A/N: Wow, the chapters have already hit double digits. Well, I hope everyone was pleased with the return of Natsuko, but I have some bad news in store. No, no characters are going to die. At least, not right now.

I have to report to basic training for the Navy on September 18th. So, there are AT MOST three updates I can squeeze in, and this is one of them. Or I could get writer's block, and this'll be the only one. Anyways, I'll be gone for two, maybe three months while I'm in boot camp, and after that I have to go to nuclear power school for two years. But I should be able to update during nuke school. My goal was to finish this story by now, but it'll probably break thirty chapters, and that's not happening in -counts on fingers- ten days. No, nine days. Sorry, bad counting job...

Anyways, on to the chapter! Thanks to all my loyal reviewers for answering my annoying questions. I know, I'm a n00b, but I appreciate everyone taking the time to deal with my idiocy.

I finally got caught up with the manga in Naruto, so I saw the bit about Kakashi's past. He is now my second favorite character, up from about fifth. Hinata still takes the top slot (she's so kawaii!!), and Sakura, Sasuke, and Tenten round out the top five.

Anyways, enough randomness, I don't own Naruto, Masashi Kishimoto will soon be sued for possession, and here we go with chapter eleven!

"So, you're on our side now?" Natsuko asked, following Kiora and Kohana to Aiko's house.

Kohana shrugged, indifferent to the conversation. After a brief exchange with Aiko, they headed in to the practice room.

"Natsuko, if I remember right, you can sing," Kiora said. Natsuko nodded. "Good, then we just need a bassist, another guitarist, and maybe a keyboarder."

"I can play piano, too, you know," Natsuko said. "Or have you forgotten that too?"

"Okay, okay, don't get your panties in a bunch," Kiora said, strapping on her guitar and flipping on the amp. "Can you scream?"

Natsuko let out an earsplitting scream, and immediately the other three clapped their hands over their ears.

"Not that kind of scream," Kiora said, wincing. "I mean metal screams."

Natsuko shook her head. Kiora frowned. "Well, we can at least play the first part of the song," she whispered to herself.

Very few people had heard Kiora and Aiko play together. Kohana and Ayame were the only ones. Sakura had listened to Kiora's playing once, but decided it was a little too brutal for her taste, and she didn't like listening to her practice.

So Kiora was nervous about playing for others, even though she and Aiko had grand plans for their little project.

Kiora jumped into a few licks from Through the Fire and the Flames, warming up her fingers quickly.

"Okay, you and I aren't exactly into the same music, but we should be able to come up with a compromise," she said.

"Wait, are you saying you want me in your band?" Natsuko asked. Kiora grinned, then was subsequently buried in another hug.

"Uh, don't I get a say?" Aiko asked, raising her hand. "Seeing as how it's MY practice space we're in?"

Kiora sighed. "Speak, then."

"I don't have a problem with her being in the band, but not as singer," Aiko said. "We need someone who can do metal, and the only way that'll happen is with a guy."

"I can handle most of it, just not the screamy parts," Natsuko said.

"The 'screamy parts' are kind of essential," Aiko said.

Kiora flipped on Aiko's iPod, slipping the earbuds in and cranking up Take This Life by In Flames. She started out slow, in barely a whisper, but was soon belting out the vocals, matching pitch and hitting the screams in the verse.

It's not so much the pain
It's more the actual knife
Pretending the picture is perfect
I cut myself to sleep
I close my eyes for a second
And curse my fragile soul
I scream to hide that I'm lonely
The echo calls my name

If I ever, If I never
Make me understand the thought whatever
Make me see. Make me be
Make me understand you're there for me

Take this life, I'm right here
Stay awhile and breathe me in
Take this life, I'm right here
Stay awhile and breathe me in

The rain drops just beg to hit me
What now? Hasn't rained for days
No time to play hide-and-seek
I call on you to take me on
Break me down to pieces
Put me back, do it right this time
Struggling to fill this empty shell
Burn all my efforts
In the end it means nothing

If I ever, If I never
Make me understand the thought whatever
Make me see. Make me be
Make me understand you're there for me

Take this life, I'm right here
Stay awhile and breathe me in
Take this life, I'm right here
Stay awhile and breathe me in

These thoughts, burn a hole in my heart
These thoughts, will keep me free and

These thoughts, burn a hole in my heart
These thoughts, will keep me free and

If I ever, If I never
Make me understand the thought whatever
Make me see. Make me be
Make me understand you're there for me

Take this life, I'm right here
Stay awhile and breathe me in
Take this life, I'm right here
Stay awhile and breathe me in

"PWNED!!" she shouted as the song concluded. "We'll trade off. I'll handle the screams if you do the regular singing."

(If you don't think a chick can scream, listen to Flyleaf sometime. They kick ass.)

"Okay, so do we know anyone else in the village who plays an instrument?" Kiora asked. She looked around the room, watching everyone shrug.

"I know a place we can go to find people," Kohana said quietly. "But it might be a little dangerous"

"How dangerous?" Kiora asked nervously.

"We'd have to travel to another universe," Kohana said. "There's someone important you should meet there too."

"Been there, done that," Kiora said. "Let's go."

Kohana started chanting a familiar string of words that she had used once before, when she banished Kiora from her own world and into Wolfwing's. The room faded to black, and a white speck appeared beneath them. With a blinding flash, Kiora realized she was sitting in grass, facing a tall stone monument in the distance.

"Welcome to Washington, D.C.," Kohana said. "I come here every once in a while, to feed on the homeless people. No one in this universe really cares about them."

"Isn't this where what's-his-face lives?" Kiora asked, suspicious. She looked around, gathering the scene.

"You've never met him," Kohana said. "He lives in a much smaller city about an hour and a half from here by car. Care to follow me?"

Kohana grabbed Aiko's wrist and teleported. Kiora used her Byakugan to follow her, pulling Natsuko along for the ride. They reappeared in front of a row of townhouses, numbered 43-49 in odd numbers.

Kohana strolled right up to number 49 and reached for the doorbell, only to have her hand slapped away by Kiora.

"You can't break that wall," she said, her voice level and low. "It goes against every rule of fanfiction."

"Kinda late for that, isn't it?" said a voice. "The wall was broken the minute you stepped foot in this universe. I'm Taku, known to the normal people as Brett."

"How did you know we were here?" Kiora asked.

"I'm the author, I know everything. Including things that you don't yet know yourself. Think of me as the Oracle, but in a less cryptic way."

"So, what happens next?" Kiora asked.

"As soon as I tell you, it changes," Taku said. "Because once you know what happens, you will be unsatisfied and do something to try and change it. So all I can tell you is that you come inside, because your pink hair is going to attract attention in about fifteen seconds if I don't let you in."

The four girls followed the author inside. "Dad, I've got friends over!" he shouted upstairs. There was a muffled reply, and he led his creations into the basement.

"Not bad," Kiora said, looking around. "A little messy, but-"

"So is yours," Taku finished. "Look, I wrote this chapter already, so I know what you're gonna say. If you're gonna be a kiss ass, I don't wanna hear it. And don't even think about hitting me, because I could just as easily erase you from existence with a keystroke."

Kiora frowned and sank into the only chair in the room, folding her arms over her chest. Taku cracked open a Coke and leaned against his desk.

"You guys need bandmates," he said. "I play guitar, which is the only reason you know how to, Kiora. I'd love to come be in a band with all my characters, but that's a definite breach of walls. And I don't want to go through the ridicule for all that. Hell, I'll probably lose the few readers I have from this."

"So why'd you write it?" Kohana asked. Taku shrugged.

"Writer's block does funny things. Like make you break the rules. And I wasn't feeling perverted enough to write a lemon."

Kiora eyes darted open and she lunged for Taku's throat.

"Problem, dear?" he asked.

"You perv! You've seen me naked!"

"No, I haven't," he corrected. "I don't have any sketches of you doing anything dirty. All I have are the basic design sketches. Hell, I don't even have a sketch for Aiko. And I'm too lazy to sketch the new Akatsuki either."

"What about me?" Kohana asked. Taku reached over to his bookshelf and pulled out the third volume of Negima. "That's you," he said, pointing to the blond haired vampire on the cover. "I modeled you after Evangeline A.K. McDowell."

"So you stole my design," Kohana said. She thumbed through the manga, then sat down on the bed, reading it intently.

"Why don't I have a sketch?" Aiko asked innocently.

Taku frowned. "Honestly, I thought of you on a whim. And the whole band thing. I knew I wanted Kiora to play guitar, but I had no way to get her there without another character that started as a musician. And I liked the thought of Ayame's daughter being friends with the girl that killed Naruto."

"Speaking of Naruto, this doesn't show his change to pervy pedophile," Natsuko said, sitting next to Kohana. She held volume 28 of Naruto in her hands. "He went pedo as soon as he got back to the village from training with Jaraiya."

"That's difficult to explain so you'd understand," Taku said. "What you hold in your hands is the 'official' story of your world. Whenever someone creates a fanfiction universe, it splits and becomes its own. That's how you were able to meet Tsunade and Kurenai and Wolfwing and such. It takes cooperation from both parties, otherwise you end up with a whole new universe that tries to emulate the crossover."

"So, in the real story, I'd never have been born?" Natsuko asked.

"In the real story, the only one with a chance of real existence would be Aiko, because it's believable that Ayame would have a daughter. Sakura loves Sasuke, who would never have time for any girl, so he'll never end up with kids. Hinata is completely nuts for Naruto, and one day he'll quit being stupid and go for her. Ino and Shikamaru is believable, but it's more likely to end up as Shikamaru and Temari. Yuri relationships don't seem to be canon in very many anime, so even if all of you did exist in the real story, none of you would ever hook up." Taku drained the last of his soda. "It's not safe here. We've gotta get out of my house before my dad becomes fully conscious and wonders why I have four girls in my room and three of them are underage."

"Um, none of us are eighteen yet," Kiora said. "Well, Kohana is a thousand years old, but she still looks ten."

Taku shook his head. "Age of consent is sixteen in Virginia. Natsuko's the only one I could touch without it being illegal."

"Technic-" Kiora was interrupted by Taku before she could argue.

"We. Need. To. Leave. Now." he said, leading the way outside. Sure enough, the TV upstairs clicked on as the door swung shut.

"Yes, I know you were born sixteen years ago, but you're only fifteen," Taku said as they walked downhill to a children's playground. "My dad's an even bigger perv than I am, he'd know you were only fifteen. That, and I think the pink hair is a bit of a stretch for our world. I don't need him asking a bunch of embarrassing questions to characters that I invented."

"So, on to the matter we came here for," Kohana said, floating to the top of the monkey bars, where she sat. "These three need to fill up some missing slots."

"There are two ways I could do that," Taku said. "I could create new characters for you to interact with, or you could hang around a few days, put some ads up for musicians, and then take them back to Konoha with you."

"I like it here," Kiora said. "Let's hang out and see what we can find."

Taku sighed. "I knew you'd say that."

A/N: Woo-hoo!! Self insertion! Well, I broke enough rules for one chapter. Now I've cured my writer's block, so maybe two more chapters after this before I ship out. Anyways, read and review, and don't get too pissed at me.