A/N: HA! TRIPLE UPDATE BABY! Hope you like it? I worked really hard on this.

WARNING!

ALTERNATE UNIVERSE INCOMING!

EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED, AS ALWAYS!

This Naruto possess the Double Summon skill upon being summoned, making him a fusion of the Berserker/Caster class. Yes, that's a thing. Look it up on the wiki if you don't believe me. Thanks to his origin and the trauma he endured...he's not quite right in the head. I leave it to you to judge him? Is he good? Evil? Or perhaps neither? Somewhere in between?

*EDIT* Let the updates continue!

Could the trolls please stop? I've had to delete fifty-FIFTY!-reviews of nasty vitriol in the last hour or so and its making me upset. I've also had a rather nasty chap known as "Doom Marine" chanting at me to kill myself in the review section of my recent stories. Look if you don't believe me. Jokes on him though, that's not my real name.

*Secondary Edit*

I published this earlier, but the notification only came now? I don't know why? Notifications are being delayed again? I don't know? How many times has this happened in the last month? No one is to blame for it of course, the site just goes wonky sometimes. Really kills my drive to write though...

Because this hasn't gotten any reviews for this chapter...

Only flames...cruel...nasty, vicious flames...

...and that makes me a sad boy.

So...reviews? Please?

I'll beg if I must.

T_T

Oddly enough, some thing Beast got to this one. Did he? Some Servants are slippery.

As ever, this'll be gone in two days if folks don't like it, yadda yadda...

So here. Because folks didn't want to wait for Extella or Extella Link. They'll be in this one.

If you don't know who Rani VIII is by now, well!

Look her up. She's a little cinnamon bun.

I own no references. Obviously.

But I do love them so.

"Tiny little thing, aren't you?"

~Tyrant.

A Most Unlikely Tyrant

What are emotions?

How do they define us?

Do they give you a soul? Do your thoughts?

By that reckoning, anyone capable of rational thinking could have a soul. Anyone could have one. Any creature large or small, great and tall, false or true. Natural and artificial. What is a soul, then? Emotions, to be sure, but what else? Joy. Hate. Love. Envy. What gives you that spark that makes you...well, you? What makes you different from the rest? Hobbies? Favorite colors? Personality? Throw them together and you get a soul. They say that's how it works, but does it? Does it really?

Do any of us truly have a soul?

Do you? Do I?

Do we?

I don't know about a soul, but emotion defined me from a young age; as a boy I lived life without restraint; as a young man, even moreso. I was tormented from a young age, but I bore it with a smile. I did many things, some good, others bad. I was causing havoc from the moment I learned to walk. Once I learned to fight...well. That was the end of it. No one would pay attention to me. So I made them. Through pranks and chaos and smiles; I did whatever I could to make them look at me.

But that's the problem with being noticed.

When the light finally deigns to take notice of you, so too do the shadows.

Danzo got ahold of me before I turned ten; by the time I realized who-what-he was it was already too late for me. Yet even so, I was allowed to live a somewhat normal life. I was allowed to wear a headband, to be part of a team, to go on missions when and where I pleased, so long as I stayed loyal to the Leaf. To him. And if the price of my freedom was a few lives here and there, what did it matter?

They were enemies of the Leaf.

By the time I become a shinobi, I already had a warped view of the world and its idea of a soul.

I obsessed over that question. That, and my quiet, cherished dream. Even as I was betrayed time and again.

They refused to grant me any recognition whatsoever; anything I did, any credit I gained, was invariably stolen by someone else.

And I allowed it. I could've spoken up, could've done something, but I allowed them to do it. I endured their jeers and their scorn, their bitter backstabbing.

In my life I slew some who should've been spared, and spared some who should've been slain. It earned me a certain...reputation of sorts. Does that make me a bad person? I suppose it does, from a certain point of view, but int he end it all depends who you ask. Zabuza would call me an idiot for offering him and Haku a place in Konoha. A position he accepted. Gaara would've spit on my ashes for killing him during the Exam. He was mad as a hatter. Out of his mind. I didn't want to end him, but it had to be done.

Didn't it?

I lived like a devil and laughed like a madman, allowed to exist between light and dark. Because I had a dream. A belief. A purpose. A goal, one that defined my entire life, one that I refused to give up. To be Hokage. It made me happy to think about it, the idea that one day-someday!-I would wear that hat, put on those robes, sit at that desk. That wish, that dream, carried me through so much hardship, through betrayal after betrayal. One day I would prove myself worthy to everyone who doubted me and they would see-they would all see!-who I was. I longed for that day. That dream.

I gave up everything in pursuit of that happiness.

My life. My arm.

I kept the world safe. From harm.

I had a chance to leave it all behind. To flee. To follow others like me. To fall in love and start a different life; a good life, far away from the mess my village was becoming. Yet I stayed. Because I wanted that hat. Because I believed in them. They'd promised. Promised. And like a fool, I swallowed their lives and believed. The one person who cared for me turned away with disgust in their eyes as they left me behind, and still I forced myself to press on. I had to. It was all I had left, all I could ever be.

Somehow, I was still surprised then...when the rest of them betrayed me. ME!

Everything had been going so well up until that moment; Kaguya was sealed, Sasuke was defeated and...rehabilitated. I followed orders. I did as I was told. I wasn't proud of what I'd done, but I accepted the necessity of it all the same. Because I...trusted. Because I...believed. I thought it would all work out somehow. Foolish. Naive. I hinged all my hopes and dreams on that hat.

When they said I couldn't be Hokage, couldn't have my dream, I just...snapped.

At first I thought it was a joke on the old man's part. A prank of some kind.

Sasuke was my friend. My brother in all but blood.

Yet...and yet...after all of that...he...

They would give the hat to him.

After all he'd said, after all he'd done, after I had to drag him back to his senses, they decide to give him the hat? What had he done to earn it? He'd tried to destroy it! No. A thousand times no. Not him. Anyone but him. I couldn't abide it. Couldn't hide it. Still, they expected me to accept it all with a vacant expression as they talked about Hokage and successions, then concessions, and hope that it would just fly right over my head? No. I understood it all.

So I confronted him.

I didn't mean to at first; I went there that night with the idea to talk him down, to make him see how important this was to me. We argued. Tempers flared. Words were said. Cruel words. Harsh words. And I just couldn't take it anymore. He had to go; I couldn't say no. I couldn't give up my crutch, my dream-I WANTED TO SCREAM!-the one thing that had held me together after all these years. I begged and pleaded with him, but the fool wouldn't listen to me. He said I was unfit for the role. Unworthy.

I know what you're thinking, but no. There was no meticulous planning.

There was no tenacity spanning, no decades of denial-wait. There was plenty of the last one.

In the end I simply...blacked out. My mind shut down from one instant to the next and I...I did things.

I don't remember what happened. One moment I was staring at that smug, insufferable visage, with those annoying advisers standing behind him, shouting at them all until I was blue in the face until something finally slipped; the next, I was standing in a puddle of their blood. Their bodies-what was left of them-lay at my feet in a torn heap. So much blood. I'd killed them in a fit of pique, a mindless, wordless rage, and I couldn't go back. What's done is done.

That hat was mine.

It was always mine.

It was meant to be mine.

And the people rose up and killed me for it.

I let them. By then I didn't have the strength to resist.

For trying to take what I deserved, what I'd wanted all along, I was killed. They cursed me. Spat on me. I just want what I was due. What I was owed. If that makes me mad, then so be it. That hat was mine! And yet some wouldn't see reason; some, like Sakura-whom I scarcely knew-would chose to take her own life than live without her precious Uchiha. Sai wouldn't look at me. Why? I listened. I followed orders. I only wanted to be happy, to make them happy, yet the others...the...others...murdererkinslayeroathbreakermanwithouthonorwhywhywhywhy...?!

Do I regret it?

Of course I do!

I had no ill will towards Sasuke, much less what followed his death. They didn't have to die. None of them had to die. Why didn't they listen? Why did they turn against me? Why did they kill me? I don't understand. I just wanted the hat. I had given so much for them, never wanting, never asking, but for this. Only this. They couldn't...couldn't even GIVE me... the one thing that I'd always wanted...I just wanted the hat. It was mine. I'd earned it. Deserved it. I corrupted it. I butchered it. I annihilated it. They'll curse me for this now, call me mad for all I've done. I know it. And I am.

My wish is simple. Make them see sense.

I didn't want to do this-never intended to hurt anyone.

But you tried to take my dream. It was all I had left. The only thing.

You don't take a man's dream. There...there are some things you just don't...do.

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Let me fix it. Please let me fix it. Don't leave me here to die, don't leave me alone, don't let me go mad...

(...0o0o0...)

Was this joy?

Rani wondered if she should feel such as she gazed upon her fresh-summoned Servant; watched him rise from the summoning circle in her quarters, his body coiled in a pointed crouch. He did not speak. Did not look at her. Didn't even seem to be alive at all save the faint rise and fall of her chest. Granted, the little homonculus did not much understand the concept of emotions-yet!-and as such she wasn't wholly certain what she was feeling here in this moment. Numb? Excitement? Fear? Some strange combination of the three? Neither of them?

She willed herself to think.

To breathe.

Inhale.

This was what she'd wanted. Her teacher had told her to summon a Berserker before she'd gone into the Moon Cell; that the accompanying Madness Enhancement would be a boon in the battles to come. Now she saw the truth of his words, just as she felt the power of this Servant. Were it not for her own inordinate number of magic circuits, she suspected she would've been drained dry just by summoning him.

He certainly looked the part.

Clad in little more than rags, this Servant appeared little more than a beggar, where it not for the sheer killing intent looming from him.

He did not look terribly happy to see her; blank blue eyes gazed back at her, wholly devoid of any emotion.

No.

Wait.

That wasn't true.

She could see something lurking behind those sapphire rubies, those strange blue-yet-not-quite-red eyes. His was the gaze of a beast, a monster without reason. His duty was to protect her; to fight for her in the skirmish to come. And yet she could see reason struggling to the surface in those slitted, slanted pupils. He was aware. Not just of his surroundings, but her. When Rani shifted her weight to her right leg he followed the motion in his own slow, gravelly way. It was like watching an avalanche, slow and inexorable perhaps, but it would absolutely crush you if you were caught in its path.

He was also...large. Quite unreasonably so.

Enough to make her reconsider reaching out to him.

Spirits he moved frightfully fast for someone of that bulk and size.

Rani herself wasn't terribly tall, but this Servant couldn't easily scooped her up and placed her on his shoulder with room to spare. He utterly eschewed the use of a shirt in favor of an open cloak, revealing a battle-scarred chest dotted with as much muscle as there might have been wounds in life. A tattered white cape-the remnants of what might have been a red and white cloak-hung loosely from his blackened right shoulder, secured by a clasp of metal seared into flesh. Oh, dear. That looked...painful. His jagged mane of blond-red hair brushed over the worst of the wound, nearly touching the floor itself.

Well, at least he was wearing paints, if the tattered orange-black trousers ending in tattered tufts above his bare feet could be called such.

Those azure orbs-like ice, she mused-flicked her up and down before locking onto her gaze with a terrible intensity. Here stood someone who had been wronged on a fundamental level; someone who was betrayed and betrayed and betrayed again until his very soul snapped under the strain. Killing intent spilled into her humble-yet-spartan quarters, little more than four walls and a ceiling, a tiny cot where she slept-she had no need for food-threatening to taint the very air itself, yet somehow, she still felt no fear.

Only...pity?

How very odd.

How very odd indeed.

An impasse pushed itself between them, neither party willing to speak, much less move. Rani remained certain that her Servant wouldn't try to kill her, but at the same time, she remained hesitant to approach. Whiskered cheeks screwed up in a ferocious expression and she shrank back as the Servant tossed its head, sending that crimson-threaded blond main thrashing about. In the end she needn't have feared at all, because her Servant made no move to approach her whatsoever. He merely cocked his head, considering her.

And incredibly, he spoke.

"Servant...Berserker." the newcomer forced the words through grit teeth, as though speaking itself were an effort. "Master...?"

Oh! That last one had been directed to her, hadn't it. Silly girl. She needed to pay attention and stop...staring. Rani stumbled upright, hastily smoothed her skirts into place, and stood to compose herself. Berserker didn't so much as twitch, yet his eyes followed her all the same. Watchful intensity, not murderous, merely observant. It served as a chilling reminder of what he was. Ah, but he was waiting for a response and she had yet to do her duty and formally establish the contract between the two of them.

"Y-Yes," she tripped over the words only briefly. "I was the one who called you."

He regarded her for a long, painful moment. Then he knelt.

A scarred hand stretched out to her, ever so gently.

Tentatively, she accepted it with a smile.

To her mild confusion, Berserker took this opportunity to pull her hand to his cheek and laid her small palm against his. A low, shuddering sigh fled from his lips as his eyes glided shut. His entire body seemed to convulse, muscles trembling in unison. He seemed almost...pained. As if every breath was suffering on his part. Even her familiar's face felt dangerously warm to the touch. No. This wasn't a familiar. This was a person. A Hero, she reminded herself, regardless of what his past might have been. He existed. He had emotions. He was here for her.

Ah.

In that moment, the little homunculus experienced an epiphany of sorts. Was this what her professor had wanted her to learn when he sent her here? Or was she getting this terribly, horribly wrong? In truth, Rani had no way of knowing. She could only follow this strange, tugging feeling in her heart. Where these the fabled "emotions" he spoke of? She didn't know. She couldn't know. But she would learn.

Well. That certainly simplified things now, didn't it?

In the end, she had only three words for him.

Her hand patted his scarred cheek.

"Hello, my Berserker." she said.

Naruto smiled softly.

...hello."

A/N: And there we go.

Remember the double summon!

Have your Dark!Berserker/Caster, have your tyrant who lost himself to madness, one who was promised a single thing, a single dream...and lost it all. Would you go mad if someone told you that you were destined for greatness, only to rip it away at the last second? Lets face it, this is Danzo we're talking about. This is something he'd do.

This Naruto endured betrayal after betrayal, heartbreak after heartbreak, until he finally snapped.

As such, his legend was tainted and he's is heavily afflicted by Madness Enhancement, and thus can't speak properly. At least he CAN communicate, unlike poor Heracles. I don't think any of us are going to miss Lu Bu, given that all that Berserker could do was grunt and roar like the madman he was. Naruto can only speak if a Command Spell is used to make him do thus, and as Rani only has three...she can't exactly spend them willy-nilly now, can she?

I don't have the heart for a long author's note. Not this time.

As ever, this will be gone in two days if folks don't like it.

So in the Immortal Words of Atlas...

...Review...Would You Kindly?

And enjoy the previews!

*cackles madly*

(Previews)

The first round was an utter victory.

Berserker showed no mercy to his prey. None at all.

Archer died quickly at least. Rani consoled herself with the green bowman's passing.

"Eat."

Ran started.

"I have no need for food-

He pressed the apple into her hands regardless.

X tilted her head.

...why are you staring?"

"Do you have a headache?"

Haunted eyes turned toward her.

Rani tilted her head.

"What are you doing, Caster?"

He grinned at her. It was...an oddly pleasant smile.

...preparing." He continued to construct the traps with delicate care.

R&R~!