FicWad

And Chapter One is ready. Many thanks to MageOhki for helping me flesh out the details.

That said, I still need a decent prereader for this. I'm fairly certain that a number of things slipped through the cracks.

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Millions of people live beneath the expansive sky of a world that its inhabitants call "Earth", and they all harbor a variety of wishes and feelings. Those feelings sometimes touch and collide... but within some of those people are deeper ties that connect them together so that those feelings can be passed along. What's about to start is a story full of those contacts and encounters.

A tale of spectacular overkill begins now.

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Overkill,

A Naruto Fanfiction,

By Aleh

Chapter One: A Simple Wish, Part One

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Disclaimer: I own neither Naruto nor Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha.

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In the twilight hours of the night a young boy stood panting from exhaustion as he faced off against a formless creature. Pulling a red marble from his pocket as his short blond hair was swept back by a sudden wind, he thrust the marble forward. A spell-circle formed in front of the marble as the blue-eyed youth held it forth as a protective talisman against the being, the boy's concentration forcing the circle to narrow and approach his hand.

"Ethereal echo," he chanted as the monster charged him, "become light! Forbidden monster, enter this sealing circle! Jewel seed, seal!"

Blood flew as the creature approached the circle.

In the end, the monster managed to escape and the boy, injured, collapsed to the ground.

"Someone," he whispered, lacking the strength to stand and losing the battle to retain his consciousness, "please hear my voice... lend me your strength... your magical power..."

As the boy passed out his body was enveloped by light, his form fading and being replaced by that of a small brown ferret. Released from his hand, the marble hit the ground with a thud and came to rest next to the boy's body.

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An alarm clock sounded in a somewhat bare room, causing Naruto to snap awake. Realizing where he was, he yawned, stretched, and turned off the alarm. "That was a strange dream," he muttered as he pushed aside his covers and started his day.

As Naruto started his morning routine, he took a few moments to reflect on how his life had changed in just a few short weeks. They felt like longer, even if they'd passed in what felt like an instant. Naruto wasn't normally the sort to engage in philosophy, but it was a paradox that he found interesting enough to occupy his mind as he got dressed.

While Naruto still remembered the few lessons he'd had in the Academy, if vaguely, he wasn't Uzumaki Naruto, student in the Konoha Shinobi Academy, anymore. In Naruto's shock, he hadn't been very surprised to discover that the strange woman who sent him to meet Nanoha had provided him with identification and enrolled him in Nanoha's school. It had, however, been a shock to discover that all of the documentation referred to him by the name of Namikaze instead of Uzumaki.

"Good morning," Naruto called out to his surrogate parents as he entered the kitchen of the house that he was beginning to think of as his home.

"Ah, Naruto-kun," Nanoha's mother replied, "good morning."

"Good morning," Nanoha's father said, lowering his newspaper to smile at Naruto.

"Here," Nanoha's mother told him as he approached where she was cooking, handing him a tray with six cups full of hot tea, "could you take this to the table for me?"

"Sure," Naruto cheerfully agreed, taking the tray.

"Good morning," came another voice as Nanoha came into the room.

As the family again exchanged greetings and Naruto took the tray to the table, Naruto reflected on how grateful he was to have them in his life.

"Both of you managed to get up on your own today," Nanoha's father commented as he folded his newspaper and took a cup of tea from the tray. "That's impressive."

Nanoha's father, Takamachi Shiro, was the owner of the Takamachi's coffee shop, Midoriya, and the central pillar of the their family. Beyond that Shiro had gone out of his way to make Naruto feel welcome among the Takamachi family, going so far as to tell Naruto to address him as an uncle when they first met.

"Breakfast will me ready any minute now," Nanoha's mother cheerfully stated.

Nanoha's mother, Takamachi Momoko, was the person in charge of the sweets at Midoriya... and apparently Hell-bent on ensuring that Naruto tried all of them. Beyond that, however, she was the person who'd taken the time, day after day, to teach Naruto the things that most people took for granted... like etiquette. She'd spent several days' worth of lessons instructing him on that, calmly, gently, and patiently teaching him things like why you weren't supposed to leave your chopsticks standing in a bowl of rice.

On the other hand, she'd taken issue with Naruto addressing her as an aunt. Saying that it made her feel old, she'd told him to call her "mom." Naruto had been taken aback by that, but had quickly adjusted. She was both beautiful and kind... and a person that Naruto was quickly coming to view as his true mother instead of as a surrogate.

"About Oniichan and Oneechan," Nanoha asked.

"Ah," Shiro replied, "aren't they still in the dojo?"

Nanoha grabbed a towel on her way to get them, knowing that her sister would probably be sweaty after her morning practice.

Nanoha's older brother, Takamachi Kyouya, was a freshman in college. Having succeeded Shiro as the master of the Mikami Fuwa Ryuu, the family's kenjutsu style, he'd taken over his sister's training. While Naruto hadn't learned much of the Academy's taijutsu style, Kyouya had taken his form as something near a personal insult... and responded by helping Naruto to improve and refine it. Between Kyouya's busy schedule and Naruto's they hadn't been able to get much training in... but Naruto felt that Kyouya was a far better teacher than any of the people he'd learned from in the Academy.

Nanoha's older sister, Takamachi Miyuki, was a second-year high school student. While her schedule kept her far busier than Kyouya, Miyuki had taken the time to help Naruto catch up on his academics. While history was, perhaps understandably, by far his worst subject, Naruto was behind his classmates in a variety of areas. Miyuki, however, was a patient teacher, taking the time to answer Naruto's questions and help him truly understand the material. Between attending both school and juku with Nanoha, Miyuki's lessons, and a great deal of old-fashioned hard work, Naruto was rapidly catching up with the rest of his class.

All in all Naruto felt that the Takamachis were a truly wonderful family to be part of... even if the way Shiro and Momoko still acted like newlyweds sometimes made Naruto's teeth ache.

Most importantly, though, there was Nanoha. Naruto hadn't even known her for a full month, but he already found it difficult to imagine his life without her. More than anyone else, Nanoha had helped him feel at home in the strange world he'd arrived in. She had even confessed to him that she had felt like she had been the odd person out in her family, in part because of the strong bonds between her parents and between her siblings, and that Naruto already felt like the little brother that she'd always wanted.

After breakfast, Naruto and Nanoha boarded the bus to Seishou Auxiliary Elementary School. It had been a surprise to Nanoha when Naruto was enrolled in the same class as her but after the way he'd entered her life it was far less of one than it could have been. As they got on, a purple-haired girl in the back seat called out to the two of them. "Nanoha-chan, Naruto-kun!"

"Ah, Nanoha, Naruto-kun, over here!" the blonde girl sitting next to her greeted, waving.

"Suzuka-chan, Alisa-chan," Nanoha cheerfully acknowledged.

"Good morning," Naruto greeted.

After the obligatory "good mornings" were exchanged Suzuka and Alisa moved to let Nanoha and Naruto sit between them and spent the ride to school engaged in pleasant chatter.

Nanoha's friends, Alisa Bannings and Tsukimura Suzuka, had also made an effort to make Naruto feel welcome. While Naruto still felt somewhat like the odd person out, he had to admit that the feeling was largely because he was the only boy in a group that was otherwise composed entirely of girls. The fact that Alisa, Suzuka, and Nanoha had been friends since the first grade hadn't prevented them from accepting a newcomer into their group. It was, in Naruto's opinion, great to have friends like them, especially since they were not only in the same class at school but also attended juku with him. Spending more time with his friends was always a good thing to Naruto.

It had surprised him that Nanoha had already told Alisa and Suzuka about him when they first met, given that neither of them lived very close to Nanoha's house, but Nanoha's explanation of her cell phone helped to make his surprise brief. Exactly how protective his new friends had quickly become of him, however, was something that continued to move him... when it wasn't just plain confusing him. When a boy in their class had started to tease him about spending so much time with girls, for instance, Alisa had promptly dragged him out of the room. Naruto didn't know what they talked about, but when the boy came back in a few minutes later, he profusely apologized. The boy hadn't bothered Naruto after that... and had actually moved to stop other kids from causing trouble for Naruto on several occasions.

In short, life was good for Naruto... although part of him kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. Perhaps the contrast with his old life was too great, perhaps it was just that the sort of happiness he felt was completely foreign to him, but Naruto couldn't help wondering if his new life was just a dream.

If it was, he never wanted to wake up.

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As class progressed and Naruto and Nanoha's teacher debriefed their class on a recent assignment, Nanoha couldn't help but think about her newest friend. Naruto might have been appallingly ignorant of many things, but his enthusiasm and sincerity shone through in everything he did. She could understand his ignorance and lack of manners driving off some potential friends, but her mother's lessons were addressing that issue at a rate that Nanoha found decidedly impressive, casting a rather ominous light on Naruto's lack of social skills.

It was hardly the first time an ominous light had been cast on Naruto's experiences before he met Nanoha. While Naruto rarely spoke about his time in Konoha beyond superficial details, he did occasionally say things that were... disturbing, especially since Naruto apparently didn't realize that he'd said anything unusual.

Nanoha's family provided her with even more cues that helped her to reach the conclusion that something had been spectacularly wrong with Naruto's treatment there. She had found her mother trembling in rage on more than one occasion after she'd spent a while teaching Naruto, and Nanoha knew Momoko's reactions well enough to know that the anger wasn't directed at Naruto. In fact, she'd noticed similar reactions from her brother and sister after their lessons.

The real eye-opener, however, had been when Nanoha, concerned for her friend and wanting to know if there was anything she could do, spoke to one of her teachers about her suspicions. Yamakawa-sensei had gotten a strange look on her face for a moment before sighing and placing a hand on Nanoha's shoulder.

"Nanoha-chan," she had explained, "we were told a few things about Naruto-kun when he came here. I wouldn't normally tell you this since we were asked to keep quiet about it, but I think that it would be better if you knew..."

Nanoha had eagerly nodded in response, but while what she had discovered had answered a few of her questions, it mostly served to further arouse her ire. To think that Naruto-kun -- her friend -- had been denied his heritage...

Nanoha might have been from a fairly modern family in many ways, but she was still Japanese. As she defined herself in terms of her relationships with others, her family was an integral part of her. To deny someone their heritage -- their family -- was to rob them of a key part of who they were. It was a nearly unspeakable crime, the committing of which would stain a family's honor for generations... assuming that they didn't all kill themselves out of the shame.

As bad as that was, the crime against Naruto's birth family was actually worse by traditional systems of honor. As far as they were concerned, denying someone their heritage was pretty much killing them in the most dishonorable manner imaginable... and if Naruto was the last of his family, doing so was not only equivalent to killing him but equivalent to killing his clan.

Nanoha's anger over that, however, was a pale shadow next to the other parts that she'd heard. The thought of Naruto being caught between a faction that wanted to use him as a weapon and a faction that wanted him dead....

Nanoha forced herself away from that train of thought. He would not be going back to that place. She wouldn't allow it.

The matter did, however, answer why Naruto had been sent to her family. While they didn't talk about it much, Nanoha knew that her parents had once been... troubleshooters... for the Japanese government, and Nanoha knew that her brother would probably follow in their footsteps.

But... that still left her wondering how she could help. When she'd spoken to her father about it, he'd promptly told her that she had the most important role to play out of all of them.

Nanoha would revisit that thought as she and her friends headed to their juku. "Teach him the meaning of friendship, huh?"

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As Nanoha and her friends traveled to their juku Nanoha's thoughts were decidedly absent from their conversation. "Something that only I can do," she thought, "... but how?"

"Hey, Nanoha," Suzuka inquired, "you've been pretty spaced out... is something on your mind?"

"Yeah," Nanoha replied, "but it's not something I can really talk about."

Suzuka nodded sympathetically, noticing Nanoha's brief glance at Naruto as they passed an young woman who was walking her dog. "Is there anything that we can do to help?"

After a brief interruption consisting of the young woman's dog barking at Naruto and Alisa shouting back at the dog with English instructions to be quiet, Naruto decided to offer his own input. "Nanoha-chan, whatever it is, if there's anything we can do..."

Alisa nodded emphatically, agreeing with her friends' sentiments. "You can count on us!"

"Everyone," Nanoha fondly whispered before raising her voice to reply properly. "Thank you very much."

Nanoha's proclamation was met by a few moments of embarrassed silence before Alisa suddenly ran ahead of the group. "Ah," she said, pointing to a path through a nearby wooded area, "over here! This is a shortcut to juku."

"Really?" Suzuka asked.

"Although the path's a bit worn-down," Alisa continued.

With that, the group started walking down the path. After a few minutes of walking, however, Naruto tensed and moved in front of his friends.

"What's wrong?" Suzuka asked.

"Naruto-kun?"

As her friends expressed their concern to Naruto, however, Nanoha's eyes widened in realization as she recognized where they were. "This is the place I saw last night in that dream...," she thought as her mind flashed back to the strange boy's fight.

Alisa was even more concerned by Nanoha's reaction. "Nanoha?"

"Ah, it's nothing," she remarked. "Sorry."

"Are you alright?" Suzuka asked.

"Yeah," Nanoha confirmed.

"Then let's go," Alisa stated. "Naruto-kun?"

Naruto nodded in agreement, but all three of them noticed that he seemed a bit tense. It was Suzuka who made the connection first, however -- between the way he was glancing into the woods and how he'd positioned himself...

"Naruto-kun?"

"Yes, Suzuka-chan?"

"Are you expecting someone to attack us?"

Naruto suddenly relaxed and scratched the back of his head. "I just had a strange dream last night..."

Nanoha blinked. "You too? With that boy fighting a strange monster?"

Naruto nodded. "Yeah... and this place..."

"Is exactly like the place in the dream!"

Naruto and Nanoha both suddenly blinked in unison. "Eeeh?"

Their surprise, however, was interrupted by a sudden voice. "Help," it called out, as if in desperation.

Alisa and Suzuka were startled as both of their friends suddenly looked to each other. "You heard that?" Nanoha asked.

"Yeah."

"Nanoha? Naruto-kun?"

"A voice," Naruto explained, "someone calling for help."

"Cut it out, you two," Alisa warned them. "It's not..."

Alisa's statement was cut off by Naruto and Nanoha running off as the voice sounded again.

"It came from this way," Naruto stated as he ran ahead at a pace that Nanoha was hard pressed to follow... but stopped before he got too far.

"A ferret?" Nanoha asked, looking at the creature that was lying in the center of the road.

"Under his head," Naruto warned.

Nanoha kneeled down to get a closer look as the ferret's ears twitched and it looked up, meeting Nanoha's gaze.

"Just like in the dream," Naruto muttered.

With that, Alisa and Suzuka finally caught up with them.

"What's wrong with you two?" Alisa asked. "Suddenly running off like that..."

"Ah, look!" Suzuka told her.

"An animal? It looks hurt..."

"Yeah," Nanoha confirmed. "What should we do?"

"Take it to a hospital?" Naruto suggested.

"Not a hospital, a vet," Suzuka corrected.

"I meant a hospital," Naruto stated. "Remember the dream, Nanoha-chan?"

Nanoha blinked. "You mean that this animal is really..."

"Yeah."

"Cut it out, you two!" Alisa shouted. "There's no way that..."

"I've seen stranger," Naruto pointed out. "Transformation is a basic technique that's taught in the Academy in Konoha."

"There's no way...," Alisa insisted.

Naruto simply placed his hands into a seal and was promptly surrounded by a blue glow. Alisa was stunned speechless.

"M... maybe," Suzuka asked, "but even so, wouldn't it be suspicious taking an animal to a hospital?"

"Umm," Nanoha interjected, "is there a vet somewhere near here?"

"Ah... I think there's one somewhere around," Alisa hesitantly commented, still stunned by Naruto's display. She'd known that he was stronger and faster than most people, but this... no wonder those... things... had been trying to brainwash him into some kind of super-assassin.

"Wait a second," Suzuka suggested, "I'll call my house and ask."

With that, the ferret lied down in Nanoha's arms and lost consciousness, the red marble it wore around its neck like a pendant pressing into her wrist.

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"Well," the head veterinarian of the clinic Nanoha and company had taken the ferret to reported a while later, "its wound isn't all that deep, but it does look pretty weak. It's probably been on its own for a while."

"Thank you very much," Nanoha stated, bowing. Nanoha's friends bowed a moment later, also thanking the vet.

"Not at all," the vet, a rather young woman with light brown hair, replied, "you're welcome."

"Sensei," Alisa asked, looking at where the light brown ferret was sleeping, its bandages covering its wounds, "this is a ferret, right?"

"It might be a ferret, but it's certainly unique... and also," the doctor explained, pointing to the ferret's neck, "about this item on its collar, it looks like some sort of jewel..."

With that, the ferret awoke and raised its head to meet the doctor's hand.

"Ah," Suzuka observed, "it woke up!"

Glancing around, the ferret's gaze took sight of the people in the room before it eventually settled on Nanoha. Staring at her with a mixture of gratitude and pleading, the ferret tried to convey its feelings to the girl.

"Nanoha," Alisa commented, "you're being stared at."

"Ah, yeah, umm... uh...," Nanoha embarassedly sputtered, not really knowing what to say, before slowly reaching out to the ferret, holding a single finger close to its nose. As she held her finger in place, the ferret gave her finger a couple of sniffs and promptly licked it.

Naruto relaxed considerably at that while Nanoha sighed and smiled brightly, a notable blush adorning her face. Naruto found the scene quite cute.

All moments end, however, and the ferret promptly flopped back into a resting position, curled around the red stone on its collar. As the four friends' expressions changed to ones of concern, the vet decided to speak up.

"It would be best to let it rest, so why don't I watch over it until tomorrow?"

"Yes," the four of them chimed in unison, "please do!"

As the friends were leaving, the vet had some last words. "If you'd like, why don't you come and see how it's doing tomorrow?"

"Okay!" the friends replied.

"Ah," Suzuka remarked in sudden panic as she glanced at her watch, "oh no! It's time for juku!"

"You're right," Alisa observed.

"Well then, Doctor," Nanoha said, "thank you very much! We'll be back tomorrow!"

With that the four friends headed to their juku as the clinic's head veterinarian smiled at them and waved goodbye.

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During juku, Nanoha and her friends passed a note back and forth, trying to work out where the ferret (or ferret changeling, as Naruto called him) could stay. Although Nanoha's family ran a food business, they felt that her family was their best bet as Alisa had dogs and Suzuka had cats. With that in mind, Nanoha and Naruto told the story to their family as they got ready to eat dinner.

"So...," Nanoha finished, "I was wondering if maybe we could take in that ferret..."

"Hmm," Shiro slowly said, crossing his arms, "a ferret changeling, huh?"

"Yeah," Naruto agreed.

"Well, we have seen stranger, haven't we, dear?" Momoko commented, lifting a tray of food and carrying it towards the table.

Shiro nodded and leaned forward. "While we're on the subject, just what is a ferret?"

Everyone at the table suddenly lost a good bit of tension as they became rather nonplussed. Naruto even managed to lose his balance on his chair, nearly falling off of it.

"Naruto-kun, are you okay?" Nanoha asked in concern.

Naruto grinned sheepishly. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"It's a bit like a weasel, Dad," Kyouya explained.

"They were really popular as pets a while back," Mayuki added.

Shiro nodded again. "Naruto-kun, you mentioned that they taught a transformation technique at your... last school..., right? Do you think that he might be from Konoha?"

Nanoha started at her father's question, not having thought of that possibility.

Naruto shook his head seriously. "I might not know the technique, but I know that you can't maintain a transformation when you're unconscious. There might be a more advanced version, but whatever he did in that dream looked completely different."

"Ferrets are pretty small, right?" Momoko asked, placing a tray of food on the table as she smoothly interrupted the forming discussion.

Shiro was rather nonplussed at that. "You know what a ferret is?"

"Umm," Nanoha said, holding her hands a bit apart, "it's about this big."

"Taking care of him shouldn't be much of a problem, then," Momoko gently explained as she finished passing out the dishes, "but if he's really a transformed person, we need to know a bit more about him before we let him stay in our home. Kyouya, Miyuki, what do you say?"

"I have to agree," Kyouya stated.

"Same here," Miyuki agreed.

"Well, there you go," Shiro explained.

"Yeah," Nanoha said, somewhat pensive as she reflected on the rather important detail that she'd somehow managed to overlook.

"I don't think he's an enemy," Momoko told her youngest daughter in a kindly voice, "but we can't be too careful, alright?"

"Yes," Nanoha responded, her tone losing its pensive quality.

"Now, then, let's all eat up before the food gets cold."

"Okay!"

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Later that night, Naruto lay in bed, pondering the issue of the ferret changeling they'd found. While the whole transformation thing was suspicious, his techniques didn't seem like ninjutsu so it was unlikely that the boy was from a shinobi village... and other than the transformation he hadn't done anything to make him suspicious....

In fact, he seemed to genuinely need help. Perhaps he was a hengeyoukai or something? Naruto had never heard of a ferret-youkai, but he supposed that it was possible.

As he decided to simply wait and see, however, Naruto's ponderings were interrupted by a voice intruding into his thoughts.

"Can you hear me? Can you hear my voice?" it called, causing Naruto to jump to his feet. "Please listen... You, who can hear my voice, please! Please... lend me a little of your strength!"

"That ferret's voice...," Naruto observed.

"Please, come to where I am...," the voice urgently pleaded. "The time... danger... already!"

Hesitating briefly, Naruto threw on some more casual clothes and started running to the clinic. He didn't get very far before he ran into Nanoha, who had also gotten dressed and headed out.

"You heard it, too?" he asked.

"Yeah," Nanoha replied, still running.

Naruto simply matched his pace to hers. Even if he could have made it to the clinic ahead of her, he didn't want to leave her alone on the streets at night.

Nanoha was quite winded by the time that they arrived at the clinic. Naruto wasn't fazed by that, but something kept him on edge.

"Careful," he warned, "something doesn't feel right..."

Nanoha suddenly leaned forward and clutched her ears as a sudden wind blew through the area. "This sound again..."

"Nanoha-chan! Are you alright?" Naruto asked, reaching to support his friend as the area was covered in a strange, reddish light. They stood watching for a moment before a beastly howl sounded.

"Nanoha-chan," Naruto warned, "run!"

Before she could move, however, the ferret they'd rescued earlier ran by them. Nanoha gasped.

"That's..."

Looking back as it heard Nanoha's words, the ferret barely managed to jump into a tree before the formless monster from Nanoha and Naruto's dream struck the space the rodent had just occupied. Unfortunately for the ferret, however, the monster continued its charge after impact, hitting the tree hard enough to break its trunk. As the tree fell, the ferret jumped off of the falling trunk, landing in Nanoha's arms with enough force to knock her over.

"W-what's going on? What is that?" she asked, protectively sheltering the ferret with her arms as the monster that had attacked it struggled to remove itself from underneath the trunk of the tree that it had just knocked over.

"You... came for me," the ferret observed, speaking out loud in the same voice it had used for its earlier calls.

"It spoke!" Nanoha exclaimed.

"Nanoha-chan," Naruto again warned, stepping between his friend and the monster, "RUN!"

Naruto's warning was just in time, as the monster finally managed to throw off the remains of the tree and turned to face them, its violet eyes widening as it took an unmistakably agressive posture.

"Umm," Nanoha said as she ran down the street, cradling the ferret to her chest as Naruto kept pace slightly behind her, "I don't really understand what's going on, but what is that thing? What's going on?"

Naruto felt that he couldn't have phrased it better himself.

"You're of the proper nature," the ferret stated. "Won't you lend me some of your strength?"

"Proper nature?" Naruto asked.

"I've come here from another world in search of something," the ferret continued, "but I might not have the power to handle the weight of doing so alone. That's why... I understand that it'd be a problem for you, but I want those with the proper nature to cooperate with me." The ferret jumped out of Nanoha's arms and, landing on the ground in front of her, turned to face Naruto's friend. "I'll repay you! I promise I will! I want you to use the power that I possess. Use my power... magical power..."

"Magic...?" Nanoha replied as several clouds swirled and assumed the form of the monster that had been attacking them. Nanoha turned to face the monster with a gasp before being suddenly pushed to the side as the monster made a downwards charge, landing in the space she'd just vacated with enough force to embed its face in the pavement.

Nanoha landed against a telephone pole and stared at Naruto, who'd taken a crouching stance and was facing the creature as it lifted itself from the pavement and turned to attack again. As it moved to jump, Naruto leapt at it, punching its amorphous body as hard as he could. While the creature was forced back slightly, it was otherwise unfazed.

"Nanoha-chan," he told his friend as he dodged a swing of one of its flagella-like antennae, "please... run. I'll hold it off, so..."

Nanoha moved back, her eyes widening as she saw her friend's dance inevitably fail. "I have to help him," she muttered. "but how?"

"Take this," the ferret instructed, using its mouth to hold the round red sphere that had been around its neck out to her.

"It's warm," Nanoha observed as she took the gem before shaking her head as Naruto inevitably missed one of his dodges and was sent into a nearby wall with enough force to crack the pavement. "But we don't have time for that!"

"Hold that in your hand, close your eyes, and focus your mind," the strange rodent firmly insisted, "and then repeat what I say."

Nanoha nodded, closing her hand around the marble-like object and followed his instructions as best she could.

"I, who have accepted this mission," they chanted, "upon the ancient contract, command you to release your power. Wind in the sky... stars in the heavens... and a resolute heart within my chest! Magic within this hand, Raising Heart, set up!"

"Stand by, ready," the gem responded in a somewhat mechanical voice as a beam of light pierced the sky, "set up."

"Nanoha-chan," Naruto panted as he forced himself to stand and again face the monster. Clutching his side where the monster had struck, he took a moment to wipe a trail of blood that had dribbled down his lip. Idly noting that the light from the marble that Nanoha had taken to holding towards the sky as she chanted seemed to be repelling the creature, Naruto once again moved to attack.

"What incredible magical power," the ferret muttered to itself, taken aback, before moving to instruct the girl. "Calm down and image -- that which allows you to use magic, the form of your magical staff... and that which will protect your body, a strong armor!"

Determined, Nanoha closed her eyes and went with the first thing that came to mind. She was promptly bathed in light as her clothes vanished and Raising Heart expanded, becoming a sphere slightly larger than Nanoha's hand. An open ring of metal formed around the sphere, the segment that would have fully closed it protruding at an angle as two cyllindrical objects attached to the bottom of the ring. A pink and white staff attached to the area between and slightly below them, completing the rather stylized weapon. As Nanoha reached to grab it, her clothes were replaced piece by piece with an outfit that bore a rather strong resemblance to Nanoha's school uniform, ableit stylized and crossed with a stereotypical magical girl outfit.

"It's a success," the ferret remarked.

Seeing the transformation out of the corner of his eye, Naruto once again pulled himself to his feet, ignoring the pain that the creature had caused him when one of its antennae had sent him crashing into a wall for the second time that night. Naruto coughed up blood, desperately wishing he'd brought a weapon of some sort with him. Feeling a surge of strength within him, Naruto once again moved to attack the creature, hoping to at least distract it from his first and most precious friend.

Naruto's fist clashed with one of the creature's antennae and, for one moment, the two seemed nearly equal in power. Had Nanoha been paying attention to the details of her friend's appearance, she would have noticed that his eyes, normally the color of a brilliant sapphire, had changed to a ruby shade and his pupils had turned to slits as he poured everything he had into one desperate attack.

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A.N.: For those of you wondering, answers will be coming... later in the story. Much later, actually.