Chapter 1
Naruto wakes up just in time to leap away from a green-skinned, humanoid creature with red-on-black eyes that is trying to bite him.
“What the hell!?” Naruto shouts in shock. “Keep your mouth off me, freak!”
The creature doesn’t even seem to comprehend that it’s being spoken to, as it slowly trudges toward Naruto while releasing a groan.
Naruto frowns, narrowing his eyes at it, before reflexively catching an arrow that almost hit him in the head. Looking at the source, he is shocked at the sight of a walking skeleton, holding a bow. He immediately realizes that, if he’s being shot at by a skeleton, then the thing that is currently trying to bite him must be a zombie.
‘This HAS to be a genjutsu!’ Naruto thinks to himself, stabbing the zombie with the arrow and throwing it at the skeleton, killing them both. He attempts to call on his chakra to dispel the supposed genjutsu, but there is no chakra to call upon, causing his eyes to widen. “The hell!? What happened to my chakra!?” He exclaims, not noticing the zombie behind him until it grabs his shoulder and attempts to bite him, only to be shredded by a barrage of wind blades caused by Naruto tensing his muscles, shocking him even further.
“So, there are zombies and skeletons around here, my chakra is missing, and I can more easily control the wind now.” Naruto lists, before finally noticing that his right arm is missing below the elbow, though the wound was apparently cauterized by the blast caused by his and Sasuke’s final clash. “Oh, and I’m missing an arm.” He deadpans, staring down at the stump. “Where the hell am I?”
Patrick and Daryll are on their way back home with Rain’s body, when suddenly they hear something.
“Hold on, do you hear that?” Patrick asks.
“Yes, but what is it?” Daryll asks, before a man leaps out of the tree line, covered in blood. Much of it likely his own, based on the missing arm.
“Oh thank God.” The man says, noticing them. “You have no idea how happy I am to finally run into other humans. For the past 3 days, all I’ve seen are zombies and skeletons.”
“A rather common experience, these days.” Patrick says, transferring Rain’s body to Daryll’s horse and hopping off of his own. “Who are you?”
The man grins, before giving a mock bow. “Naruto Uzumaki, at your service.” He says, before pointing a finger gun at the forest and mock-firing it, causing a bullet-like burst of wind to obliterate the skull of the skeleton that steps out, golden helmet and all.
Patrick is instantly on alert, as he puts on his helmet, pulls his dual naginatas off of his back, and holds them at the ready. “You’re a magic user!?”
Naruto tilts his head. “Magic? Is that what this is?” He asks, raising his hand as a ball of swirling wind forms above it. “I’ve been able to do this since I woke up 3 days ago, but I had no idea that it was magic.” He then notices that, rather than preparing to fight zombies or skeletons, Patrick is preparing to fight HIM. “You got something against magic users?”
“Not as much as I used to, but I am wary around your kind. A magic user named Herobrine is the person who created the Undead in the first place, and as such I view you as rather dangerous.” Patrick admits, causing Naruto to shrug before dismissing the wind ball.
“Fair enough.” He says. “Though, I don’t think that I’m much of a threat to anyone with the ability to think consciously right now, considering that I’ve been awake for 3 days straight, and I’m missing an arm.”
Patrick narrows his eyes beneath his helmet, before relenting and putting his naginatas away. “Fair point.” He says, before getting back on his horse. “Get on, Daryll and I will take you to safety. But the second you show signs of hostility to either of us, I will relieve you of your head.”
Naruto nods, before finally noticing Rain. “Hold on, is that a zombie?” He asks, pointing at him.
“He is.” Patrick admits.
“How come it’s so docile? And why are you bringing it to the safe place, anyway?”
“We’re intending to cure him.” Daryll answers. “And he’s docile because Patrick forced a potion down his throat that caused him to be as such.”
Naruto narrows his eyes. “Why him, specifically? There’s countless zombies to pick from if you’re planning to test a cure, why go through the effort of traveling far away to bring back a specific zombie?”
“Because Rain, here, is a powerful warrior.” Patrick says. “A survivor who we took in claims to have witnessed a battle between Rain and Herobrine, which ended in a one-sided Victory for Rain. How he ended up as a zombie if that’s the case, I don’t know, but he is our one hope to finally kill Herobrine and end his Undead Reign.”
Naruto frowns in thought, but he ultimately decides against saying anything more, and he climbs onto Patrick’s horse.
Herobrine opens his eyes suddenly as Blackbone enters his meditation room. “What is it?”
“My Lord, as I was out gathering any zombies and skeletons who had evolved to the point of conscious thought, I found countless dead ones in a similar state to this one.” Blackbone says, holding a bisected zombie in his hands.
Herobrine frowns, as the cut is far too clean to have been done by a typical weapon, before he stands and approaches his second in command to investigate the corpse. Surprise fills his being at what he senses from the wound. “A magic user similar to myself…” he says in shock. “I believed that I was the last of my kind.”
“What should we do about this, My Lord?” Blackbone asks.
“Send out the most competent of the skeletons to search for them, and suspend all other operations until they are found. What we do from there will be decided by whether I can convince them to serve me or not. If I can’t, then I shall simply kill them and take their power for my own.”
Blackbone nods. “Of course, My Lord, I shall do so at once.” He says, before leaving Herobrine alone with the corpse as he moves to follow his orders.