13 #12
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A SAGE ADRIFT
#12
'I have practiced with it a bunch of times but never at this level,' Naruto thought as he invoked the one spell that could withstand the momentum generating characteristics that came part and parcel with being the avatar of Cytorrak.
The Crimson Bands of Cyttorak.
The thing was that while he could create enough bands to cover his entire body, the inherent properties of the bands made it almost impossible for him to move his body.
It felt slow to his eyes but in reality, in the split second that Cain had jumped out of the crashed landmass, Naruto was covered head to toe in a golden mass of energy that was then covered by the crimson bands of Cyttorak, giving him a complete suit of armour.
"That's not gonna stop me!" Cain, i.e. Juggernaut said as he punched directly at Naruto with all the momentum he had behind him.
At the same time, Naruto slowly breathed out and punched out at the same time.
The moment their fists met, there was a shockwave that shook the entirety of the farm and raised a cloud of dust that made looking at what was happening inside, impossible.
It had seemed as if Naruto was successful in stopping the Juggernaut head on, without any trickery which nobody had done so far but that thought was shattered as the next moment, Naruto flew out of the dust cloud towards the farm.
Grimacing, Nartuto sent extra dimensional energy towards his right arm, the one made with the Hashirama cells, urging them to heal his body quickly. His entire right arm was mangled down to the bone in that clash, convincing him that he was not the right match for this fight. He was just not physically strong enough to contend with the Juggernaut, not without the Six paths Sage mode at least.
Shoving his feet in the ground, he still slid back a few dozen feet before he came to a complete stop. Rotating his right hand a few times to check on its movement, he nodded in acceptance once he realised that his arm was healed back to its optimal condition.
"Argh!" The Juggernaut roared as the cloud of dust settled down, revealing Juggernaut to have actually stopped and even slid back a few feet during the clash.
It was undeniable that Naruto was the loser in that moment yet the grin on his face never faded as he once again jumped back into the foray, his only purpose being to slow down and stop Juggernaut from reaching anyone on the property.
No matter how many times he would have to heal his body back up.
….
..
High up in the air, Right above the Davis Farm
"Unbelievable!" Mystique whispered as she saw the fight that was happening below them.
"Impressive," Emma Frost nodded to herself as she saw the person clad in orange, jump back right up to clash with Cain Marko's fists even though she could see that in each and every punch that this Naruto sustained, his entire arm was being damaged to the point that not even the most advanced of surgeries could ever hope to fix.
And yet, there he was, his arm glowing a bright green now as Naruto continued to stop or lead Cain away from the farm.
"Hmm," she mused to herself as she skimmed over the minds of the people present in the farm. It was not difficult, after all, she was known to be one of the strongest telepaths on the planet.
As infuriating it was to admit that the old fossil Xaviers was stronger than her, she took pride in the fact that her powers were much more meticulous and malleable in their application.. While Xaviers needed the machine Cerebro to use his vast psionic reserves as a radar, she could do it on the fly.
Reading through the memories of a couple humans, especially since they were all unpowered with no mental training whatsoever, was child's play for her.
Reading through the minds of the Davis couple, she realised two things. Naruto was not a mutant but he had not told the Davis couple of this and secondly, his powers were a lot more varied than she had first expected.
Super Strength, Healing, Nature manipulation along with energy manipulation of some sort.
There was no way that he was a naturally born mutant because there was only a single mutant that she was aware of who had multiple powers from completely different categories. It was almost always the case that once a mutant power has been awakened, there would be a plethora of other abilities that would come alive as well. For example, enhanced bone density along with musculature when one gains Super Strength. Also, the enhanced blood flow and strengthened circulatory system to go with that Super Strength.
A mutant does not normally gain the power of healing themselves with the power of natural manipulation or energy manipulation.
The forcefield they were standing on expanded to become a windshield of sorts to protect them from the shockwaves that the battling duo was sending out.
Looking at the fight, she could feel Naruto's joy as he let himself loose and fought Cain with all his might.
At the same time, she couldn't sense an iota of emotion from Cain not because he wasn't feeling anything, it was because of that helmet that he wore that shielded him from any telepathic interference.
"Are you sure he is the one, Mystique?" She asked Mystique who had suddenly come to her and asked her to take in someone who had the potential to become the saviour of mutantkind. Emma had tried asking her about the source but whenever that topic came upp, Mystique bricked up and refused to elaborate about anything.
Mystique nodded, even as her eyes were stuck at the fight, "Yes, My source has never been wrong uptil now and you know it, Emma."
Emma sighed, "Very well."
She had been contacted by Mystique to help Naruto settle in their world, the superpowered world because if mutants as a whole managed to gain his favour, their situation in a couple years would be vastly better than it is now. Atleast, according to the clairvoyant that Mystique had access to.
She herself had met many such people who either claimed to be clairvoyants or actually were ones but with very limited reach or with just enough reach for them to be useful to her but having heavy downsides like the visions being random or them dying due to backlash of their powers. She had also heard that seeing the future of truly powerful beings came with a huge risk because sometimes, people could actually interact back with the clairvoyant.
"Alex, get us down, will you?"
"Yes, Principal," Alex, a teenager she had found on the streets once his powers had been activated. He had been gifted with the power of force field generation and manipulation. He served as her defense when she activated her telepathic powers and her escort when she was in her Diamond form since moving in that form was very cumbersome for her.
The forcefield molded itself to form a sphere around three of them and slowly started lowering down towards the fight. She assumed her Diamond form as safety since she was going to have to go close to Naruto to tell him about Cain's weakness.
Once that helmet comes off, she would be able to put him to sleep very easily. That was what she was about to tell Naruto when something completely unexpected happened.
After another one of their slugfests, Naruto was thrown away from the fight, his entire torso caved in but soon enough, his entire body was covered in a green glow which healed him right back up and he dove back into the fight.
Why won't you go down?" Cain roared in frustration before he punched his own chest, right where Cyttorak's gem was. Something seemed to have been triggered by that punch because the red glow that surrounded Cain, which had dimmed down by a lot, suddenly grew so much in intensity that soon, Cain was nothing more than a red shining ball of light.
Then, with a roar that seemed to disorient anybody that heard it, Cain punched Naruto with so much force that he himself was thrown away from the collision, the area they were in cratering with such force that the boundary of that crater began smoking up.
Naruto, whose form was barely covered with an orange glow, shot out of the crater and crashed right through the barn that the people on the farm were hiding in.
Emma was busy helping Alex and Mystique as both of them had been affected by the sound attack that Cain emitted earlier but she could feel pain, confusion and alarming despair from the people in the barn.
She snapped her neck towards Mystique, hoping that she had recovered due to her sturdy constitution but found her out of commission as well. It would be really disastrous if she was the one who turned the supposed Mutant Messiah away instead of those two old arrogant fools. Her pride would not allow it.
Right as she was about to jump towards the direction of the barn herself, she heard a voice and cursed herself for it.
"Well well well, look who it is," The annoyingly silky smooth voice of one Sebastian Shaw could be heard as he arrived out of a cloaked jet that had landed on the outskirts of the farm.
Emma cursed herself for not sensing him earlier.
"Stay out of it, Sebastian. I arrived here first," She said, hoping to dissuade him using one of the loose rules that governed the Hellfire Club.
"Emma, you forgot one thing. I am the Black Ki-" That was all Sebastian could say before a burning orange portal formed above him and swallowed him up. The same happened to his jet as well.
Instantly, her guard was raised up as she looked around for the source of the portal.
'Tch, annoying sorcerers,' she muttered to herself before running towards the direction of the crater, completely aware that this was the best time to disarm Cain so that he does not recover and become a threat again. Maybe she could
Naruto, on the other hand, was having the worst day since he had come to this reality. First, he had gone ahead and lost himself in the heat of the battle, a rookie mistake that was not expected from a Hokage.
Secondly, whatever it was that Juggernaut did in the end broke almost every single bone in his body.
"Oww"
Thirdly, the green glow that was suffusing his entire body, healing him in its entirety, was beginning to dim down. While it did help in healing his body, it would seem that he would not be able to repeat the stunt he did previously anytime soon.
The arm that was glowing completely green now returned to its original pale form.
The good news was that whatever that Cain did to enhance his power so much beyond the norm, it seemed to have taken a lot out of him as well since his power signature had dimmed way below his peak.
His relief, however, was short lived as his enhanced hearing soon picked up on the distressed cries of children and adults both.
Straining to look in the direction of the voices, his eyes widened in horror when he saw the state of the barn.
It had collapsed partially with the roof having caved in because of the supporting pillars being blasted through. Judging from his position, he realised that he must have blasted through the barn when he was punched away by Cain.
Heaving with all his might, he tried to stand up even though it felt like his muscles and bones had all turned to jelly at that moment.
"Argh!" Naruto screamed as the moment he tried sending even a small amount of energy to the Hashirama cells in his right arm, an unbearable amount of pain shot through his entire body.
His effort to stand up seemed to go up in vain as he flailed about uselessly on the ground. He had never expected that the fight would leave him this drained. Drained enough that even lifting his body off the ground was an impossibility. Even so, he didn't stop trying but the best he could do was crawl pathetically towards the barn even though he knew that, in this condition, there was nothing he could do to help the people there.
"Ugh, this is pathetic to watch," he heard a snide remark before he felt some sort of field cover his entire body and lift him.
He strained his neck to see who was doing it only to see someone he had never expected to help him, even if she had the option.
Emma Frost just didn't seem like the kind of person to him who would help him without getting anything in return and he was sure that he was not going to follow her or dance on her tunes so why?
"Don't move a lot, I am new to moving things with my mind," He heard Emma speak to him before both of them began slowly walking towards the barn. The thought of telling her to hurry did cross his mind but keeping her reputation in mind, he instead chose to focus all his efforts on doing something to heal his body.
Word Count - 2278
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