Chapter 72

Momo gulped when she sat in silence with Naruko and Himiko after their quick talk, knowing that she was going to have to gather up the courage to act the part of the villain, without Naruto's emotional support. Calming herself, she retained a neutral look on her face, and saw that her plate was empty. She wasn't hurt about it, since it would seem that Naruko had decided she was still hungry, and finished it off. It was good for her, since she didn't have a strong enough digestive system to eat raw meat like Naruko.

Naruto sent her a look, before she narrowed her eyes.

"He bitch... you better not be planning something." Naruko stated, and Momo practically jumped at the sudden change of tone.

Her cover was blown!

"Oh, like one of you three new students can do anything against me. I'm an Elite at this school, hand picked by Kaguya-sama herself. I was just coming to give you three a warm welcome-"

'Oh thank god, she was talking to the person behind me.' Momo thought with a sigh of relief when she heard the most arrogant voice she had ever listened to in all her life. Knowing that Naruko had not been talking to her was such a relief. She turned to look at the person who had been speaking, only to get a face full of mashed potatoes for her efforts.

"Oops... slipped." The girl said, before she turned an entire tray of food upside down on Momo's head. "I mistook you for... well, I guess I'm not wrong to dump this on you. After all, you're all trash too." She spoke, and despite feeling pretty angry about how she was being treated, Momo took it in stride. She wasn't going to let this get to her and start something. Hero or not, she needed to be the bigger person about this.

Naruko stood up, and so did Himiko.

"The fuċk did you just say about me... this leech might be trash-" Naruko pointed to Himiko, who just nodded her head, before she sent a small glare to Naruko for the backhanded insult. "-but I could rip your head off before you could so much as blink." Naruko started to transform, getting far larger than before as she transformed all the way to her second tailed form, just to prove a point.

Momo couldn't see what was going on, food in her eyes, but she was quickly wiping her eyes to try and calm down this situation, without anyone dying.

"I'll cut you up for talking about my new bestie." Himiko pulled a knife from under her skirt, and jumped over the table.

"Hey now, there isn't any need to-" Momo was stopped when she heard it. She heard the sound of a crack, a short scream, and then she felt the ground shake a little, and some warm fluid splash across her neck and face. She froze completely, now suddenly not wanting to get the potatoes from her eyes, because she knew the scene in front of her was going to be very unpleasant for her. The cafeteria went silent, before Momo felt a sickness in her stomach when she smelled blood, a smell Naruto made her become familiar with, seeing as he was injured all the time.

She felt sick.

"Bitch, didn't even last a second." Naruko turned back to normal, and Momo uncovered her eyes, and looked at the wall. She saw, who she suspected was her tormentor, smashed heard first against the wall... what was left of her head was squashed into paste, brain matter splattered on the wall and ground. The broken remains of her head were all that were keeping her implanted into the wall. Next to her, was a girl who was gurgling on her own blood, hands on her throat and still bleeding to death. Himiko was sitting on top of the girl, knife raised above her head, before she started to bring it down and gave even more fatal stabs to the quickly dying girl.

She was going to be sick.

"You're actually really pretty, let me make you even cuter!"

-With Naruto-

"More clones... even the Security Guards are clones of Kaguya... these ones seem modified though..." Naruto noted as he went through the vents, his smaller size thanks to the Shrinking Ring he was wearing, giving him the perfect sneaking edge to get around. These Kaguyas had sensors in front of their eyes, melded to their faces, no doubt so that they could react to students and dangers even faster. The woman's paranoia knew no bounds it would seem, seeing as she didn't trust any real people to do her bidding for her.

"It seems we have two dead students... 013 and 015, please go and collect the corpses. Harvest what remains of their DNA for cloning, and then send their corpses down to Kabuto." The clone spoke over the private radio, no doubt to other clones.

'So... down to Kabuto... somebody named Kabuto is working downstairs... and he is working with the corpses. I should find where the clones are... looks like they don't watch the bathrooms or dorms... but they have cameras everywhere else.' Naruto thought as he slipped out of the vent, and landed right behind a Kaguya clone. Naruto took the ring off of his wrist, before he grew back to normal size, and chopped the clone in the back of the neck. Quickly, he did the same to the other clone, both of the guards slumping forward in their chairs.

Naruto stepped forward and started to look at the cameras.

There, on the bottom floor, was a man that was studying... Naruto felt his fist tighten when he saw the restored corpse of his mother, being studied like a frog, and even the corpse of Mito Uzumaki was in a similar state of nudity. Their corpses being defiled, their bodies studied years after their deaths. Naruto remembered Momo's words to him, and turned his head away from that screen. He saw Kaguya in her office... and he quickly turned his head away from there to when he saw what she was doing. Looking at each screen, he saw a dozen Kaguya clones a layer above Kabuto, working in a room filled with technical designs. One of the clones opened a filing cabinet and took out some blueprints, and Naruto knew where he was going to go tomorrow.

As it were, he needed to leave and go meet up with Momo again.

"Kaguya 015 to Kaguya 047, we have the corpses."

Naruto picked up the communications radio, and cleared his throat.

"This is Kaguya 047, you have your orders. Be careful, it looks like there might be a gas leak." Naruto, in a perfect imitation of Kaguya's voice, stated as he slyly gave a reason for why both of the Security Kaguya would be knocked out. It would be odd if they were knocked out cold, woke up, and questioned heavily why they were knocked out. A gas leak would explain why, and give them a good reason for why they couldn't remember it.

"Okay, I'll send Kaguya 103 up there later to take a look."

With his traces covered, Naruto put the Shrinking Ring back on, and shrank down. Jumping back into the vents, he sealed it shut behind him, before he nodded and made like a fart in the wind, and vanished. He was going to report his findings back to Momo, and though it wasn't everything she asked for, now he had a basic layout of the place, and he knew where to get the blueprints. This was a good first stop, they could continue this tomorrow, and then he would be able to better do his job.

-Later that Day-

"Thanks for earlier Naruko, it means a lot to me that you would do that." Momo spoke with a bow, outside of her dorm room. Naruto was back in her arms, and she was putting on her most friendly expression possible. No matter how she felt on the inside, even though she went to the locker room and showered the blood and food scraps off of her body, she still felt dirty.

With that said, she got into the dorm room, and closed the door behind her.

...

Momo felt bile rush to her throat, and she dropped Naruto and ran over to the trashcan in the room, and threw up. She had been holding in the urge to do that since lunch, and the act of thanking Naruko for murdering somebody had created such a horrible feeling in her stomach, that the need to vomit came back. It went against everything inside of her to thank somebody for murder, but it was part of the act. She felt Naruto's hand soothing her back, and she didn't want to be soothed, but she couldn't say anything at the moment.

"It's okay..." Naruto spoke gently to her.

His report could come after this.

"I... I thanked her... I couldn't stop her from killing... right next to me..." Momo really wished that she could throw up some more, but her stomach was empty. She wanted to do anything to get rid of the horrible feeling that she had. "... It was worse... " Momo could remember the feeling when she critically injured Naruto, and this feeling was worse.

She had felt horrible, but she had known Naruto would be fine in the end, so it helped. This time, two girls died right next to her, and she was unable to save them. She could have prevented their deaths, but she didn't, she just sat there and let it happen.

Naruto knew what she was talking about, her saw it on the security cameras.

"Yes, you could have tried to saved them." Naruto was not going to lie to her, but he wrapped his arms around her. "... but you would have died, and then they would have died. There was nothing you could do." Naruto comforted her with that knowledge. Her not doing anything at all, while not great, was still the best option.

He hated this, but he was going to admit it.

He prefered those two dying, instead of Momo, because her death would have served no meaning if she died for them. Still, Momo was suffering because of what she saw. The human brain wasn't so easily controlled, she was suffering from survivor's guilt.

"... I practically killed them... I could have-"

"No, you couldn't. There was nothing you could have done Momo. You are not the reason those girls died... this is coming from a murderer." Naruto told her, and her eyes opened, and she looked at Naruto. Her tears stained her cheeks, when she remembered.

He had killed that Nomu when he went berserk the first time, and he had killed Orochimaru's body when he technically blew up the man's fortress. Naruto had taken life, twice now. She wrapped her arms around him, and cried into his ċhėst.

"... I saw their lifeless bodies... that girl... she looked me in the eyes as she choked on her own blood... it was horrible... does this feeling go away... how do I make it go away?" Momo asked him, and he squeezed tighter.

Reading about death, and truly seeing death for the first time, they were different things. How a person reacted to death was a telling sign as well, Naruto's reaction was to bottle up his feelings and ignore them until they exploded. Momo unleashed all of her feelings once she had a chance, which was much healthier.

"You did not kill them, take comfort in that. This feeling just proves you're still human. Cry as much as you want, I won't let go of you until your ready." Naruto ȧssured her as he just let her cry into his neck. He was glad that she was getting this out, he still needed to work through his own guilt, but he wasn't going to do that now. Not when she needed him.

He would just bottle up his own feeling again, for her.

"I don't know what to do anymore... I'm not sure if this mission is right..."

"Don't be like that, you're way smarter than me... if you don't know what to do, then we're screwed... because I'm a dumbass." Naruto laughed to try and tease her out of this.

She had a mȧturė body, and she was more mȧturė than her classmates, but in the end Momo was still a teenage girl. This mistake, this failure, had really messed with her head. She wasn't ready to be a hero yet, and having this life forced on her before she was emotionally ready for it was wrong. After this mission, Naruto was going to force the government to allow them to become students again. He didn't care what strings he had to pull, Momo needed time before she could become a hero. Now, she had seen death first hand, it would be awhile before she was truly over this.

But first, they needed to survive this mission.