Well, after a chapter that involved almost nothing about Naruto, what do you say we move on to a chapter that's all about Naruto? In a manner of speaking, anyway. Honestly, if I hadn't actually gotten done writing this chapter right now, I would have been tempted to throw it out and publish something that's...well...less humorous. I kept posting screenshots to friends and saying, "this is awful, I can't publish this, but I have to do it now." So here we are.

Review response:

1. TigrezzTail: Just imagine the layers of irony that Naruto/Yuurei & co. are going to go through when they see that. If I remember to make them see that at some point.

2. Noahendless: No, unfortunately, but those questions WILL be answered. Mostly. Hopefully soon. This chapter is only going to give you more questions, without letting you have any answers.

Let's get this trainwreck moving.


"You're never going to let go, are you?" Tayuya asked. "We've been wandering for weeks, and I've never seen you lose contact with her body. At all."

Yuurei didn't respond, his bloodshot eyes looking as if they'd sunken into their sockets. Wherever they were, finding masses of edible fruits and vegetables hadn't been an issue; Tayuya, along with the other two women in her group, felt a rich ambient energy that seemed to bolster her inner strength. Just by exerting herself, all this time, she'd felt her body growing more solid. And yet, Yuurei showed no reaction to the redhead's words. He'd been silent for three weeks, not even making sound as he walked or breathed. With only a look in Tayuya's direction, at the back of his right side, it seemed like he barely acknowledged her existence.

He missed Yugito. He missed traveling with Yugito. The two of them could coexist in comfortable silence for days at a time; that wasn't the case anymore. Now, he carried her preserved body with him, never complaining or growing tired from doubling his walking weight. He'd already lost her—failed her—and he wasn't going to let go of her until he'd brought her soul back into her body.

In three weeks, he'd neither slept nor eaten; the land itself kept him awake and alive, regardless of the pain in his stomach or the pounding headache that bounced around his skull. This wasn't the man that Tayuya had met in Konoha and followed from Suna. This wasn't the demon that had destroyed Takigakure on a whim in front of Fu's eyes, or who had bound Mei to his life. If he was anything, anymore, then Yuurei only amounted to a causeless martyr that seemed to be waiting to die.

A black spot on the horizon grew larger as the quartet moved closer to it, but an overbearing presence loomed over them. Continuing their approach, that black spot soon took the shape of a crude throne, and a demon with ten tails sat across it with a bored expression on his face. With his left elbow on the throne's armrest, his left hand came up to hold the side of his head. More than anything, though, he seemed greatly displeased with the sight before him.

"A demon should carry himself better," he said, his bright blue eyes staring at Yuurei. Dressed in orange and black robes, the seated demon nonetheless bore a nearly identical appearance to the man across from him. "Especially one that shares my name."

"Who are you?" Tayuya asked. Questions, she thought, were the fastest way to get answers.

"Uzumaki Naruto. Cross through enough portals to other worlds, and you'll find more of us running around than you'll know what to do with. More than one of us at once, sometimes." The demon, Naruto, answered plainly.

"And...what are you doing?" Tayuya asked again.

"Honestly? I got bored in my universe, so I came to this one. Started fixing up your version of Makai. You wouldn't believe how terrible this place was when I found it. Fragments of divine laws everywhere, everything in flux, the whole..." Naruto trailed off in his explanation as he saw vacant expressions appear on three faces. "...okay, you don't know what I'm talking about. The important part is that I was bored out of my goddamn mind, and I wanted something to do, so I jumped universes. Don't ask how."

Tayuya winced at that near-precognitive command.

"You know, maybe I'm a jackass for throwing this question back at you, but what in Makai are you...well...doing in Makai? I'm pretty sure I haven't seen another living person in, like, five thousand years. Am I hallucinating you right now? Is Sakura going to punch me and wake me up from a bad trip?" Naruto continued, suddenly eyeing the group before him with suspicion.

"We're in Makai?" Mei asked, confused.

"Oh, for the love of...where the hell did you think you were? I know you're smarter than that, Mei," Naruto said, irritation in his voice. "But points to you, I guess, because you wouldn't ask that question if you were a hallucination. Unless...hey, you, other Naruto. Spar with me and I'll throw you a bone. Help you out a little. I could use the exercise, and you look like you need to take a load off. Like, literally. Yugito shouldn't weigh more than you do, but-"

"Don't say her name." Yuurei spoke for the first time in weeks, his posture immediately shifting towards aggression.

"Nuh-uh, kid. You gotta be stronger than me to make the rules, and you're not. So, like I said: spar with me, and maybe I'll be able to point you in the right direction," Naruto said, still bored. "I'm not even, liike, one of the strong Narutos? But I could beat you with all fourteen limbs tied."

Tayuya, Mei, and Fu all wanted to point out that tails weren't limbs, but from the ten-tailed demon's demeanor, they doubted their words would have any effect. With a wave of his hand, Naruto separated Yugito's corpse from Yuurei's grasp, and the red-eyed demon howled in agony before his spine split his back open as it was wrenched into an arc. Blood sprayed out behind Yuurei, and Naruto's disappointment only grew deeper. Reversing that hand wave, the damage was immediately healed—but Yugito's body stayed far away from Yuurei.

Enraged, Yuurei summoned one of his sandworm teeth, violently thrusting toward Naruto's face.

"That's the spirit!" Naruto cheered, somewhat mockingly, as the crystalline tooth impacted his left eye...and shattered into innumerable pieces.

Though Fu and Mei were startled by that scene, Tayuya drew back as if she'd been slapped; the only thing she'd ever seen that weapon fail to cut was the demonically-evolved Kubikiribouchou, and this not-Yuurei had destroyed it just by letting it touch him. Yuurei's expression was even uglier, a youki-infused punch crashing brutally into Naruto's abdomen. Forcing his youki into the other demon's body, Yuurei's nine tails seemed to sweep up a storm, waiting for its corrosive effect to take hold.

"YEEEEEEEEOOOOOW!" Naruto shouted at the top of his lungs, only to roll his eyes with a smile. "Kidding!"

The finger flick he delivered to Yuurei's forehead caved the bare-chested demon's face in, sending him flying.

"What the fuck?" Tayuya couldn't stop herself from speaking.

"Okay, I know I said I could beat him with everything tied, but like...shouldn't he be stronger than this?" Naruto asked. "What's up with that clown? Like, I am an absolute joke on the inter-universal stage. I'm not even good enough to be halftime entertainment. My mom's been dead for, like, fifty thousand years? And she could kick his ass. Man, whatever the hell I'm tripping on right now, I want a refund. I didn't even pay for it, and I want a refund."

"I think he lost most of his power opening the way to come here," Fu said. "Also, he healed Yugito's body back into one piece."

"So your Naruto is a tsundere?" A thoughtful look crossed Naruto's face as Yuurei's broken skull healed, and his ten tails undulated as he nodded in understanding. Pointing a finger, Naruto gathered youki before launching four devastating beams of bright pink energy. As those beams pierced Yuurei's knees and feet, they solidified, locking the nine-tailed demon in place as his Sharingan continued to spin.

"Jesus fucking Christ...if he even existed in your universe? Maybe it was just mine. I don't know many other Narutos who had to deal with religions in general, and only two or three lived in universes that developed Christianity. Fucked up to make a religious symbol out of your savior's execution. Anyway, holy cow, dude. You're pathetic. You're getting smoked by a ninja wearing bright orange. That's like getting your shit kicked in by Jangles the goddamn Moon Monkey," Naruto said.

"I understand absolutely nothing you just said." Yuurei didn't let his predicament hinder his anger, instead reaching out to attack Naruto once again.

"The fact that you share my face is an embarrassment, and I'm the Naruto that got trained wrong! I was literally trained wrong, by my mom, as a joke! You gave up the pursuit of power over a woman? What kind of failure are you? Great googly moogly, I'd rather go back to my universe and start another genocide than sit here and keep looking at you. But I won't! I won't! I'll do you a goddamn favor, and I'll beat the sense back into you!" Naruto shouted, completely ignoring Yuurei's attack.

The blue-eyed demon unleashed a devastating open-palmed slap that rocked Yuurei's world, causing the vertebrae in his neck to splinter as his face rotated three-quarters of the way around. With the backhanded strike, as broken bones tore Yuurei's face open, his head swiveled back to its original position before healing. With bare-handed chops that used no youki, Naruto crashed the sides of his pinkies into Yuurei's elbows, splintering the bones inside of them before ripping them off with nothing but the impacting force. Yuurei didn't even acknowledge the overwhelming pain, only staring more darkly at Naruto.

"You idiot! You piece of shit! Where's your pride? Where's your hunger? Get over yourself, and your grief, and your stupid fucking teenage angst! If Yugito means that much to you, why are Mei and Tayuya and Fu following you around? You're nothing! You're less than nothing! I have literally met dogs that put up more of a fight than you! The Crusader would have killed you just by LOOKING at you! I swear on every planet I enslaved, I would kill you if it wasn't so fucking clearly what you wanted! Give me your best shot—hit me! Fight me! Give me a hug!" Naruto screamed, beginning to slam his forehead into Yuurei's.

After the red-eyed demon's face had been thoroughly broken, for the second time, Naruto pulled his bloody face back to reveal that no damage had been done to him. The blood on his face belonged entirely to Yuurei, who was slowly healing; Naruto had become so focused on flaunting his overwhelming power that he failed to notice Yuurei's blood congealing into a series of thin ropes. As those ropes were formed, they craned towards Yugito's body, wrapping around her ankles as they pulled her backwards.

"What's that noi-FUCK!" Naruto screamed as Yugito's body barreled into him, audibly cracking his ribs as he was smashed into the ground. "You took...a body that was almost indestructible...and you gave it to a corpse? No! Fuck you! That's too stupid, even for a Naruto!"

A ring of twelve seals appeared in the air behind Naruto, rotating clockwise as the ten-tailed demon chanted in a language that nobody present could understand. Energy slowly began to leak out of Yugito's lifeless body, traveling towards Yuurei and melding with his flesh. Yuurei's natural red eye almost seemed to glow, boundless fury overtaking him as his strength began to return. Seemingly at will, his arms regrew themselves, and the pink spikes that tied him down were shattered only a few moments later. Blood leaked from the corners of his mouth, dripping down to the ground beneath him and sizzling before disappearing. Off to the side, Tayuya and Mei both collapsed in rapture, mindless bliss overriding anything they thought or felt in that moment.

In the next several seconds, Naruto thought about many of the choices that he'd made in life, and how they hadn't been good ones. Coincidentally, those seconds were spent getting his face beaten like a mass of molten steel inside a hydraulic press: repeatedly, rhythmically, and with all the strength that Yuurei could muster. Honestly, the attacks didn't do an enormous amount of damage to Naruto; if he left them alone, a small bruise or two might stay on his cheekbone for a day or two, but Naruto had become accustomed to being something like a small krill in a limitless ocean. Yuurei's attacks wouldn't really faze him.

"Oh, thank the gods, the nightmare of comedic ineptitude is finally ending!" Naruto cheered, open mockery plain in his tone, as the seals behind his back quickly faded. "Now we've moved on to regular incompetence. It's like I'm watching a chimp learn to use a hammer. Cone on, clown shoes! Hit me enough to make me bleed!"

Without ceremony, the blood that had become ropes all settled into the ground once more, fanning out in a series of lines within a predetermined circle. At an unseen signal, that blood shot up in a series of spikes that punctured Naruto's body all the way through; all the way across his torso, the blue-eyed, ten-tailed demon began to leak golden blood from his wounds. As Fu cringed, realizing that she was apparently the only normal person here, Naruto laughed in Yuurei's face.

"Oh, hell yes," Naruto said, not missing a beat. "Fuck my ass and call me Kabuto, but this feels good. I've missed this."

Twisting his body, Naruto broke free of the blood-spears, and his tattered robes repaired themselves. Reaching into Makai's energy-rich air, the blue-eyed demon materialized a giant fox skull. Placing his head inside of the gap in the lower jaw, Naruto felt the bony helmet shrink down to fit him, and stared out from between the dead fox's teeth. Idly, the ten-tailed demon wondered how long it had been since he'd communed with Kurama's skeletal remains—twenty thousand years? Forty thousand? More? The technique had mostly become irrelevant after he'd destroyed his third planet, and he'd only started doing that because he'd gotten bored of killing humans and watching their civilizations resurface. Or maybe it was those mushrooms...

"Tunguska!" Naruto's shout was accompanied by quickly raising his hands over his head, and a bright light filled the sky. As Fu lifted her eyes to see that approaching light, an overwhelming sense of impending doom came over her. All the same, she couldn't tear her eyes away from the majestic meteor that Naruto had called down. The light it gave off stretched in a straight line, from one horizon to the other, and the Nanabi Jinchuriki couldn't believe her eyes.

The sky itself had been split in half. Every instinct in Fu's body, and the demon she kept sealed inside of her stomach, all screamed that she was going to die.

"Tell you what, buddy...I'm getting bored again, so if you and your friends can survive this, I'll do you a favor and send you to the Blessed Lands. That's what you're aiming for, right? The magic trick you used to heal Yugito's body didn't bring her soul back. So now you're dragging one, two, three eligible bachelorettes around Makai, trying to find a way to the Blessed Lands? It's like you put seals on them that make them subservient to you, or something," Naruto said.

"No, that's it," Yuurei said. "It's a side-effect, though."

"Oh! No wonder you're so weak compared to me. You're a slavemancer! A...tsundere...slavemancer. Wow, okay, this makes no sense. I'm higher than my Mrs. Pac Man score. That's the only explanation for th-" Naruto's words were cut off as the meteor he'd summoned began to scream. "Maybe I shouldn't have used a technique that can hurt me, too? Whatever, I'll live."

Yuurei jumped into the sky like a rocket, youki pouring out of his skin in an iridescent wave. As that youki sought to drill through the approaching meteor and break it into pieces, At the same time, his grounded blood began to move under his command; the circle of blood expanded, working itself into patterns that only Naruto vaguely recognized.

"You learned the Crusader's Fuinjutsu?" He asked, taken aback, but Yuurei ignored him. A thin curtain of yellow light rose up from the ground at the edges of the seal, which encompassed the demons, Fu, Yugito's corpse, and the unmoving bodies of Mei and Tayuya. That curtain seemed to bend upwards, trying and failing to make a perfect dome. With an awe-inspiring rumble, the meteor crashed into that yellow curtain. As Mei and Tayuya finally recovered, struggling to stand, everyone inside of the sealing circle felt their brains shake.

Moments later, the meteor bounced off of the yellow curtain. Landing in the earth, it sent the land spraying outward; the shaking ground, blinding light, and explosive heat only faded after several minutes. Slowly blinking as he took in the scenery around him, Naruto watched the seal lower itself, and sighed as he looked around.

"It's gonna take me at least a decade to fix that," he said, his ten tails curling around his body like claws. "You know what? Fine. Go to the Blessed Lands. Get her back. Waste their time for the next fifty years. You three know that he doesn't love you, right?"

"He won my war and gave me power," Mei said. "Also, he put a seal on me."

"He blew up my home village and left me with no choice but to follow him. I don't love him either," Fu announced, with a neutral look on her face. It wasn't like she held a lot of love for the residents of Takigakure, but she did miss the quiet life she'd led in her mushroom forest.

"The chase is better than the catch," Tayuya shrugged. "And he's not the only one who misses Yugito."

In the three months or so that Tayuya had known Yugito, she'd come to consider the blonde a close friend; maybe it was because of their shared bond over being pressed into Yuurei's service by the seals he'd placed upon them. Maybe it was that living in Otogakure allowed for very little socializing outside of her contact with the Sound Four. Maybe it was that Yugito had struggled and suffered through a familial and cultural bias against women and Jinchuriki, let alone women who were Jinchuriki, and she also had no friends. It was probably all of the above, and more.

"Okay, fair enough, I'll accept that answer. But, uh, this is gonna be a one-way trip. Once you're in the Blessed Lands, it's on you to find your own way out. Not gonna say it's impossible, but there's a reason you don't see people rising from the dead. Probably multiple reasons," Naruto said, making a series of hand seals that nobody else recognized.

In much the same way that Yuurei had torn the air open on the battlefield near Kirigakure, Naruto caused a circular tunnel of bright light to appear. Without hesitation, Yuurei picked up Yugito's lifeless body and walked into that light; his three female companions followed close behind him. After they passed through it, the tunnel closed, and Naruto was left alone again. Walking back to his throne, which had somehow survived the meteor's impact, he sat down and took up the position he'd been in before the quartet and corpse had arrived: with his left elbow on the appropriate armrest, and his head leaning into his left hand.

"I definitely hallucinated that," he said, his blue eyes looking toward the distant horizon with a bored expression. "What kind of moron would want to break into the afterlife? If I didn't hallucinate it, somebody else is going to show up soon."

Just as Naruto said that, a distant black blip appeared at the edge of his vision.

"No. I refuse to let this happen." The demon's ten tails wrapped around his body and throne, curling into a bubble that quickly vanished from existence.