The nine-tailed demon fox, most powerful of the tailed demon beasts that ravaged the world, was at a loss as it stared at the mental representation of its jailor. Normally, it would growl threats and promise a swift demise to the blonde youth now standing just outside its cage, and futilely attempt to shred the boy to ribbons with claws of demonic chakra.

But most days the boy wasn't insane-and the fox did not know how to react to the situation.

So you're saying that this Kishiomoto person is essentially God? the fox asked, having listened to Naruto to what might have been the better portion of three hours, had time the same relevance within the blonde's mind that it did in the real world-in reality, it was most likely a handful of moments in the real world.

"That's right," Naruto said, sitting with his legs crossed in the water just outside the cage.

And because you're aware of this, you can control reality because you're the "protagonist" of the story? the fox asked; it was very worried-it didn't know if the boy's insanity would adversely affect itself, being sealed within the youth's body.

"Not normally," Naruto admitted. "You see, Kishiomoto is the official god that set out the template of this reality." He paused to think for a moment before recalling a concept he had heard of from a book he had read many years ago. "Are you familiar with the concepts of alternate realties?"

The mass of chakra raised what would be its eye ridge. Vaguely.

"Okay," Naruto said, chewing on his lip in thought. "Right, so you attacked Konoha and were sealed by the Fourth," Naruto said.

Are you trying to irritate me, brat? the fox growled, angered by the arrogance of the small insignificant slip of a human mocking it.

"This is just an example, don't get your tails in a know," Naruto scowled. "Anyway," he dismissed the fox ire, "the Fourth sealed and here you and I are having this conversation."

Obviously, the fox put all the effort it could into coloring its tone with as much scathing sarcasm as it could.

"But what if he didn't ?" Naruto asked.

The fox found itself just the slightest bit interested in seeing what kind of logic the child's insanity was producing. Explain.

"The Thrid could have easily sealed you away instead; the Fourth could have failed and been killed; he could have succeeded but sealed you in, say, Sasuke or Hinata, for example. These would have considered alternate realities."

It's . . . an interesting concept, the Nine-Tails admitted, flashing its teeth at the thought of killing the Fourth Hokage and demolishing the village.

"Anyway, the concept that I told you about deals with 'what-ifs' such as those, but on a different basis," Naruto lecutred. "This morning I woke up and I had to make a decision between pork or miso instant ramen, I chose miso and reality continued on

But what , the concept of alternate realities states at that moment I must have also have chosen the pork ramen, instead, and what had been reality up until that point, branched off into two parallel universes that had been the same up until I had made that decision."

Fascinating as this is, the fox said, what does it have to do your revelation about god? the fox was getting impatient.

"We aren't in the original universe," Naruto revealed. "We're in an alternate universe that someone else created," Naruto said.

This Kishimoto-God isn't responsible for us? the fox asked, waving its nine tails about it lazily.

"No," Naruto confirmed. "As near as I can figure, some other lesser god took our reality and made a copy, and is doing things either vastly or slightly different."

And why would God allow a being of lesser power to take the reality that it had worked so hard to craft and muck about in it, in what is essentially a glorified experiment with no other purpose to illustrate what might have been?

"I don't know," Naruto shrugged. "Maybe it's more easier to let the lesser being play about then it is to go to the trouble to stopping it. My guess is that the copy-cat is so far beneath Kishimoto's notice, that he doesn't even know he exists."

Fascinating, the fox said dryly, having enough of listening to the ninja spout off his insanity. As interesting as your delusions are, I'm tired of talking to you. For both are sakes, visit the hokage and have her schedule a Yamanaka to look at your mind. I don't want to suffer any side effects from an insane host. And with that, the fox flooded Naruto's chakra coils with a surge of its own demonic chakra to expel him back into reality.

Except nothing happened.

What did you do, boy! the fox raged, worried that the boy's insanity was already adversely affecting itself.

"The whole point that I'm having this discussion you, right now, is that this lesser god that is creating the alternate reality that were in messed," Naruto informed the fox. "I know that I'm in an alternate reality, and it's made me aware of how to influence certain things on my own."

The fox stared at the child; Naruto seemed sane, but it had never interacted with a human before to truly know the difference between a human that was insane versus one that was sane. Okay, so if what you say is true, what can you affect, then? It figured the best course of action was to simply humor its host for the time being.

"From what I've been experimenting, I can only affect myself and things directly related to me," Naruto admitted. "The false god is controlling the destiny of everyone else, but I can refuse what it wants me to do," Naruto admitted. "I can't go about breaking the basic laws of physics or ninjustsu for example-I'm still bound to the laws laid down by Kishimoto when he created the original reality." Naruto scratched at his head. "But I can, at certain times, manipulate a situation to my advantage."

"As fascinating as this all is, why should I care?" the fox asked, crossing its arms beneath its breasts-then it stopped and looked down at its now very human and very naked form.

Naruto blushed red at the sight of the now naked woman, having not expected it at all.

"What did you!" the woman-the Nine-Tailed Fox?-roared, rushing and wrapping her hands around the bars, baring teeth at Naruto that possessed canines that were sharper than was normal for an average person.

Naruto looked away from the angry woman, clothed in little more than her raven hair. "I told you-I can control things related directly to me. Since you're sealed within me, you're under my control, as well."

"I'm human!" the woman screamed, at him. "My tails! Where are my tails!"

"Calm down!" Naruto shouted. "I got sick of looking up at you at your giant form and I wanted you to be smaller, okay!"

"That doesn't explain where my tails went or why I'm human!" the fox-turned-woman yelled.

"I don't know! I'm still new to this whole 'manipulate-reality' thing, okay!" Naruto defended. "I think you still have your tails-look at your hair."

The woman growled at him but nonetheless reached behind her awkwardly grabbed at her hair, noticing that it seemed to naturally be split into nine strands. Some of its anger leaving it (her?) the fox decided to ask the next pertinent question as its gaze swept down its naked form. "Why am I a woman?" the fox asked.

"How should I know?" Naruto defended. "You mean you weren't a woman before?"

The woman rolled her eyes and folded her arms across her chest, then shifting them awkwardly beneath the globes of flesh that it now adorned its chest. "I wasn't even really a fox before, only a mass of emotions and demonic chakra that happened to be fox-shaped. Gender was never an issue."

"Really?" Naruto questioned, turning his head to stare at her, and then immediately turning away as soon as he remembered her nudity. "Well, all I wanted was for you to be able to talk to you easier-you know, instead of talking to a big-ass fox that was always flashing teeth bigger than myself at me constantly." Naruto thought about that. "I'm used to talking to other humans, so I guess these powers made you human." He shrugged.

"That doesn't explain why I'm a woman, now," the fox reminded, turning around to walk away from the bars and nearly falling to the ground as she stumbled. She had gone from being a giant fox that walked on four legs and had a multitude of nine of tails to help it balance, to being a biped with a whole new center of gravity.

"Hell if I know," Naruto said. "Maybe you always thought of yourself as being a woman, or you'd be female if you were human? Or maybe these new abilities simply flipped a coin, or something, and it landed on female." Naruto turned to her, closing his eyes. "Listen, can you put some clothes on or something?"

The female sat down and crossed her arms in defiance. "Why should I? Modesty is a human concept, and I'm not human, no matter how I now look. And where would I get clothing? I didn't wear clothing as a fox why would I have any to wear now-not to mention the fact that I'm still technically just a mass of chakra and this is a mental representation that you've forced upon me." The Nine-Tails lifted a finger and wiggled its finger, fascinated by the new digits and their range of motion as she inspected everything from their bone structure to the slightly pointed finger nails that rested at the end of each.

"Why do I look I this way?" the demon(ess?) asked, playing with one of the nine clusters that her long hair seemed to divide into.

"I already explained that," Naruto said, refusing to look at the woman while she was naked.

"No," the woman said, "I mean why do I look like this physically?"

"You were expecting to have red hair and breasts as big as your head? That's just cliché," Naruto dismissed. "Just because you were the most powerful of the tailed demons, doesn't mean you'll be a vision of beauty. There are plenty humans who wield power or possess it in some other form, and they range from being ugly to above attractive. Stop being so damn vain," Naruto complained.

"I could destroy mountains with a swing of my tail. brat!" The woman growled. "I have reason for my confidence! And I could care less as to how I look as a . . . human," she said, hissing the last word like it was something filthy upon her tongue. "But the red hair would have made sense: my fur-or the representation of fur that was formed from my chakra-not to mention my chakra, was red. And I would at least expect my tails to be hair."

"As far I can tell, this form is like an iceberg," Naruto said, letting a sigh as he wondered why he was still here.

"An iceberg?"

"When someone sees an iceberg, all they see is maybe, what, five percent? The vast majority of it is hidden beneath the water. This form is just the tip of your total power-I did want a better way to talk to you. As for your tails-I made you human. It's anatomically impossible to have a human body with nine tails coming out of the tail bone. It would look awkward, and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be able to connect all the proper nerves and muscles from the spine and what not.

That explains your hair color, come to think of it," he mused.

The woman looked at the hair and gazed at its dark sheen. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"The tips of your tails were black, right?" Naruto asked.

"Yes. Your point?"

"Well, your hair represents just a portion of your tails right? And you had a small of black at the tip of each, right?"

"I never thought to check," the fox said dryly.

"Listen, I'm trying to figure this out, okay! Let's just say it was magic, then! That fine with you?" he asked.

"Magic?"

"I can't think of any other word to describe my new powers, can you?" Naruto snorted.

The woman didn't answer that, but asked another question. "I thought you said that couldn't break the basic rules laid down by God?" she asked.

"I can't," Naruto said.

"Then how come I have a tenth tail?"

Naruto whipped his head around at that-and fainted at the sight that he saw.

"Right here," she said, running her fingers between the tangles of black hair between her legs. "You said my hair represents my tails, so the nine strands on my head plus this equals ten, does it not?" she asked curiously.

"T-That's not a tail," Naruto stuttered, closing his eyes so tightly he feared that he would inure himself; oh, how a certain sanin would kill to be in his shoes.

"But it is hair and you said-"

"I know what I said! " Naruto yelled. "But it's a tail and for the love of god, stop touching it!" he pleaded.

The woman did an expression that if she had known what it was called, would be called pouting; as it was, she was still getting accustomed to the lack of a elongated nose and jaw, though her lips did a much wider range of controls.

"The hairs there because human woman have hair down there, okay!"

"You still have not explained the hairs' purpose," the woman pressed.

And I won't. Naruto thought resolutely. There is no way I am explaining the birds and bees to force-of-nature-turned-woman, he thought, shuddering at how that conversation would go.

Nothing was said after that; with Naruto refusing to look at the woman that was the Nine-Tails, and the Nine-Tails exploring her new form-how she was exploring Naruto did not want to know.

The silence was broken when the demon-human spoke once more. "Don't you have something to actually be doing?" she asked. "Instead of sitting in a pool of water in your own head?"

"The false god wants me to do some things to start the story," Naruto explained.

"And you don't want to?"

"I'm going to be the hokage one day," Naruto reminded the demon. "And hokages don't take orders from anyone-not even upstart false gods."