Naruto x Sekirei - Part 4

"So, what was so urgent that you needed to talk to me as soon as possible Takami?" Homura, Sekirei #06, asked.

"It looks like you've got some competition for the position as Guardian of Unwinged Sekirei." Takami answered with some irony in her voice.

"You wouldn't happen to be talking about the horned juggernaut that's stomping all over the city are you?" Homura asked suspiciously. He'd seen the video of that one Ashikabi getting hurled into the MBI tower and heard on the news about the more recent event when he'd apparently used the city as an obstacle course for some ice sliding.

"The very same, his name is Uzumaki Naruto by the way." Takami confirmed, not at all surprised that Homura had heard of him already. Low profile the horned man was not. "I went to talk to him and determined that he and his wife, whose name is still unknown, are basically here on a whim because he wants to adopt a few 'little sisters' and has apparently decided that the Sekirei are perfect for that purpose."

"That's all he wants?" Homura asked dubiously, thinking it unlikely that anyone could take a look at the Sekirei and have that kind of idea.

"Seems like it." Takami answered with a shrug and then continued uneasily. "Though I can't be sure and both of them are vicious in the extreme when something happens that they don't like."

That sounded a lot more plausible to the fire Sekirei. Though the little sister angle still threw him, he wasn't at all surprised to hear that the newcomers weren't very nice people.

"Like throwing an Ashikabi into a building hard enough to make him explode?" He asked dryly.

"They've done more than that." Takami said with a snort. "After he did that, his wife somehow managed to appear in Minaka's office without tripping a single alarm and ripped off eight of his fingers."

And just like that, Homura's opinion of them skyrocketed. He hated Minaka with a passion and hearing that something bad had happened to the insane president of MBI always made his day a little better.

"Why only eight?" He asked curiously.

"Apparently she thought it would be funny to leave him with just his pinkies. I get the feeling that Minaka is only alive right now because they think it'll be more fun to kill him by degrees." She told him dryly. Had something like this happened even a few years ago, her reaction would have been far stronger but Minaka had quite honestly become rather unbearable ever since his insane Sekirei Plan had started.

Homura was forced to agree, the thought of Minaka with just his pinkies was pretty funny.

"On top of that, she apparently also read his mind and helped herself to all of the information he had on the Sekirei, casually took the remaining seven Jinki that MBI had in their vault and took the bodies of the deactivated Sekirei."

"What?" Homura asked numbly, hardly able to believe that someone was able to so cavalierly walk all over MBI and its protections. "What about the Disciplinary Squad? Didn't they try to stop her?"

"It would be pretty hard to stop someone that can apparently teleport at will." Takami shrugged. She'd been shocked about it at first too, but she'd had some time to get used to it since then. "Not to mention that I doubt they could have stopped her either way."

"What do you mean?"

"Karasuba went out looking for Uzumaki and found him."

"What happened?" Homura half expected to hear that the horned man had been killed, though he wasn't sure just how powerful he was.

"Karasuba wouldn't talk about it, her clothes were torn to shreds and she had a new sword. I'm pretty sure that she lost….badly, but she was strangely upbeat about it."

"Just what the hell are these two anyway?" Homura asked mostly to himself.

Takami hesitated, looking nervous and Homura noticed it. "You know something."

"….He said that he was a god."

"A god?" Homura said with high amounts of scepticism.

"Yeah that was my reaction too, so he created a city wide lightning storm to make his point."

"Wait….that freak storm the other day that only lasted for half a minute was him?" Homura said in alarmed realisation.

"Yes." Takami confirmed. "Look, it doesn't matter either way whether he's a god or not, the fact of the matter is that he's insanely powerful, both of them are. They've already unwinged one Sekirei and intend to do it to others."

"WHAT? HOW?" The fire Sekirei burst out, having never imagined that such a thing was possible. There were a lot of Sekirei that he'd failed to protect from unscrupulous Ashikabi that wanted to wing them against their will and this could be something that would allow those girls a second chance.

Takami had to smile a bit at the usually serious man losing his composture like that.

"I have no idea how and I doubt they'll be forthcoming with that information, but that's not why I'm telling you about this." That got Homura's attention and he focused his full attention on Takami. "If they can so casually unwing a Sekirei, then they might be able to help you with your own little problem."

Takami had long been worried about Homura's unstable Sekirei Core but unable to do anything about it. She'd theorized that an Ashikabi bond might stabilize it, but there was no way to be sure until it happened. Homura had fought so hard to protect the unwinged Sekirei while they searched for the right person to bond with, at her behest no less. The least she could do was point him in the direction of someone that could help him. Even though Naruto was dangerous beyond all doubt, he seemed benign enough to people who weren't scum.

"And you think they'd help me out, just like that?" Homura asked sceptically.

"I'm not sure about the woman, but Uzumaki gave me the impression that he was a basically decent guy despite his quirks….as long as you don't do something to make him angry, at which point he apparently uses you as a living projectile."

"How comforting." Homura muttered to himself sarcastically. "I'll keep it in mind in case I ever get desperate enough to ask them for help, though Miya seems to think they'll be paying Izumo Inn a visit eventually anyway."

Takami felt a chunk of ice drop into her gut at the thought of Miya clashing with either of the horned duo. She had no idea how they stacked up against each other power-wise, but she sincerely doubted there would be anything left of the city if they fought. She didn't for a second consider that they might get along. Miya's rather prudish attitude in the same room with Naruto and his gaggle of perverts was just asking for a catastrophe.

"I really hope that doesn't happen." She said ominously.

"Why?" Homura asked, honestly confused.

"Because Uzumaki is a pervert and completely shameless about it, I even got a report about a public sex incident happening just before he killed that Ashikabi. Even worse, Akitsu seems to be going in that direction herself and his wife probably isn't exactly the model of proper behavior either. If they ever go there, it's going to be like a carnival of everything that makes Miya angry."

"Oh….." Yeah, Homura could see the incoming disaster just as clearly as she could. He might not know them, but he somehow doubted that Uzumaki and his wife were the type to meekly do things Miya's way.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Minaka was troubled. Why, he would even go so far as to say that he was upset!

His missing fingers bothered him quite a bit, since the cybernetic ones were far less flexible than real ones, not to mention the lack of feeling in them, but that was not the main cause of his ire.

No, the cause of his problems were the two unknowns that were blatantly flaunting the rules of the Sekirei Plan! Didn't they understand that it was needed in order to determine who was fit to ascend?

But what could he do? His attempt to gather information had already backfired horribly, costing him the Jinki and the bodies of the deactivated Sekirei, not to mention his fingers. Above all else, he needed to retrieve those or else he would have no prizes to offer as the game progressed.

Takami had told him what she had learned, but he did not believe it. The New Age of the Gods had not arrived yet, why would there be two gods here already?

Just as Takami, he also suspected that Karasuba had encountered Uzumaki Naruto and been defeated, but that in and of itself did not trouble him as much as the apparent consequences of this event.

The Black Sekirei had been acting…..odd ever since then. She'd been almost pleasant! There were far fewer terrified-to-death employees cowering in the toilets or asking to be reassigned elsewhere. She seemed to be getting back to her old self as the days passed, but it was still troubling.

And unwinging a bonded Sekirei! Honestly, that was almost like reversing the Sekirei Plan and thus even more unacceptable than ignoring the rules!

Possibly by far the worst of all, every single tracker in every single Sekirei had mysteriously stopped working recently! He had no idea how they had done it, but it was intolerable! Those trackers were crucial in order to keep track of the little birds to make sure they didn't scatter to the winds. It was possible to keep track of them by other means but it was a hundred times more difficult and time consuming and some were bound to slip through the cracks. Not to mention the extra feature in those trackers that allowed him to use a signal generated by their MBI cards to deactivate them at any time

They needed to be punished and Minaka already knew that only removal from the game would suffice, anything less and they would simply retaliate again.

After all, no matter how strong or fast they were, they would have trouble surviving a sniper round to the head. Even Miya would have trouble with that, no matter how powerful she was. Though Minaka was silently glad that he hadn't needed to resort to that because Miya had removed herself from the Sekirei Plan. There was always the chance of failure and it would be disastrous if that happened. Unfortunately, these newcomers were not so courteous and he had to risk it.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Karasuba had wrestled with herself over this for days, ever since their fight in fact. Her pride had warred with her desires and as the days passed, her pride became less and less important. It wasn't like she had to do anything huge anyway, it just rankled that she had to ask for something instead of taking it.

That battle had been the most intense and exciting thing she'd ever experienced and she wanted more of it. No longer could she tolerate the stale routine of patrolling the city and looking for the weaklings that decided they didn't want anything to do with the game or the loonies that thought using their Sekirei to bully the other humans was fun, not that she payed too much attention to the latter group. What she wanted was to feel the burn of her muscles as she struggled against a powerful opponent, to hear the clanging of swords and see the spray of blood as flesh was parted by steel.

To that end, she'd come here, to this incredibly, ridiculously expensive hotel to pay a visit to the man that could give her those things. She had no real idea how she was going to go about actually asking him for that, but she'd think of something. There was always plan B, which was to simply attack him and see what happened.

She'd learned his name in the meantime so that minor issue was settled and there'd be no need for introductions. The only thing left to do was approach him again.

Course of action decided, she marched up to the door and knocked on it, already feeling the familiar excitement in her gut at the nearness of another battle.

"Come in." Naruto's voice called from within.

Karasuba did so and stopped in surprise at the sight that greeted her.

They'd clearly done some remodeling if the multilple TV screens were any clue. Each of them was connected to a gaming console that was in turn being occupied by someone.

Yashima and Akitsu she knew only from reading their profiles in the past few days while she gathered information on Naruto. There was Naruto himself of course along with the still unknown horned woman who had ever so casually removed Minaka's fingers, though she hadn't thought that she would be the type to play video games.

The real surprise was the presence of a familiar face in the group.

"Haihane, what are you doing here?"

"Uh, hi senpai." The Blue Sekirei greeted nervously before answering. "Well, Naruto invited me over to play a few games."

"Naruto also just cut your head off because you weren't paying attention." The man in question taunted.

"Hey! No fair!" Haihane protested and turned her attention back to her own monitor.

"Hey there Little Crow." Naruto greeted the bemused Karasuba belatedly, not taking his eyes off the screen as he was too busy fighting Akitsu. This game that Haihane had suggested really was worth the effort to set up multiple screens and consoles, even if they did have to vandalize the hotel a bit to make room.

At this point, Xanna growled ferociously and ended up burning her controller to nothing with the cursed black fires of Amaterasu, obviously angered by the fact that she'd been bested.

"Sorry!" Yashima squeaked, terrified by the display of rage and power.

"No need to apologize Yashima." Naruto assured, garnering himself a dirty look from his wife, who had been enjoying the terror she'd inspired in the Sekirei that dared get the better of her inside the game.

"Come on now Xanna, it's just a game. No need to get so angry." He soothed, putting down his controller and moving to rub her shoulders.

Xanna let out an indistinct mutter but allowed herself to be pacified. She was not accustomed to losing and did not enjoy the feeling even if it was at something as silly as a video game. If she could have, she would have definitely cheated to force a victory, but attempting to change the rules of a video game with her power was more likely to burn out the electronics than anything else. Who'd have thought that warping reality would be easier than cheating at a game?

Karasuba observed all of this with an odd look on her face, not sure what to think. This Xanna was obviously powerful and she felt the familiar urge to fight her just as she did with all powerful people but something warned her than any attempt to challenge her wouldn't result in a fight but an execution.

Either way it was very strange to see them participating in something so frivolous. She'd have thought that such powerful people would have better things to do with their time than play video games, but apparently not.

"So, what can we do for you Little Crow?" Naruto asked once things had calmed down, the game was clearly over as they'd have to plug in a new controller for Xanna.

Karasuba twitched at the nickname but didn't verbally protest it. He'd beaten her already and she wouldn't be able to demand that he stop calling her that until she beat him as well.

"I came for another fight." She stated, resting her hand on the hilt of her sword.

"That's cute." He responded, making her twitch again. She was not cute! "But I'm afraid it's going to have to wait for a little while, we were just about to have dinner. You're free to join us though."

Karasuba opened her mouth to reject the offer out of sheer instinct before stopping herself. It's not like she had anywhere better to be and she still wanted that fight.

"Alright."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Is the food for the penthouse finished yet?" A young man asked one of the hotel chefs impatiently.

"Not yet, should be done in ten minutes." The chef responded, never taking his eyes away from the food.

"Come on man, hurry it up." The same young man said insistently.

"Keep your socks on boy, do you have any idea how much food we've had to make?" A different, older chef snarked back irritably. "They've even got two guests today, apparently with the same appetites."

Despite his irritable tone, the old chef liked the people currently occupying the penthouse, as every real chef liked cooking for people with a big appetite. Most of the time, that room was only used by pompous assholes that didn't do anything but complain and when they ran out of things to complain about, they made up more things to complain about.

These people however, appreciated the work that the hotel staff did in keeping them comfortable up there and let them know it. That was the reason that the bellhop was so impatient actually, he was looking forward to the hefty tip that was almost guaranteed to be given once the food was delivered.

Three of them would be needed to cart all of the food up there tonight and all of them were obviously barely holding their impatience in check. The old chef couldn't blame them really, he'd have been ecstatic over a big influx of money at their age too.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"So, why was that one guy looking so annoyed that we were excited to be carrying the food here." A female bellhop asked in confusion as she pushed her own table full of food along the hallway. She'd only just gotten the job and was excited to be bringing the food to the apparenly highly generous people using the penthouse.

"Kenta's a die hard christian." One of her two male companions said as if that explained everything.

"What's that got to do with anything?" She asked, even more confused.

"Don't get me wrong, Kenta's a good guy and doesn't try to force his religion on anyone, but he's convinced that the couple in the penthouse are demons and it pisses him off that nobody takes him seriously." He explained.

"Why would he think they were demons?" She asked further, giving her colleague a very odd look.

"You'll see." The other male bellhop asked with a snicker, making the woman a bit nervous.

Soon after they made it to the door and knocked with the customary call of 'room service!".

The door was opened and the female bellhop jumped back with a little squeak of a scream.

"Hey guys." Naruto greeted, paying the reaction no mind. It was hardly the first time after all.

"Hey Naruto." They greeted back with a fist bump. He'd long since told them not to bother with politeness, which they were fine with. He was the coolest rich guy they'd ever heard of.

After this was done, Naruto turned his eyes on the slowly calming down woman and grinned. "And you even brought a stripper this time, you guys are the best."

"Well, we figured that you didn't have enough hot women around." The younger one joked, taking a peek inside to see that as had been speculated, the two guests were also hot women.

The woman was both indignant and embarrassed by the crass insinuation and spluttered "H-Hey, I'm not a stripper!"

"You are if you want to be! Don't be afraid to live the dream." Naruto encouraged, drawing snickers from the men.

The poor girl didn't know how to react and settled for glaring with a completely red face. She wanted to throw out a few choice insults, but it had been repeatedly drilled into her that she couldn't be impolite to the guests no matter what.

"Sorry about that, I like dirty jokes." Naruto told her with another grin after a few seconds of awkwardness.

"Here, take this." He said and handed her a wad of cash, which she took with wide eyes. She continued staring stupidly at the huge tip while Naruto handed them out to her two colleagues as well.

"Hey come on, lets go." The older of the two male bellhops said to her and touched her arm to snap her out of her daze.

"There's more money here than I'll make in a month." She said numbly.

"Well, you'll have to give half of that to the chefs, but I know what you mean. Naruto doesn't really pay attention to the size of his tips, that's why there's a waiting period between us bellhops on who gets to bring food up here. If this keeps up for a few months longer, I'll be able to buy my own house."

"And Kenta thinks they're demons because of the horns and the eyes and stuff?"

"Pretty much." Was the response, accompanied by a shrug. " We don't know what's up with that, but as far as we're concerned, there's just one less person in line for the huge tips, so it makes us happy and if Naruto is a demon, then he's the nicest demon I've ever heard of, even if his grin makes me think of a velociraptor."

"Though, that wife of his….." The other one said with a dramatic shudder.

"I hear you man, She answered the door for me once and I felt like crapping my pants. Didn't get a tip that day either."

"I wonder what Naruto sees in her. He's such a cool guy and she's….well not to be rude, but she's a bit of a bitch." The last part was said in a barely audible whisper even though they were halfway down to the ground floor in the elevator already. The absolute last thing he wanted to do was offend the guy that was rapidly making him rich by insulting his wife.

"Well, I don't know what your girlfriend sees in you either, but it clearly has to be something." Was the philosophical response.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Karasuba was once more bemused as she observed the eating habits of everyone around her.

Naruto was true to his brutish appearance this time and apparently had no use for table manners, or else had never heard of the term. He ate much too quickly, slurped his soup right from the bowl, took large bites of everything, only bothered with utensils when it wasn't too inconvenient and appeared to take an absurd amount of pleasure in using his fanged teeth to murder the meat.

Xanna, whose imperious presence and appearance would make you think she would be well mannered while eating was only slightly better about it. Karasuba hadn't heard her crushing any chicken bones between her teeth yet anyway.

By contrast, Akitsu appeared highly cultured and ate gracefully, though it was possible that that was just a consequence of the fact that she liked doing things slowly. At a formal, high class dinner, she'd probably still stick out like a sore thumb, but when she was sitting next to the two food exterminators she might as well be royalty in the manners department.

Yashima, Haihane and Karasuba herself were somewhere in the middle, eating quickly but with passable manners. Rather a lot like most Sekirei actually.

"So, Haihane, how about you let me unwing you? A pretty girl like you shouldn't be bonded to a man that's more interested in sausages than melons." Naruto asked as the dinner wound down.

Haihane blushed slightly but still tried to defend her Ashikabi. "But Natsuo-sama is the leader of the Disciplinary Squad and besides…" She trailed off with her blush deepening slightly. She might not be as open about her infatuation with Natsuo as Benitsubasa, but she did still have feelings for him.

"Oh come on, you know those feelings are fake, if it wasn't for the bond you wouldn't look at him twice and the Disciplinary Squad isn't even needed anymore either." Naruto argued.

"Wait, what do you mean the Disciplinary Squad isn't needed anymore?" Karasuba interrupted.

"I meant exactly what I said, it's not needed anymore, it serves no further purpose, it is obsolete."

Karasuba opened her mouth to press for more information but Xanna took over the explanation. "What he means, is that the Sekirei Plan is defunct no matter what Minaka thinks. The only plans for the Sekirei that matter now are ours."

"Really?" Karasuba asked sceptically. She didn't particularly care about their plans for the Sekirei just like she hadn't cared about Minaka's. All she wanted was to fight and maybe see the world burn in the process.

"Really. Minaka is only alive because it will be amusing to watch him flounder uselessly." Xanna asserted.

Well, Karasuba could certainly appreciate that kind of viciousness, but that still didn't make the Disciplinary Squad unnecessary. "How does that make us unneeded? Sekirei and Ashikabi pairs will still try to escape the city and you'll need them here if you have your own plans for the Sekirei."

"No we don't and aren't you even going to ask what that plan is?" Naruto asked curiously.

"I wouldn't care even if you're intending to wipe us all out or use us for world domination, as long as you give me a good fight." Karasuba stated flatly, hands itching for her sword. She wanted the damn fight that she'd come here for already and she was getting impatient.

"You've found a real gem in this one husband." Xanna chuckled.

"I know, she's something else." Naruto agreed with a snicker, much to Karasuba's continued irritation. She kind of missed the days when everyone was scared shitless of her.

In a rare moment of reflection, she realised that the problem with having powerful people to fight was that they wouldn't hesitate to poke fun at you.

Akitsu lowered her head ever so slightly, feeling upset. She didn't want to be overshadowed by the Black Sekirei. It didn't seem fair to her that the more emotive Karasuba would take her place as the master's favorite. If she had been someone else, she would have sighed despondently, but as it was she just silently lamented her coming loss of position and reflected that it had been nice to be special for a little while.

And then suddenly she was being pulled into a one armed hug and spoken to in an admonishing tone. "None of that now Akitsu, you're not allowed to mope."

"Yes master." The ice Sekirei said, perking up as much as her unexpressive demeanor allowed, settled her head on his lap contently and closed her eyes when he started scratching her head.

"She's like a cat." Yashima muttered, getting amused nods from everyone except Karasuba, who was debating the merits of simply going with Plan B.

"So, how about that unwinging?" Naruto asked pointedly, staring at Haihane.

The Blue Sekirei fidgeted uncertainly. It was true that Natuso was as gay as anyone could get and had zero interest in any of his three Sekirei, which Haihane knew wasn't likely to change no matter how much Benitsubasa tried to convince herself otherwise. On top of that he didn't care about them as people either. To him, they were just part of the job.

"If it helps you make the decision, you should know that your reaction to him was artificially induced by Minaka."

"What?" Haihane asked in shock, her head snapping towards the horned blond. "How is that possible?"

"A lot of things are possible." Naruto responded blandly.

Haihane frowned, leaning heavily towards accepting his offer of unwinging in light of this new information. Naruto hadn't struck her as the type to lie and if he really wanted to, he could have simply unwinged her without permission like had been done to Yashima.

"Alright, unwing me."

Naruto grinned and did so, laying his hand across her chest, much to her embarrassment. "You wouldn't happen to be willing to call me onii-chan would you?"

"Maybe if you beat me at Mortal Kombat." She replied cheekily. He'd so far failed to do that spectacularly.

"Fair enough." Naruto agreed. "You'll be my little sister in no time."

"Now can we get to the fight already?" Karasuba growled, already sliding her new dragon bone hilt sword from its sheath.

"On a full stomach?"

Karasuba growled again. "You're stalling."

"Well, you're pretty cute when you're angry." Naruto responded with a grin, still petting Akitsu's head.

Karasuba's eyebrow was twitching in anger by now and the urge to simply attack him was becoming overwhelming. She was just about to do it when her sword suddenly refused to leave its sheath any further than it had already.

"Calm down and behave yourself." Xanna said mildly before commenting. "Such an ill mannered girl."

The Black Sekirei had to struggle mightily not to point out the fact that she and and Naruto were not in any position to talk about others being ill mannered considering their eating habits. Something was still telling her not to cross the horned woman. She had no fear of an enemy more powerful than her, but she didn't like the idea of dying without even a fight. Unlike Naruto, Xanna wasn't likely to humor her by fighting at her level.

"Not to worry Little Crow, you'll get your fight, just be patient." Naruto assured. "I hear patience is a virtue anyway."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Alright, now you'll be getting your long awaited fight." Naruto said as he and Karasuba stood on the roof of a random building.

"Well draw your sword already then." The Sekirei in question said impatiently, already holding her sword and pointing it at him.

"Don't be silly, we're not going to fight here, too many civilian casualties." Naruto scolded and continued to stand there with a contemplative expression. "I'm trying to think of what kind of environment to create for us."

"Just pick something already, it doesn't matter." Karasuba retorted. She'd honestly forgotten about his scruples with collateral damage.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Target is in sight, how about yours?" A man that had Naruto's forehead in the crosshair of his high powered sniper rifle spoke calmly.

They had both been rather miffed that they'd been too late to take their shots earlier, but the shot right now was as perfect as it could get. There was minimal wind, no bystanders and absolutely nothing that could foul up their shots.

"Affirmative, I have a clear shot." The voice of the other man came clearly through his earpiece.

"Fire on my mark."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Naruto needed only about a minute before he had the perfect idea and was just about to announce it to his impatient friend(and she was a friend now no matter how much she denied it), when a most unexpected event occurred.

A very large caliber sniper round crashed into his head and bounced off, snapping his head backwards from the unexpected force of it.

Something that should be noted about Naruto's body was that it was for all intents and purposes impervious to damage unless he willed it otherwise and the only time he lowered this absolute invulnerability was in a fight to make it interesting. After all, what kind of fight was it if you couldn't bleed? The perks of godhood.

Naruto aimed a contemplative look at the distant sniper that had previously slipped past his attention because he had quite frankly not been paying any attention. He actually didn't pay attention to his surroundings most of the time. It was no fun if you always knew what was going around you.

"Looks like we'll be postponing our fight for just a few minutes longer, but you're free to join me as I punish Minaka for being an idiot again. It's his fault that the fight has been delayed after all." As he spoke this he also took hold of the man's head with his mind and twisted it around to break his neck. Usually he disdained killing in such a fashion, but he really didn't feel like going over to stab the guy personally.

Karasuba had been surprised by the sudden sniper shot, then pissed at yet another delay and now she was intrigued, but a question arose in her mind.

"What if it wasn't Minaka?"

"It was Minaka."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because Little Crow, it was Minaka even if it wasn't Minaka."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx

At the same time.

Xanna's hand suddenly lashed out at impossible speed and snatched the bullet right out of the air. She'd sensed the killing intent focused solely on her some time ago and sped up her perception of time just before the assassin had fired.

"Mistress?" Akitsu asked with concealed alarm, having turned swiftly as she heard the bullet going through the window. Yashima ran into the room right after, having also heard the noise.

"An assassin with a sniper rifle. Silenced, high caliber, armor piercing rounds." Xanna said, idly observing the bullet. It was very large, spiked instead of rounded, made of extremely dense material and rather heavy. "No doubt another of Minaka's attempts to take back control."

Negligently, she flicked the bullet back at the sniper who had moved elsewhere by now, propelling it at only half of its previous speed to prevent overpenetration. Just like Naruto, she refused to kill by accident.

"Are you going to go after Minaka now?" Yashima asked curiously.

"No, it is my husband's turn to play with that idiot."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Minaka was waiting anxiously for news of a successful assassination, not that he would admit to being anxious to anyone. As the game master, he had to maintain a veneer of confident aloofness and regal authority!

"You just can't help yourself can you?"

Minaka spun around in a whirl of white cloth and beheld a most disturbing sight. It was the very man that was supposed to be assassinated and even worse, he'd been found in his new and super secure hidden office! Had he always been that big or did it just seem that way in person?

Oddly enough, he had Karasuba with him as well.

"How did you find me here Naruto-san?"

"Godmode…" Naruto paused to loudly crack his neck to one side. "motherfucker. Now, are you ready for the consequences of your actions?"

"Karasuba, if you could please remove Naruto-san?" Minaka said, hiding just how nervous he was. Considering his suspicions that Karasuba had in fact lost to the horned man once already, he was grasping at straws here.

"No, thanks to you our fight was delayed again. I'm just here to see what he does to you." The Black Sekirei refused.

"But you're on the Disciplinary Squad!" Minaka protested.

"I quit." She replied dismissively, to Minaka's horror. In the end, her 'loyalty' to MBI had always been paper thin and her bond to Natsuo was so weak that it could barely even be called a bond. All it took to subvert her was the promise of good battles and that was something that Naruto could very easily provide.

At this point, Naruto had produced an old fashioned razor blade and inspected it critically before looking towards Minaka. "That's a lot of hair you've got there, so I'm going to do you a favor and shave it off. Mind you, I've never used one of these before and I've made the blade very, very sharp, so try not to move too much."

Several minutes later, Minaka had his head shaved bald and was sporting quite a few bloody cuts across his scalp. One of them had been deep enough that Naruto had needed to heal it quickly to prevent constant bleeding.

"Are you sure this is all you're going to do to him?" Karasuba asked in disappointment, much to Minaka's alarm. "It seems pretty weak compared to what your wife did."

"Well my wife can be quite a bit meaner than me, but I figured you'd want to get your own shots in too so I restrained myself."

Karasuba blinked before a grin slowly spread across her face and she took her sword out.

"Now remember, no killing. Xanna and I figure that he probably still has at least one or two acts of stupidity in him."

"Well, I never did get to cut your balls off…"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Well, this is certainly a lot different than the last time we were here." Karasuba commented as she looked around Naruto's personal dimension.

Instead of a freezing cold castle high in the mountains, this time it was a lush jungle, dense and humid. She could already feel sweat prickling along her skin because of the heat and soggy air. The trees were massive and had branches that were more than thick enough to fight on. The foliage was also so thick that visibility was going to be close to zero if you made even a few leaps to adjacent trees

"That's not the only thing that's going to be different." Naruto said, calling Karasuba's attention back to himself.

She turned just fast enough to see his sword transforming into a larger than average naginata with a black pole that she just knew was going to be indestructable and a long, thick blade with backwards facing spikes along the back of it.

"I've never personally used one of these before, but I've always been curious what it was like to fight with a polearm. This is a good a time as any to try it out." Naruto explained and twirled his new weapon around a few times to get a feel for it.

"How the hell did your sword just change shape?" Karasuba demanded.

"My Kusanagi is a sacred instrument of the heavens, it can do many things." Naruto declared grandly. "Or if you want the technical answer…..fuck you, that's how."

Karasuba's face turned into a glare and she released all of the pent up aggression that had been building up in her for a good long while by launching herself at him with a vicious swing.

Naruto blocked by placing the pole of his naginata into the path of her swing, but Karasuba surprised him by sliding her blade along it, forcing him to quickly let go with one hand or lose fingers.

Off balanced and unfamiliar with his weapon, he was placed entirely on the defensive as the Black Sekirei continued with her assault. Hashirama had had only a passing familiarity with this weapon type, leaving him mostly on his own.

It was good enough that he was able to keep blocking as he retreated for the next few minutes. Eventually he got a good enough feel for how the weapon handled that he was able to do more than just block with the pole.

Getting an idea, he jumped up to one of the three branches and harrassed the pursuing Karasuba with short slashing and stabbing attacks. The massive reach of the polearm prevented her from instantly counterattacking and the narrow tree root prevent all attempts to flank him.

Getting an idea, Naruto started rapidly spinning his weapon in a figure eight pattern and advanced towards her.

Scowling, Karasuba chose to cut through the branch they were standing on instead of attempting to attack him through that. Since she was the one standing on the part of it closer to the tree, Naruto went plummeting towards the ground, though he jumped off the falling branch and on a new one.

Karasuba blasted several air blades towards him, which he easily countered with an air vortex created by spinning his naginata, looking amused.

"You're never going to tag me with one of those Little Crow."

Karasuba panted lightly and discarded her haori. It was too damn hot in this jungle, she already felt terribly sticky under her clothing and all this activity certainly wasn't helping to cool her down.

She glared up at the smugly smirking blond, who didn't look winded or bothered by the heat in the slightest, he wasn't even sweating. Suddenly she got an idea as she realised that the narrow branches favored his much longer weapon even if he was less skilled with it than with a sword.

Naruto's eyebrows rose when Karasuba charged right at the base of the tree on whose branch he was standing on and cut it clean through. When he jumped to another tree, she just cut through that one as well.

After the sixth tree fell and something of a clearing full of gigantic felled trees had been formed, Naruto figured that she wasn't going to stop imitating a lumberjack until he got down on the ground. With that in mind, he jumped down on the ground staring evenly at the panting and smirking Karasuba.

She launched herself at him without warning once again, but he'd expected something like that and had no trouble blocking her. They fought across the ground, both being careful of their footing and rapidly destroying the massive trunks of the felled trees.

Karasuba was frustrated. Naruto had gained proficiency with his weapon entirely too fast for her liking and he now had little trouble holding her off. She knew that a naginata had enough similarities with a sword that a master of one might be able to learn the other with only minimal difficulty but it was still irritating. On top of that, the climate was sapping her strength faster and faster as her body overheated. Something, she irritably realised, that Naruto had likely planned on to give himself an edge while he was yet unfamiliar with the naginata. Considering the fact that the temperature didn't seem to be affecting in the slightest, she felt quite sure that her assumption was correct.

Not that she was going to utter a peep over any of her grievances. Nothing was ever fair and she wouldn't complain like a whiny kid over the fact that he'd deliberately placed her in a disadvantageous situation.

He was already getting more aggressive now that he was more familiar with the workings of his new weapon, prodding at her defenses and forcing her to react to him instead of the other way around. Even worse, he'd figured out how to incorporate his martial arts into his attacks, sneaking a kick or punch on her any time that he was close enough.

And then suddenly, an infuriatingly simple but entirely unexpected problem arose that hindered her further. Her hair, sticky with sweat, slapped over her eyes and limited her visibility in the middle of her swing.

Naruto took advantage of her botched attack instantly, trapping her nodachi in the spikes of his naginata and twisted and pulled it in an attempt to rip it out of her hands.

Karasuba recovered from the momentary irritation quickly, but not quickly enough to save her sword from getting caught in the spikes and was forced to step forward or lose it.

Naruto had another course of action open to him now however and took it. The Black Sekirei had stepped within range of his feet and he lashed out with a direct blow that would strike her chest if she didn't evade it.

Unable to free her sword in time, Karasuba could either let go of her sword or attempt to move to the side. Naturally she moved to the side, but this weakened her hold further and gave Naruto all the advantage he needed to twist the sword away from her hands and send it sailing into the undergrowth.

Naruto grinned at her and threw the Kusanagi into one of the fallen trees, impaling it there. Then he proceeded to give Karasuba a gesture that was known and hated by all.

The upturned palm and 'come at me' gesture.

Scowling and panting harshly now, Karasuba got into a martial arts stance of her own and attacked. She was primarily a sword user but her hand to hand was plenty good enough to take down just about any Fist type Sekirei out there, since none of them were single digits. Benitsubasa was actually the only one that she knew of that might give her a little bit of trouble. Well…there was also Musubi, but the scatter brained #88 wasn't quite there yet.

It didn't mean a damn thing against Naruto, who took her apart in hand to hand as if she was fighting drunk. He pulled his punches a lot, but it was beyond obvious that she wasn't anywhere close to his level in this kind of fight. All of her attacks were shunted aside and every tiny mistake was exploited. Her defenses were easily overcome because she didn't have a good grasp on how to defend her feet(or attack with them for that matter).

After an embarrassingly short fight for Karasuba, her back hit a tree that was actually still standing. The tree surprised her when the wood warped to grab at her wrists and raised her hands above her head and to the sides. Meanwhile, Naruto had already stepped close and pushed himself into her so that he was standing between her legs and keeping her in the air with his hips.

"You lose again." He told her with a grin, keeping his hands at her sides, but not touching her.

Karasuba merely glared at him. She just knew that he was waiting for her to accuse him of cheating. He had cheated, but she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of saying it. He could have also simply overwhelmed her with his speed and strength or with a host of other things, so there was no point in complaining over the fact that he'd made an environment that would work against her so heavily.

"You smell pretty tasty right now." He purred into her air and ran his tongue slowly over her sweaty neck. He wasn't talking about just her sweat though, as the scent of her arousal was just as strong as it had been the last time they'd fought.

Karasuba clenched her jaw firmly shut to prevent any kind of sound from escaping her mouth, though a harsh series of exhales through her nose still betrayed her arousal, but she couldn't do anything about that. While he'd leaned in to lick her neck he'd also pressed his groin right into hers and since she was wearing her typical first generation Disciplinary Squad miniskirt(which had ridden up her thighs as he pushed forward), he was basically rubbing his erection right over her soaked panties.

"I noticed that you didn't ask me to unwing you when I did it for Haihane." Naruto commented idly, still giving her neck the occasional slow lick. "Do you want to stay bonded to that Natsuo fellow?"

"Nooo-gh." Karasuba's teeth actually clicked together slightly because of how fast she'd shut her mouth to keep herself from moaning out the answer. She was absolutely not going to moan like a sex starved nympho just because she was hovering near the edge of an orgasm from the fight, the neck licking and feeling his erect member rubbing her through her panties.

"You'd like me to set you free then?" He asked further, lightly grabbing rubbing her sides with his hands and flicking his tongue over her earlobe.

Karasuba had to forcibly stop her traitorous hips from attempting to buck towards him so that she could rub herself over his erection more firmly. She panted heavily for several seconds before quickly spitting out a 'yes' and clenching her jaw shut again.

"Alright then."

She barely felt it when the weak bond was snapped, mostly due to the fact that it was barely there in the first place, but also because Naruto had pressed himself into her even more firmly, leaving her panting rapidly and feeling as if the pressure in her loins was about to burst any second now.

"Looks like someone already tried to fix the damage." Naruto murmured to himself. It was interesting, because Minaka had no idea about this.

Though Karasuba heard his low mutter, she didn't understand a word of it, being far too preoccupied with her out of control arousal. She didn't even notice that her legs had wrapped around his waist and pulled him into her as much as possible.

"Was there something you wanted Little Crow?" Naruto asked mildly, looking at her widely dilated pupils.

Instead of answering, she clenched her legs around him with all of her strength and harshly slammed her mouth on top of his. That proved to be the final straw and her orgasm exploded out of her, making her scream into his mouth and reflexively attempt to pull her hands out of their bindings so that she could claw at his back. She wouldn't have been able to unclench her legs at that point even if she had wanted to, as the force of her orgasm(her first one as a matter of fact) compelled her to attempt drawing them together.

"If you tried to wing yourself on me just now, then I'm afraid I have to disappoint you. I can't wing any Sekirei." He told her with just a small hint of a grin.

Karasuba's head rested on the tree behind her as she took deep breaths and stared at him with unfocused eyes for a few moments before they rolled back into her head and she passed out.

"Well, that was unexpected." Naruto said to himself. He hadn't thought that the fearsome Black Sekirei would pass out after one orgasm, especially since they hadn't even gotten into the heavy foreplay, much less any actual sex. He'd been planning to leave her hanging again, but after seeing just how extreme her arousal had been, he'd have felt like a real asshole if he did it. Well...a bigger asshole than usual anyway.

"Though…." He said musingly to himself and looked down on his pants, which were completely soaked in her release. "It was one hell of an orgasm."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Karasuba woke up slowly, which was odd in the first place since she usually woke up instantly.

The first thing she noticed was that she felt…..strangely mellow. She was rather used to going around feeling tense all the time so this bizzare lethargy was new to her.

At that point she recalled what had happened. She'd fought Naruto again, he'd set her up to lose and she had, then he'd broken her bond to Natsuo, at which point her body had had enough of her shit and stopped listening to her.

She vaguely remembered him saying that he couldn't wing her after she'd come down from her orgasmic high, but that didn't matter to her. It wouldn't get in the way of fighting him again.

Taking a look around, Karasuba determined that she was in one of the empty bedrooms of the penthouse and judging by the darkness outside it was still night time.

Another thing that she noticed was that she felt clean instead of sweaty, which meant that Naruto or one of the others must have washed her while she'd been passed out. She didn't really know how she felt about that, so she stopped thinking about it. Her usual clothing was folded neatly on the table, also apparently cleaned of sweat since it didn't reek and her sword was placed next to it.

The sword that Naruto had made for her. A beautiful weapon far surpassing her old one in quality.

Thoughts of Naruto brought up a confusing jumble of emotions and impressions.

She was angry at him for the way he'd played her, made her pant like a wanton slut that couldn't wait to get taken. More than that, she was angry at him for the way that he'd gotten her so turned on that her self control had shattered to pieces and left her lust in control of her body.

But she was also happy. He wasn't like Miya, who'd cast her sword aside in favor of a broom and seemed content to sweep her porch and pretend that she didn't have an ocean of blood on her hands. He wasn't like Yume, prattling on about love and sacrificing her life to save one tiny, weak little Sekirei. He'd always be there, always be strong and willing to give her the battle she wanted so much.

She needed to think and she couldn't do it here, where there were so many people already and where he'd be so close. Decision made, she got dressed, belted on her sword and leaped out the window.

She'd have to find somewhere to stay since she doubted that MBI would be bankrolling her anymore, especially in light of the fact that she'd castrated its president not very long ago, but that was hardly an issue. She knew how to care of herself.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Naruto's gold-orange gaze was contemplative as he observed Karasuba jumping at a leasurely pace across the city rooftops.

"You'll be back Little Crow, the answers aren't out there and you're too confused to find them yourself." He murmured to himself.

He was actually a clone, the original being busy cuddling his wife, the lucky bastard. Xanna would be quite put out with him if he left their bed so that he could stare after Karasuba and make ominous statements to no one in particular.

He made frequent use of clones to observe the situation in the city and break up any Sekirei battles they encountered. Occasionally he also had to kill one, such as #13 Amebane the other night. That little punk had been a right lunatic and his Ashikabi had been such a shy and weak willed girl that she wasn't capable of asserting any authority despite the fact that she was supposed to have all the power in that relationship. In light of all that, he'd killed him and burned the body to nothing, leaving the tearful girl to go home.

Yashima's situation had thankfully been unique apparently, otherwise there would already be several extra Sekirei inhabiting rooms in the hotel, though he knew there were a couple of other Ashikabi who would be losing their lives soon enough. The most notable of them were the so called Ashikabi of the East and South, an idiotic moniker if ever there was one. Neither one of them thought of their Sekirei as anything other than tools or collectible items respectively, but they weren't actively abused. This was fortunate, since it allowed him to act slowly instead of instantly crashing the party and making a bloody mess out of them. Each of them had a few psychos in their group of Sekirei that would need to be dealt with, but the situation was stable for now and without Minaka as a factor to screw everything up, it would stay stable.

The only thing Minaka was good for was a deterrent to prevent any outside forces from attempting any kidnappings. The rest of the world wasn't aware of the fact that he and Xanna were here or how much more dangerous they were than MBI, so Minaka still had that one use. Well that and as a source of amusement. The only thing that the mad CEO had been right about was that Sekirei should stay in the city limits for now.

Karasuba might have been wrong in her assumption that he needed the Sekirei to stay in the city, but it would make it easier for certain, which was why he'd placed discrete seals at every exit that would give any Sekirei or bonded Ashikabi a serious case of confusion and make them turn right back around. Devious perhaps, but he didn't feel like slaughtering any foreign search and capture teams that wanted to get their paws on a Sekirei or two.

"Uzumaki-san." The cool, polite voice made him smile slightly. This one was so much like Kakashi that it was ridiculous. All he needed was a different haircut, a scar over his left eye and the eye itself to be replaced with a Sharingan.

"Homura." He greeted back.

"May I ask what you are doing here?" The fire Sekirei asked warily, not too shocked that his name was known.

"Just keeping an eye on one of my projects." He answered, gesturing to the barely visible Karasuba in the distance.

Homura peered at the silver haired figure in the distance, sucking in a breath when he recognized the Disciplinary Squad haori over her shoulders.

"Karasuba." He hissed.

"Yes, quite the interesting one."

"More like a bloodthirsty psychopath." Homura scoffed.

"Look beyond the darkness and you will find a new shadow." Naruto responded ominously.

"What?" Homura asked, frowning in confusion as he tried to decipher that cryptic statement.

"It's the middle of the night and I feel like making portentous statements." He explained.

"So….what? Beneath her bloodthirsty psychopath persona she's also a sadist?"

Naruto snickered at the sarcastic question. He wasn't going to try to make Karasuba seem cuddly and approachable because she really wasn't, but willful ignorance was rarely a good thing. "I thought you'd appreciate her sadistic side, considering she castrated Minaka less than six hours ago."

After Homura's instinctive wince of male sympathy, an unstoppable grin bloomed on his face, even as he questioned the event. "But she's on the Disciplinary Squad, why would she do that?"

"You're behind the times Sparky, there is no more Disciplinary Squad. I've unwinged both Haihane and Karasuba today and Haihane is already living with me. Karasuba went off to do some soul searching but I expect that she'll be back in a few days, probably pissed off and demanding answers."

Now Homura was stunned speechless, enough that he didn't even register the nickname. This guy…..was seriously not screwing around.

"But enough about that, how's your core doing?"

Once again, Homura was thrown severely off balance. Casually mentioning his little problem, which was actually a really huge problem, as if it was common knowledge would do that to a guy.

"What do you know about my core?" Homura asked defensively.

"Unstable energy matrix, causes your powers to flare out of control and it's getting worse. Caused by MBI adjustors meddling about with your genes and Sekirei Core for experimentation purposes at Minaka's order." Naruto revealed blandly.

"WHAT?" Homura shouted, having not known that last part.

"Not so loud, people are sleeping." Naruto admonished and then asked in a puzzled tone. "Why else do you think this would be happening to you?"

"I thought it was because I had the cursed power of fire." Homura said, making a fireball in his hand.

"What are you, retarded?" Naruto asked bluntly, making the bishounen Sekirei flush. "How does that sound more logical than a bunch of crackpot scientists screwing around with things they don't understand? I wonder how you even manage to put your pants on in the morning if you're this much of an idiot."

"Alright, I get it!" Homura snapped with an angry blush, not wanting have his gullible stupidity pointed out any more.

"Besides, that's not cursed fire, this is cursed fire." Naruto added, making a ball of black Amaterasu flames over his hand.

Homura stared at the incredibly hot flames as if transfixed, having never seen black fire before. "You can control fire too?"

"I'm a god, I can do just about anything."

"Right, a god." Homura muttered.

"Take a look at the moon, oh ye of little faith."

Confused, Homura did as he was told, staring up at the nearly full moon. All of a sudden it seemed to catch fire and develop a dark slit down the middle until it was a perfect reflection of Naruto's eye. The rest of his face soon followed until it hung in the sky and grinned down at Homura and vanished a few seconds later.

"That slackjawed look somehow never gets old." Especially since the whole thing had been in Homura's head. Genjutsu for the win. He was just a clone after all and it was kind of late to be making annoyingly loud thunderstorms anyway.

"I should probably be getting back." The fire Sekirei muttered for lack of anything else to say. He'd been having remarkably little work to do lately, something that he suspected was the doing of this horned enigma.

"Be sure to tell Uzume that I can heal too."

Homura started again, surprised once more by his apparent knowledge of where he lived and his housemates.

"Why would you want me to tell her that specifically." He asked suspiciously.

"It's a mystery." Naruto shrugged unhelpfully.