Meanwhile on the observation balcony.
"Already practicing for your coming position as Empress?" Naruto asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Well it has been a while and since I doubt that you will act with the regality required of the position of Emperor, I will have to compensate."
"Hey, I can totally be regal." Naruto protested.
Xanna sighed and gave him a look. "Emperors do not say 'totally'."
"She's totally got you there bro." Uzume snickered.
"Oh har de har har." Naruto laughed sarcastically. "What kind of Emperor am I supposed to be if I can't even talk however I damn well please?"
"Rulers must project a certain image if they wish to lead effectively. An Emperor that is a joke to his people cannot lead." Xanna lectured.
She failed to mention that she suspected that the overly charismatic idiot she had married would somehow manage to project authority even when acting like a fool.
"Okay I get it, but can we please not ruin the fun with lessons on proper dictatorship?" He huffed. "I'm already dreading the next several centuries enough that I don't want to start them any earlier than necessary."
Xanna gave his hand a squeeze. " I think you will find that it isn't as bad as you think. It will be slow at first yes, but the years will pass quickly as our work continues."
"Easy for you to say." He muttered. "You're actually looking forward to it."
Xanna looked over him with an eyebrow arched. "Now you are just fishing for sympathy."
"Maybe." He admitted.
Xanna merged their separate thrones into a single large one and pulled his head into her breasts. "There there beloved, it will be alright." Her tone was very, very patronizing.
A grin pulled at Naruto's lips as he buried his nose into the most spectacular pair of breasts in existence. In short order, Xanna was sitting in his lap and he was feeling much better about the idea of being Emperor. As long as they were together, how bad could it possibly be anyway?
"You really think it's not going to be boring?" He asked and nibbled on her ear.
"Not at all, building an Empire from the ground up is a lot of work and it will only get harder once we begin conquering the rest of the galaxy." She answered with a murmur and leaned her head to the side to expose her neck to him.
"When did we decide that we're going to conquer the rest of the galaxy?" He asked distractedly as he eagerly scraped his teeth over the sweet spot on her neck.
Xanna let out a rumbling purr and ground her backside over the erection that was already pressing up against it. "I decided on it a short while ago."
"Might as well, I guess." Naruto agreed in a tone that really should not be used when deciding on things such as planning your day, much less conquering a galaxy. Then again, his nose was currently flooded with the scent of her arousal and he was not inclined to care about too much else.
"Oi, can you two horndogs please not go at it right here? The show's about to start." Haihane interrupted.
"Seconded!" Benitsubasa piped up.
"I suppose they have a point, there will be time for that later and I actually do want to see this." Xanna said, though not without some reluctance.
With much greater reluctance, Naruto navigated his hands away from where they had wandered beneath her clothing and situated them around her waist. He wasn't letting her get off his lap though.
"This still seems pretty stupid to me." Sai huffed, upset that she couldn't punch Higa's lights out herself. "We should've just killed them."
Karasuba agreed, but stayed silent. At the very least it was an interesting idea and she had to admit that there was a dark amusement in seeing them wander around like rats in a maze.
"That would be quite dull." Xanna pointed out.
"But you even gave them a chance to get away, what if they survive? Are you going to just let them go?" She argued.
"Yes." Xanna admitted without concern.
"But if they make it, they'll be getting away without paying for what they did!" Sai insisted.
"Well sweetie, anything is possible, " Naruto answered her with a grin. "but it is not very likely."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The group of scientists had by now managed to get a hold on themselves for the most part. The first few encounters with various undead enemies had badly rattled their composure and one of the two women had died from a trap that shot an arrow out of the wall, which had certainly not helped to calm them down.
But eventually, the need to survive had allowed them to push down their fear and continue. Aside from Minaka, only the other woman had any experience with weapons and that was with a bow, but they eventually managed to organize themselves so that the occasional enemy encounter was dealt with with a minimum of difficulty.
Minaka's prior experience did not end up being useful in the sense of giving direction, as the dungeon was clearly different. Whereas it had been a claustrophobic labyrinth before, now it was more along the lines of a castle and the path frequently took them outside as well as into its bowels.
"What did the exit look like when you were here last Minaka-sama?" The surviving woman asked in a hushed whisper.
"It was on top of a great cliff, but I had the good fortune of being randomly teleported on top of it." Minaka answered, keeping an eye out for a Die of Power. They had managed so far, but he had no doubt that Amaterasu-chan would be needed if they wanted to escape.
"And how exactly did you get teleported onto a cliff?" Higa hissed.
Predictably, his temper had been fraying constantly because Minaka had automatically assumed a leadership position. That it might have been because most of the people present were his employees did not really register to him.
Kakizaki was only barely managing to convince his boss that wandering off on their own could prove quite fatal.
"I rolled a ten." Minaka answered absently, walking carefully around a corner with his spear extended in front of him in case there were beasties lurking in ambush.
"What the hell does that mean?" Higa demanded, but Minaka did not hear him.
The reason for this was because he saw what he had been looking for. Sitting innocently on an ornate dais in a dead end was a twenty sided die.
Overcome with the compulsion to roll it and hope for eighteen, Minaka ignored all further questions, grabbed the Die of Power and tossed it without hesitation.
6
Ogre!
An angry bellow resounded, followed by the pounding footsteps of some heavy beast.
"What did you do?!" The surviving woman shrieked.
"I rolled poorly." Minaka answered and started snapping out orders. "Retreat back to the courtyard we passed earlier, we will need room to fight it."
Not even Higa protested, though he seethed quietly.
They made it just in time to see the lumbering creature crash into the courtyard from the other side and roar at them in challenge.
It was an ugly thing with greyish skin and a somewhat distended stomach that made it look fat. That initial impression was belied by its powerfully muscled limbs. Saliva poured from its sharp but blocky teeth in thick rivulets and there was nothing in its eyes except for bestial rage. It was rather intimidating to look at because it was at least twice as big as the biggest of them in all directions.
"Spread out and try to keep it in the middle, don't let yourselves be cornered and don't try to block its attacks with your shields." Minaka advised.
The scientists tried to obey, but several ended up getting in each other's way. The Ogre wasn't in a very patient mood and randomly charged at two of them who were trying to figure out how to position themselves.
Its roar warned them of its intent, but it was too late. The younger of the two scientists threw himself away desperately while the older froze in fear and ended up pulverized .
"Attack it now!" Minaka cried out and stabbed his spear towards the beast. He only managed one thrust before at its thigh before feeling that it was time to back off again.
Unfortunately, the panicking scientists were too frightened to notice this and did as he had commanded, but only after the opportunity was already lost, stabbing their own polearms at it. The creatures thick hide acted almost like armor and prevented their clumsy attack from doing any real damage, as well as giving the Ogre plenty of time to bring one of its arms around in a backhand that sent another man flying across the courtyard with a broken neck.
"Shoot it!" Higa yelled at the woman with the bow, trying to hide somewhere so that the Ogre wouldn't charge him next.
"I'm trying!" She snapped back, having extreme difficulty firing the bow with her shaking hands. The High School archery club had been a long time ago and there had been no monsters trying to kill her at the time.
Higa's plan to have the woman draw attention to herself by firing at it backfired when it was instead drawn to his shout and charged at him with another roar.
With a frightened yelp, the corporate heir sprinted towards another of the male scientists, brushing past him with enough speed that the older man was knocked down. He looked up from the ground just in time to let out a scream as he saw the Ogre stomping towards him before he was trampled.
Higa breathed a sigh of relief when he managed to dodge and the Ogre crashed into another wall.
This time around, Minaka was not alone in attacking the creature's back. While the MBI president stabbed his spear at the back of its knee, the largest and by default the strongest man there swung the axe he'd taken at the other knee.
While Minaka's spear thrust did little against its thick skin, the axe blow was a lot more effective. Even though the man had been aiming at the back of its knee the same as Minaka, he missed and accidentally struck lower, hamstringing it.
They both quickly retreated before it could retaliate and claim another victim.
The now much slower Ogre turned out to be much less of a threat as well since it could no longer charge effectively. It still tried of course, but it was slow, predictable and easily dodged.
They finished it off by baiting it into another charge while two men swung their halberds at its exposed belly, causing a pile of steaming, stinking intestines to spill out.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Okay, I'll admit that that was kind of fun to watch." Sai commented.
"What a bunch of bumbling morons, three of them dying because of that stupid thing." Karasuba snorted.
"Yeah, it was pretty one dimensional with its attacks." Haihane agreed.
"We figured that they'd all die if we made it any smarter than that." Naruto admitted.
"We appear to have been correct in that assessment." Xanna added.
They lapsed into silence as they watched the shaken group get their wits about them after their victory and step away from the stinking carcass.
"What are they doing now?" Benitsubasa asked bemusedly, not really expecting an answer since it was pretty obvious.
"What humans seem to do best, attempting to place blame." Xanna answered anyway.
Nothing further was said as they observed the argument. It was basically everyone blaming everyone else for getting their three compatriots killed.
Higa was blaming Minaka for rolling the Die of Power, with Kakizaki backing him up.
The others were blaming Higa for getting the third man killed.
Several people were also blaming Minaka for ordering them to attack and getting the second man killed, but this was tempered by the fact that he'd given actual good advice during the fight and had contributed to finishing it.
There was also some minor blame going around for everyone else for their poor performance during the battle. Some of the men felt guilty for being useless and the woman outright burst into hysterics from the stress, though she did manage to get herself together fairly quickly.
"Looks like they might be at it for a while." Haihane commented with a sigh, slumping in her chair boredly.
"Lets help them get a move on then." Naruto said and waved his hand towards the Sekirei, causing a holographic screen to pop up in front of them.
"What's this?" Uzume asked curiously, inspecting the array of icons on the screen.
"Think of it as a limited ability to affect this world." He explained. "Push one of those buttons to draw on my power and make a change."
The Sekirei looked at each other with grins and inspected the buttons eagerly, trying to decide what to do.
Skeletons spawned due to group inactivity!
Everyone looked towards Haihane at the announcement, who had apparently already decided to push a button.
"What?" She asked defensively. "I wanted to get them moving."
Deadline activated!
In fifteen tolls of the bell, the Minotaur will come to slay you.
The second announcement had everyone looking towards Uzume, who raised her hands away from her screen and gave a weak defense. "I thought it looked interesting."
"Oh it is, but the Minotaur will be both stronger and faster than the Ogre, as well as armed with a massive two handed battle axe. They will stand no chance against it with their current weapons." Xanna explained.
"I wonder if any of them will clue on to the fact that they can block the summoning if they prevent the bell from ringing." Naruto snickered.
"Hey, I can't push any of the buttons." Sai complained, echoed by Benitsubasa.
"Well, we can't have you swamping them with too many enemies right away." Naruto explained with a grin.
The two girls huffed in disappointment and decided to keep careful watch to make sure that they got to pick next.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"We have to find the bell and stop it from ringing." Minaka stated with authority.
"That's stupid! Why would stopping the bell stop the Minotaur from coming after us." Higa scoffed disdainfully.
"Simple logic." Minaka insisted.
"I am not climbing all the way up to that bell tower on some wild goose chase that will end with us trapped when that thing shows up! Stopping the bell doesn't even make sense, it just lets us tell how much time we have."
"It is possible that he is correct Higa-sama." Kakizaki inserted. "This entire place doesn't make any sense to begin with."
"Shut up Kakizaki." Higa snapped, angry that even his secretary was agreeing with Minaka and his composure badly frayed due to stress.
Kakizaki looked back at his boss for a moment before backing down, unwilling to argue the point any further. Minaka might be right, but he could also be wrong and both were irrelevant. He and Higa would be better served if they stuck with the group and the group was more likely to follow Minaka than them.
In any case, they were still together for now and had been able to fight their way out of the attack by the skeletons without incurring any further casualties.
It did not take long for more argument to erupt from the group as they came upon another Die of Power, which Minaka once again hastened to grab and roll.
9
Zombies!
The attack by the slow, lumbering and not particularly threatening undead was intersped with much cursing and yelling.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"You didn't really put Minaka in there as a guide did you?" Uzume asked suspiciously. "You put him in there because you knew he'd keep rolling that Die at every opportunity until he got what he wanted."
"Maybe." Naruto said noncommittally, though his grin betrayed him.
"We also put him in there because we knew it would cause tension between him and Higa." Xanna elaborated.
"Looks like they're going to split up." Benitsubasa commented.
"People that go off alone always get slaughtered first in every game or movie." Haihane snickered.
"Clearly, Higa doesn't watch a lot of movies or play enough games." Naruto said in agreement.
Giant spider spawn, beware of ambush!
All eyes turned towards a smug looking Karasuba, who had been paying attention to when another monster spawn would become available instead of talking.
"No fair, I thought you didn't even care about this." Benitsubasa pouted, upset that she didn't get to do it.
"I don't, but that one looked fun."
Sai and Benitsubasa huffed at being beaten to it, but turned their attention back to what was happening.
Higa and Kakizaki had indeed gone off on their own, not wanting to deal with Minaka's compulsive rolling anymore, especially as the MBI founder refused to explain why it was so imperative that he continue rolling.
Much to their dismay however, none of the others wanted to go with them despite that. They were still quite sour and distrustful of him for the way that he had gotten one of them killed, along with his obvious hostility towards all things MBI.
Higa and Kakizaki's independence ended up being quite short lived, as they blundered into the previously spawned spider ambush no more than fifteen minutes later. Their deaths were particularly grisly as the oversized arachnids surrounded them and tore them apart, the two men unable to effectively defend themselves due to lack of manpower and proper weaponry.
Despite hating them the most out of all those present, Uzume and Sai blanched and paled at the sight, being unused to that kind of ugly death.
The other three Sekirei had no such problems, having been inured to it before their final inclusion into the Disciplinary squad, or in the case of Karasuba, having long since lost any sense of squeamishness.
"You girls alright?" Naruto asked with some concern, wondering if he'd made a mistake bringing them in on this.
"Uh...yeah, sure." Sai answered faintly, swallowing down her discomfort.
"You want to get out of here?" He offered.
Uzume and Sai exchanged glances before nodding. At first it had seemed like poetic justice to have Higa, Kakizaki and those scientists blundering around in some sick survival game just like they'd been forced to do, but now it just seemed cruel.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Sorry Naruto, I didn't think it would bother us that much." Uzume spoke for both herself and Sai.
"No big deal, I hear it's actually pretty normal to be bothered by something like that." He brushed off with a grin. "You wanna go watch cartoons with me and Kuu-chan?"
"Maybe for a while, then I really should be getting back to Chiho." Uzume agreed and then frowned. "But aren't you going back to finish watching their dungeon run?"
"But I never stopped watching it." Naruto answered in amusement.
Sai and Uzume frowned in confusion for a moment before figuring it out. "Right, clones."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Meanwhile...
"You have to let me roll it!" Minaka insisted fervently, trying get to the Die of Power they had just found. Unfortunately for him, the other scientists were pointing their weapons at him suspiciously, not wanting another repeat of the Ogre incident.
"Why?!" One of them demanded impatiently. Minaka might be the most capable of keeping a cool head and he had led well so far, but his scattered and pointlessly enigmatic behavior did not exactly inspire trust. "We only have six tolls of the bell left before the Minotaur shows up and we don't have time to deal with any extra monsters. The ones we run into on the way are bad enough as it is."
Minaka huffed and decided that he would need to explain himself for a change. "The Die has helpful effects if a roll higher than ten is made, we've simply been unlucky with the rolls thus far. I don't believe that we can fight the Minotaur with our current weapons, so it is imperative that we get something better before it shows up."
He neglected to mention that his real reason for wanting to roll so desperately was his desire to get Amaterasu-chan back.
The others exchanged looks and decided that in light of this new information, rolling the Die of Power was an acceptable risk. Especially considering the fact that they'd heard the obviously painful deaths of Higa and Kakizaki at the many legs of the giant spiders. They had all very pointedly gone the other way after hearing that.
13
Guns!
Everyone except Minaka cheered at the appearance of all sorts of firearms, while the MBI president simply looked disappointed that he hadn't rolled eighteen.
"What should we take?" One of them asked quizzically, not really knowing anything about modern weaponry except for what he'd seen in the movies.
"Shotguns and high caliber pistols, automatic weapons will go through their ammunition too quickly." Minaka answered, his tone ever so slightly sad. "Someone should still take an assault rifle though, just in case."
The others didn't really notice his tone in their haste to equip themselves with guns and figure out how exactly they worked.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"That lunatic has luck almost as good as yours husband." Xanna sighed.
"I know, it's uncanny." Naruto agreed.
"What'd you mean?" Haihane asked curiously.
"Now that they are armed with guns, they have a good chance to defeat the Minotaur without casualties, if they position themselves wisely." Xanna explained.
"Which they look like they're going to do, since Minaka is being pretty smart about it. They even took a good selection of weapons." Naruto added.
"What's so good about what they took?" Benitsubasa asked in confusion. All guns seemed similarly useless to her.
"The shotguns aren't going to be too much use against the Minotaur, since they'd need to be almost in range of its axe for them to do any damage, the others will be more useful though. Both the pistols and the assault rifle have enough range and stopping power to do some serious damage to it." Naruto explained.
"You seem to know a lot about guns." Haihane commented idly.
"What can I say? Even I'm not immune to the allure of a weapon that makes loud banging noises." Naruto shrugged. "Even if they are kind of underwhelming in comparison to all the other stuff I can do."
"It is times like this that I am reminded that despite everything, you are still young and childish." Xanna jibed.
"You know you like it." Naruto countered and nibbled on her neck again.
"I never said I didn't." She retorted and deliberately rubbed her posterior against his crotch.
Haihane rolled her eyes as the two of them were clearly going towards sex again. Seeking a way to interrupt it, her eyes gleamed when she saw that the monster spawn option was available again.
Zombie wolf pack spawn!
Naruto and Xanna looked over when they heard the announcement and looked on with interest to see what would happen, their thoughts derailed away from sex for the moment.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The reason that the horny pair of gods had gotten distracted by their libidos was due to the goings on in the dungeon. Namely, they had forted down on a corner of the castle wall that could only be accessed from two sides and both sides had a long staircase leading up to it. Their intention was to wait for the Minotaur to come(which would happen at the next bell toll), shoot everything they had at it and hope for the best.
"I still think it would have been wiser to make for the bell tower before our time runs out." Minaka said somewhat sulkily, having been outvoted on a course of action.
"I know Minaka-sama, but our time is almost out and there was no guarantee that it would even work to stop the Minotaur from being spawned. You said yourself that this was the most defensible position we've been able to find so far, so we might as well wait for it to arrive and get rid of it." One of the others argued.
Minaka had to concede that all of that was true, but it didn't change the fact that he still thought it was a bad idea. Thus far, every time that they had stopped in an area for an extended length of time, trouble had soon followed.
Zombie wolf pack spawn!
Before so much as a curse word could spew from anyone there, the bell rung for the fifteenth time, followed immediately by a loud roar in the distance.
"I knew this was a bad idea." Minaka said in resignation.
Left with nothing else to do except fight, the group readied their guns and prepared for the attack.
"They're coming from this side!" The only woman in the group called frantically, hoping to get some backup. There were only eight of them left and she'd feel much better if there were eight guns being pointed at the approaching pack of zombie wolves instead of four.
"They're over here too!" Another man yelled from the other side.
For a short time there was nothing to be heard except the sound of shotguns firing as they struggled to keep the undead wolf pack away from them. To their credit, their choice of location for making a stand was actually quite good. The narrow walkways made it very hard to miss with the shotguns and the wolves were far from sturdy. Added to that, the staircases gave them the high ground advantage.
Of course, their luck ran out when the Minotaur arrived, thundering across the walkways and up the stairs in a furious charge, interposing the flat of its huge battle axe to use as a makeshift shield. To make the situation worse, their shotguns had run out of ammunition and would need reloading.
The few remaining wolves turned out to not be much of a problem as the Minotaur either flattened them or smacked them over the wall as it charged at the petrified scientists.
Not being trained soldiers, they frantically kept pulling the triggers of their empty weapons instead of switching to the pistols they'd taken. Only two of them still had shells in their shotguns and most of the buckshot ended up being deflected by the axe.
Consequently, they accomplished very little by the time the Minotaur reached them and swung its own weapon in a wide arc, instantly killing two of them and sending the other two plummeting off the wall.
The other group had by now taken care of their own wolves and were able to turn around just to see this happen.
"Switch weapons!" Minaka ordered hastily and grabbed his own pistol, knowing full well that they had no time to reload the shotguns.
The other three snapped out of their horrified staring at the monstrosity and obeyed on autopilot, two of them pulling their high caliber pistols while the other grabbed for the assault rifle.
The Minotaur once again charged towards them with its axe held as a makeshift shield, but ran into considerably more resistance this time as three rounds from the powerful handguns struck it and forced it to stop. The scientists didn't exactly have great aim and the handguns kicked like mules with every shot, but aim didn't really matter at that distance and they had enough stopping power that even something as strong as the Minotaur couldn't ignore it.
Three more shots rang out, only one being blocked by the axe while the other two stuck it in the leg and abdomen respectively, causing massive tissue damage.
It was at this point that the man with the assault rifle had finally gotten himself ready to fire and let loose with his automatic weapon. He'd expected the recoil and had aimed deliberately low, but it still took him by surprise and forced his aim upwards a lot more forcefully than expected.
By some stroke of dumb luck, he stitched a line of bullet wounds upwards across the beast's chest and even took out one of its eyes.
The weight of fire caused the Minotaur to stagger back and clutch at its damaged face, its charge interrupted.
"Keep firing!" Minaka called, seeing their chance to kill it.
They others did so, emptying their clips and making short work of it now that it was a sitting duck.
All of them were breathing heavily and staring at the bullet riddled corpse of the Minotaur as if it would get up at any second and breathed a sigh of relief when it vanished. Though dread replaced relief when a Die of Power appeared in place of its corpse.
Minaka moved to roll it, but was stopped by the other before he could take more than a step.
"Don't do it Minaka-sama, our weapons are empty and there are only four of us left."
"Alright, lets reload first, then I will roll it." Minaka agreed.
"That's not what we mean." The other man said, sweatdropping. "I think it would be best to leave it be and continue towards the exit, we can see it now." He finished, pointing over the wall where they could now see a massive valley with an arrow formed of small rocks pointing at the other end. The valley had been hidden in fog that had lifted with the death of the Minotaur.
"And what if we run into something that these weapons will not be enough to handle?" Minaka argued. He hadn't even gotten Amaterasu-chan back!
After several minutes of heated argument, Minaka finally convinced them of the need to roll the Die.
1
All enemies despawned
?
They all felt a block of ice drop into their gut at the number, though confusion followed at the mysterious and strangely helpful effect of the worst possible roll.
"Strange, I had not expected to still be alive if we rolled so poorly. I wonder what that hidden effect is?" Minaka said to himself.
"Uhhh...Minaka-sama." One of the scientists said faintly.
Minaka was too deep in his self muttering to hear him though. "Perhaps some kind of trap that will only become visible when it is too late?"
"Minaka-sama..." Another said, staring in the same direction as his colleague.
"Perhaps a boss monster of some sort and all others had been despawned to make sure we reach it." The MBI founder continued to mutter.
The third scientist had by now lost patience with the whole thing and forcefully turned Minaka around and pointed his eyes towards the bottom of the valley.
"Oh...well, that's bad." Minaka said in consternation after staring at it for nearly a full minute.
Now occupying the previously empty valley was a gigantic dragon.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Isn't that the same dragon that I already killed once?" Karasuba asked in amusement.
"Yes, but smarter and deadlier now." Naruto confirmed. "And a different color."
"What does it matter what color it is?" Benitsubasa asked huffily. She was upset because she hadn't gotten to use the monster spawn thingy. It had vanished when the dragon had been summoned and she'd been acting sulky ever since.
"Trust me, it matters." Naruto assured, getting a contemplative look from Haihane.
"That thing almost killed me because I got careless, there's no way that they're getting past that." The Black Sekirei said with certainty.
"It can certainly be done, if they find another Die of Power and roll high enough, along with one other way." Xanna said with a smirk.
"What other way?" Haihane asked curiously, already having suspicions on what that other way might be.
"A secret way." Naruto teased.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Meanwhile, the group of dungeon crawlers had made their way through the castle and finally reached the valley where the dragon waited.
They had needed to backtrack and go the same way as Higa and Kakizaki. That had been quite the nerve wracking experience, walking through a spider web infested room that held the mangled corpses of the corporate heir and his secretary.
Fortunately, the spiders had been despawned along with everything else and their way was unimpeded.
Now that they were on the same level as the dragon though, it only sunk in just how massive it was. It completely blocked the exit and lit up the otherwise dark valley with the sheen of its silver scales. Fortunately it seemed to be sleeping
"There's another Die over there." One of them men whispered in a barely audible voice, fearing that they would wake it up by speaking too loud.
His words were indeed true though, tucked into a corner just before the exit from the castle and into the valley was another dais with a Die of Power on it.
"Might as well roll it, not like it could make things any worse." Another man said fatalistically.
With a shrug, the roll was made.
16
Plasma rifles!
Minaka sighed despondently as Warhammer 40,000 style plasma rifles appeared, one for each of them. Powerful weapons to be sure, but they weren't Amaterasu-chan.
After a short discussion on tactics, they came up with something very simple. They were going to tip toe right up to the sleeping dragon and shoot it in the face, hopefully melting its brain before it could wipe them out.
Sweating profusely from nervous tension, they approached it ever so slowly until they were close enough that they could aim their shiny new guns at its head with reasonable accuracy.
Just as they were preparing to fire, its eyes opened and it fixed them with a reptilian gaze that froze them where they stood.
The standoff lasted for a full five seconds before one of the scientists' nerve inevitably broke and he pulled the trigger.
The superheated plasma bolt missed its head and struck it on one of its horns instead, visibly heating up the silver colored protrusion.
The dragon growled threateningly and opened its mouth with the clear intention of releasing its breath weapon, causing the others to fire at it as well. These shots hit it in the face, but also did little more than heat the metallic scales.
Minaka was the only one who hadn't fired yet, as he had frozen in remembrance of a little fact on D&D dragons. It didn't help him much right now though, as they were all about to die.
Making a last second decision, Minaka turned tail and ran like the win back towards the entrance to the valley, leaving his petrified employees to die as a blast of freezing cold issued from the dragons mouth and flash froze them, only missing Minaka because the angle of the attack had been aimed at the others more than at him.
Trying to catch his breath, Minaka gazed back at the dragon, seeing that it was apparently returning to its nap, contemptuously batting aside the frozen statues and shattering them.
Gnawing on his lower lip in contemplation, he sighed and threw down his plasma rifle. Next, he approached the dragon again, but this time without any attempt at sneaking, hoping that the two gods that had created this place weren't completely ignoring D&D conventions. The fact that the dragon had been spawned by a roll of one on the Die of Power worried him, but he didn't see himself having any other choices but to risk it.
"I apologize for our earlier attack on you, please allow me passage." He said with a bow, keeping his voice steady despite the nervous sweat beading on his face.
The dragon continued to look at him for a few pregnant seconds and then let out a snort that nearly blasted him off his feet. Still, it shifted aside slightly and moved its tail to open the way out.
"Thank you." He said with another bow and walked out, forcing down the impulse to burst into a sprint. He had to keep telling himself that he wasn't in any actual danger.
After all, metallic dragons were of Good alignment.
He was still sad about not being reunited with his beloved Amatersu-chan though.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"That is BULLSHIT!" Benitsubasa roared. "It moved because he ASKED NICELY?!"
Naruto and Xanna snickered in amusement, having expected that Minaka would be enough of a nerd to know that D&D detail and crazy enough to try it.
Haihane snickered too, but mostly at Benitsubasa's expression of red faced rage. Clearly the Red Sekirei felt that she'd been cheated out of something by Minaka's easy escape.
"Well, it saves me the effort of having to get him out of there myself. I do still want him alive after all." Naruto said, still snickering.
"What for?" Haihane asked in confusion.
"Something ironic, don't worry yourself over it." He answered.
"Are we finally going to have our fight now?" Karasuba asked impatiently. Sure, this had been somewhat amusing, but she wanted that fight.
"No, first he is going to be joining me in the bedroom since he saw fit to arouse me." Xanna cut off any further plans.
"Can't he just do that with a clone?" The Black Sekirei huffed, failing to see what was so great about sex anyway. Sure, she got riled up when she had a good fight, but that didn't mean that she understood what the big deal about sex was.
"Do not be obtuse girl, he is my husband and thus will always place me first and I will not be pawned off to a copy." The horned woman said challengingly, almost daring Karasuba to argue further.
Karasuba wanted that fight, she really did, but knew an unhealthy course of action when she saw one.
"Don't worry Little Crow, you'll get your fight soon." Naruto assured and teleported them all out. He had a wife to satisfy first though, and it would take a while before he was done.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
OMAKE, the continuation.
Takami sat with her head in her hands at what had once been Minaka's desk. Technically it was still his desk, but the man hadn't sat behind it in quite a while already, preferring to stay in the labs and work on remaking Amaterasu-chan.
She was not here to do work though. No, she was in the office to hide from everything and enjoy the quiet so that her poor head would stop hurting.
Everything was going to hell(literally according to most people these days) and she was the one who had to bear the brunt of the shitstorm because of it.
Every single day since that stupid asshole Uzumaki had started a new religion by demonstrating his boob enhancing abilities, there had been people yelling at her about it.
Every world leader that was able to actually do anything on an international scale had been demanding explanations and blaming her for the chaos that the world was descending into. You'd think that a member of a pharmaceutical corporation wouldn't be getting blamed for this kind of thing, but thanks to Minaka and his usurping of the Japanese government, they were technically responsible to at least some degree.
Oh sure, she'd told them that Uzumaki was basically uncontrollable and couldn't be stopped, but then they just badgered her because they didn't know what else to do. They'd done everything from demanding that the Sekirei be released to their custody as a possible means of stopping the lunatic to trying to manipulate the horned man somehow.
All of it was useless of course, since Uzumaki had taken over protecting the Sekirei and had become increasingly vicious with every attack against them. As for manipulating him...well, you'd probably have more luck manipulating a thunderstorm. Both would just ignore you and do whatever they wanted.
Naturally, things had gotten even worse once the various religious leaders of the world had somehow caught on to the fact that MBI had some remote connection to this whole mess. She'd had to deal with their stupidity too when that had happened.
Being a scientist, Takami had a rather dim view of religion as a general rule, but the sheer levels of religion inspired idiocy that people were descending to lately were astonishing.
While Naruto's ever larger horde of perverted followers raised hell around the world with their demands that he be recognized as an official deity, everyone else was naturally resisting it as if all of existence depended on it.
Takami would have found the whole thing darkly amusing if she wasn't the one that everyone complained too. To her, the whole thing was retarded since Naruto didn't really strike her as the type that would care whether anyone acknowledged him as a god or not, but humanity was all too eager to sink back into Dark Age level mentality on the issue.
Honestly, with how things were going, she wouldn't be surprised if some trigger happy idiot with access to nuclear weapons pushed the big red button while aiming at Japan.
At the very least, it would take care of her migraine in a storm of nuclear fire.
"You look stressed." Naruto said sympathetically, having just appeared behind her.
Takami didn't even jump this time, having become sort of used to his random appearances, nor did she react when he put his hand on her head and her migraine suddenly vanished.
"Why are you doing this?" She asked without lifting her head.
"Well, I seem to have made one hell of an oopsie by giving Beni bigger boobs, so I figure that I might as well have fun with it." He explained without any shame in his voice whatsoever.
"Did you know I had the Pope on the line earlier?" She asked idly.
"Oh really?" He asked with interest. "What did the chief replacement have to say to you?"
"He was most upset over the fact that your followers organized an orgy in the Vatican and sent him the DVD." Takami said, still perfectly calm.
"Oh that, yeah those guys were a bunch of horndogs, but they're not bad people. Papa Smurf is still alive and unharmed after all, though he might be under the impression that he's going to Hell when he dies." Naruto said with a snicker. "But I don't understand why he went whining to you about it."
"Because you don't own a phone Uzumaki." She answered, once again with the same calm.
Naruto shrugged again. What the hell would he need a phone for?...other than calling room service that was.
"He was also upset that you apparently visited another nunnery, replaced Jesus on the cross with your naked and fully erect self and then asked the nuns if they wanted to 'wield the Lance of Longinus'." The silver haired woman said, spinning around in her chair to finally look at him, making air quotes on the last part.
"I'm not apologizing." Naruto said, grinning. "Besides, you can't tell me that 'Lance of Longinus' doesn't sound ridiculously phallic."
"DAMNIT UZUMAKI!" Takami suddenly roared. "YOU CAN'T JUST MOCK PEOPLES BELIEFS LIKE THAT, EVEN IF THEY ARE STUPID!"
Naruto was unphased by her outburst, knowing full well that she was just pissed because of all the chaos and the headache it was causing her, not the mocking itself. He didn't even need to hear the last part to know that she thought religion to be the height of stupidity.
"Does that mean that Xanna can?" He asked with another grin.
Takami took a deep breath to calm down, knowing perfectly well that she was just being baited. "She shouldn't, but just like you, I don't see how anyone could stop her from pretending that she was God."
Naruto wanted to make another jibe, but Takami spoke first. "Why are you picking on Christianity so much anyway?"
"We're not, but we drew lots on which religions each of us gets to mock and Christianity was the odd one out, so we decided to share." He explained.
"You drew...lots?" Takami asked in disbelief.
"Yep, I got Buddhism and Hinduism, while she got Jews and Muslims. We did Christianity first since we had to share." The horned blond explained further.
"And now you're going after the Buddhists and Hindus?"
"I'm already done actually." He admitted.
"What?" She frowned in confusion. "But I didn't hear anything about that."
"Well, it turns out that Hindus and Buddhists are a lot more chilled out than Christians, so I didn't really get to do a whole lot."
"Explain." She demanded.
"Well I tried the Hindus first, but it only took a few demonstrations before they declared me the Tenth Avatar of Vishnu. Things got kind of awkward after that since they started taking everything I said way too seriously." Naruto elaborated, scratching at his face as he remembered that little incident. "Mind you, I have only the most basic idea of who Vishnu is supposed to be and I have no idea why he'd need ten avatars, so I figured it might be a good idea to move on."
Takami looked at him skeptically, finding it hard to believe that he would just leave without causing some kind of incident.
"As for the Buddhists...well, I did show up right in front of the Dalai Lama and started giving him tips on proper meditation."
Takami rubbed at her forehead in consternation.
"I also transformed into a sexy naked blonde woman and gave the monks a little show."
Takami's head firmly hit the desk.
"They didn't really react much aside from some surprise, which was pretty boring all in all. The old guy just thanked me for the meditation tips and asked if I could not transform into a woman any more. Very politely even."
Takami was actually rather relieved. Buddhism was likely the most peaceful religion on the planet and the one that least deserved Naruto's unique brand of humor being inflicted on it. At the very least, the Dalai Lama wasn't likely to be badgering her over it.
"He did call me an Outer Path heretic though, which was funny because it's true." Naruto snickered and then frowned. "Well, sort of anyway."
Takami looked at him oddly and was about to ask for more clarification about that, when he continued.
"Xanna's been having a much more...eventful time though."
"What did she do?" Takami asked, her blood turning to ice.
"Well the Jews are similar enough to Christians that she did her 'I am God, I'm pissed at you for thinking I was a man' shtick again, but they didn't really buy it. Not much happened there except for some spontaneous beard combustion and other minor tricks."
"I note that you left the Muslims for last." Takami said, resignation in her tone.
"Yeah...about that..."
"What did she do?" Naruto's words all but confirmed her suspicions.
"Apparently she picked those Muslims that were, shall we say, a bit more extreme in their beliefs and are thus a bunch of humorless bastards that couldn't take a joke to save their lives."
"Over a billion Muslims in the world, so naturally, she would end up mocking the ones that wouldn't take it well." Takami spoke, feeling her migraine returning already.
"No kidding, telling them that Allah is a woman and that the only thing waiting in the afterlife were seventy two sweaty men did not go over well." Naruto said, as if in agreement.
"What happened?"
"Well...one of them called her an infidel whore, pulled a gun and declared that she would 'be shown her proper place' when the holy war began in earnest."
Takami sighed and closed her eyes. "And what did she do in return?"
"Take a look." He said and formed a viewing screen.
Almost immediately, Takami saw the horned goddess in question cutting down scores of Islamic extremists that kept popping up no matter how much anyone tried to get rid of them. Naturally, since this was Xanna she had to be ostentatious about it and was doing it with a sword made of bright white fire, with a shroud of black fire roiling around her.
"Don't you feel at all obligated to try and stop her from burning people alive?" The scientist asked, blanching at the obviously painful demise of dozens of people.
"Hey, they were the ones that declared war on her, they're just getting what they wanted." Naruto shrugged uncaringly. "I feel more pity for the grass when I see someone mowing their lawn."
"This isn't war, this is a slaughter." Takami said, unsuccessfully trying to rub away her shiny new migraine.
"War is always a slaughter." Naruto dismissed.
"Couldn't you just go back in time and make it so that all of this never happened?" She asked.
"Never tried going back in time before..." He said contemplatively.
At that moment, another Naruto appeared in a strange whirlpool.
"Hey dumbass." The new one greeted.
"You're not a clone." The original accused.
"Duh, I'm you from the future."
"Cool, how did you do that?" The original asked, impressed.
"You're too stupid to understand it." The newcomer said dismissively.
"I'll show you too stupid." The original growled and focused intensely. Suddenly he vanished in a strange whirlpool.
"Ha, I knew that would work." The now solitary Naruto crowed victoriously.
"Did you just...manipulate yourself into figuring out time travel?" Takami asked incredulously.
"What can I say, I'm amazing." Naruto shrugged.