“Outta the waaaaay!”
The Seventh Hokage sent the bike charging into one of those beautiful, big doors. The door, cruelly sent flying hinges and all, collided with two of the seven drones and unexpectedly cut the number of their pursuers.
The five remaining drones got back into formation and zoomed forward.
Vvvn vvvn vvvvvvnnnnnnnnn!
The bike engine roaring, they raced along the wooden floor inside the station building. The stunned passengers who happened to be in the building fled in a panic and, no doubt, never even imagined that the maniacal rider of this rampaging machine was the Seventh Hokage. Tires squealing, the bike screeched down the stairs while Naruto broke off the remaining left mirror and threw it at the emergency alarm when they came out onto the platform.
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
The mirror hit the button smack in the middle, and a shrill alarm filled the air. The bike slipped through the pandemonium of the platform, shrieks and curses coming from all corners, and out onto the line itself to race alongside the train that had come to an emergency stop.
“Chihare! Don’t bite your tongue!” Naruto cautioned, unaware that she had already bitten it once. Unlike the paved streets of the old city, the railway line was a bumpy road of railroad ties at regular intervals. Each time they went over a tie, the bike slid from side to side, but Naruto quickly righted them by shifting his center of gravity.
“We’re getting out of the village. I’ll figure out what to do about them once there’s no one around!”
As he rode, Naruto kept an eye on the pursuers behind them. Five drones left. Only two had come at them with the laser beams. The drones had had any number of chances, but none of them had tried to suicide bomb Naruto and Chihare. So then was it just that one drone at the start equipped with a bomb?
Thump!
His heart pounded heavily, and a sudden pain radiated through his chest. One hand nearly slipped off the grip, and he hurried to tighten his fingers around it again. But the hand trembled and shook.
“Ngh … Not. Now …”
The crushing pain in his chest pulsed and throbbed more intensely with each passing second. He started to wheeze and gasp for breath. It was like his trachea was refusing to let oxygen pass.
Chihare noticed something was wrong with him. “What’s the matter?!”
“Noth … ing!” Naruto bluffed hard and yanked his face up. The wind pushing up against them sent the cold sweat beading on his forehead scattering behind them. He put an elbow on the tank and rubbed his eyes, his vision hazy and pale, as he desperately panted for air.
“Hey, are you having trouble? Is this bad?!” Chihare panicked. “I can’t take over the driving, you know?!”
Behind her, the drones were getting closer.
“Come on already!” Naruto leaned to the side to dodge a laser beam and slammed his aching chest against the tank. He could taste blood from where he’d bitten his lip.
The railroad track led out onto a steel bridge. Below the bridge was a valley with a brook running through it.
Abruptly, two of the drones on their tail cut out to the side.
Huh? They give up?
Naruto watched the drones with the Byakugan as they dove under the bridge and shot laser beams at the arched piers supporting it.
The steel was burning bright red in an instant, and sparks began to fly.
“For real?” He gaped at the sight.
Boom!
An explosion knocked the pier away from the base.
“They went and smashed the pillar!” he yelled indignantly.
The tracks rose up like inchworms, the guardrails shattered, and the railroad ties bounced up into the air. Having lost its road, the front wheel of the bike bounced up almost perfectly perpendicular.
“Do you know how much it cost to build this bridge?!” he shouted.
“Is now really the time to worry about that?!” Chihare yelled back.
Without its pier, the bridge started to crumble from below. Naruto selected a rail that was still more or less retaining its shape and desperately kept riding, but he soon reached its limit. Rail twisted apart and thrust up to knock the rear wheel of the bike away, and the force of it pushed Naruto and Chihare into empty air.
“Dammit …”
Of all the times not to be able to use chakra!
Naruto twisted his torso, wrapped an arm around Chihare’s waist, and assumed a passive falling posture with himself on the bottom. They were surrounded by twisted railway, thick pylons, and all manner of debris that could kill them instantly if they got trapped under it, but thanks to the Byakugan, he was pretty sure he could swim them through it and make it safely to the ground.
And then a drone appeared before him, gun muzzle out.
Naruto didn’t even have time to groan before the extended barrel locked onto his eyes. The tip blinked with red light.
“. . .!”
To protect Chihare, he switched positions with her just as the branch of a tree shot out and stabbed the drone from directly below.
The red light vanished, and the four propellers slowed to a stop.
The extended branch kept moving to wrap around Naruto and Chihare and catch them in midair.
This. This was Wood Style ninjutsu.
“No way …”
There was currently only one person in the village of Konohagakure who had this kind of command over Wood Style.
Naruto looked up with a gasp and saw that an enormous tree had grown up from the valley to support the crumbling steel bridge. Swirling vines curled tightly around it and stabilized the structure.
Moving like a creature with its own will, the tree branch lowered Naruto and Chihare to the ground. As it slackened and twisted away from them, Chihare slumped down to the ground with a wretched, “Haah.”
“I see you’re just barely alive as always, Naruto,” came a flat voice, together with the crunch of gravel.
Naruto patted his chest, the painful attack now past, and exhaled briefly before looking back.
The star of the Anbu was standing tall, hands still woven in a sign. Face guard hiding the outline of his face. And Wood Style ninjutsu inherited from the genes of the First Hokage.
“Commander … Yamato …”
Yamato, the man who had once led Naruto in place of Kakashi, saw that Naruto was unharmed and smiled in relief.