Chapter 20 - Heavenly Tribulation

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When his eyes fell again on the photo showed on the screen, shock flashed on Naruto's face.

Long legs, an exquisite figure, crimson-red hair that reached her feet...and 2 pair of whisker like marks on her cheeks...

"I-Imposible!"

"I-I can't believe it...!"

He couldn't get his mind around the fact that his big sister was alive. He grabbed Luthor by his collar and lifted him violently into the air in one hand.

"You're lying!" he screamed.

Lex Luthor merely smirked, apparently completely unfazed by the rough treatment he was receiving.

"You said that you have an ability that allows you to know when you're being lied to or not. Use it and see whether I am lying or I am speaking the truth!"

Naruto let go of his hold on Luthor and backed away trembling. A sharp pain suddenly appeared in his dantian region. His shrivelled chakra heart was convulsing violently. Apparently, he had overworked it way too much in order to summon that forest of gigantic bones. And now that his emotional state was a mess, his control over his chakra heart went haywire.

He clutched at his lower abdomen in pain and collapsed. His knees hit the sand.

"Tsk. How pathetic! Just look at the mess you've become after just hearing a few words about your oh so precious sibling!" Luthor, all of a sudden, spoke in disdain and he closed the distance between the two of them.

But Naruto could not focus on his words. He felt like his chakra heart was going to burst any moment then.

"What use is to have such a tremendous power if your mind is so fragile? Truly, a pathetic existence!" Luthor mocked again and lifted his leg in order to deliver a kick.

"SHUT YOUR TRAP!" Naruto roared and shot a backhand at the unsuspecting Luthor.

A cracking sound was heard and Luthor was sent flying, all the while howling in agony. His tibia was broken in two places.

'Kurama, what the hell is happening to me?'

"I...I don't know!"

'Do something goddammit, make it stop!' Naruto begged as he writhed on the sand in pain.

But Kyuubi was afraid that if he tried stabilising Naruto's chakra heart with his own chakra, it would explode.

*thump*

Just as Naruto's words finished, the chakra heart began to pump madly, the speed of its beats increasing at an alarming pace.

*thump*

*thump*

*thump*

From Naruto's convulsing body, blue speckles of light began to rise up. It started with a small number of them, but, after a few moments, their number increased to the point where it looked like a flock of blue fireflies.

At the same time, unbeknownst to Naruto, a change began to take place in the sky above the island. The wind rapidly picked up and, out of nowhere, black clouds started to gather. A thick blanket covered the previously crystal-clear, blue sky and the entire island was overwhelmed by darkness.

Thunders began to rock the sky and bolts of lightning illuminated the semi-darkness... Suddenly, a movement appeared within the thick blanket of black clouds: slowly, they began to rotate around a focal point, exactly above the place where Naruto was laying.

A feeling of danger suddenly assaulted Kyuubi's senses.

"Naruto! Move! YOU HAVE TO GET AWAY!"

Kyuubi felt a sense of dread almost like when he first met the incomplete form of Juubi, the Ten-Tailed Primordial Beast.

It was as if the Nature itself was enraged at him and Naruto, as if it wanted to make them feel its rage.

But Naruto couldn't move his body even if he had any strength left in his limbs. . . A formless force was pressing him down, keeping him immobilized. For a moment, Naruto felt not unlike Atlas, who was said in mythology to have shouldered the weight of the skies.

'I-I can't!'

Naruto couldn't even speak, he could only send his own thoughts to Kyuubi in order to converse.

'You have to get away, Kurama!' Naruto said. By the time the sky got dark, it became obvious for Naruto as well that a cataclysmic event was going to take place, with him in the centre of it.

"Don't screw with me, I told you that-" Kyuubi began, but Naruto yelled back at him, cutting off his words:

'Cut the crap, get the fuck away, do you want to die in vain? What's the use of you dying here?!'

'That bald fucker is still here. Although he's missing a leg now, you can still use his body to at least get away from this hellhole!'

But Naruto's words fell on deaf ears. Kyuubi was not planning on giving them any heed. The fox frustration and rage, were so high that he couldn't help screaming, unknowingly taking control of Naruto's body in the process.

Although the wind resembled now a full fledged hurricane, Kyuubi's enraged roar that came from Naruto's mouth was heard well over it.

Kyuubi was tired of it. Tired of always seeing and feeling Naruto's suffering. If Naruto's past life had not been hellish enough, this one sure complimented it.

Kyuubi had watched his first jinchuuriki in this life, Mito, being captured and experimented on for the rest of her remaining life. He saw Kushina, Mito's daughter and his next jinchuuriki living her entire life in a lab and after finally escaping, getting assassinated together with her husband. Then, he saw Naruto's grandfather arriving dead at home. After that, he saw the supposed death of Misaki and, consequently, the news of her ending up as a lab rat just like her mother.

...Were the Uzumaki truly cursed? ...and was Naruto always the one that had to suffer the most because of it?

'No more!' Kyuubi vowed to himself.

'No more!' Kyuubi said to himself one more time resolutely.

A crimson wave of energy exploded from Naruto's collapsed body and the hurricane was blasted away for a moment.

'The hell are you doing, stupid?!' Naruto inwardly screamed at Kyuubi. He didn't have any control left over his body...it was not unlike that day in his past life when Kyuubi took over his body in the battle against Nagato's Deva Path.

Naruto's body lifted itself from the ground at an odd angle, defying the formless force that had been pressing it down. Another enraged, animalistic roar came from his mouth and a vile red cloak covered him.

Not a moment later, a flash of white was seen - from the middle of the vortex of black clouds above the island, a bolt of lightning struck.

A roar of pain came from Kyuubi when the lightning struck Naruto's body.

Even if he would not be able to save Naruto after using up all of his chakra tails, Kyuubi wanted to at least not let him suffer. Not anymore. For once, he wanted to take all of Naruto's burden and pain on himself. If they were to die, he wanted to, at least, let Naruto die painlessly. He would endure everything. Until the end.

The wind picked up again, the vortex in the sky started rotating even faster. The thunder boomed again after another bolt of lightning struck.

Again.

Again.

And again.

To defend against each of the lightning strikes, Kyuubi had to use up to a tail's worth of chakra every time. Not to mention that the pain the fox was going through was unimaginable. Never before had Kyuubi been through a pain of that magnitude, never in his existence of thousands of years. As the strongest bijuu, who had ever put him through so much suffering before?

Kyuubi roared in agony for the seventh time. His entire chakra was wasted - his 7 tails so painfully cultivated during the last 2 years on the island had all been wasted in less than 3 minutes.

The sky thundered again. Kyuubi knew that another lightning strike was going to descend any moment then. But he had used up all of his power...he couldn't even maintain the control over Naruto's body.

In the meantime, Naruto witnessed Kyuubi's actions in stunned disbelief. He recalled Kyuubi's words from just a few minutes before, when the over 200 metahuman prisoners attacked him:

"Who the fuck do you think I am? Do you think I am a flimsy human that would cower away and abandon you just like that? Huh?!"

"This is not like in our past life... You are not my jailor. We are not enemies anymore. You are my partner. If you live, I live. If you die, I die. You are my friend, Naruto."

He felt Kyuubi's sincerity back then but not even in his wildest dreams had Naruto ever envisioned the sight he had just witnessed: Kyuubi, a demon of rage and hatred, choosing to be tortured and basically sacrificing himself for the sake of someone else...for his sake.

Hot tears filled Naruto's now blue eyes. Like a torrent they started to fall from his eyes...but before they even reached the end of his chin, a startling thing happened. The air suddenly appeared to have become denser and the droplets of water from his eyes floated into the air for a few seconds, as if the gravity didn't work on them anymore. Static energy filed the atmosphere and a suffocating pressure fell on the island.

Then, it happened.

A blinding flash of light transformed everything into a world of white. A deafening thunder followed afterwards, like the sky itself had been smashed apart by a wrathful deity's club.

When the light died down, a smoking crater was left in the place where Naruto's body had once laid.

Scene break

A large screen illuminated the darkness of a high-ceiled room. On it, the structure of a certain individual's DNA were displayed.

"I can't seem to find a way to awaken the power slumbering within her body..." came the soft voice of a man.

His pale-skinned hand went through the long and smooth strands of black hair falling on his face as he groaned tiredly.

The man suddenly began to tap impatiently on the keyboard at a fast speed, various changes appearing within the spirals of the DNA. But no matter what he changed, the expression of the man's face didn't seem to get better, regardless.

A long while passed.

"It is as I feared..." the man sighed in disappointment. "It can be activated only, directly, manually."

Suddenly, a soft and sweet fragrance filled his nostrils and two tender hands sneaked around his neck. A lovely voice whispered.

"Why are you still up at this hour, father?"

The man sat up from his chair and turned towards the one that called him her father. A gentle smile was plastered on his normally cold-looking face and the scientist persona from before melted under what looked like genuine happiness from seeing his daughter.

"You know, like usual. Trying to make the most of everything." the man answered ambiguously as his onyx black eyes sparkled playfully in the light of the screen.

"Still trying to 'awaken' my so-called 'power'? I'm already perfect...you made me perfect!" the girl said with a pout and crossed her arms under her generous chest.

For an outsider, those words would sound weird, but for the two of them, they were a reality.

The man chuckled and one of his hands fell on the top of the girl's head, ruffling her sweaty blond hair in the process.

The girl closed her eyes in contentment and smiled. That childish reaction greatly contrasted with her appearance - she was dressed only a pair of sports shorts and bra, articles which showed off very well her body. She looked like a 20 year-old woman with the body of a fitness-fanatic: long and strong but perfectly shaped legs, round and ripe butt cheeks, large breasts, a very well-defined 6-pack and a shapely silhouette. Her short, bob-cut blonde hair only completed the image of a powerful young lady...a powerful, but insanely beautiful woman.

Even so, at the small gesture of affection from her father, she smiled like a little girl, melting into his touch.

"You are powerful, indeed. Very powerful. But perfect? Only in the eyes of an outsider you are perfect...as long as there is room for improvement, you will never be perfect."

A small furrow marred the young woman's beautiful face for a moment, but she willed it way. She had the age of a toddler and because of that, although she had the IQ of a genius, there still were many things that the girl admitted to not have fully understood. Sometimes, she didn't really understand other people's feelings and the motivation behind their actions was many times a mystery for her. Despite having a brilliant intelligence, the young woman lacked the experience one gathers after years and years of interacting with his peers, after being a part of the society - and that was even more pronounced given that in her 2 short years of life, the woman has barely interacted with anyone else except for her father. She had only focused on becoming the perfect warrior, someone that would be able to take down anyone that would rise to threaten her father or herself.

That being said, although the woman didn't understand her father's obsession with continuously "perfecting" her, she let it slide away. After all, it didn't negatively affect her in any way and, if that was what it took to make her father happy, she had not qualms about it whatsoever. He was the most important person in her life.

"My dear, do you remember those fairy tale-like stories I keep telling you almost every night?"

An ordinary woman her age would have blushed furiously at such a claim - after all, no normal person of her apparent age would still have her father tell her bedtime stories. But there was no sign of discomfort to be seen at her.

"Of course. But you said they were real. Even if it sounds implausible, I know that you would never lie to me... but why are you saying this now?"

The man started walking to a specific part of his lab, with the young woman trailing closely behind him. They stopped in front of a big cushioned chair with a closed-eye helmet included.

"That energy that lies dormant inside of you...you are underestimating it greatly. I've tried to built a machine capable of converting the brainwaves into an actual representation of the 5 senses. It took me close to two years until I finally managed to do it. And all of it, just to show you one of my memories...just to make you understand how big of a potential your body holds!"

"Come on, try it on!" the man said in excitement, an entirely different behaviour from his normal cool and calm attitude.

'He's always becoming like that when it comes to thing related to what he deems as his past life.' the young woman inwardly mused. But she obediently followed his instructions. She sat on the chair and let the man put on the helmet on her head. She closed her eyes.

For a moment, everything was black. But then, a dusty smell and the heat of a dry wind assaulted her senses. Her brain also registered the images sent to it. It was as if she was looking at the scenery with her own two eyes: she was on a tall cliff - it must've been over 100 feet in height. Beneath her feet, a vast canyon was spread. What should've been a desolate scenery, was radically different because of the army of thousands of people that were standing at just half a mile away.

Suddenly, against her will, her eyes moved to the side. From the corner of her vision, she finally took notice of her body... a male body, wrapped in bandages from head to toes. She finally understood that she was relieving the memory from someone's perspective. She was just a spectator. Reaching this conclusion, she finally looked at the person standing next to her: a long mane of spiky black hair and donning an armour consisting of dark red metal plates covering his chest, shoulders and thighs...even for her who had never seen him before, that person was unmistakable - her father, Orochimaru, had made sure of that.

And if the appearance was not a dead give away, it was the suffocating pressure he was passively emitting that let her understand who was he... it was the pressure of someone who knows that he is in control of everything...a terribly powerful warrior which has no equal and which is aware of that... That person was none other than Uchiha Madara.