He choked on his own spit, trying to breathe through his tears (sun-damned human emotions, tears that do not stop at all) and desperately trying to leave whatever place he was in now, arms and legs frantically moving (his body was supposed to be older, sturdier, not to mention the inhumanly strong body he once left behind) and sliding along the fleshy walls of his prison.

A voice, sweet, Sister's Voice, lulled him to be calm (now that he looks, all around him, it's Sister) and he breathes slowly now, still trying to see, to hear, still twisting his body because lack of exercise will kill him. Sister caresses him, and he revels in her minute attention. Sister is as Mad as he, but Sister is the eldest and he is the Third, and the Five are completely (bat-shit) crazy.

So he grins and revels, and coos because Sister is caring for him in the way she can only care when there is no one (no one) looking at all, and that is just so rare. Sister needs him to stay alive, because if he isn't... well. It won't be pretty.

He chokes on his own spit, but he doesn't care because he is laughing his lungs out (the blood spattering the wall is so pretty) and the world tilts sideways and he laughs even more when he's inside that glass monstrosity filled with the green oil they love so much.

He laughs because (His) Reign is near-ending.

And as Unlucky Thirteen gather,

The All plots destruction at its peak,

Vengeance

Because Hate coils and poisons,

And Love does not heal at all.

"Will it work?"

"It has to."

"We've planned this for too long."

"How many minuscule variables have we let pass?"

"We'll recalculate after everything, I promise."

"We at least aren't going blind."

"Say, what of the newest?"

"She's Thirteenth, right?"

"Yes."

"Apparently, she's been named Luck."

"Seriously?"

"Yes. Father has issues."

"Always have had, Always will have."

"True."

"But trying to win Lady Luck?"

"Well, we never said he wasn't nuts."

"He's done us a favor, though."

"Oh, yes, we could use some luck..."

He's kneeling over their graves, because really... that's all he can do. She confessed to him a minute before she died (life was always full of ironies), and damned if he didn't feel guilty, because he could never love her back. He had said he was a brother, through marriage or not (only understood that when she said those things) and went to die a day before her.

"Naruto?"

He turned, startled, to see Sakura. Her hair, the vibrant pink having softened to the color of her namesake, was tied high at the back of her head, flopping over her shoulders with loose curls and wisps digging into the seams of her white doctor-coat. Her practical shirt beneath was faded red with spandex black shorts. Her heels were reminiscent of Tsunade's.

Little Yume, barely three-years-old, had what little had grown of her hair tied back in much the same way, comfortable shorts and shirt bellying she'd grow up like her father, from whom she had inherited the exotic hair color. Her chubby little face would grow to be like Sakura's, beautiful in it's own way, made exquisite by the silver hair twisting around her ears. Her eyes were green with a silver sheen-- though she was not blind-- and while to most she seemed retarded, both Naruto and Sakura know she is smarter than whoever says ill of her.

"Sakura-chan," he murmured demurely, almost lovingly, and beckoned the child, "Yume-chan."

Yume's eyes brightened and focused with alarming intensity before she smiled and carefully made her way to the blond. Naruto picked her up and allowed her to get comfortable on his left shoulder. "Ani-ue," she greeted him, already used to the title.

Naruto spared her a faltering smile before he turned to Sakura, "Anything new?"

"Another few have died," Sakura told him, face blank, "We're both lucky the poison didn't get to us, Naruto."

"Lucky?" he said, voice raspy.

"Yes," Sakura sighed, hand clasped in front of her, "and we have to make the best of that luck."

Naruto closed his eyes, taking a breath and trying to recompose himself before he nodded and turned a (finally) firm smile to Yume. "What do you say to training a bit with me, Little Dream?"

Yume smiled, eyes seemingly glowing silver and nodded enthusiastic. Training hard was the memento of her father (dear, dear Father that gave all those powers to her, how she loved him) and she, knowing her mother and Naruto would not refuse her, gently asked if they could go over the techniques of her father's clan.

Naruto's smile widened.

"What the fuuuck?" he stared at the eighth lit tube.

The teenager inside stared back.

"What the fuck are you doing awake, at any rate?" he asked, racking his brain for abnormal behaviour of the machines that could have caused this, "And how the hell are you here when your Fable isn't here?" he gestured to the thirteen altars.

The teenager raised an eyebrow before he, grinning, pointed to the third altar.

A small point of light, golden wisps twirling and coiling around the minuscule center, representing a fiercely glowing star sat on it.

He stared. Then he cradled his face in his hands and let out a string of curses that would make an ordinary person blush and hide under their beds for hours.

The teen in the glass tube grinned in amusement.

"You know," his voice was oddly distorted from inside the liquid, "I could teach a few more words you can use in that--"

"No, thank you," he interrupted with an oddly despaired voice, "I have better things to do with my time than learn words to let go of stress."

The teenager shrugged, still grinning. His hair was short at the back of his head, a fringe on the front falling over his eyes and the two bangs framing his face floated in front of him, being able to reach his waist.

"Do tell," the man began while gathering a small amount of the ingredients he used, "Where were you that you managed to get a body?"

The teenager looked up while thinking. "Sister caught me," he mumbled, trying to remember just what exactly happened, "She let me stay in her womb, growing like a normal human..."

"Damn," the man clumped all the ingredients together and ambled over to another side, where shelves gathered on the wall, filled with vials of dubious content, "Now let's see... counter human genetics... was it three across, four down or up?"

"I don't think she used a great deal of human genetics, you know?" the teen murmured thoughtfully, "She even managed to alter his--"

"Here it is," the man said gruffly, picking a medium vial off the shelf, "Even if she didn't use a good deal, having even a bit of human genetic means you're vulnerable to Him."

"Right," the boy hissed back, baring his fangs, "Because he's the All-Powerful-God-of-Fucking--"

"Would you mind some of your language?" the man snapped at him, mixing the content of the vial with the small clump of material he had gathered, "And mind you, saying that particular word will summon Him here, remember?"

The boy sulked, chastised, "I know..." but sun-be-damned, how he hated Him.

"I know," the man said while working on mixing his ingredients, "I lose no love for Him as well."

The man finished mixing, a sickly gray-green lump of something being the result. He grinned suddenly (this was his beloved job, after all) and with a smirk of amusement threw the lump of whatever inside the tube the teenager was in.

The boy yelped and threw himself away from it, face twisted in disgust. "What the fuck? Do you really expect me touch that?"

The man cackled, "You don't need to," he said gleefully, watching as the lump tried to gather, in the start of creating a fetus, before the lack of material made itself known and it began to fall apart, small particles disappearing in the liquid.

The teen frowned as it completely dissolved in the liquid, "You're kidding me, right..?" the man smirked, "Are you serious? That thing--"

He cut off, eyes wide.

"And the human genetics counter begins to take effect," the man murmured, hiding his cruel, amused smile. The teen opened his mouth in a silent scream and allowed his body to go limp, floating until the tip of his feet touched the bottom of the tube. Bones cracked, muscles snapped and regrew, skin melted and repaired, and so the process went on, until he was limp inside the glass, eyes half-lidded and unseeing in residual pain.

"Go to sleep," the man told him briskly, "I'll connect you."

Eyes that glowed aqua from within the liquid closed, and he slumped fully in the tube.

Far from anything, dark eyes looked up and frowned.

The three sleeping around his feet were inconsequential.

He had a feeling that things were wheeling, moving along, and for whatever reason, he felt pleased. It did not matter the burning in the back of his neck, meaning he was being watched.

It did not matter the man was a fiend, a servant of Father.

He was inconsequential.

The others were aligning. He had no real need to, as the Seventh and doubly blessed by Father, but he could care less. He would much rather side with his siblings than willingly follow that fowl excuse of a God.

He could not speak, but it did not matter.

Everything.

Was.

Wheeling.

In.

Place.

Break.

To Be Continued...