked.
“No, it’s different. I’m certain! It sounds. . . almost like a yordle. Maybe some people survived the Harrowing and need help.”
Still carrying Ahri on his back, he changed his direction and started running towards the direction Ahri was pointing.
Half a minute after they changed their course, Naruto and Ahri arrived at what appeared to be the remains of a shipwreck. The main body of the sailboat had long since sunk to the bottom of the sea, but pieces of wood were still floating on the surface of the water.
“I see a person! There’s someone floating in the water!” Ahri said.
Naruto noticed them too, and he rushed to their location.
An extremely tall and muscular man was floating atop the water on his back, seemingly unconscious. The two of them also got to see what was the source of the noise that had alerted Ahri and guided them there.
“How lucky must he be to just float on his back like that? What are the chances of not drowning after falling unconscious?” Ahri remarked.
But Naruto was more intrigued by the little creature standing on the man’s chest and making squawking sounds at them. “What’s that?” he asked, never before having seen a living being like that.
It looked like a ball of fur and fluff, not much bigger than his palm. It took Ahri only one glance at the tiny creature's little ram horns and its disproportionally big mouth for her to recognise it:
“Ohhh! It’s a poro! But what is it doing here? Most of them are living on the other side of Runeterra, in Freljord!”
Walking closer to them, Naruto bent down and picked up the man from the water. Ahri was sensible enough to move away, climbing from her position on his back to his left shoulder.
“Man, I miss my shadow clones,” he muttered as he hoisted the big man on his right shoulder and used his chakra to enhance his physical strength.
The white little creature let out a happy squeak as it jumped into Ahri's arms, and the fox girl fluffed his soft fur in delight.
“Kyuu!”
That cute little sound it made had Ahri swoon over it. Even Naruto had to admit that it was cute as hell.
There was not a single person in Runeterra who hated the poros. And if there really was someone like that, Ahri wouldn’t trust those people with anything.
“Hold on tight, Ahri. I’ll rush at my fastest speed towards the shore.”
Just before he broke into a sprint again, the poro jumped off from Ahri’s arms on top of Naruto’s head, nestling itself in his spiky blonde hair.
“This little guy,” Naruto chuckled. “Maybe it’s best if you hold him, or he’ll fall off.”
Ahri giggled at Naruto's appearance with the furry little white creature on his head.
“Don’t worry, they’re really good at holding onto things,” she said through giggles. “I wish I had one of those Piltover devices for snapping pictures. It looks too funny!”
With the giant, bald man on his right shoulder, a nine-tailed fox girl on his right shoulder, and a furry little creature on his head, Naruto painted a funny image as he ran on top of the water towards the shore.
⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂
AN: For this chapter, I strongly suggest watching this short cinematic (4 minutes). It will give you a better idea of what the Black Mist is and what it looks like. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PbhGt8XxSM
As for the gif with Ahri, it's taken from this cinematic - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzHrjOMfHPY . It's one of the best lol cinematics out there. Great animation, quite a few LoL champions being showcased, and nice action.
(1) Tacking is a method of sailing developed by people in ancient times in order to go against the wind. They would sail in a zig-zag pattern so that the wind would blow into the side of the ship instead of going face-first against it. I felt it was interesting so I thought I’d share this little bit of knowledge with you. I often learn new things while researching stuff for my stories.
Once he stepped through the portal that Death had created for him, Harry found himself right in front of the Leaky Cauldron.
‘How considerate,’ he mused.
Deep down, he could not help but be wary of Death’s seemingly helpful actions. He could not shake the feeling that Death was plotting something. Was it just paranoia after getting burnt one too many times? Or was he right on the money? That was something that only time would tell. On the other hand, he was a fool for his little daughter. Her tears the other day had broken his heart. He wished for nothing more than to make her happy.
Glancing at his surroundings, he noted that the street looked just like in his memories. The Leaky Cauldron’s dingy appearance was no different either.
As he opened the old, wooden door and walked inside the pub, he was greeted by the sight of people wearing wizarding robes; he nodded at Tom, the innkeeper, and walked to the back of the pub, tapping on the wall three times with his wand.
Seeing the bricks starting to move away to create a doorway, Harry smiled. It appeared that Death had not lied to him. He really was in the right dimension.
‘I can’t wait to see the look on the girls' faces when they see this,’ he thought with a smile.
He did not enter Diagon Alley. Instead, he turned on his heel and left the pub, returning to the muggle side of London. Once he was out, he walked some distance away, to the closest side alley, and cast a spell that would make passers-by ignore that spot. Making sure nobody was watching him, he crouched and inscribed a series of symbols with his Rune Magic.
It was a Runic Array that would allow him to teleport back to that place without the use of a Portkey because, in a world where wizards and witches existed, Portkeys were strictly regulated and tracked by the Ministry of Magic.
Using a Portkey to dimension travel back to where Kara and Astrid were was fine because the Ministry would have no way of tracking him there, but he wanted to return without kicking the hornets' nest.
Done with inscribing the Runic Array, Harry left that place and walked for another half a kilometre. Then, he ducked into another side alley and, picking an empty can of beer off the ground, he touched it with his wand.
‘Portus.’
The can glowed with a blue light, and Harry’s body disappeared into thin air.
Just as he had predicted, less than one minute later, two Ministry officials Apparated on that spot to catch the ones who had broken the law. Alas, their Tracking Spells did not yield any results. Much to their bewilderment, the wizard and the witch could not find the destination of the Portkey that had been used there. They were left scratching their heads for a long time as they tried to make sense of it.
⁂
When Harry returned to Kara, she let out a sigh of relief.
“You’ve been gone for a while. Did you run into any trouble?”
“Quite the opposite. This dimension was a dud too, but Someone,” he stressed the word meaningfully so that Kara would understand who he was referring to, “offered to open a passage for me to a dimension where my kind exists.”
“You mean-”
“Yes. The one above.”
“Oh. . .”
The meaning of their conversation went right over Astrid’s head. She had no interest in that. Instead, she asked in excitement:
“You mean we can see the magical world now?”
Harry smiled at her.
“Yes, it’s all good now! I can’t wait to show it to you!”
Harry’s and Astrid’s enthusiasm was so contagious that Kara found herself looking forward to it as well.
“Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go!”
With the two girls hugging his side, Harry activated his Rune Magic. Teleportation through Rune Magic was different. Their bodies glowed with a blue light, and then they seemed to fade out from existence.
A moment later, their bodies materialised in the other dimension, in London, in the side alley where Harry had inscribed his Runic Array.
“Let’s go! Let’s go!” Astrid let out a squeal of joy and grabbed both Harry and Kara by their hands.
Harry and Kara laughed. Astrid loved magic. She had said many times that she was envious of her father’s ability to cast magic. The thought of visiting a magical world filled with wizards and witches excited her more than words could tell.
With Kara and Harry holding Astrid’s hands and walking on each side of her, the three of them looked like a young and happy family as they walked down the streets of London.
“What year is it, by the way? What’s the date?”
“I’m actually not sure. I forgot to check.”
“Is age getting to you, grandpa?”
“I was so excited about bringing you over that it escaped my mind,” Harry said, laughing. “But if I were to judge by the look of the cars, we’re probably in the 90s.”
“Good grief. What am I to do with you, old man?”
“This old man managed to pull a young and beautiful bird like you. I’d say I’m still doing alright.”
Astrid giggled. Her parents’ usual back-and-forth never failed to amuse her.
Eventually, they arrived in front of the Leaky Cauldron, and Kara and Astrid got a taste of what Muggle Repelling Charms felt like. They did not notice the existence of the small pub until Harry led them there and stopped in front of the door.
“You’re back again,” Tom, the amiable owner of the Leaky Cauldron, said as a greeting when he noticed Harry returning in such a short time.
“Yes, I wanted to check the place first before bringing my wife and daughter along.”
“Ah, muggleborns I presume?”
“Indeed.”
“Well, it's good to have you here. Welcome to the Wizarding World!” Tom said with a smile.
“Thank you. Have a great day!” Harry replied, and then they took their leave.
Astrid and Kara were looking at their surroundings as though they were at a zoo.
“Wow. You weren’t joking about the Victorian-era clothes,” Kara said in a low voice that only Harry and Astrid could hear. It felt surreal to her that people were walking around wearing cloaks, top hats, or pointy witch hats.
“You haven’t seen anything yet. Wait till you see what older ladies from pureblood families dress like,” Harry said, chuckling at the mental image of Augusta Longbottom and her vulture hat.
He led the girls to the back of the pub and stopped in front of a wall. It looked like a dead end, but Harry smirked at them.
His smirk turned into joyful laughter when Astrid let out a gasp of surprise at the sight of the bricks magically moving to the side and creating a hole in the wall for them to pass.
“Oooh!”
The sound came from Astrid, but Kara herself was no less surprised at the scenery that appeared in front of their eyes.
It was a long and narrow alley stacked with dozens of shops on each side and so crowded with people that they could hardly make their way through. And those people were all wearing the same clothes as the ones in the pub.
For Astrid and Kara, it was an even more overwhelming first experience than it had been for Harry 500 years ago because of their superhearing and X-ray vision. They did not only see and hear what was on the street but also what was going on inside the shops.
People were buying and haggling over magical ingredients at the apothecary; magical creatures and other pets were being sold at the Magical Menagerie; they saw magical artefacts and strange gadgets of all kinds, flying broomsticks, food that moved as though it was alive, shops with books that spoke or sang or tried to bite the fingers of those touching them, and many other things that they had never seen before.
It was as though they had set foot in the world of a fairy tale.
⁂
After making a stop at Gringotts, where Harry had exchanged some of the gold and jewellery that he had brought with him into galleons, he went to the Daily Prophet kiosk and bought a newspaper to find out the date and year without having to ask someone and make them look at him like at a weirdo.
The moving pictures fascinated Kara and Astrid, who were flipping the pages of the newspaper and using their X-ray vision as if to see if there weren’t any circuits or other forms of technology that were animating them.
“It’s 1991, the 2nd of March. It's half a year before I started my first year at Hogwarts, huh?” Harry mused. “Well, let’s go to the Apothecary first. We’ll finish our business first, and then we can go wherever you want.”
Thankfully, the layout of the alley was identical to how he remembered it, so he had an easy time navigating the cluttered street in search of what he required.
Ten minutes later, as he walked down the streets of Konckturn Alley, he laughed as he told the girls the tale of his first Floo-travel experience.
“I still remember how terrified I was the first time I got lost in this place. I botched the name of the alley I was supposed to get transported to, and I ended up in this scary place filled with scowling wizards, and shops with nothing but dark and cursed objects.”
“Dad, I want to Floo-travel too! Pleaseee!”
“I’m also curious,” Kara said. “You’ve never used that form of transportation before.”
Their happy-go-lucky behaviour made a stark contrast with the generally dark and dreary ambience of Knockturn Alley, but Harry could not care less about the glares of those who lurked around.
Thanks to his mastery of the Mind Arts, Harry’s memory was excellent, so he still remembered perfectly the required materials and ingredients for the Blood Adoption Ritual. That being said, the Blood Adoption Ritual also required a special potion whose ingredients could not be found in conventional shops, hence their trip to Knockturn Alley.
Thankfully, it did not take long for him to buy all the stuff needed for the Metamorphosis Potion and for the ritual.
After that, for the next 5 hours, they explored Diagon Alley and even Knockturn Alley. The racing shop, the Ice Cream Parlour, the Book store, the Tailor shop, the Brewery, the Fireworks shop, and so on and so forth. The girls dragged him around everywhere, leaving no stone unturned.
⁂
Later that day, in the evening, as they were having seafood for dinner at Brews and Stews on Diagon Alley, a thought came to Kara’s mind.
“You said it’s 1991, half a year before you went to school. . . that means you were still living with your relatives, right?”
Harry had not been that forthcoming when it came to talking about his early childhood, but they had talked a bit about it before, and Kara had gotten the impression that he and his relatives did not have a good relationship.
“Yes. I lived with my aunt and uncle.”
“You had an aunt and an uncle? Can we visit them?” Astrid asked.
The girl’s curiosity knew no bounds. Harry was firmly convinced that if she were to be sorted at Hogwarts, she would definitely end up in Ravenclaw.
“They aren’t my real relatives. This is a different world. For all we know, they could be entirely different people, or they may not even exist at all. There’s a chance I don’t exist in this place either.”
“Still, it wouldn’t hurt to try, would it?” said Kara.
She brought her hand across the table and placed it on top of his, offering him a comforting smile. Unlike Harry, she didn’t have magic; she could not read other people’s thoughts, but her intuition as a woman told her that it was a sensitive topic for him.
“But only if you want to. There’s no pressure.”
“To be honest, I wanted to go check up on my younger self alone. . . you see, my relatives weren’t good people, to put it lightly. I would rather Astrid not see that sort of thing yet,” said Harry.
“Don’t be like that, Dad. I’m a big girl! And I’m curious! I want to see how you looked when you were my age! Pretty please?”
In spite of his better judgement, Harry found himself saying yes. With both Kara and Astrid turning their soulful gazes at him, it was impossible for him not to cave in.
“Alright,” he said when they were done with their dinner. “But, before we go there, I need to make some preparations."
“What sort of preparations?”
“If Vernon and Petunia are the same type of people that I used to know, things will get ugly. I won’t let my younger self continue living with them. But I can’t simply take him away either because the place I lived in as a child was under constant surveillance. We’ll surely come to blows with other wizards and, if worse comes to worst, the strongest wizard in the world himself may come after us.”
⁂
Half an hour later, thanks to Kara, who carried him in her arms like a princess (much to Astrid’s amusement), the three of them flew from London to one of the forests in northern Scotland.
Due to being in a different world, Harry did not want to risk Apparating in places he had not visited yet. He had to rely on Kara’s Kryptonian speed for travel since she was far faster than his flying spell. As for Astrid, she could keep up with her mother just fine. In the end, she was Kryptonian herself, and Power Girl was not flying at her top speed either.
Once they arrived at a place he was happy with, they stopped and he asked the girls to give him some space.
Using his wand as though it were a brush and the air in front of him as though it were a canvas, he started writing at a very high speed a large number of peculiar symbols.
Every time he completed a Runic Array, he would jab his wand towards a spot on the ground, and the glowing writing would sink into the earth.
“This might take me a while,” Harry said. “I could send you home, back to our dimension, if you wanted.”
“I don’t mind waiting,” Kara replied.
“I want to stay with you too,” Astrid said while flying around and jumping from one tree to another.
“Looks like I called you a little monkey so many times that you really turned into one,” Harry laughed.
The girls laughed too.
“Isn’t it distracting to speak while writing those spells?”
“Not really. I’ve been doing it for so many years already; it’s almost like second nature for me now.”
When the three of them arrived, it was already quite late; only fifteen minutes after Harry started casting his Runes, it became dark.
“So, first you said I was your fiancé and then your wife~” Kara said out of nowhere. “You sure are taking liberties lately, aren’t you?”
Harry returned the teasing grin she threw at him.
“We already have a daughter, and we’re also living together. We’re practically married. Or, perhaps, do you mind it?”
“Of course I don’t! But where is my ring? Where is my proposal? And where is my wedding?”
Before he could reply, Astrid flew to Harry’s back and climbed on his shoulders.
“You won’t get any of that because Dad is going to marry me when I grow up.”
“Hah?! What are you saying? Harry is mine!”
“No, Daddy is mine!”
Twenty minutes after they arrived in the forest, he finished casting all the spells. Satisfied with his work, he put his wand back in its holster and turned his attention to Kara and Astrid, who were still going back and forth.
“Dad!” “Harry!” Kara and Astrid called out to him, with the girl flying so that she would be on the same eye level as them. “Who are you going to get married to?”
He stared at them, taken aback momentarily. Then, he burst into laughter.
“You’re my little angel, Astrid, but your mom is going to be my wife.”
“Ha!” Power Girl let out a shout of triumph.
“Just you wait until I grow up! I'll be even more beautiful than you!” Astrid said in jealousy.
Kara laughed and made a show out of embracing Harry and pressing a loud, wet smooch on his cheek.
Astrid’s annoyance grew even higher.
“Eww, can you stop kissing for one day at least?!”
“What’s wrong with kissing? You don’t like kisses?”
Astrid was so well-behaved most of the time that it was almost refreshing to see her act bratty now.
“Or maybe you’re being jealous?” Kara said in a teasing voice.
“I’m not jealous!” the little girl said hotly, her face flushing as she crossed her arms to her chest and turned her back to them.
By now, the two of them were grinning at Astrid from one ear to another. He walked to the levitating girl and took her in his arms, embracing her from behind.
Astrid appeared to be struggling to get out of his arms, but it was clearly just an act. If she had wanted to, Harry’s physical strength was nowhere close to being enough to stop her. Her behaviour only endeared her even more to Harry.
“Here, a kiss for you too, so that you stop being jealous,” he said as he kissed her cheek.
The little girl stopped struggling and turned into her father’s arms to hug him. Looking at her mother, she stuck her tongue out at her.
⁂
Due to how much time they spent in Diagon Alley and then flying to Scotland to cast his Rune Magic there, it was already night, so Harry and Kara decided to leave their visit to younger Harry for another day. They returned to their own dimension, back to their apartment in New York.
But now that she knew that Harry had all the required ingredients to perform the Blood Adoption Ritual, Astrid could not long hold back her impatience. In truth, even Kara was curious and couldn't wait for it.
Therefore, mere minutes after returning to their own dimension, the three of them used a Portkey to teleport to Harry's secret underground bunker in Southern France.
Unfortunately for the girls, the preparations for the ritual were quite time-consuming. Leaving aside the matter of drawing the complex magic circle by hand with white chalk, brewing the Metamorphosis Potion needed for the ritual took nearly two hours too.
Kara and Astrid decided to pass the time by watching a cartoon about three spy girls going on secret missions, but their minds were not on the show they were watching. Every ten minutes or so, the mother and daughter would use their X-ray vision to secretly peek into the other room, through the wall, to check up on Harry's progress with the magic circle or peer into the cauldron to see if the potion's colour had turned red yet (Harry had told them that the brewing process would be complete once it became red).
The next three hours seemed to pass at a snail's pace for the girls, but, eventually, the preparations were complete.
Now, Astrid was wearing nothing but a long, pure-white dress and sitting cross-legged on the floor in the middle of a large magic circle.
Magic circles were rarely used by the modern wizards and witches in Harry’s world of origin; they were relics of the ancient era. Nowadays, Ancient Runes masters and enchanters preferred to use simpler formulas because they were faster to inscribe. With the increase in population, the craftsmen’s focus shifted from creating masterpieces to mass-producing magical artefacts of moderate quality.
That being said, some things, like the Blood Adoption Ritual, never changed.
It was a seven-meter-wide circle encasing a seven-pointed star, each corner of the star containing another minor circle, for a total of seven. Numerous Ancient Runes filled the remaining spaces of the circle.
Number 7 was a number that symbolised perfection, magic power, and divinity even. It was one of the most important numbers in Numerology, Arthimancy, Alchemy, and the study of Ancient Runes.
Harry placed a small stone bowl in each of the circles contained in the seven corners of the star.
One filled with water.
One filled with earth.
One filled with fire.
One filled with mercury.
One filled with sulphur.
One filled with salt.
And one that was empty, symbolizing the element of air.
Those were the seven main elements used in Alchemy.
Once he was done with that, Harry walked to Astrid and smiled to reassure her.
“Are you scared?”
She shook her head and smiled.
“No. I trust you!”
“That’s my girl!" he said, pinching her cheek lightly. "Now, here, take this goblet. You have to drink it all in one go. It's going to be very bitter, so make sure not to spit it out, or you'll have to wait another three hours for me to brew another batch."
"I'll be careful, I promise," Astrid said in a voice filled with resolve as she took the goblet from Harry's hands.
The potion was a dark red colour, and it was letting out bubbles incessantly, as though it was boiling. However, the goblet was as cold to the touch as ice, and the steam coming from the potion wasn't hot either.
Holding the goblet with both hands, Astrid closed her eyes and brought it to her mouth, downing it all in one go. The taste was even more horrible than she had expected, but the thought of waiting another three hours if she wasted the potion gave her the strength not to spit it out.
The little girl let out a sigh of relief when it was all over, and she opened her eyes when she felt her father's heavy hand caressing her head.
"You did great, Angel," Harry praised her. "Now, I’m going to cut open my finger and draw some symbols on your body, okay? Keep your hands with the palms upwards. . . yes, just like that.”
He made a small cut with his wand on his index finger’s fingertip and drew three runes with his blood on Astrid’s palms and forehead. While he was at it, he also bopped her on the nose with another finger, making her giggle.
It was just a small gesture, but it did wonders to ease Astrid's nervousness.
Kara smiled warmly from the side. The more she witnessed how Harry interacted with Astrid, the deeper she fell in love with him.
‘If only we could have a child of our own too. . .’ she thought wistfully.
She and Harry had only known each other for a few months, but the things that they had experienced had brought them much closer than was normal in such a short time. Allowing Harry inside her mind and letting him see all of her, her deepest and darkest fears and secrets, had created a level of intimacy and trust between the two of them as though they had known each other for years.
‘But, with this, won’t Astrid become his as much as she is mine?’ Kara mused. ‘She’ll have both my DNA and his, won’t she? She’ll be no different from an actual daughter, as though she was born from us.’
Once the final preparations were over, Harry stepped out of the magic circle and knelt in front of it. He placed his palm on the designated spots in the magic circle and channelled his magic into it.
The magic circle, the runes, and the lines all lit up with a bright blue light, and Harry started chanting in a language that neither Kara nor Astrid could understand. It was ancient Egyptian, the language spoken by the Pharaohs thousands of years ago; the Blood Adoption Ritual was their invention.
Due to the ritual being magical, Astrid was not invulnerable to it, and she let out a hiss of pain as the blood on her palms and forehead started burning. If not for Harry expressively telling Kara not to intervene, she would have jumped to her rescue in worry.
The little girl gritted her teeth, trying not to let her discomfort be known to her parents. Even as she suffered through the pain of her body being reconstructed, she was worrying about others.
The seven bowls containing the seven alchemical elements glowed with a blue light as well, and their contents transformed into seven threads of light that burrowed themselves into Astrid’s body through the runes drawn on her palms and forehead: two threads in each palm and three in her forehead.
The girl cried out but, as sharp and sudden as the pain was, as quickly it stopped too.
The light coming from the magic circle increased in intensity to the point where it became impossible to see what was happening inside it. But after half a minute, Harry’s chant stopped and the Blood-Adoption ritual came to an end.
As the light faded away and Astrid’s body became visible once again, Kara was the first to rush at her, to make sure that she was alright.
“Unbelievable!” Kara couldn’t help saying in amazement.
“Tell me, tell me! Did it work?” Astrid asked in a mixture of excitement and impatience. “Muuum! Say something!”
Harry chuckled as he also came inside the circle and conjured a round hand mirror before he gave it to her.
Taking the mirror with both hands, Astrid let out a gasp when she saw her reflection in the mirror.
The first thing that caught her attention was the pair of vivid, brilliant, emerald-green eyes.
“I got your eyes! Dad! I have your eyes now!” Astrid shouted, unable to contain her excitement.
Her eyes were the most obvious feature that changed, but there were also other, slightly more subtle differences too. Her round face had become thinner, and her cheekbones slightly more pronounced, resembling Harry’s face more.
Overall, she still took mostly after Kara, but, upon taking a better look at her while standing next to Kara and Harry, even a stranger would be able to tell that she had inherited features from both parents.
Kara knelt in front of Astrid and embraced her lovingly, squeezing her tightly into her chest. A strange emotion blossomed in her heart at that moment. Over the past few weeks, not in a small measure due to seeing how much Harry seemed to love Astrid, Kara started to think of Astrid as her daughter too, sometimes forgetting that the little girl was basically identical to her, that she was her clone.
But now it was different. Astrid was not just a clone anymore. She was hers and Harry’s daughter.
Unbeknownst to both mother and daughter, at that moment, Harry felt an outside force levitating him and pulling him towards them.
‘No way!’ he thought in disbelief when he realised what happened.
It appeared as though Astrid had inherited something more than just a pair of green eyes from Harry.
In her desire to have both her mother and father embrace her, the little girl had unknowingly cast her first bout of accidental magic, summoning her father to her!
Chills travelled down Naruto’s spine, and he broke into a cold sweat as he heard the elves sing that funeral song. Thousands of people, singing the same song, united by sorrow.
It was the Lament of the Highborne.
A long moment of silence followed after the song ended.
One minute after that, Kael’thas Sunstrider stepped on the podium. Clad in his luxurious, crimson red, runecloth robes, he looked every bit the prince of the high elves that he was.
“It is our duty to honour the dead and their sacrifices. We would not be here without them. But it is just as important not to forget about the living: heroes who had put their lives at stake and fought tooth and nail for the sake of protecting our home. The Farstriders and the Magisters will always have my respect and the people of Quel’Thalas’ gratitude. But even among all those brave people, three heroes stood out the most,” Kael’thas said in a solemn voice.
“As the prince of the high elves, it is my duty, and my honour, to reward those who shed their blood for our homeland. Farstrider Lieutenant Melren Swiftlight, please step forward.”
The prince’s words made many elves turn their heads and look around themselves to find who Kael’thas was calling forward.
The Farstrider Lieutenant stepped out of the crowd and climbed on the stage. He was a tall and thin man with short, spiky blonde hair and glowing blue eyes. Just like the rest of the elves gathered there, he was wearing funeral red robes as well. Although it was a formal occasion, and most of the attendees were unarmed, he still had two short daggers strapped at his waist and his trusty longbow hanging at his back.
The High Priest had healed all the survivors' wounds with his Holy Light, so Melren Swiftlight appeared to be unharmed, but the unnaturally pale colour of his skin and the tiredness on his face spoke volumes of his exhaustion. Nevertheless, he sported a look of elation and surprise as he walked in front of the prince.
“If there is anything you wish to say, the stage is all yours.”
Flattered by the prince’s consideration, Melren bowed.
“My prince, I am but a humble Farstrider, merely fulfilling my duty.”
“Raise your head, Swiftlight,” Kael’thas said.
As the Farstrider straightened his posture, the prince came and pinned a badge to his chest.
Melren’s eyes widened at the sight of the badge. It was a golden phoenix, the symbol of the Sunstriders, the royal family of Quel’Thalas.
“My lord, I-”
“At first, I wanted to induce you into the Royal Guards, but the Ranger General would hear none of it. Instead, she asked me to inform you personally that you have been promoted to the rank of Captain!”
“It is an honour,” Melren said and performed the formal Farstrider salute by bringing a fisted hand to his chest.
The prince mirrored his salute and said:
“Belono sil'aru, belore'dorei.”
It was a special saying in Thalassian, said to the Farstriders whenever they were promoted to a higher rank. It meant, “Shoulder your burdens well, child of the sun.”
And with that, Melren Swiftlight left the podium and returned to the crowd, where his family welcomed him excitedly. They had not been forewarned about his promotion, so their joy and awe were genuine.
“The next person I would like us all to honour is the Magister of Dawnstar Village, Dar’khan Drathir.”
Unlike the Farstrider before him, Dar’khan’s demeanour was calm and composed as he walked on the stage.
⁂
Naruto watched the award ceremony with rapt attention. Similar to the funeral, it was his first time witnessing something like that.
‘Will I be there one day too?’ he asked himself.
“Of course you will. You arrived in this world two months ago. Give it time. Work hard and prove your loyalty, and they will acknowledge you too,” Kurama encouraged him.
‘You think so?’ Naruto asked wistfully.
He could no longer become the Hokage, considering that he was in a whole different world now. But the core of his desires had not changed. In the end, his true desire had never been to become the Hokage no matter what but to be acknowledged by the people around him. Hokage just happened to be the most respected person in the village.
“I’m certain. It may not be easy for you because you’re the only human in a kingdom of elves, but if you join the Farstriders, I’m sure that your skills will speak for yourself. I’m actually surprised they aren’t saying anything about the role you played in this war. Without you, hundreds of innocents would have lost their lives long before the Farstriders mobilised to defend against the troll army,” Kyuubi replied while Dar’khan, the Magister from Dawnstar Village, walked onto the stage to be rewarded by the prince.
The mage received a token from the prince that could be exchanged for any item that he desired from the Royal Treasury. It was an amazing reward considering how valuable the magical artefacts owned by the royal family were, but Dar’khan did not appear to be too happy.
‘What is he angry for?’ asked Naruto when he noticed with his Negative Emotions Sensing the rage smouldering underneath Dar’khan’s outwardly calm facade.
“He’s probably not happy with the reward,” Kyuubi said, and Naruto got the feeling that the fox shrugged his shoulders uncaringly.
Their secret chat was interrupted when Kael’thas spoke next:
“As for the third person I would like to come to the stage, it is someone without whom hundreds of innocents would have perished. He was the first to notice the invasion of the trolls, and it was also thanks to him that the High Priest Vandellor, my Royal Guards, and I have been informed of the trolls’ attack.”
The more Kael’thas spoke, the more nervous Naruto became and the bigger his surprise grew.
“Furthermore, the Scrying Magic used in the forests outside the Dawnstar Village has confirmed for us that he, alone, had tried to stop the trolls with his entire strength, buying time for the civilians to evacuate the village. And this is not the first time he has bled and fought for Quel’Thalas. Two months ago, he had also rescued Lady Liadrin, Farstrider Lor’themar Theron, Priest Galell, and Magister Dar’khan Drathir from the claws of the Amani.”
“He is not a high elf like us, but his heart beats for Quel’Thalas all the same. His name is Uzumaki Naruto.”
Naruto was in a stupor, momentarily unable to move. Logically, he knew that he had contributed enormously to the war, but he had not expected to be acknowledged by the prince of the high elves himself, especially considering how rude he had been to him. On top of it all, he was not a high elf; he was human.
“Go on, Naruto,” Liadrin pushed him from the back in encouragement and smiled at him warmly. “Don’t keep his Majesty waiting. This is your moment!”
Emboldened by Lady Liadrin’s smile and encouraging words, he started walking towards the podium. He was acutely aware of the thousands of gazes trained on him, but he kept his back straight despite his inner nervousness.
His hands and back were clammy with sweat, and his face still bore the marks of his tears from before, but nobody judged him upon seeing who he really was. He was just a child, not even 15 years old by the looks of it. Doubt and confusion appeared in their hearts. They were having a hard time believing that he had truly accomplished all those deeds that the prince was talking about.
Kael’thas Sunstrider nodded as Naruto walked onto the stage. He, too, would have had a hard time believing Naruto had accomplished such impressive deeds if he had not seen some of those with his own eyes.
Due to his upbringing—Kael'thas had spent many years in Dalaran—the prince did not harbour the same prejudice or attitude of superiority towards humans that some people among the high elves did. After all, the leader of Dalaran's Council of Six was a human. The prince knew that some humans could be just as capable as the high elves when it came to magic.
Therefore, after the end of the battle, Kael’thas decided that he would reward the human boy for his sacrifice and bravery.
‘I would be a fool not to treasure such a capable person.’
Uzumaki Naruto was not even 15 years old, yet he was already as strong as a veteran Magister. He would not be fit to be the leader of his people if he could not recognise how talented and valuable the human boy was.
“Uzumaki Naruto, your honour, your bravery, and your sacrifice have not gone unnoticed. On this day, in front of four thousand people, I, Kael’thas Sunstrider, the Prince of Quel’Thalas, name you Alyndor Quel’dorei. In the old language of the Highborn, Alyndor is a word that means ‘Hero’ or ‘Champion. From this moment onwards, you are a Hero of the High Elves and a Champion of Quel'Thalas. I now ask you, Alyndor of Quel’Thalas, would you do me the great honour of calling me your friend?"
Murmurs broke out among the crowd of elves. They had not expected their proud prince to ask for the human boy’s friendship. It was almost scandalous! Normally, a human would have been honoured to become Kael'thas' subordinate, to say nothing of what it meant to become his friend.
Fully unaware of what was polite to do at that moment, Naruto wiped his sweaty palms on his trousers and grabbed the prince’s hand in a bold handshake.
Lady Liadrin covered her face with a hand and looked down, flushing red in embarrassment.
“By the Sunwell, I can’t watch this!”
She felt like wanting to dig a hole somewhere and die. The Quel’dorei society held tradition and etiquette in very high regard, but Naruto’s manners were terrible even for a regular human, let alone a high elf.
For the first time in many years, the high elves saw their prince’s no-nonsense, stoic face break into a smile. No, he actually started chuckling softly before it became a full-blown laugh at the boy’s audacity.
On that day, the seeds of a lifelong friendship between the two men were planted. Unbeknownst to them, it was a friendship that would greatly alter the course of the prince’s life, one that would change his destiny.
⁂
Later that day, in the evening, after bidding their goodbyes to High Priest Vandellor and the rest of her acquaintances, Lady Liadrin took Naruto, and they rode a Dragonhawk back to Fairbreeze Village, where their home was.
Although she was a priestess of the Light, and she had always found comfort in her faith, there were times when even Liadrin felt lonely. She was nearly 3000 years old now, but she had never married or had any sort of intimate relations with anyone.
Her faith did not forbid marrying, and Liadrin did not shun the idea of it either but she had never gone out of her way to attend parties and other social gatherings in order to search for her other half. On one hand, her celibacy had allowed her to devote herself to the Light with her entire being, but on the other hand, when the day turned into night and she had to come home to her empty house, she would feel lonely, like something was missing.
However, as she cradled the human boy’s sleeping form in her arms, an indescribable warmth welled up within her chest. He was not of her blood, nor was he of her race either, so why did his presence fill her heart with so much joy?
The flight of the Dragonhawks was not known for its smoothness, so Liadrin tightened her hold on the sleeping boy as they flew above the forest of red and golden trees. She giggled softly when she looked down and saw a bit of drool coming from the corner of his mouth. But when she took out her handkerchief and cleaned him up, he stirred awake and glanced up at her. The way his cheeks flushed due to her proximity was so cute that she laughed yet again.
“Sorry, I fell asleep. It felt-”
He wanted to say that being embraced by someone felt so good that it had lulled him to sleep, but he felt too embarrassed to voice out his feelings.
But, to Liadrin, he was like an open book. She leaned down and kissed the crown of his head.
“I’ll hold you as many times as you want from now on.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he mumbled. His face was so red that you could cook meat on it.
“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about, Alyndor,” Liadrin said, smiling. “It’s only natural to desire the love of another. And you deserve all the love in the world. You saved so many people this time. And you saved my life too. My arms will always be open for you.”
Her words made him steam in his own embarrassment. He did not even know how he was supposed to react to that. He had never been held like that by anyone. He could only mutter a shy “Thank you” and let her pamper him with her love.
⁂
The following day, around noon, Lady Liadrin and Naruto were in the middle of preparing the table to have lunch.
As was always the case in Quel’Thalas, the weather was warm and pleasant. It was never too cold, never too hot, and there were never any windstorms. Furthermore, the dense crowns of the red and gold ancient trees provided a beautiful, luminous shade from the rays of the sun.
Due to the Runestones installed all over the Eversong Forest, the high elves could, among many other things, control the weather in their kingdom to their whims. Even the rain only fell at their chosen times, on specific days of the week, at specific hours.
A charmed harpsichord was playing a pleasant chamber music piece in the background while Naruto and three of his Shadow Clones carried plates and dishes outside. They were going to have lunch in the garden.
Built in the style and architecture specific to the high elves, the pavilion was a structure with white and gold pillars and a bright red round dome roof with the golden insignia of the phoenix at its top.
His current living conditions could not be compared to his life in Konoha. The run-down apartment he used to live in looked like a pig house in comparison. Although two months had already passed since Naruto started living in Liadrin’s home, he was still having a hard time getting used to the luxury.
Leaving aside the fact that most of his clothes were made of silk and so nice to look at that he felt bad about dirtying them, Liadrin also had magical brooms that swept the floors by themselves, gardening tools that trimmed the hedges and mowed the lawn alone, trays, lamps, and tables that levitated, and even kitchen appliances that did the dishes and cooked the food with minimal intervention from Liadrin herself.
‘I’m sure not even the Fire Daimyo lived in this kind of luxury.'
The High Elven way of life was like something out of a fairy tale. Magic was everywhere.
Even if he wanted to help with chores around the house, there wasn’t much that he could do. He wanted to be as helpful to Liadrin as possible, but he did not have many occasions to show his gratitude to her.
“I finished bringing all the food. What else can I do now?” Naruto said as he dispelled his Shadow Clones.
“Everything is ready. Our guests should be here any moment now.”
As chance made it, the bell at the gate rang. Their guests have arrived. Considering who they were, Liadrin was not surprised. Farstriders held discipline and punctuality in high regard.
But when she opened the gate, Liadrin was startled.
“The eternal sun guided us to your home,” the visitors said in greeting.
“I apologise for my unannounced visit,” one of them added. He was none other than Kael’thas Sunstrider, the very prince of the high elves.
Next to him, there were two other high elves, Lireesa Windrunner (the Ranger General), Lor’themar Theron, and a younger elven woman who bore a striking resemblance to Lireesa: she was her eldest daughter, Alleria Windrunner. With waist-length, luxurious golden hair, glowing blue eyes, and a small and soft face, Alleria was a rare beauty even among the high elves.
Other than the prince, who usually wore his gold and crimson mage gowns, the Farstriders were also wearing outfits different from their usual leather armour. Lireesa was wearing a blue and gold silk summer dress with a thin golden necklace around her dainty neck.
As for her daughter, Alleria, she was dressed in a sleeveless red dress and wore stylish golden armbands around her biceps. Her pure beauty was a stark contrast with her appearance in her Farstrider get-up when she wore leather armour and war paint on her face.
From the helpless look on Lireesa’s face, Liadrin understood that she had not planned on bringing Kael’thas together with her but that he had tagged along of his own volition. But, regardless of her surprise to see the prince himself at her door, Liadrin did not forget her manners and replied in kind as she opened the gate wider for all of them:
“Your presence is as welcome as the sun.”
With the prince first, the group of high elves entered Liadrin’s courtyard. Taking the lead, the priestess led them to the gazebo in the garden.
“Naruto, dear, could you prepare one more chair and another set of plates and cutlery?”
“Right away!” he replied, and, putting his hands in a cross-shaped seal, he made three shadow clones appear next to him.
One shadow clone went to bring another chair, one went for the plates and cutlery, while the last one helped the original body move the plates and chairs at the table to make space for another one.
Lireesa and Alleria watched his actions with wide eyes. They had heard the story of how Lor’themar, Liadrin, Dar’khan, and Galell were rescued from the trolls’ sacrificial room, but it was only now that the reality of it dawned on them: a child as young as 13 could cast corporeal ‘Mirror Images’ that were fully capable of following orders and interacting with the physical world.
It had to be said that becoming a mage was an arduous journey. Years, decades even, of studying were needed before a mage could cast such a complex spell.
Once the elves took a seat, Liadrin said a short prayer of gratitude to the Light to bless their meal.
Although Naruto’s table manners had improved ever since he started living with Liadrin, he was still too clumsy and uneducated to match the etiquette required when having lunch with a member of the royal family. Let alone him, even Lor’themar was not doing that well either; after all, he was a man of the sword and bow, not a diplomat or a noble.
Nonetheless, the prince did not make a fuss about it, and the Ranger General never put much importance on such things either. She had only learnt the high society’s manners in order for others not to look down on the position of the Ranger General. In the end, most of the high-elven nobles were a pretentious bunch.
“Word of your youngest child has reached my ears. I heard it is a boy. Congratulations!” Kael’thas said.
“Thank you. Before Lirath, Verath and I were wondering if someone had cast a spell on us to have only girls.”
Liadrin giggled softly.
“You’re making it sound as though you’re unhappy with having three daughters, Mother,” said Alleria.
“Nonsense. I’m proud of you all. Especially you, Alleria. I could not participate in the battle at the Farstriders Enclave, but Halduron only had words of praise to say about you.”
Alleria’s serious face gained a rosy hue, and her blue eyes widened. Her strict mother hardly ever gave her any words of praise or encouragement. She was so harsh on her usually that Alleria often wondered inwardly if her mother actually hated her.
“I have heard about it too,” Kael’thas interjected. “You have taken down well over 30 trolls, have you not? That is impressive! It looks like the bow of the Ranger General will be in good hands once your mother retires.”
“Your words honour me,” Alleria said politely, but Naruto got the feeling that she was not too happy deep down.
Naruto started fighting to cut the meat of a chicken leg with a knife and fork when Kael’thas turned his attention to him. So focused was he on his task that he did not notice that the rest of the people at the table started paying attention to him.
“Kuso,” he let out a swear word in his native language.
He was used to eating with chopsticks. And when it came to eating fried chicken legs, he would normally grab them directly with his hands. It always irked him when he had to mind his manners.
It was only when he heard someone chuckling that he looked up and realised that he had become the centre of attention.
“Good grief. Just grab it with your hand at this point,” Liadrin said in an exasperated voice. “You’ve learnt how to speak Thalassian fluently in two months but you still haven’t learned how to eat with a knife and fork.”
The Ranger General smiled at their interaction. She could tell that the priestess had grown quite attached to the boy.
“I would like to get to the crux of the matter, the reason why I have so rudely barged into your home,” Kael’thas spoke at that moment. “After the latest invasion of the Amani trolls, the Ranger General and I have been talking about creating a special division within the Farstriders. One that would be focused on scouting, infiltration, and espionage.”
A bad feeling crept into Liadrin’s stomach at his words.
“We would like to build this special unit around Alyndor and make full use of his skills.”
“Your Majesty, he’s just a child!” Liadrin said, unintentionally raising her voice. “He is only 13 years old!”
“He is not just a child. He is someone who houses the spirit of a Wild God; I have seen it with my own eyes. And he is someone whose peculiar cloning spell could be invaluable to Quel’Thalas,” the prince said calmly. “It would not be an exaggeration to say that his intervention had single-handedly turned the tide of the war against the Amani.”
“We’re not planning on sending him out on the battlefield right away,” Lireesa added when she saw Liadrin clenching her fists.
The priestess was barely keeping her composure. It was only because of their identity that she had not blown up at them yet.
For a better image, the most important person in Quel’Thalas was Anasterian Sunstrider, the King of Quel'Thalas. The second was Kael’thas Sunstrider, the prince. The third was Lireesa Windrunner, the Ranger General. And after them, it was the Convocation of Silvermoon, a governing body consisting of seven Grand Magisters, such as Belo’vir, who was High Priest Vandellor’s best friend.
Two of the three most important people in the Kingdom were now sitting at her table and asking her to let Naruto join the army.
“Can I really join the Farstriders?” Naruto asked hopefully. “Big sis Liadrin said I’d need to wait until I’m 18.”
“Do you know what it means to be a Farstrider?” Alleria unexpectedly asked Naruto.
The boy put his chicken leg down before saying in a serious voice:
“It means to protect the kingdom at any cost. To never back down in front of the enemy, no matter how strong. To be ready to pay the ultimate price for the sake of peace.”
His words surprised not only Alleria but Lor’themar, Lireesa, and Kael’thas too. They had not expected him to give such a mature answer.
“You are right,” Alleria said. “Knowing that, do you still wish to become a Farstrider?”
“Being a Farstrider wouldn’t be that different from being a shinobi,” Naruto said. “I think that the closest thing here would be something like a rogue and a mage. I graduated from the Academy half a year ago, and I became a full-fledged shinobi, serving my village.”
“Where are you from?” Kael’thas asked. “I have never heard of shinobi before.”
“It was a place called Konoha. I honestly don’t know how to get back. I was caught in an accident with a Summoning Spell. The next thing I knew, I found myself in the Amani mountains, naked, and tied to a spit above a bonfire, with green monsters salivating at me as they watched me burn.”
The way he narrated his misadventure made Lor’themar start chuckling.
“You are talking as though you have never seen trolls before that,” Kael’thas noticed that detail.
“I haven’t. I haven’t seen any high elves either. I’ve only seen humans and talking dogs. Oh, I also met a talking frog once, not long before I was caught in that Summoning Spell.”
“Hmm, are you, perhaps, talking about gnolls and murlocs?” Lor’themar asked.
“No,” Naruto shook his head. He had seen pictures in books about the various races of Azeroth. The gnolls and the murlocs were nothing like Kakashi’s ninken or the old pervert’s frog.
The conversation continued for a while longer, with the elves asking all sorts of questions about Naruto’s place of origin. He answered them as honestly as he could, but he never said that it was an entirely different world.
The high elves did not doubt him. Unlike many other races on Azeroth, they were fully aware of the history of their world.
They knew that, after the Sundering, the cataclysmic event from 10,000 years ago when the world was almost destroyed. Kalimdor, the first giant continent, was splintered into many pieces of land, over the entire planet.
Even now, ten thousand years after the Sundering, there were many uncharted islands and continents, places that even the bravest and most knowledgeable explorers had yet to discover. In their eyes, Naruto’s homeland could very well be one such place in Azeroth too.
Unlike the adults, the boy finished his meal quite fast and started fidgeting in his seat, bored.
“Hey, do you want to come play in the garden?” Naruto asked Alleria in a quiet whisper. “Let’s leave these grandmas and grandpas to talk to each other here alone.”
Alleria choked on her drink and started coughing as she burst into laughter.
But she was not the only one who had heard his words. Despite talking in a whisper, the high elves’ long ears were not just for show. Four heads turned toward Naruto at the same time.
“Naruto!” Liadrin squawked in disbelief. “That was extremely rude! Apologise right away!”
She swore that that boy would be the death of her. It seemed like every other day she would get a mini heart attack because of him.
“Now I’m hurt. Do Liadrin and I look like grandmas to you?” the Ranger General asked in a serious voice. Only Alleria, who was her daughter, knew that Lireesa was teasing him, that she was amused.
“Ah, no, sorry, my bad,” Naruto rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. “You’re the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen. I’m not just saying it, y’know? I’m serious!”
Kael’thas chuckled, not having taken his comment to heart.
Inwardly, the rest of the elves who knew the prince were more than a little surprised. Kael’thas had laughed and smiled more during that meal than they had seen him do in years. The prince of the High Elves was known by all as a reserved and no-nonsense type of person.
“Miss Alleria, would you be so kind as to spend some time with him in the garden?” Liadrin asked while holding back the urge to facepalm herself.
⁂
Two hours later, their meal came to an end, and it was time for the visitors to leave.
The prince was the first to take his leave, followed by Lor’themar Theron. Lireesa and Alleria Windrunner lingered a while longer.
“Don’t feel too pressured to accept, Liadrin,” Lireesa spoke while the two of them watched Naruto and Alleria throwing daggers at a target in the back of the garden.
“Why has the prince become so fixated on him?” Liadrin said, frustration evident in her voice.
“Your concern for the child is blinding you,” Lireesa said in a kind but firm voice. “He may be young, but that boy had single-handedly killed around two or three hundred Amani trolls. And from Melren’s report, the Farstrider Lieutenant who fought at Dawnstar Village, it took a troll to sacrifice his life to Hakkar, the blood god that even the savage trolls do not worship anymore, in order to stop him. Alyndor is a powerful asset, and his cloning and transformation spells are probably even more valuable than his combat prowess.”
Liadrin became silent at that.
“Think of the possibilities: he could learn the troll language and send his clones to infiltrate the tribes of the forest trolls. Tragedies like the Amani invading without our knowledge would never happen again. He could even assassinate their leaders when they least expect it. . . but if you are determined to let him be a child for a few more years, neither the prince nor I will force you to change your mind. You have my word, as the Ranger General.”
The priestess let out a sigh of resignation. As someone who had lost her parents at a frail age during the Troll Wars 2800 years ago, Liadrin was no stranger to the pain brought by war and the suffering the trolls had caused for the high elves. Many other children lost their parents to troll attacks. If there was a chance to minimise the number of orphaned children in the future, she could not, in good conscience, work against it.
“You are right. . . I shall leave it up to his choice. . . just promise me one thing. Promise me that you would not send him on dangerous missions until you think that he is ready for it.”
“I had no intention of putting him in danger in the first place. He is too valuable. I meant what I said earlier. It would be similar to how people can join the Farstrider Enclave at the age of 15, but they would be mere apprentices until they came of age. Only after that would they see real combat on a real battlefield.”
“I suppose that that is all that I can ask for.”
⁂⁂⁂⁂
AN: The pic of the gazebo looks a bit like a doll-house, it's not that great. But it's the closest thing I could find to what I had in mind. I tried to create some pics with AI, but I wasn't getting good results.
Alleria Windrunner as a Farstrider, in-game appearance:
Walls, rooms, and corridors flew past him like a blur. He was running faster than he ever did in his entire life, but his breathing was even, and his heart rate was low.
“Watch out!” a man screamed from behind.
Unfortunately, his warning came too late. A large, heavy, golden chandelier hanging from the ceiling suddenly fell down. If that was all, he wouldn’t be so worried, but the chandelier unexpectedly transformed into something entirely different.
Harry didn’t have time to react before the creature started rotating like a spinning top, and, the next thing he knew, he was struck and slammed back as though he had been hit by a truck.
“It’s the Sentients!” someone yelled in a shrill voice. “Dax! Protect me with your lives! I command you! No matter the cost! You have to protect me!”
With blurry eyes, Harry looked up from the spot where he had crashed to see an extremely tall man, standing at almost three meters in height, wearing a white toga and a large number of heavy and garish gold ornaments.
He was surrounded from all sides by men and women of regular heights. They were wearing black and bronze plate armour with odd, disc-shaped helmets and wielding long, curved swords in their hands.
He coughed, and the marble floor got stained with the blood coming from his mouth. Seemingly having no control over his movements, Harry took off his half-destroyed disc-shaped helmet and threw it aside. It had saved him from the Sentient’s attack earlier, but now, the bent and ruined helmet would be nothing but a hindrance.
A curtain of smooth, flaming red hair fell down his shoulders when he took his helmet off and stood up to his feet. Distracted by his hair’s distinctly different length and colour, despite the precarious situation he was in, Harry involuntarily looked down at his body.
He could not recognise himself. The bronze gauntlets, his long red hair, and the feminine shape of his bronze breastplate. . . it was the body of a slender but strong and fit woman.
Irrespective of the thoughts going through his mind at that moment, his body moved on its own, and, as he clenched his fists, six long claws popped out from his arm guards.
A woman’s battle cry came from his mouth, and he jumped with more strength than Harry had seen any other person do before in his entire life, throwing himself at the creature that had attacked him.
The being in question, the Sentient, had an appearance that was hard to put into words. It had a vaguely humanoid shape, but its legs ended in sharp, needle-like protrusions, and its body was split vertically, the two halves being connected only at the area Harry assumed to be its head. Further contributing to its alien appearance were its two tongs-like arms and the very large triangular protrusions coming out of its shoulders. It was a monster like Harry had never seen before. It was the type of creature that his former classmate, Seamus, would most likely describe as a ‘biblically accurate angel’.
The Sentient started spinning like a whirlwind again, its tongs-like arms being no different from sharp swords. But, to Harry’s fright, his own body ran at the Sentient at full sprint. He threw himself on the floor, sliding to avoiding the Sentient’s rotating upper limbs, and kicked it in the legs.
His kick made the creature lose control over its rotation and smash violently into the thick wall of the corridor, creating a deep dent in it. The sentient tried to stand up and attack the Dax again, but Harry’s body leapt in the air like a leopard and sunk his claw weapon into the Sentient’s head. A mixture of flesh and metal exploded from its head, and the Sentient twitched a few more times before its body became still. It was dead.
Unfortunately, that was just one monster. Pieces of furniture and even potted plants from all over the corridor began to transform into creatures identical to the monster from before.
At the sight of them, the blue-skinned giant man started panicking. The Dax soldiers around him also clenched their hands harder around the handles of their swords.
“Run!” Harry heard himself shouting, outside of his control. “I’ll hold them all back! I’ll buy some time! Escort Lord Dexrel to safety! ”
He did not sound like himself. It was a strong, authoritative voice. . . and it was, without a shred of doubt, a female voice.
“Captain!”
“We’ll fight together!”
“No, Captain!”
“We won’t abandon you!”
Dozens of soldiers spoke at once, trying to change his mind.
“I said GO!” Harry’s body shouted at them in an angry voice. “It’s an order!”
The Dax soldiers gritted their teeth, but, in spite of their unwillingness, they could not disobey a direct order. They took the tall, blue-skinned man with them and ran out of the corridor, leaving their captain behind.
As his comrades retreated, he turned to face the enemy. Over 30 eldritch monsters floated towards him. Thirty against one. . . The odds were overwhelmingly against him surviving that confrontation. He wanted to run. He wanted to escape. But his body wouldn’t budge. He had no control over it.
“Come,” he said in the same calm, low, husky, female voice. “Step forth. I’ll tear you all limb from limb.”
He brought his claw weapons together, and a sharp grating sound was heard as he ground their blades against each other. Bright sparks came out, and the six blades of his Venka claws ignited, becoming covered in flames.
Then, he charged at the Sentients with a war cry, throwing himself at them like a berserker with no regard for his own life.
⁂
He woke up with a start. He was breathing as though he had run a marathon. Sitting up, he shivered at the uncomfortable feeling of his soaked shirt clinging to his skin.
Harry was no stranger to nightmares. He had been having terrible nightmares for two years now, ever since the summer before his fourth year, when Voldemort came back to life.
He rubbed his face tiredly with both hands.
“Fuck,” he let out a quiet curse.
He knew better than to dismiss that dream as a simple nightmare because it was eerily similar to the dreams and visions he used to get due to his connection to Voldemort.
He had watched everything through the eyes of the warrior woman, just like he had watched through Voldemort’s snake’s eyes how Arthur Weasley got attacked. It was too detailed, too realistic.
Bringing his face up from his hands, he glanced at the female Warframe who was sitting in a kneeling position on the floor, with her hands on her thighs, at the side of his bed. As far as he could tell, her crown-like helmet did not have any conventional eyes, but he had a feeling that she was watching him.
“Were those your memories?” he asked.
But Valkyr did not reply. He shook his head, berating himself for expecting an actual answer from a Warframe.
Getting out of bed, Harry let out a groan as he started walking on wobbly legs towards the bathroom. A searing pain, as though he was being burnt alive, came from his forehead and the bicep of his left arm.
A feeling of vertigo washed over him, and he had to lean against the wall so that he would not collapse. Nausea and a splitting headache made it hard for him to stand. He couldn’t walk any further.
But just as he was about to collapse, the Warframe walked to him seemingly out of her own volition and grabbed him by the shoulders to help him stand. Thanks to Valkyr’s help, he made it through the hallway and finally arrived at the bathroom.
Turning on the faucet, a sound of relief came from his mouth as he put his whole head under the jet of cold water.
Much to his surprise, at that moment, an emotion of concern was transmitted into his brain. . . it was coming from his Warframe. Ignoring the cold water dripping from his hair and wetting his shirt, Harry turned to look at Valkyr in amazement.
But then, the look of awe on his face vanished, turning into shock as a third individual appeared in the room seemingly out of nowhere.
With a physical appearance almost identical to that of Harry, a teen boy stood behind Valkyr, with his hands behind the back of his head, leaning against the bathroom wall, and grinning widely at him.
“Hey, kiddo!”
As that mocking greeting echoed in the bathroom, pain exploded from his forehead and his left bicep once again, and Harry involuntarily backed away in horror. The cruel torture he had endured at the hands of that eldritch creature from beyond the Veil of Death was still fresh in his mind, still haunting him.
Due to their deep connection through the power of the Void, Valkyr sensed the sudden shift in his emotions and whipped around, the six blades of her Venka claws instantly coming out. But when she swivelled around, the doppelganger was already gone.
⁂
One week passed since Harry’s arrival in the future, but, to him, it felt like months had gone by because every time he fell asleep, he would be sucked into his Warframe’s mind, watching her memories through her eyes. It could even happen more than once per night. Sometimes, the visions would be short, not even an hour long. But, other times, he would be stuck in Valkyr’s memories for several days at once, time moving much faster in his visions than in real life.
They weren’t pleasant memories. . . There were only memories of war, destruction, and killing. And they were starting to take a toll on his mental health.
The ever-perceptive Cephalon Suda was not oblivious to his rapidly worsening mental state, which led to the current situation: the guide of the Tenno herself, the Lotus, had once again come to the Larunda Relay. Naturally, she did not come alone. Three Warframes were walking by her side, escorting her.
After exchanging greetings, one of the members of Cephalon Suda’s Syndicate led the Lotus and her Tenno to a special room in their headquarters.
As they stepped through the door, one of the Warframes moved so fast in front of the Lotus that it seemed as though he had teleported. A rectangular wall of blue lightning appeared in front of him, acting as a shield for him and the Lotus behind him.
It turned out that the speedster’s actions were not unwarranted because the opening of the door had spooked the occupant of the room, who whipped around startled, his hands unconsciously lighting up with the power of the Void.
“Ugh, sorry,” Harry mumbled an apology as he willed the power of the Void to disappear from his hands.
Thankfully, he caught himself before he could do something stupid and attack them for no reason. He ran a hand through his hair, his entire demeanour betraying his distress with his rapid breathing, the tense set of his shoulders, and the way his eyes stayed pinned on the newcomers as though he were ready to retaliate at the slightest sign of aggression.
His agitated state of mind was felt by Valkyr too through his Transference, and the Warframe put herself between Harry and the newcomers, unsheathing the six blades of her Venka claws threateningly.
A tiny drone flew into the room, and a familiar hologram was projected from it. It was Cephalon Suda.
“They have come in peace. They are here to help you,” Suda said to put his worries to rest.
“Ah, hello,” Harry offered an awkward greeting. “Sorry for overreacting. I’ve been a little jumpy lately.”
The Warframes and the Lotus exchanged a glance. Cephalon Suda’s cubic hologram also started shining brighter.
One of Warframes controlled by the Tenno glowed with a blue light for a brief moment, and the body of a little girl, no older than twelve, materialised into the outside world.
“You’re speaking Orokin?!” she asked, her voice rising in astonishment.
Harry recognised her at a glance; she was Angie, the Tenno whose Warframe he had ‘stolen'. But her words surprised him so much that he forgot to greet her.
“I have not activated the translation program,” the Cephalon clarified to Harry. “I thought that showing them instead of telling them would be more efficient. It appears that I was right.”
Two other Tenno materialised outside their Warframes. One of them was Galen, the older teenager who had accompanied Angie on her mission to retrieve her Valkyr from Jupiter a week ago. As for the other one, it was the first time Harry saw him. It was a dark-skinned boy, about the same age as Harry, with short curly hair and wearing a pair of red-tinted glasses. Furthermore, he was dressed in what looked to Harry like a Formula 1 red pilot suit.
“You’re saying that a week ago he couldn’t speak a word?” the new Tenno glanced at the Lotus in surprise.
“This is more serious than I thought,” the Lotus spoke.
“What’s going on?” Harry asked, starting to become nervous.
“Let’s have a seat first,” she told him while sitting on the sofa, with the three Tenno and their Warframes standing close to her. “As Cephalon Suda mentioned, we are here to help. Before you ask why we would want to help you, that’s what we, the Tenno, do. We lend a helping hand to those in need.”
From the look in Harry’s eyes, one could tell that he was not fully convinced by her words, but he did remain silent and listened to what she had to say.
“Let’s first address the kubrow in the room, your Transference with Valkyr,” the Lotus began. "Transference is what we call the act of Tenno projecting their mind into the bodies of other beings through the power of the Void. At its most basic form, Transference allows the Tenno to control other organisms as though they were their own body. Are you with me so far?”
“Yes.”
“That being said, the act of Transference is more complex than that. For example, Transference also allows the Tenno to manifest astral projections of their bodies into the material world. Galen, Angie, and Karim are doing this as we speak. What is happening to you currently, however, is a side effect of overusing Transference.”
“What is happening to me exactly?” Harry asked in a defensive voice.
“You’re talking to us in Orokin right now, after just one week, despite not having interacted with any other Tenno,” Galen replied instead of Lotus. “Unless you were lying about not understanding us, which I doubt, the only way for you to have learnt our language is through Transference from Valkyr's memories. You see, when we use Transference, we’re not just taking control of the Warframes’ bodies. Our minds also touch. That’s why we are the only ones who can tame them. Warframes are feared as dreadful killing machines by everyone except us, the Tenno, because we have the ability to empathise with them. We can understand them. And we accept them.”
Hearing his words, Harry understood there was no point in trying to hide the fact that Valkyr’s dreams and behaviour were starting to leak into his own mind.
“So you’re going crazy because of your Warframes too?”
Karim shook his head. “We don’t let it get to that point. We train our minds and meditate every day. Moreover-”
“Borrriiinnngg~” Angie whined from the sideline.
“-we don’t spend that much time inside our Warframes. Go in, complete the mission, go out. But you? You have no training, you’re controlling your Valkyr instinctually. You don’t even know how to turn off your Transference, do you? So you’ve been connected to your Warframe’s mind for an entire week, without giving your mind any time to adjust and rest. I can only imagine how worse it gets when you fall asleep. At this rate, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that you lost your sense of self or went insane.”
⁂
It did not take much coaxing from the Lotus and the Tenno to convince Harry that he needed help. He himself knew that he couldn’t continue like that for much longer.
And that’s how the Tenno took Harry to Cephalon Simaris, another being similar to Cephalon Suda, to use his Simulacrum.
The Simulacrum was not a real, physical place but a virtual world created by Simaris in order to immortalise all the living beings in the origin system. Many Tenno helped Simaris with his operations of Synthesis, capturing specimens of all kinds for the Cephalon to digitise. In exchange, Simaris allowed the Tenno to use his Simulacrum. To put it simply, the Tenno hunted things and people for Simaris, and the Cephalon offered them a virtual training ground that replicated reality almost perfectly.
“But what about my Warframe? Will she be able to come with me?” Harry asked.
“Of course. Just give me a moment,” Galen replied while pressing a button on the belt at his waist, making a scanner appear in his hand seemingly out of nowhere.
After scanning Valkyr’s body three times with his device, he went to a console not far from the Cephalon and introduced the newly acquired data.
Harry observed his actions and the rest of the people in Simaris' Sanctuary with deep interest. Although he had been living in the Larunda Relay for a week now, he had not gone around exploring too much. He had been too exhausted by his nightly visions and too anxious about his current situation: being stuck 20,000 years in the future, at nearly 80 million kilometres away from Earth.
Cephalon Simaris’ holographic model looked far more eye-catching than that of Cephalon Suda due to its complex shape and bright, gold and red colours. There were also a lot more Warframes visiting the Sanctuary than the ones coming to Cephalon Suda’s Syndicate.
A few Warframes waved at Galen’s Wukong when they noticed him, and he waved back, but he didn’t stick around to chat with them. He quickly returned to Harry's and his two friends’ side. Then, Galen rented a small capsule room where their real bodies would be stored while their minds would enter the virtual world, the Simulacrum.
It only took pressing one button for Harry’s mind to leave his body, and, the next thing he knew, he found himself standing on a tall podium overlooking a platform with dozen-meter-tall towers scattered all over the place. The whole structure was floating in what appeared to be an endless void; there was only an abyss of green and blue space beyond the edges of the platform, no matter in which direction he looked.
“Make sure you don’t fall off. Even we won’t be able to save you then,” the dark-skinned boy told him seriously.
“Don’t mess with him, dude; he’s already wary of us as it is,” Galen said, lightly punching Karim in the shoulder. “Keep that between friends.”
“Alright, alright, sheesh,” the dark-skinned boy muttered.
“So what happens if I fall off this thing?” Harry asked, unable to take his mind off that thought because of Karim’s words.
“Nothing, it’s a virtual world. Even if you get your ass kicked by the enemies we’ll summon, you’ll just reappear here, next to the Arsenal. This is where we select the weapons and the Warframes we want to wield. But you can’t use it for now because you don’t have a contract with Simaris; you’re not in his database,” Galen explained.
“I see. . . So, what do we do here?” Harry asked.
“This is where we’ll help you train your Void powers. The better you get at controlling the Void, the easier it will be to master your Transference and other skills,” the dark-skinned boy explained. “By the way, I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Karim.” He raised his hand in greeting, offering it to Harry.
“I’m Harry. Nice to meet you,” he replied, shaking his hand. But, a second later, he let out a yelp of pain and quickly pulled his hand away from the handshake when an electric shock zapped him.
“Karim!” Galen shouted at him.
“I swear it wasn’t on purpose!” Karim said quickly, but he couldn’t help snickering right away.
In response to that, the pink-haired girl kicked him in the back, launching him off the podium.
Karim screamed as he fell from a height of over 10 metres. . . but his body suddenly became translucent, glowing with a turquoise light, and then he flew towards one of the towers in the distance.
An involuntary sound of awe came from Harry’s mouth at the sight of that.
“Whoa!”
At his reaction, Galen and Angie also crouched for a moment before launching themselves forward. Their bodies turned translucent too, transforming into humanoid phantoms of light with indistinguishable physical features as they flew through the air and landed right next to Karim.
Unassisted flight was the stuff of legends back in his timeline, even among wizards and witches whose magic could do amazing things. Voldemort was the only wizard in history to have achieved that, yet there they were, three teens were flying like it was nobody’s business.
The three Tenno flew back on the platform, showing no signs that would let one think their actions had been particularly straining for them.
“We call this a Void Dash. Not only does it allow us to fly in any direction we want, but we’re also invisible in this state. Only those sensitive to the power of the Void can see us. We’re also immune to all damage while we’re in Void Mode. Angie, Karim, show him.”
Harry cracked a smile when the little girl grabbed a grenade launcher seemingly out of thin air, and Karim’s eyes widened to comical proportions.
“Hey! Why do I have to be the one getting shot at!” yelled Karim.
But Harry’s smile froze on his face when he saw the little girl actually aiming the massive weapon at Karim and pulling the trigger! A powerful explosion boomed, and the shockwave blasted Harry off his feet, sending him sprawling towards the edge of the podium despite him not being the target.
When the smoke dispersed, Karim could be seen crouching in his Void Mode.
Standing up at full height, his phantom-like appearance disappeared and revealed the fact that he was completely unharmed.
“Damn it, Angie, and you too, Galen! You’ll pay for this!” said Karim in chagrin while fixing his red-tinted glasses.
Completely ignoring him, Galen continued talking about their Void powers:
“Then, there are also our two main ways of attacking. Void Blast and Void Beam. But these could even hurt us so it’s best we show their effects on some enemy units.”
“I’ll do it!” Karim volunteered. “I’ll operate the console. You two can go down and teach him.”
Angie and Galen glanced at each other before shrugging. Operating the console was boring, but if he offered to do it, who were they to complain?
Before Harry could react, Galen and Angie grabbed him from an arm each, and then a scream followed as they leapt off the tall podium with Harry in tow, flying through the air.
To the two Tenno’s surprise, Harry actually revealed an excited expression instead of shock and panic. Filing that observation as something to talk about in the future, Galen turned to shout at Karim, who had been left behind.
“Alright, Karim, generate some Grineer units for us!”
“I got you, fam!” Karim yelled back.
Little did Galen know that after he, Angie, and Harry left the platform, Karim inserted a chip into the main console.
In the next moment, a bright yellow light appeared on the platform below, and, instead of a squad of Grineer soldiers, a strange creature appeared.
“Look at them, they come to this place when they know they are not pure [...]”
Galen and Angie both let out a long-suffering groan.
“Karim, you son of a bitch!”
“[...] Tenno use the keys, but they are mere trespassers. Only I, Vor, know the true power of the Void. I was cut in half, destroyed, but through its Janus Key, the Void called to me [...]”
“This troll! Damn it!” Angie cussed.
“Sorry, Harry. Looks like we’ll have to reset the instance. That jerk bugged it.”
“What does that mean?” Harry asked in confusion.
“[...] It brought me here, and here I was reborn. We cannot blame these creatures. They are being led by a false prophet, an impostor who knows not the secrets of the Void. Behold the Tenno, come to scavenge and desecrate this sacred realm. [...]”
“Argh, my ears are bleeding. We can’t even kill him to make him shut up!” Angie shouted. “Let’s just get away from here now!”
Galen and Angie grabbed Harry and flew together with him again. By the time they returned to the podium, Karim was long gone.
“[...] My brothers, did I not tell of this day? Did I not prophesise this moment? Now, I will stop them. Now I am changed, reborn through the energy of the Janus Key. Forever bound to the Void. [...]”
⁂
“Hope you liked my present,” Karim told them when they returned from the Simulacrum, a shit-eating grin on his face.
Galen didn’t laugh.
“There is a time and a place for jokes, Karim. Now is not the time! How do you expect us to gain Harry’s trust when you keep pulling all sorts of shit?”
“Aw, come on, dude. It was a joke. No harm done.”
“No harm done, huh?” Angie said in a dangerous voice. “Alright. I’ll come visit your clan’s dojo tomorrow. And we’re going to have a nice, harmless fun time in the arena.”
Karim’s forehead started sweating visibly.
“Ahaha. . . Angie, who is my favourite Tenno in the Alliance?” he said sweetly.
“I’m going to use the Stalker’s Hate.”
“O-Oy, isn’t that going too far? I didn’t hurt anyone this time!”
“You hurt my feelings! Do you have any idea how many times I’ve had to face that worm-kisser? I’ve killed him over 200 times already! I’m sick of it! I’m sick of him and his stupid speeches! And I’m sick of you Vor-rolling us all the time!”
While Angie and Karim were bickering, Harry spoke to Galen.
“What happened in the Simulacrum? Sorry, I come from a time when technology was nothing like this. Everything here looks like something we’d only see in stories and movies.”
“Oh. . . there was an error. Captain Vor is a former commander of the Grineer that Angie killed a while back. . . Or so we thought. Vor escaped alive somehow and made it to the Void, where he got Corrupted. He became immortal as a result but also lost his freedom. He is just a puppet of the Void now. Every time we dive into the Void on a mission, he spawns out of nowhere and attacks us. We kill him every time, but the Void keeps resurrecting him and making him attack us. Anyway, the problem is that the Simulacrum can’t replicate his existence correctly in the virtual world. Cephalon Simaris said he’s working on it, though.”
⁂
Harry and the three Tenno went into the Simulacrum again and it looked like, this time, Angie’s threats kept Karim on his best behaviour.
The Tenno helped Harry practice with his Void Powers, and they also taught him how to stop his Transference with Valkyr.
It did not take long for him to pick up their skills. Looking back, Harry had already used the Void Mode the first time he came out of the Veil of Death and escaped from the large group of MOA and Corpus marines, in the Gas City of Jupiter. On that same day he had also used Void Blast instinctively against Valkyr, and then engaged in an accidental Transference with her.
‘It feels similar to magic in a way,’ Harry thought as a flickering, misty blue light appeared in the palm of his hand.
Aiming his hand at a stationary MOA unit generated by the virtual world, Harry’s Void Beam tore through the robot like a hot knife through butter, obliterating it.
In a way, it felt even easier than casting magic. Using the void was almost instinctual.
“You’re doing great,” Angie encouraged him and smiled.
Harry rubbed the back of his head. “You’ve been a great help, guys. I don’t know how to repay you. . .”
But when Harry smiled back at her, Angie crossed her arms to her chest, and her bubblegum pink hair flapped as she twisted her head, looking the other way.
“Hmpf! I’m not doing this to help you! Don’t misunderstand! I just want my Valkitty back! You said you can’t give me back my Valkyr because you need her to protect you, no? Well, you won’t need her anymore after you learn how to use your Void Powers well. So you’ll give me back my Warframe!”
When Galen and Karim began smirking at her, Angie blew up at them.
“What are you two oafs laughing at?!”
“You just can’t be honest with your feelings, can you?” Karim could not hold back the urge to tease her. “You really think you’ll get her back? Look at them. Do you think she’ll want to leave him after spending such a long time connected to each other?”
As on cue, the three of them turned their heads to look at Valkyr, who was following Harry everywhere he went. In contrast, their own Warframes were stationary, looking almost as though they were lifeless when the Tenno projected their bodies outside.
“You want to see my real feelings? Fine! I’ll do it! Let me show you my honest feelings!” Angie shouted and she cancelled her astral projection, returning inside her Warframe.
“Oh crap!” Karim blurted out as he disappeared into his black-and-red Volt and broke into a sprint that almost broke the sound barrier.
Unfortunately for him, Angie's Warframe happened to be a Mag, and she was fast enough to activate her first ability before Volt could escape from the range of her skills.
A magnetic Pull yanked Volt back abruptly, bringing him straight in front of Mag.
But when Volt looked like he was about to Discharge a lightning nova from his body, and Mag appeared like she was going to use her Crush on Volt to crumple him into a ball of metal with her magnetic powers, Galen disappeared into his Wukong warframe too.
In the next moment, a second Wukong appeared, and then both the clone and the original smacked the backs of Volt’s and Mag’s heads.
“Quit it out already! Ah, darn it, I told the Lotus she shouldn’t have chosen you to be on the same team! Are you incapable of behaving yourself for one hour?! Are you children?”
Thoroughly scolded, neither Angie nor Karim dared to retort anything to his words.
Galen sighed.
“Let’s stop for today. We have to go on a mission soon, anyway. We’re scheduled to help the Corpus fight off an invasion of the Infestation on Pluto.”
Now that line caught Harry’s attention.
“You’re going to help Corpus??”
During his week-long stay at Larunda Relay and his daily conversations with Cephalon Suda, Harry had learnt many new things. He knew that the Corpus was a profit-worshipping cult with no morals whatsoever. If selling slaves and trafficking organs generated profit, they would do it. If killing an entire colony of humans would generate them more profit than if they were alive, the Corpus would do it in a heartbeat too.
“I know what you’re thinking about, but things aren’t that black and white out there,” Galen said. “And if it’s the Infested we’re fighting against, we’d even help out the devil. You’ll understand a lot more if you stick around.”
“Now, let’s go,” he said and used his Cloud Walker ability to fly towards the podium. As the name implied, a white cloud appeared around his warframe and he turned invisible. A split second later, Wukong landed on the podium and logged out of the Simulacrum.
Harry crouched, and a haze of aqua light shrouded his body too as he entered Void Mode. A rush of euphoria flooded his system as he started Void Dashing, practically flying towards the podium as well.
Not one to be left behind, and without Harry ordering her to do it, Valkyr launched her Ripline, a yellow rope with a spear tip that pierced one of the many towers on the platform before pulling her along and throwing her ahead.
⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂
AN: in the pic of the Orokin, the blue-skinned man, you will notice that one of his arms is far longer than the other. It's not a botched drawing lol. The nobility of the Orokin Emptire liked to get surgeries and physical augmentations to distinguish themselves from the lower castes.
As for the gif with the Void Dashing, that was a dude blasting a Grineer soldier into the air and then flying after him. He had sent it flying for 400 metres lmao.
⁂
If you wish to see Mag's and Volt's physical appearance and some of their skills, go to this cinematic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsbL8lFHrZI&t=117s - skip to 3:05 (to 3:30) for Mag. - skip to 3:40 (to 4:20) for Volt (he doesn't get all that much time to shine. But you will see the world moving in slow-motion compared to his speed. And 2 other skills).
The light you see in his stomach is actually a big hole. His body was cut in half, from the waist. That's the power of the Void reanimating him.
⁂
It took me nearly 2 hours to find all these screenshots, gifs, and pics. Hope that they helped 😅. They will decrease in frequency in the future, once you get more familiar with the world of Warframe.
A sphere of white light appeared between the hands of both twins, and wisps of light surged into Nadia’s injured arm, closing the wound at a speed visible to the naked eye.
He brought his arm discreetly to his waist, to the wand holster hanging from his belt.
‘Homenum Revelio,’ he chanted mentally.
It was the incantation for the Human Presence Revealing spell. However, his spell did not detect any humans in a radius of 30 metres around him.
The two girls were not human. They were androids.
⁂
He was so startled by seeing the two girls perform magic that he didn’t realise that Malik and Jim grabbed him by the arms until he found himself being dragged forth and made to sit on the bed.
Harry sighed. “Okay, I get it; I’ll let them have a look. You can let go of me now.”
They did let go of him, and, for a brief moment, Harry entertained the idea of Disapparating right away. But the thought of leaving his friends and disappearing from their lives made him hesitate. Even now, he was still hoping that there may still be a way to salvage the situation.
The twins bowed deeply in front of him.
“Thank you so much for your help. But you shouldn’t get involved next time. It would only cause you problems.”
“I couldn’t just sit back and let him treat you like that! I don’t even know how the rest could watch and do nothing!” he said and turned to give his friends a pointed look.
“That’s because we deserve it,” said the other girl. “This is our atonement.”
“Atonement for what?”
Instead of replying, they bowed again deeply and spoke at the same time:
“We’re sorry. We apologise.”
“What are you apologising for?”
“We are grateful. No one ever stood up for us. But truly, it would be best not to get involved again. We . . . we don’t want others to suffer because of us again. But if you ever need anything, just let us know. We will repay this kindness.”
That entire interaction was confusing him to no end. What the girls said, however, gave him an idea.
“If you want to repay your gratitude, I could use your help now.”
He wasn’t the type to cash in favours and demand things from people in that manner, but he just didn’t have a choice.
“Definitely. What can we do?”
“Could you come closer? It’s a secret.”
The two girls exchanged a glance before leaning closer to Harry so that he could whisper in their ears.
In the meantime, Harry's friends exchanged amused glances. In truth, nobody was blind to how beautiful the two healer-type androids were.
“Look at him. Is he flirting with them?” said Nadia, chuckling.
“He’s got game, I’ll give him that,” said Malik.
“James, you dog, are you trying to ask them both out?” Reiner started laughing.
Had it been in any other circumstances, that joke would have made him sputter in denial, but now he actually leaned into it.
“Uh, yeah, I am. Any problem with that?”
His frank admission made his friends baulk at him, and the two red-haired girls became red in the face as well.
Unbeknownst to Reiner and the rest, however, reality could not be any farther than their delusions.
Beckoning the embarrassed girls closer, he said in a whisper that only they could hear:
“I need you to keep your calm. Could you promise me that?”
His serious voice snapped the twins from their flustered state of mind.
“What do you mean?” the girl with wavy red hair asked.
“Once you check my physical state, I’m certain you’ll freak out. I need you to keep your composure. No matter what you see, I need you to stay calm. It’s extremely important for me to keep this secret. Please!”
Although bewildered by his request, the girls glanced at each other before replying.
“. . . Okay. We can do that.”
“Yes, we’ll keep your secret.”
He let out a relieved sigh.
“Thank you,” he said, his voice filled with gratitude.
He had not told them directly that he was a human in hopes that the twins would not notice the fact that by themselves, as small as that chance may have been. But in case they did notice his real identity, he made them promise that they would keep his secret.
The twin raised their hands, and spheres of golden light appeared in their palms again.
Harry did not dare breathe as they worked their magic on him.
Alas, his hopes and expectations were shattered when the twins let out a loud gasp and the spheres of magic in their hands shattered into myriad particles of light.
Under the effect of their magic, Harry’s transfiguration spell had come undone. His brown hair turned raven-black, a lightning-bolt scar appeared on his forehead, and his eyes became a vibrant green.
“This. . . This can’t be!” the girl with straight red hair shouted in disbelief, her voice quivering.
Her reaction was not to the change in Harry’s outward appearance but to the data that her diagnosis spell collected. Her sister’s face also morphed into an expression of shock, and she stepped back, bringing a hand to her mouth.
“What happened?!”
“What’s wrong??”
Reiner and Jim asked at the same time, anxious because of the girls’ exaggerated reaction.
Joanna stared at Harry’s face in disbelief and so did Malik too. He looked almost identical to the large graffiti portrait of the human they had seen in the city not that long ago!
“Please. Keep it between us!” Harry begged, unaware of the fact that his disguise was broken and that his secret was already revealed.
“Impossible. . . this is impossible!” the twin with straight hair said. Her eyes were wide, and her pupils dilated to the extreme as she walked to the bed with her hands raised in front of her as if she were in a trance.
“After all this time? How can this be?!”
Freaked out by their reaction, and due to his previous experience with the fanaticism of the first group of androids that he had met, Harry lost all his composure. His hand went to his belt, and he drew out his wand out as quickly as possible. Wrapping his fingers around the handle of his holly wand, time seemed to slow down in his perception.
The full length of his wand had just left the confines of its holster when the two girls’ eyes widened as if they had received an epiphany and threw themselves at him.
Seeing them suddenly jumping towards him, his brain overclocked as he cast the fastest Disapparation spell he had ever cast in his entire life.
Unfortunately, he had been a split second too late. The androids' reaction time was faster than his. Just before the space twisted and his body was sucked away, the two girls’ arms reached his chest.
Reiner, Nadia, Joanna, Malik, Jim, and the dozen androids who had been waiting in line for their turn to get their wounds looked at all watched in shock as the space appeared to twist and Harry and the twins vanished into thin air.
⁂
He grunted as he landed on the sand with a thud and then let out a yell of panic as an extremely heavy object crashed into his chest.
It was so heavy that he couldn’t breathe. A choked scream of pain came from him as he felt his ribs creak and his sternum being pushed into his heart. The pain was so terrible that his sight turned white for several seconds, and his face turned an angry shade of purple, his eyes bulging almost as though they were about to leave their sockets.
Fortunately, two seconds later, the immense weight pressing on his torso was lifted, and Harry gasped for air like a man who had almost drowned.
It took him nearly ten seconds to regain his senses after almost being crushed to death. Finally taking note of his surroundings, Harry realised that he was outside the underground Android city, at the foot of the tallest Pyramid of Giza.
But he was not alone. Two red-haired twin girls were holding one of his hands each, staring at him in a mixture of joy, disbelief, and anxiety. They had been pulled into the Disapparation, together with him.
Holding his hand with both hands, the wavy-haired girl asked:
“Are you-, are you truly human?”
He tried pulling his hand out of her grasp, but the girl’s dainty hands were like a vice. He could not budge. Moreover, his wand was on the ground; he had dropped it after Apparating, and the heavy weight fell onto his chest.
He realised then that the weight that had fallen on his chest and had almost killed him was the bodies of the two sisters. After all the time he had spent together with Reiner, Jim, and the rest of his friends, Harry knew that all androids, with no exception, were well over 100 kg. The average weight of an adult model android was around 150 kg. Between the two of them, despite their slender and petite appearance, the twin redheads weighed nearly 300 kg.
“You are human, aren’t you?” the other sister asked too, making him turn his attention to her.
The desperation he could hear in her voice could not be faked.
“Yes, I am human. . .”
It was too late for him to play the fool now or to lie.
‘Would the Memory Charm work on Android?’ he wondered.
But he gave up on that thought right away.
‘No . . . I’ve never practiced this spell on anyone else before. They could turn out like Lockhart, or worse.’
As much as he wanted to keep his identity a secret, he could not risk destroying their lives like that. They had no fault.
He bit his lower lip in distress.
“Could you let go of me?"
The two girls trembled at hearing his request.
“Don’t go away. Please.”
“Please, don’t disappear.”
The girls begged, looking like they were on the verge of crying. It was as though it hurt them physically to let go of his hands.
“I won’t disappear,” he said.
Since the cat was out of the bag already, it was too late to cry over spilt milk.
When they still didn’t let go of him, he added:
“I promise. I give you my word.”
Reticently, the two girls let go of his hands and then watched anxiously as he slowly moved to get his wand from the floor. However, for some reason, they made no move to stop him.
He sighed in relief when he wrapped his hand around the handle of his wand and felt the familiar warmth of its magic connecting to him. This was a time when he needed his wand more than ever. Losing his wand in this world would be no different than a death sentence.
“See? I didn’t disappear,” he said after grabbing his wand. “Now. . . Should I take you back to Memory Hold?” he asked eventually. “There were still many people waiting to be treated.”
Never taking her eyes away from him, the wavy-haired girl replied:
“We won’t leave you for anything in the world!”
“What about the injured?” he asked.
“They can manage by themselves. We weren’t the only healer-type androids in the city,” the twin with straight hair answered. “They only came to us because we never charge them for our services.”
At her words, he ran a hand through his messy brown hair and sighed loudly. He wasn’t sure what to do next.
“Let’s just. . . let’s just go somewhere else first, okay?”
He let out a grunt of pain as he tried to stand up from the ground. The pain only became worse when he got into a sitting position.
“I think I broke some ribs,” he said, his back and forehead breaking into a cold sweat from the pain.
“Let’s take you back right away!”
“Yes, it’s not safe here! Let’s return to Memory Hold. We’ll treat you to the best of our ability!”
“Anything you want, you only need to ask!”
“Devola is right! There would be no higher honour for us than to serve you!”
“And not just us! Any other android! We would even give their lives for you!”
“Just don’t go! We need you! We all need you!”
Even a man with a heart made of stone would be moved by the two girls’ pleading voices, much less Harry.
“Sorry. I won’t come back to Memory Hold.”
The desperate, crestfallen look on their face was so expressive that he could not help adding quickly:
“Listen, I don’t want to be treated like a god! I’m not a god! I don’t want you to worship me! I’m just. . . I’m just Harry. I’m just a guy. I didn’t create you or any of the androids!”
“Harry? Is that your name?” the girl with straight hair said in awe. It was as if she had filtered out everything else he had said and only heard his name.
Harry felt like kicking himself. Caught in the moment, he had accidentally given them his real name.
“I heard humans used to have two, or three, or even more names. Do you have any other names?” the twin with wavy hair asked, filled with excitement.
A strong gale started blowing at that moment, and the three of them saw a massive brown cloud darkening the horizon. A big sandstorm was coming.
‘We can’t stay here. . . but I can’t go back to Memory Hold after everyone saw me teleporting.’
Knowing that they had to find shelter before they were buried alive by the sandstorm, Harry had to make a decision, and he had to make it fast.
‘I could just Disapparate now.’
However, his bleeding heart wouldn’t let him abandon the two girls after seeing their desperation. The strangeness of their behaviour was also far beyond that of the first group of androids that he had encountered.
“What are your names?” he asked.
“I’m Devola,” the girl with wavy hair said.
“And I’m Popola,” the other sister also introduced herself.
“Um, it’s nice to meet you. Devola, Popola, we have to leave before the sandstorm arrives. . . I gave you my word that I won’t leave you behind, so. . . I’ll take you with me. Grab my hand. I’m going to take you to my home.”
⁂
There were nearly 5000 kilometres between Egypt and Switzerland, where Harry’s home was. He could not possibly Apparate over such a long distance in one jump. He had to Apparate more than ten times. However, being squeezed through the Apparition spell so many times while his ribs were injured was no different from torture.
By the time he finally made it home, his clothes were soaked with sweat, and he was exhausted from the pain.
Nevertheless, now that they were in a safe place, in no danger of being attacked by machines or being found by other Androids, Harry allowed himself to relax.
Devola and Popola gawked at the interior of Harry’s cabin like mortals who climbed Mount Olympus and stumbled into the abode of the gods. But the wooden cabin was no work of art, nor was it crafted by the gods. It was just a simple cabin made from logs by a young man who had never built anything in his entire life. Magic did make everything stick together and looked rather nice at first glance but the lack of experience could be seen at a second glance.
But to the twins, everything looked amazing for the sole reason that it was made by a human.
Once they laid him on his bed, Harry cast a Bubblehead Charm on his head. A relieved sigh came from his mouth. It was not as though he would asphyxiate without that spell—he had spent many hours a day for several weeks together with his Android friends without the charm—but it was much easier to breathe with it.
“What is that?” asked Popola curiously.
“Not now, Popola. We’ll ask questions later. We have to treat him.”
“You’re right, Devola. I’m sorry.”
The girls sat on the edge of Harry’s bed, one on each side, and their hands lit with a golden light as they manipulated the maso in the atmosphere to heal him.
He sighed in comfort as their magic washed over him and the pain in his chest vanished. But it didn’t stop there. A prickling sensation appeared in his eyes, and, in the next moment, Harry was shocked to realise that he could no longer see clearly through his glasses.
Half an hour later, he sat up and took off his glasses.
“Whoa!”
Not only had his chest injury disappeared, but, for the first time in his life, he could see the world clearly. It couldn’t be compared to wearing glasses.
“We noticed you had a vision impairment, so we fixed that too,” said Popola, smiling when she noticed the change in his facial expression.
“Thank you. Truly! This is brilliant.”
“No, it wasn’t much,” Devola and Popola said, glancing down, flushing in a mixture of elation and embarrassment at being praised.
“I can’t imagine why the other androids would treat you like that when you’re so good at healing! And you were doing it for free too!"
“That. . . “ Popola began, only to trail off, unable to continue.
“You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to talk about it,” Harry said.
As if to change the subject, he got out of bed and said:
“My clothes are soaked. I have to change. Could you give me some privacy?”
⁂
A few minutes later, Harry had not just changed his clothes; he had also taken a record-speed shower before going to the living room.
Devola and Popola seemed to have not moved an inch from the sofa they were sitting on, waiting for him.
“Give me a moment; I’ll prepare some tea.”
"Tea?"
"It's a drink that many humans enjoy. It was something everyone in my country used to like."
"Ah, no, we know what tea is. We just haven't had it in so long!"
"You don't have to drink if you don't want to."
"No, I want! I mean, I would be grateful to try it!" Devola almost shouted.
He inwardly cringed at their behaviour. Even someone like Ron would be able to tell how anxious the two girls were.
He cast a Heating Charm on the kettle and then poured the boiling water into teacups. Then, he took out the dandelion tea from the cupboard and put two teabags into each cup before levitating them on the coffee table in front of the sofa.
“This is dandelion tea. I’m sorry, I don’t have any sugar. My magic can’t create food out of nothing. Even these dandelion petals, I collected them myself before putting them into tea bags. Um, anyway. . . you can give it a try. Drink slowly, in small gulps, so that you don’t burn your tongue.
After saying that, it occurred to him that they were androids and something as simple as boiling water wouldn’t be enough to harm them. He scratched the back of his head.
“It smells nice,” Devola said. “And the taste-”
“It’s a little sweet. I like it. I like it a lot,” said Popola.
But, to Harry’s surprise, the girl’s eyes filled with tears.
“Popola. . .” her sister called out her name.
“What happened?” he asked.
He didn’t understand what could have caused the girl to start crying. It made him remember his disastrous date with Cho Chang. He wasn’t the best at understanding what human girls thought and felt, to say nothing about android girls.
“Is something wrong with the tea?”
“No, the tea is great,” said Popola and took another gulp. “It’s the best thing I’ve ever drunk.”
But then she started crying even harder.
“Popola,” Devola said softly as she left her cup on the table and placed her hand on Popola’s forearm.
“I’m sorry,” Popola apologised while trying to wipe the tears falling from her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’m so sorry.”
Utterly confused, Harry could only sit and stare, not knowing what to say or what would be an appropriate reaction.
“Truthfully. . . you’ve shown us too much grace,” Devola said while glancing down at her lap. “Popola and I. . . we don’t deserve such kindness. We are sinners. What we did could never be forgiven.”
“Sinners? . . . What does this mean? What did you do?”
“It’s a very long story. But if you’re willing to listen-”
“I am,” Harry said. “So please, don’t cry anymore."
Devola nodded before starting to speak:
“It all started in June, 2003 AD, when two mythical beings fell from the sky, from another dimension, in Japan, Tokyo. They were an enormous giant and a red dragon. They fought to the death, and the red dragon emerged victorious. But their fight caused many deaths, so the government of that country launched an airstrike against the dragon, killing it too.”
At the mention of a giant and a dragon, Harry started listening with rapt attention.
“But after the giant fell, its body disintegrated into tiny particles that spread into the air over the entire city. The number of deaths caused by the dragon's and the giant’s battle was nothing compared to what followed next. The particles from the giant’s body gave birth to the deadliest illness in human history: the White Chlorination Syndrome.”
“It was an infection that caused cell structure to mutate within subcutaneous tissue under the skin, resulting in ‘chlorination’ as the cells begin to transmute into sodium chloride. Eventually, those who were afflicted turned into creatures resembling statues of salt, and they either perished or became violent and started attacking their fellow humans.”
Devola paused for a few moments to take another sip from her cup of tea.
“There was no cure for this illness. It spread over the entire world; it was a pandemic like the Earth had never seen. It reached the point where Humanity was on the brink of extinction. Driven into a corner, people came up with an idea: ‘We can separate the human soul from its body. And when we are cured of illness, we can transfer the soul into a vessel created to look just like humans'. Those vessels were artificial humans bearing the appearance and genetic data of the original humans but not their souls. They were called Replicants; soulless clones whose sole purpose was to live while the souls of the real humans would be in hibernation, waiting for the day when a cure to illness was found. . . Humans named this concept ‘Project Gestalt’.”
The story sounded surreal, but after travelling ten thousand years into the future and seeing the ruined state of the world and the absence of any humans, nothing sounded impossible to his ears anymore.
“Something went wrong, didn’t it?” he said.
“Yes,” Popola replied this time. “We lost control of it.”
“It wasn’t us exactly,” said Devola. “There used to be many more models like us, bearing the same name, appearance, and abilities. We were just the newest model. All of us were created in pairs and ordered to supervise Project Gestalt, each pair being assigned to a city to observe.”
“But at some point, one pair became unable to control the Replicants that were created to serve Humanity. The Gestalts, the souls of the humans who were hibernating, also started losing their sentience, relapsing. As a result, Project Gestalt failed. . . Humanity went extinct.”
That last sentence came so abruptly that it caught Harry unprepared.
“What do you mean by that?!”
Devola flinched.
“It's as we said. . . The souls of the humans began losing their sentience, turning berserk, and, in turn, the replicants became corrupted. In the end, they were all annihilated. . . Humanity went extinct. And it happened because of that pair of Devola and Popola. Since then, only Androids were left on Earth,” Popola said. “The secret of humanity’s extinction was hidden but those of us who were of the same model as the pair of Devola and Popola who had failed became hated by all.”
“How does this make any sense? It wasn’t the two of you!” Harry said in confusion.
“Even so, we have to atone for our sins!”
“I’m not following. What did you two in particular do? Did you fail that project?"
“We didn’t. But-”
[...]
⁂
Sitting on the porch of his wooden cabin and looking at the beautiful scenery around him, it was easy to forget that he was in a post-apocalyptic world dominated by machine lifeforms and androids. The sun shining in the clear sky, the snowy mountain peaks glittering like silver in the sunlight, and the chirps of birds created an almost magical ambience.
But when his mind went back to the fact that two android girls were sleeping in his bedroom, he was broken out of his reverie and brought back to reality.
‘Good grief. How did you get yourself into this mess, mate?’
The habit of talking to himself that he had developed during the long period of loneliness since coming to the future reared its head again.
‘Humanity went extinct. . . then what is the Council of Humanity? If what Devola and Popola are saying is true, why do all the androids still believe there are humans on the moon? Are they all being manipulated in order to continue fighting the machines? Or are the twins wrong?’
The twins had not finished their tale because they broke into crying, overwhlemed from guilt and sorrow.
He let out a sigh and went inside. Although there were no actual nights on this side of the planet, it was late. It was time for him to get some rest.
Seeing as he had insisted on letting the girls sleep in his bed, Harry went to the couch and, with a wave of his wand, he transfigured it into a single-person bed. He also conjured two pillows and a blanket for himself before getting in bed.
But sleep didn’t come easy to him that night.
‘I’m the last human alive . . .’
He could not stop thinking about it. After spending an entire year in loneliness and then hearing from his android friends that they had never seen a human despite being alive for centuries, deep down, Harry unconsciously began to prepare himself for the worst.
Nevertheless, the difference between suspecting something and having it confirmed was enormous.
It filled him with an existential dread and despair.
In an attempt to stop wallowing in grief about his bleak and desolate future, Harry willed himself to think about Devola and Popola.
‘I don’t understand what’s wrong with them. They know that they aren’t the original pair who had been responsible for the failure of the Project Gestalt.’
‘They’re innocent. So why are they feeling guilty about what the other models did?’
‘Why are they beating themselves so much over it?’
It was to the extent that they would accept getting bullied and abused by their fellow androids without a word of complaint, only bowing and apologising at the terrible way the others treated them.
'And why are the other androids treating them so badly if the secret of humanity’s extinction was hidden from them?’
‘What the fuck is wrong with this world? With these androids too? What kind of messed up reality is this?’
He twisted and turned in his bed for hours, unable to fall asleep. His spirit was too agitated, and his mind was a mess.
‘Wait, what if Devola and Popola are just wrong? What are the chances that they are right while thousands of other androids are wrong?’
‘If anything, the two of them don’t sound like they’re mentally healthy.‘
‘Mhm. It’s better to wait until I gather more information. It's too early to give up.’
Maybe things weren't as bad as they seemed. Maybe he wasn't the last human alive. Maybe there were others out there too.
It was only after telling himself those words that Harry found a semblance of calm and clarity, and he closed his eyes, falling asleep.
AN: some people told me that there was a problem with the application of relativity in the previous chapter. I did some reading and it turns out that they were right.
My thought process was this:
Speed is relative. I mean, we think we are stationary now but our galaxy is moving at a crazy speed and we are moving together with it. It depends on the point of reference. So, who is to say that Naruto's speed in the deep space was higher than the speed at which Milky Way is moving towards Andromeda? (Our galaxy moves towards Andromeda at a speed of 2 million kilometres/hour)
Also, Naruto was far away from any galaxy or celestial body. In the absence of mass, time passes faster. For example, time passes a few milliseconds faster at the ISS than it does on Earth. True, the difference is very small within our solar system. However, our solar system is smaller than a spec of dust when compared to the scale of the Milky Way galaxy. And Milky Way is smaller than a spec of dust when compared to the rest of the universe.
It's a difference of a few milliseconds within our solar system, but we have no way of knowing what's even outside the solar system, let alone what is the passing of time outside of Milky Way Galaxy, in the deep, empty space, far away from the mass of the 400 billion stars and just as many or more planets ----> or at least that's what I thought.
Apparently, scientists believe that even outside the Milky Way galaxy the time difference shouldn't be that much - not enough to make time pass as fast as it did in the previous chapter. Therefore, you can just treat those events as an anomaly of the unknown, deep space. Unfortunately, it is too late to change it now.
Thank you for the constructive reviews and pms. I appreciate it.
⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂
Previous chapter
“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?”
⁂
Kurama did not reply right away. Although Naruto had told him many times during the years they spent stranded into deep space that he wanted nothing more than to set him free, the fox still found it unreal that Naruto was so eager to throw his life away in order to unseal him.
“Are you sure about it?” Kurama asked eventually. “Take a few weeks more to think about it.”
Naruto shook his head. “I’ve had years to think about it. I’ve made up my mind long ago.”
“Don’t be hasty, Naruto. Don’t. . . just don’t make a decision that you will regret. I. . . I don’t mind waiting a few decades more, you know? What’s another 50 years to someone like me? I’m immortal. I can wait until the end of your lifespan just fine. . . And it’s not like it’s as bad as it used to be when I was sealed in your mother. Especially now that I can feel what you feel, see what you see, and hear what you hear. . . it’s not that bad. . . I can wait. . . I just . . .I just don’t want you to die, Naruto. We’re comrades, aren’t we?”
It was the first time Naruto had heard the fox speak with such a vulnerable voice. He was taken off-guard so badly, he didn’t know how to react momentarily.
“I didn’t know you felt that way about me. I. . . I don’t know what to say.”
Leaving the bathroom, Naruto went to the balcony of the hotel suite and watched the passers-by below. A poignant silence followed.
“I appreciate it, Kurama. More than words could ever tell. Throughout my entire life, you’ve been my only constant. Through good and bad, you’ve always had my back, even when we hated each other.”
“Naruto . . .”
“You deserve to be free, Kurama. And I. . . I don’t deserve to live after all I’ve done.”
“Listen to me! That wasn’t you!” Kyuubi shouted vehemently. “Darkseid controlled your mind. He and that old woman wiped your memories and turned you into their tool! It wasn’t your fault!”
“Tell that to the thousands of people who lost their lives at my hand,” said Naruto.
He wasn’t crying, nor was he raising his voice. During the years he had spent stranded in space, there was nothing else for Naruto to do other than to think about the past. Every single one of his deeds as the General of Apokolips, as the so-called “Liberator”, had come back to haunt him, filling him with guilt and condemning him.
“But you’ve never attacked any good people!” the fox said empathetically. “Even when you were brainwashed, you only conquered the planets fraught with war and chaos! Look at the last planet you conquered, Rakta! The Psions deserved death 10 times over! You did good things too! You saved so many people from their cruel experiments and slavery!”
The fox sounded almost desperate as he was trying to convince Naruto that he did not deserve to die.
“Innocent people always die in wars, regardless of whether the wars started for a just cause or not. And I started many wars. . .”
Hearing his words and sensing his feelings, Kurama understood that Naruto had made up his mind. Nothing he said would change his decision now.
⁂
“What’s with these clothes, Kurama?”
“What? What’s wrong with them?” Kyuubi asked back in a defensive tone.
“...”
Naruto didn’t reply as he looked at his reflection in the mirror. The clothes that Kurama chose for him while he was in control of Naruto’s body were. . . unusual, to say the least.
He was wearing a crimson-red, high-collared coat, a crimson-red mantle, elegant crimson-red trousers, and crimson-red leather shoes. Everything was so red and bright that he felt the urge to squint while looking in the mirror.
“What are you doing?!” the fox asked when he started unbuttoning his coat.
“There’s no way I’m wearing this shit, are you crazy?!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?! What's wrong with the clothes I chose?”
“Am I going to the circus? Who the hell dresses like that?! Or you thought I was a vampire or what?”
“You, of all people, shouldn’t comment on others’ tastes in clothes!” the fox bristled at him. “Need I remind you what you’ve worn for the first 16 years of your life?”
“You take that back!” Naruto raised his voice at him. “There was absolutely nothing wrong with the tracksuit I wore!”
“Except that if it was a bright orange. What kind of ninja wears orange?” Kyubi said in ridicule.
“I was in Konoha! And most roofs in Konoha were orange, brown, or auburn! Did it occur to you that orange was perfect for that environment?”
“Auburn? Environment? Since when did you learn such big words?”
“Fuck you too, Kurama!”
Seeing Naruto taking off the clothes he had chosen for him and then grabbing the bedsheet of the bed, the fox exploded:
“Are you freaking serious?! You’d rather wear a damned bedsheet for clothes instead of the robes I chose for you?! You have to be kidding me now!”
Naruto ignored his shouts as he wrapped the bedsheet around himself like a toga. He also grabbed the pillowcase and ripped it to shreds, fashioning himself a belt that he tied around his waist, fastening the toga-bedsheet on his body.
“I’ll never forgive you for this, Naruto!”
“This humiliation, I’ll pay it back!”
“Asshole!”
[...]
⁂
It took a while for Kurama’s anger to subside and for him to finally shut up. He was almost tempted to use the sealing jutsu, the golden barrier that terminated their connection. But it was just a fleeting thought. He did not have the heart to do something like that to Kurama anymore, regardless of how obnoxious he was being.
‘For a fox the size of a mountain, he sure has a fragile ego.’
He let out a sigh as he walked down the streets of Warbastion. Despite being the capital city of what was, essentially, a spaceship in the shape and size of a planet, the city did not look the part.
“If you didn’t tell me you booked one of the most expensive hotels in the city, I’d think we were in the slums of a city,” Naruto muttered as he walked through the puddles of rain and mud on the streets.
Still sulking, Kurama didn’t reply.
Technologically advanced civilisations tended to have densely populated cities with towering sky-scrapers, but Warbastion had mostly low-rise buildings with round roofs and no advanced infrastructure to speak of: no lanes for flying cars, no subways, no aerial railways, not even regular buses or proper streets. There were remnants of such things having existed in the past, but they were in a state of ruin and disrepair.
The only impressive building in the entire capital city was the round arena of immense size that could be seen at the centre of the city, towering over the rest of the buildings around it.
Nevertheless, no matter what society’s level of civilisation was, one thing never changed: there was always a red light district. In any big city, there would always be brothels, pubs, and casinos.
‘We’ll need some serious money if we want to buy a spaceship,’ Naruto thought as he glanced at a red neon sign depicting a handful of cards.
He walked into a side alley and, after making sure there was nobody close by, he Henged himself to look like an alien creature reminiscent of a humanoid lizard with blue skin.
Twenty minutes after walking into the casino, the entire local was in an uproar. Some strange blue lizardman had come to the table and bet his entire money, and even his clothes, on a game similar to roulette.
It was clear to everyone whose attention he had attracted that the lizardman did not know all the rules of the game but to everyone's befuddlement, he kept guessing the correct number every time.
Every time, he would say a number and bet all in, with maximum confidence. And he would win every time!
“You’re such a scumbag, Naruto!” Kurama burst into laughter from inside the seal when he realised what was actually going on.
It was true that Naruto had the Devil’s luck when it came to gambling; nobody knew that better than Kurama. But what was going on currently was ridiculous even for his standards. And that was because that game of roulette was not a game of luck for Naruto. . . unbeknownst to everyone present at the table, he was cheating. He was controlling the ball perfectly with a minor, unnoticeable Wind Release technique, making it stop exactly on the number he had bet on.
In the end, the owners of the casino came to him and asked him nicely and politely to leave their establishment. They may have or may have not had their hands on their plasma rifles.
Not feeling like wanting to cause a scene, Naruto just cashed out his winnings and left. He headed towards the next casino, where he proceeded to do the same things he did at the first one. And then he went on to the next one.
That day, he was kicked out of six casinos. He had robbed them blind.
⁂
Currently owning a sum of money big enough to buy five spaceships, not just one, Naruto felt the need to create a makeshift “Sealing Scroll” out of a notebook he had bought from a store. Considering that, before leaving Apokolips, he had been in the midst of creating his own Hiraishin formula, Naruto’s fuinjutsu expertise was more than sufficient to draw Storage Seals.
Once he sealed the money-filled duffle bags into the ‘Storage Notebook’, he went to a shop and bought himself a change of regular clothes so that he would not need a Henge to walk around anymore. Some grey cargo pants, a brown hoodie with an orange shirt underneath, and a pair of black boots. He also bought a set of daggers and a flask of nutritional capsules that should last him for several weeks.
Finally done with his preparations, he returned to the red light district of the city and walked into a random pub. Thanks to the translation device that Kyuubi had extorted from the captain of the slave-trading ship, Naruto could communicate with the people living on Warworld.
He tried asking around for information, but even after being given a bunch of coins, the bartender wasn’t forthcoming with his answers.
“Look, pal, it’s best not to ask too many questions around here. . .”
“Why?”
“There’s a lot of stuff going on. Smuggling, bootlegging, organ trafficking, slave trading, you name it. From the smallest guy to the biggest cartels, everyone is involved in these kinds of activities. If you poke your nose in where it doesn’t belong, well, you may end up getting your own organs trafficked or worse.”
“I didn’t ask you for that sort of information. All I want to know is where I could buy a spaceship from.”
The bartender, a humanoid being with grey skin and tentacles for arms, let out a groan.
“And who do you think owns those ships, bub? We’re all as poor as dirt here; nobody has spaceships for sale. Those who own spaceships are dangerous people, and they use them for their operations.”
Naruto wanted to continue probing for information a bit longer, but, at that moment, a loud siren rang in the city. Normally, hearing such a loud siren would induce anxiety and worry in most people, but, instead, a look of excitement appeared on the bartender’s face.
“What’s going on?” asked Naruto when he saw the bartender and the barmaids rushing to collect the glasses and the plates from the customers’ tables and the customers themselves standing up and running out of the pub.
“It’s Warworld!”
A look of confusion appeared on the blond’s face. Wasn’t the planet they were on named Warworld?
“What do you mean?”
“The fights in the arena are about to start!” the bartender said over his shoulder. “Sorry, pal, we’re in a rush. If you want to order drinks, come back tomorrow. We’re closed for today.
Walking outside, Naruto was surprised to see that it was not only the bartender and the customers of the pub who acted weirdly but the entire city was like that. Thousands of people started running towards the immense arena in the centre of Warbastion city.
‘I’ve never seen anything like this in my entire life.’
He had seen panicked people running away in such great numbers, but he had never seen an entire city of people having such an exaggerated reaction to something as trivial as a gladiatorial fight.
His curiosity getting the better of him, he followed the thousands of people who were rushing towards the arena.
Everyone’s pace slowed down when they arrived at the large gates, and he used that chance to ask one of the people around him:
“Who is fighting? What’s gotten everyone so excited?”
Most of them ignored him, but a yellow-skinned fishman replied:
“What sort of question is that? You’ve never heard about the Fire Princess?”
“Sorry, I’m not from around here.”
Now those words made the fishman even more surprised than before.
“What in the world had possessed you to come here of all places!? People want to escape from Warworld, nobody comes here of their own volition!”
“My ship’s engines failed. I had no choice but to land,” Naruto lied. “Could be worse. They could’ve broken while I was in space. Even Warworld beats dying of asphyxiation or starving to death in the deep space.”
“. . . You’re not wrong; I’ll give you that. However, you might get to die of starvation here too,” the fishman said and let out a hollow laugh.
“Is it that bad?”
“It’s worse. I haven’t had a job or a stable income in four years. And I’m not the only one. Most of us on Warworld are barely scrounging up anything to survive from one day to another.”
Soon, it was their turn to enter through the gates. There was no security, and there was no entrance fee either. Anyone could come inside the arena as they pleased.
“So who are the fighters?” he asked after they took a seat in the stands.
“People and creatures that Mongul’s slavers capture from all over the galaxy. Rumour has it that Drega, the fighter who’s going to face off against the Fire Princess, is blackmailed to fight or else Mongul will destroy his homeworld, his entire planet. But who knows what the truth is? Maybe it’s just rumours; I don’t know. Drega seems to love fighting. He’s a rising star. He won 10 fights in a row and with minimal damage at that.”
Ten minutes later, hundreds of people were still clambering to enter the arena, but the stands were full: 30 thousand seats were occupied, and many other spectators were standing on the stairs and corridors, brimming with anticipation.
“Who is this Fire Princess you keep talking about?” he asked.
The fishman couldn’t reply because Drega was brought up by a platform from below the stage, and the entire arena exploded into thunderous cheers, drowning his voice.
“Drega! Drega!”
“Drega!”
It was a tall, grey-skinned humanoid being with an extremely muscular body. He was wearing only a pair of shorts, a pauldron on his right shoulder, and a winged helmet. The numerous scars littering his face and torso spoke volumes of the battles he had been through.
“Save your cheers!” the warrior shouted as he raised his hatchet in the air. Thanks to the microphones installed on the stage, his voice was carried to every corner of the arena. “That’s not what Drega fights for! Drega fights for honour! And for our leader, the Great Mongul!”
The people in the stands started cheering even harder at his words. At that moment, the person Drega was talking about also made his appearance on the VIP stand of the arena.
Mongul was a tall, yellow-skinned man with crimson-red eyes and a body just as large and muscular as that of Drega. Wearing a purple suit and a metallic piece of headgear, he came forth while sitting on a levitating throne.
A servant trailed behind the throne, holding a grey, circular parasol above his head, and a thin, bald man with pale blue skin walked next to him. The thin man’s elegant black and red clothes made Naruto think that he was holding an important position in Mongul’s regime, unlike the slave with the parasol walking behind them.
“Well said, Drega,” Mongul said as he stood up from the throne. “But I wonder what your opponent thinks.”
At Mongul’s words, the spectator’s cheers once again burst in intensity.
“She hails from the lawless Vega System of the Milky Way Galaxy, a princess of Tamaran born and bred to be a warrior by none other than the Warlords of Okaara! At a weight of 220 mass units and holding a record of 28 fights and no losses, let us greet the Champion of Warworld, the Fire Princess!”
With Mongul’s announcement, a female alien wielding a sword and a round shield was raised on the stage by a circular platform.
“Whoa!” Naruto let out an involuntary sound of amazement at the sight of her. His seat was quite far from the stage at the centre of the arena, but the massive screen behind the stage showed the woman’s appearance perfectly.
With fit arms, long, muscular legs, and toned abdominal muscles, weighing 100 kilograms and standing at almost 2 meters tall, the Fire Princess was an athletic and powerful-looking woman. But that wouldn’t be enough to elicit such amazement from Naruto. After all, it was not the first time he had seen a tall and athletic woman: Big Barda, the former captain of the Furies on Apokolips, was even taller than her, and the rest of the Furies were no less athletic either.
What made him exclaim in awe were her other physical traits. The Fire Princess’ eyes were glowing with a bright green light, her skin was of an exotic orange colour, and her flaming-red hair was unlike anything he had ever seen before: it was so long that it almost swept the floor, and half of it looked as though it was made of fire. The lower half of the hair floated like flames, almost as though it was alive.
“Is this what they call love at first sight?” came Kyuubi’s mocking voice from the seal.
After how Naruto made a mockery out of his taste in clothes, the fox was more than happy to get one over him now.
“Wasn’t orange your favourite colour? Look, an orange-skinned girl!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t even try to deny it. Did you forget I share your senses now? I felt your heart racing when you saw her! And I saw your eyes zeroing in on her—"
“Shut up already, damn it!” Naruto barked at him.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t even come up with a retort.
Kyuubi snickered like a hyena at his outburst and proceeded to make all sorts of insinuating remarks.
“You also like her legs, don’t you? I see you keep staring at her thighs.”
“Seriously, Kurama, if you don’t stop yapping, I’ll make you. Don’t make me tighten the seal!”
“Now you’re looking at her hair. Hmm, should I say, like father, like son? Yondaime was also enamoured with your mother’s long red hair.”
“For the love of God, SHUT YOUR TRAP! I’m really going to lock you up!”
Alas, Kyuubi knew those were just empty threats. He could sense that the blond did not have the heart to lock him in complete silence and darkness like he used to do while they were on Apokolips. So he continued having fun at his expense with no care in the world.
Thankfully, the warriors’ introductions came to an end soon, and one of Mongul’s subordinates activated a special raygun, which he shot at the two fighters, one after another.
Considering that it was going to be a fight to the death between two deadly, superpowered warriors, the arena could not tank such destruction. The green beams of light shot by the raygun teleported Drega and the Fire Princess away, sending them into the middle of a ruined city. Their battle would be filmed by drones and streamed on the enormous screen above the stage for all the spectators to see.
⁂
The fishman had hyped Drega as a powerful, undefeated warrior, a rising star of Warworld, but the fight between him and the Fire Princess was hardly an even match-up.
‘Their physical stats seemed quite even,’ Naruto thought when he recalled how Drega lifted a boulder that had to have weighed at least 100 tons and threw it at the Fire Princess who had charged at the enormous projectile and smashed it to bits with a shield bash.
‘But the difference in skill between them was too much.’
After disarming him, the female warrior put a one-sided beating on him, leaving Drega a bloodied, slumped mess on the ground.
‘She didn’t kill him. . .’
He had expected the woman to kill the other warrior mercilessly. She certainly looked the part of a savage warrior, but the Fire Princess refused to take the life of her opponent after defeating him.
“I won’t kill anyone for your amusement, Mongul,” was what she said.
Even after Mongul pressed the button of a remote control and she collapsed on the floor, screaming in pain and convulsing as though she was being electrocuted, the Fire Princess still refused to obey his command. In the end, she was tortured until she lost consciousness, and Mongul’s robots dragged her away.
The tens of thousands of spectators in the arena started yelling and booing at Mongul loudly. . . but that was all that they could do. Nobody dared to try anything.
The citizens of Warworld had tried to rebel half a dozen times in the past, but none of their revolts met a good end. Mongul himself was an extremely powerful individual, and he also had an enormous army of robots armed with plasma rifles at his command. Furthermore, the very planet was under his control. He could raze a city off the surface of the map with but a thought.
The fight between Drega and the Fire Princess was not the only fight planned for that day, but Naruto did not stay to watch the rest of the show. Instead, he left the massive arena behind, and, after making 200 Shadow Clones, they scattered in all directions and started searching for a spaceship.
⁂
Acquiring a ship through legal means, by buying one, proved to be impossible, just as the bartender had told him earlier that day. Left with no choice, Naruto had to resort to robbing a drug cartel of the best ship he found in their hangar. Although the cartel’s men were equipped with laser weapons and even battle droids, they were simply punching above their weight class. The blond was far too powerful for them. The drug cartel’s goons were incapacitated, and their battle droids were destroyed in less than five minutes.
Not just that, he even had the gall to use the drug cartel’s reserves of fuel to fill the ship’s tank before leaving. Most of the criminals had been knocked out cold, but some of them were still conscious. . . yet none dared to say a peep at his actions after the beating he had put on them.
They could only watch how the strange man started talking seemingly to nobody in a foreign language and even gesticulating wildly like a lunatic while busying himself with preparing the spaceship and making the final checks before taking off.
“I still think you’re rushing into it. Give it a few more days.”
“I told you before, I made up my mind long ago.”
“Don’t be like this, Naruto. You aren’t like me; you aren’t a bijuu. You won’t revive after being killed. You only have one life. Don’t throw it away.”
“You should know me by now, Kurama. Once I’ve set my mind on something-”
“What about the Fire Princess?”
“Who?”
“Don’t act like you don’t know who I’m talking about! The woman you saw fighting today in the arena!”
Naruto scoffed.
“You’re saying that some pretty girl that I know nothing about is more important to me than your freedom? Is that what you think of me?”
Seeing that his words were not getting through Naruto’s stubbornness, the fox resorted to a low blow:
“You aren’t doing this for me, Naruto. Admit it! It's not just a desire to set me free.”
“What you’re actually doing is running away from what you’ve done! You’re taking the easy way out to relieve yourself of your guilt! That’s what you’re doing!”
Much to Kyuubi’s growing anger and frustration, Naruto did not answer. He remained silent, pretending as though he could not hear the fox.
Done with the final preparations, the blond got inside the spaceship together with 10 Shadow Clones. Seeing as it was a rather large spaceship, he could not man it alone.
Thanks to the spaceship’s artificial intelligence, he was able to use the same route that the drug cartel members used to evade Warworld’s sensors and sneak away from the planet undetected. Soon, the planet became little more than a grey, glittering marble in the distance.
“So, which planet do you want to live on from now on, Kurama?”
“Kurama?”
“Hey, say something.”
A heavy sigh came from the seal.
⁂
The majority of people in the universe did not own technology that would allow them to teleport as precisely as Apokolips’ Boom Tubes, but, fortunately, Warworld’s technology wasn’t that far behind.
After several space-warps, and travelling for a distance of over 200 million light years, Naruto arrived at a distant galaxy known in Apokolips’ database as the Frius Galaxy.
Although it was one of the largest galaxies in the known Universe (it was five times larger than the Milky Way), the Frius Galaxy was largely uninhabited. Moreover, due to the absence of a notable interstellar power coming from it, the Frius Galaxy was not an important location on the map of the universe.
At last, a very large green and blue planet could be seen in the distance. It was enormous, one of the largest terrestrial planets they had ever seen (and the main reason it had stuck in their memory). Kyuubi had chosen this planet because, due to its sheer size, the giant planet’s gravity was too powerful for most living beings in the universe to live on it. Regular humans would be crushed under their own weight and die on the spot if they were to set foot on the planet.
⁂
Having made thousands of clones, Naruto spent the next two weeks scouring the planet, running at supersonic speeds and making sure to focus on his Negative Emotions Sensing ability at all times. Where there were living beings, there would also be negative emotions. And the more intelligent the creature, the stronger and more complex the negative emotions.
On the day that his search was complete, Naruto sent his consciousness inside the seal.
Ironically, after regaining his memories, the inner world of his seal had become even more terrible than before, when he was under Darkseid’s control. It was as if a sewer pipe had been broken and flooded the entire basement. Naruto’s mental state was clearly reflected in the horrible environment of the seal.
“It looks like Apokolips’ data on this planet was right. As far as I can tell, there are no intelligent beings anywhere around. Our Negative Emotions Sensing didn’t pick anything special,” Naruto said as he stepped into the cage, walking closer to Kyuubi.
The fox did not say anything for a while. Uncomfortable with the poignant silence, Naruto spoke again:
“I couldn’t find any traces of civilisation anywhere along the coast either. No towns, no villages, nothing. So, at worst, only the giant lizards and snakes would bother you here. But I doubt any of them would pose a real threat to you,” he said, letting out a soft chuckle.
But his laughter sounded hollow even to his ears.
“I won’t say many words. I just want to thank you for everything you’ve done for me. All things considered, my life wasn’t so bad. It could’ve been a lot worse if you hadn’t been by my side.”
He walked closer and pressed his forehead on Kurama’s snout. He stood like that for a while, unable to say anything, overwhelmed with emotion.
“Thank you, Kuarma,” he said and then turned around to leave.
Kyuubi had been silent all this time, but when Naruto stepped outside the cage, the bijuu stood up and walked close to the bars as well.
“Naruto.”
Hearing the fox call his name, he turned his attention back to him. Kurama’s large red eyes were glistening.
“I will never forget you. For as long as I live, I will always remember you. I promise.”
Naruto raised his hand, smiling, and he waved at him one last time. Then, he turned around, and his body vanished from his inner world.
Back in the outside world, Naruto opened his eyes and lifted his shirt, exposing his belly.
The five fingers on his right hand started glowing with a bright blue light.
He did not know what came after death. He did not even know if there was an afterlife either. But he did not hesitate because he knew one thing: his death was not meaningless. With his death, Kurama would walk free.
He groaned as he slammed his palm into his stomach. Then, with a twist of his hand, the Eight Trigram Seal started glowing with a red light.
A cloak of crimson chakra engulfed his body, and cracks started appearing in his skin, spreading from the Eight Trigram Seal outwards.
The two years spent on Apokolips, brainwashed by the God of Evil, and then the three or four years that he had been stranded into deep space, imprisoned in complete darkness, and drifting into nothingness had been like one very long, bad dream.
But now, everything was going to end.
An enormous amount of crimson chakra exploded from his stomach. A titanic, nine-tailed fox came into being, and the ground quaked under his enormous weight.
As the last vestiges of bijuu chakra left his system, Naruto fell on his side and closed his eyes.
“At long last . . . the nightmare . . . is over. . . ”
⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂ AN: To be continued. The story isn't even close to ending don't worry.
I tried making some Starfire pics with AI. This is the best I've gotten. I didn't have time to grind for other, better pics.
PS: Starfire won't always wear such skimpy outfits. Things will change in the future.
The war against Yhwach and the Quincy had been brewing for months, and the final battle took nearly a week. Thousands of Shinigami had lost their lives, with the low-ranked members of the Gotei 13 being almost completely decimated.
However, at long last, peace was achieved. The Quincy were defeated. The balance of the Three Realms was no longer threatened. The day after the end of the final battle, blood was still pooling on the streets of Seireitei from the countless Quincy and Shinigami corpses that were lying on the ground. Dozens of men and women wearing the traditional Shinigami clothing and white veils similar to hijabs that only left their eyes uncovered were flying around Seireitei, casting fire techniques that burnt the bodies into nothingness.
Naruto watched it all through the window without saying a word.
“Is this the first time you saw something like this?” came a voice from behind. It was the dark-skinned captain with messy silver hair, Shihoin Chika.
“I’ve seen two other wars before,” Naruto said.
“I was talking about their Kido spells. . . but never mind that. You still remember your life when you were in the Human Realm?” Chika asked.
As he turned to look at the Shinigami, Naruto was surprised at the expression of excitement on his face.
“Where were you from in the Human Realm? Tell me, tell me. I know a lot about it!”
When Naruto didn’t say anything, Shihoin continued:
“Let me see. . . blue eyes, blonde hair, white skin, and a robust body. Were you born in Scandinavia or in the Germanic lands? Are you from the North Sea Empire? Or from the Holy Roman Empire?”
Not waiting for the blonde to give him an answer, Shihoin said while getting closer to him, studying his face intently:
“Wait, the slight slant in your eyes indicates a possible Asian ancestry. And then, the marks on your face. Are they natural or-”
Naruto pushed him away, annoyed and uncomfortable at how close he was.
“What are those fire attacks they are casting?”
He was from another world; he was just brought into this world by the Rabbit Goddess shortly before she killed him. None of the names that Shihoin Chika had mentioned rang any bells for him, so he changed the subject.
“That’s Kido. Demon arts. By manipulating their spiritual energy, Shinigami can cast all sorts of spells. It is our most versatile discipline but also the most difficult.”
“I understand burning the bodies of the enemies. . . but why are they burning their comrades’ bodies too? They fought and died for Seireitei. Shouldn’t they get a proper burial? Is that how you honour their sacrifice?”
Chika walked next to him, in front of the window, and glanced at what was happening outside too.
“When souls die, their bodies decompose into spiritual energy. Even if we were to leave those corpses on the streets, they would all disappear in a matter of days. What’s the point of digging a hole to bury them when they’d turn into reishi soon after? We’re just speeding up the process.”
At that moment, a black butterfly flew into the room, passing through the window as though it did not exist, and landed on Shihoin’s index finger. It was a Hell Butterfly.
“I’ve been summoned by the Captain Commander. I have to go.”
He slid the door open, but before he left, he turned his head and said over his shoulder:
“Don’t do anything foolish while I’m away.”
⁂
A middle-aged man with a strong body and a samurai topknot hairstyle stood with his hands resting on the hilt of his katana as he waited. The scars on his forehead, the long and thick moustache, the piercing look in his eyes, and the overwhelming reiatsu seeping out of his body gave him an intimidating presence.
One by one, men and women wearing shihakusho and a white haori on top walked inside the meeting room. They were Captains of the Gotei 13, and the man standing and waiting for them was the Captain Commander, Genryusai Yamamoto.
“Where are the rest?” Yamamoto asked.
“Furofushi is dead. She and her troops were killed in Rukongai,” Chika Shihoin reported.
They had already heard that piece of news before, but quite a few of the Captains there tsked mockingly. They couldn’t fathom how a Captain-level Shinigami lost her life against some Rukongai souls.
“What about Entetsu and Chigiri?” the Commander asked.
As the commander spoke, the doors opened, and a young man with a messy ponytail and slovenly appearance walked in while yawning.
“You’re late again!” Yamamoto barked at him.
Chigiri Shijima’s yawn abruptly ended when he heard the tone of his voice.
“Sorry, Commander. I was just too tired from the battle,” said Chigiri, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.
Yamamoto let out a sigh but did not continue berating him.
“Only nine of us left?” he asked.
“The Loan Shark died against the Quincy, huh?” said a tall and burly man with shaggy brown hair and prominent sideburns. “Good riddance if ya ask me.”
“I saw that fatass Zenjoji getting his head blown off by a Quincy with a big gun," spoke a gaunt-looking man with grey skin and a fur-collared robe.
“That leaves only the old man,” said Shihoin. “Anyone seen him?”
“Sakahone-san is poisoned,” Unohana Yachiru answered. “I tried to cure him to the best of my ability, but even my Kido is not enough. He is still alive, but I don’t know for how long.”
“What a shame. I wish I could’ve fought him at least once before he croaked,” Danjiro said regretfully.
“Bah! Is fighting all that’s on your mind?”
“I don’t want to hear it from you, zombie. A coward like you can do nothing but hide behind his shades.”
“What did you just say? You dare call me a coward?” the fur-collared man shot back in rage, his hand going to the hilt of his zanpakuto.
Danjiro laughed mockingly and crossed his hands on his chest.
“Do it, coward. I’ll even stand here and let you have the first three moves.”
Chika ran a hand over his face. ‘Those two idiots are back at it again.’
“Silence!” Yamamoto screamed and slammed his zanpakuto against the floor.
His monstrous reiatsu lashed out along with his scream, and the commotion in the room died instantly.
Nearly half a minute passed without anyone saying anything before an airy voice broke the silence.
“How did Saito-chan die against some Rukon district souls?”
Everyone glanced at the busty, bespectacled woman before turning their attention to Shihoin Chika.
The dark-skinned man shrugged his shoulders.
“Beats me.”
Several captains glared at him for his flippant answer.
“Captain Yamamoto sent you to check the situation because your Flash Step is the fastest among us, Shihoin-dono,” a man with short hair, a serious face, and a pair of simple, rectangular glasses said in reproach. “You are a Captain. We expect to hear something more than just a ‘beats me’ from you.”
“I already told you all I know. When I got there, everyone was already dead.”
It was a lie. Naruto had not been able to kill everyone before falling unconscious. Some of the Shinigami had escaped but Shihoin Chika had tracked them all down and killed them before they could return to Seireitei.
“What proof do you have that you didn’t do her in yourself?” the man with rectangular glasses said accusatorily.
“We all know you had the hots for her, Four Eyes, but I have no interest in a woman whose body looks like that of a child.”
The glasses-wearing captain sputtered, and a hint of red appeared on his face.
“That’s not what I meant! And I never—"
Completely ignoring his excuses, Shihoin continued unbothered. “Now, when it comes to women like Yachiru-san or Katori-san here, that’s another matter altogether.”
“Shihoin-san?” a glacial voice came from Unohana.
“Y-Yes?”
“I suggest you think over your following words very carefully. They may be your last.”
Unohana was speaking calmly, but her killing intent had almost everyone except for Yamamoto on edge when she put her hand on the hilt of her zanpakuto.
“I was complimenting you,” Shihoin said, giving her an uneasy smile.
Yamamoto let out a deep sigh.
“Enough fooling around. We don’t have time for that. The Quincy have dealt a severe blow to Seireitei. Nearly 70% of our troops died. Therefore, from today onwards, I want you to focus on recruiting and nurturing more Shinigami for your squads.”
“Secondly, this war showed us that we severely lack support and medical troops.”
[...]
The meeting of the Shinigami Captains lasted several hours, much to Chika’s chagrin.
‘But the new direction works perfectly for me.’
The Commander’s order to recruit and nurture more people into their squad was in tune with Shihoin’s plans.
⁂
Standing in front of the wide and tall window, Naruto watched the Kido Corps burn numerous corpses on the streets with their Demon Arts, trying to uncover the secret of their powers. He noticed that many of them would make complicated hand signs as though they were writing kanji in the air and saying lengthy incantations before casting their spells. But others only said a name and a number before casting their Kido, without any complicated hand signs or long incantations.
'I guess the speed and the strength of the spell depends on everyone's skills?'
Unknowingly, several hours passed like that. Back in his first life, when he was a child, Naruto used to be super impatient and hyper-energetic. But he was a grown-up man now, and after living alone for so long in this world, he had become accustomed to zoning out and losing track of time.
It was only when the door of the room slid open that Naruto snapped back to reality, and it was just in time for him to catch the weapon that Shihoin Chika threw at him.
“That’s your zanpakuto,” Chila answered his unasked question. “From now on, I want you to have that sword on you at all times. You could be in bed, sleeping, eating, or even having a shower in the bathroom. Keep that katana with you at all times.”
“What for? Is someone going to try to assassinate me?”
Chika started chuckling when Naruto asked that question with a straight face.
“The only ones who would try to assassinate someone in Seireitei are the Stealth Force, and they’re under my command. Stay on my good side, and you won’t have to worry about anything like that.”
“How reassuring,” Naruto muttered sardonically. “If there is nobody after my life, what’s the point? Is this some sort of hazing for new recruits?”
Shihoin let out a sigh. “Believe it or not, boy, I am on your side.”
“You’re a Shinigami,” Naruto retorted, even though he could sense through his Negative Emotions Sensing ability that Chika was speaking the truth.
“I’m a Shinigami, yes. A Shinigami who saved your life. I’m a Shinigami who killed his fellow Shinigami to hide the fact that you killed a Captain. How about showing some gratitude?”
Nonplussed by his outburst, Naruto asked:
“Why are you helping me? What’s in it for you? Don’t tell me it’s out of the goodness of your heart.”
“I told you, didn’t I? You have value. Your power could be useful to me in the future. That’s all there is to it. Any more questions?”
When Naruto remained silent, Chika continued:
“There is no disadvantage to becoming a Shinigami.”
“Other than receiving orders to massacre innocents. But I guess that’s just a tiny, insignificant detail to Shinigami,” Naruto spat.
“As long as you are in my squad, I will never force you to do that. You have my word. And you should know that I’m the head of the Shihoin Clan. I am not one to break my word. Now, you’ve had enough time to think about it while you were in the Maggots’ Nest. I would like to hear your answer. Will you become a Shinigami or not?”
Seeing the sharp look in his eyes and the relaxed smirk receding from his face, Naruto understood that the dark-skinned man meant business at that moment.
‘If I say no, he’ll definitely kill me.’
His Negative Emotion Sensing could detect the killing intent hidden underneath Shihoin Chika’s calm and collected facade.
Nevertheless, Naruto had made up his mind beforehand that he would become a Shinigami and bide his time, waiting for the right moment.
‘It’s not too late to escape after I learnt all their spells and techniques. I’ll take all I can get from them and become stronger.’
⁂
That night, Naruto sat cross-legged on the balcony, in the cool air of the summer night, and read from a thick book about the history of Seireitei.
After expressing his agreement to become a Shinigami, Shihoin Chika gave him a great deal of information about the Soul Society. For example, he was now part of the 2nd Division of Gotei 13, which was a military organisation tasked with maintaining the balance of souls in the three realms: the Human Realm, Hueco Mundo, and Soul Society.
Standing above the Gotei 13 was Central 46, a governing body consisting of members from the Noble Houses ruling Seireitei. And above them all was a godlike being called the Soul King.
‘From his words, it seems like this Soul King is at least as powerful as the Rabbit Goddess, or maybe even more powerful.’
Naruto had lived in Rukongai for many years, but it was only now that he was learning the truth behind the world he was currently in.
“Making you go through the Shinigami Academy would be a complete waste of time.” - was what his Captain told him before filling his arms with a dozen books and scrolls and locking him inside the room, ordering him not to try leaving the mansion until he finished reading and memorising everything in them.
He had never been good at studying in his youth. He had never liked studying. But, at that moment, he did not have a choice. His very survival depended on gathering as much information about the world. He was in a dangerous situation.
⁂
Stuck inside Shihoin Chika’s mansion, Naruto studied the books and scrolls he was provided with. His efforts were not in vain; his understanding of this new world deepened with every passing day. For example, he learned that Shinigami had four main martial disciplines:
Zanjutsu - in his world’s terms, that was Kenjutsu.
Hakuda - that was Taijutsu.
Kido - it was quite similar to his world’s Ninjutsu and Fuinjutsu
Hoho - a new discipline for which shinobi did not have an exact equivalent. It was a set of footwork techniques that granted Shinigami a level of speed similar to his world’s Body-Flicker Jutsu.
Naruto also learnt about the laws of the Seireitei, about the cosmology of the world, and about the commandments of the Shinigami according to the teachings of Genryousai Yamamoto, the Captain Commander of Gotei 13.
In addition to that, as he read the book on general knowledge about Seireitei, he found out that the Captain of Squad 2, Shihoin Chika, was actually an esteemed person in Seireitei.
‘To think that this guy is the Head of the Shihoin Clan, one of the Five Noble Houses that rule the world. . .’
He would have never imagined that if he were to judge only by his looks and laid-back personality.
⁂
Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and months turned into years.
Ten years after the Quincy War, Naruto had become a regular Shinigami, a member of the Second Squad. During these ten years, despite his growing power, he tried to keep a low profile. His public persona was not weak, by any means, but he was not exactly elite either. Currently, he was the 5th Seated Officer of the Second Squad.
Unfortunately, he could not hide his true level from Shihoin Chika, who knew that Naruto had killed a Captain before even becoming a shinigami. Seeing as he had no injuries, it made no sense for the blonde to have regressed instead of becoming stronger after 10 years of assiduous training.
In the present, Naruto was locked in a Taijutsu battle—or, as it was called by Shinigami, Hakuda—against his Captain inside the private training grounds of the Shihoin Clan’s mansion.
“Come on, Goldilocks, is that all you got? Stop holding back already and fight me!” Chika said after they broke away and put some distance between each other.
“You never know who is watching,” Naruto replied, wiping his sweaty forehead with the sleeve of his shihakusho. Although they were not fighting at full power, it was not like they were playing around either.
“You’re being ridiculous right now! Do you have any idea how many Kido barriers and seals are protecting this mansion? And my servants know that if any secrets were to leak out, their families would receive their heads in a bag, first thing in the morning.”
“Even after all these years, you’re still treating other people’s lives like they mean less than dirt,” Naruto bit out.
“On the contrary, I value the lives of my subordinates quite a lot. But enough chatter. You better get serious this time, Naruto. I won’t hold back. Remove your limiters if you don't want to die!”
Shihoin Chika’s body was engulfed by lightning, and his body seemed to blur out of existence as he lunged at Naruto. Stubbornly, Naruto refused to remove the seals suppressing his reiatsu, but that proved to be a mistake because two minutes after the start of their second bout, one of Chika’s roundhouse kicks broke through his guard and landed on the side of his head, flinging him violently into the outer wall of the courtyard.
The wall lit up with a golden light as Naruto crashed into it, revealing the Kido Barrier that was protecting it. If not for that protective spell, he would have left a human-shaped hole in the wall with his body.
“I warned you that I would not hold back. Face me like a true warrior. I refuse to believe that this is all you’re capable of after 10 years!” Shihoin said seriously. “Do not disrespect me any further. Do not insult my pride.”
“I couldn’t care less about your damn pride!” Naruto muttered while he stood up from the ground, groaning in pain.
He glanced around the courtyard carefully. He also focused his senses on spiritual energy detection, double-checking that there was nobody around. He had the nagging suspicion that he was being watched, but with how adamant his captain was about kicking the shit out of him, he could not afford to hold back anymore.
Shihoin facepalmed himself. “I told you there is nobody here!”
“Alright then. Have it your way,” said Naruto as he took off the thin leather bracers he was wearing around his wrists.
The moment those bracers left his wrists, an overpowering reiatsu exploded from his body.
Shihoin did not say a word, but if his facial expression was anything to go by, he was in shock.
‘What the hell?!’
The reiatsu coming from the blond made all his senses warn him of mortal danger. A moment later, his expression of shock turned into a battle-crazy grin.
“Yeah! That’s what I’m talking about! Come!” Chika shouted as he threw himself at Naruto, the back of his clothes exploding from the massive release of spiritual energy. “Show me the strength that allowed you to kill a Captain in Rukon!”
Naruto burst forth with a Flash Step as well, and the two of them met in the middle, clashing their forearms against each other in a contest of pure physical strength rather than Hakuda skill. Much to the Captain’s surprise, he was flung back violently, incapable of holding his own for even a second against the blonde’s physical strength after he released his limiters.
⁂
One hour later, Naruto and Chika stopped their brawl, lying on the ground with their arms and legs spread eagle from exhaustion. Although Naruto had the edge in brute strength, Chika’s speed was in a league of its own. They couldn’t determine a victor without attacking with the intent to kill, but they refrained from doing so. After all, it was just a spar, not a battle to the death.
“Why have you been holding back your power all this time?” the dark-skinned man asked with difficulty while panting for air.
“What would be the point of showing it off to the others? So that I’ll have more eyes following me around?”
“You’re impossible! I’ve never met anyone as paranoid as you are!” Shihoin said in dismay.
“Oi. I’m serious! Trust me on this: someone is watching me!”
Shihoin winced, his bones groaning in protest as he sat up to look at Naruto.
“How many times have I checked over the years? I even stationed my men around to hide themselves and protect you. I’m the leader of the Stealth Force, yet I couldn’t find anyone spying on you. But you can?”
“I trust my instincts more than I trust your detection abilities,” Naruto retorted. “My instincts have never betrayed me before. Never.”
“You’re hopeless,” Chika said, shaking his head in dismay. “With your talent, you could’ve become a Lieutenant by now. Maybe a Captain even. But you’re choosing to gimp yourself for no reason.”
⁂
As a member of the Gotei 13, Naruto had the same duties as every other shinigami: patrolling the Human Realm and Rukongai, killing hollows, and protecting the innocent.
Maybe it was because of the fact that Shihoin was still afraid that Naruto would go rogue if he were to be allowed in the Human Realm but even after 10 years, he had never been sent to patrol the Human Realm. He had only ever worked in Rukongai.
Several days after his all-out Hakuda spar against Shihoin Chika, Naruto was assigned to patrol one of the most remote districts of Rukongai.
His partner, a young man with shoulder-length brown hair tied in a messy ponytail, complained in a whiny voice when the Lieutenant handed out their mission.
“Aww, man, why do we have to patrol that backwater?”
The more remote the district of Rukongai, the longer their mission, and the less fun too. Most shinigami wanted to be assigned to the districts closer to Seireitei because hardly any Hollow attacks ever happened there, so they would spend most of their time in pubs or fooling around with escorts.
“There are people living in that place as well. People who are vulnerable to Hollow attacks,” said Naruto in a tone as though he were talking to a mentally challenged person.
“You’re always so stiff. Do you ever have any fun in your life?”
Naruto didn’t deign him with an answer and went ahead with a Shunpo (Flash Step).
“Hey, wait for me!”
It had to be said that Rukongai was enormous. Even with them using Shunpo to travel, it took Naruto and his partner nearly five hours just to reach Rukongai’s 308th district.
On the way, Kenji, the young man with the ponytail, tried to make small talk several times, but Naruto didn’t entertain him.
“What crawled up your ass and died?” Kenji muttered under his breath in a voice quiet enough that only he could hear it.
Although the blond had been part of the Second Squad for a decade now, he had not allowed himself to grow close to any of his squadmates because the passing of time had not dulled his memory.
Due to his very high spiritual energy causing regular people to get ill in his presence, it used to be a dream of his to go to Seireitei. Shinigami were strong, and everyone in Seireitei had high spiritual energy. His hope had been that he would get to live a normal life, surrounded by friends and comrades, just like in his past life. In the end, Naruto was a sociable person who loved to be around people. He had always hated being alone.
Alas, fate threw a wrench into his plans. Ten years ago, the Shinigami slaughtered every single one of his friends and left him for dead too. Children, women, and the elderly: they were all killed mercilessly.
Naruto had never forgotten the sight of their corpses strewn all over the village streets or the psychotic laughter of the female Shinigami Captain when she stabbed him with her zanpakuto and licked the blood off his face.
He could not be friends with Shinigami. Not while the wound was still raw, not while his hatred was still burning.
⁂
Four days later, Naruto and Kenji’s mission came to an end. To Kenji’s happiness, they had not encountered any Hollows, and the groups of bandits and other evildoers knew better than to try causing any trouble for other people while a team of Shinigami was nearby. The four days passed peacefully, with no out-of-the-ordinary incidents taking place.
Now, it was in the evening of their fourth day of patrol, and it was time for them to return to Seireitei.
“Go ahead without me,” said Naruto. “I’ll catch up to you in half an hour. I have something to do.”
Fed up with Naruto’s indifference towards him over the past few days, Kenji just shrugged his shoulders and left without as much as a goodbye.
Once the young Shinigami vanished, he started running in the opposite direction. Had Kenji seen his speed now, he would have been startled to realise just how much Naruto had to hold back in order to run at the same pace with him over the past few days.
A few minutes later, the blond passed the borders of the 308th district and entered the 309th district of Rukongai. It was his district, the region of Rukongai where he used to live before the massacre.
Soon, Naruto arrived at the village.
As if the slaughter from 10 years ago had been just a phantasmagoria, the village was in pristine condition and boasted a population of nearly 300 inhabitants.
Obviously, they weren’t the same people. The reason why the souls of Rukongai harboured the delusion that the Shinigami were the defenders of justice and their protectors was that the Gotei 13 in general did not attack them for no reason. Shinigami focused on exterminating the hollows that infiltrated Soul Society. But if they did need to do terrible things, Gotei 13 always targeted remote places, and they were very efficient when it came to clearing up their mess.
This village in particular had been rebuilt, and new souls moved to live in it; some were reborn in Rukongai after dying in the Human Realm, while others simply moved from neighbouring towns and districts.
Letting out a sigh, Naruto threw one last look at the peaceful village before walking away, heading towards the fields located to the west of the settlement.
A great number of rocks had been piled up in a 10-meter-tall pyramid. It was a rather crude monument that Naruto had erected in memory of those who had lost their lives at the hands of the Shinigami. Nameless people whom nobody cared about. . . nobody but him.
He knew that their souls were not truly gone and that they had been reincarnated in the World of the Living. However, as far as he was concerned, his friends were gone. Even if, through some miracle, they were to meet each other again in the future, they would not even recognise him anymore. Rukongai souls lost all their memories once they were reincarnated in the Human Realm.
Stopping in front of the funeral monument, Naruto took out a small scroll from the inner pocket of his shihakusho and crouched to unfurl it on the grassy ground.
Placing his palm on the scroll, a stick of incense appeared with a plume of smoke. Over the past ten years, Naruto had managed to recreate the Sealing Scrolls of his past life through the use of Kido.
A small flame flickered at the tip of his index finger, lighting the incense, and he stuck it into the brazier located in front of the pile of rocks.
A moment later, he placed his palm on the scroll once again, and a bowl of steaming hot ramen appeared on top of the scroll with another plume of smoke.
“Rin, Kai. I know how much you used to love ramen,” he spoke softly as he placed the bowl at the foot of the brazier.
“Uncle Jin, this is the boar meat you loved when you were alive.”
One by one, Naruto started speaking the names of his dead friends and taking out various offerings from his sealing scroll.
“As for you, auntie-”
His words abruptly stopped when his instincts screamed at him to throw himself to the side.
Time seemed to slow down in Naruto’s perception as he ducked and rolled away, turning around to see a spatial distortion in the air missing his face only by an inch.
The attack missed its target, but the strength behind it was so ridiculous that the large pile of rocks was blown away and all the offerings that Naruto had brought for his dead friends were pulverised.
The blond was still in the middle of his rolling motion when he thrust his palm at the invisible attacker and shouted:
“Hado #63: Raikoho!”
Lightning appeared in the palm of his hand, and a massive explosion boomed. The earth ruptured, the skies shook, and a deafening thunderclap almost burst the eardrums of all ordinary people living nearby.
I'm not one to hold speeches and whatnot, so I won't bore you with a long post.
I just want to thank you for supporting me over the course of this year. In the end, I'm just a regular dude who writes as a hobby; I do put in dozens of hours every week for writing, but I'm not a professional writer. However, you're still reading my stuff. Thank you.
I hope that you will succeed in the plans that you have made and that you will stay healthy in the upcoming year.
And I also hope that I will manage to put in as much work into writing as I did in 2025.
“For the last time, Luna, there are no records of any moon frogs!”
“Daddy said they’re real,” the younger girl said stubbornly.
“There is no life on the moon! There is no air! There is nothing there!"
“I trust Dad more than I trust you.”
“You don’t have to trust me! Just ask any Magizoologist, and they will tell you the same!”
“Just because most people don’t believe they exist, that doesn’t mean they are right. A few centuries ago, Muggles used to think that the Earth sat on the back of four elephants, and those who said otherwise were burnt at the stake for heresy,” Luna retorted.
It was very unusual to see the cute and soft-spoken girl be so vehement about something.
“Just let it rest, Lizzie,” Simon said, shaking his head.
“How can I do that? The next thing she’ll tell me is that Santa is real or that Skin-Walkers exist!”
“I don’t know, Skin-Walkers may be real. There were multiple sightings of things that-” Elora began, pushing her round glasses up her nose.
But when Elspeth looked at her with an expression of utmost betrayal on her face, the normally quiet girl burst into uncontrollable giggles. “If only you could see your face! Hahaha!”
At that very moment, Harry raised his wand, and one of the unused knives on the table turned into a round mirror that started levitating in front of Lizzie’s face.
This time, it was not only Elora but also Florent, Simon, and even Luna; they all burst into laughter.
“I’ll remember this, Harry,” Elspeth said darkly.
“How are you so good at casting nonverbally?” Simon asked when his laughter subsided. “I’m just starting to get the hang of casting regular charms nonverbally. I reckon we’d only get to cast nonverbal transfiguration in the seventh year. What’s your secret?”
Simon was a sixth-year student and a Prefect at that; he was one of the better students in his year, yet he was still making baby steps in nonverbal casting.
“Rrrots of prrractice,” Harry said before taking a bite out of a doughnut filled with apple jam.
His broken pronunciation made his friends snicker at him.
“Still talking like that? Are you sure it’s not a curse? Just go to Madam Pomfrey already!” Simon said worriedly.
Harry just gave him a thumbs-up. “Arrr good, rrrelax.”
His speech impediment was caused by a Mandrake leaf stuck to the roof of his mouth. Thanks to Sirius’ advice, Harry had cast a Sticking Charm on the Mandrake leaf so that it would never leave its place, regardless of whether he was talking, sleeping, or eating.
Holding a Mandrake leaf in his mouth for one month was part of the process he had to go through in order to become an Animagus. If he took it out at any point, even for something as quick as brushing his teeth, the ritual would fail. He would have to wait for the next full moon and start from the beginning.
He had only been holding that leaf in his mouth for a few days, so he was not used to talking with it just yet, but he was getting better. Considering that he wasn’t a chatty person outside of his interactions with Matthew or his small circle of friends, most people didn’t notice a thing.
Soon, the time allocated to breakfast came to an end. Letting out a long, suffering sigh, Harry stood up from the table, grabbed his backpack, and started dragging his feet together with Florent, Elspeth, and Elora towards the Care for Magical Creatures class.
⁂
“The bell’s about to ring. We’re going to leave you behind if you don’t hurry up,” Elspeth said.
“I wish I could drop this useless class,” Harry muttered as he hurried to catch up to the rest. “I can’t wait for the sixth year.”
“Why do you ‘ate this class?” asked Florent.
Since the start of the second semester, the French boy had been avoiding talking to Harry while they were alone in their shared bedroom, but he had no problems engaging in conversation when others were around.
“I don’t hate it. . . I just think it’s a complete waste of time. It’s even worse than DADA; at least I can nap there,” Harry said, kicking away a rock on the beaten path leading to the Creatures Class.
“I don’t think it’s useless. What if you want to get a Puffskein pet in the future? Or if your garden is being destroyed by a knarl, you would know ‘ow to get rid of it,” Fleur tried to reason with him.
Harry made an annoyed face.
“That’s exactly the problem! Who gives a shit?”
“Excuse you, I care! And Florent cares too!” Elspeth retorted.
Fleur nodded. “Oui, I find it very useful for daily life.”
“Oh, come on! This class should be about teaching us how to defend against dangerous creatures, not learning about the mooncalves’ diet or how to groom a kneazle, for God's sake!”
“I agree with Harry,” Elora unexpectedly took his side.
“You’re antagonizing me on purpose again. You’re still angry at me for eating your pudding, aren’t you?” Elspeth said in an accusatory voice.
“No, I just think that there should be a mixture of both harmless creatures and dangerous ones. Professor Grubby-Plank isn’t bad, but Kettleburn was much better.”
“Are you mad? Kettleburn made us pet a Chimaera in our second year!” Elspeth said, outraged.
“No, Kettleburn was brilliant! Name one interesting creature that Grubby-Plank showed us in the last two years,” Harry said.
“We saw a Unicorn last year! And we also got to interact with Centaurs last semester.”
Harry faked an exaggerated yawn. “Boooring.”
They continued to bicker like that until they finally arrived at the stables where the class of Care of Magical Creatures was being held.
Expecting the old female professor and a bunch of kneazles to be waiting for them, Harry and his friends were greatly surprised to see a different person standing in front of the group of Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs gathered there.
“Whoa!” Elora and Elspeth both let out a quiet gasp.
It was a mountain of a man. He had to be the tallest and burliest man any of them had ever seen. He had well-kempt shoulder-length brown hair, and he was wearing grey wool trousers, black leather boots, and a long, brown, leather coat with a beige button-up shirt underneath.
Despite his gigantic physique, he looked rather distinguished. Of course, his impressive beard also played an important role in making people get that impression. He had a very long beard styled into a neat, thick braid that reached his belly button.
Two minutes later, after their group arrived, the few remaining students also joined the class, and the man started speaking.
“Good afternoon! My name is Rubeus Hagrid, and I’m a Magizoologist. Professor Grubby-Plank has some personal matters to attend to, so today, I will be holding her class.”
“Is she alright?” a brown-haired girl from Hufflepuff asked.
“Don’t worry, nothing bad happened to your dear professor,” Mr Hagrid said. His kind, friendly smile put everyone’s worries to rest. “Now, come along, everyone.”
“Professor, where are we going?”
“To the Forbidden Forest. According to Professor Grubby-Plank’s notes, you have yet to cover Thestrals in class, and they are mandatory for OWLs,” Mr Hagrid replied.
“. . . Will we be alright?” Elspeth asked in a quivering voice. “Last time we went to the Forbidden Forest, three years ago, we were nearly eaten by the Acromantula colony.”
A chorus of murmurs broke out from the rest of the students at her words. None of them had forgotten the many traumatic things that they experienced when Professor Kettleburn was still teaching.
Mr Hagrid let out a loud, merry chuckle.
“With me around, there is not a single creature in the forest that can harm you,” he said as he took out his long wand and patted his chest twice with his other hand. The sound made by his meaty hand hitting his wide chest was like that coming from a war drum.
“Merlin, that’s not a wand, that’s a stick for beating cattle,” Harry heard one of the Hufflepuffs nearby whispering to his friends.
“Forget about his wand, look at him. What did they feed him?”
“He’s got to be a Half-Giant or something,” the other Hufflepuff replied. “There’s no way regular people can get that big.”
As they walked together with the group towards the Forbidden Forest, all the students started talking amongst each other. Having heard their whispers, Fleur nodded her head.
“They may be right. The ‘Eadmaster of Beauxbatons is also about as tall as Mr ‘Agrid and she’s rumoured to be ‘Alf-Giant too,” she said in a quiet voice.
“I know for a fact that he’s a Half-Giant. I’m surprised you’ve never heard of him; Mr Hagrid is a famous Magizoologist, and he's never been ashamed of his heritage,” Harry answered.
“You know of him?” Elspeth said in shock.
“What’s with that tone?” Harry shot back offended. “Of course I know him! He wrote the best book on Dragons that you can find on the market. It goes into detail about all 10 extant species of Dragons! Even Newt Scammander spoke highly of it!”
Elora, Elspeth, and Fleur stared at Harry as if he had grown two heads.
“Why are you acting so surprised? Isn’t it common sense to learn all there is to know about creatures that are dangerous and strong enough to kill you?”
“Oh. . . it makes sense now,” Elora said, nodding sagely.
“I see, I see. True,” Elspeth also nodded. Finally, the two redheads agreed about something that day.
Fleur started giggling, but when Harry glared at her, she cleared her throat and coughed.
“Sorry, your English sounds so funny,” she said as an excuse.
In all fairness, Harry’s inability to pronounce ‘R’ and ‘L’ at the moment sounded quite funny but they all knew that wasn’t what Florent was laughing at.
“If it’s not strong enough to kill him, he don’t want it,” Elspeth said in a broken English on purpose.
As her long-time best friend, Elora quickly followed up:
“If it don’t blow him up, he don’t care.”
“Oh, just shut it,” Harry said in annoyance.
“If it don’t got poison breath, he don’t need it.”
“If it don’t burn him to a crisp-”
Harry walked ahead, leaving his little group of friends behind, much to their amusement.
⁂
The class taught by Mr Hagrid was the most interesting Creature Class for Harry that year.
Although things became uncomfortable for him when it turned out that he was the only student among all the 5th-year Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs who could see the Thestrals, and they all broke into murmurs, he did not let it get to him. He tuned out their whispers and focused on the Thestral he was assigned to, brushing its long neck gently.
Unknowingly, his behaviour did nothing but make the others look at him even weirder. After all, to most wizards and witches, Thestrals were a symbol of death and a bad omen. Moreover, people tended to be afraid of things that they could not see or understand. Yet there was Harry, brushing the neck of an invisible horse and feeding it raw, bloodied meat which disappeared into the invisible creature's jaws.
⁂
It was evening, almost two hours after the curfew, but Fleur was still not sleeping. She was sitting at the sole desk in the bedroom she shared with Harry and writing a letter to her family.
Although only two weeks had passed since the start of the second term, she felt the need to talk to someone honestly about her true feelings, her joys, her worries, and her frustrations. Unfortunately, although she had become rather close to Elspeth, Elora, Simon, and Luna, she couldn’t be herself in front of them. Her duplicity made it impossible for her to open her heart to others.
‘I wonder, would they still want to be my friends if they found out that I’ve been lying to them this entire time? That I’m a girl, not a boy?’
‘Was it truly a good idea for me to take this path?’
She shook her head. Even if she did not want to do it anymore, she couldn’t simply stop. Not after all the trouble she had caused her family. They had to pull strings and cash in some big favours for them to convince Dumbledore to allow her to attend Hogwarts while disguising herself as a boy.
‘Telling them now that I don’t want to do it any more would be like spitting on all their efforts.’
‘. . . I can’t do that. Besides, the alternative would be to get homeschooled. I wouldn’t be able to go back to Beauxbatons. And if I were to attend a different school as a girl, it would just be a repeat of what happened back in France.'
She had been a fourth-year student at Beauxbatons when her Veela Charm awakened. Unable to properly rein in her allure in the beginning, Fleur had unintentionally charmed many boys, among whom there also happened to be a seventh-year boy from an old pureblood family. . .
Fleur put her quill in the ink pot and stopped writing the letter momentarily as she looked at her reflection in the mirror hanging on the wall in front of the desk. A beautiful, blue-eyed, silver-haired, androgynous boy was staring back at her. Even with some Transfiguration spells changing her facial features and with the source of her Veela Charm, her hair, being reduced to a short, boyish haircut, she was still ridiculously good-looking.
‘I wonder, how would my life have been if I were a normal girl?’
'No Allure. No inhuman beauty. But also no stigma. Just an average, blonde girl from France. . .'
She tried her best not to continue that train of thought. Her mother had told her many times never to be ashamed or spiteful of her heritage. There were countless women in the world who would kill to be in her place.
Unfortunately, she could not control her emotions so easily. Her fragile emotional state was further exacerbated by the hormone imbalance caused by the short length of her hair.
Fleur stopped looking at her reflection in the mirror and blinked quickly. She inhaled and exhaled deeply, doing her best to calm down. She didn’t want to cry herself to sleep again.
At that moment, the door opened and Harry walked inside. Involuntarily, Fleur quickly wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her blue pyjama top. If she had acted normally, Harry might not have given her a second glance, but her abrupt movements attracted his attention.
Harry looked at Florent for a few moments, seemingly debating with himself whether to pretend he had not seen anything or ask the French boy if he was alright.
“Hey, are you okay?"
After that incident before the Christmas holiday when Harry found Florent’s strange choice of underwear, the two of them seldom talked to each other when they were alone. However, in the end, he could not easily pretend that he had not seen that the French boy was on the verge of crying when he arrived in the room.
Fleur cleared her throat and adjusted her voice so that she sounded like her normal self.
“Of course. Why do you ask?” she replied while picking up her quill from the inkpot and acting as though she was busy with her letter.
Harry made a pause. Concerned as he may have been for Florent’s well-being, he did not want to be too nosy if the boy did not want to talk about it.
“I’ll take your word for it,” Harry relented. “But, if you ever need to talk about your day, I can lend you my ear.”
Seeing Florent remaining quiet, Harry scratched his cheek awkwardly.
“Thank you," Fleur said in a quiet voice after a few seconds.
“No worries.”
And with that, their conversation came to an end.
Fleur had expected the noise coming from Harry moving about to stop after five minutes, thinking that he would get in bed and go to sleep. It was almost midnight.
Instead, she heard the sound of him changing into jeans. Out of her own volition, her face flushed. It took her entire willpower to keep her head down and not sneak a peek into the mirror at Harry. Normally, such cases where he would change his clothes in her presence were rare because Fleur always woke up before him; she was a girl, so she needed more time to get ready; as for evenings, Harry was never in the dorms at a normal hour. Usually, by the time he returned, she would be in bed, with her curtains pulled.
“Um, ‘Arry?” she called out his name and turned around tentatively when it sounded like he finished changing.
“Yes?”
“Sorry to pry. . . But I ‘ave been curious for a long time. Where are you going every night after curfew?”
Realising how intrusive her question was, she said quickly: “You don’t ‘ave to answer if you don’t want to! I was wondering if Professor Flitwick came for an inspection and asked where you are, I’d like to know what to tell ‘im.”
It sounded lame to her ears too, and Fleur couldn’t meet his eyes, looking at her feet in embarrassment.
“It’s alright,” Harry said mildly. “It’s not like it’s some big secret. I’m practising magic.”
“Every night?!”
Harry nodded. “Yes. I can’t afford to laze around.”
“Is this not taking it too far?”
Fleur was a very hard-working student herself, but if Harry truly was studying as much as he claimed he did, her efforts couldn’t compare to his.
“Your spellcasting is already formidable!” she continued. “Even Simon isn’t as good as you, and ‘e is one year older and a Prefect too. I’m sure you would ace the practical part of the OWLs effortlessly!”
“This isn’t for OWLs,” Harry replied. “Surely you’ve noticed by now that I don’t particularly care about my grades.”
It was as he said. Fleur often saw him sleeping in any of the classes where he could get away with it, and he never participated in class to try to earn some points for Ravenclaw unless the professor called him out specifically.
Just as she was about to ask a question, Harry said,
“It’s for my brother. Matt. . . he’s the Boy Who Lived. Many people treat him as a hero, but just as many would like nothing more than to see him die. If I don’t protect him, who will?”
For a few seconds, Fleur didn’t know what to say. It was the first time Harry was so forthcoming with information about himself.
“People love to babble about how Hogwarts is the safest place in the country. But Matt was almost killed by our DADA professor last year. And it all happened right under Dumbledore’s nose. If I hadn't been there for him, he would’ve died.”
Fleur felt a node appearing in her neck. The mood was far too serious to consider that Harry might be pulling her leg. She was having a hard time believing that someone like Albus Dumbledore and the rest of the professors would allow a student to be in mortal peril, but Harry did not appear to be lying.
“I-, I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry, I didn’t know that-”
Harry waved off her apology.
“It’s fine. You have nothing to apologise for,” he said as he grabbed his backpack from the floor. He also patted his forearm to check one last time that the secret holster holding his illegal wand was there. “It’s not like I’m going around telling everyone about my activities.”
“So that’s why you never spend time with us!” Fleur said in realisation.
He chuckled. “Did you think I wasn’t hanging out with you because I was too arrogant or what?”
“No, but I thought that maybe you don’t like me all that much. Other boys don’t seem too 'appy with me in general.”
Harry wasn’t surprised to hear that. Nobody dared to antagonise Florent openly after witnessing Professor Flitwick’s rage the previous semester when he found out that Luna Lovegood was being bullied; but ever since the rumour that Florent was gay spread out, quite a few boys started making fun of him when they thought the French boy was not around to hear them.
“They’re probably envious you have half the girls at Hogwarts thirsting over you.”
“W-What?? Thirsting?!”
Florent’s stammer made Harry snicker.
“Oh, come on, don’t pretend you're not aware of it. Most girls get weak in the knees when they hear your accent. I heard some of them talking about it. If you also smile at them, then it’s all over. If I were you, I’d be extremely careful on Valentine’s Day this year.”
Her face reddening by the second, Fleur was staring at Harry, speechless.
“Anyway, I have to go,” he said as he went to his trunk and pulled out his Nimbus broomstick. “We’ll talk more tomorrow, okay? Good night.”
And with that, Harry cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself and one on his Nimbus, and then he went out, leaving Fleur to steam in her own embarrassment all alone.
Flying off the rooftop of the Ravenclaw tower, Harry headed straight towards the Whomping Willow as Sirius had instructed him.
Although he was invisible, the violent tree still sensed his arrival somehow and started flailing its long and thick branches threateningly. Thankfully, one simple Freezing Charm took care of the sentient tree, immobilising it just long enough for him to enter through the secret passage leading out of Hogwarts’ grounds.
⁂
When he came out of the tunnel and arrived inside the famed haunted house, Sirius was there, pacing around with his hands behind his back as he waited for him.
“Harry! What happened? Are you alright?”
The moment Sirius saw Harry, he rushed at him and fired one question after another.
“I’m fine, what’s the matter?” Harry answered, confused at his godfather’s behaviour.
“You little shit. . . You sent me a letter saying you need to talk as soon as possible and that you can’t say more through a letter. I thought something happened to you!”
Harry was lucky he was wearing a beanie, or else Sirius would have given him a rough noogie at that moment. Instead, he settled for only pulling his beanie over his eyes and shaking his head a little.
“Oh, sorry. I must’ve worried you. Nothing bad happened. I promise. I just need a favour. It’s something, well, not legal,” he said with some hesitation in his voice. “I need a time-turner. I tried to get one from the black market-”
“Are you being serious right now?”
“No, you’re Sirius,” Harry fired back the annoying pun that Sirius himself often made.
“Leave the jokes for another time, Harry,” Sirius said in a grave voice. “What are you doing getting involved with the black market at your age? Are you out of your mind? And what do you need a time-turner for?”
“I know what I’m doing. This isn’t my first time going to Knockturn Alley, you know?” Harry said, crossing his arms to his chest. “Look, you promised me that you’d always be on my side. You said you’d help me if I ever needed something. I always try to solve my own problems alone but this is beyond me. Time-turners are much harder to get a hold of than I thought. It looks like only the Unspeakables have access to them. Even if I had the money to bribe one, I wouldn’t know where to find them. Their identities are secret.”
“If Lily heard I let you get involved with the Knockturn Alley denizens, she’d rip me a new one,” Sirius said. “You didn’t tell me what you need a Time-Turner for. If it’s something as unrealistic as going back in time to the day your parents died so that you could save them, forget about it. It’s impossible. Time travel doesn’t work like that.” (1)
“I know how time travel works, Sirius. I studied all there is to know about it. Events that have already happened cannot be changed. But I don’t need a Time-Turner to change anything. All I need is time.”
Feeling as though his godfather wasn’t convinced, Harry continued:
“I’m not strong enough. I’m not improving fast enough.”
“Harry, you started casting nonverbal magic in the summer before your 5th year. James, Lily, and I were considered prodigies back in the day and neither of us could do that at your age. You are exceptional already-”
“It’s not enough!” Harry involuntarily raised his voice. “I duelled Flitwick last semester. He treated me like I was a firstie. He didn’t take me seriously and still mopped the floor with me!”
“Bloody hell, do you hear yourself? Flitwick is one of the best duellists in the world! I reckon there are less than 10 people alive that could defeat him in a fair fight. Of course he’d mop the floor with you, what the hell did you expect?” Sirius cussed, exasperated.
“If I can’t beat someone like Flitwick, how could I possibly beat Voldemort? I’m up against one of the most powerful wizards of all time, someone who lived over half a century longer than I did. How do you expect me to close this gap?”
Realising that he was shouting now, Harry went to the rotten, putrid couch in the Shrieking Shack’s living room and sat down with a thud. Sirius came and sat next to him too, the old couch groaning under their combined weight. He put a hand on Harry’s shoulder and said in a kind voice:
“Nobody is expecting or demanding you to face Voldemort alone, Harry. You are still but a child. Keeping an eye on your brother is more than enough. Leave the dangerous stuff to us, to the adults. Me, your grandparents, and even Dumbledore. It’s our job to protect you.”
“These are just empty words and promises,” Harry muttered, frustrated. “When the chips were down last year, the adults weren’t there to protect Matt. Not you. Not gran and grandpa. Not Dumbledore or any other professors. It was me. I was the one who cast the Killing Curse at Quirrel. It was on me to save him.”
Sirius didn’t know what to reply to that.
Harry stood up from the couch and grabbed his broomstick.
“I didn’t expect much to begin with,” he said in disappointment. “But it’s okay. I’ll figure it out on my own.”
“I’m sorry, Harry, but I can’t, in good conscience, help you get a Time Turner. I could help you train. I could teach you all the combat spells that I know. Anything else you want, just say it. But meddling with time is too dangerous. Leaving aside the fact that we’d both end up in Azkaban if the Ministry were to get wind of our illegal actions, you could even end up killing yourself in the process! Please listen to me. I want nothing but the best for you.”
⁂
In the end, Harry couldn’t convince Sirius to help him acquire a Time-Turner. His godfather was adamant about not letting him meddle with time. However, Sirius did keep his promise when it came to other matters. Ever since their conversation at the Shrieking Shack, they would meet up two times every week, in the weekend, and train.
In addition, Sirius also guided and helped Harry with Animagus rituals. Holding a Mandrake leaf in his mouth for one month (from full moon to full moon) was only the first step.
At the next full moon, he had to spit the saliva-filled Mandrake leaf into a small crystal phial that had received the moon’s pure rays.
After that, he had to add one of his hairs, a silver teaspoon of dew taken from a place that had not seen sunlight or been touched by human feet for a full seven days, and the chrysalis of a Death’s-head Hawk Moth.
At last, the resulting mixture had to be put in a quiet, dark place and it had to remain untouched and undisturbed for a long time.
Thankfully, with Sirius’ guidance and Lady Luck’s favour on his side, Harry was able to do this troublesome process in one go. People who weren’t as lucky as him would end up having to repeat holding a Mandrake leaf in their mouths for half a year or longer because if the sky was cloudy during the second full moon, everything was wasted and they had to start again from the beginning. Fortunately for Harry, the sky was clear, with no clouds in sight, when it was time for him to spit out the leaf.
Nevertheless, the ordeal was still not fully over. Now, Harry had to wait for a lightning storm; in the meantime, he had to chant the Animagus Transfiguration Spell every day at sunrise and sunset. If he omitted doing it even once, everything would be lost. He would have to start from zero.
Alas, this time around, Harry wasn’t as lucky. It was already the middle of February but no lightning storms had come.
⁂
On the 14th of February, right as he was about to enter the Great Hall for breakfast, Matthew Potter was suddenly yanked back as though an invisible hand had grabbed him from the scruff of his neck.
He yelped, startled, but, unknowingly, whoever started pulling him over had also cast a Silencing Charm on him preemptively. Just as Matt started panicking badly, his body came to a stop and he found himself in front of his older brother, Harry.
“Are you mad?! No, don’t answer, you’re definitely batshit crazy!” Matt shouted at him, red-faced from the scare he had been given.
Harry snickered at his angry face.
“Yeah, laugh it out. It’s sooo damn funny! Knee-slapping funny!”
“Aww, poor widdle Matthew got scared,” Harry cooed at him.
As much as he cared about Matt, every once in a while, Harry felt the need to mess with him for a bit. After all, what sort of older brother never bullied his younger siblings? It was the law.
Still sniggering, Harry opened his bag and took out a thermos before handing it to Matt.
“What’s this?”
“It’s a thermos filled with Love Potion Antidote.”
Matthew sighed.
“Really now?”
“Take it,” Harry said seriously. “I don’t even want to hear your arguments.”
Knowing that there was no winning against his older brother when he was talking seriously like that, Matthew relented and took the Thermos from his hand.
“I sneaked out of the castle a few days ago to buy this thermos from Hogsmeade,” Harry said. “It has a Space-Expansion Charm cast on it and Weight-Reducing Charm too. You have around 5 litres of Love Potion Antidote in there. I brewed it myself last night.”
Realising the lengths to which Harry went for his sake, Matt couldn’t find it in himself to be annoyed at his paranoid older brother anymore.
“You should take a small gulp every hour or so. It should be enough to last you an entire week. And if anybody asks what’s in there, just tell them that it’s water. The antidote is tasteless and colourless so nobody will notice a thing unless they taste it themselves. But even with this, I suggest you still cast Detection Charms on your food and drinks for the next three or four days. With how famous you are, the older you get, the more attention you’ll get from girls. So you have to be very careful.”
A few minutes later, Harry finally stopped nagging him and the two brothers went to the Great Hall together. However, when he stepped through the tall and wide wooden doors, Harry stopped in his tracks at the explosion of bright colours that his eyes were hit with.
“What the fuck.”
“What the fuck?!"
Harry and Matthew swore at the same time.
The beautiful and majestic Great Hall looked unrecognizable. The tall and wide walls were covered with obnoxiously bright pink flowers and heart-shaped confetti was falling from the charmed ceiling. If that wasn’t bad enough, an army of Dwarves wearing Cupid outfits with white angel wings and golden harps were swarming all over the hall as they delivered various gifts or even recited poems and sang serenades.
Matt cried out in a scared voice when no less than eight Dwarves zeroed in on him.
“Harry, help!”
Alas, at that moment, his reliable and overprotective older brother that he always depended on backstabbed him. Just like in the story of the man who tripped his friend to get eaten by the bear, Harry pushed his younger brother towards the Dwarves from behind and broke into a sprint towards the Ravenclaw table.
It was a betrayal that Matthew would never forget.
⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂
AN:
(1) For those of you who may have forgotten, Harry Potter's canon time-travel follows the fixed timeline theory where anything that has already happened cannot be changed.
This is what the Ravenclaw bedrooms look like in Hogwarts Legacy:
A few days later, Naruto and Ahri were about to board a large sailboat in a port on the southern coast of Navori, haggling over the price.
Considering that their destination was the Serpent Islands, Bilgewater specifically, the price of a ticket was nearly 50 golden hexes per person. It had to be said that 1 or 2 golden hexes were enough to rent a room for the night at a respectable inn. The reason for that exorbitant price was that that sailboat was not designed for transporting customers. It was a merchant ship made for transporting goods. The only lodging it had was for its crewmen and soldiers.
Alas, they did not have a choice. In general, only merchants were crazy enough to sail to Bilgewater. Leaving aside the perilous journey (the Guardian Sea was infested with gigantic serpents and other aquatic monsters), Bilgewater itself was a lawless place, a den of pirates and criminals. Fugitives from all over Runeterra took refuge in that place, for there was no government. There were no laws. There were no restrictions.
“Strange that we couldn’t get aboard as bodyguards,” muttered Naruto in dismay.
He got aboard with Ahri’s money, not his, but he still felt it was a pity for them to have paid such a price.
“They don’t know us, so they don’t trust us,” Ahri explained. “It wouldn’t be the first time a Bilgewater pirate infiltrated a merchant ship’s crew and destroyed them from within. We’re lucky we got taken aboard at all.”
Naruto snorted. “Lucky, my ass. You did something to him. I saw his pupils flashing pink for a moment.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about~” she sing-sang jokingly.
“If you can mind control people like that, why not tell him to lower the price too?”
“This is this and that is that. I try to remain fair whenever possible. I do need to get to Bilgewater no matter what, so it can’t be helped, but I don’t want to scam the merchant either.”
At the ship owner's instructions, one of the sailors came to the two of them and asked them to walk with him towards their quarters. The entire time, the man could not stop sneaking glances at Ahri. Despite that her special features were hidden by her white cloak, as was most of her body, he could tell just from the sound of her voice and from her slender silhouette that she had to be a beautiful woman. If anything, not being able to see her appearance only made his imagination go wilder. Nevertheless, he did not cause them any problems. Once he showed them the room they would be living in during the trip, he left them to their devices and went back to his post.
“One hundred golden hexes for this dingy hole?” said Naruto in dismay when they opened the door and heard the loud sound of many rodents scurrying across the wooden floor.
“You’re such a money grubber; quit whining! It wasn’t even your money,” Ahri said, torn between laughing and being annoyed at him. “More importantly, there is only one bed.”
“It’s okay; you can have it,” he said, waving his hand off uncaringly.
She walked in front of him and put her hands on her waist, frowning as she looked up at him.
“You didn’t hear how many rats are on this ship? There’s no way I’m letting you sleep on the floor!”
“I meant that I don’t need sleep. I can spend a few days to a week without sleep just fine.”
“That’s not fine, no matter how you look at it!”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders. “There were times when I couldn’t sleep for two or even three weeks.”
The Seagull was an enormous sailboat with three masts; it was over 80 metres long and 15 metres wide, and it had a crew of nearly 70 people. Moreover, it was armed with 40 cannons, and its military personnel consisted of 40 gunners and over 150 soldiers wielding muskets and swords.
That being said, most of the space was used for transporting cargo. The merchant ship carried goods that the inhabitants of Bilgewater needed, such as grains, alcohol, and clothes. Therefore, Naruto and Ahri were lucky to get a room; only the captain, who had a private room, and the officers, who were sleeping three or four in one room, could afford that luxury. The rest of the crew slept in hammocks, down below, crammed up together with the cargo.
⁂
Time passed, and, on the sixth day of their voyage, Naruto stood by the handrail of the ship together with his large backpack, eating a meat pie as he watched the agitated sea.
The sky was still clear, glittering with myriad stars, and a brilliant moon shone in the night, but the sailors must have sensed something because they all started raising the sails frantically, with the captain barking orders at them from the quarterdeck.
A soft yawn was heard from behind, and he turned to see the fox girl rubbing at her eyes, her fox ears flopped down cutely.
“Can’t sleep?” he asked.
“They could raise the dead with their screams, let alone me,” Ahri said tiredly and wrapped her white cloak tighter around herself when a cold breeze blew.
Glancing at him, her amber eyes glinted with curiosity as she asked for what had to be the twentieth time since they first met:
“How are you doing that?”
“Doing what?”
“How are you eating with your mask on?”
A more powerful gale blew, and Ahri involuntarily closed her eyes and turned her head to shield her face from the wind. When she raised her head again, the meat pie in Naruto’s hand was already gone. He was chewing its last remains.
“Argh! You always do that!”
She lunged at him, but he caught her by the wrists before she could pull his mask off.
“You already know my name; I can’t let you see my face too. My mask is off limits!”
She struggled to free her wrists from his grasp, but his physical strength was just too much. Eventually, she gave up and pouted at him.
He chuckled at her behaviour. He never forgot that she had tried to drain his chakra, but she was so cute that that incident was quickly becoming a distant memory in his mind. He didn’t remember laughing as much in the past few years as he did ever since he met Ahri.
Once he let go of her wrists, she came next to him, leaning on the handrail as well.
“Do you have more of those meat pies?”
“That’ll be 50 silver cogs.”
“Are you being serious!?”
Her outrage made him chuckle again as he rummaged through his large backpack and took out a scroll before unfurling it.
Although they had paid 100 Golden Hexes to get on board, their food was not included in the price. They had to handle it themselves. Nevertheless, even if it were, neither of them would want to eat the same slop that the sailors did. Not only was the sailors’ food mostly simple jerky, rum, and tough biscuits, but the way it was stored left much to be desired. The ship was infested with rats, and the sailors themselves were some of the dirtiest and smelliest people that Naruto and Ahri had ever met. Stuck at sea for weeks at a time, most sailors rarely ever took any baths because freshwater was too valuable to waste on such things, and the sea was too dangerous to bathe in.
He put his right hand on top of the scroll and channelled some of his chakra. A plume of smoke burst out, and a carefully wrapped, still warm, steaming meat pie appeared in his hand.
Ahri let out a sound of admiration and clapped her hands like a little child. Seeing her anticipation, he couldn’t help wanting to tease her. Instead of giving her the meat pie, he brought it to his mouth and took a bite himself.
“Come on, Ifrit, give me some too!” she pleaded, stretching her arms up, reaching for the pie, but he was taller than her.
Left with no choice, she changed her target and snatched the scroll from his other hand instead.
“Oi, be careful with that! If you damage it-”
“If I can’t have it, no-one can!” she shouted, threatening to rip the scroll in half.
They bickered like that for nearly ten minutes, completely ignoring the rest of the crew, who appeared to become desperate now. It was only when they noticed the deck getting crowded by the over 100 soldiers that came out of the ship that they stopped fooling around.
“Whazz goin on?” Ahri asked, with her mouth full and her cheeks bulging with food like a hamster (Naruto had wisely decided to stop teasing her and share his pies with her).
Normally, the soldiers and the rest of the crew worked in three shifts, each shift lasting 8 hours. If all the soldiers came out with their muskets in their hands, that could only mean one thing: something serious was about to go down.
Naruto closed his eyes and focused on his Negative Emotions Sensing ability.
“I don’t sense anything,” he said after a few moments. But then, his expression changed. “No, I sense it now. Something is coming! Something really big and hungry!”
Ahri quickly finished the rest of her meat pie and wiped her hands off on Naruto’s travelling cloak.
“What the hell are you doing?” he said in annoyance, grabbing her by one of her fox ears and pulling on it. “Do you have no sense of danger?”
“Ow, ow! Let go of my ear first!” even as she yelped from pain, she was snickering.
Considering that was hardly the time to fool around, Naruto stopped pulling on her ear and furled back the sealing scroll that contained his food before putting it back in his bag. He tied the large bag securely and put it on his back before grabbing his large poleaxe and readying for battle.
Ahri crossed her arms over her chest and nodded her head in a self-satisfied manner when she saw him preparing for battle.
“You’re as reliable as ever. Umu. I was right to hire you as my bodyguard. With you protecting me, I’m the best-guarded person in Ionia.”
But the fox girl also stopped fooling around when a large amount of water started to rise up from the sea almost like a hill.
As the water fell off the “hill,” everyone got to see just what exactly was underneath.
It was an immense creature, a 40 metre long monstrosity. Although it was only half as long as the sailboat, its body was far bulkier. With its enormous size, skin that looked like plated armour, and a large, horrifying mouth filled with dozens of rows of vicious-looking teeth, it was a Jaull-fish. It was one of the most terrifying monsters of the sea, a being that could only be found in the Guardian Sea, in the proximity of the Serpent Isles.
“Holy shit!” Naruto let out a curse. ‘That thing looks almost as big as you, Kurama.’
“Hmpf. You dare compare that mindless fish to someone like me?”
Sailors and soldiers alike were frozen in terror at seeing the upper half of the Jaull-fish’s body coming out of the sea. It was only their captain’s roar that brought them back to their senses.
“GUNNERS! FIRE AT WILL!”
No sooner than his words ended, the barrels of 20 cannons lit up, and a deafening boom rang as 20 cannonballs hit the Jaull-fish in the head.
The creature’s low, deep growl made the sea quake. A ten-meter-tall wave rose as the monster went underwater and started swimming at a great speed towards the ship.
Proving his experience, the captain was quick to turn the helm and scream commands at his subordinates to pull on the sails, just barely managing to steer the ship from a perpendicular collision route.
Unfortunately, there was only so much that the captain could do. Although the ship turned, the massive Jaull-fish’s charge still grazed the upper part of the bow of the ship, crumpling it as though it was paper.
“GUNNERS! FIRE AGAIN!” the captain screamed.
This time, it was not only the gunners who fired their cannons; the soldiers also aimed their muskets at the side of the Jaull-fish and fired their weapons too, as futile as that may have looked.
Even a monster as large and tough as the Jaull-fish couldn’t easily tank 40 cannonballs hitting it dead on. Its armoured skin was cracked open, and a large amount of its vile, putrid blood polluted the water with its stench.
Deterred by the third salvo of cannonball attacks fired upon him, the Jaull-fish swam away quickly, avoiding most of the shots.
With the monster being put on the run, the captain laughed out loud, boisterously.
“DON’T LET IT ESCAPE, LADS! EVERYONE TO OARS!”
As dangerous and terrifying as they may have been, Jaull-fish were like a walking treasure for those capable enough to hunt them. Inside their mouths, close to their numerous rows of vicious teeth, the Jaull-fish grew something that looked like precious gems; they were called sapphilite sacs. Those gems could be distilled by mages and alchemists into extremely precious magic potions and elixirs that were sought worldwide.
“We’re going to be rich! Bwahaha! Hear that? We’ll swim in hookers and rum for months!”
However, at that moment, a peculiar silhouette jumped out of the water like a fish. Its speed was so high and its jump so powerful that it flew over 30 metres in the air, landing straight on the quarterdeck. Due to its invisibility, nobody noticed its arrival, not even Naruto, who was more preoccupied with observing the monstrous fish in the distance.
The captain was still laughing out loud when a searing pain came from his back and a long and wide curved dagger whose blade looked like that of a bone saw burst out from his chest.
He choked on his laughter as blood filled his mouth, and he vomited blood and bile all over the helm.
The captain’s aides were frozen in stupefaction as they watched their superior getting gutted like a fish in front of their very eyes. They broke out of their stupor only when the fat captain fell on the wooden floor in a pool of his own blood with a heavy thud. They pulled out their flintlock pistols and fired at the assassin, but he was like a ghost. His body appeared to become invisible once again, and the three men’s heads rolled on the ground in an instant.
⁂
Noticing the sharp killing intent coming from the quarterdeck, Naruto glanced up just in time to see a bald, grey-skinned man wearing a strange bone armour stabbing the captain in the back. He didn't have time to make a move to stop him because the assassin became invisible and instantly beheaded the captain’s three aides before jumping off the board and diving headfirst into the water.
“What the fuck is going on!?”
Just a few minutes ago, he was eating a meat pie and enjoying the salty breeze of the sea on a clear, peaceful night, yet now they were attacked by a massive sea monster, and the captain and his aides were assassinated!
The rest of the officers tried to instil order, but when the Jaull-fish did a 180 turn and started charging at the ship again, terror engulfed everyone.
“If we get hit again, we’re all dead!” one of the officers screamed. “FIRE THE CANNONS!”
Woefully, with the captain and his aides killed off, the chain of command was broken and the ship was thrown into chaos. Only four out of twenty gunners fired their cannons.
“Naruto, we have to get away!” Ahri said and grabbed him by the arm. In her anxiety, she forgot she was not supposed to call him by his real name in public.
“Get away where?! We’re in the middle of the sea!” he shot back.
“I can take us away! If it’s only the two of us-”
She didn’t get to finish her words because Naruto took off his backpack and handed it to her.
“Please take good care of this. It’s almost as important as my life.”
It wasn’t the backpack itself that was so important to Naruto but the large Scroll of Seals that was bound to it.
“Where are you going?! You’re going to die if you stay here!”
“I won’t let all these people die when I can do something about it,” Naruto said with conviction, and the massive pole axe in his right hand lit up with a bright, powerful flame, so intense that even the sailors who were several metres away felt the heat.
Not leaving Ahri another moment to reply, Naruto broke into a sprint and jumped off board, eliciting a cry of surprise from the sailors and the soldiers who had seen him jump. At first, they thought that he had lost his mind due to panic, but when they saw him land on the agitated surface of the sea as though it was dry land, their surprise turned into outright shock.
The Jaull-fish was not intelligent enough to understand or wonder why a human was capable of walking on water. It was undaunted in its charge. The monster opened its enormous mouth wide to swallow him whole, revealing countless rows of fearsome teeth that were even bigger than the human was tall.
Naruto was not intimidated. A cloak of red chakra appeared around his body, and he let out a powerful war cry as he jumped high up into the air, well above the Jaull-fish, and smashed his flaming pole axe into the monster’s head.
Strength of a Hundred Jutsu, Kyuubi’s 1st version of chakra cloak, and powerful Katon chakra coursing through the poleaxe: a powerful shockwave erupted from his strike, greatly shaking the sailboat in the distance and raising massive waves all around him.
A desperate, mournful bellow came from the monster as a gash over 15 metres long and 5 metres deep appeared in its head, and the fire coming from the poleaxe incinerated its brain.
Right after dealing that devastating blow, Naruto’s pole axe shattered into countless tiny metal shards, unable to withstand the heat of his chakra and his monstrous strength.
Naruto jumped off the Jaull-fish's enormous body and put some distance from the monster. Despite having gotten killed on the spot, its massive, 40-meter-long body was still spasming uncontrollably, reminiscent of how regular fish would sometimes still move even after getting their heads chopped off. Except that this gargantuan monster was raising tsunami waves with every movement of its fins, making it hard even for Naruto, who could walk on water, to maintain his balance on top of the waves.
Eventually, the dead Jaull-fish stopped moving, and its heavy, enormous body started slowly sinking into the water.
Naruto let out a long breath of relief, happy that he had killed the creature in one shot. While the monster sank and the surface of the water slowly regained its calm, the sound of several metallic objects flying through the air was heard.
Ten massive harpoons were fired from the large sailboat, stabbing deeply into the Jaull-fish’s body, preventing it from sinking down any further.
⁂
When he returned on board, Ahri was the first to rush at him and throw her arms around him.
“By the spirits, what was THAT?!” she shouted in excitement. She had lived for centuries, but she had never seen anything like that before.
She wasn’t the only one to feel that way; the sailors and the soldiers crowded around him too, glancing at him in a mixture of awe, fear, and shock.
Even half an hour later, when the ruckus died down a bit and the sailors became busy with dismantling the Jaull-fish’s body and harvesting the sapphilite sacs from its mouth, Ahri was still brimming with enthusiasm, asking him all sorts of questions.
“How did you walk on water?!”
“What is that power of yours?”
“Chakra? How can you control it?”
“Five elements? Can anyone learn to do that??”
Fortunately for Ahri, after finding out just how valuable the sapphilite sacs harvested by the sailors from the Jaull-fish’s mouth were, the money-grubbing blond became happier than he had been in years. Despite also contributing to the fight against the Jaull-fish, the crewmen sensibly decided to give Naruto roughly 80% of the precious gems. In addition, they also gifted him a pretty high-quality steel broadsword after finding out that his polearm was shattered in the fight against the monster fish.
The blond was in a fantastic mood; he happily answered all of Ahri’s questions.
⁂
Harvesting the valuable materials from the enormous Jaull-fish and repairing the damaged bow of the ship extended their voyage across the sea for nearly one extra week.
While the sailors and even the soldiers were hard at work dismantling the monster, Naruto was sitting at the stern of the boat, in the shadow coming from a large umbrella that the sailors had so readily offered to him from the captain’s cabin.
Speaking of the dead captain and his dead aides, they were swiftly replaced by the rest of the officers on board, with the leader of the soldiers becoming the new captain. Naruto stayed out of their discussions since he was not part of their crew. He spent most of his time reading from the Scroll of Seals and practising his fuinjutsu on various scrolls and other pieces of paper in an effort to master the Hiraishin technique.
It was during the eighth day of their voyage, in the middle of the night, while Naruto was sitting outside of Ahri’s room with his back against the cabin wall that the door was opened and the fox girl stepped out of her room.
“Say, Naruto, could you conjure some water for me, please?” Ahri asked.
From the moment Ahri heard that Naruto could control all five elements, she instantly asked him to conjure some water for her so that she could bathe herself. Ahri was very particular about her hygiene; not being able to clean herself in nearly a week since she came aboard the ship was like torture to her.
“Didn’t you take a bath two days ago?” he asked back.
“I can’t sleep,” she mumbled. “I was thinking that a bath might help me relax. . .”
Naruto hummed, unconvinced.
“You’re hungry again, aren’t you?”
Ahri averted her eyes.
“. . .Yes,” she admitted quietly, knowing that she could not fool Naruto’s lie detector. “I haven’t fed since before we boarded the ship.”
He supported himself on his new broadsword to stand up and let out a yawn as he stretched his back.
“You look tired. Shouldn’t you get some rest?”
“I can’t sleep easily in unfamiliar places.”
“I don’t mind sharing our bed,” Ahri said seriously, not teasing him like usual. “I’ll watch over you while you sleep.”
“Hmm. . . I don’t know. . . “
“Don’t you trust me?”
Naruto snorted in amusement. ‘Don’t you trust me?’ was one of the first things Ahri asked him when they first met a few weeks ago. After the incident when she tried to drain his life force, that question became like an inside joke between the two of them.
“You better feed while I’m awake lest I go to sleep and never wake up again.”
Ahri had the decency to look sheepish.
“Are you sure you’re okay with me. . . well, you know. . .”
“Sucking my-”
“Don’t be a pig!”
“-My life force! What else did you think I was going to say? Get your mind out of the gutter!” he shot back at her, laughing.
Ahri flushed, not expecting him to accuse her of being the perverted one.
“You don’t have to use such terms! I wasn’t even thinking of that!” she squawked.
He grinned so widely that it could be seen even with the mask that was covering his face.
“Aww, you can dish it out, but you can’t take it? How cute.”
Her reply was to go back into the cabin and slam the door shut in his face.
Naruto laughed happily at finally getting one over the fox girl who had been teasing him mercilessly for weeks now.
He was about to sit down again, outside her cabin, when Ahri opened the door again but only enough so that she could make her voice heard.
“Can you help me? Please.”
“Good grief.”
He smiled as he entered Ahri’s room and saw the fox girl looking anywhere but at him. She had never seen her act so vulnerable and embarrassed before.
“So, how do we do this?” he asked as he put his broadsword down on the floor and walked to the bed.
“We need physical contact. But not that kind of contact, so don’t misunderstand!” she said quickly, not giving him the opportunity to make any smart-aleck remarks.
Naruto’s chest shook with his laughter, much to her growing embarrassment. But then, he took her hand in his and squeezed it comfortingly.
“I understand,” he said, no longer poking fun at her.
“Thank you, Naruto,” she mumbled, and she took his hand in both hands.
Her yellow fox eyes turned a bright magenta colour, and a soft giggle came from her mouth. Both his and her hands started glowing with blue light, and Ahri’s face morphed into an expression of bliss as she devoured his chakra.
After not feeding in a long time and due to how powerful and delicious his life energy was, Ahri soon became so consumed by the act that she appeared to have lost control of her outward actions.
Entranced by her Charm Spell, Naruto’s body moved on its own, according to Ahri’s desires, outside of his own volition. It was as though he became a spectator inside his own body.
Having already experienced such a phenomenon before, he did not panic this time. He just prepared himself to send Kyuubi’s chakra into Ahri’s system if it looked like she lost herself to her hunger.
For now, he only sat back and observed, letting Ahri do as she pleased. Under the fox girl’s Charm Spell, Naruto took off his boots and climbed up in the bed before lying on his side. Ahri climbed in bed after him too, never letting go of his hand. She lay on her side, and she made him embrace her, spooning her from behind.
To his mixture of relief and disappointment, the girl did not ramp up things any further than that. Moreover, a few minutes later, Ahri stopped her feeding session on her own, and her Charm spell ended.
With the spell no longer controlling his body, Naruto tactfully tried to sit up and get out of bed, but Ahri did not let go of his arms.
“Don’t go. Stay with me.”
“Are you sure it’s a good idea? I’m just a guy you’ve met not even a month ago.”
She turned to look at him, and Naruto couldn’t find the strength of will to refuse her. Those big, expressive, yellow eyes melted any objections he might have had.
“I trust you, Naruto,” she said, pulling him down to her. “I’ve seen your life. I’ve seen your memories.”
This feeding session was far longer than the first one when she attacked him in Ionia. Considering that Ahri also received her target's memories when she drained their life force, she had seen a great deal of Naruto’s life this time around.
When he also realised that fact, he felt as though he had become naked. He had forgotten about that aspect of her feeding.
“I’m not judging you,” she said in a soft voice and pulled him closer to her, embracing his head to her chest.
“You’ve led such a hard life. You did everything you could to survive. . . I admire you. Your strength of character, your power, and I admire that you have not lost your kindness even after everything you’ve been through.”
“You’ve saved those mercenaries from the fire demon, Ifrit. You saved those children from Zaun and gave them all your money. You’ve saved everyone on this ship too. . . You’re always taking care of others. . . let Ahri take care of you now.”
Naruto couldn’t say a word. Until then, he had not realised just how starved for affection he had been his entire life. As Ahri embraced his head into her bosom and talked to him in a soft voice, he found himself embracing her back, burying his face deeper into her chest.
“You did great, Naruto.”
“You fought well. You are a good and kind person.”
“You are a great friend.”
Although she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and in spite of the fact that his face was buried into her large, soft breasts, not a single sexual thought was in his mind at that moment. The way she complimented and recognised his efforts and struggles was unlike anything anyone had ever done to him before. All he could think of was how gentle and soothing her voice was, how nice she smelled, and how comfortable and warm were her 9 fox tails as she draped them over him almost like a blanket.
Her gentle caresses, her breathy voice whispering sweet, comforting words in his ears, and the warmth of her embrace lulled Naruto into a deep, peaceful sleep, devoid of any worries and bad dreams.
Having taken a break from his enchanting work, Harry went to the private gym that Kara had in her large, luxurious apartment and turned on the treadmill.
Due to being Death’s Emissary, not only did he not age, but his body was also in top condition. He would always remain healthy, young, and fit, without actively taking care of his well-being. That being said, working out provided not only physical but also mental benefits. The release of endorphins would help alleviate his stress, lower his mental fatigue, and improve his mood.
He was three kilometres into his run, looking at the beautiful scenery of New York City’s skyline through the enormous windows of the room, when Stinky, Kara’s one-eyed orange cat, suddenly jumped on the console of the treadmill.
“What do you want?” Harry asked, scowling at the orange cat.
The old cat and the old man couldn’t stomach each other. He didn’t know what the cat wanted.
When Stinky started meowing at him, Harry pushed him off the treadmill’s console in annoyance. But the cat didn’t give up. It continued meowing, this time even louder than before.
Fed up with him, Harry turned into his black cat Animagus form to give him an earful. Animagus wizards and witches could communicate with other animals, especially those of the same species as the animals they turned into.
The things that Stinky told him after he transformed, however, made his annoyance at him vanish, and he quickly turned back into his human form before leaving the gym, following the orange cat who started running ahead of him.
⁂
When he entered Astrid’s room, the little girl was sitting curled up, crying with her face buried in her knees. That’s why Stinky had called him over. The old cat was intelligent enough to understand that Astrid was hurting, but he didn’t know how to comfort her.
Harry sat on the edge of the bed next to her and touched her shoulder while asking gently:
“Astrid? What happened? What’s wrong?”
Her eyes were puffy, and her face was red and wet with tears when she looked up at him. He wrapped his arms around her, embracing her comfortingly to his chest before saying:
“Whatever it is, you can talk to me. Dad is always here for you, no matter what.”
She started crying even harder at his words.
“Astrid? Talk to me, angel,” Harry said worriedly.
“Are you really my dad?” she asked through her sobs.
“What brought this on? Of course I am!”
“Someone from Cadmus contacted me. . . he told me you’re not my dad. . . he said that I don’t have any parents. . .”
A pit appeared in Harry’s stomach at her words. He had dreaded the day when Astrid learnt the truth. It was not something that he had wanted to keep secret from her forever, but he had hoped she would not find out about it until she was a little older, until she was mature enough to understand.
He glanced at the laptop screen while he hugged the crying little girl, caressing her soft hair gently.
‘Roger Williams. So that’s your revenge, huh?’ he thought, his heart slowly but steadily filling with killing intent.
He honestly didn’t know what he was supposed to do at that moment. He may have lived for hundreds of years, but that did not make him all-knowing. He had never been in a situation like that, having to comfort a little girl who happened to be a clone.
“What he said was the truth,” Harry said eventually.
Astrid tried to break away from his embrace and shouted through her sobs:
“You lied to me!”
But he did not let go of her. He tightened his embrace on her. Fortunately, the girl had controlled her strength; she had not used her Kryptonian powers to push him away.
“What he said was the truth,” he reiterated, “but I didn’t lie to you either. You are my daughter, Astrid.”
Surprised and confused by his words, she looked up at him.
Harry felt his heart breaking for her as he used his thumb to softly wipe her tears away.
“From the moment I found you at Cadmus, I knew I couldn’t leave that place without you. If I had left you behind and focused on Doomsday, I could have defeated him eventually. But I couldn’t leave you. I wanted to save you, and I did. And, in turn, you saved me too after he injured me. We both saved each other that day.”
“You see, Astrid, I was cursed by someone to never have children of my own. I’ve only known you for a few weeks, but I care for you as if you were my own. I rescued you. I gave you a name. And I adopted you. You are my daughter, and nothing anyone says will ever change that.”
The girl averted her eyes and buried her face into the crook of his neck as she cried.
“How-, how do I know you’re not just saying that?”
He broke the embrace and cupped her small face in his hands to make her meet his eyes.
“I can show you. I could take you inside my mind and let you feel my emotions, my thoughts, and my feelings. Do you want that?”
Astrid nodded at him through her tears.
Harry leaned down and touched his forehead against hers.
Involuntarily, Astrid’s eyes closed, and she found herself being pulled into Harry’s mind, watching a memory through his eyes.
It was the memory of when he found her inside Cadmus’ secret laboratory. She felt his surprise at seeing her appearance for the first time and his resolve to rescue her and even sacrifice himself to protect her from Doomsday, taking a powerful hit for her sake.
Memories flashed in front of her eyes as though she were in a dream. She experienced Harry’s feelings of joy at seeing how clingy and affectionate she was. She felt Harry’s happiness every time she jumped into his arms to hug him. His emotions while he was casting magic spells, conjuring various animals and flowers to entertain her, were transmitted to Astrid too.
She understood then that Harry truly viewed her as his daughter. That he had never looked at her as though she was a mere clone. That he treasured every moment that he spent together with her. He didn’t just tolerate or accept her. He adored her. To him, she was the cutest girl in the world. She was his little angel.
When the spell broke and Astrid’s consciousness returned to her own body, the little girl jumped into Harry’s arms and hugged him tightly.
“I’m sorry, dad. I’m so sorry.”
“Ow, ow!” he cried out from the superhuman strength she was using to squeeze his neck. “You’re going to kill your poor father at this rate, and you’ll feel even sorrier after that.”
She snorted with laughter through her tears as she lessened the strength of her arms around his neck.
They stood like that for a long time, until Astrid had no more tears left to cry. But Harry did not mind it. He climbed into the bed with her and sat her in his lap. She laid her head on his chest, smiling as he caressed her hair softly.
“You know, there is a way for you to become my daughter biologically too.”
She looked up at him, her blue eyes widening.
“How would that be possible??”
Although she was only one month old, Astrid’s learning speed was like that of a supercomputer; a Kryptonian’s brain couldn’t be compared to that of a human. She understood the meaning of his words, hence why she was so confused.
“It’s a magic ritual,” Harry explained, smiling at her. “Back in the world I come from, some aristocratic families in the Wizarding World used to perform this ritual when they could not give birth to any children of their own; they would adopt other children and perform a Blood Adoption ritual so that they would continue the family line.”
“Whoa. . . can magic really do anything? I’m so envious!”
He ruffled her hair playfully.
“You’re a Kryptonian. You have nothing to be envious of.”
“Yes, I do! You can make flowers, birds, snakes, puppies, and anything else you want! You can also become invisible, read minds, teleport. . . and many other amazing things!”
“Oh, shush. You, Kryptonians, are so powerful, it’s unfair. Your mom could probably twist me like a pretzel if I made her mad.”
Astrid giggled, and Harry started laughing with her too.
“So that's why you’re always treating me so nicely?” came a third voice from the door of the bedroom.
It was Power Girl, who had just come back from Justice League work. She was standing with a hand on her hips, smirking at him teasingly.
“Yep, that, and a few other reasons. . . that cannot be mentioned in polite company. I shan’t speak lest I sin.”
The joke was lost on Astrid, but Kara burst into laughter.
“As shameless as ever,” she said, shaking her head as she walked to the bed. “Come on, don’t hog Astrid all to yourself! Make some space for me too!”
“No, she’s mine!” Harry shouted and turned with his back, covering Astrid completely, away from Power Girl’s reach.
She squealed and laughed as her parents fought over her, but, in the end, try as he might, her father couldn’t do much against her mother’s Kryptonian strength, and he got yanked out of the bed and sent flying.
Instinctively, Harry turned into a black cat when he got thrown out and twisted his body to land on his feet. Cats always land on their feet.
A silence that you could hear a pin drop was heard before Astrid exploded:
“Ohmygoshyoucanturnintoacat!”
She flew out of the bed, and, before Harry could react, he found himself picked up by Astrid, who proceeded to squeeze the life out of him.
“Astrid! You’re squishing him!” Kara said through giggles, but the little girl was overwhelmed by how cute his black cat Animagus form was. Her envy for Harry’s magical abilities only soared from that incident.
Harry meowed and struggled with all his might to get out of her arms, but it was to no avail. In the end, he gave up and just let Astrid smother him as much as she wanted.
⁂
Several days passed since the drama and the bonding moment between Harry and Astrid. The weekend was finally here, and Harry intended on keeping his word.
“Can’t believe it didn’t cross my mind to do this when my arm was shattered. I wouldn’t have had to spend several days scouring Themyscira’s forest for magical plants and brewing a half-baked potion that hurt like hell. . .” Harry muttered dejectedly.
Kara laughed and pecked him on the cheek.
“It just goes to show how much you care about our little angel.”
Now that Kara was off from work and also informed the Justice League that she may not be available in the next two days, she, Harry, and Astrid prepared themselves for an interdimensional trip.
Seeing as it was September, Kara was super excited about dressing up in her autumn outfits. She rarely went out nowadays; she was either at work, wearing formal office outfits as a no-nonsense female CEO was supposed to, or doing hero work, wearing her Power Girl costume. She rarely had the chance to show off her outfits.
Kara smirked when she came out of the dressing room, and her superhearing picked up the sound of Harry's heartbeats quickening. But, to much to her surprise, his instant response was:
“No Way!”
“Huh?!” Kara said, thrown off by the discrepancy between his bodily reaction and his words.
“We’re going to go into a world where people dress and act like they did 100 years ago. Everyone will stare at you like at a zoo. You can’t go around like that!”
“You’re kidding!”
When Harry just stared at her, she whined in a manner that nobody would expect Power Girl to act like:
“Aww, come onnn, Harry! So what if they stare? Who cares?”
She had a body to die for, and she was never ashamed of showing it off.
“You might even get stopped by the patrolling Aurors for public indecency if you walk around like that!”
“I’ll just beat them up if they have a problem with it.”
In all fairness, her outfit was not that indecent. It was rather simple, consisting of a pair of beige thigh-high boots and a tight sweater dress that hugged her hourglass figure like a second skin. The main problem with it was the large window in her chest and her big breasts nearly popping out of it.
Harry pinched the bridge of his nose. Sometimes, she was stubborn to a fault.
“Come on, Kara, when have I ever made a fuss about what you wore? Never. I love your style too. But we’re going to a society stuck in the Victorian era. I just want to do our business there, take what we need, and be on our way without any complications or attracting unnecessary attention.”
She let out an annoyed huff.
“Fiiine. Party pooper.”
She disappeared back into the dressing room with her super speed and came out once again, only two seconds later, wearing a different outfit. . . or that was supposed to be the case.
“Really? It’s literally the same! No, it’s even more eye-catching!” he burst in exasperation.
It was an outfit similar to the first one, but the sweater dress was a deep red colour now, and she was wearing black stockings together with her beige thigh-high boots.
When Kara started laughing, he realised that she was messing with him on purpose this time.
“Alright, the third time is the charm,” she said and stuck her tongue out at him childishly before disappearing into the dressing room with a blur of speed again.
Two seconds later, she came back wearing another sweater dress-
‘How many sweater dresses does she have?’
It was a white sweater dress with a slightly smaller boob window, and it went down to her mid-thigh, where a diagonal slit revealed her long, smooth, athletic legs. It was a dip hem dress—the type of dress that was longer at the back and shorter at the front.
The outfit was completed by a pair of black ankle boots and a pair of round golden earrings. She still looked gorgeous, but it was a more stylish dress, an outfit that was less in-your-face kind of sexy.
“Well, what do you think?” Kara asked, posing confidently with her hand on her hip.
“You’ll die if you don’t look sexy for one day, won’t you?”
She giggled as she walked toward him with a sway in her hips.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing her lips to his in a chaste kiss.
"It is a compliment. You're breathtaking."
He wrapped his arms around her slender waist, pressing her body against his as he ran his hands gently over the curve of her hips and back. He was just barely holding himself from turning their chaste kiss into something more passionate.
He broke the kiss and smacked her ass lightly, greatly enjoying the way his hand bounced back from the elasticity of her toned cheeks.
Kara grinned at him teasingly. She would never get tired ofseeing how deeply her beauty was affecting him.
“Mom, dad! Are you ready?” came Astrid’s voice from outside their bedroom.
Harry stole one more kiss, pecking her on the lips, before letting go of her.
“Yes, come in.”
“Finally! I thought I’d have to wait for you for 2 hours!” the girl said in chagrin, putting her hands on her waist for further emphasis.
Astrid was dressed in a pretty outfit too, in a child version of her mother’s. She was wearing a burgundy sweater dress, black stockings, and grey boots.
“Come here, you little monkey!” Harry said, snatching her and bringing her up in his arms. She was just too cute.
“Dad! You’re wrinkling my clothes!” she said, trying to pretend that she was annoyed.
“Oh, no! If only there were a magic spell that could straighten out your clothes!”
At this retort, the little girl couldn’t hold a straight face anymore and started giggling.
“Okay. Time to go. You girls got everything you need?” Harry asked.
“Yes.”
Kara hugged his side tightly, and Harry also wrapped his arm around her. With Kara at his side and Astrid in his arms, they were ready to go.
“Let me do it! I want to do it!” Astrid said when Harry was about to activate the Portkey.
He smiled at her enthusiasm. For some reason, the little girl just loved travelling by Portkey. He gave her the empty bag of chips that he had turned into a Portkey.
Astrid took the Porkey and said the activation word:
“Stinky!”
The space twisted, and their bodies disappeared into thin air.
⁂
A few moments later, the three of them found themselves inside an extremely large hall, in the middle of over 20 people who were wearing superhero costumes.
Momentarily, all of them were in shock, and Harry took advantage of their stupor to quickly cast a shielding charm around him and his family.
“Who are you?”
“Identify yourself right away!”
After getting over their surprise, the hero-costumed people immediately surrounded them from all sides, brandishing their weapons or making various elemental abilities appear in their hands.
“We’ve come in peace,” Harry said. “I need to speak to Lex Luthor or Martian Manhunter.”
Naturally, his words went through one of their ears and left through the other. They couldn’t take what he said at face value after he infiltrated their headquarters and suddenly popped out of nowhere in their midst.
Luckily, Martian Manhunter happened to be inside the building, and his voice rang from the speakers installed in the room.
“Everyone, don’t worry. I know them; they are not villains. They are my guests.”
His words stopped the heroes from attacking them, and, a few moments later, Martian Manhunter’s immaterial body flew down through the ceiling, appearing in front of them.
“J’onn! Long time no see!” Kara said happily, and she walked to him, taking him in her arms.
“Long time, indeed!” the Martian replied, showing a rare smile.
Harry also came when Kara let go of him and shook the Martian’s hand.
“How has this world been treating you?” Harry asked.
“Better than I could have ever imagined,” J’onn said. “But let us go together upstairs. Lex Luthor is present as well. I am sure he would be happy to see you. None of this would have been possible without your help.”
⁂
“Emissary! Had I known you would come, I would have organised a welcoming party!” Let Luthor said, smiling as she shook Harry’s hand with both hands.
“You look healthy, Mr Luthor.”
“None of that Mister with me. Call me Lex. You’re far older than I am anyway, aren’t you?” Luthor joked.
“You can also call me Harry,” he said, chuckling. Then, he introduced his family to him.
“You probably know her already; this is Kara Zor-L. She is my fiance.”
Kara almost choked on her spit, looking at Harry wide-eyed as she shook Lex Luthor’s hand.
“And this is my daughter, Astrid.”
“Nice to meet you, Mr Luthor,” Astrid said shyly.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you too, young lady,” Lex Luthor said amiably.
Glancing at the little girl who was hiding behind her mother’s skirt shyly, Luthor asked:
“Does time flow differently on your Earth? When did you get a daughter so big?”
“It’s a long story.”
The four adults spent the next hour catching up. Harry and Powergirl told them about the situation on their Earth, about Cadmus’ assassination attempts, about the deaths of Rocket Red and Animal Man, and about the newly created ARGUS organisation too.
In exchange, Martian Manhunter and Lex Luthor informed them of the current situation of their dimension too.
“You’re not the only one who got engaged,” Luthor said. “J’onn here already has a set date for his wedding.”
“That quickly?!” Powergirl blurted out in surprise.
J’onn smiled, not bothered by her reaction.
“Rose and I have connected on a deep level from the first day we met, back when the Justice League came to this dimension for the first time,” he explained. “It’s exceedingly rare for two minds to be so in tune with each other. We fell in love from the first moment our minds met telepathically. There is no meaning in waiting.”
“The mass media is talking up a storm about it,” Lex added. “They find it hard to believe that the daughter of the president of the United States would fall in love with someone out of the blue and marry him a few months later.”
J’onn and Luthor told Harry and Kara about the situation of the Crime Syndicate too. Superwoman and her Made Men were still bound by her Unbreakable Vow, working on the side of Justice, but everyone else was imprisoned, even Ultraman, the other dimension counterpart of Superman.
“It’s an era of peace like we haven’t known in forever,” said Lex Luthor. “Nowadays, there are barely any armed robberies or organised crimes. Most of our problems are of a political nature now, with the rest of the world being worried that the USA and the Justice League are too powerful. It’s mostly mind games and diplomacy.”
“But Lex is unmatched in this field,” J’onn said, smiling.
“With all that being said, what brings you here, Harry?” Luthor asked.
“I need your help with something,” he said directly, not beating around the bush. “That device with which you travelled between dimensions, is it still working?”
“Yes, though only J’onn and I have access to it. Everyone else thinks it was destroyed,” Luthor said honestly. “Why do you need it?”
“I’m looking for a dimension where the counterparts of my people exist. An Earth where the Wizarding World I come from exists. It’s for the sake of my daughter.”
Harry didn’t go into detail, but Lex Luthor did not doubt his words. Even if Harry were to tell him a lie, after everything that he had done for him, Luthor couldn’t even think about turning down his request. That’s because Harry’s actions had literally saved Luthor’s world.
A few minutes later, Luthor and J’onn led the three of them to a secret room of the Justice League's headquarters on the moon.
“This is the controlling device,” Luthor said as he handed Harry something that looked like a remote control with a round antenna.
“Unfortunately, the quantum trigger was lost when you destroyed the QED bomb on Earth Prime. The amount of charges you have is limited. You can only cross dimensions four times. You will have to find another source of energy to recharge it after that. The intensity and-”
“Um, it’s probably better if you talked to Kara about the specifics. Technology and I don’t mix well,” Harry said.
While Luthor and Kara started talking about the teleporting device and other complicated scientific subjects, Harry took Astrid (who had been remarkably quiet and patient until then) and started exploring the room, glancing at the various futuristic tech stored in there.
⁂
Two hours later, Harry, Kara, and Astrid appeared in the middle of London, in a side alley, with a great flash of light.
The leisurely trip through a magical world that Kara and Astrid had been expecting turned out to be a disappointment because this was the fourth dimension that they were visiting, and they had yet to find an Earth where the Wizarding World existed.
Not wanting to drag the two girls around with him for no reason, Harry went to check the usual magical places in London by himself, casting wide-area-of-effect Revelio Charms and even launching eye-catching magical fireworks in the skies above London in order to catch the eyes of the Ministry of Magic.
Unfortunately, this fourth world was a bust too.
Imagining the crestfallen look on both Kara’s and Astrid’s faces, Harry felt bad for them.
‘Can’t be helped. There’s nothing I can do about it,’ he thought.
There was an infinite number of Earths, an infinite number of realities. In the end, finding an Earth where the Wizarding World existed was not that different from winning the lottery.
He was about to Apparate back to where the girls were waiting for him when he felt the air becoming extremely cold and the rooftop of the building he was standing on freezing all over as though he were at the South Pole.
Understanding what was about to come next, Harry became tense.
A cold chill travelled down his spine, and he felt two bony hands touch his shoulders from behind.
“I’m starting to feel hurt, Harry. You’ve been quite neglectful of me lately, haven’t you?”
That raspy, inhuman voice made him break into cold shudders.
“Death. Is there something that you need me to do?”
Death took their hands off his shoulders and flew around him, stopping in front of him to face him.
‘Fortunately, it’s the grim reaper appearance,’ Harry thought in relief. The human girl appearance was creeping him out far more than this inhuman, grim reaper look.
“I don’t need anything from you. You’re the one who needs something from me.”
“. . . But I didn’t call for your aid.”
“Don’t you want to find a dimension where the Wizarding World exists?” Death asked.
“Thank you, but I’d rather find it by myself.”
Death laughed.
“Harry, Harry. . . that little trinket that your friend gave you is quite marvellous for a mortal, but you may spend a lifetime scouring the Multiverse for an Earth with the Wizarding World, and you may still not find it.”
When Harry didn’t reply right away, Death came to sit on the edge of the building’s rooftop next to him, as if they were pals.
“I’m not your enemy, you know?” Death began.
“Could’ve fooled me,” Harry muttered.
“You’re never going to let go of that meteorite incident, are you?” Death said, sighing.
At Harry’s deadpan stare, Death raised their hands.
“Fine. I admit, I did cross the line back then. But I am trying to make up for it.”
“So that’s why you want to help me? No ulterior motives?” Harry said sceptically.
In Death’s eyes, the past, the present, and the future were one. Death could not predict Harry’s future actions because he was their Emissary, but they could easily influence or manipulate Harry with their knowledge, like when they got Harry killed with a meteorite.
“I gave you my word that I would never try to get you killed again, didn’t I? I am not a human. I don’t lie,” Death said, sounding as though they felt insulted by his suspicions. “I told you before, you and I are entwined for eternity. You are my precious Emissary. Since we’ll be together for aeons, is it not better for us to get along?” (1)
“No hidden side effects? No hidden prices? No hidden agenda?” he asked one last time.
“Let’s just say that you being close to your newfound family works in my favour,” Death said uncaringly.
“You’re just hoping that they’d kick the bucket and that I’d trade my life for them, aren’t you?”
Death chuckled in amusement. “Please. We both know you’re a hopelessly loyal fool with a saviour complex. Even if you aren’t blood-related, if something were to happen to that little girl - Astrid was her name? - you’d trade your life for hers regardless.”
Harry couldn’t find a retort against that.
“. . .Fine, you win.”
“I knew you’d see my way,” Death said and a tear appeared in the space in front of them. “This portal will take you to an Earth where the Wizarding World exists. I’m not asking you to do anything over there. Whether you get involved or not with anyone or anything in that world is entirely up to you.”
Harry glanced at Death’s wraith-like body and then at the shadowy crack in space.
“Thank you, Death,” he said before stepping through the portal and vanishing from view.
Once he was gone, Death let out a chuckle. It was a cold, raspy laughter that would make anyone tremble with anxiety but if Harry were to hear it, he would recognise the fact that Death sounded happy. It was a chuckle of satisfaction.
⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂
AN: If you wish to join my Discord server, you can do so at /x7xdd53WqE
It was the first time Harry had hacked a console or anything else in his entire life, but if there was one thing that he was famous among his friends for, it was his reaction time and quick thinking in stressful moments.
Regulators were a type of flying drones used by the Grineer to jam communications, radars, and any other devices that functioned based on radio waves. 
(gif taken from this cinematic video) 
