A tiny light in the dark.
The girl is back. Returning for yet another day as always, to the rickety, patchwork structures she had so painstakingly put back together in piecemeal, week by week, month by month.
The only difference is, this time she's frantic. On the verge of letting her panic overtake her while her presence flits around atop the ocean surface unknowingly, reaching out half-blind for the usual connection to his power.
The reason why is obvious.
There are great rents carved into her hard work by a hand not her own. An entire section is missing entirely. Temperatures are dropping. Motion everywhere but the great hidden ocean is stilling.
The quiet hum of life itself is fading even as the ocean leaks out from containment in waves.
And yet the creature in the depths doesn't wake. It's not his time yet, and all of these disruptions are temporary. Even as his host lays dying while he slumbers, the orange-furred titan can sense the situation outside of his seal in full. Naruto and the girl will survive just fine without him.
The eldest of the two kittens will make certain of that, currently approaching in a hurry to bring things under control.
In just a few seconds now, she'll-
A giant blood-red eye cracked open beneath the crushing depths, with a slitted pupil almost as large as a grown man.
The nine-tailed fox roused.
"Hoh…?"
Kurama's gravelly hum of interest rippled through the ocean of chakra around him as he shifted himself to focus on the tiny spark of the young girl's fledgling Ninshu. 'So she actually noticed it, eh? My little creation...'
It had taken some help from the brat's usual brand of uplifting stupidity to get the little missus in the right headspace, but once the switch was flipped, she entered 'the zone' in an instant.
"Kheheheh!" He barked out a laugh as he felt her intent. "It's not the cleanest way, but it'll work all the same!"
The energy of the world, that his very existence drew on to form his body and build his reserves, was ripped from his passive influence by her iron will and gathered within her as her focus narrowed down to a single, innocuous little floodgate.
The floodgate opened for just a single instant, and in that moment, the adolescent youkai plunged into it and held it open, diving into a hidden ocean of pure, warm, bright and shining chakra. Like staring at the sun, an Uzumaki girl had idly thought in another time, another world- not that Kurama would know that.
For just a moment, Koneko's control loosened just the tiniest bit, as the girl found herself enveloped in the welcoming warmth of his partner's chakra, its presence chasing away much of the external negativity invading her mind.
But Kurama couldn't have her come this far, just to stall out now.
So he reached out to her like she always did to him. This time, he met her in the middle, extending an immense closed fist out from the depths to tap his knuckles against her chakra.
Even under the yoke of near-absolute focus needed to prevent the massive amount of natural energy from running amok, the girl still stiffened in shock; in body, mind, and chakra all.
"Toujou Koneko…"
What else could a child do but be rendered speechless, when making a two-way connection to a being so powerful, so vast, that she couldn't even comprehend his full presence right in front of her, until he painted the picture in her mind for her?
"Use me!" Her chakra practically yelled at him. "Help me save Naruto!"
Apparently, she could make demands of him.
Not asking, not suggesting, but demanding that he act to save their mutual friend.
"KAHAHAHAHA!"
As it turned out, the not-so-speechless girl didn't feel any kind of apprehension towards him at all, Naruto's stories having placed the Kyuubi in her mind as a grumpy but otherwise good guy– not as the fearsome incarnate of hatred he usually appeared as.
"You've got spunk, kid! Naruto, I approve!" He gave a rumbling laugh before turning a bit more serious, a wide grin still stretched across his maw. "Brace yourself girl, this'll sting."
Crimson yang chakra so potent that it was actively caustic rushed through their connection like a tide, flooding her body in the real world.
"Let's do this!"
(In real time)
Kuroka raced towards the swirling mass of natural energy, of concentrated worldly malice, her previous fight forgotten entirely. If Procyon went back and destroyed the residential district without her there to stop him, she would just have to deal with the consequences.
The only things that mattered in that moment were her sister and– if to a lesser extent– Naruto.
Kokabiel channeled incredibly potent Light into two more spears, shining like two more stars in the distance, and she read his targets clear as day before he even made a move to launch the attacks.
On the opposite end of that same battlefield, she felt a dragon in miniature consuming the flesh of the Sekiryuutei boy, converting it into raw power to feed back into him to reach even greater heights than Kokabiel's current level, but wildly unstable and uncontrolled in comparison.
'What the hell is Vali doing?!' She internally raged as she felt him move away from the battle with annoyance filling his aura. 'He's supposed to be their safety net, but he hasn't intervened at all!'
Kokabiel made his move, and the pervert boy miraculously began reacting perfectly, unknowingly leaving her a clear opening to attack Kokabiel but…
'I need to pull Shirone out of this mess first,' she thought with a grimace. Her sister had taken every scrap of natural energy left in the region into herself, all at once. Even if she wasn't in danger from that action, it still left Kuroka herself just a bit too underpowered for a fight against an opponent like that for her liking.
Kuroka poured on the speed. In a flash, she appeared in front of the Sitri girl's barrier before the dragon-boy could fire his own attack, and she kicked the speeding javelin that would have killed the group behind her if it hit, sending it flying up into the night sky to disappear in the distance without detonating, much to everyone's shock.
The boy was the first to recover as he slid through the air with the second javelin in grasp, not knowing who the hot cat-lady who saved his friends was, only ignorantly– but correctly– assuming that she was here to help. In an instant, he twisted around and threw the javelin in his grip into the distance behind him, while simultaneously punching his orb of draconic power upwards.
A twisting pillar of emerald energy shot into the sky and engulfed the now-bracing cadre in its destructive wave. A second later, an uninhabited mountain in the distance exploded in golden Light as the javelin hit.
The Sekiryuutei would just have to hold off Kokabiel on his own for a little bit.
"Shirone!" Kuroka turned and blitzed past the stunned Sitri [King] to reach for her hunched over sister, who had absorbed a, frankly, absurdly dangerous amount of natural energy, energy that was in the process of trying to twist her sister into a monster. 'Just a touch, and I can take control-!'
DANGER
Her instincts screamed at her, begging her to get far, faraway as fast as possible.
Still, her care for her sister was stronger, and only stumbled for a split second. Her palm pressed flat to her Shirone's back, and-
RED
-She was thrown back with her arm burned up to the elbow, completely unprepared for the explosion of crimson power that blotted out all else from her senses.
She was too late.
Amidst the deafening howl of rushing winds, a deep, dark, red energy shot into the sky in a seemingly never-ending pillar, so dense and opaque that it would have looked more solid than not, if it weren't for the small, flickering, blue-white core in the center at the base.
The firmament above bled as if pierced, the starry black sky shifting to glowing crimson. Everywhere one looked, it was as if seeing the world through a lens of stained glass as colors were shifted.
The earth cracked and shattered as it was blown away, cratering the ground for a hundred meters in all directions, to the point that the old school building began to list and sag into the shallow bowl. The air itself suddenly felt heavier to breathe, weighed down by a suffocating feeling of hatred and malice despite the speeds it was whipping around with.
"Kaichou, Akeno-senpai, Cat Lady!" Issei yelled out as he lowered his arms from covering his head defensively. "Are you guys okay?! What happened to Uzumaki and Koneko-san?!"
Slowly, gradually, the crimson pillar began to lessen in intensity, shrinking and thinning inch by inch as the winds started dying down.
"I-I'll be fine…" The Sitri [King] pushed herself up from her hands and knees from where she'd been bowled over. She reached up a shaking hand to pull her mangled glasses off her pale and sweating face, a trail of blood running down her cheek from a closed eye, where a shard of one shattered lens had bitten deep. She took a deep breath to still herself as she cupped a hand around the eye, casting a small water spell in her palm to begin cleaning out the wound. "As for those two- I-I don't-" she shook her head carefully. "What is this- this evil feeling?"
"It's Senjutsu."
"It's coming from Naruto."
The grim voices of Kuroka and Akeno spoke at the same time, a bead of sweat dripping down the miko's temple. The high schooler shot the Black Cat a venomous glance as she pushed herself up as well, knowing exactly who had come to their rescue with a single look, while the SS-ranked criminal's eyebrows furrowed.
"Shirone took in too much nyatural chakra and lost control of the world's nyegativity," Kuroka stated matter-of-factly while testing her burnt arm's responses by clenching and unclenching her fist, before turning confused. "What's Nyaruto-kun got to do with that?"
"Yes," Akeno agreed flatly, putting on an 'are you stupid' tone of voice. "She used Senjutsu to attempt to heal Naruto, likely by trying to awaken the probably-vengeful kyuubi sealed inside of him and using herself as a medium for its power; something you might have figured out and actually helped with if you had just revealed yourself days ago, instead of hiding and abandoning your sister again, 'Kuro'!"
Kuroka's twin tails flickered behind her in agitation, the only sign that the words had affected her at all. "How long?" How long have you known?
"Just now." Akeno denied, not even looking at the woman as her eyes were glued to the hateful energy encompassing her friends. "I had my suspicions after the training camp, but you just confirmed them with your actions."
"Tch."
"Okay, hold on, wait." Issei shook his head back and forth while making a timeout sign with his hands as he flew closer. "What the hell is going on with the sexy Cat Lady? I'm seriously lost!"
"What're you still doing over here, nya?!" Kuroka wheeled on him angrily, causing him to make a perverted sound as he saw straight down into her exposed cleavage. She pointed to the sky. "Go hold off Kokabiel while I deal with this, nya! The energy will fade any second now, then I can-!"
"Oh, I'm afraid it's much too late for that."
They all collectively turned at the sound of Kokabiel's voice above them, Kuroka seeming more frustrated at the situation than anxious, unlike the other two girls who were still reeling from the feeling of danger in the air.
With all twelve wings spread wide and one hand raised high, Kokabiel's tattered sleeves left his bare and burned-raw arms clear for all to see against the dark background, not having escaped Issei's sudden attack totally unscathed despite it having been a bit underpowered due to the hurry it was formed in.
At Kokabiel's side hovered a figure familiar only to Kuroka, the eight-winged Procyon.
And all around them filling the crimson sky, were dozens upon dozens, if not hundreds, of other Fallen, ranging anywhere from two-to-six wings each, and every single one of them had at least one crimson Light spear in hand and one hovering over their shoulders, all prepared to fire down on the devils.
Kuroka stiffened at the sight, suddenly aware that her senses were running practically blind in the fog of red. It would be extremely difficult to save her Shirone, protect all the kids from the sheer amount of firepower, and fend off Kokabiel even with the Sekiryuutei by her side, all without easy access to any more natural energy to empower herself further.
'And where the Hell is Vali after all this?!' She raged internally.
The only bright side it seemed, was that she could tell most of the fodder was just as– if not more-so– scared of the feeling in the air as the kids were
She had to hand it to the kyuubi or whatever was behind it; the sight and feel of the area was something straight out of a human depiction of Hell, minus the fire.
Only Issei seemed unaware of the aura of malice, perhaps having such little magical sensory talent that it slid off of him without any effect at all.
"The Black Cat being here is unexpected, but not thatunexpected I suppose," Kokabiel mused with a grin and chuckle. "However, it does mean I can't afford to wrap this up with anything other than my full, unrestrained might, and use every resource at my disposal. I will not make that mistake again."
He snapped his bloody raw fingers without a flinch. "Procyon."
The man nodded, lifting his own hand before dropping it toward the Devils. "Men, fire!"
Light spears rained down like blood, barely visible against the crimson sky.
Akeno and Sona hastily threw up the strongest barriers they could, layer after layer, while Issei charged the Cadre with a yell, trusting his armor to no-sell any attack not sent by the only two enemies above three pairs of wings.
All the while, Kuroka and Kokabiel stared each other down as the curtain of death approached.
She knew the younger devils barriers wouldn't last long under the assault, even before any contact was made. Kokabiel was just as aware, and was waiting on her to make a move. Would she attack him and his men, hoping to disrupt the barrage, to which they would overwhelm her with his power and experience backed by the sheer weight of numbers? Or would she hunker down and support the defensive efforts, to which he would simply lob town-erasing attacks in her direction until something gave?
Kuroka just smiled coldly. She could fight him, and possibly win, but why risk her sister like that? She'd already caused Shirone great pain in the past for her protection, what was another time? Without a guarantee of her sister's safety, the choice was easy.
Screw Kokabiel, screw Azazel, screw Kuoh. It was a shame after all the care the girl had given to Shirone, but screw the Gremory too; The moment the power shrouding Shirone faded, Kuroka was going to grab her and Naruto, and teleport them the hell out of the country, maybe drag the other two present devil women along with, if it was feasible.
The moment the leading spear was about to make contact, all plans froze in her mind.
All thought froze in her mind.
All thought froze in just about everyone.
Floating dust, falling leaves, flying men and women, everything stopped.
As a young boy's wide and frightful glowing pink eyes stared out at the battlefield– and the Light spear mere centimeters from his own paper-bag-covered forehead– a huge section of the world was cut off from time itself, while Gasper Vladi was left clutching at his chest where his heart was racing from the stress.
The only exceptions? The finally dissipating glow of energy around Koneko and Naruto, Kokabiel himself, and Issei-
The temporary Scale Mail armor around Issei's body cracked as he raced towards Kokabiel still yelling a battle cry, before shattering as his powerup ran out of juice, leaving the mostly back-to-normal boy hanging frozen in the air with a particularly draconic-looking arm cocked back for a punch.
-Koneko, Naruto, and Kokabiel were the only exceptions within Gasper's sight. No one else.
Definitely not.
Kokabiel's red eyes glanced around in a moment of surprise, spotting his frozen captain by his side.
"Some form of time-stop? It doesn't seem to affect the air itself, though," he mused rubbing his jaw. "Hmm… a test is in order."
He flicked a finger, sending a Light spear screaming towards the frozen Red Dragon Emperor, but it slowed to a stop less than a dozen meters from his own body.
"I see. Even though I resist its effect, my attacks cannot once they escape my immediate influence," he deduced. The Fourth Watcher glanced up and over his shoulder at the giant golden spear hanging over the city in the distance, feeling its radiant Light still responding to his will. "The effect may have an upper power limit, but it would be a shame to use my finisher just for it to freeze as well."
He hummed. "A magnificent power like this must use incredible amounts of energy to maintain. Well then-" His eyes locked back onto Kuroka, and his bloodthirsty grin widened as he pitched forward, wings tensing. "-I suppose I'll accept the opportunity so graciously handed to me while it lasts!"
All twelve wings flapped, and he disappeared, moving so fast the air ignited and the visible plasma trail itself froze in time. The force of the sonic boom was enough to push several of the surrounding figures nearby away from his path, even just his passing being enough to launch the [Boosted Gear] wielder's frozen form several dozen meters away towards the school, where he slowed to a stop once more.
In a flash, Kokabiel crossed the distance to the frozen Kuroka, arm outstretched mid-flight to punch through her skull with extreme prejudice.
BOOM!
Bloody raw knuckles met sculpted cheekbone with the force of an explosion that shook the battlefield, drowning out the sound of a neck snapping as the limp, silky black-haired figure was launched out of the resulting dust cloud to carve a trench up the side of the massive crater.
With the repeated large-scale impacts, the old school building finally gave up the ghost of stability and began crumbling in full.
All the debris that was kicked up and subsequently frozen in time seemingly glitched and flickered, before the time-stop finally flickered out. In an instant, the rain of crimson spears re-commenced and began impacting the battlefield to explode in machinegun-like staccato bursts.
"What?!" Procyon twisted around with a look of shock, instantly realizing something was amiss when time resumed and his orientation had flipped in the blink of an eye. More to the point, his Lord had disappeared from his side, a trail of dissipating plasma in his place leading into a suddenly existing dust cloud.
A wall of stone rose from the earth in front of the crumbling devil hideout to begin blocking the Light spears sent in that direction, just barely too late to stop the first dozen of them.
Procyon's eyes narrowed as half a dozen traditionally-robed figures began appearing on top of and around the destroyed building. At the same time, a thick dome of twisting roots began emerging from the center of the ruins, rising up to the surface and unraveling to reveal the Gremory and her servants, her healer at work.
As the wall protecting the devils' former hideout quickly began to chip away under the onslaught of Light spears, the human sorcerers were already throwing out a variety of paper talismans that hung in the air against gravity, all linking together magically. In seconds, a translucent barrier shot down from the talismans and took the burden off of the earthen fortification, efficiently dispersing any Light constructs that struck it as if the attacks were little more than splashes of water.
Then he heard it– the unmistakable sound of an army roaring in challenge as they charge an enemy.
A small, strange army, he saw as he jerked around to look behind himself; equal or lesser in number to his own men present, but an army nonetheless.
Flaming heads without bodies wailed, a gryphon with the face of a man and the tail of a serpent screeched, winged canines howled, and many other oddities among them cried their battle cries.
Leading the rabble were dozens of tengu, the most well-known species of the bunch, the renowned samurai bird-men flying toward battle with their katanas raised. The individual leading the charge let out a yell.
"Ei! Ei!"
"Ōoo!"
"Let's send these assholes to Yomi!"
"OSSU!"
The winged samurai all roared as a collective in the call-and-response, the flames of their fighting spirits ignited and fanned.
Many Fallen reacted to the small horde and changed targets, most charging out to meet the enemy, but almost as many angels in the back lines continued firing down at the original devil targets.
"Hold!" Procyon yelled as the clashes began, idly firing a spear behind him without diverting his main attention. The casual attack shattered the sword and sudden guard of one of the tengu, opening him up for a weaker Fallen to jump in and run him through the chest with a spear.
Even so, the bird man gripped onto the wrist of his attacker while pulling a tanto from a sheath on his back, and with his dying breath, slammed the shortsword through the side of his killer's skull. "Banzai!"
A woman slashed open the belly of a winged dog that was tearing apart another Fallen's bicep, just for a ten-meter strip of sentient cloth to dart in and wrap around her throat, choking the life out of her as it yanked her away from her comrades and into the swooping claws of the giant gryphon-like creature.
Not all of the clashes ended so swiftly and decisively, some groups stalemating each other and making no progress, but all were eager to spill the blood of their enemies in the crimson sky.
"Men! Focus your efforts on the attacking youkai!" Procyon ordered. "I'll handle the devils and humans!" He growled internally as his eyes flickered down to look around the dustbowl. 'Forget the cloud, I can barely sense anything with this damn miasma filling the air!'
The Fallen soldiers obeyed Kokabiel's right hand unquestioningly, eagerly throwing themselves into battle to halt the youkai advance.
Procyon wouldn't be left in the dark for long, because the concealing cloud of dust finally began to settle once his men shifted targets in full and spears stopped barraging the land.
His eyes found what they were looking for below.
His expression tightened, and he raced down.
Unluckily for Procyon, what the battlefield revealed sent an involuntary chill up his spine.
He landed beside the end of the new trench in the ground, ready to guard his Lord with his life as the ten-winged Fallen slowly pulled himself to his feet, a certain liquid-silver artifact wrapping around the man's neck and digging into his spine like an invasive brace.
"Koneko-chan!" Akeno called out, helping up a dazed Sona after she took a tumble.
"Nya-aa!?" Kuroka let out a shocked cry of distress. "Shirone!?"
Across the way, aggressively crouched on all fours in front of the Black Cat, two devil teens, and a lone human, was a monster looking unlike anything anyone present had ever seen.
Rivulets dark red blood rose against the will of gravity within boiling crimson energy, just to dissolve into deep black wisps that twisted along what passed for the being's shimmering flesh. While its vaguely-humanoid main body was itself quite small, barely larger than an average human with long and lanky limbs, the five swirling tails behind it rose high, each as long and thick as tree trunks before tapering off near the ends. A twisted skeletal mimicry of the demonic entity draped across its spine, limbs, and head in a parody of armor, the bones themselves larger in scale than the body parts they contoured to.
Pointed ears of the same shimmering red and black flesh jutted out through the malevolent skull's empty eye sockets, while peering out from the darkness of the open jaws, were twin pools of empty, glowing white light aimed straight at the Fallen.
The mere sight of the… beast… was what triggered his senses to finally inform him that it was the source of the utterly caustic malice choking the air.
"Yet another unexpected interruption…" Kokabiel bit out with an annoyed frown as Procyon took a step towards the cadre, palms glowing with healing golden Light.
The chakra beast twitched, swirling tails freezing for a split second. A thin, jagged glowing line split ever so slightly open across the shadowed face in the facsimile of a mouth.
"Mmrrrrrr…" A low, rumbling, feline growl filled the area the moment the Fallen moved, easily heard despite the chaotic sounds of battle above.
The corpse of a Fallen foot soldier suddenly slammed into the ground off to the side, getting one of the beast's ears to twitch in that direction.
Kuroka blitzed forward without warning, barely a blur even to Procyon's trained eyes as she moved several times faster than sound.
In one instant the woman was inches away from the monster, fingers outstretched towards its main body with a focused frown and concern etched across her brow.
BOOM!
In the next, she was skidding backwards with aching arms held in front of her face after throwing herself away, one of the giant tails having slammed into her guard like a club almost before she could cushion the blow.
A brilliant flash of Light-
Kuroka turned while stepping back again, slashing her hand out like a knife, and in the span of a blink a golden sword was swinging towards her eyes– swung by a madly-grinning Kokabiel.
A Kokabiel with twelve healthy wings, radiating power.
'When the hell-' Kuroka cursed as she leaned away, touki already gathered around her knife-hand to counter the holy blade. '-did that happen!?'
Her hand passed through empty space, her eyes snapping to track the cadre as he jinked backwards, right in time to dodge the burning crimson claw that slashed through his previous position. The chakra beast that was her sister growled as her five tails shot out and gave chase, stretching unnaturally to pierce through Kokabiel's afterimages as he juked from side to side while retreating.
The tails stopped as Kokabiel glided further back, sliding to his own stop as he watched the creature. His eyes slid from the five tails stretching sixty meters towards him exactly, down the body and towards the sixth tail that was previously hidden, stabbed into the earth and emerging further back where it was connected to Naruto's stomach.
The five free tails retracted until they were back to normal, swaying in a hypnotic pattern while the chakra beast crouched aggressively– protectively– in front of Kuroka with a low growl.
"I wasn't certain at first since it made no move to pursue before," he said conversationally as he rolled his neck, metallic brace nowhere to be seen. "But this confirms it. The beast's mobility is limited. And despite its berserk state making it lash out at you, it still retains enough of the girl's instinct to protect her comrades."
"Healing magic can't regenerate body parts, and even Phoenix Tears can only reattach them," Kuroka stated her own observation with an annoyed frown, carefully drawing in some of the ambient chakra to empower herself for a suddenly up-hill battle without setting off his sister's aggression. "How the hell did you get your wings back?"
"I'm not sure of the specifics. Procyon would be the one to ask, were he able at the moment," Kokabiel admitted easily, casually gesturing behind him. Some distance away, said man lay facedown in the dirt, unmoving with only a single pair of disheveled wings crumpled around him.
He continued.
"My loyal captain has dedicated nearly a century of his life solely to the healing arts, and even that was not enough on its own. Perhaps he finally broke through to the next stage, and burned all his potential to return mine, pushing beyond the limits of his flesh?" He hummed in consideration, before barking out a laugh. "A worthy trade, if so!"
He snapped his fingers.
Hundreds of spears of Light were suddenly racing towards the rest of the anti-Fallen alliance in a wall of death, each weapon powerful enough to turn entire city blocks to dust.
Kuroka didn't have any faith in the clan sorcerers barrier holding up, and she didn't have a wide-spread defense both fast and strong enough to protect everyone, even if she trusted her sister's current form to be able to survive on her own. She had to pick either Naruto and extras, or Rias and extras.
Shirone's not-boyfriend, or Shirone's not-sister.
Would she protect her sister's future while destroying her past, just like back then?
Kuroka chose-
Shirone's monstrous head rose, mouth splitting wide open.
MMRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOW!
A sound so loud that it could be heard on the other side of the town; even the Fallen soldiers and youkai warriors who came to spill blood and die in battle, were filled with such terror that many chose to break ranks and flee instead.
-Kuroka stumbled as the earth shook, her hands shooting to her ears in pain as her sister's roar made her skull rattle with how close she was to the source.
It wasn't even a sound, really– more like a rapidly expanding wall of raw force, one that blew everything in its path away.
Kuroka's choice didn't matter in the end, not when the concussive blast disintegrated every spear in the sky on contact.
"Tch!" Kokabiel clicked his teeth in annoyance, his hair slightly disheveled and a handful of black feathers fluttering down around him. "No matter…"
He pointed to the sky.
The monsterized Shirone just sat on her haunches, tails curling up and inward to point at her raised head as her chakra-flesh swirled around her form like a whirlpool.
"I told you children earlier that you had five minutes before I destroyed the town!"
A kilometer above even the shrinking soldiery, the titanic Light spear stretching up into the sky shifted.
'What the hell is she doing?! That's way too much power, she won't finish in time!' Kuroka watched in shocked worry as streams of positive and negative chakra flowed off her sister in massive amounts, gathering above her open maw in a dense, swirling black sphere. 'Even then, stopping him won't matter if whatever she's doing just destroys everything anyway!'
Kokabiel smirked cruelly. "Your five minutes are up."
His finger curled into his fist.
Kuroka's enhanced eyes picked up something in the far distance that solved the concern she had already written off as a lost cause, choosing instead to stand protectively in front of Naruto and his friends.
The javelin-shaped WMD blurred into motion, shooting towards central Kuoh like a star of extinction.
Shirone's head lunged up, swallowing the ball of power. The ground cratered beneath her.
Kuroka began emptying herself of nearly all the external power she had gathered, preparing to steal as much of the destructive chakra as she could from her sister, to prevent her from making a terrible mistake.
In the second since it had been launched, the spear was just a moment away from wiping Kuoh off the map-
It halved in power and shrunk.
It halved again. And again.
And again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again.
In a split second, the city-destroying attack became almost ten thousand times weaker, barely strong enough to destroy a few buildings at most.
And on the horizon, a shining figure of silver armor hovered on glowing blue wings.
"Him…" Kokabiel hissed at the sight.
Shirone's empty white eyes stared at the man, light showing from between the cracks of her sealed mouth.
"Damn you Azazel…!" Kokabiel grit out in sheer rage. "Damn you, damn you, damn you! All of these rats coming out of the woodwork to interfere, I should've known you were behind it! Why do you keep holding our people back!? I REFUSE TO BE STOPPED NOW, I WON'T HAVE IT ANY LONGER!" He roared, lifting a hand to the air.
The school property became bathed in searing Light, turning night into day and pushing back the ever-present red tint as Holy Power formed a towering sword in his palm, as long as a skyscraper is tall.
"DISAPPEAR FROM MY SIGHT!"
He swung down.
Shirone opened her jaw and fired.
?
Kill!
Save!
Hurt!
Hurt!
Destroy!
Protect!
Kill!
Prote-
Destroy!
DESTROY!
Hate-filled urges for the death and annihilation of the enemy warred with a kind soul's desire to protect her friends.
Unfortunately, the girl was beginning to truly lose herself, finally becoming overwhelmed to the point where the connection was nearing the breaking point.
He wasn't finished with everything yet, but there wasn't any time left. It would have to do.
Naruto's eyes opened in the real world, slitted and red.
But it was Kurama looking through them.
He didn't need to look around at anything, he could feel the battlefield in its entirety already. There were still a couple of those pathetic "Fallen Angels" in the immediate area, one of them even stronger than the main bad guy, but that guy wasn't doing anything at the moment. He could be left for later.
A simultaneously painfully-familiar and eerily alien ache permeated Naruto's entire body as Kurama's own intense power surged through still-sensitive pathways, the fiery heat only blunted by the smooth coolness of his temporary-partner's dwindling chakra.
He stood, shocking the two females guarding his favorite host, before he blurred forward to the third, clamping his only hand on the naughty cat's shoulder right as she was about to interfere.
The woman reacted on pure instinct, an elbow shooting back towards his head, but he just threw her aside, sending her tumbling away like a ragdoll and snapping the thread of chakra connecting them. Then Kurama moved.
"DISAPPEAR FROM MY SIGHT!"
The overcompensating sword dropped, and his temporary partner launched her Imari-
-Just for Naruto's foot to slam into the mini-bijuudama and kick it into the sky, while he caught the blade in the palm of a giant red chakra arm extending from Naruto's bicep stump.
A new sun bloomed in the distant sky, before it was… drained away? Absorbed?
Kurama lifted an impressed blonde eyebrow as a massive barrier was revealed to have boxed in the town, raised to full strength in a split second and able to withstand the Imari's power without immediately failing.
He clenched his fist, shattering the blade under Koko-whatever's dumbfounded eyes.
"N… Naruto?"
He glanced back and saw the big-tittied pervert girl staring at him in disbelief.
"Yo."
Oh, and the rest of the people present, staring in just the same way.
"The name's Kurama."