Worst April Fools Day Ever, of all Time

It seems to be a beautiful day so far in the city of Gotham. With the rain that has been going on for several days now, has actually helped clear up the air and wash away some of the filth in the city. Hard to tell sometimes since wherever one goes; whether it's high in the sky, on the streets or down in the underground, the city is always dirty.

But most people would want to try to forget how dirty the city is like at times. From the crimes committed, the horrors, and even it's history. Most try to look for the bright light through the muck and grime so they could try to be clean in such a place.

Reason why today could possibly be a good day to do so. One might wonder why exactly. Well today is actually April Fools Day and everyone could use a good laugh to possibly help lift everyone's spirits, even if it's just for one day.

With the sun rising in the east, everyone is starting out their day from shops opening up and everyone heading to work, things seem to be rather normal. Well as normal as this city could try to be with it's bleak past. But something seems to be a amiss as a barge carrying oddly green garbage is floating through the river. What seemed even stranger about it's waste cargo was that's emanating large amounts green gas. So when it started to pass under one of the many bridges of Gotham, a lot of the gas was passing through the area like an armored truck driving to the first destination for the day.

*Cough* *Cough* "God damn. *Cough* Something smells disgusting." The armored truck driver said as he kept on coughing with the smell coming through the open window of the vehicle. He had thought that with such a nice day, he would risk opening up the window to smell the fresh air, but ended up smelling something bad. So as the man kept on driving, the coughs started to change into something else… something unnatural.

*Cough* *Cough* "Heh. Heh. Ha. Haha. Haha. Hahahah. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA…..."

The sounds of wheezing laughter were starting to fill the air as the driver was starting to swerve around the lanes. Luckily no other driver was present but if there were, a big accident would've happened already. The action kept going on as the truck had almost hit a few workers on the bridge before it passed by them.

"Hey! Watch where you're going asshole!" One of the workers yelled out before he started to cough along with his co workers. "God damn. Did someone die without anyone knowing?"

"I know *Cough* right? *Cough* Heh. Heh. Ha. Haha. Haha. Hahahaha. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA…..."

The laughter seemed to be rather contagious as everyone nearby was starting to laugh. Each person that was laughing out loud were holding their sides in pain with how strong it was going to the point several people had to either sit or lie down to help support them. It was like everyone affected by the laughs were losing all senses asides from the pure joyous laughter.

The one armored truck driver was even feeling the pain just now as he started to lose control of the car when passing through the rising part of the bridge. It was too late for him as the vehicle drove off of the raised part of the bridge to send it down to the river below. Once it landed in the water, the driver soon realized what happened and had to get out of the car to swim for safety.

-Naruto's Loft-

*Swish* *Swish* *Swish* *Swish* *Swish* *Swish*

Sounds of drifting air were being made as Naruto was swinging around a rubber staff during his early morning training. He had been doing this for about an hour now since he'd been focusing on staff fighting in general ever since he got his wind lance. It has been a bit of a struggle to switch up his staff fighting style since he has been used to doing a scythe and the weight is mostly placed on one end, but now the lance is evenly weighted out on both. So having to adjust the swings and movements had been tricky with his muscle memory trying to go straight into the scythe techniques.

*Swish* *Swish* *Swish* *Swish* *Swish* *Swish*

Off to the nearby couch has various books checked out from the Gotham Library that have some stick/staff fighting styles. Ranging from some styles from asian and african countries to help him a little on figuring them out better. He ended up copying down the various depictions down into his growing notebook to reference back to at a later time once he turned back the library books. He did find it odd that the library has them, but he can't argue with such a good chance like this.

Speaking of books, his notebook had started to change from that of a notebook to a regular sized hardcover book. There was nothing oddly special on the covers except for the symbol present in his weapons being on it. He guessed the change happened after he got his next weapon and it needed to contain more apparently. Who knows for sure, but it didn't stop him from sketching inside of its various blank pages.

One of the things he was starting to sketch was something for him to ride on if he doesn't want to rely on his lance all the time to go into the sky. It was something of a safety thing that came up the other day when getting people out of a burning building. He had to summon his five additional lances to help get people down safely, but it was rather difficult since some couldn't hold onto the weapon or properly sit on it until getting onto the safe ground.

With him wracking his brain, Naruto ended up with an idea of an air glider of sorts and a sidecar for additional passengers. It's a pretty good set of designs he had managed, but only on the exterior. If he wanted to possibly create a better one, he'll need to know what kind of inner mechanics would probably work to make this function. But there's the thing, this kind of an idea with it's technology is not really known in the world right now. The only places he could think of that might be coming close to this idea are LexCorp and Cyberbiotics, but he heard through some tech grapevine that they're just in the same stages as the publisher: just on sketches.

*Swish* *Swish* *Swish* *Swish* *Swish* *Swish*

Naruto didn't have anything going on today with it being his day off and he had hoped to spend time with Selina. But it turned out that she and Shizune had to leave the country for a wildlife opportunity that he can't remember at the moment on where exactly. His girlfriend did say that she's cashing in what Bruce owed her now since she hasn't gotten any donations lately and wanted to take care of this thing quickly. The Uzumaki didn't fault her really, but he and her had some good quality time the other night before she left that morning.

*Sigh* "Seems odd to not have her around after a while now." Naruto said as he stopped his swingings before turning to his only companion at the moment. "Isn't that right Isis?" His only response from the black cat was a nod before she got off of her placement on the couch and went to her feeding bowl to keep eating her breakfast. "Yeah I thought so."

With him finishing up his training for the day, he went to take a shower so that he could possibly head over to Arkham to check up on Pam and Harley. Naruto would've also gone over there to check up on Harvey, but things are at a very delicate stage at the moment with him. Unlike seeing Pam right away with her mind mostly stable when she willingly checked herself in, Harvey's mind was not along with him being charged for his three week crime spree. With how things have gone so far, the scarred man could only have Grace on his guest list and various doctors assigned to him. Luckily for him, Harley was one of the doctors but she only has limited access this time so the more professional doctors could work over Dent.

Once getting into the shower, he started it up to get rid of the morning grime off of his body. It wasn't long before he turned on the radio to listen to some music. But nothing seemed to be good at the moment so he kept changing channels.

"...traffic is at a standstill on the Gotham Expressway with a truck full of eggs were turned over." A voice from the radio started getting the publisher to raise an eyebrow.

"Okay…. Have no idea how that happened, but whatever." Naruto muttered as he was about to change the station, but something came up.

"This just in…. Gotham Police is investigating a series of near fatal accidents by the riverfront. Initial reports that hundreds of Gothamites have inexplicably acting like total laughing fools. More details as they become available." The reporter said before he signed off and some music started playing.

"Sounds like a dirty April Fools prank…. What happened to the good old pranks of old?" Naruto muttered as he was washing his hair before thinking about the supposed holiday.

April Fools Day was…. Interesting to say the least. When traveling through Russia in his first year in this world, he learned about the holiday and thought it was a prankster's dream come true. So he ended up pulling some of his old pranks from back home, like breaking into this Russian mob compound owned by some group called Bratva or something, and dyed all of their clothing into bright colors…..

….Yeah…. It was not fun running like hell away from them with bullets being fired upon him. He was so damn lucky that he made it out alive and that was the first time he learned to check the hallways for security cameras for future references. Though he does wonder if they still have that bounty placed on him or not.

'Should probably ask Kurama if I get the chance.' He briefly thought before getting onto other stuff on the holiday. Supposedly his level of 'pranks' were considered too extreme and could end up getting him either killed or put into prison. So after that incident, he learned that he had to do small pranks and silly jokes that wouldn't be too bad to deal with; along with the holiday's supposide start with several theories.

Some believed the first association between April 1st and playing tricks can be found in Geoffrey Chaucer's 'The Canterbury Tales' from 1392. One passage called 'The Nun's Priest's Tale', it seemed to get many readers think the characters were talking about thirty-two days after March which ended up landing on April 1st. Others believe that April Fools' Day was the result of a desire to celebrate the turning of the seasons around springtime. In fact, many cultures have historically held such celebrations around the beginning of April.

Like some ancient Romans doing festivals around the end of March, Hindu festivals being held mid-March to celebrate Spring's arrival, and some adoption situations of the new calendar system in its transitional period. It was just too damn complicated for the silver haired youth at the time to fully understand so he had no real desire to learn any further from there. Though Naruto did give some props to some Swiss farmers back in 1957, fooling thousands of people that there were such things as 'spaghetti noodle' trees until they came out clean by the end of the day.

Once finishing off his shower, he quickly changed into his attire for the day. Naruto was about to leave his loft when his eyes caught something from his patio window. He wondered what it was, so he walked onto his patio for a closer inspection to see a growing green cloud of smoke coming from the riverfront.

"That doesn't look good." Naruto muttered with narrowed eyes. He didn't know what was going on, but something didn't seem right about it. So he quickly went into his Vanitas attire and brought out Kazekage before turning back to Isis staring blankly at him. "Keep an eye at the place Isis and I'll throw in a tasty tuna for you to feast on." The only response he got from the green eyed cat was a lick to her lips with a nod as Isis' eyes seemed to sparkle a little. *Chuckle* "Good kitty."

And with that, Naruto closed the door to his patio and jumped off before riding Kazekage into Gotham to figure out what the hell is going on.

-Meanwhile, Riverfront-

The river broke from it's slightly calmness, asides from the garbage barge passing through, as the armored truck was sinking deep into the watery depths before it stopped on the rockbed. If one would look up from the underwater scene, there would've been a miniature submarine attached to the garbage barge. Not long after the armored vehicle stopped moving, a hatch opened up from the sub and two figures came out before heading towards the truck. Once close enough, one of the figures pulled out an underwater torch and used it to help break the lock before opening it's doors to reveal bags of money and golden bars.

As the two figures were gathering what they can before starting the process of transporting the goods, something else was going on inside of the submarine.

"...Gotham City is in the grip of insanity. Everywhere, people are turning into lunatics." The person on the radio said as a shadowy figure was listening to every word being said. "Reports say that a wave of foolish hysteria is moving down 7th Avenue towards *Cough* towards *Cough* *Cough* the financial district. Hehehe. Hehehaha. HAHAHAHAHA!..."

*Click* "My.. Oh.. My.. *Chuckles* I believe that's my cue." The person said as he had went to his console and picked up the radio. "Punch, Judy. If you're getting this, then grab what you can down there and head on up. It's time for the show." Once hanging up the radio, the man went over to the periscope and waited for his lackeys to show up all the while he was laughing to himself with how much fun this day will be.

"Hmm, no not there. Oh wait…" The man said as he pressed a button near him. "Oh Captain Clown, dock over yonder will ya. Thanks." Once hanging up he looked through the periscope with glee before the hatch of the submarine opened up to signal the man's lackeys have come back. "Ah Punch and Judy. Perfect timing, we're about to hit 'wall street'. So get everything ready with your shopping carts."

The now identified Punch and Judy nodded as they went towards the back of the submarine to gather their gear. From what lighting that could be seen inside of the vessel, the two men in question are large muscle bound men dressed up in purple and green jester like outfits with the sleeves ripped off to show their large arms. Both of them appeared to have white face paint over the visible skin of their appearance with red circles on their cheeks and their hair either dyed or painted on green.

Once they were docked, the two men grabbed their designated face masks with smiles spray painted on them before they pressed the button on the other hatch of the vessel to open up the doors to the surface.

"Now remember where we parked boys!" The mysterious man said as the two large men grabbed their shopping carts and pushed their way up the ramps. It wasn't long for the man behind this operation walked into the surface with a large red grin on his face.

He was a tall, thin looking man with a sickly pale complexion on his narrow and sharp face. The dark coloring around his eyes made his insanely green eyes pop out to help match his plastered grin. His green hair was seemingly combed back, only for it to stick back up in a spiky mess. He wore a white button up shirt with a green vest and black tight pants underneath a purple leather trench coat and black leather gloves.

"When the going gets tough, the tough goes shopping. HAAHAHAHHAAHHHAHA!" The man laughed out loud to his own joke before speaking out loud for anyone unfortunate to hear him. "Look out Gotham! Joker's back in town! HeheheHAHAHAHA!"

As Joker, Punch and Judy were walking towards the financial district, they were greeted with the sounds of loud laughter filling the air making the Clown Prince of Crime smile even wider to see his gas truly working like he planned. As everyone was laughing their hides off, the three were cleaning out the various pedestrians of their money and jewels on hand before breaking into a few jewelry stores along the way. It was quite easy with everyone losing all of their other senses as they could only focus on the laughter.

*Sigh* "And who says that crime doesn't pay?" Joker said before letting out a few little fits of giggles to escape his lips.

-Batcave-

Time has past since the news reports this morning of hundreds of Gothamites being affected by the laughing epidemic coming from the waterfront. When Bruce Wayne was getting ready for the day, he had listened to the report while taking the shower. He would've taken a bath due to how stressful things have been the past several nights, but Alfred tried to prank him this morning by stating that he 'drew' him a bath. Well he drew one alright, but not one in the tub, but actually on a piece of paper.

Not much of a good joke apparently…..

Anyways after hearing of the incident, Bruce realized that the Joker has finally shown his face again after breaking out of Arkham around New Years. No one knew when he would show up, but apparently he wanted to come back when it's April Fools Day. Wanting to bring an odd form of panic through Gotham in the form of mass laughter. So Bruce canceled all plans for the day and went straight into the batcave to start working on what should be done. During this time, he had sent out a prototype drone to go over Gotham to record as much data as it could on the laughing gas.

"Airborne gas emanating from riverfront district. Analysis: Lengthy exposure to the gas will possibly result in permanent insanity. Other possible result would be suffocation and death." The batcomputer sounded off as Batman was working on some equipment.

*Sigh* "Seems that it's indeed Joker's laughing gas." Batman said as he stopped working on his equipment and checked through the detailed analysis that wasn't sounded off. "He must've improved it since the last time he used it."

In the past experiences Bruce had to deal with the Joker's laughing gas, it only caused to be a temporary problem that could be solved through cleaner air to help ventilate the lungs and administer a few things here and there just in case. But it seemed that the deranged clown changed his concoction to make it possibly deadlier on a larger scale. Possibly categorizing this as not just a Joker Gas, but a poison of sorts. A Joker Venom if it seems appropriate to name it now.

Once looking through the analysis, Bruce pressed the intercom button on the bat computer to call his faithful friend. "Alfred. I had left the hex-key upstairs in the den. Mind bringing it down please?"

"Oh get it yourself. PFFFFT!"

'What?' Bruce thought as that didn't seem right with Alfred at all. Must still be in that 'April Fools' gag going on and wants to possibly get a laugh out of him. So he pressed the button again and called out to him. "Very funny Alfred, but I have no time to play."

Soon the sounds of crashing and breaking could be heard on the other end getting Bruce to get worried on what is going on. He didn't know what was going on until….

"Ha. Haha. Haha. Hahahah. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA…..."

Until he heard the laughter. Hearing that sound made Batman run out of the cave and into the house so he could try and find his long time friend. He eventually found him in the study with various potted plants and small works of art broken with the rest of the room being wrecked with Alfred swinging around a broom.

*Laughter* "Time for some spring cleaning." Alfred said as he kept on swinging the cleaning tool around in his joyous laughter before destroying more things in the room.

"Shit. The gas!" Batman said as he covered his face with his cape before pulling out the gas mask he was working on earlier. "He must've opened up the windows by accident."

Once closing the windows in the study, he rushed towards his butler to stop him, but he moved out of the way and slipped onto the ground. Clutching his sides as he continuously laughed himself to the brink of tears from how painful it was. Bruce soon remembered of what the gas analysis was from the batcomputer, making the 'playboy' carry his butler into the batcave and help relieve him of his problem before going out to save Gotham from this epidemic.

-Arkham Asylum-

"So…." Ivy drolled out as she glared at the person in front of her cell. "What does the new hero of Gotham want with little ol' me?"

"I need your help Pamela."

"Well she's not in at the moment. She doesn't want to talk to you for the time being, so I decided to step in."

From what Ivy just said, Naruto could tell something was up. "What happened?"

"Nothing of your concern Vanitas!" She yelled out in a hiss like tone.

'I'll have to figure that out when I get the chance.' He thought before speaking to the darker 'sister'. "Please Ivy, I need your help."

"From where I'm standing, you need a miracle." The darker persona said with her arms crossed.

"I'm guessing you heard what's going on in Gotham right now." Vanitas said making the changed woman nod in response.

"Yes. If there is a certain 'big event' going on, then this place goes under lockdown with every inmate taken back into their cells." Ivy stated as she paced back and forth inside of her cell. "With it being a widespread form of Joker gas, why wouldn't this place go through such lengths if an inmate tries to use the opportunity to possibly escape."

The disguised Uzumaki knew of this during a previous chat with Harley when discussing certain protocols in the asylum just in case of certain cases. Some would be mandatory lockdowns, others being light warnings, and others that she hasn't even experienced yet and doesn't wish to do so anytime soon. With what Naruto could tell on the last one was probably a big time asylum breakout or something of the sort.

Now one might wonder why Naruto's at the asylum in the first place. Well he had been going throughout the city trying to help on the various accidents that occurred, due to everyone losing their sanity. He had tried to blow away the gas, but it ended up spreading it further. Without any idea on how to possibly fix this, he was running out of ideas when he ended up hearing a familiar voice. A voice that he hadn't heard since gaining Lunar Rose: Yggdrasil.

-Flashback-

"Dammit!" Naruto yelled out as he dodged out of the way from a speeding car and getting several people off of the road. He and his clone were trying to take care of things, but with how much chaos being ensued that it was really difficult to handle. "This is getting out of hand."

"No shit Sherlock!" His clone yelled out as he threw daggers into people's clothing to keep them in place.

"Hey! Don't make me dispel you!"

"And deal with all this crap by yourself? Yeah right."

"Well I don't know what to do to stop all of this."

"Might I suggest something." A voice called out from out of nowhere.

"What the… Who said that?" Vanitas said as he and his clone looked around for the source, but couldn't find any.

"I did." The voice called out before the disguised Uzumaki felt a familiar weight in his hand. He looked down in confirmation that it was Lunar Rose in his hand, but that would only mean…

"Yggdrasil?"

"Hello Naruto Uzumaki." The now identified ancient tree spoke via mental link from Lunar Rose.

"What the hell Yggdrasil?" The disguised publisher said as he glared at the scythe. "You ignore my 'calls' when I tried to contact you on asking why you guys made Pam sterile and I got nothing in return. But now, out of nowhere, you decide to contact me. What gives?"

"I am sorry about that Uzumaki, but some issues were taking place at the time of your 'calls' and neither my brethren or I could answer back on your issue with your mate." The ancient tree spoke. "But we will take care of that problem at a later time. I need to inform you on what's going on now."

Knowing that trying to get that specific information on Pam's condition wouldn't be good now, it would be better with what Yggdrasil needs to inform him now.

"Alright, what's the problem?"

"Whatever this gas is that's permeating the air, is causing problems for the various plant and animal life. Both the Parliaments of Trees and Limbs are worried on what this might do as a whole and we need your help in stopping this." Yggdrasil said in a worried tone.

"The Parliament of Trees and Limbs? What are those? You mentioned the Tree one before, but never explained it"

*Sigh* "The Parliament of Trees deals with the plant life on the planet while the Parliament of Limbs are our animal equivalents. I hope that at least sums it up a little."

"That's fine for now, but I would like to learn more about these Parliaments at a later time. So getting back on track, you said that both groups are worried on what's going on. Correct?"

"Yes."

"And why would you need my help?"

"Because you need to get your mate out of her shackles and help her to solve this issue."

"And what would she know on how to take care of this problem?"

"She would know what to do." Yggdrasil vaguely said to the publisher. "Once things are started, you'll need to bring out your 'scythe', connect with her to help out in the process and deal with what's taking advantage to this event." The ancient being said before ending the connection.

"...That sounds rather ominous... Doesn't help on what he meant." Naruto said before he dispersed his scythe and summoned his motorcycle to head to Arkham while his clone remained to help take care of things.

-Flashback End-

The champion of the green suddenly gained a realization and smirked at him. "You are scared, aren't you?"

"Of course I am, for all of the people in Gotham."

"And I should trust you why?"

"Because without your help, not only every plant in the city will die but also Naruto Uzumaki."

She gritted her teeth at this and glared holes into the man in front of him. "You lie! Naruto should be immune to that toxin wafting through the air. 'We' made sure of that."

"...What do you mean?" He asked, only for her to scoff at him.

"Like I would tell the likes of you."

"But wouldn't you want to help the people of Gotham if he asked you to?" The hero asked, getting her to pause and trying to have an inner debate with herself. "And like I said before that without your help, all plant life in the city will die."

A few moments had passed before Ivy brought her focus back onto him with a glare in her eyes. "Fine, 'we' will help. But after this, 'we' want to come back here so we can wait for Naruto."

"And why's that?" He asked knowing what the answer was, but he had to keep up the act.

"Because he wanted to personally take 'us' from this place and bring 'us' into our home when it's 'our' day to finally be released." She said to him as he nodded on the 'new' information.

Vanitas then used his phasing ability to pull Ivy out of her cell before using the device he procured from the security office to deactivate her power dampeners. In a force of habit, Ivy had rubbed her wrists and neck from the odd feeling of not having those cuffs on her. Before going any further, Naruto pulled out a blank card and wrote down what was going on and that Ivy will be brought back after things in Gotham were taken care of. Once that was done, he placed the card next to the power dampeners before the two of them made their way out of the building via phasing.

"So… About that miracle."

"Believe me or not but when 'we' were going through our transformation process, we had a lot of scenarios put into 'our' head to know what to do if certain events were to occur. A lot of them were old or odd, but some 'we' could be able to improvise if done correctly." Ivy said as she breathed in the somewhat fresh air.

"Which would be what exactly?"

"Grabbing a sample and creating a spore to counteract the Joker Gas. It's easy when you know how, along with knowing how to manipulate plants at a molecular level." She stated making Naruto realize that was probably how she made him immune that one time, but will ask about it later.

"So could it be enough to protect the city?" He asked as he summoned two Kazekage lances for them to ride on. He would've summoned one, but with Ivy's distaste towards Vanitas, it would be better for her to have one of her own.

"Theoretically yes, but I don't know if 'we' could produce enough on 'our' own."

"So where do you need to go exactly?" He asked since he might know why Yggdrasil had mentioned for him to be the extra help, but doesn't know for sure.

"The Botanical Gardens. They're the oldest plants in Gotham and they'll help me on what I need to do." Ivy said as she eyed the lance. "What is that supposed to be?"

"Your ride." Vanitas bluntly said to her, making her looking at him oddly.

"You don't expect me to actually ride that?"

"I'll take it as slow as possible till we reach our destination. Unless you want to hold onto me."

"Hell no." She quickly said as she grabbed the weapon from him and sat on top of it. "The only person I would rather hold onto is 'our' beloved king."

It wasn't long as both of them were sent into the air and went towards their destination.

-Riverfront-

"Hello, this is Summer Gleeson and I'm in downtown Gotham where many corporate CEOs have gone stark raving mad. It would appear that the collapse of the stock market is now imminent. Now question remains, will April Fools Day mark the end of Gotham? Or will Vanitas and Batman save the day from his terrible nightmare?"

*Click* "Well the only things gaining now are the stock markets." Joker said as he turned off the radio in the submarine with a few giggles here and there to his own joke. He would've laughed more if the submarine attached barge didn't violently shake to the point that the mad clown fell down onto his face.

*Groan* "What the hell was that?" He asked as he got up and went to the periscope to see what was going on. He kept turning around the scope to see anything out of the ordinary. Just water, seagulls, garbage, water, rocks, Batman, rocks, junk, water…. Wait…. Batman?!

"GAH!" Joker yelled out as the Bat slammed his hand against the periscope to knock the homicidal clown off of his feet and onto his ass. He was going to get back up, but there was a sudden pull to the ship that made it not a great idea to get back up suddenly.

Back onto the surface, the Dark Knight had been in a foul mood for the past hours that he had been trying to come up with a synthesized antidote to the new strain of Joker Gas/Venom. It was successful when he had gotten Alfred cured from it's effects. It would take too much time to make more of the antidote with how widespread the epidemic was, so he needed to find the source and stop it from spreading. So he had brought his batboat to search for the Joker and found that the garbage barge was the source of the epidemic. He tied one of the towing cables he had against the barge and had his batboat go through autopilot to move it away from the city as fast as it can go.

"Well.. Well.. Well.." Joker's voice called out from behind as Batman had finalized the destination he had in mind to his boat. "Look who's come to trash the place."

"A fitting setting for you Joker." The Bat said as he looked towards the clown to see Judy, Punch and a clown captain behind him.

"Well I just love to get down and dirty at times Batsy." The man said with his ever present grin. "Now boys, it's time to play."

The two large men nodded at their boss' order as both ran towards the masked hero. One of them (will be Punch) threw a punch at the Bat, but it missed with him hitting a nearby broken fridge upon impact to cave it in a bit. Punch pulled out his fist and went to hit the hero again, but Batman kneed the man in the stomach before tossing him aside as Judy slammed towards the hero's back.

When the hero tried to recover from the blow, he was grabbed and thrown into the air to hopefully get him into the water. That proved unsuccessful as the Batman grabbed ahold of a metallic pipe sticking out of the garbage and used it to swing around to kick the offending henchman. Once getting back onto the barge's floor, Batman had to move out of the way from Punch throwing a fist at him before slamming his arms towards the ground to cave in the metal below.

Both of the large men threw punches and kicks at the hero as the Joker just sat back and watched the fight before him. He kept cheering his boys on as Batman sent three consecutive hard hits across Punch's face before moving out of the way from a thrown stove. Judy and Punch then grabbed thick planks of wood from the pile of garbage and swung them around to hopefully hit the Bat. But in the end, they ended up hitting each other across their heads to knock them out cold for who knows how long.

"Well aren't you the party pooper Batman." The Joker said with a slight frown before it went back up. "How about you take that mask off and we'll have loads of laughs to share. HAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"I think not Joker." The hero growled out as he marched his way towards the villain.

As the fight was going on earlier, Captain Clown made his way towards the towing cable attached to the barge and somehow tore it with ease. With the release of tension, the batboat went faster as it sped away from their present position with the barge slowly coming to a halt. Seeing this happen in the corner of his eye, the Joker laughed a little.

"How about you have some fun with our dear captain of our maiden voyage." Said captain made his way towards the Bat in a walking pace as the Joker just sat on the canister at the start of the confrontation. When the captain got closer, Batman jumped up into the air to deliver a downward punch to the man's face, only to hit metal instead.

'The hell?' The hero thought as he held onto his hand in pain. But this seemed to cost him as the 'captain' grabbed ahold of him in a hoisted him up into the air before spinning in a rapid pace. Batman tried to do something, but he was starting to feel too light headed to even try and fight back.

"Well then…" Joker started to say as he got off from his seat and dragged the cannister towards the spinning Captain Clown. "It's time to take out the trash. Hee hee hee."

In one swift motion, the Joker opened up the canister lid just as the 'captain' slammed the Bat into the container. Without waiting for the Bat to try and fight back, the deranged clown slammed the lid down and locked it up tightly before kicking the container several times. The vibrations emanating inside of the container seemed to make the dizziness and lightheadedness worse with the ringing sounds amplifying the effects a bit.

"Now it wouldn't be good to let you suffocate in there Batsy." The Joker said in a baby like tone before pulling out a razor sharp knife from his jacket's pocket. "So let's give you some air holes!" He yelled out as he kept stabbing the container with his deranged laugh.

At each puncture towards the container, the Batman was barely able to dodge the stabs with only a few scraping him in the process. Feeling satisfied with leaving enough holes in the container, he signaled for the 'captain' to come closer. The 'captain' responded and slowly made it's way towards its master before stopping to await its next order.

"Now el' capitan, time to give the ol' heave ho." The Joker ordered getting the 'captain' to nod at the request before grabbing the container and throwing it far into the river. Once making contact with the water, it started to sink towards the bottom of the river. *Mocking Gasp* "Oh no~ It seems my air holes were water holes too. What a shame~ Hehehe HAHAHAHAHA!"

-Gotham Botanical Gardens-

"Here we are Ivy. So what now?" The disguised Uzumaki said as he landed the both of them just outside of the place. It's been a long time since the both of them have come here on one of their last dates before the incident that made her who she became. It was one of her favorite places for her to go to on some of her days off and he enjoyed it all the same whenever they went. From what he can tell in the look in her eye, she was having the same thoughts.

Knocking out of her remembrance, she walked closer to the main tree of the garden. "Look at her. She's been here since before man walked the Earth. I can feel that she still holds great power." She spoke out before an angry tone took over. "But she's weak…. poisoned after decades of pollution. So she won't be able to fight off this gas on her own."

"Are there any others in the city?"

"There aren't any others like her left! Not anymore." She stated as she walked closer to the tree and placed her hands on the trunk with sorrow taking over her features. "Man cutting them down, built over them, stopped them from reaching the sun. It's hard to see on how she was able to survive for all these years."

It was hard for him to resist taking her into his embrace and telling her he's sorry. But he wouldn't know how she'll react on such a thing and things will become complicated in the meantime. So for now he'll have to hold it off until such time.

"I've been meaning to ask this, but what gave you the idea that 'we' could possibly help you in this epidemic."

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." Vanitas said making her scoff at this.

"Try me."

"A tree."

"...A tree told you?" She asked with a skeptical look. "I didn't even know you could talk to trees."

Naruto didn't get fazed by her tone of voice of her thinking that he was an idiot or something, even though she should talk to plants. He shook his head on this before replying in full on this. "Well more specifically, an old tree... named Yggdrasil."

Once saying that name, changed her features drastically to a shocked one before narrowing her eyes at him. "Like I would believe that he would grace his presence onto you."

"Well I did chat with him and he asked for my help to get you here." 'Among other vague things apparently.' He thought since he was still confused on that tidbit. "So are you going to start this or what?"

Ivy didn't say anything as she kept her eyes on him in wanting to possibly know what is going on. Knowing that she won't get anything out anytime soon, the changed botanist turned around and got the trunk of the ancient tree to open up to grant her passage inside. Once it closed back up, Naruto saw the tree change with it starting to glow and flowers started to sprout from various parts of it.

"Well I think it's time for my part now." Vanitas muttered as he summoned Lunar Rose and walked up to the tree before getting into a meditative pose. "Wonder how long this will take?"

Just as he said that, he blacked out.

-Meanwhile, Junkyard-

"Get ready boys cause here it comes." Joker said as he flipped several switches on a control panel that he procured from Ace Chemicals that was filled with his concoction. "This will give April Fools more smiles per gallon. Hee hee hee!"

Once the final switch has been flipped, the hoses that were connected to large containers came to life as Joker's concoction was sprayed onto the garbage barge. Punch and Judy kept the hoses in place as their boss had set it to full blast in hopes of emptying the containers for one last run. More would've been sent out if a batarang or two didn't cut the lines, causing the concoction to be sprayed all over the two henchmen.

The Joker saw from the readings that something seemed wrong and ran over to his two lackeys to see what was going on. "What the hell are you fools… Batman! How the hell did you get out of that container?!"

"Trade secret." Was all he said as he moved out of the way from Judy, making said man to fall into the water to end up washing the concoction off of him. Punch then came up from behind to knock the Bat out, but he kept ducking and evading each of the throws. The hero got tired of this and caught one of the oncoming punches and used that momentum to throw Punch into the water. In an odd chance, Punch ended up landing on top of a recovering Judy to end up getting both of them dazed out. Especially since both of them smacked their heads against each other.

"Of course this would happen." The Joker muttered before focusing his attention to the Batman. "Oh Captain Clown! Come over here and help out now! On the double!"

Hearing his master's command, Captain Clown came towards the Batman to subdue him like before but the Bat came prepared this time. He saw a nearby lead pipe, grabbed it and swung hard against the disguised robot several times before running further into the junkyard. The disguised 'playboy' knew the robot was too strong for him, so he needed to lure him to something that'll take care of the mechanical clown easily.

Looking around for a possible solution, he glanced back to see Captain Clown gaining up on him. Acting fast, he slid onto the ground to get the robotic clown to crash against several broken cars to help buy him some time for his personal search. Not wanting to lose on the chase, Captain Clown grabbed ahold of one of the cars and threw it to the side with ease before continuing on with the chase.

It wasn't long for the hero to find the solution to his current ordeal as he came across a car crusher. As he jumped onto the conveyor belt of the piece of machinery, the robotic clown grabbed ahold of his cape. It was then that Captain Clown started a tug of war of sorts with the bat themed hero from the high to the low ground.

"Well well well Batman. It seems that Captain Clown has grown quite attached to you.~" The Joker yelled out from the mechanical crain nearby. He seemed a tad winded, given the fact that he was running after them to see how his robotic henchman was faring against his long time rival.

The little tug of war continued as Batman was trying to get himself free from his cape. It would've been easier if he had clips to get it detached from himself, but he needs to cut himself loose. Once pulling out his batarang, he grabbed ahold of his cape and quickly dug into the material to get free. It was a little tough, but he managed to get free to run along the conveyor belt with Captain Clown climbing up and following its target.

Once high enough, Batman started smacking the robot's head with the metallic pipe until it's clown like face caved in and revealed it's true one with a Star Labs logo pasted onto the side. Seeing the logo made Batman realize that Joker must've stolen the piece of machinery prior to this event for some additional muscle. Well it would be wasted once he was done with 'Captain Clown'.

Batman started to smack the stolen robot some more before hitting its leg joints to make it fall down into the compactor down below. Not wanting to waste a chance, the masked hero went to the side and pulled on the main lever of the machine and pressed several buttons to fully activate the machine. It did it's primary function and crushed the stolen piece of technology into a small cube.

"You killed Captain Clown?!" The Joker yelled out from his placement as he pulled out a handgun from his inner jacket pocket before unloading it's ammunition at the Caped Crusader before speaking to him again. "You killed Captain Clown! Do you have any idea how annoying it was trying to steal him from that lab?! And just for that, I hope you enjoy this!" He yelled out as he pulled on several levers that ended up dropping a large amount of garbage onto his foe in hopes of killing him.

Batman somehow survived this as he jumped out of the way with some garbage landing on top of him. Once coming out from the small pile of filth, he saw the Joker run along the conveyor belt into the main building of the junkyard. Not wanting to lose sight of the deranged clown, he gave chase in hopes of catching up to him. After several minutes of running, Batman saw the Joker within his sights and was about to grab his jacket, but he jumped out of the way making the hero to fall onto the conveyor belt. Once shaking himself off on the failed attempt, his eyes were soon greeted to a large vat of molten metal.

Not wanting to die in such a fashion, the Bat jumped into the air and managed to grab ahold of a hanging bucket. With some struggle, the hero pulled himself up and got inside of the empty container. And just in time too as the bucket was soon assaulted by bullets fired from the Joker along with several swinging cabled hooks.

"I've always loved the crane game and shooting bats out of the barrel!" The Joker said out loud as he laughed while he continued with his assault.

Batman grew tired of this and got back up from his crouched position to grab ahold of one of the hooks and swung his way towards the clown. He was just about to make it, but the Joker pulled a lever and caused the piece of machinery to drop in hopes of the Bat to fall to his doom. Unfortunately for him, Batman leapt off of the falling hook and landed onto a variety of gears and worked his way up to the stable catwalk. Seeing that his foe was getting closer, the Joker ran off and jumped into a hole with Batman not far behind.

"Wheeeeeeeee!" The Joker sounded out as he rode along the makeshift slide with the Batman following behind him. With the exit soon approaching, he spread out his arms and managed to grab ahold of the chain rope before swinging upwards to the catwalk above. "Hot damn that was fun. I must go again! Hee hee hee!"

It wasn't long for the Batman to realize where the exit will lead to. So he placed his hands and feet onto the metal walls to slow him down, but it didn't slow him down quick enough and he almost fell down into the incinerator below. He tried to pull himself up, but the heat of the room was making it difficult to do so.

"Justice is served hot Batman and you'll burn for what you've done to my precious Captain Clown!" The deranged clown yelled out as he started firing upon the hero from his position. But he kept missing due to sweat hitting his eyes, making it hard to properly aim.

As the clown kept on missing, Batman tried to pull himself up but ended up slipping and almost fell to a fiery death. Luckily, at the last moment, he fired his grappling gun into the air and it caught onto the metal railing above and zip lined towards it. Once on stable ground once again, he stalked towards the criminal with a heated glare.

"Justice will be served Joker. For all of the lives you have possibly taken this day." Batman said as he ended up dodging several razor sharp playing cards at him. "So clean up your act."

"Wait… Did I just hear that right?" The Joker asked in bewilderment. "You, Batman, finally told a joke? Oh good god it finally happened! HAHAHAHAHA!" In his momentary laughter, he threw more cards at the hero, but he dodged each and every one before catching one in his hands. The Joker then pulled out his gun and was ready to fire again with a fresh clip, but one of his playing cards was thrown right into the barrel to block the bullets.

Seeing as his remaining weapon was now useless, he ran off to possibly escape and fight again on another day. But his foot got caught from some rope and ended up tripping over the railing to end up head first into the inferno below. The criminal thought he was going to die this day, but a snap came from above to show that the Joker wasn't going any further.

"BATMAN!" The deranged clown yelled out. "YOU WOULDN'T LET ME FRY, WOULD YOU?!"

There was no immediate response as Batman adopted a mocking thinking pose and spoke out with a smirk on his face. "Maybe.~"

"NOT FUNNY!"

-Naruto's Mindscape-

Coming to this place has always been an odd occurrence in the past; from training, searching and exploring. It never really made sense to the publisher when it dealt with figuring out this place's mysteries with him only scratching a little bit of the surface. With said 'scratch', it came up when he 'dived' into Pam's heart on that one incident that made him see many of her memories. Naruto would've liked to possibly experience that again, but it hasn't really occurred ever since.

For example, he woke up on Selina's 'Heart Platform' after the both of them got together that one night, but he didn't 'dive' into it per say. Didn't get the chance to see any of her memories to fully connect with her. Naruto just woke up here and didn't know what to do exactly; just inspected her 'Heart Platform' and just like Pam's, it was pretty interesting on the design.

It was mostly a purple colored background with a magenta like color for the border. There were many circles framing an image of Gotham's landscape, if he had it correctly, switching between dancing poses, cat icons and varying items that looked like jewels and artwork. Above Selina, who was in her Catwoman attire minus the mask, was another set of circles with portrait images of Shizune, Isis and some woman he doesn't know. But from what he could tell from some physical similarities, Naruto guessed the woman was Selena's sister Maggie.

But let's get back on track on what's currently going on here….

After Naruto went into his meditative position by the ancient tree, he woke up in a blinding light before it died down to have him realize he's back in this place. He inspected the platform below him and saw that it had a picture of the same tree in the waking world on a green background. Some additional differences were present with it being more integrated on the tree's appearance to indicate it being in it's prime from how exotic it truly was.

After his little inspection, Naruto looked around for few moments before calling out. "Yggdrasil! Are you there?!" There was no response from the ancient tree of the Green, only the slight echo from the distance from Naruto's call. "Yggdrasil!"

"I am here, young sapling." The ancient tree spoke out from the void, making Naruto breathe out a little into his helmet. "I'm glad you have brought Ivy to start the process."

"Your welcome, but I need to know what's going on. You said earlier that something was coming to take advantage in what's happening in Gotham right now."

"I'll explain later young one, but they are already here."

-Insert Fragments of Sorrow Extended-

The warning was rather sudden as several spots on the platform started to burst to the surface. From what the masked publisher saw, they were oddly grey colored dwarves with pot bellies, skinny limbs and large bulbous heads that were glowing blue. They screeched a little before lunging at the black and white themed hero with their fungal looking hands.

Before they could get any closer, Naruto summoned Lunar Rose and swung his weapon around to knock the grey men away from him before going after them. He slashed at each of them in either pinwheel motions or simple slashes. It didn't matter as these fungal looking beings were pretty resilient until they were finally cut down into nothing. Once looking around for any other foes, after the previous ones bursted into odd looking smoke, Naruto was going to call out to Yggdrasil when he heard it….

*Click* *Click* *Groan* *Click* *Groan* *Click* *Click*

The sound was rather sudden as Naruto something climb up from the edge of the platform and onto the stable ground. From what he was seeing, the being looked like a disfigured looking person with shredding clothing and fungus looking growths appearing on several places on the body. Even the face had those growths and the only remaining thing that was human about it was the one visible eye and the jagged teeth present.

It screeched and clicked again before running at the masked publisher, causing him to slash at the odd creature. Without him realizing, several more of those things started to climb up the platform and started coming after him in small groups. They were rather persistent in trying to harm him while he was mowing them down. Somehow one was lucky to grab ahold of him and tried to take a bit out of him, but Naruto struggled free and kicked the fungal being away before cutting it's head off.

As the last of them were done and over with, a stained glass pathway started to form from the side of the platform.

"Well done Naruto Uzumaki." Yggdrasil said from the void. "You have done well against some forces of the Grey."

"What were they by the way?" Naruto asked the ancient being. "Were they the beings that you tried to warn me about?"

"Some of them yes they were. The Grey has sent forces to try to seize the opportunity with the gas in the waking world to destroy one of the last ancient trees in your region." The tree spoke out to the human. "But you must hurry, they must not take this tree from us."

Without giving a response, Naruto ran onto the pathway to see where it would take him. It didn't take long for some of those grey fungal beings to burst out of the pathway to block his way, but the scythe wielder did quick work with them. More and more of them started to come out along the way that they started to mob up against him in droves.

'These fungal things are gonna be very annoying.' He thought as he slashed several at a time in the confined space. 'It's like they are a mob or something. Maybe I should call them that, fungal mobs'

He eventually slashed through the last of the 'fungal mob' before his foot came in contact with a darkened platform before it lit up. Like the previous platform, it was the same design of the tree's prime, but this one had a yellow background instead of green. If there was going to be theme with this, then at least he wouldn't have to worry as he heard that noise again….

*Groan* *Click* *Click*

….To indicate that more of these 'Grey' forces were showing up. And they did as more fungal humans crawled up onto the platform and screeched out at him like before. Naruto kept his guard up this time so none of these things won't surprise him like the last one. He'd seen enough zombie flicks to stay away from zombie looking mouths and didn't want to risk this healing factor of his to fix the problem.

So he swung Lunar Rose around quickly to drive some of these 'clickers' back a bit before he used a bit of speed to 'teleport' behind each of them and slashed at their backs. This caused them hard as they screeched and groaned louder before he severed their heads from their bodies. More 'clickers' started to crawl from the darkness and onto the platform, but Naruto wasn't having any of that as he threw several cards at them to explode on impact.

Another pathway soon formed itself to the platform, but without any wait this time more of those 'fungal mobs' came out of the glass like ground and came at him. It was getting a little repetitive to the point that Naruto jumped above them and ran past them to get onto the next platform with the 'fungal mobs' following after him. The moment Naruto's boot came in contact with the darkened platform, he heard more 'clickers' crying out before coming up in smaller droves to possibly box him in.

Naruto kept doing his process over and over again of dodging the 'clickers' before slashing and kicking them off of the ledge into the darkness below. At the corner of his eye, he saw the various 'fungal mobs' running up the pathway with some growing out of the reddish-orange platform. Not wanting to deal with them again, he threw several cards onto the ground in front of them to explode to possibly be rid of them. All that he wants to do now is be rid of them and hopefully get things taken care of on his end so Ivy can finish her task.

He didn't bother looking back if they were gone or not as he kept running forward to complete his part of the task. He heard the 'clickers' coming from ahead this time as they lunged at him. He evaded this tactic by sliding underneath one of them before doing a horizontal spin in the confined space. Other ones kept coming out from the darkness in front of him as he threw several exploding cards in their wake before running towards the sudden chaos to make quick work out of them.

Once landing onto the platform, it lighted up to reveal it's darkened blue appearance and he expected to have more enemies coming up from the sides of the platform. All that he heard was some scuffling from behind, making him turn around to see a lot of the 'fungal mobs' staggering up the pathways.

"Seriously?!" He asked in bewilderment as he readied himself. "Those guys didn't die from before!"

Naruto walked further back so that he could just take care of all of them once they were on the platform. It was a bright idea at first, before he saw odd fungal threads coming out of their heads and connecting with each other as they were getting closer to his position. All of a sudden, they seemed to all mess into each other to form one giant version of itself making the scythe wielder to have a twitch to his eye.

"OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE!" Naruto yelled out as it stomped its way towards his position. He had to 'teleport' out of the way as it jumped up a bit to come back down onto the rose petals where he was previously at. Seeing as it missed it's target, the large 'fungal mob' swung around to possibly grab ahold of Naruto, but he rolled out of the way before slashing it's legs.

"RAAAARH" It cried out in pain as it stomped its feet onto the blue platform before running after him in the small space. Naruto had to dodge out of the way yet again as he kept slashing at the monstrosity before him. In this time, the large 'fungal mob' soon grew its 'hair' out in each passing moment, making Naruto not like what might come up.

So without not wanting to know what it was going to do next, Naruto jumped into the air and slashed at the fungal beast's bulbous head several times to sever most of its 'hairs' in the process while leaving deep gashes into its mass. Once landing on the ground, Naruto had to recover quickly during the little time he had as the monster held its head in agony before coming at the scythe wielder once again.

"Time to end this." The hero muttered as he put a lot of strength into this last swing as he jumped into the air and made an upward slash towards the monster's neck to finally end it. It was successful as the body fell onto the platform before going up in an odd spore like smoke as the head fell into the darkness below.

*Phew* "That was one hell of a 'run'." Naruto said as he slammed his scythe onto the platform to give himself something to lean onto as he wanted to catch his breath. Once that was done, a pathway started to manifest itself as Naruto eyed it carefully. "I just hope I can be done with this soon."

He picked up Lunar Rose and carefully made his way through the pathway to what could hopefully be the last he'll be dealing with. There was nothing that has come up on the last bit of the trek. No 'fungal mobs' or 'clickers', which was good and all but it left a bad feeling in his stomach that something was right ahead of him.

The moment his boots came in contact with the last platform, it lighted up in an array of colors to reveal the same design as before of the ancient tree in its prime. But what made it more unique this time was the mixture of the previous platform backgrounds were meshed together into this much larger area. With the reds, oranges, yellows, greens and blues put together into a nice ordinate look that made all of the previous themes work together well.

-Insert Darkbeast Paarl Extended-

*Bang*

"... the hell?" Naruto thought out loud on the sudden sound. He looked around to see where it was coming from. It was hard to tell with it sounding like it came from everywhere at once.

*Bang*

"There it is again." He said as he got himself at the ready for what might be coming.

*Bang*

"Where is it?" The scythe wielder said as he kept on looking. "It can't be above… I think. Or the sides…. Then it must be…."

*Bang* *Screech*

"Below!"

As that was called out on the realization. A large hand came up from the edge with a resulting *Bang* before another hand came out and did the same action as before. Soon a large figure pulled itself up from the darkness, in a clattering mess, to get Naruto to see what it was once it stood up on it's four legs.

It was a skeletal looking beast with patches of flesh and fur on every other spot. It's human like skull was grotesque with the sunken flesh hugging the bone and revealing the sharpened teeth. This made things hard to tell what kind of creature this was before it's demise and became…. This….. Chimera zombie of sorts that was practically towering over him.

"ROOOOOAAAAAAHHHAAHRR!" The monstrosity screeched/yelled out as various sparks of electricity came from it's form before it slammed its hands onto the platform to shake it up.

Naruto had to try and keep himself steady, but he had to move out of the way when the beast swiped its electrified claws at him. The hero had to swing his weapon to parry some of the oncoming blows that he couldn't dodge from. Once it made contact, it was hard to fully keep his ground with how strong the beast was pushing. It soon wrapped it's other hand around his form and threw him up in the air to try and smack him across the darkness, but he wouldn't let that happen from what he could tell. So at the last moment, he swung his scythe at the offending hand to smack it away before cutting the monster's face a bit with a lot of his strength.

"ROOOAAHAAHRR!" It yelled out as soon glared at the hero once it regained his bearings. It lunged at him with a spark like dash, but Naruto dodged out of the way before slashing its frontal leg. This action caused the monster to fall down and end up falling over the edge of the platform.

"I hope that got rid of it." Naruto said as he had to catch a few breaths.

*BANG* *BANG* *BANG*

"Spoke too soon!" He yelled out before the pillar shook some more seeing the monster leap up with a large ball of lightning in it's mouth and fired at him.

"Shit!" Naruto said as he needed to dodge out of the way, but there was no time with how big that ball of energy was. So he thought of what he could only do by throwing Lunar Rose at the lightning ball with a lot of built up energy. "Hope you like this!"

Once throwing the weapon, it gave out a saw like sound in the air before it came in contact with the lightning ball. Two forces met with each other, resulting in a massive explosion. When the smoke somewhat cleared, Lunar Rose landed onto the ground before the monster as it landed hard. It struggled to move, but it wasn't getting up that quickly

Not wanting to lose his chance, Naruto ran towards the beast as he picked up Lunar Rose before slashing the monster's head in various strikes. Some were powerful swings and some were pinwheel style motions but either way, they were being very effective. Soon several sparks of electricity sprang to life on its form, making Naruto deliver a few more blows before jumping away from the beast.

The monster got back onto it's hands and feet as power started to get charged up throughout it's form before it released it all at once as it gave out a mighty roar like screech. It was rather deafening if one wasn't prepared on the obvious sign. The resulting discharge of power covered part of the platform with Naruto being in the safer area of it. The monster soon turned it's grotesque head back at him and snarled before coming at him again with it's electrified hands.

Knowing where this was going, Naruto made made a void rasengan in his hand and quickly fired onto the monster's face to knock it off it's path. It didn't seem to like it, but Naruto didn't care as he kept firing more and more void rasengans at the monster. But it seems that the electricity coming off of it's fur was dampening some of the void blasts onto it's being, getting Naruto to realize that physical attacks are the only way to defeat this beast.

With not wanting to deal more on Naruto's attacks, it lunged at him once again. Like before the hero slashed its other arm in the same fashion causing it to fall and slide off of the platform. Naruto soon guessed that the beast will maybe do the same trick like last time, making him ready for what is coming.

*BANG* *BANG* *BANG*

"I'm ready for you this time you rotten sack of bones!" He yelled out as he saw the monster leap up into the air like before with a large ball of electricity before firing it. Naruto tossed Lunar Rose at the ball of energy with more strength into it so it'll get to the blast faster and possibly harm the monster a whole lot more. The results were the same as before as the scythe came clattering down onto the platform with the beast landing on it with a loud thud.

Naruto dashed towards his weapon and quickly swung his weapon at the monster's head to deal more and more damage. With each swing he was delivering, he was seeing more of it's skull cracking and rotten brain being revealed. There was just enough room made for Naruto to try to end this now. So he focused a lot of his void power into his hand with the scythe keeping the gap open as much as possible before slamming his void mini rasen-shuriken into it.

The results were instantaneous as the attack grinded through the skull and destroyed the brain on impact. The monster gave out a screeching sound before it started to finally die out. Once pulling the scythe out of the monster's head, the creature started to crumble into dust and fade away into the darkness.

"Damn…. That was…. Really tough." Naruto said as he was catching his breath. He didn't know if he was done or not, but the answer was soon given to him with the platform starting to grow brighter and brighter into a blinding light.

-Waking World-

Naruto soon woke up with a gasp as he didn't know how long he was in his mindscape. It took him several moments to get his breathing back in order before looking around to see if he and Ivy did it. Apparently he did as everything was a bit quiet without the sounds of laughter and chaos going around along with the green gas being replaced by feint red specks of light.

"Well…. I think we did it." He said as he got up and dusted himself off before hearing the tree behind him opening up. The masked Uzumaki was then presented with the site of Ivy looking rather winded as she stepped outside. She stumbled a little and was going to fall down if it wasn't for Naruto to grab ahold of her.

"Hey…. Take it easy Ivy." He said before letting out a little chuckle. "Well congrats, you saved the day."

"Hooray." Ivy dryly said as she soon glared at the masked hero. "Don't touch me Vanitas. Like I said before, only 'our' beloved 'king' can touch 'us'."

"Yeah yeah." Vanitas said with a roll in his eyes before getting her to stand back up. "Well let's get you 'two' back to Arkham before things get hectic.

"Let's." Was all she said before the masked publisher soon summoned two Kazekage lances and helped her get onto the weapon. Once she was steady enough, they took off into the sky at a slow pace while seeing the nice spectacle below of the sun shining upon the feint red specks of light.

At least for the time being from up above, the dirty city down below looked a whole lot better.