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Meanwhile, Naruto's fight with the tall, silent figure had escalated.
Pyotr didn't allow Naruto to breathe. He came at Naruto with fists like battering rams.
Naruto dipped, dodged, and blocked each strike which sent vibrations up his arms. The guy was quiet but carried the weight of a freight train in every movement he took.
Naruto slid back, boots skidding against cracked cement. "His strength's no joke," he thought. "But in his metallic form he's a lot slower."
"Then you need to end this fight quickly before that girl kills your new friends."
"Yeah, yeah. I get it," Naruto muttered, chakra starting to bleed from his skin in waves.
"You're just doing what you're told, right?" Naruto stepped forward, voice low, steady. "Arkady points. You punch. Real original."
Pyotr didn't waste words. He came in swinging with a heavy right hook.
Whoosh.
Naruto ducked.
A left followed—fast and wide.
Miss.
A straight punch aimed for his chest—
Naruto twisted sideways, letting it pass so close it brushed his hoodie.
Pyotr's eyes narrowed.
Another blow came. And another.
Each one thrown with tank-like force.
Each one dodged with inches to spare.
Naruto's feet never stopped moving—pivoting, sliding, weaving through concrete-cracking strikes like he was dancing in a storm.
"Lot of muscle," he said casually, slipping under a vicious uppercut.
"Not much coordination though."
Pyotr's fist slammed into the tunnel wall behind him.
CRACK.
Chunks of cement rained down.
"Stand still," Pyotr growled, his voice deep, accented, frustrated.
Naruto grinned. "Uhh, how about hell fuckin' no?"
The next punch came with full-body momentum
Naruto sidestepped and tapped Pyotr's elbow just enough to knock him off-balance.
He spun away, light on his feet, chakra spiraling faintly around his heels.
"I thought you were supposed to be scary," Naruto added, almost disappointed.
"You hit like a girl."
Pyotr tried to haymaker him.
"My turn!" Naruto said.
Naruto ducked and hammered him in the gut.
WHAM.
Pyotr gasped, armor denting under the impact. He stumbled back a step, clutching at his side.
Naruto followed, not giving him time to recoup.
"What'd he promise you, huh?" he said between blows. Left. Right. Elbow to the jaw. "Power? Family? Something to finally make you feel like you're worth something?"
Pyotr tried to punch him but Naruto caught his wrist and drove his fist into Pyotr's chest, sending the bigger teen skidding across the floor.
"Because from where I'm standing," Naruto continued, walking toward him, "you're just being used."
Pyotr's boots scraped as he rose again, steel shimmering across his arms.
He charged.
Naruto let him come.
Another hit to the chest. Another to the side.
Naruto grunted but stayed up.
"You think punching things makes you strong? All I see is someone too scared to stop following orders."
He cracked Pyotr across the face with a brutal backhand, sending him spinning into a pile of broken stone.
Pyotr growled, panting, eyes wild.
Naruto just looked at him calmly.
No anger was present. Just... disappointment.
"You could be more than this. But maybe it's easier being someone else's weapon."
Silence.
"Come on then," he said softly as he prepared his stance. "Show me what you're really fighting for."
On the far side of the station, Kamala and Kate had regrouped.
Ilyana advanced forward, blade dragging against the floor, casting sparks. Her aura pulsed darker, thicker; like the air was growing heavier with every step.
Kamala steadied herself, gauntlets reforming around her hands.
Kate regrouped at her side, arrow notched, sword slung back over her shoulder. She gave Kamala a look.
"Okay. It's about time to start using teamwork."
Kamala cracked her neck. "Co-op mode?"
"Co-op mode."
Ilyana blurred forward again, sword raised high.
Kate moved first, firing an explosive-tipped arrow at Ilyana's feet. It detonated in a burst of smoke and concussive light, staggering her for just a second.
That second was all Kamala needed.
She surged in from the left, slamming a Noor punch into Ilyana's side. The force knocked her back, but not down as her blade lashed out, forcing Kamala to jump back.
"Try that again," Ilyana growled. "See how many limbs you keep."
Kate dashed in from the opposite side, striking low with her sword. Ilyana parried, but not cleanly as Kate ducked the counter and spun out of range before the retaliation landed.
"Keep her off balance!" Kate shouted. "No more giving her room to teleport!"
"Right!" Kamala called. "Time to get annoying!"
"Already are," Ilyana snapped, voice sharp with disdain.
Kamala threw a volley of Noor discs, tight, focused blasts of energy which forced Ilyana to dodge right into Kate's next arrow, which cracked against her armor with a jolt of concussive force.
Ilyana blinked, trying to teleport but Kamala was already there, swinging a glowing Noor whip around her wrist, yanking her out of the shadow portal mid-cast.
"No cheating!" Kamala barked.
Ilyana snarled, barely catching her footing. "You two fight like amateurs. Loud, sloppy, and desperate."
Kate sprinted up and planted a boot in her chest, knocking her back.
"Yeah? And you talk like a Disney villain who's failing math class," Kate shot back.
"Keep talking," Ilyana hissed, shadows flickering up her arms. "I'll carve that smug expression off your face."
"Kamala, go high!" Kate shouted.
Kamala launched her hands upward, forming a Noor platform under Kate's boots as she leapt. Kate flipped mid-air and fired two arrows, one flash, one impact.
The flash blinded. The impact staggered.
Ilyana raised her blade but Kamala was already behind her.
The Noor gauntlet slammed into her back in a hammer-punch that dropped her to one knee.
"You. Insolen-!" Ilyana spat, turning fast, blade crackling. "You think you're winning?"
Kamala panted. "I think we're surviving aggressively."
Her blade surged again, pulsing with dark magic, wild and unstable.
Kate braced, drawing another arrow. "She's powering up."
"Then we hit her harder. You thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Double finisher?"
"Double finisher."
Ilyana screamed in anger and lunged.
Kate fired.
Kamala charged.
The arrow hit her sword hand just as Kamala's Noor blast struck her chest. Her blade flew, skidding across the station floor.
"No!" Ilyana shouted, stumbling.
Kate's final arrow pinned her cloak to the ground.
Kamala didn't stop as she followed through with a rising uppercut, Noor gauntlet blazing.
It hit clean.
Ilyana was launched back, crashing into a stack of collapsed beams with a burst of sparks and a pained grunt.
She groaned, one hand twitching, blood at the corner of her mouth.
"I'm going to kill you both," she hissed, breath ragged. "Then bring you back just so I can do it again."
Kamala flopped to the floor, exhausted. "Cool. Make sure to write that in your evil teen diary in teenie villain prison."
Kate dropped beside her, catching her breath. "We done?"
Ilyana didn't move.
On the other side of the station, the sound of fists slamming concrete echoed like drumbeats of war.
Naruto met Pyotr's charge head-on, both of them crashing fists into each other like titans. Sparks flew. The walls cracked. Floor panels buckled.
"Man," Naruto grunted, sliding back as one of Pyotr's punches clipped his shoulder. "You're built like a tank and you fight like one."
Kurama snorted in his head. "If he were any more straightforward, he'd come with a caution label."
Chakra snapped off him like wildfire. Naruto ducked, spun low, and drove a chakra charged kick into Pyotr's gut. The teen lifted clean off the ground and slammed into a support beam hard enough to shake the tunnel.
"You really okay with all this?" Naruto said, stepping forward. "Letting innocent people be turned into weapons? Used? Hurt?"
Pyotr said nothing. His metal face was unreadable. The only answer he gave was another charge, faster this time, angrier.
A blinding series of punches came at Naruto, forcing him on the defensive. Each hit was like a hammer to his bones.
Naruto caught one, twisted, and slammed Pyotr down into the floor with a sickening crunch. The impact cratered the tile beneath them. Still, Pyotr rose, dents in his metal skin, chest heaving.
"You don't talk much," Naruto muttered. "But I get it. I used to bottle stuff up too."
He kicked off the ground and nailed Pyotr with a straight punch to the chest sending him flying back into a crumbled wall.
Naruto's head snapped up as he froze mid-step, eyes narrowing as a cold ripple crept down his spine.
That feeling again. Hate.
'Behind you!' Kurama's voice roared.
Naruto spun just as Arkady's tendrils slashed toward him, whistling like steel whips. He dodged one,and caught another.
Big mistake.
Pain lanced through him, sharp and draining, like ice cutting through veins.
His chakra sputtered.
"Wha-!" Naruto staggered.
"He's draining your chakra," Kurama growled. "Break free. Now!"
Arkady reeled back, laughing, his coils pulsing with stolen energy. His frame bulged unnaturally, veins glowing red.
His already mountain-like frame seemed even larger.
"Thank you," he hissed. "You've made me… more."
Naruto dropped to one knee, breathing hard, hand resting on the broken concrete beneath him.
"You should've stayed in the shadows," he growled, chakra starting to blaze back to life but weaker this time.
Arkady raised his arm, the new energy crackling in his veins. "And you should have run while you had the chance."
Naruto danced across the station floor, shoes carving deep grooves into the concrete as he barely dodged another strike from Arkady's tendrils.
Pyotr came in immediately behind it, a heavy right hook swinging toward Naruto's temple with freight-train momentum.
He ducked under it, muscles tight, but didn't get away clean. The follow-up elbow clipped his shoulder, staggering him.
Before he could reset, Arkady's coils lashed in from behind. Naruto twisted to meet them, swatting one aside with a chakra-enhanced strike.
But the second coiled around his ribs and squeezed. The drain was instant and sharp, like a hand plunging into his lungs and pulling energy out by the fistful.
He gritted his teeth and tore free, gasping.
"Tch, he's draining me of chakra every time I get hit," Naruto muttered, jaw clenched tight.
Kurama's voice rumbled in his head, as dry as ever. "Maybe if you trained more and binged less garbage soap operas, this wouldn't be happening.I told you that 'As The Avengers Turn' was a waste of time."
"Can we not right now, Kurama?" Naruto snapped aloud, barely avoiding a stomp from Pyotr that cracked the ground beneath him.
"Not when you're getting your ass kicked like a school-yard nerd."
Pyotr didn't slow. He threw a straight punch that Naruto blocked with both arms, but the sheer weight of it sent him skidding backwards. Before he could recover, a second blow landed, hammering into his ribs and knocking the wind out of him.
Naruto dropped low and swept Pyotr's legs, finally taking the bigger teen off his feet, but Arkady was already on him.
Coils shot in from the left, wrapping around Naruto's arm and yanking him off balance. He landed hard, shoulder slamming into the floor. Arkady advanced, boots scraping concrete, a smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth.
"You are stronger than I expected," he said. "But not smart enough to flee when you had the chance."
Naruto twisted up and drove a knee into Arkady's chest just enough to break the hold, but it had cost him. Pyotr was back on his feet, and he charged like a tank.
The punch caught Naruto full in the gut. He folded around it with a grunt and was sent flying into a steel support beam with a hollow clang.
The impact knocked dust loose from the ceiling. Naruto coughed hard, blood at the corner of his mouth.
Kurama's voice was less sarcastic now. "You good?"
"Yeah," Naruto wheezed, dragging himself to his feet. "Just tired of being a fuckin' punching bag."
He touched his side. Chakra flowed through his body, knitting torn muscle and bruised bone. The ache dulled, but didn't disappear.
"I can take the punches," he muttered, flexing his fingers. "But not forever."
Pyotr and Arkady stood side by side now, Arkady's coils twitching, Pyotr's fists clenched and ready.
Naruto exhaled slowly. His hoodie was scorched in places, blood spattered down one sleeve, and he could already feel chakra thinning out from the repeated damage control.
"You done playing hero, little boy?" Arkady taunted. "Or should we keep educating you?"
Naruto rolled his neck, popping it loud. "You're real smug for someone who's ass I'm about to kick."
Arkady lunged again, and Pyotr followed.
Naruto met them head-on.
This time, he wasn't looking for an opening. He was just trying to survive and figure out a plan
Fists slammed into him, coils lashed, and every movement became reactive. He blocked what he could, took what he couldn't, and every blow added to the weight dragging him down.
He got one good hit in, elbowing Arkady across the jaw, hard enough to draw blood.
But the cost was another blow from Pyotr that sent him tumbling across the floor like a bag of potatoes
He lay there for a second, chest heaving, blood trickling from his nose.
Then he pushed himself up again.
Kurama's voice in his head wasn't mocking now. Just steady.
"Get serious, brat."
"I am," Naruto said, wiping his mouth. "Now I'm just pissed."
For a moment, the station was quiet.
Ilyana didn't move.
Kate let out a slow breath. "Okay. Now we're done."
Then the shadows shifted.
Kamala's head snapped up. "You've gotta be kidd-!"
Ilyana screamed.
Darkness erupted from beneath her in a violent pulse, sending debris flying as her body arched off the ground, cloak flaring with unnatural wind. Her eyes blazed violet, her blade flew back into her hand, summoned by pure rage, and her aura exploded outward like a curse being torn open.
She hovered just off the ground now as shadows crawled up her arms, licking at the corners of her face, burning hotter and more unstable than before.
"You think that was enough?!" she roared, voice raw and cracking. "I've survived worse in Limbo!"
Kate scrambled to her feet, arrow already drawn. "Yup. Phase two."
Kamala winced. "Why is it always phase two?"
Ilyana struck like lightning, no teleport this time, just pure speed, her blade a blur of jagged violet flame. Kate dodged left, but barely. The edge of the strike clipped her shoulder, slicing through her jacket and drawing blood.
"Kate!" Kamala shouted, hurling a Noor shield between them.
Ilyana didn't even blink tearing through the shield like it was butter, blade screeching like it was alive.
"You don't get to stop me!" she howled, driving Kamala back with a flurry of strikes. "You don't get to win!"
Kamala blocked with her gauntlets, each hit sending a jolt up her arms, pushing her closer to the wall. "You're not some tragic anti-hero, you're just a kid throwing a temper tantrum with a murder weapon!"
Kate rolled back into position, panting, and aimed a sonic arrow. "Hey, Xena the Warrior Princess! Ever heard of overcompensation?!"
She fired.
The arrow landed near Ilyana's feet and detonated with a high-pitched pulse that staggered her for half a second; just enough.
"Kamala, now!"
Kamala pushed off the wall, Noor energy flaring bright as she charged, swinging a glowing hammer-form construct with everything she had.
It connected with Ilyana's side and launched her into the air. Before she could hit the ground, Kate fired another arrow, this one chaining her cloak to a cracked support beam mid-fall.
Ilyana hit the ground hard, rolled, and immediately tried to rise; blade glowing, breath ragged, eyes wild.
Kamala stepped forward, arm cocked back.
"You need to stop," she snapped, Noor energy coiling around her knuckles.
She slammed her fist down with a final, direct strike.
It crashed into Ilyana's chest. A flash of light. A shockwave. Then silence.
The blade flickered out of Ilyana's grip. Her body slumped.
No tricks this time.
Just a fifteen-year-old girl, unconscious in a pile of rubble, breath shallow, magic finally burned out.
Kamala stood over her, panting.
Kate joined her side, wiping blood from her lip. "That was... a lot."
Kamala nodded. "She hits harder than some people's trauma."
Kate glanced at Ilyana. "You think she's really done now?"
Kamala looked at her crumpled form, the flickering remnants of dark energy trailing off into nothing.
"Yeah," she said. "She's outta steam for sure."
"We're still co-op mode champions though, right?"
Kate offered a tired fist bump. "Top of the leaderboard."
They sat there, side by side, bruised and bloodied, but still standing.
Naruto lay still for a moment, breathing hard, blood at the corner of his mouth, ribs aching, chakra flickering dim and shallow inside him.
Pyotr cracked his knuckles and took a step forward. Arkady's coils slithered back into place, greedy to taste Naruto's chakra again.
Naruto didn't move.
Didn't speak.
He just stared at the floor. Then he exhaled.
Arkady sneered, wiping blood from his knuckles. "You're finished."
Naruto coughed once. Then, he laughed.
A dry, tired chuckle that echoed off the tunnel walls.
Arkady's lip curled. "Something funny, boy?"
Naruto looked up, grin lopsided through the blood.
"Yeah," he said. "Kurama's gonna kill me for this."
In his head, the Fox sighed.
"To think you'd be getting beat by such riff raff…"
He sat up slowly. Not with panic—like someone finally deciding to wake from a long sleep.
He lifted his hoodie. Raised his shirt.
And revealed smooth, tan skin beneath it—unscarred, unbroken. Except for the mark.
A circular seal. Faintly glowing. Ancient and alive.
Kamala blinked. "Wait—what is that?"
Naruto stood, facing Arkady and Pyotr as he flexed his right hand.
Flames of blue chakra flickered to life at each fingertip, dancing and licking like living ink.
He spoke as he moved. Calm. Flat.
"Ever since I was a kid," Naruto said, "I broke things. Dishes. Doors. People."
The flames flickered brighter.
"I was too strong."
"Animals wouldn't even come near me. Even cats. And I love cats."
Kurama grumbled somewhere in his mindscape at the unintentional jab.
His fingers touched the seal. The chakra didn't burn, but sank into his flesh.
"I was a freak at the orphanage. I couldn't play with the other kids. I didn't know how to hold back my strength."
He twisted his fingers.
The seal shimmered.
"So Kurama taught me a technique. A seal. One that could lock away most of my chakra, and keep my strength on a leash."
Arkady frowned. "What are you.."
Naruto's voice deepened as he recited the incantation. Each word shook the air:
"Vessel of flesh. Gate of bone.
Fox of Pandemonium, bound by chains of malice.
O, heart once silenced,
Release."
The seal twisted and unlocked.
The air convulsed.
A silence dropped, so pure it felt wrong.
Then the chakra hit.
A maelstrom of energy exploded outward from Naruto, blinding and absolute.
Wind screamed.
Dust spiraled.
The concrete cracked beneath his feet, spiderwebbing out in jagged lines.
And his hair, the wild, sunlit golden locks flared upward, lifting in the rising pressure like it had a will of its own.
The air warped around him, chakra boiling off his skin in streams of living flame.
Arkady flinched, raising a hand.
Pyotr instinctively braced, muscles tensing, but his feet still skidded back through the dust.
The maelstrom's presence sank into the bones.
The tunnel darkened, not from shadow, but from weight. The oppressive, crushing truth of something terrifying manifesting into existence.
And then the visions began.
Arkady saw blood. His own. Endless. Drowning him.
Pyotr watched his limbs shatter in slow motion, metal peeling away from bone.
Their instincts, honed killers' instincts screamed: RUN!
And at the center of it all stood Naruto.
The pressure mounted until it felt like the tunnel would collapse under it.
Then
GASP.
Arkady stumbled back a step, blinking hard as the vision slipped from his eyes like melting frost.
Sweat clung to his brow.
"What… was that?" he rasped, voice cracking with disbelief.
Pyotr shook his head violently, snarling, trying to break free of the phantom pain still ghosting through his body. His eyes darted to Naruto, wary now. Uncertain.
The weight hadn't vanished. But it had lessened.
"What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost." Naruto said calmly as his blue eyes radiated with power.
Pyotr roared and charged.
Naruto didn't flinch.
He moved.
One kick, straight off the floor. The ground cracked under the pressure, tiles erupting beneath his soles as he launched forward in a blur.
He vaulted up and over Pyotr's shoulder like it was nothing.
Flipping clean behind him.
Then came the strike.
A sharp, spinning kick, driven by pure chakra-fueled momentum. It slammed just under Pyotr's ribs with a brutal, thud, the sound of meat colliding with iron.
Pyotr stumbled but Naruto didn't wait.
He inhaled sharply, just one breath.
Then exhaled.
His palm thrust forward and released a tight, concussive blast of chakra straight into Pyotr's back. The impact hit like a cannonball, launching the giant forward into a wall with enough force to dent the concrete.
Before the dust could settle, Arkady attacked.
Shouting. Charging.
Rage bubbling through the frost of his composure.
"You think these little tricks are gonna save you?!" he roared.
Naruto's eyes flicked toward him.
No fear.
He turned, pivoted, and slammed an open palm into Arkady's chest.
BOOM.
The strike cracked through the air like thunder. Arkady flew backward, crashing into a stack of steel crates that exploded on impact. Shrapnel and dust clouding the space where he vanished.
Kurama rumbled in his chest, amused.
"That's more like it."
Pyotr wasn't down yet.
He surged forward again, swinging. A hammer of a man.
But Naruto didn't meet him head-on.
He flowed.
Every movement was deliberate. Minimal.
No flash. No flourish.
He sidestepped the first punch, planted a foot, and buried an elbow in Pyotr's ribs.
A second later, he palm-struck the giant's chin hard enough to lift him half a step.
Pyotr retaliated with a heavy downward blow. Naruto weaved around it with a quarter turn and drove a short hook into Pyotr's gut, followed by a rising knee that knocked the breath from his lungs.
Pyotr reeled. Naruto kept coming.
One hand clapped the back of Pyotr's skull. The other struck his sternum. Chakra exploded between them like a landmine sending Pyotr sprawling.
Arkady growled, pulling himself out of the debris just as Naruto twisted, ducked, and swept low.
The kick was a blur.
It tore a crater through the floor and clipped both Arkady and Pyotr with raw force, dragging them into a spinning heap of dust, blood, and broken stone.
Silence fell.
Then footsteps.
Naruto emerged from the haze, expression calm, eyes glowing faintly with suppressed power.
Naruto straightened in the center of the station, standing tall, his breath steady and calm.
He was just getting warmed up.
Arkady hacked violently in the rubble of the crater he lay in, struggling to breathe, one coil twitching weakly.
Pyotr rose slowly, bruised, limping now, steel skin now turned back into flesh.
Naruto cracked his knuckles, then rolled his shoulders, eyes sharp.
Naruto stood in the dust, wind curling around his ankles like smoke. "You're finished."
Blood dripped from the tall boy's nose, his breaths shallow and broken, but his eyes were locked on Arkady, lying crumpled on the floor.
Pyotr took a step forward, then stopped. For the first time, his elder brother looked small.
Naruto didn't move. He just watched.
A ripple of violet light split the air near Pyotr, swirling open into a stepping disk. Ilyana stepped through bruised and quiet as smoke, her cloak trailing behind her like shadows.
Her eyes swept over the scene, the shattered tunnel, Arkady broken and bleeding, Pyotr barely standing.
Then Naruto.
She didn't draw her blade. She didn't think she stood a good chance against someone who could beat both her brothers at the same time.
Pyotr glanced at her, then back at Arkady. His jaw clenched.
"He made his choice," he muttered, voice hoarse. "We're done here."
Ilyana gave a single nod. No argument. No hesitation.
Pyotr limped toward the portal, his steps uneven, slow. Naruto didn't move. Their eyes met in passing.
Pyotr stepped through the disk and vanished.
Ilyana stayed for a beat longer, her gaze locked on Naruto now. Not challenging. Just… curious.
"You could've stopped us," she said, soft but certain.
Naruto's expression didn't change.
"I know," he said. "Didn't want to."
Ilyana studied him for a moment longer, then turned.
The portal sealed behind her with a quiet hum,
And just like that, Arkady was alone.
Naruto watched them vanish, then turned back to Arkady, who was trying to crawl with one hand toward a chunk of metal.
"Don't bother," he said, voice low.
Before Arkady could curse him out.
BOOM.
The tunnel exploded with movement. Lights blazed. Boots thundered.
Rappelling cables dropped from above, floodlights flared to life, and the air filled with the whump of boots hitting concrete.
Within seconds, a dozen SABER agents swarmed the scene, rifles raised and locked.
"HANDS WHERE WE CAN SEE 'EM!" one barked.
Naruto sighed, lifting his arms half-heartedly as he powered down.
"Of course."
Kate raised an eyebrow, bow still in hand. "Relax, G.I. Jane. We're the good guys."
Kamala put her hands up quickly, glancing between the agents. "We definitely don't want trouble! Unless it's bad guy trouble, in which case we already handled it, so… you're welcome?"
The lead agent stepped forward, dressed in full tactical gear, her earpiece blinking. Her SABER badge caught the light.
"Stand down," she snapped. "Now."
Naruto didn't flinch. "You're late."
She glared. "We've been monitoring this operation for months. You were supposed to stay out of it. Arkady wasn't just a threat, he was a lead. A major supplier to six different criminal syndicates. We were tracking the buyers, the movement. The paper trail. And now…"
She swept a hand toward the rubble, where Arkady groaned, thoroughly beaten.
"…thanks to you, the only thing those buyers will know is their supplier got taken out by a bunch of upstart, underage, vigilantes playing hero."
Kate crossed her arms, unimpressed. "You're welcome for the part where we didn't die. That was cool of us."
Kamala stepped forward, voice calm but firm. "You were watching him hurt people. You knew what he was doing, and you waited."
"It was strategic containment," the agent snapped. "We had it under control."
"No," Naruto cut in. "You had it under surveillance. There's a difference."
The wind stirred again soft and steady, lifting dust and cracked debris in gentle spirals at his feet. The edges of his hoodie fluttered.
"I don't care what badge you flash or what desk signs your paycheck," he said, tone cold but even. "People were getting hurt. So we stopped it."
The agent took a step closer, trying to loom. "You just blew months of intelligence work. Do you have any idea what kind of damage you've caused?"
"I saved lives," Naruto said, meeting her eyes. "If that messes with your paperwork? Boo fucking hoo."
Kate leaned toward Kamala and whispered, "He's gonna get us all on a watchlist."
Kamala whispered back, "Worth it."
The agent opened her mouth, furious.
But one of her own operatives stepped forward. "We've got him. Alive. Confirmed. He's not going anywhere."
Her jaw tightened. Again.
Naruto gave her one last look. "SABER? Does that stand for 'Sorry, Arrived But Everything's Resolved?'"
He turned, walking past the agents without a second glance. Kate followed with a casual finger-gun salute. Kamala gave a small, awkward wave, mouthing "sorry" and "not really" at the same time.
Kurama's voice echoed in Naruto's head.
"You really can't help yourself, huh?"
"Nope," Naruto popped with extra emphasis on the p. "And I don't want to."
Kamala flopped dramatically onto the beanbag chair in the center of the room, limbs sprawled out lazily.
"Okay," she said between deep breaths, "can we just talk about how insane today was? Because I am still emotionally vibrating."
Kate sat on the arm of the couch, sipping soda like it was a fine vintage. "We survived a superpowered Russian criminal terrorist and his terrible siblings. I think that earns us at least a little respect and a commemorative mug."
Naruto stood at the window, hoodie half-zipped, hair slightly messy.
Kamala pointed at him, eyes wide.
"And you!" she said, grinning. "You were all like, 'whoosh!', and then the wind exploded, and Arkady went boom into the ceiling, and Kate was up in the rafters like Robin Hood, and then I dropkicked Goth Xena the Warrior Princess into a whole pillar! It was like, live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender, but with realistic CGI!"
Kate raised her hand. "I would like to formally object to being labeled the female Robin Hood"
Kamala ignored her. "And then that SABER lady came in all mad like 'You've ruined months of our operation!' and Naruto was just like.." she dropped her voice, imitating him, "'Boo-hoo.' I died. You were so cool and nonchalant, it was borderline anime protagonist."
Naruto blinked slowly. "…I wasn't trying to be."
"That's what makes it even better!" Kamala groaned, kicking her feet. "You're effortlessly cool."
Kate tossed a napkin at Kamala. "Please stop enabling him, you're going to give him a big head."
Kamala caught it. "Too late. I'm writing this all down in the team newsletter."
"Please tell me we don't have a team newsletter," Kate muttered.
"We will," Kamala said brightly. "It'll have monthly highlights, training schedules, and a shipping section."
Naruto raised an eyebrow. "Shipping like… boats?"
Kamala and Kate stared at him.
"…Oh," he said. "That shipping."
Kate looked mildly alarmed. "I'd like to be excluded from that narrative."
"You would say that," Kamala smirked.
They all laughed.
Naruto finally sat down on the floor beside the coffee table, leaning back on his palms.
"We made a good team," he said quietly.
Kate raised her soda. "To not dying."
Kamala raised hers too. "To kicking villain butt."
Naruto raised his glass "To ramen."
They clinked their cups together.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
Kate raised an eyebrow. "We expecting an Amazon delivery?"
Kamala shook her head. "Nope."
Naruto stood up with a groan, stretching out his shoulders. "Probably someone with the wrong address."
He swung the door open, then blinked.
Tall. Bald. Black trench coat. Eye patch. Pistol holstered on his hip. The kind of presence that filled the whole hallway without saying a word.
Naruto glanced over his shoulder. "Hey, it's some dude cosplaying Nick Fury."
Then he looked back.
"…Okay. That's a really good cosplay."
Nick Fury didn't react.
"We need to talk."
"Yea? Well my mom told me not to talk to strangers." Naruto replied.
Behind him, Kamala nearly choked on her drink
She stood up so fast her chair nearly tipped. "Naruto, that is Nick Fury!"
Naruto frowned. "The real one?"
"Yes. The real one. As in, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., scary spy guy, makes people disappear for breakfast, that Nick Fury."
Kate squinted. "Wait... I thought he was dead?"
Fury's eye twitched. Just a little.
Kamala stepped forward fast, hands up. "Sir! Hi! Uhhh, sorry about, uh.. this situation. We weren't expecting company."
Fury stared at Naruto for a long second before turning his gaze to Kamala. "You've been busy."
Kamala's smile was nervous. "Y-yeah, just a little."
Naruto scratched the back of his head. "So... you're not here to sell us something?"
"Because I'm fully broke, and I just quit my job."
Fury stepped forward. The door closed behind him without him touching it.
"I'm here because you're on my radar now, kid," he said, eyes narrowing. "All three of you are."
Naruto sighed. "And here I thought tonight was gonna be chill."