Canon Fodder

CHAPTER 128 MORE PAINFUL

I would love to say I woke up on pillows. Or even better, my girl’s pillows. Or that when I did wake up I was fully rested and ready to fight longer, but I wasn’t. I was kicked in the balls by my sister. But not Evey like normal. This time it was Aurora. 

My hands were on her throat before she could kick me again. My sister yelped as my grip steeled around her throat. But I regained consciousness before I did any real damage. It helped that she kicked me in the balls. Or at least tried to. I instinctively covered the sensitive area after all my time with Evey. 

“Weston!” She yelled as I blocked her kick. “Your maids are missing.” 

I ripped my hand away from her throat instantly. Registering the words as I studied my surroundings. We were in a large tent and I had been sleeping on the floor. “What? Who? How long have I been out?” I asked, trying to get the lay of the land. 

“Reina, Hina, Shinju, and that new girl. They disappeared when the city was attacked,” Aurora said quickly. “We thought they were missing until I was given this note.” 

I opened it, blinking quickly. Each opening and closing of my eyelids waking me up more as I processed the words written on the page. 

Hello Weston, 

My master had been watching you for a while after your interference during the Chunin Exam. 

Who knew your family held such secrets? Since my master wanted to learn

all ninjutsu, he wanted to research you. 

Now that he is gone, it is left to me to continue his research. 

If you want to see your women again. Come to the Tenaka Hill

3 days from now at dawn. 

-Kabuto-

“Fuck,” I said as I closed the letter. The seriousness of the situation was let known by the quest I received. 

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck,” I said as I processed the information.

Not only did I have less than 3 days, I had less than 12 hours. Which implied they would be dead in less than that time. 

“Where is Tenaka Hill?” I asked Aurora.

“A day away,” she said. 

I nodded, my plan set. I was wasting too much time thinking in this state, so I just said, “World Escape.” 

I was in the Manga Room. Red lights above the doors except for 1, it was green. “Fuck!” I yelled in the small space. 

“This is bullshit. I don’t have any information. Orochimaru is dead, but he put a failsafe in Kabuto so that he could be reborn from the glasses wearing jackass.” I was walking through what I knew quickly as I thought. “So he has the girls. The question is, was it Tayuya who betrayed me? She had been gone for over a year, Orochimaru could have recaptured her. Made her tell him all she knew. It makes sense.” But I didn’t want to believe she would betray me. I liked her. But I loved my other girls more. I would have to figure out who betrayed me later. 

“I could grab Kiba. He might be able to track them,” I said. “Anko was Orochimaru’s student. Maybe there is a nearby hideout Orochimaru used when he lived there. Fuck! I have less than 12 hours. I can’t rely on anyone else to help me save them. I need my own strength to do it. I need more information. Information and power.” I looked to the doors around me. Power I could get. 

“I will do everything I can to save Reina, Hina, Shinju…and maybe Tayuya,” I swore. “I need Haki for sure,” I said. Pointing at One Piece. “And I need more strength. I want flight or something.” I pointed to My Hero Academia and a door I hadn’t touched. Next to the exit was One Punch Man. “Maybe I’ll get a flying superpower from there.” 

I pondered it all, but honestly, I knew the next course of action. I had a quest to complete. And it involved killing. A hell of a lot of killing. My girls in trouble, that is exactly what I wanted to do right then. So, I stepped into High School of the Dead World. 

The scenery around me slowly illuminated to show the Takagi household under attack from hundreds of zombies. People were shooting guns, others using melee weapons, most using their fists and hands. All trying to keep the zombies back. I watched it all for a moment. Counting seconds. I had planned this for some time. I knew what I needed to do. But for now, I had to wait. 

It took a minute and a half for the pain to hit me. A great ache in my muscles that I gritted my teeth through. It had been years since I had been there. I had gone through training daily in Gantz, My Hero Academia, and One Piece since I had been there. I was a hell of a lot stronger now. 

I growled as I fought the dull needle pain that covered every square inch of my body. My muscles expanded out in my clothes, ripping my shirt open. Then as quickly as it showed up, the pain was gone. I let out a sigh then drew in a deep breath. 

“All fighters!” I yelled, my voice echoing in the cement wall enclosed courtyard. “Fall back to the house. I will remove all zombies!!” People looked up. Other’s yelled my name. I had been saving their families from the zombies for days. I was strong, they all knew that. They were about to learn how much stronger I actually was. 

Chakra poured into every part of my body. My weights off of me, it was easy to jump the 50 feet to the middle of the courtyard then to the roof of the large Takagi home. While on the roof my chakra poured out of me in a huge wave. Latching onto the pond of water behind the house I pulled the bus-sized amount of water out easily. Drawing it to me I raised it over the house and turned to see people start running my way. 

I did the hand seals Yamato had taught me and the ball of water turned into a long dragon. It coiled up and followed my will as it dove to the horde of zombies chasing after survivors. The water dragon crashed into the bulk of them, causing the zombies to be washed away. 

Pulling out my Gantz sword I jumped to the last living human. Landing on the grass as he desperately ran toward the house I extended the Gantz Sword 20 feet. With a yell and slash I cut off the heads of the zombies that my water had missed. It wasn’t perfect of course. They were different heights. Many I simply bashed their heads in, others I missed since they were kids. But the majority fell, groaned, and died. 

I pulled the blade of my sword back in, dispatching the shorter zombies with a slash and the field in front of me was filled again. Extending the sword out I slashed once more, killing another 10. By that time the zombies were focused on me. I was the closest target. I let them come. 

What followed I couldn’t quite remember. I killed and killed and killed. My Gantz sword was a blur in my hand as I let the zombies get close. Saeko would have been proud of my form as I dispatched them. Cutting off heads with a simple slash of the sharp blade. I wasn’t sure where she was, because all I did was kill. 

I was filled with a deep rage. Reina, my first woman in these worlds, was gone. I feared she could already be dead. Of all of them, I couldn’t stand her or Toru dying. I would do everything in my power to make sure that never happened. I would conquer all of the worlds, if that is what it took to give me a power I knew could save her. 

But I wasn’t strong enough now. Even after all this time I still wasn’t strong enough to know I could save them all. Naruto world was hard. I had planned to leave before the Shinobi war anyway, but now I was locked out until I had the strength to ensure I didn’t lose anyone. 

So I killed. I lost myself in it. Watching men, women, and children that had been alive only a few days ago as they ran at my blade. I was merciless in the killing. They weren’t people to me anymore. I had seen killing. I had killed real people. 

These were…plants. Existing. They didn’t do the killing for hunger, this was their…sex drive I decided on. These zombies weren’t eating the people. They were reproducing. They were infecting who they could because their sex drive was telling them to bite and gnaw at living humans. All so that they could take over the world and become humans' next evolutionary step.

Or maybe they were a symbolism for us becoming zombies to entertainment? Letting the world pass us by as we took it all, letting our bodies wither and decay only to reproduce our own cogs in the machine so they could wither and decay. My mind was going in weird places as I killed. 

By the end of my killing I was mostly delirious. I had been up for over 5 days straight in Naruto World, and I doubted I got much sleep before Aurora woke me up. The only thing in front of me was the next zombie to kill. The next. The next. The next. The last. 

I looked around. There were no more zombies. There was no more courtyard either. I was somewhere else, and I wasn’t sure what had happened. Then suddenly someone yelled my name. 

“Weston!” Saeko yelled as she ran up to me. I smiled, the purple haired woman was as beautiful as I remembered. “We need you back here!” I nodded and started walking to her. She was talking but I couldn’t hear her. I was too tired. We came up to a grouping of people. In front of us was the large bus that the teacher I killed took to get into the Takagi household. Apparently they had to move some concrete partitions to let the bus in. 

“Can you help?” Saeko asked as we stopped by them. 

“Huh? What? Sorry, so tired,” I mumbled.

“They moved these concrete barriers out of the way to let the bus in,” Saeko said. She pointed at a forklift next to it. “When the nuclear bomb went off, and the EMP went out. It killed the bus and everything else we have that can move these. That’s how the zombies got in. They’re at least 3,000 pounds each. I know it’s a long shot but-” 

She stopped as I grabbed the steel cable on the top of the concrete partition. Lifting it with 2 hands and a groan I moved it the 5 feet to lock in place with the others in the line. I grabbed the other 4 one by one, setting them in place. They were heavy but I was too tired to care. 

“I’m going to bed,” I said. “Carry me.” On the living side of the barrier I laid on the floor and fell asleep on the cold concrete road.