Chapter 80: Chapter 80
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Harry looked bug eyed at all the stuff that was in the garage. The really odd part was that he hadn't paid for it himself. Well, odd for him. It might have to do with the fact that by his new memories, he had just killed a lot of really evil people. Or it might have been that a certain Fox masked clone had broken up two entire drug distribution operations, leaving behind nearly seventy bodies. Or maybe it was the storage scroll that had was labeled six million pounds. Fox had been busy. The mass storage scroll marked "armor" was not really curing his headache either.
Sitting in a corner was a bunch of stolen star wars costumes, including a Bobba Fett style Mandalorian helmet, a full set of adult stormtrooper armor, a full Biker scout armor, and neatly sliced quarter size pieces of Tie pilot helmet. This day couldn't possibly get any more weird.
Thankfully, it didn't. However, he still had to go through the memories of an very active clone who had lost any desire to follow the law. Not to mention, the brutal slaughter of drug runners and associates, who had been totally outmatched by a shadow clone was going to be troublesome. Having never killed before, it was going to take some getting used to. Stabbing fifty people with just a kitchen knife and shooting the rest would probably give him nightmares for a while. On the other hand, Fox had proved beyond a doubt the superiority of a Naruto style shinobi against firearm equipped adversaries. Of course, the mad clone had at least kept his mask on at all times, so any possible electronic evidence would not be traced to him. At least the clone had spent only two whole nights in a near psychopathic killing spree, followed by the robbing spree, although, the money was from criminal sources so who was he to complain? The clone had also somehow found the time to sit down and write a treatise on sealing formulas necessary to ensure structural integrity on impact by firearm ammunition. Of course, that would still take a while to complete...
Well, at least he could use the armor, once this new field of research was properly worked out. Bulletproofing himself was looking like a good idea, especially when he saw the result of the lethality of a bullet to unprotected humanity. He was really beginning to wish he had stayed here. Where was he going to find the time to do something without having to rely on clones?
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Hermione (the real one) meanwhile spent an awful lot of time in quiet contemplation, so much so that her parents actively tried to talk to her about it. She avoided it only as someone with a lot of practice could, with skill and deception. She was wondering about when her new powers were supposed to kick in. Aurora had mentioned a while, but in her terms could mean ten minute to a century. It was not that she was over eager about being able to change the universe at its base level (well, not much anyway) but in her more grounded moments, she could really see the appeal of running around and doing whatever odd things that Harry could come up with. The boy wasn't quite stable, not entirely and seemed to be on a quest of some fashion. Well, she could help with that. She just had to reign in her more chaotic tendencies. And her urges to play dodge the bullet. And lets not forget her miserable childhood induced superhero fetish. Yes, it was perfectly logical. Now if only Harry wouldn't run off screaming (as he should?) when she tells him that Hermione Granger is never going to abandon Harry Potter!
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Christmas was actually quite boring. Sure there was a tree and presents and carols, but thinking about what fox had done, his mind simply could not muster the effort to pretend to be happy. Vernon was concerned, but left him alone. Reformed or not, that man would never be allowed to "help" Harry again.
His sleep was disturbed by visions of massacres, both real and imagined. But Harry tried not to shy away, for this was also a part of him he could not ignore. He wasn't quite successful though.
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Hayate looked at the disturbing reports on his desk.
One was from the captain of the Harusame. It was a report which basically said that they saw nothing until it was too late. That by the time the Japanese vessel had reached there area, they were only able to watch as the Dragon Boat sank into British waters. The rest of it was rubbish.
The other one was from the ninja that had gone towards London and safely met with Takeda and his men. They reported an ominous series of explosions, consistent with a cascading failure in the celestial orbs. This meant that somebody had managed to completely subvert every single one of the various detection systems and magical artifacts a vessel of that type could carry. While it certainly was impressive enough, it was not something he could admire when it was done against a ship on a mission he had set up. And something like this is normally a prelude to war, something their resident seer had no inkling of. So it was either isolated incident with no significant bearing on the future, or somebody or many somebodies had managed to circumvent the entire Japanese system, at every single level.
If it was the former, they could recover. If it was the latter, there would be no chance at all, for any of them, even without an SS class foe breathing down their necks.
Of course, if it was the latter, could they have somehow undermined their seer as well? Sorcery could do incredible things if you have knowledge, imagination and power. Was it possible that their target was actually not there?
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