FicWad

'Well. We won. But it came at a cost. Everything we know – everything we grew up with, all of it is gone. There's not many of us left now. This war with the enemy nearly wiped out everyone. Nikolai, Takeo and Richtofen have all agreed with me that it's going to be damn near impossible for us to rebuild, to go back to the way things were. But things aren't all bad. We can still rebuild but it will take some time for us to get back to the level of technology we were use too.' - Dempsey

Naruto was in a corner and quietly keeping to himself. The cowl of his hood was angled in such a way that it shadowed his face, while concealing the rest of it. Unknown to the others and the Keeper who was hovering beside him the blonde was sleeping. Had been for a few minutes now and no one was the wiser.

His sleep was about to be abruptly interrupted by a certain short haired hybrid.

Helen walked over and with a sniggering grin she loudly announced her presence by sitting down beside him with and said out loud, "Hey! Kid!"

The sudden noise jerked Naruto awake and he smacked the back of his head against the wall behind him.

"Agh!" he groaned painfully as he reached behind his head to rub at the throbbing area of his skull. Naruto weakly glared at the sniggering Helen from under his hood. "Not funny Helen."

Helen covered her sniggering mouth, "I thought it was." she threw an arm over his shoulder and pulled Naruto to her, who grunted in surprise at the sudden action. "So before you ended up here, what was your home like?"

Naruto looked at her and then at Miria in suspicion. Was she fishing for information? Meh. He doesn't see any harm in telling her; it's not like no one back home is going to berate him for it. The ungrateful cunts.

"...What do you want to know?"

Helen shrugged. "Are there any yomas; voracious eaters; the organization there? You know, the basics."

"By 'organization' I'm guessing you mean the men in black?" at her nod Naruto sighed and rest his chin on his hand. "No. On the first and second." that earned him a hopeful look from Helen. Having a place where there's no yoma's and awakened beings? That seemed like a dream come true! "The third, well, considering my parents sold me to them I am sure they're there. If they're not then they are either well connected to the people in my homeland or they just got there recently. Anything else you want to know?"

"What does it look like when it's compared to here?"

"Well...appearance wise, it's not that different if I am honest. The buildings are very similar to my homes." Naruto admitted with a tired sigh. "The differences my homeland has when compared to here is that we use some technology that was recovered from the old world." if he hadn't gotten her full attention then, what he said just now certainly did. "Making buildings from metal, glass and brick. Some of them are big enough to be seen above the city walls. We even have electricity!" what he said there had surprised Helen immensely. Because while much of the technology from the old world had been lost, some of the things they had utilised before their fall is still known. Electricity being one of them. But she didn't say anything and allowed Naruto to go on; the hooded blonde paused momentarily just so he can think on what he can explain next. "Weapon wise we use swords, cannons, grenades and muskets."

When Miria walked over she caught the end of Naruto's explanation, which immediately caught her interest.

"- weapon wise, we use swords, cannons, grenades and muskets."

"What's a musket?" Helen asked from what she could hear from her position.

"It's a firearm. Ever heard of those?" The blond male responded, to which Helen responded with a 'no' and shake of her head. Naruto continued his explanation, describing the type of weapon in detail. These muskets he spoke of used a substance he called 'gunpowder' to function, which when struck gave energy and velocity to small projectiles made of metal. Bullets, another terminology Miria was unfamiliar with.

"How fast are these projectiles?" the sitting woman asked unknowing that Miria was getting closer to them.

Naruto clicked his tongue and exhaled. "It's a little hard to explain, but to give a simple answer: they move faster than the eye can see. They're really small too. They're about this size." he made a circle with his thumb and forefinger to show her. "They're incredibly inaccurate though, and can only be fired once before the long process of reloading is required. That's done by loading gunpowder into a pan or tube inside the rifle, and of course there's the chamber to house ammunition." Naruto added, touching up on the musket's flaws. "That said, in the hands of an entire platoon nothing is more dangerous than a hail of bullets."

"Huh. How do you know so much about that?" Helen was really into the conversation now and while the kid was speaking in terms she didn't really understand, she could tell he was not lying about it.

Naruto chuckled and shrugged, "I used a musket here and there in the past. I had to learn how to use it properly." which was a bit of trail and error on his part. Kakashi and Yamato were the ones who taught him. His mother and father, and his own sisters didn't bother trying. To him they probably thought he would just waste their time given he was talentless in pretty much everything else he tried to do. It was pretty ironic he was strangely good at utilising firearms, and from the looks of things the Wrath of the Ancients and Ancients Wrath as well.

The young man scratched the side of his cheek and admitted, "like for example, I was a security guard once during a brief stint in a penitentiary. Muskets were pretty standard, so..."

"You? A prison guard? No way kid. You're scrawny!" Helen giggled at the thought.

"Hey! They weren't picky about who they recruited!" Naruto defended himself. "The warden was this big fat guy, if that tells you something." Helen furrowed her brow at the image before making a face. "And he does the searches of inmates himself. Body cavity searches, even."

At that, Helen's face turned sour. "Gross," she said.

Miria made a disgusted face at the image too. "Yeah. Tell me about it. And besides' I took down a Margwa by myself. Sure I had a little help on where its weakness was, but I took it down by myself." he pointed out to her.

Helen had to give him that. For a normal human being to kill an abomination like that on their lonesome was nothing short of impressive.

"I have to ask: if your homeland is this advanced then how come the organization didn't take anything?" Helen asked, and Miria took this time to butt in to the conversation as well. As she too was curious; the organisation were not the type of people to just let any advantage out of their grasp.

"Yes, I would like to know this as well." both Helen and Naruto looked at the woman; Miria looked between the two and crossed her arms under her bust. Waiting patently for an answer.

Naruto let out a tired sigh, "They took me remember?" he directed that at Helen, "But if you're talking about everything else, well, I don't have an answer for you. There could be many reasons. Theories."

"The highest levels of my former village were involved in me being here, I know that much. To what extent I don't know, but it definitely went all the way to the top back home." Naruto clicked his teeth, shaking his head. "That's it, really. But I'm still here, not in the Organization's clutches like those traitors hoped for."

"...What did the organization try to do?" that voice was from someone he didn't know and looking up Naruto saw he had gotten the attention of everyone in the room. The one that spoke was the one with the pageboy; Clare. "You said the Organization had their hands on you; what were they trying to do?" she asked once more when he gave her a confused look.

"They tried to cut me open; to conduct an experiment if I had to guess. I can remember some creepy guy in black with half of his face missing standing over me. I blacked out after that, and when I came to again there was some... unexpected help. Long story short; I'm a free man."

"...Half of his face missing?" the muscular woman said questioningly as many of the women shuddered; they heard Dae was killed off a month ago and had a strange circular wound on his head. While the man wasn't missed by any of them - he was just plain creepy - the heads of the Organization were more than a little angry that they had lost one of their own. Especially with one as valuable as Dae with his previous occupation as their lead scientist director.

Miria had read the reports when the handlers and heads weren't looking. The damage was so severe on the back of Dae's head that large skull fragments and brain-matter covered the floor around him. They found a strange projectile embedded in the ground under the deceased man's head. It was damaged though.

And there were similar wounds on the other men they had recovered too.

And based on what he described of these bullets, she came to the conclusion that these projectiles in his homeland were one and the same. She wasn't far off on that. It was indeed a bullet that killed them, but not the kind she is thinking of or the ones Naruto knows of.

"Who were the people who rescued you?" Miria asked; if they could find them then their chances of getting off this forsaken island would increase.

"I don't know." Naruto repled, lying through his teeth. "They were...different. Too different. One had weapons that was similar to a musket but was more advanced."

Everyone in the room jumped when they heard the Keeper hiss. They had forgotten it was in the room with them. "An advanced musket? Hmm. There are many from the Old World that has been lost to time. But I remember them. Would this be the weapon you're talking about, human?" the Keeper asked and before their very eyes the Keeper created a perfect replica of an M-16 assault rifle, one of the weapons that the Namikaze had seen the other Naruto use in his rescue, in its hands.

"Holy shit." Naruto quickly got up and walked over. "That's one of them!"

"That's a musket?" Helen asked as she too got up to get a better look. Miria was even interested in it now that she got to see one, even if it was a replica, up close and personal.

"No this is something else entirely. Something more far advanced than a musket. If my memory is right...this is an...M16? Did I get that right?" Naruto looked at the Keeper for confirmation. The Keeper nodded.

"I need me one of those." Naruto had to admire the black rifle's appearance. He had no idea what material it was made of, but it sure had a sheen to it. Mostly the handguard and stock he would presume, the other parts seemed more metal-like, excepted they were a matte black.

"It doesn't look much if you ask me." a muscular woman said.

Naruto let out a chuckle; while it didn't look much even he knew how deadly it was. The muskets were based on the battle rifles the Old World used after all. "Well considering the projectiles it shoots are faster than the eye can see appearances won't matter."

"How many more of these weapons did the Old World have?" Cynthia asked.

"Too many to count. And too many to bring up." the Keeper hissed, with Naruto translating once more. Cynthia pouted with disappointment at that and Naruto found it cute; thank god that his hood was still up or else they would have seen him blush a little.

Suddenly Helen came to a realisation, "Hey!" she put an arm over Naruto's shoulder and pulled him into a one armed hug, with his hooded face against her chest, "I just realised we're bonding kid!" she exclaimed with a cheeky grin; she ignored the grunt of protest from the boy and the irritated sigh from her best friend.

After a bit of wrestling, Naruto was finally able to free himself of Helen's grasp. "H-hey! Get off me, man!"

"I'm a woman, you know."

"It's just an expression of... you know what, never mind." he sighed.

"He he he, you know you liked it." Helen had a big smug grin on her face.

Naruto opened his mouth to say something, only to close it again. He shook his head, "Nope. I am not going to dig myself any deeper."

"C'mon kid, admit it." Naruto started to lean away uncomfortably as Helen leaned in. "You liked being pushed against my chest." she was practically purring now.

"Helen, knock it off." Deneve told her. The flustered Naruto nodded his thanks towards the pixie-haired woman for the save. He was embarrassed enough as it were with Helen's consistent teasing.

Helen sighed and eased up on her teasing. "Alright. But answer me this kid: has anyone ever teased you the way I did back home?" to her it was a harmless question, to Deneve it was another way to try and embarrass Naruto.

To Naruto on the other hand it was more than that. "No. Actually. Truth be told no one back home ever gave me the light of day. Being a failure and all that. That's not to say I haven't met girls before. Just not from my home town. I travelled for a bit until I was about 15, before going back home two years ago." Girls in his home never gave him the light of day. However some foreign women had no idea who he was, and on occasion he was considered to be handsome. About the only good thing he got from his father were his good looks, apparently.

Naruto was almost a carbon copy of his father, with a few facial differences passed down from his birth mother. But for the most part, his looks came from dear old dad. From the high cheek bones to the golden blond hair and sky blue eyes.

"People called you a failure? Why?" Clare asked him with narrowed eyes.

"My dad is the leader of my town and a war hero. My mum, a former commander and a war hero also. My sisters, are well known commanders in my homes military. To make a long story short: failure to meet expectations. I may be good using guns but that was all." Naruto replied, more than a little bitter at them.

"Because of you using trail and error for that." Miria said.

"Yeah. I did horribly at everything else they tried to have me do. So I was brushed off as a failure and they made sure to let everyone else know too." he concluded with a shrug. Suffice to say he stopped caring about them a long time ago.

"...What a bunch of dicks!"

"Yuma!" one of the women gasped, scandalised.

The long haired woman tried to shrink in on herself at her exclamation before she seemingly got a grip on herself, "It's true though! They must not be good parents if they just...did that to him!" she said, pointing at the hooded blonde.

"In their defence, and I don't do this often, my family has a military background. And they have a lot of enemies." which wasn't much of a defence. But then again he didn't say it was going to be a good defence.

"That's...not much of a defence kid." Helen pointed out.

"Oh I know. I never said it was going to be a good one."

"Sooooo...what do you look like under your hood?" Helen asked and Naruto was both thankful and annoyed. Thankful because she changed the topic and annoyed because now he's pretty sure they're going to be curious too.

He knew he was going to regret asking this, "Why do you want to know?"

"You've been with us for like, almost a week, and not once have I seen your face." Despite herself, Deneve too was curious as Helen, though she did not voice it like her friend.

"Would you drop it if I said I was ugly? Like...bringing a tear to your eye ugly?"

"I don't believe you." Helen said with a flat stare.

"...Yeah, didn't think so." Naruto sighed; he looked at the other hybrids and saw they were curious as well. Even though a few of them, like Miria, tried to show disinterest. "Fine, whatever, this was bound to happen soon anyway," the young man sighed again before pulling his down, revealing golden locks which fell down to frame his jaw. It was getting pretty long, if he said so himself.

The blond male brushed his hair out of his forehead, as a few strands fell down in front of his piercing blue eyes. He seriously needed a haircut, it was extremely shaggy and it made him too reminiscent of his father. Naruto just never had the time for it. Maybe he can change that after all of this is over.

Helen grinned with a bit of pink dusting her cheeks, he was pretty cute actually. "See, you're not so bad kid." the woman purred, staring directly into the depth of those azure orbs, easily his most striking feature. "You know, I never seen eyes like yours before. Guess you really are not from here, huh?"

Naruto blinked at her for a moment before saying, "Aaaaaand that's my cue to put the hood back on." as he quickly pulled the hood back up. Or rather that was his intention. Helen kinda put a stop to that.

Helen laughed as she kept Naruto from covering his face again. "C'mon now, hiding a face like yours is an injustice! Hmm, you could use a haircut though." The woman ran her gloved hand through his hair, patting him as if he were a dog. Then she pinched his cheek, grinning with amusement. "You're just adorable! Deneve, we're definitely keeping him!"

"H-hey! And I'm right here you know!"

"Yes you are, Naruto. Yes you are."

"And quit pinching my cheek would you?!"

She did that only to caress his cheek instead. However that made it easier for him to get away. Helen allowed him too and watched with mild disappointment as he quickly pulled his hood back up.

He quickly moved back to his original spot and sat down. The Keeper seeing as no one was looking at the M16 dematerialised it and went back to what it was doing before. Standing guard.

"You should show your face more often Naruto. You are rather handsome." said Helen, and many of the women silently agreed with her. They thought Naruto was good looking, though some hid it better than others. Quite a few girls looked like they were about to swoon while others were tinted red on the cheeks.

Cynthia, Veronica and Yuma being a few who were red cheeked. Though like Miria and Deneve, Veronica had kept it hidden with a mask of indifference. Though the formers were slightly red faced as well.

"Handsome?" he smiled, but it wasn't amused. "Heh... That's the funniest thing I've heard all day."

Deneve frowned at his tone and said as she crossed her arms. "Something tells me there's a story to this."

Naruto rolled his neck and shoulders to loosen the stiffness he felt settling in, "My family are famous commanders and war heroes remember. Nine times out of ten people who showed an 'interest' in me, and I am saying that loosely, had used me to get close to my parents and sisters." he sighed and rolled his wrist and feet, "Suffice to say those kind of relationships never lasted longer than a month or two. At worst. If I am lucky they mess up and I cut off ties to them within a few days."

"That's...sucky." Helen lamely said; really this kid had a lot of shit done to him. The fact he had been sold to the organization, something a few people in this very room can sympathise with, being used by people to get close to his family.

"That's life. And life's not fair. Sometimes you have to just...suck it up and deal with it. Or ignore it all together. Or just go on with what you have." Naruto felt as if he had aged a little discussing that. And he wasn't comfortable with it. "Can we talk about something else?

"Actually, I think it's near the time the voracious eaters are going to attack." Miria said stopping the conversation while simultaneously reminding everyone of their circumstance. "We should prepare ourselves for the onslaught."

"Right."

"We heard you captain."

"Great. The voracious eaters..."

The hybrids said while others saluted or gave nods of affirmation to her. Miria then brought her attention to Naruto.

"As for you: stay here. If the voracious eaters know you're here, they'll try to kill you first." Naruto didn't say anything; he silently stared at her before sighing and nodding in acceptance.

"What about the Keeper?" Eliza asked.

"It'll-" Miria began only to be interrupted by Naruto.

"-stay with me. If those eater things do find me then it would be a good idea to have a Keeper to back me up." he told them and seeing they weren't happy – Helen and Deneve looked a little irritated and annoyed at him – that he had practically taken away their higher chance of survival he threw in some logic. "There's over twenty of you and one of me. I think I'd need the protection a heck of a lot more than you do."

He hummed thoughtfully and added, "But if it looks like you're about to die, then the Keeper can go and bail you out. Happy?"

The other 23 hybrids looked at Miria to see what she would say. She was thoughtfully staring at the ground from the bottom of her eyes. Sighing the leader came to a decision and looked at the sitting Naruto who was waiting patently for her answer.

"It'll do."

Naruto nodded and watched as Miria turned and gestured for the women to follow her outside. Helen stopped, just for a moment, and looked at Naruto from over her shoulder in concern before following Miria and the others outside.

When it was just himself and the Keeper inside the room, the young man looked at the hovering being with a frown. "Alright I want you to be honest with me Keeper, how many people can you teleport at once?"

"...I can teleport twenty four people." was its answer.

Naruto let out a sigh although it came out as a growl. That, posed a problem. Thinning his lips the young man brought his hands to his face.

"Alright," he began as he made his decision bringing his hands down to his lap, "if worse comes to worse I want you to get them out first."

The Keeper stared at him, surprised, and Naruto could hear it in its tone as it said, "Are you sure? You'll be at the mercy of these...'voracious eaters' if I do so."

Naruto nodded, unyielding in his decision. "I'm sure, Keeper. Besides..." he fingered the blood vial hidden under his poncho, "I have a few things hidden up my sleeve."

The Keeper nodded in acceptance; it thought the young man was talking about Ancients Wrath and the Wrath of the Ancients.

"Very well. But I can give you some help. For when the time comes."

The Keeper started waving its hands around the orb of electricity. Faster and faster. Naruto slowly got to his feet as an object began to manifest within the orb, and it slowly got bigger and bigger.

Oh yeah, Naruto thought with a growing smile. He can work with this.

X.X.X.X

It took a few minutes for the enemy arrive but when they did it was a small group of three. Most likely a scouting party to test the waters. With Miria assigning them into five groups, mixing the strong with the weak, they were able to take them down with no deaths.

A few had gotten injured; and Yuma had lost a limb in the first assault.

But it wasn't over yet. Not by a long shot.

"Everyone prepare yourselves for the second wave! They'll be here any second!" Miria yelled to them and she knew that the second wave would be nothing like this farce of a force they had just dealt with.

And she was right. Because when everyone felt a huge surge of yoki from within Pieta's walls, so very shockingly close to them, everyone was struck with pure unaltered terror. When everyone looked in the direction it came from they all saw a werewolf/lion like awakened glaring down at them from a rooftop.

From the safety of the building the hybrids left him in Naruto was peering outside through the partially open door. He looked up and found the Keeper peering through the partially open door as well. Looking back outside the young man saw the women stiffen and look up at one of the rooftops in utter terror. Unfortunately he couldn't see who could make them feel such fear as they were out of his line of sight.

But whoever has them shaking in their boots like that must be trouble. Or something they stand little to no chance against.

"Keeper."

"Yes?"

"The second this thing they're afraid of attacks, go out there and get everyone out. Leave their weapons behind if you have too just get them out."

"Of course."

As requested, the Keeper had done just as he asked and in the blink of an eye, they were gone. Not a trace of they or the Keeper's existence was left behind. And just as the thing the women were afraid of showed himself, landing in the middle of the abandoned city looking around in confusion.

Naruto exhaled nervously - he was now alone. Whatever was coming this way, there were approaching very fast and he had very little time until they were finally here. Any sweat that could of seeped through the pores of his forehead were instantly freezed, courtesy of the frigid cold around him.

"Okay let's do this..." Naruto brought up the weapon he was given along with the attachments it came with.

It looked like an assault rifle of some kind. A different model from the M16. It had a sleek black tube on the front end of it. He had no idea what the purpose of that was but he wasn't going to take it off.

There was another device. It was small but it faintly glowed; pulsating every few seconds that showed several dots. It showed blue dots, but ever since the women were taken away by the Keeper it now showed red. And there were several of them closing in.

"Alright if my hunch of correct then the red dots are the enemy. Best find another way out..." backing away from the door Naruto searched for another exit to the building as quietly as possible.

It took a few minutes but he found the back door. Looking at the monitor? Yeah, he'll call it monitor for now. Looking at the monitor there was no enemy near by and recalling the nearest exit when he took on the Margwa – whatever happened to its corpse anyway? He never did see the body oddly enough – it was to the east of his current location.

As he made his way through the back allies a snow storm began to start. It got really heavy fairly quickly and rather than be annoyed by it Naruto was happy with it.

"Ah. Good timing weather!" he mused with with a small smile. The fact there was a winter storm coming means he can use it to cover his approach to the exit. And with the monitor he'll be able to tell where they are and how close they are to him.

However there were a couple of close calls. He had to get down on one knee and hunch over as low as he possibly could when a giant gorilla like awakened past him.

With the cover of the snow storm working for him plus the monitor telling him of any approaching enemies he made it out of the city undetected. Home free he sprinted as fast as he could under the cover of storm.

Naruto stopped running when he was far enough away from Pieta. And he was several miles out. So far that he should be hard to see under the howling storm of snow. He checked the monitor and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw there was no one near him any longer.

Now he had a new problem: he was in the FUCKING COLD!

Shivering with clattering teeth he regretted not changing his attire. He's not going to survive here. Not for long anyway. Putting the sling of the weapon over his head and shoulder he allowed the weapon to drop to his side.

He just had to figure out what to do from here.

His answer came in the form of the Keeper who reappeared just a few feet away from him. He saw that the robed being was exhausted teleporting all of those women as it was heaving and growling heavily.

"You...made...it..." the Keeper sounded surprised, and relieved, to see that he was unhurt. "Good...very good... Come...we must...get you... out of here." it said as it approached him one clawed hand reaching out to him.

Naruto gladly took its hand into his own, "Are you sure? You look like you're about to fall over any minute."

The Keeper nodded; there was no time to lose; the sooner it can get the human out of here the quicker it can rest. Then they were gone.

Of course, it wasn't that simple.

The Keeper had miscalculated; thought it could bring Naruto with it while it was exhausted. After it had teleported twenty four people at the same time. The Keeper had done it once, a long time ago, and it brought it to exhaustion. Of course seeing as it didn't have to bring anyone else with it at the time, the Keeper thought it could bring one more person with it while it was exhausted. A classic overestimation of oneself.

The Keeper got to its destination in the mountains with one person short and fell face first in the snow unconscious.

And Naruto was left elsewhere. Some place that is beyond the reach of almost everyone. Except the Keeper.