"Doctor, you do twenty impossible things before breakfast. How is this any different?"
"Because the ways between the universes are closed," said the Doctor. "The TARDIS is unable to cross those boundaries."
"Can we at least not have me dying again? It's getting rather old rather fast," complained Rory.
"There there," said Amy Pond, patting her husband on the shoulder.
"We're..." The Doctor checked a couple of readings. "Oh. That's odd."
"What's odd?" asked Rory, trying to brace himself for his inevitable death.
"We came to rest on a pile of dead daleks," said the Doctor, looking up.
"Oh, daleks," said Rory, who then shrugged. "How many daleks?"
The Doctor made an odd face, shrugged himself, then just went ahead and said it. "According to this, seventy four thousand and eighty eight."
"Oh. You did say dead daleks, right?" asked Rory, wanting that point clarified.
"Oh yes. Stone cold dead. Power systems offline, biological parts shriveled up with no lifesigns at all." The Doctor nodded. "Yup. Any more dead we'd be talking disintegrated."
"Well, if we have to have daleks around, - exterminated is the best kind," said Amy Pond.
"Except that something had to have exterminated them," pointed out Rory.
"Yes," agreed the Doctor. "Not necessarily friendly towards US, and capable of exterminating seventy four thousand and eighty eight daleks and leaving their crushed and crumpled shells in a big pile."
"What could do that?" asked Amy Pond. "Besides a thoroughly ticked off Time Lord?"
"I didn't do it," protested the Doctor. "At least, I don't THINK I did it. I suppose I could have done it at some point in the future if I really felt the need. And had that many daleks running around. And, honestly, I'm not sure whether to consider this a good or bad thing myself."
"Well, let's just try leaving before whatever it was gets back," suggested Rory.
"Right," said the Doctor, flicking switches. "And- we're not going anywhere."
Rory sighed, walked to the door of the TARDIS, opened it up, and looked out there. "Suppose this is inevitable or something. I... oh hello there."
"Hello?" asked the Doctor, looking a bit discomfited. "Do you see something?"
"Uhm, you could certainly say that," said Rory, closing the door again. Then he sat down, twitching slightly.
"What? What did you see?" asked Amy, a bit concerned.
"We're on a pile of dead daleks, in a cave, and there's some woman with a sword standing right outside the TARDIS," said Rory.
"Really? What's her name?" asked Amy.
Rory stared at his wife a moment, looked to the Doctor with a baffled expression, then finally shrugged. "I'll ask."
"Did he just open the TARDIS door while we are perched atop a heap of dead daleks?" asked the Doctor.
"Twice," noted Amy.
"Hello again," said Rory. "Might we have your name? Ah. Thought it might be something like that. Just a tick."
The Doctor and Amy exchanged a look as Rory closed the door again, then walked back to where they are waiting.
Rory frowned thoughtfully for a moment, crossed his arms in front of his chest briefly, and opened his mouth once before closing it again.
"Who is she then?" prompted Amy.
"So anyway, that is when this 'Doctor' guy met Lina Inverse and those guys she's usually hanging with," said Naruto. "They contacted me and the old relic here and we had an out."
"One of these 'daleks' apparently attacked someone who frequently associates with Lina," said Jiraiya around a mouthful of bread. "I think he took one away to 'play with it' - and I'm not entirely sure what happened after that."
"Yeah, all he'd say was it was 'a secret'," said Naruto. "Guy always seemed uncomfortable around me for some reason."
"You're always cheerful," said Jiraiya.
"Yeah, so?" asked Naruto.
"Never mind," said Jiraiya, somehow conveying that this was some running joke the universe had pulled on him. "So we were travelling with this Doctor and things were going normally. Well, 'normal' as things apparently ever get with the Doctor."
"Okay, this was bizarre," said the Doctor.
"Bizarre he says," said Amy.
"I didn't die, I feel that is a definite improvement," said Rory.
"No. Not that," said the Doctor as he spun dials and flipped switches. "We were heading for the beaches of Emeraldis IV, the Galactic Pizza Celebration."
"And we ended up facing Tenebrian mind-worms," noted Amy, "on Safiru III. Par for the course, isn't it?"
"It had a ramen festival!" declared Naruto. "How could that NOT be better?!"
"Well, I figured it out," said the Doctor, "it's that chakra of yours contaminating the temporal flux reactions and the TARDIS is getting thrown off course as a result."
"But this always happens," said Amy. "Where's Jiraiya anyway?"
"Library," said Naruto.
"That's right he's..." The Doctor looked up from the panel he was working on. "I locked that away. Hid it."
"He figured you were throwing down a challenge," said Naruto.
"I wasn't throwing down a challenge," said the Doctor, turning from the console to look down at Naruto. "And where did you get THAT?"
"Stole it from them mind-worm slaves," said Naruto. "Thinking of giving it to Granny when we get back. Why?"
"That is a Type IV Laser Cutting Tool, and is entirely too dangerous for children to play around with," said the Doctor.
"Nah, this is a Type V, see - it's got a multipurpose setting," said Naruto.
"There's an idea," said Rory. "Why didn't I think of that? Next time we're surrounded by alien invading mind-worms or plastic golems or something we could-"
"No, if you go arming yourself you'll just escalate everything," said the Doctor.
"I'm just saying," said Naruto. "I don't handle people shoving death rays in my face and saying they're gonna kill me."
"Never would have guessed from all the times you've blown up rooms, vehicles," said Rory.
"You do seem a little fond of things that go boom," allowed Amy.
"-daleks, cybermen," continued Rory.
"Well, I'll just adjust this and we'll land precisely this time. At a place where I can drop two ninja off." The Doctor turned a final knob and threw a switch.
"-weeping angels, flying laser sharks, space weasels," continued Rory.
"I never blew up the space weasels," protested Naruto.
"And- now," said the Doctor, looking triumphant as he flipped a final switch.
KER-THUD!
"I take it that didn't go as planned," stated Tsunade.
"Nope!" cheerfully said Naruto. "TARDIS crashed. Couldn't get it restarted for most of those three years."
"So where did you end up?" asked Shizune.
"In the 'King's Forest' near a place called 'Sharn of the Towers' - it was kinda neat," said Naruto. "Though we ended up in Zilspar for awhile first."
"What the heck?" asked Naruto, gawking openly.
"Naruto? Infiltration mission," chided Jiraiya.
"But..." Naruto indicated the village.
"Look around, but don't stare at anything," advised Jiraiya, moving on. "If something gets your attention, make sure it looks like you're looking at something else. Window displays are good for this, as you can appear to be studying something for sale."
Naruto switched from staring to looking in the same window that his mentor was. "What is this stuff anyway?"
"The stuff in the window? Well, it looks like its an apothecary of some kind - so herbal cures I guess," said Jiraiya. "Or were you referring to the people walking around?"
"Or that gadget or, well, any of it," answered Naruto.
"Yeah," said Jiraiya. "It's a very different environment. We need the basics before we proceed too far."
"'Basics'?" questioned Tsunade.
"The world turned out to be called 'Eberron'," said Jiraiya. "There are several races of sentient beings there - most in one type of conflict or another with various others."
"What? You mean like Tailed Beasts?" asked Shizune.
"Not quite," said Jiraiya.
"Okay," said the very short guy, sitting down. "No local money, but I like those knife-things and I can use 'em. I think we can come up with a deal. What do you need to know?"
Jiraiya put three kunai on the table between them. "First. Assume we just stepped off a boat from some really distant island. What can you tell me about this village?"
"From the way the kid's looking at me, I guess this 'really distant island' doesn't have halflings?" asked the short person.
"'Halflings'?" asked Tsunade.
"So called because they're roughly half the height of an elf or human. Humans are the most common race, unless you're getting to certain specific countries where another race is dominant," said Jiraiya. "Dwarves are slightly bigger than halflings, but a lot heavier. Crafters and warriors. Elves are close to human height but tend to have slim builds, specialists in woodcraft and specialized jutsu. Warforged are an artificially made species. Shifters are a race of humans that have abilities similar to the Inuzuka, but more variety with several different clans. Orcs are a race of warriors with a history of fighting practically everyone else."
"So a setup like our own with various nations not actually at war but constantly looking for an excuse?" asked Tsunade.
"Yeah, pretty much," said Jiraiya with a shrug.
"-and so," said the halfling, Redondo Jonz, pausing to blow a bit of foam off his tankard, "-the War ended and you had a bunch of people just basically out of work. So the market for oddjobs got kinda dicey."
"I see," said Jiraiya.
"Well, still is that way in some areas," said Redondo. "You have some areas where enough of the local youths went off to war and there aren't enough locals to staff the jobs. There's guys like myself whose job skills in the war aren't really in demand."
"What kind of job did you perform in the war?" asked Jiraiya.
"You know the big herdbeasts used for transport?" Redondo jerked a thumb at himself. "I was working with them. So when a big merchant caravan crew goes through - I can usually hire on with one of 'em if I get there early enough."
"Well, anything useful come out of that?" asked Tsunade.
"Useful here and now, no," admitted Jiraiya. "Useful then and there - yeah."
"So just skip to the part with anything useful here," said Tsunade. After all, if she let him - he might go into detail about peeping on midget women or something else she just plain didn't want to hear about.
"Like the ninja of House Phiarlan?" asked Naruto.
"Yeah, it took awhile but we found out that they DID have ninja there," admitted Jiraiya. "Mainly genjutsu specialists. They apparently took exception to Naruto running around proclaiming himself a REAL ninja."
Tsunade facepalmed.
"They sent ninja after you," stated Shizune, seeing it as the most likely outcome.
"It started with one ninja wanting to prove Naruto wrong," agreed Jiraiya. "It escalated fast."
"At one point there was a full squad stalking us," admitted Naruto.
"I was able to convince one eventually that Naruto was an idiot and didn't mean anything by it," said Jiraiya.
"Rory learned enough magic he could use that Stone To Rock spell he found," said Naruto cheerfully.
"Yes, he was rather pleased with that," admitted Jiraiya.
"'Stone To Rock'?" asked Tsunade.
"What... what did you do?!" asked the Doctor, seeing a statue of a Weeping Angel with the most astonished expression on its face.
"That 'Stone to Rock' spell I found," said Rory, sounding very pleased.
"Wait one tick," said Amy. "That spell that takes any sort of stone like marble or granite and turns it to some sort of generic stone?"
"Right," said a very pleased Rory.
"You cast it on a Weeping Angel, who turn to stone the moment anyone looks at them?" asked Amy. "Then turn back the moment someone looks away and move very fast to attack you?"
"It doesn't bother you when I hit a dalek with a Baleful Polymorph," protested Rory.
"Well, it was just the one," said the Doctor after a slight pause. "And it was sort of amusing to have the rest of the daleks staring at the chicken you turned one into. I think three of them had a nervous breakdown. I didn't think a dalek could HAVE a nervous breakdown."
"So you learned some new skills?" asked Sakura. "Like what?"
"I learned healing jutsu, protective and barrier jutsu," said Jiraiya, giving a half-shrug. "A few things here and there. Naruto however learned what they call 'the path of the-"
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