The following morning Naruto was awakened by sunlight streaming in through the blinds of the room he shared with Guy-sensei, Kakashi-sensei, and the supposed god, Dave (Lalonde?) Strider. Naruto was still a little confused about the god… and how he managed to summon the gods here… and pretty much everything about Dave's existence in general but hey, with everything that was going on he really didn't have time to be worrying about that.

"Aaaah good morning!" Naruto said, stretching sleepily from his makeshift bed on the floor.

"Good morning Naruto!" Guy said, seeing that the genin on their squad was awake. "Kakashi and I will get started on packing up. Will you wake Dave for us?"

"No problem!"

With his back turned to both of his teammates, Kakashi was able to roll his eyes at their enthusiasm in peace as he worked on repacking his sleeping arrangements.

Dave was still asleep on the floor, sunglasses on and everything. It didn't look like he had moved a single muscle all night, as he slept in the same position he had fallen asleep in. "Alright, hey… Shades Guy wake up we're goi – " Naruto had barely placed a hand on Dave's shoulder when suddenly he had leapt up from his slumber, grabbed Naruto's wrist, twisted his arm behind his back, and tackled Naruto to the floor, pressing his face to the ground and keeping him there with a well-placed knee digging into the sixteen-year-old's back. Naruto yelled in surprise as he was slammed against the floor, and as quickly and suddenly as he had been disarmed, Dave let go, stood up looking somewhat surprised with his own actions, and backed away. Both Kakashi and Guy had stopped what they were doing and pulled kunai knives.

"Hey what gives, man!" Naruto said, jumping to his feet. Guy and Kakashi flanked his sides.

Dave held up his arms in an 'I surrender' gesture. "Shit, sorry." He stammered. That's when Naruto noticed how unsteady Dave's breathing was, and the slight tremble in his hands, like he had drunken way too much caffeine, or was genuinely terrified. "Don't ever wake me up – jesus fuck."

"What the hell was that?!" Naruto demanded, still looking affronted.

Dave put his hands down and took a shaky breath. "Uh… sorry. I didn't mean to – just don't wake me up, okay? Can't control my reflexes." Under his breath he added, only loud enough for Kakashi's ears to pick up, "Shitty childhood spider senses why'd you always make me do that? Dammit."

The silver-haired shinobi lowered his weapon. "Are you alright?"

A strange look crossed Dave's face, before he responded with a half-hearted chuckle. "Hah. Sure. I will be. Just give me a minute. Sorry, Naruto I should have warned you guys about waking me up last night I uh, there's really nothing I can do about that sorry." Dave seemed to be calming down – his hands stopped shaking and his breathing came less sporadically, and more steadily. Realizing that Dave was showing more signs of trauma than a genuine desire to attack and harm them, Guy also put down his weapon.

"Well Alright." Guy decided. "Pack up your things when you're ready and we'll get going."

"Aye, aye, Captain." Dave nodded and quickly got to work, eager to move past that debacle. Naruto frowned angrily but didn't say anything.

The group exited the village around ten that morning, following the same path they had taken in pursuit of Dave en route for their return to Konoha. They walked in silence for the first two hours of their journey, thoroughly making both Naruto and Dave uncomfortable, though neither would admit that. Finally, around noon, it was Guy who broke the silence.

"So Dave… you're that Rose girl's brother, eh?"

"Unfortunately." Dave said deadpan, then he broke his chilly façade in favor of a fond laugh. "I'm only joking. When it comes down to it Rose is a pretty rad sister. Yes, she's all cold sarcasm and merciless teasing but I guess that's a family trait so we get along."

"Cold sarcasm. That is something I noticed all right." Kakashi commented off-handedly.

"So Dave," Guy continued. "How is it that even though the two of you are twin siblings, you come from the 'Strider' clan where she carries the name of 'Lalonde'?"

"Simple." Dave said, inclining his head in Guy's direction. "We were raised apart. Didn't know we were even related much less that we were twins until we were thirteen. Back then we were just a bunch of smartass ten-year-olds who sometimes got on each other's nerves. Now we're like, two smartass twenty year olds who always get on each other's nerves and also happen to be related through shenanigans. So yeah, pretty much after we found out we were related our relationship shifted from friends to siblings."

"You're twenty?"

"Yeah but what does that even matter age is just as pointless as life goals and religion. It's just some stupid number used to assess the period of a person's life we're in – it tells you nothing. I'm also 7.7 sweeps old if you wanna go by ridiculous Alternian numbers. But again, why would that even matter? It doesn't. Age is as pointless as Ben Stiller's face. Haha actually no that was bad there is definitely a point to Stiller's face if you know what I mean."

"Uh… no I don't know what you mean." Guy looked confused.

"That's okay. It was funny. Just take my word for it." Dave asserted.

"Okay…"

Naruto suddenly broke into the conversation. "Wait there's still something I don't get." He announced loudly.

"Oh boy…" Kakashi looked a little worried.

"What's up?" Dave asked.

"How did you beat Orochimaru? And walk away without a scratch?" Naruto demanded.

"How'd I beat who?"

"Orochimaru!" At this point Naruto was clearly getting angry.

"Never heard of him."

"Arge! YES YOU HAVE! We talked about him for like ten minutes yesterday and you kept mispronouncing his name!" Naruto thrust his hands in the air in frustration.

"Oh yeah Lord Obo-chimp-a-ra-ra." Dave said.

"It's OROCHIMARU!"

"Uh… A-roach-email-roo?"

"No. Lord O-ro-chi-ma-ru."

"I can't fuckin pronounce that. I give up. Also I don't care."

"Ugh! I don't understand!" Naruto said, holding his head in his hands. Then, to everyone's surprise, Dave laughed.

It wasn't just a chuckle or a scoff to wave off his questions. It was an actual laugh, and a rather mischievous one at that, breaking his face to reveal a white smile and dimpled cheeks.

"Hey calm down it's no big deal. I didn't actually even fight him, per se. I just knocked him out real agile-like and absconded the fuck outta there." Dave said, finally giving Naruto an answer to his question, an amused expression on his face. "Ever since the game ended I've been a self-proclaimed pacifist. I don't like to fight so I avoid it at all costs. Then again Lord Obo Chimp did try to attack and kill me so what was I gonna do, sit there and be like hur-derp I don't fight let's form a friendship circle and discuss the meaning of life while braiding ourselves unity crowns out of hippie flowers? Hell no. I was like oh no shit just got serious better put on my serious face, which by the way I only keep in emergency reserve for moments that are so seriously serious no sassy sidekick of any caliber ironic or otherwise could ever diffuse the seriousness of the situation. When I put on my serious face you know shit just got frickin dire up in here. Dire is just a better word for serious, by the way.

"So like, A-roachy-rugrat told his sidekick or whatever, I think his name was a pokemon… it was like Kabutops or something stupid. Uh, anyways, Oral-chip-a-rugrat was like I choose you Kabutops! And I was like god damn what is this a shitty Bond movie? But obviously I didn't wanna get stabbed in the face because nobody wants that so I put aside my anti-fighting code or whatever and froze that son-of a bitch like a boss. Then I whipped out my sword, knocked everyone out cold with its handle, and made a beeline for the woods. So yeah, we didn't actually fight."

"You 'froze' him?" Kakashi asked, since Naruto still looked too stunned to form a coherent question.

"Yeah. But let's not elaborate on that right now. Shit be complicated." Dave said, shoving his hands in his pockets.

"Alright. Then may I ask you something else." Kakashi asked.

"Shoot."

"What is this game you played? Your sister mentioned it briefly when I met her but she didn't seem to want to talk about it."

Dave's expression did not appear to change, and Kakashi might not have noticed the sudden tightening of his muscles or the downward twitch of his lips if he had not been watching for his reaction. For a moment, Dave did not respond and a waiting silence encompassed the group. The silence wasn't as cold as it was when Kakashi had asked Rose about the game, however it did contain a certain chill.

"Well?" Naruto asked suddenly, breaking the ice. "Are you going to answer Kakashi-sensei's question or not?"

Dave's head jerked at the noise, as if he had been suddenly pulled from a terrible daydream. "Huh? Oh. Uh… yeah. Yeah…." Dave looked away for a moment, frowning. "The game was… I mean… Fuck I don't know how to explain this. Maybe it'd be better if we didn't get into it anyway. That's some complicated stuff and it'll only lead to more and more questions that will be more and more difficult to answer. But uh, yeah Rose and I and two of our friends, John and Jade, played this game or I guess you could say the game played us." Dave laughed bitterly. Then he cleared his throat and looked at the waiting group of shinobi. "What would you say if I told you your universe was a frog?"

A silence.

Then.

"What?" Naruto was the only one to say anything. Beside him, Guy made a noise that suggested he was more than a little weirded out and confused.

Dave chuckled without losing his poker face, which was impressive. "Yeah that fact never sounds not excruciatingly retarded. Okay anyways the point I was trying to make with that question is that the game would be incredibly hard to explain, and even if I tried and got through the whole story there'd still be a possibility you wouldn't understand any of it. It's kind of something you've got to live through in order to get, get it? Kind of like how a guy can never really know what it feels like to be a girl and a girl can never really know what it's like to be a guy. You would have to have lived through it to fully understand."

Kakashi nodded thoughtfully. "Well." He said after a moment. "Try me."

A pause.

"Alright dude, you asked for it. Don't say I didn't warn you. I'll start off with something small." Dave said with a shrug as they continued their sprint through the woods. "We played a game called Sburb. But then again, like I said before, we didn't really play it. It played us. We were always destined to play it from the start. Sburb is the reason all of us were created. It is the reason we ascended to god-hood. And it is the reason your universe exists whereas mine was blown up in a fiery apocalypse. It's pretty much the pimpmaster hussledaddy of all ethereal super-shenanigans. John, Rose, Jade and I… we're just it's pawns."

"You lost me already." Naruto scratched his head and squinted his eyes.

"Shit. Okay disregard everything I just said. Um, I guess I'll start at the beginning from my perspective. So I was friends with John, Rose, and Jade over the internet and we chatted like every day over pesterchum."

"The internet?" Questioned Guy.

"Pesterchum?" Naruto looked at Dave like he was crazy.

Dave stared back at them with a blank expression while the two waited for a response. Finally, after a slight pause he said, his voice a flat line, "You don't have the internet?"

"No…"

"Kay so this is pointless." Dave said with a groan. "See I told you. It's going to be impossible to understand. The reality I grew up in is so much different than the reality we're in now there is literally no way you can relate to any of this. If you don't know what the internet is you probably don't have computers do you? So none of the important technology I'm going to be mentioning will make sense and therefore this entire shitty story won't make sense. I mean, just wait until the sprites come into play, and then the trolls and the consorts and denizens and mythological questy bullshittery and exiles and moon bombs and demon puppets and cherubs. Not to mention multiple selves and alternate timelines. And just from the day I've spent here in your world I already know its hella different from what mine was so you won't even be able to comprehend the most basic parts of our origins. This isn't going to work I give up."

"Hey you can't give up on us already!" Naruto protested.

"Look its useless trying. Maybe Rose will be able to figure out a way to make sense of the nonsense that is our ridiculous story. And by ridiculous I do mean really fucking retarded. It's so idiotically complex like you just have no idea."

"I think I get it." Kakashi cut in. "Or at least, I understand the basic concept. You befriended your sister and your two other friends over some sort of system of communication which did not involve you meeting face to face."

Dave shrugged as if to say 'not bad' and said, "Alright yeah that's a pretty basic way to put it but you get the gist of it. So I became friends with John, Rose, and Jade over the internet. Like you said, we never saw each other face to face we just got to read what each other wrote. Life was pretty simple for a while. I'd get up in the morning, do some martial arts training, avoid my psychotic brother, listen to music, write some shitty comics, and talk to my friends. Then, the day of John's thirteenth birthday, everything changed.

"We had known for a while now that the world was ending. Meteors poured from the sky bent on our planet's total annihilation like it was nobody's business. Of course nobody knew where the fuck these seemingly completely random meteors were coming from. They would just like, appear from nowhere space and hit random places all around the world. The day of John's thirteenth birthday was the worst day, though. That's the day the meteors really started to hit hard. Essentially, it was the last day for humankind. Our humankind at least. Obviously your humans still exist but our humans were completely wiped out like some fat guy took a nasty dump on the spacetime continuum and did a really thorough job of wiping his asscrack."

"Gross." Naruto said.

"Yeah. So anyways that day Rose was pestering me over the internet trying to get me to play this game with her cuz I had a copy of it. I didn't really want to play though because I'm not really all that into video games and it looked dumb. Also I was kind of being a stubborn little shit. Anyways she eventually broke me down into saying that I'd play that game with her if we were ever in the position where the game would save her life. So of fucking course, eventually we get into the position where the game is literally the only way to save all of our lives. Like it turns out it sends you somewhere else in space entirely, the Medium. Once we found that out all of us were like holy shit this is how we escape this shitty fire apocalypse like let's go. So we all connected, Rose as John's server player, me as Rose's, and Jade as mine. After we entered the medium, though, is when shit went haywire. I mean, not that the complete destruction of our civilization wasn't already crazy, but once we got into the game we started to find stuff out about reality and how it really worked. Turns out the world is a really fucked up place." Dave looked over at his audience, and seeing the expressions on the three ninja's faces, decided it would be best to stop talking. They looked a little lost. Not that he blamed them, really. To them it was probably like he was speaking a foreign language. "Oh, uh, sorry guys. Did I get a little carried away?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Naruto said. Guy looked equally baffled.

"I think I understand at least a little." Kakashi said. "I'm just not entirely sure I believe you."

"If you don't believe me now just wait until later things just keep getting more and more complicated. Things literally never stop from keep happening, always."

"Hmm." Kakashi looked thoughtful. "Let me see if I fully grasp what you've explained so far. On the day of your friend John's thirteenth birthday, the world ended because meteors from space were colliding with the earth."

"Yes."

"You discovered that this game, Sburb, could save you and your friends from the destruction the rest of your species faced."

"Pretty much."

"So you somehow started to play this game, and it transported you off of your planet, to another place called 'the Medium', while the rest of the humans on your planet perished."

"Basically." Dave said.

"And sometime after you escaped the apocalypse with Rose and your two friends, you became a god and created the universe in which we presently preside." Kakashi flat lined.

"Um-hmm." Dave hummed a yes. "But believe me it gets more complicated from there."

"Pardon me if I refuse to believe this right away. I've experienced a lot of crazy things in my day but I'm not sure I'm ready to believe this… story. Because if what you say is true, not only does it imply there is a game out there with the power to create new universes, but it also insinuates that you and your sister are, in fact, aliens."

"Well, I mean, we pretty much are aliens, not gonna lie. And hey I don't blame you for not believing us, our story is a lot of callous untenable mind-numbing drivel about like, four thirteen-year-olds that get bullshit superpowers and go on magic stupid quests with a bunch of aliens to discover the reasons behind existence and fight some evil frog demons in paradox space. If I hadn't lived it I'm not sure I'd believe it either."

"Well alright then." Kakashi said, coming to the realization that asking questions would be pointless. Just Dave's last two sentences alone caused about 50 new questions to pop into his head.

"Oookay." Naruto said, narrowing his eyes at Dave and frowning. Guy just looked downright perplexed.

"Yup." Dave said completely calmly. "Reality is fucked up. Sometimes I feel like there's this really smug douchebag out there who controls everything and he's just sitting at his desk or whatever laughing his haughty little ass off while we squirm around in confusion over the nonsense that is our most basic existence."

"Uh…" Naruto squinted his eyes again, scowling. Okay he's crazy – so much for cool god friend.

Kakashi sighed. "Well we're almost to the village. It won't be long now."

"Sweet." Dave said.

Naruto couldn't have agreed more.

AN: Characterization tips? I feel fairly confident in my ability to write the Homestuck kids but feel like I'm lacking in the Naruto character department. I feel like I'm writing Kakashi too much like Rose. gaaah help