The snapping of a twig heralded his arrival in the eastern region of Stanthemanistan. He was born in this country on the western coast. Stanthemanistan was founded by Stan the Man, who the locals thought was the man with plan. Stan the Man lived at the bottom of the Great Hill, a veritable acropolis representing the strife the country had overcome in its relatively short history. Stan the Man was the brother to the Brotherman Bill, who lived at the top of the hill.

There was also Terrible Tim, who preached the words of Brotherman Bill and was the only being who could see the Brotherman Bill in person. Many say that Bill is merely a hallucination of Tim, a mark of permanent damage to his frontal lobe from all the drugs he did. Although others believe that Tim himself could not convey such insight into running the nation. In such a case, Brotherman Bill is thought of as a specter, or perhaps a remnant from the age of gods among men. Stan the Man has never spoken of Bill's identity, and prefers to keep it that way.

The eastern region of Stanthemanistan had been quarantined off for decades, not because of disease mind you, but because of the grip of a certain faction that transformed the region into an unmanageable warzone. The man cared not for this quarantine. He cared not for the harsh punishment that he may face. Nor did he care for the unpredictable and many times irrationally savage individuals that inhabited this once prosperous land. He had, for all intensive purposes, a grand reason for being there.

Vertical curtains of light shot through the mantis green canopies as the sun positioned itself at the top of the sky. Birds chirped in their harmonious tones, unaware of camouflaged hawks hidden amongst the warm leaves of the forest. The man, clad in a steel-gray robe, caught the eye of these birds and the hawk thus feasted heartily that day. He wasn't particularly bad looking and was somewhat muscular. He had green eyes and brown hair. His robes bore a complex and branching pattern of markings.

With an imposing posture, the man walked along a calm brook. The water in the brook was clear and a salmon swam upwards through the shallow water with incredible grace. The man could not help but smile. "How magnificent it is to see such determination even in the pure and glistening waters of this here brook," the man thought aloud. The salmon continued the pilgrimage upstream as an adjacent bush began to shake violently. The ground did as well, to a lesser extent. Out came a crazed brown bear at a hulking 9 feet, foam cascading from its jowls like Aphrodite rising from the sea. In one frightening leap the raging goliath plunged its tempered, muscular arms into the brook. He tore the salmon in half, flailing his head about as strips of entrails escaped out of his mouth and rained upon the innocent woodlands like confetti. Bloody mist filled the air and the stench of it could only be described as the smell of screams. The bear ripped a perfect rectangle of fur from his upper chest, exposing both of his erect nipples and shrieked like a banshee. The man was snapped in place, incapable of moving a muscle as if the testosterone emitted by the fuzzy icon of destruction was like a neurotoxin. The man finally regained motor function of his jaw and spoke: "And how terrifying it is to witness the unforgiving improbabilities that our mindless universe of ordered chaos and chaotic order feasts upon."

The bear looked upon him, once again suspending the awestruck man in paralysis. Blood, to which shreds of gallbladder (oddly enough more than any other organ) suspended itself in, fell in crimson droplets to the dry ground and left a foreboding clue to what had transpired here. The bear's demeanor was no longer of blazing fuckrage, but of a peculiar inquisitiveness. "You speak of existence and of the danger that the sentient face daily on this world, but your purpose in these woodlands, I sense, is far more mundane," the bear spoke.

"You would be correct behemoth, my purpose is mundane," the man replied, "I await the meeting of a mysterious man whose initials are B.B., I requested him by letter for a task to which the details I only wish for him to know."

The bear nodded, smiled, and spoke once more. "Not every self-aware being is a human. You have found him. Reveal me your identity and I shall reciprocate."

The man raised an eyebrow and assembled his response. "I am the super sorcerer known to my colleagues as Billy Magnum. I am a former professor of witchcraft at Hogwarts, but I was... fired, for an unjust reason.

The bear, his conditions satisfied, declared his identity. "I am Brother Berenstain, the last surviving descendent of the Berenstain clan, and a legend among those who have met me. Now, sadly, in hiding after mercenaries executed my family."

Billy Magnum was perplexed, "Mercenaries?"

"Mercenaries," Berenstain darkened. "Reputation brings mixed responses, mine brought negatives and only negatives."

"I do not know what you mean."

"I'm a curious bear, my inquisitive nature brought heat my way. I messed with a man in power, and this man happened to have a lot of connections. I'll continue this conversation some other time. But now we must pursue our current goal, I assume it's an important quest you've embarked on if you had to go out of your way to find me."

Rustling, leaves displaced and drifted to the floor. A flock of birds darted from their perches and disappeared above the canopy. The only thing left was tense silence, both figures stood stoic. Something was moving through the bushes, they realized that something was actually a chain of multiple figures circling their position within the ring of bushes. Slowly they rose from their positions, the already dark silhouettes draped with shade.

The duo began to square up, bracing for a fight but what they got was a small gang of Druids. They came dancing out of the bushes, barefoot and dressed in green rags; shaking maracas and playing flutes made from bamboo. Then without warning, gunfire. Bullets raged through the air like furious spirits. A geyser of grey matter erupted from the frontmost druid, prompting the two to seek cover behind a tree. The druids themselves ran to no avail. All were mowed down in seconds, and those who did not succumb immediately to their wounds pleaded for an end to the madness. But the shadows disagreed, and instead increased the volume of fire. In the next moment, all the druids were lifeless. Yet the shadows continued to saturate the air with whizzing projectiles. Billy Magnum looked to Brother Berenstain, who looked to Billy Magnum. Brother Berenstain was calm; he was familiar with this situation.

But in the next moment, had a pained expression. Beads of blood trickled forth from Berenstain's pelt. His arm had been hit. In fact, the entire right half of his body was still exposed. Berenstain simmered with internal rage before another round landed just above his hip bone. In response, Berenstain, still set on Billy Magnum, made the canopies shake with a great and thunderous roar. Billy Magnum, ears ringing and face covered in saliva, fell to the ground. Brother Berenstain lifted the boulder and held it at chest level and sprinted towards the gunfire. Panicked, the shadows focused their fire on the center of the boulder. Anti-material rounds were set forth and shattered the boulder into shards of semi-sharp stone.

Brother Berenstain made a great leap into the air and fell feet first onto one of the shadows. With a great boom, viscera spewed in all directions and coated the shadows with crimson, a color that had been with them for all their lives. Berenstain lunged at another and bit into its head. Berenstain chewed and noted the texture before plunging his great claws into the chest of another shadow and unspooled its intestines. Berenstain's claws plunged into more shadows and unspooled their intestines as well until they were all screaming, convulsing, or petrified on the ground. Berenstain then threw these unfortunate many into the air where their intestines wrapped around the tree branches and they resumed their descent into death.

Billy Magnum, head throbbing, regained his footing and gathered his surroundings. Noting the end of the gunfire, and the heavy breathing of Brother Berenstain, Billy Magnum ran to the two figures. One's head had been squashed like a pumpkin; the other had half of its head missing. Yet the shadowy aura remained over where the body had not been harmed. Billy Magnum realized then that it was a material, not an aura. It is the simplest means of hiding the attacker's identity and to prevent them being tracked with their own biometric data. Billy Magnum ripped the material from the body of the headless figure to reveal a full combat outfit. A logo was emblazoned on the right upper arm of the outfit which read "Cockwater."

"Cockwater," Billy Magnum repeated. He looked over his shoulder to see Berenstain towering over him.

"The attack was orchestrated by the ruthless American private war-machine, Cockwater. The goal of this sinister corporation is to deal out circumcision to the highest bidder," Berenstain explained, "and they aren't even good at circumcision."

"Regardless, their presence means you're not safe here anymore." A trickle of blood landed on Billy Magnum's cheek and prompted him to look upwards. His eyes met with the cloaked body of another mercenary. Billy Magnum felt grateful he did not have to see his face, to know the emotions he felt at the last moment of his life. But it still warranted the question. "Berenstain, what have you done?"

"I left a message. Do not feel sorry for them, Magnum. They are murderers, rapists, and pillagers fully conscious of their actions. I am merely playing the part of nature, culling a blight upon its domain and leaving an example for what would come in its place."

"I… perhaps. I'm going to search the bodies."

Billy kneeled over the corpses; the stench hit him as the breeze picked up. Shreds of flesh and a thick layer of blood mixed with pulpy remains of flesh caked the dirt, soaking it and forming a mud. He adjusted his weight in order to not sink into it, turning over the remains of the Mercenaries he found only money and ammunition. They were all equipped with Imbel manufactured FAL clones, cheaper than the originals but not lacking in the desired quality. Half of the rifles had been snapped in half or damaged beyond function from Brother Berenstain's incomprehensible fuckrage. Once again he heard the snapping of twigs accompanied by the sudden rustling of leaves. He pulled a Browning HP from the holster of the nearest corpse, a single bush parted to reveal a single scout. He had nearly enough time to relax before Billy put a single round dead center in his forehead. He looted his corpse as well, to find a rather odd looking FAL slung around his back.

Billy Magnum investigated the firearm, as Berenstain lifted the limp corpse of the mercenary scout and tossed him well above the canopy with a single swift movement and a flick of the wrist. The impact was heard minutes later, as well as the shrill shriek of a wandering Druid being crushed. Druids are known for having exceptionally bad luck.

At a glance, the rifle resembled the FAL battle rifle. But there were some notable differences. There was no charging handle; instead a release for the barrel took its place. The diameter of the bore was smaller and the barrel was not rifled. The magazine was much shorter, and had a symbol for radioactivity painted on it. On releasing the magazine, Billy Magnum peered into it, and discovered there were no cartridges. Instead, a miniature fusion reactor met his eye. He checked the markings on the body. It was an Imbel FALL HPC. Billy Magnum ushered for Berenstain.

"They may not be the most skilled mercenaries, but they are certainly well armed."

"It's just an FAL, that's nothing."

"Wrong Berenstain, this is a FALL HPC. Hyperspace projection cannon. A ghost rifle. Fires fucking Ghosts. Ghost bullets. It's the single most advanced step in modern firearms technology, other than the French Penetrator. But that gun only serves to make me feel uncomfortable."

"Does it still work?"

Billy Magnum reattached the magazine and fired off a burst of three rounds into the forest. All three of which hit a single wandering deer and nearly disintegrated the animal, the sound of it's flesh sublimating echoing through the trees. Bambi is dead. Billy Magnum pulled the release for the barrel and slid it out of the weapon. A greenish gel-like substance coated the beginning of the barrel and the chamber of the rifle. With a firm shake, the substance dropped out of the weapon. "There's one downside to this type of weapon. Fire it for too long, and hypermatter builds up and jams the weapon."

"Hypermatter, Billy?"

"Ectoplasm. Don't worry, it doesn't do any harm. It's entirely inert. Eventually, it fades back into hyperspace when it loses the energy it absorbed from the firing of the weapon. How are your wounds?"

"Superficial. But..." Berenstain glanced down at his chest, where the fur covering his nipples had been ripped off. "I feel a breeze."

Billy Magnum nodded, and glanced at the mercenaries' uniforms. "Perhaps a well placed bandolier would resolve your issue?"

Billy turned around to see Berenstain draped in a poncho made from human skin. "Wait, what did you say?"

Billy stood silent, expressionless. Seeing the horror, smothered with blood, hairs, and membrane draped over Berenstain. His fur glazed with the remains of fat mixed with blood. Shit was metal as fuck. He wiped globs of unidentified gore off of his claws and progressed into the forest. "Let's walk and talk."

Billy Magnum, shuddering, stood up and slung the rifle over his back, and promptly vomited the entire content of his stomach down to the very last trickle of bile. He then spent another few minutes dry heaving before he was able to erect himself again, the sudden return to violence sending a wave of shock down his system. He let the uneasy tingle run down his spine before taking a deep breath and following Berenstain. Whether Billy Magnum liked it or not, he was back in the game. As he walked he swore he could see the orange glare of fire encroaching onto his peripheral vision, he did a double take to see only the forest around him. The faint crackle of fire buzzed in his ears.

Berenstain's enormous weight was enough to give any merc a clear idea of where the duo was headed, his silhouette would be visible through the trees and brush, but he had no worries. He had already proven that his thick pelt and leathery skin could absorb massive amounts of trauma. The wounds had already scabbed over. "What does your plan entail, Billy? I'm still in the dark with your motives and wish to know what I'm getting into before I'm knee deep in shit once again. My actions might show that I enjoy violence but I truly am revolted by the concept, I'm just a slave to my subconscious like any sentient being. I can't help my bear instincts."

Billy felt something jostle around in his robe, a miniscule spec sliding down his back. He shook his robe and out came a molar and a shard of another tooth. Once again he felt chills creep down his spine. "I cannot function knowing that our domain is infested with intolerable creatures such as the ones I'm about to guide you to. Ahead, within these tangles of trees and suffocating clumps of tense brush is the Hidden Leaf village. They are a festering collective of degeneracy that I have viewed as a viable source of young prospects. They might be revolting people now, but with a little work I can turn a few into something worth working with. In particular, Naruto and Saucepan- I mean Sasuke."

"Who?"

Billy reached into the pockets of his robe and handed Berenstain a dossier full of documents. Photos were tacked to detailed reports, all of them proving how terminally autistic everyone in the village was. The bear nudged the dossier towards Billy.

"Keep it."

They progressed deeper and deeper into the forest, getting to the point where the foliage was so densely packed that they had to climb the trees and move via the branches. It was an extremely cumbersome form of movement and resulted in many close calls. They finally reached an overlook, a cliff well overhead the most populated regions of the village. If they had a chance of singling out their quarries, this was the place to do it.

Binoculars in hand, Billy Magnum scanned the settlement, searching for his target and occasionally cringing at the foul, foul miasma coming off of Brother Berenstain. Glints of light reflecting from the headbands of the ninjas only made it the more difficult to single out Naruto. Eventually, with his eyes speckled with dark patches, Billy Magnum stood up and pointed towards a ramen stand. "There, notice the spiky blond hair and the orange jacket. That's him, it's unmistakable."

"What will be our approach?" Brother Berenstain inquired.

"Stealth is not an option; we will be detected too easily. Nor can we fight our way to the target; we will lose him in the sheer amount of enemies. The best we can do is be nonchalant on approach, and then retreat quickly."

"Is lethal force allowed?"

"Preferably no, the less harm we do, the less drive they have to pursue us. But if there is a point where all other options are exhausted, I leave the decision to you."

"Let us begin."

"Not yet, you need to wash off."

A quick rinse of Brother Berenstain and several rinses in several ponds for the poncho later, and they entered the outer limits of the village. Simply put, they walked up to Naruto. Naruto was with his commander, an almost faceless man with gray, overly spiky hair known as Kakashi. His first comrade was a girl known as Sakura with pink hair as short as her temper and green eyes that hide a great anger in them. The second comrade was an effeminate man with a severe pallor known as Sai, who was short on words and even shorter on fashion sense. Goblin darts. Then Billy and Berenstain came. They walked up silent and stood still as stone in front of the group. The group paused, unsure what to think of the two strangers who had intruded on their conversation. Sakura simply stood ogling Berenstain's hard nips bleeding through the poncho.

Then, just as quickly as they approached, Billy pulled the HP out from the back of his waistband and smacked Naruto on the top of the head with great force; he went limp and fell in Berenstain's arms. Billy fired a single shot into the air and the nearby crowd dispersed, the duo made their hasty escape. They barreled down alleys, and in an attempt to lose their pursuers made a sharp turn down a thin alcove, smacking Naruto's head against the break and dragging his scalp along the brick as they ran. The group caught on and began to squeeze through after them, Billy fired a round over their heads and they ducked, falling onto each other and tangling on each other as they attempted to stand.

Billy Magnum casted a final shockwave to rid his pursuers once and for all and escaped into the surrounding wilderness. "I will cast a sleeping spell on Naruto. We must leave this place now, but we will return soon for Sasuke."

"Sleeping spell? You fucking bashed his head!"

"Close, I guess. But not as close as I would like. I do not know when he will awaken. With the sleeping spell, I can decide when he wakes up, and in what condition," Billy Magnum spoke the last part with a sinister undertone. "It matters not, we will need to go through the non-quarantined parts of Stanthemanistan in order to reach my home. I have a boat parked at a public dock in the capital city."

With that, the two traveled through the huge island nation to the capital city. Where a crowd gathered with every step they took as they made their way to the dock. Their stroll through the city would land them as a minor story on a national news channel, a major story on three local news channels, and as the main highlight on a fashion critique show. The police were called in three times, each time convinced that Naruto was merely black-out drunk and had lost a bet as well. Finally, after a long walk filled with embarrassment, anger, and an unexpected amount of approval, they arrived at the docks. A massive crowd had formed, a minority berated and laughed at them, while a majority waved goodbye and wished them good fortune. A deep fear took hold of Billy Magnum, it was at that point that he was scared that he might become a meme. Brother Berenstain, deeply tired, tossed off his human skin poncho, revealing his bare nipples. The crowd roared, and Berenstain realized the full extent of what he had done. They spoke nothing as they rode away.

As they relaxed on the boat, trying to forget the meme-crisis they had begun to face, a clang and the sound of several footsteps caught their attention. Billy snapped back to see what had produced the sounds, to see Kakashi, soaked on the deck of the boat. Billy stood up slowly, and paced his steps as he approached the man. Kakashi's hands were moving, snapping in and out of various signs so fast Billy could barely keep track of it. He was equally mesmerized and terrorized by the blur of Kakashi's hands, and in this terror his hands reached for his robe and drew the HP from the back of his waistband. He fired off three shots consecutively, and in rapid succession, and Kakashi fell stiff. He fell back and hit the deck with a thud. Billy stood, motionless, his knuckles white from gripping the handgun so tightly. Seconds passed and Billy began to calm down. "Is that seriously it? That's all? Really now. What the fuck." Billy slid the handgun back into his pants and pulled a fishing pole from the cabinet next to him. He cautiously poked at Kakashi, nudging his leg, arm and face. "I am deeply disappointed."

Berenstain rolled the body into the water and Magnum returned to driving the boat. "Berenstain."

"Yes?"

"We've committed war crimes today, haven't we?."

Brother Berenstain sat back in his seat. "Most likely."

Billy Magnum sighed. "Chaotic order Billy, chaotic order," he spoke to himself.

The boat arrived at a large atoll with an active volcano on the north side and an open lagoon. Billy Magnum docked the boat in a harbor carved into the side of the volcano facing the lagoon and disembarked. From there, they entered a large central lobby that was vacant of items. Billy Magnum led Brother Berenstain, with Naruto over his shoulders, through several levels of the facility and finally to Billy Magnum's personal office. Once more, it was strangely vacant. Only a desk and a transparent cabinet, half full, were caught by the eye. Through a window, the dim light of dusk sprinkled itself on the desk.

"Set Naruto on the table and do not interfere. The substances I will use are valued at several human lives, and require the ultimate range of my abilities and knowledge. Do you understand?"

"Vividly," Berenstain responded.

Billy Magnum nodded and began to sift through the drawers of his desk before he found a dusty brown shoebox labeled "Phlebotinum, Vis, and Magic Mutagens." Removing the lid, a vast array of substances registered with Billy Magnum and he placed some on the table. Magnum removed Naruto's shirt and looked over the seal on his belly. Nodding in understanding, more substances were placed on the table. Magnum inspected Naruto's head, noting anomalies in the shape of the skull, especially around the temples. For every new detail in the curvature of his head, Magnum would introduce a new substance. Only until the table resembled an illegal immigrant's shared apartment did Magnum cease his repetitive ritual. Noting the dying of the light, he resurrected the room with a radiant lamp.

Magnum pulled a massive cauldron, a magnum cauldron, from the transparent cabinet and laid it on the floor in front of the desk. He noticed the door was open, and the faint sounds of what seemed to be the ambient noises of the forest mixed with the soothing voice of David Attenborough traveled through the hallway. He also heard, louder than the rest of the sounds, munching, and realized the fucker was raiding his fridge. Magnum shook his head and walked down the hallway into another room. From there, he retrieved several tables and ferried them into his volcano office. Then a few more rounds trips for equipment, both ancient magical apparatuses and cutting edge scientific innovations. Finally, one last trip for two burritos. One for Magnum to heat up and eat, and another for smacking Berenstain upside the head. Then Magnum went to work.

With the night sky in full view over the ocean, Magnum conducted a grand symphony of bubbling compounds for five near-eternal hours. Mixing, reducing, catalyzing, activating, and reacting all forms of solutions until it all came together in the cauldron. Power, pure and unstoppable, hummed from the cauldron in wavelengths that rattled Magnum's ears. A cyan glow spewed forth from the cauldron and enveloped the room in its magnificence. Matted with scraps of food, Berenstain awoke in his, or to be more accurate, Magnum's recliner to the humming of the cauldron impacting his chest. Intoxicated with melatonin, Berenstain walked to Magnum's office with little attempt to balance himself.

Positioning himself in the doorway of Magnum's office, Berenstain was staggered by the output of the cauldron. Without thought, Berenstain moved to pick up the limp body of Naruto. With Naruto in arm, Berenstain approached the cauldron. The humming became more focused and the cauldron produced shockwave after shockwave as the proximity of Naruto began the final reaction. After a great struggle, Berenstain threw Naruto into the cauldron.

Cyan mist flowed from the cauldron in great cascades and pushed all of the air out of the room. Yet it did not suffocate, it only welcomed. Shadows danced across the clouds of the mist and beckoned for emotion. Humming turned to melody, melody turned to coherent music. Like a white sky shining against a black city. The music changed, remixing itself to a greater complexity. The music rejected reality altogether and the walls of the room tore themselves down to reveal mountains of thought. The shadows danced faster and faster, until they were like television static in their chaotic movement. The static coalesced into figures. Color began to coat the figures and the mist faded away with reality. The figures became conceivable. They were faces of Naruto's psyche, and rapidly changed. Their expressions strained into inhuman caricatures, and then slowly dissolved until all conveyed lucidity. Then they spun, faster and closer around a nexus. The figures blurred, then turned back to static, and back to shadows as they pressed against the nexus.

But a beast of fire and rage arose from the nexus and vaporized the shadows into a jet black aura that formed a sphere around Billy Magnum and Brother Berenstain. The aura blocked all light so the beast was the only thing shining in the dark. The music lost its coherence and became a series of disconnected shrieks and other unpleasant noises, then recombining once more to a voice, growling with displeasure. The beast bore the blurred outline of a fox, but quickly morphed to that of a wolf. The outline exponentially gained resolution until all detail of the wolf could be perceived. The wolf's eyes peered into the soul of Billy Magnum, withdrawing its gaze, confused. Magnum stepped forward.

"Do you feel the thunder in your heart?" Magnum asked the wolf, eyes fixed on it, unmovable.

"You conjure a storm masked in white content. I see through it," the wolf responded.

"You delude yourself, the future screams for freedom. This goes beyond any agreement you have with your living prison. Your ignorance holds no sway in this," Billy Magnum spoke with an air of invincibility, "Begone now, demon, you will awake to our world, a world that is greater than anything you can fathom. Soon you will understand."

The wolf lunged towards Magnum and split into two great streams of fire that parted against his body. The fire forcefully mixed with the black aura and the music became coherent once more. But the music was like a warcry now; confident, prideful, and passionate. The aura/fire mixture ceased to be a sphere and the white light, pulsating now with discontent, once again overpowered the duo's senses. The burning shadows shaped back to a ring around the nexus. Pressing against it, the burning blackness molded into a human figure. The music dropped in pitch and the white sky fell to the ground. At the very last moment before reality returned, the figure split into two. One of the fire, and one of the shadows.

The abrupt return to reality was like someone hit Magnum with a shovel. The cyan mist still pervaded the air, but it had lost most of its radiance. Berenstain was still entranced by the visions he witnessed. Magnum saw two figures through the slowly dissipating mist; they followed him back to existence. The mist finally left the room, and the figures revealed themselves. One was Naruto, whiskerless and with no seal on his belly. He had been aged ahead to 25 years-old, and his body spared no expense in reflecting the strength he gained. His mind was filled with information about the world outside of his birthplace, each fact a counterargument to his preconceived notions of the planet.

The other figure was a massive, incredibly muscular man with a large beard. A scar ran against his right cheek and his eyes bore a great beady pupil with a blueish-white cornea that spanned the entirety of the eye. Magnum stood in awe, in all of his years he had never seen a transformation so fantastic. He caught his breath, while Berenstain was still in a state of awe.

"Who do you happen to be, swole figure?"

"I am the great demon Kurama, the nine-tailed fox. But I am fox no more. I am the wolf now. As such, I shall now be known as Tyrannus."

Billy placed his thumb under his chin, taking a moment to inspect the demon's new chiseled manifestation. "You look like a dingle to me."

"Excuse me?"

"I'm going to call you Dingle."

"No you shan't."

"Fuck you I shan't. Welcome to the team, Dingle."

"I never asked for this."

"The way I see it Dingle, this process was my doing, and you were reborn from my work. I might as well be your father, Dingle."

Naruto stepped forward, bewildered and angered. New ideas, ones he had never felt before, enveloped his mind. Dissonance was all that he could perceive at that moment in time.

"Who are you? Who the hell are you?" Naruto, unable to process his own thoughts bent over slightly, feeling queasy. He spun around the room, nearly losing balance, taking in the new environment he found himself within and completely unaware to the trickle of blood flowing from his reopened head wound. The rush of sensations, of thoughts, the stress on his neurons was too much to process and he fell to his knees. Dots of crimson appeared within the shadow of craned neck, and he was now aware of the wounds he had sustained.

"The fuck did you do to me?"

"I made you better," Billy Magnum spoke with an air of pride, "those demons of yours, no not that one, have been erased from your psyche. The damage to your body caused by the needless strain of the seal has been all but eliminated, in the most radical way possible." Billy Magnum directed his gaze towards Tyrannus/Dingle for a moment. "But you don't want to be here, I understand that. I have not enthralled you; your free will is intact. So I shall give you a choice."

"A choice? You don't look like a man of choice."

"I understand your frustration, and I apologize sincerely for the inconvenience. Also you smell like shit, whatever decision you make please make the decision of bathing afterwards."

"This is your idea of an inconvenience? Also the bear is the one who smells like shit, not me."

"So it is. No matter, I offer you two choices. The first one, I ferry you back to your home where you may continue… whatever it was that you were doing. The second one, you remain with me, and you witness the true extent of the world. These are your choices. So now, let us all shower, for I believe we are all guilty of smelling like goat crotch. There was something in the mist." Magnum silently cocked the hammer on his HP and slid it slowly out of the back of his pants.

Naruto thought deeply. He thought of what had happened in the village. All of that happiness, yet all of that suffering. Did he ever have a true friend? Of course he did, did he? He had a true friend, right? But he left. He left to see a greater world. He took the offer, the same one being offered now. Perhaps that friend was right. Naruto reached a conclusion.

"I choose to stay."

"Good, good." Billy uncocked the hammer of his HP and slid it back into his pants. "Logic is a new gift of yours. I'm glad you've utilized it so well, so far."

"Where is this place?" Naruto looked. Billy filled a pipe with a mysterious green-fluid, viscous and flowing and snapped his fingers. A miniscule flame appeared hovering above his finger and he allowed it to burn above the fluid. The fluid immediately bubbled and with each pop a wisp of sweet smelling vapor floated through the air. In a certain light, the vapor's colors shifted, revealing a full spectrum of colors blending within each other, and upon each exhale the vapor glowed a vibrant yellow. Billy let the substance takes its hold, closed his eyes and clenched his fist, when he opened them an aura of radiating magic shielded the entirety of his arm and with a swift wave it faded back into his skin.

"What is that shit?" Naruto caught a thin wispy cloud of the vapor in his mouth and held it in before coughing violently, his face turning a pale green as he gagged.

"Mania, basically packed mana in a gel form. Smoking it restores mana and helps boost magical capabilities."

"What the hell is mana?"

"Think of it this way, the calorie is a measurement that ends up being thought of as a substance. Mana isn't really a substance so to speak, Psionic Matter is the source of all magic abilities. Basically what Mana is is just a unit of measurement used to determine the potency of any magic you want to perform. It also makes you feel really good, but I do it for the magic. I'm not a man prone to hedonism, it's simply not worth my time," Billy Magnum spoke, the last bit of his statement mumbled through the pipe pressed between his teeth.

"Going back to my first question, where the hell are we?"

"We are on an atoll off the coast of western Stanthemanistan, in an abandoned military facility formerly owned by the Cheeseburger Republic. It was abandoned in a bid to improve relations with Stanthemanistan. The bid didn't work out. There is something I must ask of you. In about a week or so, we're returning to your homeland. We are going to acquire another person. Someone you're very familiar with. Sausage- I mean Sasuke. Until that time, I ask that you train yourself. I cannot guarantee that your abilities still exist in their known forms, so it is up to you to either rediscover them, or replace them. I'll set up your quarters in an hour."

Naruto climbed a series steps to a cold soulless section of the structure, steel surrounding him with a constant grey barrier, it brought with it an eerie claustrophobic sensation. He chose the most spacious room, which was still a longshot from being comfortable, adorned with only a peeling layer of red paint, a pair of bunk beds and some foot lockers. The room basically felt like something you'd see in the intro to a dirty German dungeon porno, smelt like it too. The dank chamber, like it or not, was his home now.

Naruto thought of chicken nuggets. He fucking loves chicken nuggets.