Burnout? What burnout? Okay, it took me three days instead of two this time, but this is still a bizarre pace for me. Who knew that staying up until 3:30 AM could be so...uneventful?

Review response:

1. Noahendless: Well, what'll happen to it is that he'll give it to him. And, strictly speaking, nothing is stopping him from trying to do that—but he would fail miserably. I haven't revealed the reasons for it yet in the story, but Minato being able to kill Kurama was an incredible freak-of-nature act that was only possible thanks to severely variable circumstances. If Naruto tried to go up against the Biju without being restricted to their Jinchuriki, he'd get turned into roadkill. Also, some wordplay is important there—if you read over where he pulls out that mass of youki, he only took out part of it, and only offered a fraction of that part. Deceiving someone with honesty is a much easier thing to do than many people realize.

2. TigrezzTail: I'm glad you appreciated that twist on Shukaku. The only glimpse of him we got in canon was a blood-crazed maniac who got fucked up once he started throwing his weight around. I don't know how often we're going to see him in this fic, on account of, "Melkor doesn't plan what he writes," but I feel like leaving him that one-dimensional is a disservice.

3. MetalRasenganBijuuLord: And thank you for coming back! Honestly, it probably would have been just as easy to leave the fic where it was laying, but once I pushed through the part of that chapter I was stuck on, it was like opening up the floodgates and watching words spill out onto a word processor. Hopefully you enjoy this ride.

Let's get this trainwreck moving.


Blood dripped down to the ground as two sets of eyes looked at the burnt stump where a right arm had been. Black fire consumed the limb, drying it and causing it to shrivel up as it was erased from existence. Beneath its bandages, several circular sections would have visibly been popping and bleeding if the Amaterasu hadn't been obscuring it from view; all the same, Itachi was well aware that more than a handful of Sharingan were boiling and burning beneath his fire.

"I'm well aware that I'm too late, if you were going to say something to that effect." The Uchiha clan head said monotonously. "You've made so many plans for Konoha to go to war, laid out so many causes that the populace would consider righteous...if you were to become Hokage, you would start those wars and wipe out those nations. Suna opening themselves up to vengeful reproach from the other three major village was a pleasant surprise, but after crippling them, you intended to put them out of their misery."

Danzo said nothing in the darkness of his underground command center, knowing full well that there was no reason to call for help—Itachi would have killed them all before he arrived here. That pacifistic ruthlessness was, perhaps, the thing he regretted most about being forced to let the young man walk away from the Ne corps.

"Your interference caused the Hyuuga heir to be kidnapped, more than a decade ago. The rumors your influence raised are what led to my clan being slaughtered. You engineered the mission that sent my brother, and his team, to Nami no Kuni. And now, finally, you've committed treason and acted in faith of killing the Hokage." Itachi alleged all of these crimes without batting an eye, but anger was palpable in his voice.

"So what if I have? I only have our village's best interests at heart. If one or two families are made to suffer so that all can share the fruits of my successes, I'm prepared to deal with those consequences." Danzo simply shrugged.

"So it ends here. Do you think I haven't felt you trying to use Shisui's eye against me? Do you think I didn't know about your plans to use the forbidden techniques of my clan to stave off death? You can't run from destiny." Itachi said.

A vertical slit came into existence where the twenty-year-old's Adam's apple would be, revealing a third Sharingan that seemed to twitch in its socket. Danzo's visible eye widened in shock, his left hand doing anything it could to get away from the Uchiha.

"You know, there's a legend about Sanjiyan demons—some called them triclops—from before the gods died." Itachi's smirk was devilish as his third eye swam across his flesh, eventually finding its way to the middle of his forehead. "That they could grant immortality to any one person, in the moment before that person died, no matter what state they were in. Would you like to know what eternity feels like, Danzo?"

The Uchiha's left hand reached out, tearing bandages away from Danzo's face before ripping out the formerly hidden Sharingan in his right eye socket. But it wasn't until the tipless tanto brute-forced its way through his nasal cartilage that Danzo considered the idea he'd been betrayed.

"As I told you yesterday." Sai spoke with a whisper, appearing from the darkness behind Danzo with an emotionless stare. "I was prepared for the execution of the plan. My father's words reach further than you dared imagine. He sends his regards."

With that, the Ne operative pulled the knife in his hand like a lever, and droplets of blood came out in a small cloud of mist as Danzo's ancient face was mercilessly torn open. He died shortly thereafter, a feeble man with nothing and nobody left to rely on.

"Do you think the Hokage is going to die?" Sai asked, curious.

"I do. He was an old man before your father was born, Sai." Itachi said. Though his contact with the white-skinned boy had never been extensive, they'd passed by one another when Itachi was in Ne, and Sai was one of Sasuke's teammates.

"In that case...long and peacefully may you reign, lord Godaime. In the meantime, I'll inform the troops about our change in management." Sai sank into the floor after speaking, a fast-drying pool of ink the only indication he'd ever existed.

Itachi only shook his head, making his third eye disappear as it receded back into his body. Briefly, he considered removing Danzo's corpse, but he set that matter aside; Sai, and anyone else who cared to look, would be able to glean plenty of valuable information from it. Bursting into a murder of crows, he vanished from the scene, content to go about his business.


"I'm fairly confident that we lost any trace of human life two weeks ago." Yugito said, mostly to herself. "What are we doing this far west? Are you trying to reach the outlanders?"

If not for her superhuman constitution and her tolerance for extreme heat, thanks to being the Nibi's Jinchuriki, Yugito was fairly confident that she would have collapsed from exhaustion several days ago. Though Yuurei wasn't a silent companion, he also hadn't been direct about what he was doing.

"Have you ever wondered why so few people cross through this desert, from one civilization to the other?" Yuurei asked. "There are a few theories, namely that it's a long journey with lots of danger, but there's some speculation about artificial causes."

Wind demons. Matatabi said from inside her seal. This desert is full of them. The weak ones have stayed away because they're peaceful by nature, and Yuurei's bloodthirst terrifies them. But we're moving far deeper than humans should feel comfortable with. And beneath the sand dunes...

What? What's under our feet? Yugito asked. Frankly, she wasn't sure that she wanted to know, but she couldn't help the question—if there was danger, she wanted to be aware of it.

Worms. Giant ones, with the smallest being wide enough to swallow me whole. Their teeth are sharper than anything else that's touched my skin, and the heat in their bellies could burn holes in Makai. Yuurei is either ignorant of the situation, or he doesn't know the immensity of heaven and earth.

Yugito's jaw clenched reflexively.

And if he does know...then what is he doing?

Planning to kill anything that moves, obviously. Yugito could feel the demon's grin from inside of her gut. Though, if he does know about the worms...he's bolder than either my brother or I gave him credit for.

And that's because?

They eat sand, and a byproduct of that process creates a spice that grants a medley of benefits. Humans who consumed it developed what you call kekkai genkai, or greater mental acuity, and some even gained a form of prescience. The gods ate it and received immortality, before they were all slaughtered. Of course...the spice is terminally addictive to any human who eats it, and prolonged withdrawal is always fatal, but demons like he and I are a bit different. And, if I were to possess you and consume some, you'd be liable to receive some form of benefits without any drawbacks...if we lived through encountering the worm.

Privately, Yugito thought that there was very little need for that last sentence. There was nothing but sand in every direction, and the red-eyed blonde didn't remember seeing a cloud in the last ten days. She knew that deserts didn't get much rain, but the humidity here seemed to be in the negatives—as though the moisture was getting pulled out of her body and dispersed before it could gather in the air.

"We're getting close. Something's up ahead, and it's coming for us." Yuurei warned. Sand spun up in the distance, twin streams of dust that trailed out like smoke as a lone figure walked toward the two blondes.

"Do you think it sensed us?" Yugito asked. "I doubt it's an outlander."

"It's not. It's something...much older." Yuurei said.

"Oh, stop with the mysterious bullshit." Yugito said, aggrieved. "There's no way you can tell that."

"No, this isn't natural. The heat's getting stronger, and..."

Yuurei didn't get to finish his sentence as the sand beneath the pair shifted, and the air between them shimmered with heat. Without giving himself a chance to think about it, he grabbed Yugito by her waist and fell into a roll with her; moments later, a horrifically huge mouth of endless teeth cut through the small ridge where they'd stood. The sandworm's armored exterior was a series of rings longer than the two were tall, and the sound it made was deafening as its teeth flexed inside its concentric jaw. The temperature rose to an unbearable degree, and the shimmering air in front of the pair caught on fire.

Hastily, Yuurei went through the seals to perform a Suiton: Suiro in order to protect himself and Yugito, but the water was evaporated after only a few seconds, and it left the demon looking haggard—he'd used the water inside of his body to perform the technique, but the thin shield had been far from enough to protect them. Even if he'd had a hundred gallons of water, he doubted that it would've been enough. An ugly expression found its way to his face, but he was hardly about to give up. Before he could act, though, a voice cut through his unhearing ears and impacted his brain directly.

"Terry, stop!" It boomed, and Yugito unconsciously clutched Yuurei's shoulders a little tighter as he continued to shield her with his body, protecting her from much of the spraying sand and lethal heat.

"Who are you?" Yuurei asked.

"Someone you'll never know." The figure said. Upon closer inspection, it was an elderly man who seemed to be made of solid sand, with deep cracks in the skin where wrinkles might appear on a human. "In the olden days, each wind had its own name...and I am Hulasikali Wala, the wind that eats flesh."

"The wind that...oh, come on. I knew we shouldn't have come here." Yugito groaned.

"You've got it backwards. If I didn't show up, Terry would have eaten you both alive." The old demon's eyes were black and gold, and there was a deep engraving on his forehead that matched the tattoo of the Ichibi Jinchuriki. "That headband tells me you've already been to the City of the Dead, boy. What made you think it was a good idea to visit the Demon of the Open Desert?"

This isn't good. Matatabi said, shrinking back inside of her cage. By all the kings of Makai...

Do you know him? Yugito asked. She'd learned by now that anything relating to demons would end in answers she didn't like, but she still felt like she needed to know.

He's a twisted abomination. A human and a demon fused into one body, with perfect precognition.

He can see the future?

He can see every future.

"Has Matatabi finished explaining what I am to you, Yugito?" Hulasikali Wala asked with a wry grin. "Don't ask why or how I know your names. You either, Naruto, no matter what you choose to go by in this world."

"You're like the clone that was left in Uzushio." Yuurei said, his hearing beginning to return. "This isn't your original self, it's a fragment of you that you left here. Why?"

"Are you sure you want to know that?" The ancient demon asked.

"I think it's relevant, especially since you're the second one I've met." Yuurei replied.

"In the world we came from, the World Tree was destroyed long before Naruto or I, or any of our companions, were ever born. The gods were killed by the Biju, and there was a lot of bullshit with multiple copies of Naruto existing in one timeline that STILL makes no sense to me after ten thousand years. But after my world's Naruto planted the last remaining seed of the World Tree and let it grow, we left our world behind. Then, we spent more years than I care to count going through every single version of every world to kill the gods ourselves. But as we went through that process, we had a thought: wherever the king of the gods, the Star-Dreamer, came from...there were more things like him, and they were liable to be at LEAST as powerful as he was. So we left remnants of ourselves in each world we'd visited, a safeguard to alert us in case of an emergency. Or, in worlds where something remotely similar happened, we were left behind as fragments of power for you to absorb and protect the world from those threats yourself."

It was very obvious to both Yuurei and Yugito that this elderly demon had had nobody to talk to in a very long time. So, accordingly, they let him speak as he pleased.

"Wow. That's a lot to unpack." Yuurei said.

"I will say, it's good to see some friendly faces after so long. Even if you are both a little younger, and less demonic, than I remember. Say, what's the nature of the Juubi in this universe?" Hulasikali Wala asked.

"Father of the other Biju."

All by different mothers, the horny bastard. I never understood how all those women let him get away with it, either. Not that I would suggest making one woman suffer through nine separate childbirths, but you'd think the infighting would be horrendous. Matatabi growled lightly, but there was a light wistfulness to her tone that betrayed some of what she felt about her childhood. I still love him, though. He's my dad.

"Ah. Well, I hope for your sake that this isn't one of those worlds, Naruto." Hulasikali Wala said, his weighty gaze settling on Yugito despite his words being directed at Yuurei.

"Care to elaborate on that?" The red-eyed demon asked.

"Absolutely not." The desert demon replied with a smirk, much to Yuurei's derision.

"Alright then. How about that worm's name?" Yuurei tried his luck with another question.

"Well, not to spout needless exposition, but I named that one Terry. It's short for Terramorphous."

"Earth-changer. Very clever." Yugito said, slowly shifting her way out from under Yuurei's body. Though the massive sandworm left her apprehensive, she felt secure that it wouldn't eat her alive with Hulasikali Wala present. Yuurei stood up, pulling her with him as he did so, and the pair looked at the Demon of the Open Desert expectantly.

"Let me cut to the chase: I know why you're here, and I can grant one of your three requests." The old demon said, his cracked skin leaving the impression of a painting or statue that had been poorly restored.

"The teeth?" Yuurei asked.

"Yes. Please. By the dead gods, take them. As many as you want. I have more than I know what to do with, not that I'd do anything with them in the first place." Hulasikali Wala replied. "You'll need to wait until you finish your transformation into a demon before you get the other two. But no, really, take all of the teeth you want."

Saying so, the ancient demon gestured with his hand for the two blondes to follow him. The trio traveled in silence for a few minutes before a hole opened up in the side of a sand dune, and Hulasikali Wala waved them inside.

"There are a number of these little pockets throughout the desert. Sitting in the desert and staring at the sun got boring after the first thousand years, and all the little wind spirits are too afraid to approach me. I'm not sure why—I'm just a shell, my real body is anywhere else in the timeline on one or another of who-knows-how-many worlds. We might have even finished the war against the gods in every timeline, and gone back to our own world by now."

"A war without end, huh?" Yuurei asked.

"By the time my world's Naruto finished his demonization, none of us close to him were completely human anymore. Twenty years later, the last of us finished our transformation into demons in his service. Oh, to be young again..."

As he rambled, Hulasikali Wala tossed out a number of crystalline objects, all double-edged with razored tips. Some of the smaller sandworm teeth had been fashioned into long knives, but most were large enough to use as full swords.

"The teeth of a sandworm are special. They're immune to the elements, they never wear down, and there isn't much that they can't cut...or that can cut them. If you really try, you can destroy them, but it's difficult enough that most people give up."

"Perfect. I'll take them all." Yuurei said, a blank piece of paper and an ink brush manifesting themselves from somewhere—namely Yugito's sealing scroll, but she hadn't noticed when he'd fished them out on the journey through the desert. Quickly painting the matrix for a storage seal, he sealed tooth after tooth like a robber might shove bundles of bills into a duffel bag.

"Fantastic. Now get out and don't come back for a few years."

Before either ninja could raise their voice in protest, sand cocooned the pair together, leaving only their heads exposed. Without warning, they were launched through the dune they'd stood inside; sailing high into the air, they crossed the desert in what would have been record time, if anybody could ever have believed their story. With Yuurei facing forward towards Yugito, and Yugito facing backwards towards Yuurei, neither knew what the other was looking at.

"You know, traveling this fast, the heat really isn't too much of an issue." Yuurei said. "I never did get to ask him why so few people travel across the desert, though."

"Well, I have bad news. First: we're on the descent now. Second: Terry is following us." Yugito groaned.

"I hate to jinx us, I really do, but do you think he's just trying to make sure we land safely?" Yuurei asked, his tone hopeful.

"This is officially the worst vacation I've ever taken. And I've only taken one." Yugito said, briefly taking her eyes off of the approaching sandworm to glare balefully at her companion.

That's not true, and you know it. Taking a month off to sit around the house absolutely counts as a vacation. Matatabi chimed in, and Yugito struggled to not let her frustration with the demon show on her face. It absolutely did not count, and hang the naysayers by their ankles!

"Are sandworms as averse to rain as regular worms?" Yuurei asked. "Because, and I hesitate to call this luck, we're heading right toward a bunch of stormclouds. In the middle of the desert. Out of goddamn nowhere. Who the hell practices meteorological Ninjutsu in the desert?"

In the distance, beneath a sand dune, Hulasikali Wala grinned as he brought air currents to bear from further away than any human would consider possible. With any luck, the rain would make them separate from the sand and one another, and they would land safely. Otherwise, they would still land safely, but the old demon wouldn't claim responsibility for any compromising positions they found themselves in.

Quietly, he thought to himself, this world's Naruto might be able to surpass the one he'd known.