"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it."

- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

The kaleidoscope of alien sensations slides into my awareness, comforting in its familiarity and overwhelming with its intensity. My need to taste the energy of the insects becomes an irresistible impulse and I find myself desperately calling to them through my power. A resistance countermands my directives and anger blossoms forth from deep within me. I gather my swarm preparing to forcefully take what I want from the living hive.

Before I can act upon my anger, an orange, furry tail suddenly wraps around my body, gripping me with such force that I can hardly breathe. My anger falls away as I look up at Kyuubi finding a look of slight worry etched on his features. He says something to the hive but his words are impossible to understand. My desire to feed breaks all attempts to focus on anything else. The appetizing insects blink out of my perception and return to their host slowly, wading through my pull on them like stars breaking free from the orbit of a black hole. The loss of the bright motes sends disappointment and fear of the growing hunger through me.

Even after the insects are lost to my sight the hunger worsens. My thoughts form reluctantly and I instinctively attempt to offload the hunger-pain into my swarm. Panic wells up inside of me, crowding me out. Trying to find some way to stop the overwhelming, alien sensations I focus inward, trying to find some switch, some way of turning it off.

I feel something vast skirt the edges of my awareness. It felt like the connection to my swarm, but more potent and not in my control. Alongside this feeling is the knowledge of a veritable ocean of delicious energy hidden within the material surrounding my human body. I feel as if I can already smell/feel/taste the energy through the physical contact. Its tendrils dance on my skin, teasing me with its promises of sweet relief. Desperate to end the hunger pains I drag in the energy surrounding me with all the force I can muster. Carving it cleanly from its bindings I drink in the sweet nectar greedily, exhilarating in the raw potency of it. The life-giving energy floods into me, leaving me in a blissful haze.

Then I'm face-down on the cavern's floor. The pain of the landing quickly disperses the euphoric feeling and I can think again.

I shake my head while sighing in relief and decide to compartmentalize whatever that event was into the back of my mind for a time when there weren't so many events distracting my thoughts. Looking up from my spot on the ground I find Kyuubi staring at a bald spot on one of his tails that now has a suspiciously human looking outline to it. I wonder how this could have happened when I recall the strange carving sensation that had surrounded my body in my hunger-induced state.

"Uhh, whoops?" I say intelligently.

Kyuubi's gaze turns slowly toward me before he asks a single damning question.

"What. Have you done to my tail?"

I can't help wondering to myself if I should have made those comments about appropriate retaliation when it comes to messing with Kyuubi's fur. The bald spot was already showing signs of growing back, though from Kyuubi's reaction it was probably going slower than it should be. Before I can articulate a response the sound of muffled laughter distracts Kyuubi and I. Looking over to the kids, I can see Hashirama struggling to contain his giggles over Kyuubi's reaction.

"What do you think you're laughing at, brat?" Kyuubi growls out.

"I-it's nothing Kyuubi-sensei, I just-"

"Hey wait, weren't we just talking about what you'd do if someone messed with your fur?" the Inuzuka interrupts.

Goddammit kid, are you trying to get me killed here?

"Who cares about that? I wanna know what happened with Skitter. She was giving off some weird killing intent there for a minute when Shikuro accidentally let their Kikaichu loose." Mito responds, a tone of worry in her voice.

Kyuubi growls at the interruptions and turns back to me.

"I have hit the limit of my patience with you humans for the day. Have fun with your meeting and do try not to kill one another. Blood tends to stick to the rocks in here and it's a pain to remove. Oh, and Skitter," Kyuubi says with contempt dripping from his every word.

"Yes?" I ask very cautiously.

"We will talk about what happened here when I return. Can I trust you not to do anything stupid while I'm gone like, say, attacking the Aburame child?"

"I'm fine now, whatever that was shouldn't happen anytime soon I think," I assure him.

Scoffing, Kyuubi leaves the cave, grumbling all the while about the worth of associating with humans. After his departure I take a moment to look over the gathered kids, noticing something off with one of them I voice my concern.

"Is something wrong with the Hyuuga? I haven't seen him move in a while and keeping his eyes like that cant be healthy."

The Nara boy being the closest turns to look at the Hyuuga who seems to be staring straight ahead with veins bulging from his pupilless eyes.

"Hoheto you alright?" the Nara asks while poking the boy in the stomach with a finger.

Coming out of his apparent daze the Hyuuga slaps the poking hand aside and releases whatever strain he was applying to his eyes.

"Sorry I just - when Skitter started acting strange I wanted to see if anything was wrong. I didn't mean to its just," the Hyuuga says while beginning to hyperventilate.

"Calm down, no one here is going to judge you Hoheto. This is not an official meeting, your clan members cannot judge you here," Shikuro says in a calming voice.

Taking a breath the Hyuuga collects himself and makes eye contact with me.

"I saw something that didn't make any sense when you did that thing to Kyuubi's tail. It was like you made the fur disappear into nothingness, and when I try to look at you all I get is a blurry impression of your clothes but nothing beyond that. I can't help asking, just what are you?" Hoheto asks shakily.

Thinking a moment on how to articulate my response I walk over to my hammock tree and take a seat on one of the lower hanging webs. I motion for the kids to gather around and they hesitantly seat themselves cross-legged a few paces away from me. I idly note how Mito and Hashirama seem to be gravitating toward one another, sitting close enough that they were almost touching.

I observe each of the kids with a critical eye, making eye contact with each before deciding on a truthful explanation.

"Firstly I will say that I am neither a sage animal nor am I a spirit of any kind."

"You're a human right? I wasn't really paying any attention earlier but you definitely smell like one. Man that kinda sucks, I was hoping to see what Kyuubi's kits would look like when you two got married," says the Inuzuka, thoroughly derailing my thought process.

Rubbing my temples with a hand I try again.

"Ignoring that, yes I'm human roughly speaking. I'll even show you my face to prove it."

Unclipping the back of the mask I make a show of revealing my human face. The kids lean forward a bit at the reveal taking in my features with hungry curiosity. They don't linger on any one part of me, not even when they observe the stump of my right arm. I get the suspicion that such injuries were more commonplace than anyone here would like to admit.

"There is something off about your features and you implied that you were not entirely human." The Nara says curiously.

I look at my face through my swarm to see if anything was wrong but I find nothing has changed since the last time I had seen my face. Upon a moment of contemplation, I realize what the strangeness could be. This part of the world seems to be inhabited by people with features that resemble Asiatic descendants from my earth. Features like my eye shape and curly hair might be rare here.

"I don't know of any other way to phrase this so I'll just say it and I'll try to answer your questions after I'm done, sound good?"

The kids nod while trying not to seem too eager.

"I come from a different world altogether. When I arrived in your world I couldn't even speak your language. It was lucky that I found Kyuubi early on, because he taught me your language. I have in turn been teaching him of my world's history as repayment for his housing and lessons about this world."

"Wait, does that mean you are some kind of alien?! That's so much cooler than a spirit! Are you from the moon, because I heard from elder Tanaka that people have been living there since the sage's time but nobody else besides me believes him," the Inuzuka proclaims excitedly before noticing that everyone was staring at him once again.

"What?" he demands self consciously.

The gathered kids and I share a look before we continue the conversation ignoring the Inuzuka's comment.

"So if you are really not from our world what made you decide to come here? Also, I'd like to know why you and Kyuubi decided to influence the clan's politics so heavily," The Nara boy says seriously.

"Well, I didn't really decide to come here. I think it was mostly by random chance that I ended up here but I couldn't tell you how. As for the clans, well, you can blame your friends over there for that one. Kyuubi and I decided to interfere with your clan politics because frankly, it was getting you nowhere. From what I've been told the elemental nations have been fighting each other since before recorded history. It doesn't seem like any of the participants have been enjoying the experience, so Kyuubi and I decided to try our hand at solving the problem our own way."

"Politics aside, I want to know how you manage your swarm. From what Hashirama says and from what the clans observed you give no indication of using chakra to influence them. Secondly, did you happen to bring any insects with you from your world?" Shikuro asks with evidently suppressed enthusiasm.

"Strangely enough the species I've observed here seem to match fairly closely to species I've read about on my homeworld. I don't know if that's just luck, convergent evolution or something else entirely. I'll have to talk with your clan about Kikaichu though, as I've never encountered a species like them before."

"How about your control, is that a technique the Aburame can learn? Because I'm sure we'd be willing to trade some queens for that knowledge? I felt the echo of your control through my link with my kikaichu and it was incredible. You formed a bond with each individual insect and I just can't fathom the kind of mental discipline it must take to organize any sort of command structure," Shikuro asks - almost begs pleadingly.

"Shikuro, come on!" interrupts Mito. "We have a person from another world and all you wanna talk about is insect jutsu. We should be asking more fundamental questions about the culture there or something."

"Well, for, one my ability is my own. It can't be learned. I also think that we should talk about that meeting with your clans. It would take more than one sitting to tell you all about my world and we will have plenty of time later for that."

"Right, almost forgot why we came here in the first place," says the Nara boy, looking a bit embarrassed. "Well, there is going to be a gathering next week to finalize a pact between most of our clans in the hope of forming a new village. The Nara and Aburame are spearheading the migration and we were hoping to gain Kyuubi's and your assistance in building the foundations and infrastructure of the new community. We think our clans were just too afraid to come up here to ask for help, so we decided to come here ourselves."

I consider what this will mean for Kyuubi and I. On one hand, Kyuubi will probably be more than a little opposed to moving out of his mountain. On the other, this would be a great time to lay the foundations of modern civilization. From the rebuilding of Brockton Bay after Leviathan to the classes taken as a Ward, I learned quite a bit over my life about setting up the groundwork for modern cities. If I want to ever see so much as a refrigerator or lightbulb in my lifetime starting the work on the infrastructure would best be done now. Finalizing my decision I ask the Nara two questions.

"When is this meeting and how long before the move?"

XxxxX XxxxX

AN: Its a weird experience being on this side of the authors note. *Insert generic excuse for chapter delay here*. As always a million thanks go to QafianSage, without whom you people would have to suffer writing quality similar to my prologue *Shudders*. If there are any thoughts, complaints, wild speculation or criticisms please voice them.

Next Chapter: Interlude 1- Kurama