Thunder and Black Wings (DxD / Multi Cross)

Chapter 32:

– Blake –

I beat my eight black fallen angel wings hard, the wind slamming against my face as I flew faster. Something felt wrong—really fucking wrong. Every instinct I had screamed at me to move. I didn't know exactly what was waiting ahead, but I knew if I didn't get there fast, some kids were going to die.

...Probably in a pretty messed-up way.

As I got closer, I felt it. There was a huge mass of chakra pulsing with rage and something darker. It was wild, unstable, and soaked in bloodlust. I zeroed in on the source and dove down through the branches, wind howling past my ears as I pushed through the trees.

The moment I broke through the last layer of the canopy, I saw them.

Naruto and Sasuke were down there, both of them standing on a large branch but clearly hurt and exhausted. And across from them, radiating that fucked up chakra I'd felt, was Gaara of the Sand. His body was half-covered in living sand that slithered and shifted like it had a mind of its own. His eyes were wide and bloodshot, and he had this twisted smile on his face like he was right on the edge of losing control—or already had.

"I'll kill everyone!" Gaara yelled, his voice raw and shaking. "Everyone must die so I can prove I exist!" Then those red-rimmed eyes locked onto me as I slowly floated down from the treetops. "Blake Himejima!" he howled. "There you are! I've been looking forward to killing you especially!"

I sighed hard as I touched down on the burned-out grass. "Seriously?" I muttered. "I thought you had a hate boner for Orochimaru now. Why the hell are you still coming after me?"

"I will destroy everyone who has crossed me! I will not allow my existence to come to an end!" Gaara shouted back, his sand armor tightening around his limbs like armor.

Yeah... this guy needed therapy. A lot of it. Like, start-now-and-don't-stop-for-a-decade level therapy.

I flapped my wings lightly and floated over to where Naruto and Sasuke were catching their breath. "You two alright? You both look like you've been dragged through hell."

Naruto grumbled under his breath and tried to stand a little taller. "We're fine! We didn't need backup!"

Sasuke crossed his arms and scowled. "We had it handled."

I glanced at both of them. Their chakra reserves were damn near empty. Sasuke's Sharingan was still active, but barely. Naruto looked like he'd been knocked through at least three trees, and his knuckles were raw.

"Yeah," I said flatly, "you were really kicking ass out here. I mean, just look at Gaara. Totally uninjured. Definitely not standing there with murder energy boiling off him. You two totally had it handled." They both went quiet. I glanced around. "Where's your teammate? The pink-haired one—Sakura? Don't tell me she's lying dead somewhere."

Naruto shook his head quickly, panic flashing in his eyes. "She's not dead!" he said. "But she's close. She's over there!"

He pointed to the side where I finally noticed Sakura, unconscious, pinned up against a tree by a mass of writhing sand. It wasn't just holding her. It was crushing her. Slowly. Methodically. Her skin was pale, and her chakra was faint, like a candle about to burn out.

"We have to beat Gaara to save her!" Naruto declared.

I frowned. "Or—and hear me out—we could save her first, and then beat Gaara."

My right hand sparked as holy lightning surged through my palm, and I raised it toward her. My bloodline wasn't like other elemental chakra. It didn't go wild unless I wanted it to. It would only strike what I aimed for.

I let the bolt fly.

A streak of golden light ripped through the air, hitting the sand just inches from her chest. The lightning crackled, and in an instant, the sand crumbled away. Whatever chakra link Gaara had to it, it snapped. Sakura's body sagged and she dropped.

I was already there, catching her in my arms before she could fall far.

Her breathing was shallow but steady. I flew her over to the other two and placed her gently into Naruto's arms.

He looked shocked for a second, but held her tight.

"You've got more energy than Sasuke," I said. "Take her. Both of you—head northeast. My mom's leading a group of Leaf shinobi. They'll get you back safe."

Naruto opened his mouth to argue. Sasuke narrowed his eyes like he was gearing up to say something as well.

"Don't," I cut in, letting my wings bristle behind me. "You're both out of chakra, and if you stay, you'll only slow me down."

They flinched. Sasuke clicked his tongue. Naruto gave a reluctant nod.

I watched them go for a second, then exhaled. They were kids. Twelve, maybe thirteen. And sure, I was only eighteen myself, but it still didn't feel right having to scare the shit out of them just to make them listen.

Behind me, Gaara screamed.

"You will not take my prey from me, Blake Himejima! This time you will not escape!"

The air cracked as his voice surged with chakra. Trees shook. Loose branches fell.

I turned back toward him, summoning a blue tinted lightspear in my right hand. I pointed it right at his chest.

"I'm not running this time, kid. I'm going to beat your ass unconscious and then shove you in front of the first therapist I can find!"

Obviously I wasn't going to kill a kid, even an unhinged one. Gaara was dangerous, yeah—completely fucking unstable—but that wasn't entirely on him. His twisted excuse for a village clearly broke him.

But he wasn't beyond saving. I didn't think so. There was still something left in him. As a Fallen Angel, I felt it deep in his soul. It was screaming for help.

Gaara raised his right hand and the sand around him exploded to life. Huge walls of it surged toward me from every direction. 

I recognized the attack immediately. It was the same overwhelming shit he pulled back in the Forest of Death. Back then, I had to run like hell because I had no way to stop that much sand coming at me at once.

Not this time.

I threw out my left hand and started firing blasts of holy lightning in every direction. The sparks danced and exploded mid-air as they connected with the walls of sand. One after another, the sand waves shattered before they could reach me. The moment lightning struck, it turned the thick masses of earth and chakra into collapsing, harmless piles.

I still didn't totally get why lightning chakra wrecked earth chakra in this world, but I wasn't complaining. It was saving my ass.

Gaara actually froze for a second, staring at me in shock. "How did my prey become so strong?!" he shouted, voice cracking.

I kept floating forward, wings steady, lightspear still ready in my right hand. "I trained my ass off the whole month. What the hell did you do—? Just sit around fantasizing about all the people you were gonna murder for all that time?"

He twitched, like I'd hit a nerve.

Holy shit. That was exactly what he'd done, wasn't it?

That was just... sad.

I didn't give him time to recover. I was close enough now. I reeled back and hurled my blue lightspear straight at his chest, aiming to crack through his defense.

"Shukaku's Sand Wall!" Gaara yelled, slamming his hands together.

A massive barrier shaped like a pudgy raccoon exploded up in front of him. My spear slammed into it and lit the whole thing up, half of it turned to molten glass on impact. But it didn't make it through. Not all the way.

Didn't matter.

I was already on the move.

While his shield blocked his vision, I dove to the side and shot through a thick patch of trees. My wings sliced through branches as I picked up speed. I burst out of the canopy to Gaara's left, saw the kid just start to turn. He was too slow.

My fist, already charged with holy lightning, smashed right into the side of his face.

I hit him with a full-speed, lightning-charged punch to the jaw. The explosion of energy cracked the air and blew apart the sand armor on the side of his face. His head snapped back violently, and he staggered to the side with a grunt, feet digging into the tree branch for balance as sand flailed around him like a panicked animal.

He screamed again, louder this time, eyes wild as his mouth twisted in fury. "I'm not going to lose to a guy like you!" he shouted.

Sand began to twist around his arms, coating his fists and warping them into monstrous claws. They were thick and jagged, and he came at me with wild, erratic swings.

I could've pulled back. I could've stayed at a distance and just peppered him with lightspears and lightning until he passed out from exhaustion. But if the kid wanted to get up close and personal?

Fine. I wasn't going to back down either.

Lightning sparked to life across my shoulders and down my arms. My body lit up as I landed on a thick tree branch and met Gaara head-on.

He swiped at me, and I ducked low under the first slash. The sand claws tore bark off the tree trunk behind me. The second swing came in fast, but I twisted around it and countered with a clean right hook to his ribs, followed by a lightning-charged uppercut.

The impact knocked his head back and cracked more of the armor on his chest. I didn't stop. I surged forward, fists flying, punching him again and again with sharp bursts of chakra-boosted strikes. Each hit chipped away more of his sand defense. Flakes of it fell like broken stone, scattering across the branch.

Gaara stumbled back but kept swinging. His form was sloppy as hell—unrefined, wild. Clearly, no one had ever taught him proper close-quarters combat. He relied too much on his sand to do all the work for him.

And now that I was past it, he had no idea what to do.

"Come on!" I barked between hits. "You think screaming and throwing claws is gonna win you anything?! Fight like someone who wants to live—not just kill!"

He growled through his teeth and lunged at me again, but I dodged left, slipped behind him, and drove an elbow into the back of his head.

He dropped to one knee, clutching his skull. The sand tried to rise up to shield him again, but I fired a burst of holy lightning into the ground near his feet, and it scattered before it could take form.

He was breathing hard now. His armor was cracked and barely holding together. His face was scraped, bruised, and bleeding. He reached out to touch it. "M-My blood... It's my blood..."

"You bleed just like the rest of us. You're not an invincible monster," I told him, standing above him. "You're just a kid with too much power and no one who gave a damn to teach you how to use it right."

His fists clenched. He glared up at me like a feral animal. "You—Aaaaahhhh!"

Then it happened.

His pupils shifted, and that bloodshot human stare turned bright yellow—inhuman. A low, rumbling laugh rolled out of his throat, but it wasn't his laugh.

Something monstrous was hijacking the moment.

"Hahahaha!" the voice boomed out, deeper and crazier than Gaara's. "You pushed this kid so far he didn't even need to pass out for me to take control! Hah! Thank you, creature! I'll devour you quickly as a reward!"

"Fuck—" I muttered.

My instincts screamed. I beat my wings hard and launched straight up, smashing through branches as I soared into the air. Twigs and bark tore at my arms and face, but I didn't stop. I cleared the treetops just in time.

Because the forest below me exploded.

Trees snapped and disintegrated in a shockwave of chakra as an enormous beast surged out of the earth. It was towering, massive, and made entirely of sand. It looked like a hulking tanuki with jagged limbs and a bloated, twisted body.

Shukaku. The One-Tail.

"I'm fucking FREE, baby! Hahahaha!" the demon roared, shaking the trees for miles. Its voice felt like it clawed across my skull.

I hovered in the sky, heart pounding, biting down on the inside of my cheek. This was bad. A goddamn tailed beast in the middle of a forest battlefield.

But... I'd wanted to see how this world's monsters compared to the ones I grew up with before I lost my memories.

Well, here was my chance.

I took a deep breath and locked eyes with the towering sand demon. "Whatever you're planning, Shukaku, it's not gonna happen." The beast stared at me, cocking its oversized head. "Go back inside the kid willingly," I called out, voice sharp, "or I'll zap your oversized raccoon ass until you've got no choice but to crawl back in there. And I promise—it's gonna fucking hurt."

Shukaku did not like that. His expression twisted, mouth opening wide as his jagged fangs stretched with rage. "How dare a puny human—or whatever the fuck you are—try and threaten me?" he snarled, his voice vibrating the air around us. "I've hated your holy, disgusting aura since the second I sensed it back in the Forest of Death. Now I'm going to snuff it out, spark by spark."

His massive clawed arm shot up and slammed down toward me like a hammer.

I dodged hard, flaring my wings and shooting backward just in time. The wind howled in my ears as I rocketed through the treetops, branches smacking into my arms and face, drawing a few shallow cuts as I burst into open air.

Behind me, the spot I'd just been standing in exploded—an entire section of the forest leveled in a single blow. Trees shattered like twigs, and dirt launched skyward in thick waves.

I raised both hands and fired twin bolts of holy lightning right at his face. The golden energy slammed into his eye and cheek, and Shukaku let out a howl that was part fury, part confusion. His entire head jerked back, and he stumbled a step, sand sliding off his massive shoulders in chunks.

He wasn't expecting it to hurt that much.

I saw it. His eyes went wide for half a second as the scorched marks on his face burned deep and didn't heal. Not fast, anyway. They were crusting over, slowly. That meant something important: he could be worn down.

If I just hit him hard enough and often enough, I could probably outpace his regeneration.

Of course, he must've realized that too!

His massive eyes narrowed. Then his mouth stretched wide—wider than should've been physically possible—and he screamed, "DIE!"

A massive blast of compressed air exploded from his mouth.

"Shit—" I managed, just as it hit me.

The wind slammed into my chest like a wall. My wings strained instantly, screaming with resistance as I fought to stay in the air. My body tilted backward and I nearly flipped head over heels. The pressure was brutal—hurricane-level gusts tearing across my skin, making my bones shake.

My black hair whipped behind me. My arms trembled as I kept them out for balance. I wasn't flying anymore—I was surviving.

The sheer force of it felt like it was going to rip my wings straight out of their sockets. Pain flared across my back as I gritted my teeth, fighting to hold position.

When the wind finally passed, I was left shaking, floating just a few feet higher than I'd been, my body aching all over.

"How the fuck did you survive that?!" Shukaku howled, voice petulant and furious. He thrashed, lashing out at the forest around him, leveling even more trees in a rage. "Fuck it! I'll just hit you again! And again! Until nothing's left but your fucking feathers!"

"Get away from my son, you monster!"

Dozens of small talismans shot through the air and exploded directly in Shukaku's face. Fire and electricity burst on impact, lighting up the beast's enormous eyes and causing them to burst. The tailed beast recoiled hard.

"Fucking ow!"

I whipped my head around and saw her—my mom, Shuri—standing on a high branch just beneath my altitude. She looked up at me with a wild mix of panic and fury.

I dropped down beside her, wings trembling, every muscle in my back screaming in pain.

"You seriously tried to take on a tailed beast without backup!?"

"I mean… yeah?" I muttered, grunting as I winced at my aching shoulders.

She sighed. "I'm glad you're not dead, my dumbass son...."

Shukaku's massive eyes regenerated with a twitch and locked onto us again.

"We only have to hold him for a little longer," Shuri said quickly. "Tsunade and Jiraiya are on their way. Orochimaru managed to escape, but not before getting hurt badly. Most of his forces are down. The Fire Nation prince and princess captured their father." She shot me a side-eye glare. "Oh, and Naruto and his teammate Sasuke said you were being a reckless dumbass, so here I am!"

I groaned at that. "I had him in the first half…" Before he freaking went full on Kaiju on me…

Shukaku bellowed again from below us. "I'LL KILL YOU BOTH, YOU ANOMALIES!" he screamed.

He opened his gaping maw again. I braced for another wind blast—but no, this was different. A swirling sphere of chakra began to gather at his mouth, dark purple and rippling with unstable energy.

"Oh fuck," Shuri breathed. "That's a tailed beast bomb."

I didn't know what that was, but the sheer amount of chakra rolling off it felt like a magical nuke cranking to full power!

My blood went cold. I couldn't dodge something like that. There was no way I'd fly out of the blast radius in time. And my mom was right next to me as well! I would never just leave her!

I had a crazy idea! I threw myself in front of my mom.

"What the hell are you doing?!" she shouted from behind me.

"Something crazy and probably stupid!" I yelled back. "Just trust me!"

I reached deep inside myself—not for the holy lightning, but for the other power inside me. The one I didn't talk about. The one I didn't understand and was barely starting to practice with.

A pulse of raw, blue tinted energy surged through me, and space itself warped in front of my outstretched hands. A distorted blue ring of power began to form—a portal. The same kind of portal that had sent me here in the first place.

"Come on… come on…" I growled, sweat dripping down my neck.

I was trying to open it miles away—far enough that when this tailed beast bomb went off, it wouldn't obliterate the entire forest and nearby village along with it.

"DIE!" Shukaku shouted!

The tailed beast bomb launched straight at us, tearing through the air like a comet made of pure death.

I gulped but held the portal steady in front of me, locking my arms in place even though they were already shaking. "Please work," I muttered under my breath. The pressure building off the blast was unbelievable—it felt like the chakra equivalent of a tsunami barreling straight toward us.

Then I felt it—my mom's hand grabbing the back of my shirt, her voice trembling but steady behind me. "I love you, Blake. Always."

"Love you too, Mom," I said, right as the massive bomb reached the edge of the portal.

Then something insane happened.

The bomb didn't crash into us. It froze, mid-air, just a breath away from the portal's rim—and then it began to twist, warping violently, and got sucked into the portal like it was being vacuumed out of existence.

The entire portal shifted color, going from distorted blue to a warped, deep purple, like whatever the hell I'd tapped into was feeding off the chakra itself. The energy from the bomb didn't teleport away miles off like I'd hoped. 

It was just gone—consumed, erased, absorbed completely.

"What the hell is happening?!" Shuri squeaked behind me, staring at the portal with wide eyes.

"WHAT KIND OF CHEAT IS THAT?!" Shukaku howled in disbelief as he flailed below. "That bomb had more chakra than half this continent! You're not supposed to eat it!"

I didn't answer. I couldn't. I didn't even know how I did that.

A thunderous impact hit the forest floor behind Shukaku as something massive dropped from the sky—he didn't even have time to react. The ground cracked. Trees buckled. A massive white and blue slug—fucking huge—slammed down on top of him, pinning him to the ground under a mess of slimy weight.

My eyes locked with Tsunade's across the battlefield. She stood on top of the slug.

I smiled and waved at her. She looked relieved when she saw me—and then that relief twisted into worry.

Because something was very wrong.

I felt it before I saw it. My portal, still hovering in the air in front of me, suddenly surged. The edges pulsed violently and a suction force started dragging at my body.

"What the—HEY!" I yelled as my feet lifted off the branch. My wings flapping did nothing to stop it!

"Blake!?" Shuri shouted behind me.

The portal, or whatever the hell this power was, had stopped taking chakra—and was now sucking us in just like it had the bomb. Hard. The air howled around us. My wings flared, trying to fight back, but the gravity pull was unreal. It felt like being pulled apart and compacted at the same time.

"I can't—!" I yelled as my hands slipped, claws of raw force grabbing at every inch of me. Shuri tried to hold on, but it was useless.

We were yanked forward—dragged through a tear in reality. Everything around us twisted, warped, and imploded into color and pain. Sound and heat and cold and light smashed together in my head all at once.

And then—

Nothing.

I passed out from the sheer fucking overload.

— Shuri —

Shuri shot upright with a jolt, heart racing and lungs burning as she gasped in air. Her eyes darted around. Sand. Endless sand. Bright sunlight beat down from above like a damn heat lamp turned to max. Everything was yellow, blinding, dry—and fucking hot.

"Where the hell are we?" she muttered, already squinting against the glare.

Then the panic hit. "Blake!"

She turned sharply and saw him lying nearby, half-buried in the sand, wings gone, face scraped up, but—thank the gods—still breathing. His chest rose and fell in slow, pained motion. Alive. Her legs felt weak with relief.

She stumbled to her feet, the sand shifting under her with every step. Her balance felt off. Everything felt... weird.

What the—

She froze and looked down at herself.

Her ninja top was stretched so tight across her chest it looked like her boobs were staging a breakout mission—one more breath and the seams were going to lose the fight. Her hips flared out wider than she remembered, her thighs thicker, meatier, and brushing against each other in a way that made her suddenly hyper-aware of every damn inch of her gear. She could feel the fabric digging into her curves, every movement rubbing in how much her body had changed.

"No. No way—"

She fumbled into one of her gear pockets and pulled out a cracked but intact travel mirror. One glance, and her breath caught in her throat.

She wasn't sixteen anymore. Not by a long shot. Twenty-four. Maybe twenty-five. The face staring back at her was older—hers—but the original hers. The way she looked before she was yanked from her home world and dumped into the ninja world as a child again!

She touched her face slowly, stunned. "Well… not that I didn't appreciate going through puberty twice, but damn... it's kinda nice to finally look older than my son again—even if it's just by a few years."

She laughed, a little too loudly. It was part hysterical, part stunned. She looked around again. This place... it wasn't anywhere she recognized from the Elemental Nations. Unless they were in Suna...?

The dunes stretched forever. The heat waves danced along the ground. The silence was unnerving.

But then—

A deep boom echoed through the desert.

Then another. Followed by panicked shouting. Screams. Gunfire.

She stiffened.

"…Guns?" she breathed. Her eyes widened. That wasn't chakra. That wasn't jutsu. That sounded like actual modern firepower. "Are we… back? On Earth?" she whispered, stunned.

No time to hesitate! She crouched and scooped Blake into her arms as gently as she could. He groaned faintly but didn't stir.

"No way to know until we check," she said aloud, more to herself than anything.

And then she was off—feet kicking up sand as she sprinted full ninja speed toward the noise, the smoke, and whatever the hell waited for them!

XXX