"Squee," indicated the hamster.
"Your spear, named Nornblade, turns into a hamster named Boo?" asked Naruto.
"Yeah," said Sakura, "it doesn't sound right to call a hamster 'Nornblade' for some reason."
"Well, I suppose whatever works," said Naruto thoughtfully.
The power had flooded through them, the power of a "million exploding suns" by some accounts. Drawn through them to ground out in a fuuinjutsu seal that Naruto had developed. Except it had bounced and needed to dissipate. Naruto had provided it but it was too much for him alone. So Hinata had grabbed Naruto's hand. Sakura had seen what was happening and had hesitated but grabbed Hinata's hand. Sasuke had heard about this involving power being sealed, had thought that a waste, and had grabbed Sakura's hand when it was obvious that something was going on. Not because he really saw them as a team, or he felt anything for this annoying girl.
Because he was a ninja, if cheating to get power to complete a task was required - cheat. This was obviously a cheat.
At the end of it, eight people (including Boo) had been included.
The Nornblade had been semi-intelligent, not quite at the level of sentience. The main power had been simply that the blade could sense and change its magical "bite" to one of several presets. Nornblade could do a magical "poison" - essentially an infective energy pattern that disrupted life energies. Fire, lightning, cold, or vampiric effects could be selected.
Afterwards, the atgier Nornblade was fully sentient. Able to transform into a hamster. Able to erect a barrier.
That wasn't to say that the four Konoha children hadn't also been changed.
He'd felt it through the pain, through the feeling of something hot and furious pouring through him, he'd felt the potential and the question. It hadn't been in words, and from what he'd heard each of them had gotten the same sort-of question.
It had been "what do you seek?" and "what do you want most?" and "what defines you?" and "what do you want to be?" all together. Perhaps the best way to translate it had been Hinata's suggestion of "what is your goal?" but that wasn't quite it either.
His answer had been simple. Power. Power to avenge. Power to end That Man. Strength to utterly destroy He Who Had Wronged Me.
Sasuke Uchiha had gotten it. So had everyone else. It was just that how it had all manifested that was a bit different. Each of them had the basic powers of the one known as the Sentry, but each was better at one thing than the others and weaker at something else. Just as the power had shaped them, they had somehow shaped that power.
When it came to general speed - Hinata was best. When the one named Stark had tested them - Hinata had been able to strike the test target in excess of one thousand times per second. The slowest had been Naruto with a strike speed of merely fifty times per second.
When it came to flight speed and manueverability in the air - it was Naruto who shone. His top speed was apparently twelve times the speed of sound and he could hover and control the air around him to create blades of vacuum. And would do so with childish glee whenever given the chance. Kid with a new toy. Worst at that was Sakura, whose top speed was "seventy five miles per hour" and had a tendency to leave furrows in the ground when she landed.
Energy projection was HIS specialty - and it was easiest for him to focus his gaze and send ravening destruction in the forms of eye beams. According to Stark, his "heat vision" looked like something called a "cohesive charged particle beam" that could generate a temperature of 3422 degrees Centigrade in an area as small as a cubic centimeter.
To say he was rather proud and happy of this achievement was true. That he still spent a large segment of his time brooding and alone, that was also true. That he had been through a hell of combat and bonded with his team - true as well not that he would deign to show it.
In terms of invulnerability, or at least resistance to being injured, it was Sakura's main thing. When Sasuke had first found he could project energy - he'd ended up blasting his three compatriots, two walls, an old Volkswagon Scirocco, three pigeons, a Toyota pickup truck, a cabbage patch that had somehow survived Asgard's fall, and someone named the Mandrill.
The others from Konoha had survived. Sakura without injury, Naruto somewhat singed and mad as hell, Hinata's clothes had burned completely off and she'd fainted from sheer shame of it all.
Not that any of their clothes had done all that well. Naruto's orange jumpsuit had been pretty much reduced to scraps - and good riddance.
In terms of physical strength, they were all around the same level - though Sakura seemed to have an edge there, followed by Naruto and then himself and lastly Hinata. Stamina was Naruto's strength, perhaps even more than his flight capabilities. Sensory acuity - Hinata. Ability to heal injuries on others - himself. Telepathy - Naruto again. Perhaps because he had been the one to chain the enemy and draw off those powers - had he gotten the lion's share?
Perhaps - and he could hardly fault Naruto in such a case. And frankly that his own strength had increased to the point where he could lift one of these "tanker cars" over his head indicated that even reduced he was still far more formidable than he had been.
Perhaps, once his Sharingan had activated, it would even be enough to face That Man. For providing the means to do so, he owed Naruto Uzumaki a debt.
Heimdall was amused. She could tell.
Her sensory acuity was second only to his as far as she could tell. She could, if she concentrated on it, see a leaf fall half a world away and pick the sound of its landing out.
She couldn't see across worlds though. Heimdall-san seemed to be a lot better at that sort of thing. Though she could focus on the moon and examine the curious structures that the people of this country had left there.
If she wanted to, she thought she might be able to fly there.
She was fast now. Oh, Father would be so disappointed in her relying on such things when she should be mastering the clan martial arts style without any enhancements. The shame of it.
Maybe she should just conceal all that? It might be less of a problem that way.
Flying was a rush.
Sending wind blades out was cool. The chakra chains he'd made through a fuuinjutsu had been nifty but once he'd gotten that power flowing through him he'd made chakra chains himself.
When his mother and father had faded out, they'd told him how proud they were of him.
Each of them had an energy projection ability, and how it manifested was different.
Sasuke could do the Heat Vision thing. Naruto could do the chains that apparently his mother could do, plus blades of vacuum. The Kyubi rumbled that these were "child's tricks" compared to the techniques he could manage.
Flying though, he could take the sensations of the experience and send it all to the Kyubi who grumbled about the interruption of his nap - but some emotional leakage came back. This was not something the Kyubi itself had ever experienced.
And it was glorious.
He could go up so high that he needed to hold his breath as he saw the world with a thin aura of blue and behind him the darkness of some eternal night. He could go so fast that ground details were lost in a blur.
He flew down, his senses telling him that there was a tropical storm hitting a village there. People needing help. He could do this.
Weeks had gone by in the world they were in. When they returned, it was only a couple of hours later.
At which point:
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(Posted Tue, 31 Mar 2015 17:21)
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