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Naruto lay flat on his back atop the Stray Demon's corpse and stared at the sky through the hole in the ceiling.
His mind was somewhere high above him, running on a cocktail of adrenaline, stimulants, and exhaustion. It took a moment for the rest of his senses to catch up.
The smell of the corpse was horrible.
Like rotting meat left out in the sun too long in a lather of sulfur and ash. It was the kind of smell that had him gagging every time he inhaled as the pain from his broken arm and internal injuries began to simmer.
"I need to get healed."
Naruto held up the empty Estus Flask, tilting it hopefully. Well, I do not have a bonfire to refill this thing, he thought, frustration bubbling. But before he could dwell on it, a heavy thud echoed through the room.
"Oh, come on! Can't this place just give me a break?"
The figure stepped forward, and even in his half dazed state, Naruto could not help but think, Whoa, that's some badass armor.
The intruder was clad in jet black armor. Twin horn like protrusions jutted from the helmet, and layered plates covered the figure from head to toe.
[ Name: Black Knight ]
[ HP: 1393 / 1393 ]
Naruto blinked as the Black Knight moved with blinding speed toward him.
A smoke bomb hit the ground with a crack and smoke swallowed everything.
The Black Knight's sword cleaved through the smoke cloud and the Stray Demon's corpse in one uninterrupted arc, splitting the massive body in half. The shockwave cleared the smoke around them.
"Nope!" Naruto said it with a pop, already at the ladder.
Jumping up, the boy found himself in a long, shadowed corridor. One end was sealed off by an empty jail cell, while the other had collapsed into rubble. From the layout, he guessed that twin halls of prison cells must have circled the chamber on each side.
A metallic clanging snapped him out of his thoughts.
The knight was climbing the ladder.
"Oh hell no!" Naruto said, pushing the ladder and sending the knight back down to the floor below. He almost wanted to laugh and mock the knight, but he was in too much danger to act like his typical self.
Something glowing glimpsed in the darkness of the cell caught his eye.
Maybe that's something.
He ran toward it, only to find a doll.
It was a small bronze puppet that had long since turned green with age. Naruto turned it over in his hands, half expecting it to spring to life or whisper directions to a secret passage or do literally anything useful.
It did nothing.
What does this thing even do.
The faint glow he had seen from across the cell was gone now, or maybe it had never been there and he was hallucinating it.
Still. Something about it feels important.
BOOM.
The right wall of the corridor ceased to exist.
The Black Knight jumped through the hole it had made. Naruto had approximately one second to register the massive black knight sword in motion. The doll shimmered into his inventory as the thrust came forward aimed to split him clean in two. Naruto got his shield up, deflecting the blade to the side by a margin that he was choosing not to think about, and ran.
The Knight's Sight fired.
A spinning backhand cut came at head height from his right. He dropped low and felt the blade pass through the air where his skull had been a half second earlier, the stone wall behind him taking the hit instead, the sword biting deep into the rock.
Stuck.
Naruto slapped an explosive tag onto the knight's chest and sprinted. The explosion filled the cell behind him, shaking the corridor, dust raining from the ceiling in sheets.
He looked back.
[ Name: Black Knight ]
[ HP: 1300 / 1393 ]
The Black Knight walked out of the smoke with no sign of damage.
How does something take a point blank explosive tag and just keep walking.
Naruto kept running.
I can't fight this thing.
Even at full strength, with two working arms and a sword that had not been shattered, he was not confident he could put that thing down.
Iruka sensei, Naruto thought, said that a shinobi's greatest weapon was knowing when not to fight.
He had said it during a lesson on tactical withdrawal, which was the Academy's polite name for running away, and Naruto had rolled his eyes at that. Why would the Hokage run away from a strong enemy?
"I owe Iruka sensei an apology."
Naruto pulled the fuma shuriken from his inventory and hurled it at the knight. The Black Knight bisected it with a single swing without breaking stride. Naruto stopped running, turned around, and put his hands into the serpent sign as chakra became visible outside his body.
"AHHHHH!"
The knight's shield came up immediately, its whole frame dropping into a defensive posture.
Naruto stared at it.
So, it does have some form of intelligence.
"AHHHHH!" he screamed again with the full commitment of someone preparing to do an enormous and devastating jutsu.
He then jumped out of the hole in the wall.
The Black Knight seemed to register a second too late that nothing had happened and nothing was going to happen. It had just been outwitted by a screaming twelve year old. It jumped after him. And found him standing in the chamber below surrounded by thirty shadow clones, every single one of them holding a smoke bomb and grinning with his face.
"Try finding us now, big guy."
Every clone threw simultaneously.
The chamber disappeared into black.
What followed was the sound of the Black Knight finding clones with systematic efficiency. The first clone went down with a single swing that sent it popping into smoke before it had finished its attack. The second tried to stab from behind and got backhanded hard enough that it dissolved on impact. Three clones attempted a coordinated rush from three angles and were dealt with in two swings.
A clone threw a kunai directly at the knight's face.
The sword bisected it midair.
The explosive tag split with it, the seal formula dead before it could activate.
By the time the smoke thinned, every clone was gone.
The grappling hook caught the top of the chamber wall and Naruto dropped into the corridor on the other side before the last of the smoke had finished clearing. The hallway ahead of him was full of hollows who turned toward the sound of his landing with lurching attention.
Behind him, the Black Knight jumped into the corridor.
Seeing himself stuck between a rock and a hard place, Naruto kept running deeper into the hallway.
Silence filled the chamber below.
Then, from inside the demon's corpse, something moved. Naruto pulled himself out one handed, trying very hard not to vomit. "That is the second worst thing I have ever climbed into, dattebayo!"
He chose not to think about what the first was.
From somewhere far above, an explosion rattled down through the stone, distant enough to be muffled but close enough to feel in the floor.
A moment later the clone's last memory of a very short fight arrived.
Naruto allowed himself a small, exhausted smile.
Good. Let it think I am dead.
He pulled the grappling hook from his inventory, aimed for the hole in the wall, and swung up.