A/N: (EDIT)

Do you want me to cry? Because I will. All these flames here and on A Most Unlikely Wraith are really upsetting...

So...Double update.

Yay. Whoo. Celebration.

Let me be blunt here real quick.

I. DO NOT. GET PAID TO. WRITE ANY OF THIS.

Zilch! Zero! Nadda! I don't get a single cent for any of this and I've HAD offers to write elsewhere-commissions and such-as well as other stuff for pay! Offers I've turned down! Instead I take time out of an arduous work week involving TWO JOBS and I bust my ass to get these stories out. Updates are planned for everything unless I DELIBERATELY say otherwise. I don't know what else to say here.

Why so serious, you ask? Moon Cancer got panned. Temptress got panned, too. Some folks were cool about it, listing reasons and such. Others...well, not so much. Don't believe me? I kept most of the nasty reviews around this time. Look. SEE THEM.

You know what? Just for that? You guys get another story. My gift to the fans, and a big 'ol middle finger to the flamers trying to tear me down. Go on, trolls. By all means. Keep poking the hornet's nest. I'll keep right on writing way up here just to spite ya daft buggers. Nasty words only add to the review count, and I can certainly take heart in the fact that there are those who care about me on this site. To those that have stuck with me through this like kuramathetranscened and others, thank you.

Oddly enough, some think 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...

Alternate universe by the way, if that wasn't obvious.

This story is, clearly, a test, an experiment of sorts.

Yes, this is a Naruko story, sorry about that.

But its a oneshot so...just give it a chance.

Sorry if its short~!

"I...help people. Its what I do."

~?

A Most Unlikely Girl

They tore my tongue out.

Such is the price of defiance in my village these days. For speaking out against the great Lord Hokage and his new reforms, the illustrious Danzo ripped away my words in the town square and then threw me in a cell. I did not scream. I did not give them the satisfaction of my tears. Perhaps he thought this torture so would break me; make me yield to this glorious new regime of his and thus break the backs of those who resisted alongside me. Ha! He should know better by now. I've suffered worse wounds than this. So go ahead. Try to silence me. You'll find its not as easy as you might think. A kunoichi needs not her tongue to fight.

When they stole my speech, I learned to sign.

When they broke my arms I kicked them.

When they broke my legs, I bit them.

Throughout it all I never bent, and thus I was never broken. Though I would never speak again, their torture never broke me. I throttled the first Root guard that tried to touch me, took his keys, and walked out. Root. Ha! And they call them Danzo's elite. The only thing elite about them is their incompetence. That old war hawk didn't realize I'd escaped until nearly a week later.

I say again, Danzo, what WERE you thinking?

I found ways to act against him the moment I recovered enough to breathe without choking on my own blood. Ino helped. Thanks to her, together, we pioneered a jutsu in which I could project my thoughts to others and conversely, to hide them. Still not the same as speaking, but it served me well in the long run. I was known for helping people of all sorts by then, and he thought that by wounding me, maiming me with so many around to witness said maiming, that he would have control.

It would've been wiser for him to take my hands.

Danzo Shimura is many things, but wise? Clearly not one of them.

Perhaps I'm not giving him enough credit. Why should he fear me? I was only sixteen.

Little more than a whelp in his eyes, freshly returned to Konoha. Did he think his coup would last? Did he think he could kill Tsunade and get away with it? I'd never seen Jiraiya so angry. No doubt Danzo believed I would serve as a living example of the price of defiance. Idiot. The people loved me for it. Like my mother, they said. Defiant to the last. Was I? I don't know. I've never met her.

But I HAVE met Jiraiya, and I was more than happy to help my old teacher beat that bastard into the ground.

People rallied to us in droves for it, yet somehow, I was the one they made Hokage years down the road. Damnit, Jiraiya!

Still. Being mute isn't so bad these days. I can still hear, still think, and my jutsu's proven quite handy. Shikamaru helps with the verbal orders.

Lazy bugger. But he's MY lazy bugger. That's what matters.

I never lost control of my temper throughout the ordeal, though the last of Danzo's supporters spun their web of lies. My will stood steadfast. Ironclad. I never let Jiraiya go and hunt Akatsuki. When Pain and the last of his ruined organization came knocking on our door, they found a VERY angry village and all her allies waiting for them. I was a Sage by then. Have you SEEN two angry sages fight? Nagato never stood a chance. Though the village suffered, we saved all we could.

I remember the old pervert shouting at me as I went around healing people with a broken arm. Perhaps things could have been different. Perhaps more of them could've survive if we'd found a better way. I tried. I healed a great many of people, even save Kakashi-sensei from chakra exhaustion, but we lost many.

So...so many.

I did not submit.

I will not never give in, not ever.

When "Tobi" and Sasuke came knocking we overwhelmed them, knocked the latter out flat and eradicated the former. That eye of his was even more troublesome. We lost Shino and Kiba trying to pin him down. But their sacrifice will never be forgotten. Thanks to them, Madara's infamous "Moon's Eye" plan fell apart. I met the Sage of Six Paths and accepted his mark, one I would carry for the rest of my life.

There was no war afterward, only the mad machinations of an oily snake calling himself Kabuto. We dealt with all the same...though I managed to wriggle the secrets of a certain jutsu from him before I took his head. I pray I need never use it. Edo Tensei sounds...ghastly. No. Best to let the knowledge die with me.

A bit anticlimactic, isn't it?

Sakura-bah!-got her precious Uchiha, but he'll never see the light of day now. Not when he's mad as a hatter...and blind as one too. His clan will die with him. And you know what? I think I'm alright with that. I kept my promise. She can have that emo boy for all I care. I've got other problems to deal with. Why do I have to get married all of a sudden, oi?! I don't wanna! Continue the Uzumaki line? Material for another book? I don't get it, why would you-wait. What do you mean another? Did you already write one about me and Shika?! Tell me you didn't. YOU DID?! I...you...how?! When did you even see...?!

...

...

...

...I'm going to clobber Jiraiya.

I heal the innocent and condemn those who would cause chaos. Right now? A certain pervert's looking plenty guilty to me.

Look. I know I'm not quite right in the head. I get that. I...help people. Its what I do. What I was born for.

If that makes me Mad, then so be. I'll help people. Even if it kills me.

Let me help. I'll keep helping, even after I die. I don't mind.

Past, present, future...I'll help them all.

I'm just a girl. Nobody special.

So...please. Let me help.

(...0o0o0...)

At long last, the smoke cleared.

Kariya could feel the worms writhing in his veins in response to the new arrival in the pit, their agitation slowly killing him with each passing moment. He wanted to rip them out of his body, dash them against the stones and crush them underfoot. He wanted them gone. But he couldn't. He dare not. Without them he wouldn't have been able to conduct a ritual. There wouldn't BE a Servant. Without a Servant he couldn't fight in the War to come, and if he couldn't fight, he wouldn't be able to save Sakura.

His poor adorable little niece, cast aside by Tokiomi.

His throat locked up at the thought.

He had to to do this.

Endure.

With this thought lurking at the forefront of his mind, Kariya gripped his injured arm and willed himself to stand. Zouken was watching him. He couldn't afford the slightest show of weakness. Not here. Not now. He had to be strong. Even if it cost him his body. Even if it cost him his mind. Even if it cost him his very soul.

This should be Berserker. Kariya knew this. Expected it even.

Instead, the girl he'd summoned barely came up to his shoulders at all.

Clad in a flowing-red white robe with a matching hat draped over her head, she didn't look the part. Even the garish crimson trousers and blue vest she wore beneath-doing absolutely nothing to conceal a rather generous bosom-lent the impression of Assassin or Rider, or even another class entirely. And yet Kariya felt himself go terribly still in her presence. As he looked on, she removed her hat and gave her head a hard shake as though a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Exposed were bright blue eyes framed by whiskered cheeks and sunny blond hair, the latter bound back in two twintails.

"Well!" A sharp, sudden thought that was not his own snapped through his head like a whip. "This is familiar! Are you the one who summoned me this time?"

Though her mouth never moved, the little blond tilted her head, tossed her hair, and considered him for a long moment.

Her gaze swept past him, alighted on Zouken, and swung right back to him in an instant.

"You don't look well. Here. Hold still. I have just the thing for you."

She stepped forward to lay a hand against Kariya's chest.

"Heal."

That lone word resounded in his mind like a peerless bell. Soft yet ancient, otherworldly and commanding.

Incredibly, his body obeyed.

The worms writhing in his body didn't die so much as they ceased to exist. Eradicated beneath that gentle touch. He wanted to tell her to stop; that in performing this act of kindness she was destroying herself, eradicating the temporary circuits that sustained her form in this world. But he couldn't speak. Words failed him. All that emerged was a rattling gasp. as he stumbled away, clutching at his chest. He felt the link between him and this Servant waver tremulously for a moment, hold, and then...

...snap.

Their brief contract ended as quickly as it had begun. Kariya nearly screamed, such was his frustration. The Girl twitched, but gave no other sign of discomfort. Her body seemed to shimmer slightly, a faint glow overtaking her features, but her expression never wavered, not in the least. Instead she rounded on Zouken, who had thus far held his tongue despite his own misgivings. No longer.

"What have you done?"

"You." the not-word was a hiss. "Your soul is rotten. Wrong.

"Ho?" Zouken sniffed, leaning against his cane. "Telepathy, is it? How quaint-

"Perish."

This word was all jagged edges, harsh and cutting.

She turned her gaze on Zouken and the ghastly creature ceased to be in an instant as pair of strange spheres rose behind her back and stabbed forward. Rather than laugh, the old worm burst into shrieking white flame as his body fell apart. His death was quick and instant, the destruction of his soul assured. Kariya couldn't help but turn his gaze away as he beheld his father's true form; something in him wilted at the sight of so many snarling insects rotting away under the cleansing inferno, turning to naught but ash.

"Don't move." the little blond pinioned him with a glare even as her body flickered. "I don't have much time."

He'd scarcely nodded before the young woman blurred-literally blurred!-away in an immediate golden streak of motion, pausing just long enough to pay him a passing glance. When she reappeared, a slumbering Sakura lay clutched tight in her arms, wrapped in the very cloak she'd been wearing. Almost as if she'd known exactly where to find her. As if she'd seen this before. Impossible. Absurd. Perhaps she'd simply sensed her somehow here in the crypt? Who know. Kariya's mind spun, still trying-failing-to find answers for this sudden turn of pace.

"Here."

She handed the slumbering girl off to him happily and numbly, he accepted.

By now the collapse had well and truly begun; she looked positively translucent compared to when he'd last seen her, bits of blue dust motes peeling off from her faltering form. Stumbling away from him like a drunkard at last call, she crashed headlong into a wall and groaned softly. A bandaged hand rose, waving him off when he tried to move to ehr side.

"I've healed her." she informed him primly, dropping onto her haunches. "The last few months won't even be a bad memory. You can send me away now, Master. I helped."

"I...wait!" Kariya sputtered incredulously. "Who are you? Why did you do this? Surely you must have some sort of wish!"

She was too good, too pure to be a Servant. She was an angel. She'd saved him and Sakura both. And now she was content to die again. That...that was just too sad. He hadn't been able to do anything. All of it-all of this here-had been her doing. What had he done? Nothing. Less than nothing.

Berserker considered his words for a time.

Then, incredibly, she smiled.

"Naruko. My name is Naruko. You already granted my wish this time, Master." Again came that brief mental caress, fleeting, almost mournful in its intimacy. "Thanks to you, I was able to help the child I could never have. To save someone just like the man I once loved. You remind me of him." Those gentle blue eyes crinkled. "You have the same kind of sou. Take care of her, will you? She deserves a better life than this. More than...this."

Sakura stirred in his arms, but Kariya scarcely noticed.

Instead he choked on words that refused to come; He barely knew her, this wayward Servant, yet her words cut him to the quick all the same. More than Aoi ever had. So why did this feel so familiar? A strange, splitting pain stabbed at the back of his skull and he found himself experiencing a strange emotion. Nostalgia. As if he'd experienced this somewhere-somewhen?-before, though he had not the words to describe. The pain was an angry red wave, scouring all before it. Where? Where?! Where had he seen here before?! In another universe, a time not so different from this, perhaps. Were they allies? Enemies? Something else entirely?

He clutched at his skull.

"My head...feels like its splitting open!"

"I know." came the answering sigh. "Multiverse theory's a bitch, isn't it? You'll be alright in a moment. I'm nearly gone."

Naruko rose slowly and stumbled over to him, shuffling on weak legs. She was crumbling now; there wasn't a thing he could do to stop it. Even as she reached for him, one of her arms crumbled away in a shower of wild blue dust, azure sparks tickling his nose as the rest of her joined it.

"Listen to me, and listen good." she snapped, seizing his chin in one hand, forcing him to look at her in spite of his rampant fear and confusion. "Avoid Tokiomi. At all costs. It doesn't end well whenever you go after him. I tried something different this time. I hope it works. Just take Sakura and go."

"How do you know all this?"

"Because we've done this dance before, Kariya." Her lone arm closed around him and a startled Sakura in a loving embrace. "Time and time again, an endless loop, a neverending series of deaths for you and I. You always forgot. I wanted to break the cycle. This was the only way I could think to do it. Only took me fifty tries." a cheeky grin flashed out at him as that familiar, comforting presence brushed his mind. "It was so nice to see you again...though this probably the last time." Warm lips pressed against his forehead. "I'll never forget you."

Something painful welled up in the young man's throat again; this time he pushed past it.

"Wait." Realization dawned. "You, how did you know my name-

One final smile she gave him, one last gift to him.

His hand closed around open, empty air.

"Find someone better than me."

Still, Kariya tried to hold on as the last of her faded. He felt as though he'd forgotten something terribly, horribly important, something that he would remember if given the chance. His last sight of her was that same smile from before, a tiny mournful little thing. She looked so small. So terribly sad. A cold, bitter breeze swept through his body and his free hand fought naught but azure dust in its fist. And then she was gone and he knew she was gone and felt somehow lesser for it. She...this girl...had just given her second life for him, vanished without so much as a regret. Her sacrifice had given him victory. He'd won. And yet...and yet...!

He doubled over himself, clutching Sakura to his chest.

Why did it feel as though he'd lost everything?

A small, tiny sob arose in the silence.

And he was alone.

"Don't go...

A/N: Yes, this is a oneshot.

Kudos if you know where the loop is from.

It ended on a happier note than intended at that.

Yes, it was sad, because I'm sad. Emotions affect my writing.

Its going to take a LOT of convincing to convince me to make it otherwise.

Remember, Servants can be summoned from the past, present, or even the future.

Make of these words what you will, but I did put a lot of work into this emotional scene, so...

...Review Would You Kindly?

R&R! =D