It was the beginning of the end.

Doooooom.

Those who were in a position of administrative authority over the world of Naruto were told that they were going to be needing to accelerate their schedules regarding the dominance of the world.

There were those that were coming and ready to usurp their dominance and that was… in a word… intolerable. The Minds were not willing to allow such a thing to occur and they were going to be reaffirming their dominance, securing their dominance and then taking the world as their own.

There was going to be no way that they were losing the world at all.

Nope.

There was going to be the biggest efforts that had ever been seen to consolidate the entire world under their control, to destroy everything that could possibly resist and then to build a functioning society from it.

It was going to be difficult.

Or perhaps not.

Actually, it was going to be rather easy now that they thought about it.

Or maybe not.

Dammit.

The First Shinobi War had ended and they had frankly lost so very little when it came down to it.

There were no weakened nations for them to take advantage of, nations that were going to be like fruit on a plate.

No, it was as if there had been nothing that they could leverage besides the outstanding amounts of debt that they were all in.

Conquest of the world was the first step and something needed to change immediately if they wanted to be ready in time for the 60 year deadline.

The HeMUs in charge were frankly not that great at ideas, their main "inspiration" as it was coming from the Minds, them telling them what they needed to do, but in this case suddenly creating millions of shinobi with which to conquer the world with was going to be more than difficult… or rather it was cheating and the Minds didn't like to cheat (any more than necessary).

Something else needed to be done and they were exploring their options, of which there were pathetically little.

The Shinobi weren't exactly bleeding for choices here and that was nothing if not depressing.

Perhaps they should go and ask the Client races? They surely had good ideas on how to conquer a continent right? It wasn't as if they were like… not good at it. They had done it lots of times before!

With this thought fresh in their Minds the HeMUs prepared to ask the client races how one went about conquering worlds before a thought stopped them.

Didn't they go and conquer worlds with technology? How were they going to conquer a world that was purely magical?

A question for the ages.

(The methods to conquer worlds do not depend on technology but the HeMUs were HeMUs for a reason sadly.)

And so it came to their attention that they needed another avenue by which to find the answers that they sought and it came to them from an unlikely source.

Or perhaps it was a likely source that was made unlikely because it was a source and… the HeMUs lost themselves and needed a reboot at that.

They had their villagers did they not? Villagers that were like… living creatures?

Like the organics of the client races?

Genius.

They would ask their organics to do the stuff and the… and the finding of the perfect way to conquer a continent of people in the next 10 years while also being inferior in numbers and overall combat strength.

Of course they had to follow tradition and do it through dreams and random mumblings and stuff, otherwise, that would cheating as well… The Minds thought everything was cheating now that they thought about it. It really did limit their options.

It was going to be difficult, but if it truly became too much they could always get serious and then shatter the world or something.

There would be no world to conquer if there was no world in the first place!

Genius.

Chiho was a perceptive woman. A very perceptive woman.

You had to be when your main point of contact was the Minds. To be anything less was to ask for the immediate and proper destruction of your sanity.

Which was why when the atmosphere of the City of Rice began to change, she began to feel uneasy. There was always a change in the atmosphere before everything went to hell or so her predecessor had explained to her in one of their meetings before the woman had allowed herself to die.

The official cause of her death was old age, but Chiho always thought that it was the stress of dealing with the Minds on a constant basis that had killed the woman. She had only thought of this ever harder the more time she spent with them.

Regardless, it had taught her the importance of dealing with her peoples, of always having a hand in every pie so that when push came to shove, she could throw the piece they hated the most in their faces… or were allergic to if that was possible.

There was no mercy from Chiho, the Minds had taught her that, one sign of weakness and they would be all over you like a shinobi on a… a… a… scroll.

Right. A scroll.

Anyway, Chiho felt that it was time to go for a walk to get a feel of her city, of her people and make sure that there wasn't any Mind induced stupidity that was going around today. Like them being told to dress in bright pink to show solidarity but in fact did nothing but blind the eyes of innocent people with their ugliness.

Or maybe the Minds had convinced everyone that it would be a good idea for them to have babies at the same time so they could all celebrate the same birthweek, or even worse so they could celebrate a single birthday.

It had taken a special amount of skill for her to convince the city not to do that, the triplets being especially susceptible to the influence of the Minds who were certainly nowhere near being good role models.

She was going to have her work cut out for her today if that mood was reaching this far up.

She sighed.

Off to work then.

Wandering about the city, Chiho considered that maybe things weren't so bad.

Indeed the city was something that she could be proud of whenever she went outside and saw it, each time like the first time.

It was a beautiful city, she could see that and she could appreciate that. It was not some kind of disgusting fetid wasteland like… ummmm… she was sure that there was a city that fit that description, but for Chiho it was all about the City of Rice, she had been groomed for the role and had never left.

It was clean, it was beautiful, it was amazing and it was a city that you could get lost in and be happy about it.

There wasn't going to be anyone trying to steal your money, or anyone trying to scam you, or anyone being a terrible anyone, the enforcers took care of them readily enough.

No, it was the matter of the getting lost and finding something new and wonderful. Like the small patch of Winter Melon that she had found not 10 minutes from the office last month, truly something wonderful.

She smiled and waved at the shopkeepers, the families of the higher ups who had offices in the area and wandered out.

She was going to be paying a visit to something new, she did hope that they did not dissolve into a panic at her visit, that took all of the fun out of it… hehehehehe.

As she wandered about the city, her own bodyguard making sure that there wasn't going to be any unpleasant surprises, like the kind that got people killed, those were especially bad, Chiho checked the general state of the city.

It was not a Jutsu, nor was it something that one learnt from a textbook since those hadn't quite worked out how to transfer sensations and the like as of yet.

No, for her it was a case of just experience, the subtle nuances of expressions, the way the gardens were kept, the way clothes were worn, the tone of voice, the graffiti, all of it adding up in a mental checklist.

One that told her just how her city was feeling.

And it was feeling… antsy.

Infection of the mind perhaps?

Not an actual infection, but a psychological one that dug away at the psyche and then did things to you.

Very bad things possibly.

Little gossip here, little rumour there and then you have a full blown infection that would need very careful and deliberate exorcism to remove.

Chiho considered briefly that maybe it would be too much trouble… then she decided that it was her City and as much as she didn't want to have to deal with the constant amount of work that was her City… it was also her job.

And so Chiho using her instincts or whatever it was that they were shuffled her way through the city, nodding to various little humans here and there, nodding to the people who were busy being people, nodding to… Isobu that was here to help them set up… ummm… oh right. Chiho remembered that a form had come across her desk, one that asked for a large fishtank or something of the like on the 3rd level.

She wasn't sure why and how, but apparently Isobu was helping them out with it, building up a coral bed of some kind, making transparent coral? He could do that?

And then transporting fish using floating balls of water. He really was fitting in wasn't he?

Chiho waved at him and he waved back at her as she kept meandering through the city, making sure that she was paying attention to the everything.

She wanted to know exactly what this source of… difference was… what it was that was going on here and why it was that her people were being so very very strange.

Still, it wasn't all bad. She saw the new Akimichi restaurant that had opened up and chuckled. They were certainly buying enough of their products, why not make a store right in the city where everything was as fresh as it could possibly be? The Branch families that had come with the delegations were working their way around the city. The Akimichi from Konoha had their restaurants, the Inuzuka were providing tracking services… something that was rather important when you lived in a city that was now at 12 levels high and about 3 times wider than it had been before.

For Chiho this was the kind of situation that you thought would be a very good thing. The kind of thing that was very very nice… but it had problems out the ass.

She had to make sure the different clans were all playing along all over the place, that they were going to be making sure that the City wasn't going to implode after the different clans killed each off trying to settle grudges and everything else that the clans were doing.

Why didn't they just meld their clans and everything else at the same time? Then everyone would be able to live happily ever after without a need to worry about the crazy little things like for example having to deal with homicidal groups of clans that wanted you dead.

She sighed as she thought about that, shinobi were always a little weird…

Which then brought up the next bit of bitterness… that being that the difference that she noticed was emerging from the triplets.

Or a few triplets… very few of them that were looking like something very… big was happening.

Apprehension radiated from their very being… or rather it wasn't apprehension but rather... excitement.

They were expecting something and Chiho was very worried.

What was worse was that more than a few of her own people were looking like they hadn't had a good night's sleep in weeks.

Dammit, why was her clan so weird.

"Kage! Kage!" She heard, looking back and she saw what looked like a Genin that wanted to pull her back.

"What is it?" She asked looking at them… the triplets just counted as a single entity in her mind.

"The Minds want to meet you!"

Ohohohohooohohohoho?

Maybe they wanted to confess before she decided to make her way over to check on them personally?

Chiho followed the little messenger as she made her way to the Minds.

Something about there being an urgent message that needed to be relayed to her or something of the like?

She wasn't too sure but the boy had been out of breath and he had just said 'Minds' and some gibberish. Not that it mattered, she knew that it was the Minds that needed her attention and she was going to be damned if she was going to let them off that easily.

Ignore the Minds and the entire world was going to turn into a shithole… yes.

That was a good way to describe it.

Chiho muttered to herself as she walked to the central trunk that the Minds were housed in, muttering even louder the closer she came. The civilians and shinobi and everyone ignored her, they understood that it took a special kind of someone to meet with the Minds on a regular basis.

She was also the Daimyo and the Kage and whatever title she wanted to have this week so annoying her right now when she was clearly preoccupied by whatever it was that the Minds were doing was going to be very bad for them.

As for Chiho she made her way forward, ready to see whatever it was that the Minds wanted her for.

As she stood before them, raising her head and staring at the one right in front of her (she couldn't stare at all of them, what was she? Isobu?), face set in a disapproving frown.

"What is it Minds." She said, long ago having abandoned any kind of pretence to politeness when she was in their company.

"Little Chiho. It is good that you have arrived. It is fortuitous that you have come. You are ready to be inducted into the deepest secrets of our clan. Are you ready?" They said… without any prior warning.

"No," Chiho said. Denying them outright.

Whatever it was, was going to be the height of stupidity, she was sure of it.

Likely involving giant robots or something equally bloody annoying and she didn't need something like that right now.

Her clan was in trouble and she needed to find out what exactly was going on here.

Nope, not now… not ever if she was being honest.

Give her a desk and some paperwork any day of the week, she was too damned old for this.

Let those youngsters do the trials that needed them to do crazy bouts of agility and fighting their way across ravines filled with crocodiles or something and leave her to do her business.

Yes, that was a perfectly good idea, why didn't they do that?

Just invite some of the younger kids, she didn't need this shit.

They could have done it while she was younger, but this was damned late and Chiho wasn't in the mood.

"Come on… it will be awesome!" They said, trying to convince her.

"Nope." Chiho was adamant on this, she wasn't going to be made into some kind of toy for them to mess around with.

"It will be totally awesome. Like earth shatteringly awesome! We totally promise! No, take bakseys!" They whined.

"Are you for real? Just what are these clan secrets?" Chiho asked, eyebrows raising.

"Can't tell! They are clan secrets Chiho, you need to be in the temple for us to tell you!" They said.

"Riiiight. Nope."

"Pleeeease. There won't be any trials or anything like that. We promise. Just walking okay? Totally promise to not do anything weird and such okay!? Just a little walk. A reeeally little one." They said… sounding like the children they pretended to be.

"Fine. Just… fine I'll go." She said. Any reverence she might have had for the Minds had been destroyed a long time ago but she still couldn't bear to see them act so… immature.

She could tell they would be at this for a long time if she didn't agree.

Might as well.

"Mission Accomplished." They said, reverting back to their normal selves…

Bastards.

She had been played… not. That level of psyops was something even a Genin would find laughable.

"Okay Ciho! Hang on tight!" They said as the chamber sealed itself, the doorway blocked by what looked like a massive block of wood, bathing the chamber in darkness before a sensation that was rather familiar filled Chiho's body.

They were falling and judging from how it was that she was floating in the air… they were falling very very fast.

Not good, not good at all.

Chiho swore in her mind and resolved to get even with the Minds.

She had been counting since the lights went out, an old habit and it was nearly 3 minutes now, just how far down was this… secret that they were hiding?

As Chiho felt the ground once again touch her feet, she knew that they were decelerating.

Bending her knees to absorb the force Chiho braced herself for impact.

And… oh.

That wasn't bad at all. Whoever had designed this had done it perfectly, if she had her legs straight they wouldn't have felt any pressure at all.

Very good.

The entrance opened again, a purple light weakly entering the chamber as Chiho turned to regard the Minds were still in their seated positions, shooing her out of the chamber.

"Go go go. It is perfectly safe. You will be brought up to the top when they are done with you." They said.

Chiho felt a little bit of apprehension at this… then again they were the Minds, just what could they do to her?

Shaking her head at their melodrama, Chiho exited the chamber and was greeted by what looked to be something that was very clearly not something that you saw in the land of Shinobi.

In fact there looked to be many hundreds of massive cubes that hung from the ceiling of a vast cavern. So vast that it could contain the entirety of a single level of the City of Rice.

It was… something that boggled the imagination.

She assumed it was even larger, the weak light from the massive cubes, each one looking to be 100 meters in length and width not enough to illuminate the entire cavern and most of the far wall was encased in darkness.

There was a teal light she discovered, one that merged with the purple occasionally, blocked by what she could only assume to be a black light.

Maybe.

She was a Kage, not a fashion designer.

She kept toddling along, looking at the enormous cubes that were about as she did so, her eyes trying to pick out if there was anything holding them up at all… and she was coming up empty. Which was worrying in a way, she didn't think that there would be such a… structure underneath her city.

Chiho felt the desire to castigate someone rising up within her, like that of a rather angry person that was going to castigate someone.

Yes.

The desire was brought on by something that she hadn't smelt in a long time, or rather hadn't smelt in this amount in a long time.

That being the smell of blood.

Vast amounts of blood.

So much so that Chiho… Chiho was seriously considering that this might in fact, be an ambush of some kind, only… why would it be an ambush? What could they possibly gain from removing her from the equation? She was the only one that put up with them.

There was a steady drip in the background which told her that the cubes… or something similar was providing the blood. Were they perhaps torture blocks that had people trapped inside of them and being tortured and that was their blood and…

Chiho.

Enough.

She shook her head, her mind was still as vulnerable to flights of fantasy as she had been as a child, that was certainly disappointing.

No matter, she had a cavern to toddle down and so she would.

...

She kept walking and it seemed that time and space were becoming meaningless within this realm that they were in. Every step brought her closer, but the distance didn't change.

...

Or she was in.

...

Was she alone?

...

She did hope that she was alone, there was no need to drag anyone else into this.

...

No no.

...

Chiho felt herself. No.

...

She was stronger than that.

...

She kept walking, she was a Kage and there would be no kneeling by the roadside… too tired to continue. That was weakness, she was a Kage and she would not show weakness.

...

She kept moving herself forward, her eyes staring at the… oh.

...

It was different.

Perhaps that was some kind of mental test? There had been no chakra to indicate a Genjutsu. She wouldn't put it past the Minds to have something like this in the area.

The ceiling was no longer rock… but now it was something that looked so very much metal… a large metallic cavern.

This was concerning. Looking behind her, she could see that there was a very long and very obviously metallic cavern that looked so very much different from what she had walked down earlier.

Just what was going on here?

Chiho frowned, this wasn't what she had thought would be happening and she didn't like it very much at all.

The Minds were just fucking with her again, weren't they?

Eventually, she found it, or rather she walked towards it, it wasn't like there was anything to find when you just walked in a straight line…

Staring ahead of her, she found what was very clearly a platform of some kind, a raised platform that had stairs… because of course, there would be stairs.

Sometimes she wondered what was wrong with slopes? You know? Things that didn't require absurd amounts of effort to climb up?

So much work for what was looking to be so little reward. Because this is what she wanted to do with her life… clearly.

Chiho sighed and made her way up to greet what was a large round table with various other people around it.

People… that she recognized. They were the Kages of the other villages who were sitting there and looking rather uncomfortable, as well as that of the Daimyos (well the other ones, she was a Daimyo).

As they looked at her, she nodded and took the last remaining seat. The question of how they got here was answered easily enough, some kind of Ninjutsu since there was only one entrance.

Or something.

She shook her head and leant back a little, she deserved it, she was like 100 years old, the oldest out of all of them and they better remember that. Her days of sitting upright and pretending that she wasn't going to keel over were loooong behind her.

Obviously.

It was here that she could see the cubes in further detail, each one a massive… organic looking twisted lump of flesh and metal, one that was steadily bleeding out into the pool below.

She stared at them in fascination, there was… something there that attracted her on an intrinsic level.

Something that spoke to her.

Which was creepy as all hell.

The others she could see were all looking very weirded out as well, no doubt something about the GIANT FUCKING BLEEDING CUBES disturbed them.

"So….. anyone know why we're here?" Asked the Land of Wind's Daimyo who looked… rather young and casual compared to the others.

Maybe they dragged him out of bed or something, she wouldn't put it past them that was for certain.

"I can answer that." Came a voice from above them, a voice that sounded as if… Oh, Kami why.

Whhhhhhyyyyyy.

Chiho barely resisted the urge to slam her head into the desk when the figure that spoke as if there were 3 people speaking at the same time appeared in the center.

He… she… it… stood there and Chiho carefully avoided the accusatory glares of the others, this was not her fault.

Fuck all of this.

She was outta here!

Or so she would say if the figure wasn't probably some kind of ancestor or something and also was really fucking powerful considering that it...she...he was able to corral all of these very influential and powerful people into the same room at the same time.

"Good morning. We are MAGI, you might consider us to be little Chiho's ancestor, indeed we were there when the clan was created, we did plan that one out a little roughly but it is good to see that it has flourished." They said, as everyone looked on in shock. That would put them at several hundred years old at the very least.

"No matter, this is not a social call. There are… matters that we need to discuss leaders of the continent. Something concerning the one you know as Kaguya, The Ten Tailed Beast, the Tree of Life."

Oh, that was not what she was expecting at all.

It did sort of make sense… the Minds and the Triplets got their melodrama and need for theatrics from somewhere after all.

Hiruzen Sarutobi sat still and regarded the figure that was in front of him… and in front of all the other leaders.

Even his Daimyo was here despite the fact that the man looked… far too large to walk… but somehow he had done it. Sarutobi had to hide a chuckle at that. Inappropriate given what was happening as it was, but… well, he needed something to laugh at given what was going on.

A figure that had come out of nowhere, in such a way that even he had no way to actually detect the figure that was called MAGI.

He had nothing that would have allowed for him to actually check for the presence of the one known as MAGI.

It was rather worrying… very much so… very.

Yes. Very.

He sat and was considering the being before him, his eyes zoning out slightly.

There was… something about this being that prevented him from being able to actually see him in detail. He was something that looked to be… worrying… something strange.

It was something that worried him and he wasn't too sure as to what it was supposed to be.

It… the thing… MAGI.

Sarutobi considered himself a learned man, he was known after all as the Professor for just how learned he was. But the fact that he had no idea what this being was at all was something that worried him. Not many things did worry him, but some things worried him more than others.

Like for example, the fact that this being did not actually have chakra in any form, he was unable to detect its presence in front of him with anything but his eyes, something that was the cause of quite some concern that was for certain.

Just what was going on here and what did this being want with them?

It knew the Kage of Raisu… but from the sounds of it, it wasn't quite human either. To have been around for that long, to not have chakra and to be able to… move that fast without chakra? That was something that was very concerning indeed.

Sarutobi wondered just what it was that was going to be happening from this point forward. He looked at the being and questioned just what did it want with them?

Just what was the point of being here at all?

Did it perhaps want something regarding their lives? Their people?

He tuned himself back in, to regard the floating being that would possibly decide just how the future of Konoha was going to be turning out.

For its part it was waiting for them it appeared, willing to merely float with nothing happening at all until something happened?

He was getting a bit annoyed until MAGI started speaking again.

"How aware are you of the beings that are known as the Ōtsutsuki clan?" MAGI started the conversation, looking down at them and raising an eyebrow.

Now that he thought about it, was it facing him directly? Or was it facing all of them?

Everyone was looking at the face as if it were looking at them directly… strange.

Very strange…

Regardless he looked at the others and they shook their heads, indicating that they had no idea.

Well, time to show off his knowledge them he supposed.

"The Kaguya Ōtsutsuki was the being that brought Chakra into the world through her sons." He said, that should do it right? Perhaps satisfy the being.

The idea of trying to break out of the hold it had on him had flashed through his mind, but he wasn't even in Konoha anymore he was very sure, to have such a massive structure underground built without his knowledge? To be able to transport him out without him actually noticing anything? All of it was enough for him to be very worried indeed about what was going to be happen to him if he did indeed attempt to escape and spit on the offer of the one known as MAGI to not die right now.

While it was not explicit, the implicit threats were all the more concerning in his opinion.

That much power and ability was worrying indeed for one of his station.

MAGI looked down at him and nodded.

"Correct. However, the Ōtsutsuki clan is a clan that is not of this world. Rather the clan descends from beings outside of this universe itself, hailing from elsewhere in the multiverse. They intend to come to take the Chakra of the entire planet as their own before leaving again." MAGI said, much to the consternation of all that were present Sarutobi noticed.

The Daimyos were puffing and shouting, the Kage on the other hand, were processing the information. The Daimyos had no idea of what it was like to wage war, they were all hereditary masters of nations that had been forged by their parents, parents who actually fought.

Instead, they were just here to play soldier and leader.

The Kages on the other hand, had actually served as frontline shinobi and they knew what the cost was.

MAGI seemed to understand that in the way it regarded the Daimyos before waving a hand and shutting all of them up, using some kind of invisible force… a force that involved no chakra at all.

Sarutobi stared… just what was going on here?

Just how powerful were these beings that they were able to casually overpower another being… without actually using chakra at all. And just how were they able to do it without any signs appearing on the Daimyos?

Just what was going on here?

Sarutobi looked up at MAGI with more respect in his eyes, perhaps they were immensely powerful beings of some kind, gods perhaps.

He didn't know, but anyone able to not need to use chakra was a danger, he didn't know how to deal with them and so a measure of caution was necessary if he wanted to get out of this one alive in the event of conflict.

"And why have you called all of us here?" Asked the Iwa Kage, looking stubborn as ever.

"We are concerned about the ability of this world to resist the coming threat, our own descendants live here do they not? As it is now, however, it is very clear that you do not have the ability to defend against the coming threat, not as you currently are. The Multiverse is a dangerous place and you are nothing but little ducklings in a very turbulent and angry pond.

"As such we will be ensuring the survival of this world by any means possible, even if that means that we must force compliance," MAGI said, looking at them and staring with those… dead eyes that it had.

It continued looking at them as if nothing was wrong before turning to the Raisu Kage.

"Little Chiho, you will take overall lead, the Minds shall guide you as they have always done." It said, looking down at her before turning and disappearing in what looked to be a massive puff of smoke.

Only to reappear at her side, patting her on the shoulder and asking, "do you have any questions?"

"The constant war that the Minds wanted… it was this wasn't it?" She asked, looking up at the figure.

"Yes and no, there was always the threat of there being a large scale war being waged on the continent, but this is much more than what they could have ever attempted to predict." It said.

"What about us? Do you just think that we are going to comply?"

"No. Humans need incentives to obey, we understand that. Please, have a look at your Daimyos." It said, smiling in that eerie way that one without any emotion might smile.

As if being forced, each of the Kages had their heads turned, Sarutobi's included. Unable to resist no matter how much effort he put into it, he was forced to turn his head and with horror he could see what was happening.

The Daimyos… they were being lifted into the air and then dragged out to float behind MAGI, again without chakra, again as if by an invisible force.

Sarutobi stared, just what the hell was he supposed to do about this if it attacked him?

He was a shinobi, not some kind of mystic.

He didn't dare say anything out loud as he watched what was about to happen, the figure of the Daimyos, even now trying to struggle… or at least they were probably trying to struggle. They couldn't move, but their eyes were begging for mercy Sarutobi could tell, he had seen that look on the battlefield one too many times… that is more than 0.

He thought a little selfishly that maybe they deserved it for prodding the continent into war, the shinobi fought it, but who was it exactly that nudged them on that path saying things like "this is a chance to prove your worth(?)" and other bullshit?

But… this wasn't something he would want to force on anyone else. The way that they were looking as they were about to be turned into slurry…

Sarutobi tried to move slightly but again, he was stuck. He had been trying on and off but nothing was working, he couldn't even get his chakra to circulate properly, stuck like this, just watching what was happening to the men and women in front of him.

They squirmed in the embrace of whatever it was that was binding them before they were lowered over the edge.

There was a moment of silence until he heard the sound of something large entering… water… blood. Blood was more viscous than water… it made more of a 'plop' when something was dropped into it.

Something like bodies.

The silence continued as the being known as MAGI merely looked on as if it were unconcerned with what was happening below, or what was happening in front of it. It didn't even pay attention to then, as if they were of no importance to it. Which was probably true given how much effort it had taken to suppress them, that is… none at all.

Sarutobi wasn't even able to change his expression into anything other than a light smile, pretending to act as if this did not concern him at all, as if he was some kind of… some kind of fool.

Sarutobi tried again, struggling in vain against his bonds, trying to pull himself out of it. Yet it was all for nothing.

As the Daimyos were brought back out of the blood, he could only stare.

They looked as if there were still the same, but their eyes had changed, the fear was gone… replaced with what looked to be acceptance… ferventness.

Something had been done to them. He tried to check for Chakra but there was nothing. No Genjutsu then, brainwashing perhaps?

Very likely, why else would they be returned.

"We shall assist MAGI in defeating the enemies which threaten our world." They said… in unison, as if there was a puppet that was pulling their strings.

For his part, Sarutobi could only stare.

He knew what this was, a threat to himself, a threat to Konoha.

Reject their offer and they would turn him into nothing but a mindless drone.

Accept it and he would retain his faculties… but also be nothing more than a puppet.

He considered both courses of action and decided that he would accept, for now, if he was able to perhaps subvert them and work against them in some way, then he would be able to get out of this one and strike back.

There could be no hint of his thoughts on his face however, he needed to pretend as if he was in full cooperation or who knew what would happen to him.

"Do you wish to defy us? Or do you wish to accept our generous terms?" MAGI said.

Sarutobi wanted to cry out "what terms! You haven't offered any!"

"Accept." They said, the Kages that is once control of their mouths was returned to them.

"Good. Here is a little going away present. You will be returned, you will find that no time has passed since you were taken here and when you left. We shall be in touch." It said before vanishing.

He too felt a sensation of pulling before he was in front of his desk again.

He had escaped? Checking carefully for any signs of Genjutsu and finding none, he prepared to call in his advisors to tell them what had just conspired before he was stopped.

"Bad Sarutobi." The voice in his head spoke.

He froze.

What was this?

"I am your headmate for the rest of your life. Consider me an extension of MAGI, now then… what were you planning to do?"

His hand shook… he was doomed was he not?

"Yes. Yes, you are."

The change in the world was something that… was as if it were a steady and also glacial change, slow but inevitable.

It started off rather innocuously the Daimyos and the Kages all meeting together in Raisu for peace talks, the war had gone on for too long and it was taking far too many lives. It had to be stopped before it would take anymore.

It was something that the different pundits of the different nations had thought was inevitable, a resetting of the conflict in order that they work together to bring back everything to the way it was and then to allow for the start of a second conflict but without the baggage of the first.

Something that only made sense when you thought about it really, just what were they going to be doing with the way it currently was? Nothing was changing and the entire war effort had ground down into dust.

No, something needed to give and if it was mutual the all sides could agree to it, they could all go home and everyone would be infinitely happier over it. It was a genius idea.

A very good idea that was going to change everything they were sure.

Only for it to quickly turn out into something else entirely.

The Daimyos had said that the world had been at war for too long and that this was a time of change, that they were going to break the cycle and to allow for everyone to be at peace without needing to worry about something like war, without needing to worry about something like enemy ninja striking into their cities and killing innocent people.

It was something that frankly seemed as if it had come out of a satirical magazine rather than the mouths of the Daimyos, the old guard, those that had come from the Warring States period seeing it as something that was impossible, they knew a time of only war and a promise of peace sounded absurd at the best, delusional at worst.

Words were merely the interlude to war, and the way to spice up a war.

They expected there to be a few platitudes a few people cheering here and there, a few nods, a few handshakes, and everyone would be back to where they were in the beginning, with weapons drawn and waiting for something to give.

Indeed it was something that was almost expected, the shinobi were fighting and they had no reason to exist other than to fight.

As in the shinobi as an existence were they who required for there to be conflict in order for them to exist. Were there not hidden villages for this very reason? A village that was filled with shinobi that served as a means for the Daimyos to have a ready access to a mobile and hard hitting secret force.

The Great War hadn't even impacted they who were not shinobi, not really.

The War was mainly fought between they of the Shinobi, with very little impact on the civilian sector, or even any sectors that did not in some way involve them.

Which naturally meant that the war was divorced from their minds, them thinking that it was something that they didn't need to worry about, that it was something that was going to be solved in due time.

Even if there was a second war it wasn't going to do much, the first one even allowed trade caravans go through for the big nations and they hadn't needed to do that.

Life went on as usual for the civilians and honestly it didn't really matter that there was a war at all.

Which was why when the Daimyos then announced that they would be joining their hands into an alliance that would cover the entire continent… that people began to think just a little harder.

An alliance that was going to cover an entire continent? Just what was the point of that?

In fact… how were they going to run it, the Daimyos weren't going to give up power, even the newest of the newborn children knew that (they didn't, but it's a manner of speech), the Daimyos didn't share their power with their families, just what was going to possess them to share it with their enemies?

So many things were coming across as inconceivable to they of the nations and the greatest shocks were still to come.

That is that the Kages agreed to merge all of their Villages into a single Great Village that was going to be holding the combined might of the many many villages out there, the great ones and the smaller ones.

Even the Mitsugo were joining in despite their difference in Chakra.

They were going to have a grand shinobi council that was going to advise them and the Shinobi were going to be learning how to repurpose their skills into something for peacetime they were told.

As in the shinobi that existed for war… no longer needed war.

Just what the hell was going on here?

The Daimyos, the Kages, all of them were joining their hands for something that looked like peace, but for what reason, why were they doing this, what could possibly force them to do something like this at all?

Just what the hell?

Questions had to be asked and many of them were being asked, the Daimyos were being questioned by their advisors, their Kages by their own senior Jonin ninja.

What everyone knew for a fact was that each of them left the meetings looking pale, as if they had seen something from their worse nightmares and that they in turn, began beating the drum that said everyone should unite into a single entity, one that helped prevent war.

It was strange, it was suspicious and many of those that were not involved were wondering just what was revealed at this meeting that was so dangerous to their state of mind?

What could possibly have scared those shinobi who had fought through the first war so badly that they abandoned their plans for revenge and even greeted their opposites with smiles on their faces. Sure they were forced, gritting of the teeth kinds of affairs, but they were smiles all the same.

It didn't matter what they thought in all honesty, the fact of the matter being that in the end they were being forced into this course of action, a course of action that very seriously looked as if it was their only course of action.

And so it was that the nations and the villages began to move to better unite their peoples and their own power.

There would be a single city built in the middle of the Land of Fire that would have equal numbers of occupants from each of the different nations, while also having many of the smaller clans and nations as well.

While they had not signed up to the agreement… the threat was implicit. Join or face the unified wrath of the 5 nations. And so the smaller factions all decided that they were going to join the alliance as well, to make themselves into something that was going to be worthy of the Great Nation's Alliance or GAN as it was being called.

It was either that or extermination and they were very much in favour of not being exterminated.

They even had others come over to threaten them into joining, ambassadors and the like, each one telling them very seriously that if they did not join, there was going to be a very large number of very bad things done to them if they did not accede and join.

Something had terrified them and so the smaller nations had joined as well. The threat of a unified invasion by the Six Great Shinobi Powers was enough to have even those like the Land of Clouds and the smaller clans to join.

Unity City it was called, a place where everyone would learn to put each other's differences apart for the sake of the shinobi world, where everyone would learn to be friends, to be happy, to be… distinctly other.

It was strange, very strange.

They were being taught that unity was the answer which they could understand and agree with, yet why were they being taught skills that came with war, unified marching patterns, using rudimentary Chakra techniques… all of them done with people from different nations, multiculturalism.

They were even housed in different rooms, all with others from different nations.

They were for some unexplained reason being rallied and for they of the continent it was something that was more than a little strange.

Perhaps they were being trained together to conquer the continent that was outside of their own? They were not alone on this world, this much they understood… but what could possibly be so valuable that they would unify an entire continent to face it?

The other opinion being that they were trying to force everyone to understand other cultures and work together. After all, it was not merely the shinobi and the soldiers of the Nations that were together like this, but also the civilians.

Thousands upon thousands of them were being moved throughout the Continent, each city being radically modified in order that 4/5s of their population was derived from outside the nation itself. Massive shifts in people, a time of great turmoil.

In Suna that vast underground caverns that were being excavated for their new cities, the Kumo with their mountains that were being flattened, the Iwa who were digging out their own mountains for underground cities, the Kiri who were yet now building floating cities and Konoha with its trees. The Mitsugo working in conjunction with them to help expand their cities as fast as was possible, something about them needing the numbers and their expertise.

Entire cities were being constructed, peoples being moved, armies merged.

The only conclusion that many of them could bring to the table… was that something had happened to such a degree that it terrified the Daimyos and the Kages to take such radical measures.

Measures that filtered down into their subordinates, who were then commanding everyone else.

There was nothing that could escape their gaze, nothing that could possibly escape. Everything would run according to plan and for they who were sitting on the sidelines… everything did appear to be going to plan.

Those that were trying to fight against the system were being rooted out and destroyed before they could properly establish themselves.

Konoha for example, beginning a purging operation that went on for a solid week as it's leader, a man named Danzo Shimura was found to have created his own ANBU equivalent and was using it to sow discord and havoc about the continent. Regardless of the fact that everyone was meant to have joined hands, he was seeking to push Konoha above the rest, a target that had to be eliminated at all costs.

He and his operatives were destroyed by the combined might of the 6 Shinobi nations, there were no survivors.

For those of Kumo, there was the problem that much of their foreign policy had been predicated on stealing bloodlines… but now? Now there was no need for it and it had left them hanging listlessly.

Everything had been given to them and it was disquieting for the shinobi to have their life's work… just… completed as if it were nothing.

After all the merging of the populations was joined by a push for them to merge bloodlines and the like, for each of them to spread their bloodlines, spread their populations as much as possible to create the most powerful ninja.

A massive continent wide effort to ensure that they would be ready for whatever it was that was coming… or just to have lasting peace.

There were still those that were doubting, but the fact that they were spread so far out meant that even if there was a rebellion, each Daimyo had already cut a majority of their forces off from the others.

They were no longer powerful, no longer had the ability to change the course of history. Not like this.

The expansions were made easier by the Mitsugo who were dragging out yet more supplies of food. Their own number spreading out all over the continent to set up their farms heedless of where they were. There was no worry now and they were spreading their bloodlines out regardless.

Food food food.

The future was changing… and it was looking to be something that might be just a little bit strange.

20 years. It had been 20 years since the continent had unified itself.

20 years in which nothing had truly happened… 20 years in which there had been peace.

Or rather there had been a majority of peace but perhaps… just perhaps a small minority of not peace.

They were human after all and conflict was in their nature as much as it was to bleed when cut.

To live without conflict was to live as if they were not human at all.

And so much like the shinobi Chunin exams, there had been many contests arranged between the different cities, ones where the youths were pitted against each other in a variety of contests. That being of the intellect, the body, the skills, the tenacity. There were marathons for those non-shinobi children, there were quizzes and tests where the results were posted for all to see, those who were victorious bringing home fortune and favour.

There were contests of might against others of the same caliber, of lifting enormous weights and comparing themselves against others, of dragging weights, or doing anything with weights in general. Anything to show off those muscles to the swooning fangirls that was for sure.

There were those that showcased off their creations of the forge, creations of the workshop, of the crafts shop, competing against the different cities, themselves filled with different nationalities that in 20 years had learned to work together.

Each and every one of them was ready and willing to fight it would to discover just who was the superior, just who had the highest capabilities, who it was amongst them that was the most worthy.

It served to rally the entire city behind them and much like sports teams, they served as a unifying factor. Even if the different nationalities were still finding it difficult to merge together in their daily lives, they still found common ground in shouting at those on the other side of the field.

Then there came the Shinobi events.

These used young Shinobi who were still in learning to compete against others of the same level, a way for them to test just how capable each of them were in comparison to their counterparts.

It was what one could consider to be something like a competition to draw blood, a way for them to fight and claim honour for their cities without actually killing themselves.

They were still valuable resources and there was no need for them to attempt to throw away their lives while they were so young and had so much potential.

No, that was the height of foolishness and it would not be occurring on this continent, not while there was still breath in the bones of the ones who had pulled them together as a unified whole in the first place.

The older generation had their own competitions, these being much more involved and violent than those of the younglings, these were generally tests of skill, fighting competitions where they pummelled each other to the ground if they were civilian, into the sky if they were Shinobi.

These drew blood, tremendous amounts of blood but there was nothing that could not be fixed, they certainly had the medical know-how to prevent that. Coordinated research between all the continent had seen to that, the Continental City had the highest rated technological research facilities on the continent, there was nothing that they could not do.

Or rather they had many things that they couldn't do like resurrecting the dead, but there was no reason they couldn't perhaps work on it… just a little.

For the peoples they were unifying… slowly. It was hard but inch by inch there was a weakening of their previous national identities and a solidification of the identity that they were of a continent, unified not by some simply kind of physical boundary but by the intermingling of their culture and body.

It was hard, but they were slowly coming around, helped as the older generation died off and allowed the youngsters to be exposed to the brainwashing that was being employed by the Continental Government, one that had all the 5 Daimyos and Kages upon it, with the Mitsugo occupying the strange position of both.

Those of the smaller clans and nations had their own members upon it but they could not bring as much weight to bear, something that was beginning to peter out as the Daimyos grew old. When they died it was going to be the rather simple matter of just making all equal, the idea of there being a nation no longer existing.

It was enforced by those that belonged to the previous hidden villages and clans. Their own forces working in conjunction with one another to suppress any and all doubt that was expressed, all of them working tirelessly around the clock to crack down upon and destroy those that would threaten the peace of the continent.

Those that were trying to raise up nationalist groups, those of them that were trying to recreate the national armies to take back their lands, those that were trying to force and engagement in which civilians would be lost, those that were trying to attack other nationalities for… existing… if their information was correct, trying and trying to shatter the image of the world and to remake it into their own.

They had to be dealt with in the harshest manner possible in order that it never happen again and it was… slow going. Destroy one group and another would pop up, yet as the years wore on the frequency dropped enough that it was something that they were beginning to think that in another 20 years perhaps… perhaps things would be better and that they would be able to… relax.

To enjoy the world.

But for the average civilian they knew none of this, for them… for them, it was a time of prosperity, a time of peace, a time of future growth.

Which was why when they appeared that it all went wrong.

They came from portals upon the ground. Portals that were oval in shape and purple in colour, writhing with snakes of smoke.

From them emerged what was very clearly creatures, beings not of this world.

They were monsters and they were here to devour.

They swarmed out of the holes in the world and set upon the innocents with an alacrity that shook all who watched. They did not hesitate, nor did they appear to consider what they were doing, merely diving forward to catch all of those that were still in the area, dazzled and wondering what was going on.

Their curiosity was their downfall, them being close enough that the first ranks emerged, squat little creatures of green and red, humans that spoke a guttural tongue clad in armour and wielding big heavy steel weapons, or even the dead given life again, decaying corpses marching onto the field at the side of skeletons.

It mattered not what they were in the end, merely that they were enemies that needed to be defeated and the civilians avenged.

The first few minutes were devastating, the dead numbering in the tens of thousands across the entire continent, but this was where that the training that the soldiers had been forced to undergo came into effect, it was here that they demonstrated their worth in clear and distinct detail.

The patrols that ran through the cities all arrived in a matter of minutes, not fast enough to prevent the first wave of deaths, but enough to prevent the enemy from spreading out and killing yet more. Marching to the site of the massacres fresh as they had been when they left, stamina gauges full, weapons ready and their minds hardened.

Working together they were able to engage the enemy directly, locking them into combat with shield and sword, forcing them back, forcing them to retreat or be slain.

It was a battle that was taking lives, however, the enemy possessing various units of their own that could fight on even terms despite the superior teamwork and coordination of the guards, but it was not the soldiers that were key here, their stalling was merely something to buy time.

For it was their shinobi that were the stars of the show here.

Jutsu rained from the sky as did shuriken, kunai and senbon, stabbing deep into skulls, into hearts, into orifices. The creatures being felled and suppressed for what came next, massive jutsu that slammed down and tore them apart, the shinobi seeing no need for mercy, not here.

The cities were made relatively safe in a short period of time… it was a different story elsewhere.

Those in the countryside had found themselves suffering much more than those otherwise, their villages caught without proper defences or even proper forces, unable to do much more than run as the creatures emerged from the portals and slayed them where they stood.

The majority of the casualties were from these regions, from outside of the cities and the towns with their permanent garrisons, but from the rural areas that were suffering from a very large and very real lack of soldiers and reinforcements. Their weapons being what they had on hand, farming utensils at the most, the occasional sword brought home by those that had retired at best.

Tens of thousands were killed.

The only saving grace being that the shinobi from the outposts established through the continent to help deliver messages and to provide a fast response force for any insurrectionist activity, once again saved the day.

Worked to the bone, they strode forward into the heat of battle and destroyed the creatures, clearing the village before dashing off to meet new threats, moving constantly, many of them falling by the wayside due to Chakra exhaustion.

The thousands of shinobi serving to protect and save many times their number.

In the end, there was an emergency conference called by the commanders, their Daimyos, the Kages. All of them meeting in person to discuss what would be happening next, what they could possibly do and the impact that this would have on their own people.

The debate lasted long into the night, but in the end, it boiled down to a very small and very simple idea, that being that they would ensure that all towns would be protected at all times. Rather they would use the Mitsugo method of designed towns, creating structures that were elevated above the ground with a few small choke points by which they could cut down anything that tried to climb its way up, while also being fire resistant and force resistant, the natural flexibility of the plant matter, with that of the rigidity and strength of the solidified earth in the center.

From there it was a simple matter of having their retired soldiers being allowed to keep their weapons as they left the workforce, while also providing for the civilians training in the use of bows and the like. In a worst case scenario,

they would be able to hold the line against that of the next wave of invaders, of the creatures.

At least for enough time that it would take for the army and the shinobi to arrive.

Those in the towns and cities were too large to have something similar occur and so it was a matter of building up walls that all of them would be able to hide behind. Walls that were able to reach up into the sky and provide full protection for all that were behind them, thick enough to withstand artillery, high enough to protect against ladders.

There would be a permanent garrison of soldiers at each of the towns, even more in the case of the cities, all ready to respond to any kind of need that would arise when it came to defending the towns.

Thousands of them were ready.

The shinobi were naturally not left out of this. Patrol schedules had already been decided, a way for the shinobi to send their Chunin out to both earn money, while also ensuring that the entire countryside and more would be able to be covered and protected. In the end, they wouldn't allow for any kind of force to get out of it undiscovered.

Even further was the Jonin teams on standby at all times, ready to respond to the invaders if they should dare to attempt another incursion into the realm of the continental alliance.

There would be no mercy shown to them, just as they showed no mercy to those that they had massacred.

If they were ready to invade, they should be willing to die.

The Purple Realms as they had been designated were the sites of what appeared to be incursions by monsters of an inhuman nature.

Or rather a majority of them were not human, but there were plenty of them that were human. Humans that did not speak the language nor did they have any Chakra… foreigners from another world.

They came to destroy, to pillage, to wage war and they had to be dealt with or there was going to be severe consequences for the rest of the world.

Or at least the continent itself.

It was still unknown whether or not they were affecting the rest of the world and whether or not there was a rest of the world. The deserts to the West stretched for untold miles that even a shinobi would be hard pressed to explore to the end.

Regardless there were invaders now on the continent and they needed to be dealt with.

It was then that their preparations for the possibility of such an event came into reality. They were ready for it and they were going to be punishing those that thought they could break into this reality without any concern.

There was a need to overhaul the systems that were already present, but it was one that was accomplished with little fuss. The government understood the severity of the situation after all, and they were moving their own forces in preparation for what was clearly an invasion of some kind.

The first wave had been beaten back, albeit with severe casualties, their unfamiliarity with the creatures combined with their ability to use Chakra-less Jutsu had seen the regular infantry attacked and destroyed in vast numbers, them barely holding the line until the Shinobi were dispatched to assist. The enemy had Jutsu users of their own and the soldiers without the rapid support of the shinobi were forced to contend with giant fireballs raining from the sky at the very least.

It had been a tense battle as the shinobi were unable to tell what it was that the creatures were doing, forced to dodge and react in the middle of battle, something that cost many lives.

In the end, however, the first wave had been beaten back and the dead were collected to be burned as was custom, their ashes used to shower the Age Trees of their families. A Mitsugo custom, that had bled its way across the continent, it would devour the remains and bear fruit, those that died still able to provide for their families.

The military commanders had moved swiftly, they didn't believe that this was merely the only attempt, but rather it was going to be part of a succession of attempts, each one trying to dig out and probe their way into the continent.

They dispatched their soldiers throughout the continent, setting up outposts every few kilometers to watch for these portals, the soldiers regularly patrolling the roads and paths, while the Shinobi patrolled the wider expanses of forest, swamp, desert, mountain and the like.

It was a task that took both time and energy but it was deemed as necessary to protect the Continent, these portals had opened themselves in a wide variety of places, from cities, to trees, to towns, to villages, disgorging their number and cutting down countless innocents. Never more than 2 meters at the highest off the ground, however.

They had to have a counter ready, the invaders could not be allowed to gain a foothold.

Using the information that had been collected regarding these Purple Realms, the leaders were able to formulate a strategy in which to deal with them, their number becoming increasingly proficient in it over time… or at least that was the hope. At the very least they would be able to refine it.

If a portal was discovered, they would be sending forth the nearby soldiers first to contain it, their own infantry able to handle the basic creatures that emerged, a flare sent into the sky to alert the nearby garrisons to send their own men, and yet more flares until it reached the more sparsely placed Shinobi outposts, who would dispatch their own number to assist as well as to alert others of a Purple Realm discovery, moving fast before the Jutsu wielding ones emerged.

Or at least that was the plan. Something had happened which changed quite a lot of things, something that was proving to be something that changed the plan by a significant margin.

That being… the Purple Realms were staying. Or rather the portals themselves were staying, they no longer disgorged anything after their… leaders had been eliminated, that being the more difficult to kill ones. Rather than disappearing somewhere, they merely just… hung there, a few meters off the ground, brazenly glaring at the world.

Each looked like a flat circle when viewed from the front, and the top and underneath… a perfect sphere that absorbed all light (that wasn't purple) sent its way, no colour gradient visible.

Something that was baffling… but it wasn't as if there was anything they could do about it other than complain at how… strange it was.

How strange and how… well… different.

As if it were challenging them in its presence.

Sending things through worked, as in throwing things through, some sand, a twig, a rock… a tree. All of them went on through and all of them did not return. Then a rat tied to a string was thrown in and other than being a little whiplashed when it returned from the pull, it was fine.

Which naturally meant that there was something on the other side and the Shinobi were… interested.

Very much so.

They wanted to see what was on the other side and they wanted to jump in.

They were the kind of people that thought running by leaping from tree to tree was a good idea after all.

And so volunteers were chosen and the portal that was inside of the Continental city was chosen as the first foray, the team of 4 Shinobi throwing a few bags of equipment into the portal, their own weapons, munitions, a few of the nifty little chemical explosives that Raisu had developed, and then with ropes tied around their waists, they leapt in.

It was disorienting at first for Alpha but he got over it quickly enough, you had to be good at that kind of thing if you were a shinobi, or a simple Genjutsu was going to see you torn to little pieces.

Their little raids on the rebels had shown him that, a few of the Uchiha ones were really shifty and dangerous if you let them do what they wanted, that was for sure.

No matter.

They had a…

…

…

A graveyard to explore.

Right.

So this was one of those that had the undead from it was it not? Which possibly meant that the beings that came out of it were connected to what they saw on the other side.

Which meant…

"Prepare for possible ambush." He signaled to the others, Beta, Charlie, Delta. They were going to be heading into this one with every care in the world, there was going to be nothing out of place, not a hair, not an eyebrow, not a single nail clipping. There was no single point of failure here and he would not allow for his men to be that failure.

Eyes open they leapt onto the trees, making sure to spread themselves out, but to also be able to see each other, if one of them went down, all the others would know instantly.

There was going to be nothing that was sneaking up on them.

He sat in his tree and he waited.

All of them did, they were shinobi, patience was almost synonymous with the name… that and doing cool jutsu and that weird run that they all did. It worked… it just sort of looked weird when you thought about it objectively.

Scanning the wider world Alpha kept his head on a swivel, constantly checking the graves.

On that note.

"Keep an eye on the graves." He motioned, his fingers dancing.

If they were dead… then they would rise from the graves would they not?

It being a graveyard was easy to notice if he was being honest, the way there were rectangular holes in the ground… roughly the size of a human, individual stones marking out each one… and the pile of bodies waiting to be buried.

Yup… a graveyard.

The big cross and the strange building that was made of little stones was something new… but then again everything on this damned day was something new.

He had a niece in the town they had departed from, he hoped she was safe. He hadn't had time to check.

They waited further, there was something that was wrong about this entire picture that was for certain. Something that one could say was very wrong.

Would the gate to another world, one that they had sent through their soldiers just previously be this undefended? There was something seriously wrong with this picture and they were going to be finding out just what the hell that was.

Because there was no damned way that it would be like this unless they wanted to hit them while nobody was paying any kind of attention, that was the only real explanation for it.

Maybe?

Alpha continued to look down at the graves and the structure to the side, eyes waiting, ready.

The others as well were just… waiting.

Waiting and waiting.

An ambush then.

There was no way that it could not be one.

Unless the other side was perhaps made up of raiders that habitually sent out their troops like this and were not used to facing resistance?

That was the only real answer that Alpha could come up with and honestly, it was not a very satisfying answer.

But he had nothing else and it was beginning to get annoying.

Eyes frowned he kept watching and waiting. Waiting for something to show up so he could destroy it. Watching for any kind of movement.

That said this was still a fact finding mission and he had found no facts, not as of yet.

Charlie was… yep. He was filming all of it and when it came time to make a report on what was going on, they would have a much higher level of trustworthiness than they otherwise would.

But when filming nothing… that was when it got boring.

He had done his fair share of stakeout missions and honestly speaking, who out of them hadn't? All shinobi did at some point or the other, whether that be in the academy, or whether that be just… living their regular lives. When it came down to it, waiting was a learned skill… one that was eating away at him right now.

Frowning he motioned Beta forward.

Or rather for Beta to throw a kunai at the pile of corpses, maybe that was the trigger, there might even be a trap of some kind underneath it.

Instead what he got was the entire pile just shambling to stand up, moaning loudly.

He frowned, it looked like he had been wrong, he was still thinking in terms of people here, not of the undead.

Duh.

Shaking his head he motioned for Beta and Delta to engage, he and Charlie would remain in reserve.

They dashed ahead and engaged the dead, their bodies falling apart in front of their blades and their jutsu. It was like they weren't even trying to put up a fight here. What was going on?

Alpha frowned at that as he looked at them, they moved slowly, their hands and the like just flailing about as if they had no idea how they worked, worse than Academy students.

The Shinobi were able to just dodge around them and destroy them with little effort.

He frowned, this couldn't be all of it.

And indeed it wasn't.

…

...

50 waves.

50 waves of the creatures just coming out one after the other with increasingly dangerous variants, the ones with the elemental affinity being the most troubling of the lot. It had taken them a while to figure out that the opposite affinity was needed to put them down, but when they had finally accomplished it.

Well… they were standing in front of what looked like a box.

A shining golden box that had dropped from the sky.

Alpha frowned at it.

Just what the hell was this supposed to be?

Using a skull to knock it open, he frowned even further.

Inside were scrolls, weapons… money?

Just what the hell?

He walked forward to test for traps before picking them up, maybe they would explain just what the hell was going on.

The Minds had considered that maybe getting all of the organics together and forcing them to act as if they were no longer trying to kill each other had been a bad thing.

It certainly looked like it when they were unable to do something as simple as keeping their combat readiness in preparation for an invasion. It was as if they wanted to make things easier for whoever it was that wanted to invade, did they not understand the idea of being ready at all times to combat an enemy that was extremely evil and wanted them dead?

As in there were many different little things out there that wanted for them to stop existing you know?

As in there was a whole chunk of planet out there that hadn't been explored yet and there was also the fact that they had insurrectionists you know?

It wasn't as if being at peace meant that you had to dismantle your military you know?

The Minds therefore, decided that a punishment lesson was in order, as well as something that would allow the humans to be in a position where they would be able to actually fight back against the invaders that were going to be filled with enormous battleships and lasers… and chakra balls.

What else did one call them?

They were just people with eyeballs that did funny things and ate chakra.

It wasn't as if there was much else that differentiated them from the rest of the multiverse and the fact that they were all apparently genocidal didn't help either. Draining an entire planet of chakra, a planet filled with organisms that depended on it to survive was essentially going to kill all of them.

Which meant that their little action was going to cause for there to be death on a massive scale.

For the Minds, it couldn't be said that they actually you know… cared.

Killing that many organics was certainly not something new.

But the idea that they were going to be killing their organics filled the Minds with indignation. Only they were allowed to kill lots of organics on their own planets, not some weird and annoying exo-multiverse annoyances. The idea there was some kind of upstart little race that wanted to copy them filled the Minds with more than a little irritation.

That and that their humans were not preparing at all for the idea that there was going to be some kind of attack in the future. The idea of there being universal peace was something that they had taken to heart apparently… something that was more than a little annoying.

Who would have thought that their actions would backfire in such a manner?

Eliminate war and having everyone unite under a single banner would create peace? Who knew?

Irritation in the extreme, that was what they were feeling at this point in time.

Something was going to need to be done.

Which was then the idea popped up, one that was far too obvious that it had to be a trap of some kind.

What if… what if they copied the Challenge realms from the universe that the Magic system that they had copied for their organic proxies to use, had originated from?

That… that would work.

Work very much and it would be something that was going to be more than awesome now that they thought about it.

Being able to force create dozens of little arenas that they needed to clear out or there would be more enemies, or that there would be enemies when they first appeared necessitating a rapid response force, and then… just so many little things. There would be killing, there would be training, there would be fatalities to keep them focused, there would be learning… yes. It was a great idea!

Yes, this was a very good idea, one that they had been surprised that they hadn't thought of sooner and were kind of a little embarrassed that it had taken them to long to think of now that they thought about it.

You didn't forget about all of it like that, that was just… bad.

Oh well, it was here now and they were going to be able to… do things.

Yes.

Things.

The Caretakers were finding that they were once again busy.

Very busy.

It was annoying but it was also kind of relieving in a way to be busy. If they weren't then it meant the Minds were thinking of something again, something that was going to and up with everyone in a lot of trouble and the world collapsing on itself and there being billions of dead people, themselves included.

Sure they could revive… but who liked dying over and over again to satisfy the Minds?

With the Minds telling them to do things now?

Well, that meant the worse part, the part where they gave each other ideas, was over.

Now it was a matter of them just carrying out their task, that being the need to go to and observe this new universe to make sure that they weren't going to be an issue.

The Minds could have very easily cheated but they had this unreasonable desire for everyone to feel "included", which meant for them they were being sent in to do things the hard way.

The fact that the… rabbit people? Could use magic in order to breathe in space was just one factor that was going to be proving annoying, that there was some kind of giant magic system that existed within their universe, that they had mastered multiversal travel.

Ah, problems.

Many problems.

So many in fact that they were going to have to deal with them before everyone fell apart and were wiped out. Well, not them, but the humans that were on the planet.

They were still remarkably fragile and only a tiny fraction of them would be able to do anything, which naturally meant that they were going to need to be trained and fixed up properly.

That was a job that had been left to the Minds, they wanted the experience of 'training ninjas' apparently.

They were once again as capricious and insane as ever and trying to ask their motivations was just asking for trouble, life ending, potentially world ending problems.

The kind that was going to have the Minds bitterly complain for hours and centuries. They didn't really think that far ahead when they became obsessed with an idea when it came down to it, just… punching straight on through. Which was why they needed the client races to do things like say "this is stupid."

The Caretakers prepared themselves to deal with the fallout... just in case.

That and prepare for an 'infiltration' mission… of some kind.

Eldrad was thinking of just walking in there, he was Eldar after all or something.

Frak the idea of being sneaky.

Eldrad had decided that infiltration was really stupid and he should avoid doing it since it was probably going to do something like getting him caught and he would be forced to fight his way out, proving that he was just like the Minds.

No.

Never going to happen.

Which was why he was here now, making sure that everything was going to go as smoothly as possible, that this was going to be the most awesome bloody thing that ever happen to whatever it was on the other side of the dimensional boundary.

He was quite sure that on the other side there were going to be some backward as hell hicks wearing sandals and putting around like the Exodites back when he was still a regular Eldar and not this… thing that he was now. A mix of Eldar and God, not the most pleasant of experiences.

He liked it better when he didn't have to understand the multiverse.

No matter, he would look in on the primitives, make jokes to their expensive, do something that could possibly get him killed then escape. They had those eyes that did all sorts of weird things after all, did they not?

No matter.

He smiled and he laughed and he pretended that none of the above happened. He was Eldrad and he would be keeping his dignity.

They said that your company reflected who you were, in which case he very much was someone on the very of going insane given that most of his company was either HeMUs who were steadily… growing on him, or young Eldar who had none of the reserve of their predecessors, or even the… ugh… Minds.

His company left much to be desired and he was worried about the very real possibility that he was going to go mad.

He would need to seek some stabilizing forces of some kind, maybe he could convince the Minds to reverse time so he could go bathe himself in some proper culture for a few hundred years. At this rate, he was going to start making inappropriate noises and it was going to be mortifying. The addition of Bob didn't help either, he was sleeping his way through the Eldar population and he was leaving his mark.

Some of them were even laughing in public.

The blasphemy.

Eldrad shook his head, never.

He had a mission to do, and he was going to need to get it done now.

Concentrating, he eased the gap between the universes, the tendrils of his power trickling through, digging here, digging there, pushing its way through and then… there.

He was out the other side.

Looking down upon what could only be described as… a world that was green. So very green.

With… was that sandals? They were wearing sandals like he thought, did they not comprehend the idea of foot hygiene?

He peered in deeper and could only see more green, more things that were unspeakable monstrosities upon the eyes. Creatures of…

Well…

They were Eldar looking actually.

So, they were less abominations and it was more that they were trying to copy the Eldar.

Originality they did not have.

That and hygiene, at least go barefoot if you want to go around feeling nature with your feet.

Granted Eldar don't sweat, but these certainly looked like they did.

Eldrad wondered briefly just how they were a threat when he saw a portal opening above the world itself.

Out of it came a few more of them, just a dozen or so of them, the portal caught his eyes less because it was big, but more because it existed at all, threads pulling from the Warp to catch his attention.

Each of these new arrivals were holding what looked to be some rather… large and interesting little toys, little orbs of extreme energy it appeared, something that you would be much more concerned about detonating and exploding your world as opposed to just casually waving them around.

That was something rather worrying if he had, to be honest, one simply did not just… walk about with enough energy to destroy moons as if they were of no value.

He boggled briefly at the sight before him before considering that maybe it was his fault for being old, perhaps he… was just old. Children certainly liked to do strange things, dangerous things.

That might explain why nothing made sense to he who was perfectly mature.

Eldrad continued to watch and as the tendrils of a… oh.

The entire planet was not a planet at all, but rather it was a large plant.

The universe itself was a tiny one, one that barely encapsulated the star system.

Which naturally meant in his eyes that the universe was an artificial creation that they had come up with in order to do something like… have their own universe, safe from the everything else.

Smart.

On that note, the fact that the planet was essentially some giant plant that was devouring the energy that was being brought to it certainly raised a great deal of questions. Like why exactly it was that the planet was eating energy, why it was a plant… and why were the not-Eldar-Humanoids serving a giant tree in the first place?

He would have thought that they would have more pride than to make themselves the messengers and delivery thralls of a plant.

Head shaking at the foolishness of the not-Eldar, Eldrad began to close the viewing portal that he was gazing through before his eyes flashed.

Oh.

It appeared that somebody desired to play games.

He grinned savagely.

Power flashing, Eldrad ensured that whoever it was on the other end received a very loud and painful baptism in the lessons of not messing with the Eldar, even if they had no idea he was an Eldar in the first place.

On that note, he better leave because the Planet was unfurling and now it looked like an enormous flower that wanted to devour him alive, not good.

Being eaten by Plants was not his thing, he had declined Isha's invitation for that very reason… that and Hannah would be very miffed if he entered another female's flower… even if it was her literal flower.

The Minds had been developing something that they had been waiting to unveil for a long time now. A Humanoid Mobile Unit AI that was their most well designed AI to date!

It was one that incorporated as much organic experience as possible, one that had them learning and developing… almost like actual organics.

Truly the Minds were masters of design and engineering and everything.

The first of them had finally reached maturity and the Minds were eager to check upon their progress, the batch of 1000 units had been sent out, all the way into deep cover into the deepest and darkest depths of the organic society.

That being the wombs of expectant mothers, but to expect the Minds not to live on hyperbole was a futile task.

They would be called the HeMU Mk 2! Or the He2ooU because that sounded like something you wanted in your life. Or so the Minds thought. They were not exactly the best when it came to names… but at least they were trying.

Granted it would be better if they didn't, but you worked with what you had.

He2ooU 0001 was an Artificial Intelligence that was the pinnacle of Mind engineering.

While it was a young unit, not even 18 years old yet, it did understand that the above statement was more of a warning than an actual piece of information to be proud of.

Regardless, it existed and it was going to be doing its mission!

That being to go and be the best damned ninja that ever existed.

Right now it was in the central academy in Continental city and it was looking about the place.

Or rather she was looking about the place.

She had been deployed as part of a unit of 3 as they the HeMUs were, it worked and the Minds saw no reason to change that. After all, the Minds were deployed in Conclaves of 3 and the Minds were perfect and so everything was modelled on the Minds.

Even if the Shinobi usually deployed in teams of 4.

No matter, she was not quite… dedicated enough to attempt to figure out what the Minds wanted and why they wanted.

She had been educated quite thoroughly on how the Minds thought by her seniors, the HeMUs that had been around the Minds for thousands upon thousands of years at this point. Even if there was a little hyperbole in their statements, she could understand the general gist of it.

The Minds were insane, the He2ooUs were sane and everything was about to try and destroy their very essence. Their existences were always at risk, one never knew when it was that they were going to be eaten and then torn apart by the capricious and dangerous existences in the universe.

In fact, it was better to arm yourself at all times with the most potent weapons available so you can go and totally end the world as you deem necessary and perhaps if you had enough weapons, you could end the world before they did.

[If you hadn't noticed, the He2ooUs were much more given to melodrama than their counterparts, in striving to give them functions that allowed them to better mimic the organics they were infiltrating, they created too high of a threshold to cap their emotional responses, linking them directly to the chemical processes of the body, which naturally meant that they were much more influenceable and… eccentric than their previous iterations known as the HeMUs.]

She looked up at the sky of the world and considered just how many different ways that she could get herself killed and maybe this had been a bad thing to do. At least inside she knew just where it was that she was going to be attacked from.

Right?

She was one of the Uchiha in this disguise, so that meant she could use her organic eyes that were almost as good as her processor eyes and see the multitude of ways that she could be stabbed, maimed or killed because she had seen fit to stand outside in the open sky.

He2ooU 0001 of Bastion 0001 was in a good mood. It looked like there were only 582 ways that she could have been killed today. Very good news in fact.

She would practice all of her defensive protocols of course, but still, that was 600 less ways than usual.

Much less effort for her processor cores to work on that number instead of the 1200 ways she could have died.

She included sudden brain hemorrhaging in there, even if the chances of it were low. The chance of it happening at all was dangerous.

Yes.

Her name in this one was T-ara.

Because of T-ara.

She had been given this name by the Minds that had been upset that the HeMUs had named themselves and so she was T-ara… or T-Ara… she wasn't sure as to what exactly it was she was exactly, proper pronunciation didn't really work when her name had been read as T-ARA when delivered to her.

No matter, she was T-Ara then. Or T-ara… because that was easier to write.

Decisions decisions.

One that would decide her future from this point in time, but… maybe she could change it later?

Highly unlikely but she could always get a nickname right?

Totally.

"You're our new teammate?" She heard someone say. Not that it concerned her, she was too busy making sure that the tree over there was rustling because of the wind and not because of the fact that it was a shinobi waiting for her to turn her back. They were at peace… but you couldn't trust the trees.

The trees always wanted to get back at humanity for cutting them down and this was the perfect opportunity.

"Hello!" This was a very insistent voice, she hoped that it wasn't going to keep disturbing her concentration, she was trying to keep herself safe here.

"Yo! TARA!" Came the shout.

It was here.

No matter, he was being loud.

"Ssssssh." She hissed, her finger to her lips, eyes never wavering. "You'll wake up the tree people." She murmured.

"What?"

"The tree people who have sworn an eternal grudge against all humanity. They want us dead. I think that is one over there. Watch it for me while I scout it out." T-Ara said, pointing at the tree in question.

"Okay…"

T-ara nodded and then vanished, body flickering with practiced skill towards the enemy position, her body dashing left and right, ensuring that she never stayed on a single surface for more than a single second. You never knew when the floor was going to devour you alive.

Eyes flashing, Sharingan spinning, she dashed forward aaaaand there.

She grinned. Slamming into the tree she turned about and hissed.

The tree people had evaded her again.

She was beginning to think that they had an omnipotence of their own, how else were they able to do that? How else were they able to dodge her every time?

Growling inaudibly, T-ara flashed herself back to the location of her teammate, a frown on her face.

"Did you get it?" Asked the white haired one.

"No, it escaped. Again. The tree people are dangerous… they can escape my eyes." T-ara muttered, her Sharingan spinning so fast that it looked like she had a single black band in her eyes.

"I… I. Okay. What's your name?" He asked, looking at her with a slightly panicked expression, forgetting he knew her name, foolish!

"T-Ara." She replied, turning again to her vigil, ensuring that there was no way for an enemy ninja, or enemy anything to get close enough to her to kill her. That meant there had to be no enemy ninja for a distance of at least 500 meters, trivial to her eyes.

"That… Can we just call you Ara?" He asked.

She didn't see the disrespect in the tone and jerked an approval to him with hand signs. She wasn't going to be taking her eyes from the trees no matter the cost.

"She's succumbed to the Uchiha curse hasn't she?" Asked a female voice. Ara would have felt insulted if not for the fact that she knew the female was misguided.

"Just because there is nothing there, it does not mean that there is not something out to get you." She said, flicking her eyes to the left to catch a glance of the female. Blonde. Big Breasts. Good Face. Passable distraction, best to cultivate a friendship so she can be used at a moment's notice. Especially against male ninja.

"Why don't you deactivate your Sharingan so we can talk?" She asked.

That did not sound so bad. She could do that. But without Sharingan how would she be able to tell what was happening to her? How could she keep track of her enemies, of which there were many, she was just too beautiful and attracted them like flies.

"There's nothing here that could possibly hurt us. Orochimaru, do a check for me." The white haired one said, male. Not so attractive, passable blocking tool.

"Do I really have to do this?" Asked the black haired one to her right, face that was pale, sallow, wore long robes. Skinny. Possible male seduction routine? Will have to inquire.

Ara turned to consider that perhaps things were slightly out of her cone of vision, to see… nothing.

Good.

She smiled, that was good.

"Yes. Now go do it." She said, turning to Ara and smiling.

"There now, why don't you turn off that Sharingan and come back to us hmm?" The blonde one said. It sounded as if she were attempting to coax a particularly stubborn and irritating feline to her and then possibly feed it catnip before running off with its unconscious body.

Ara considered the situation and decided that she would wait until the one that was known as black hair came back with information to the contrary about the presence of anything that might possibly be an enemy or the like.

Yes.

He returned and with a rather sardonic voice proclaimed that there was nothing here that possibly result in her death.

Which was good news, very good news.

She nodded briefly and deactivated her Sharingan, bracing herself for the impact of her body losing so much sensory ability.

Aaaand there it was.

Shaking her head to adjust to the change, she turned to regard the three ninja who were looking at her rather dubiously.

"Apologies, we are not the most stable of shinobi at the best of times, the added effect of the Sharingan just exacerbates the traits that we are already expressing, only making it much more pronounced than you would think it would," Ara said, shaking her head again to remove the persistent haze that had settled over her eyes.

"That's okay," The Blond one said.

"The city has grown used to the Uchiha at this point I would think," Said the one with the black hair.

Ara nodded, before turning to regard the one that had first spoken to her.

"I am Ara, and you?"

"I am Jiraiya… and you are our newest team member." He said, grinning widely at the dismay that was on the other faces of the group.

"Pardon?" She asked, looking confused.

"You've been assigned to our team, good to meet you teamie!" He said, beaming at her like a particularly large puppy. Ara had no idea how she was supposed to handle this situation. She had been placed inside of a squad? She had thought that would only happen to those that were needed for certain missions.

This was not perhaps something that she was going to enjoy was it?

She shook her head and considered the possibilities before considering that it would be best if she complied and went with the flow to make sure that where they were going would be in her skill range. Or at least the one that had been passed down to her.

All the He2ooUs had one, it told them what they were allowed to do and what they were prohibited from doing, the difference being much more smaller than what many would expect, but it was important regardless. As a designated A class, she has the speed and skill, but no planet destroying Jutsu sadly.

Still, new team.

Interesting

Jiraiya considered the Uchiha that had joined their team.

She was one of the best trackers and detection specialists in the continent, a Jonin at the age of 16.

She was also Uchiha… and had decided that she might as well embrace the family curse early.

They were in their early 20s, roughly a year or 2 older than she was, but the way she acted it was as if she had spent her entire life on the battlefield. Twitching constantly, never allowing for anything to enter her line of sight and not be unchecked or the like. Always making sure that she was moving to cover all angles at all times, or to have one of them act as a shield for her.

Always twitchy, always shifting.

It was particularly strange given there hadn't been any kind of attack on them since the peace accords when the Continental Alliance was announced.

Yet here she was… fidgeting as they entered the forest.

They were here as part of the suppression force that was going to be dealing with the… Purple Realms?

The team was being dispatched to an outpost to where the eastern coast of the Land of Fire was, where they would head over to the Land of Whirlpools where they would then go and wait for any possible reports of there being an invasion of some kind. The entire group essentially just waiting for any reports that there were Purple Realms before heading in to deal with them.

That was their entire purpose and honestly, it wasn't a bad one. There could be worse things they could have been tasked with. Like roving around looking for them in the first place, that was guaranteed to be boring and depressing, coming across the many different dead people as the invaders came out and made short work of them.

What was the best about it all was that in the Land of Whirlpools, he was going to be in one place and all those girls with the red hair and the Uzumaki genetic traits… like improved stamina and vitality compared to the other bloodlines.

He was going to get himself some of that booty.

Mmmmm.

That wasn't to say that the rest of his team didn't have booty, there was Tsunade… who would probably break his neck if he dared to peek on her again… and there was Ara who had a very delicious booty, especially for someone that was Uchiha and generally flatter than a board at the back. But she was so worried about some kind of enemy that he had lost his shadow clone when she had thrown a shuriken right into its eyeball. He had wanted to complain at that, there had been no hesitation, no possible checking that it might have been an ally or something like that. Nope, it was straight to the lethal.

She was dangerous and he didn't want to annoy her only to find out later that she was planning to send a kunai into his throat.

Nope.

Jiraiya was a pervert but he was a smart pervert that knew exactly what he needed to do to stay alive, no matter what he did he knew what he needed to do if he wanted to get out of this alive. Keeping his tendencies to a minimum were important aspects of the whole "not dying" aspect when it came to dealing with other shinobi… even super hot shinobi.

As it was, running behind the two of them was enough, dat booty.

He was reminded of a saying that his Mitsugo tutor had shared with him one day, a saying that stuck to young Jiraiya's mind and informed all of his decisions. It was a saying that one could say defined his life from that point forward.

Tits are Life, Ass is Hometown.

Pervert to Pervert he nodded as he understood that phrase for what it was and agreed wholeheartedly.

From that point on he made it a point to consider himself a connoisseur of the finer points of life.

Jiraiya contemplated his existence as he took notes to add to his collection for later use. He was planning to write a book on his experiences and they were going to be epic. He was going to need all the details that he could get, however… or so he told himself. What he wouldn't give for some Sharingan eyes for that picture perfect clarity.

And that perfect memorization.

Mmmmm.

Orochimaru resented being sent on a mission like this when he was so close to finalizing his research and perhaps achieving that breakthrough that had been eluding him all of these days. A breakthrough that if he managed to work properly, would mean that he would be able to take the next step on the path of his search for the perfect body. One that could combine all of the bloodlines, to turn it into the perfect shinobi, the greatest weapon to ever walk the earth.

His research had been theoretical… at first. But then the Mitsugo had noticed it and came to him offering the chance for more practical experience and an offer for him to have a lab of his own if he joined with them for their owendeavorsrs into the fields of… whatever it was they were doing.

The more he interacted with them, the more he considered that they were just slightly insane. It was the only way to explain what they were when he considered that they had an entire cavern full of blood.

Even for him that had been just a little strange and worrying and he was trying very hard not to run very very far away when he had seen that for the first time. What was worse was that they were acting as if it were the most natural thing in the world, as if it had been something to be proud of.

He wondered perhaps about whether or not it was just… something that was wrong with them. And as time passed if there was something wrong with him for being so worried about it all.

The whole creating bodies from the blood for experiments had been even worse. He had theoretically been doing that, but they were doing it for real. Creating people and then disposing of them when they weren't needed. He would be disturbed if not for the… actually he was very disturbed.

He was cold, he knew… he was not destroy hundreds of people for no reason cold.

On that note however, they were getting results which was more than could be said for him. He had been trying based on the theoretical areas so far but it had come up empty, blending together genetic structures was something that he was having the most difficulty with.

It was something that when Orochimaru thought about, he wanted to throw something at the wall. Who knew that he had been missing so much?

That all of it came down to things like genetics and the Chakra that one was born with. He knew that there were different kinds of Chakra, that much was obvious but everyone being born with different kinds? That melding them with genetics would create different Bloodlines?

He had seen the graphs and he been astounded by just how much he didn't know.

Genius his left sandal, he was a novice of the highest order.

The last few months had him coming through and learning from scratch all that he needed to genetically engineer bodies, the mathematics, the different levels of chemical knowledge, chakra knowledge, biological knowledge and so much more. He absorbed it like a particularly dry sponge, his entire life being in preparation for this moment.

In fact, he was so adept at it that the Mitsugo had asked him if he wished to be… inducted into what they called their Maker Caste. He hadn't been sure as to what that was exactly, but when it was explained that it was what they were, but the hints he had gotten were enough for him to consider it on those alone.

The ones that worked on creating perfect bodies for the Mitsugo to use?

The ones with unlimited access to their creation facilities?

He needed that in his life and he needed it soon. The possibilities were endless and Orochimaru was for the first time in a long time feeling the appeal of the idea of pure research instead of attempting it focused on a singular goal.

He looked up at the sky and thanked Kami that he had been born in this time when it was all possible and not when he would have been hunted down as a missing nin if he had defected to the Mitsugo.

Tsunade was observing the Uchiha and wondered just what it was about them that made them so… insane given time. It wasn't like they had done anything that was different, the Sharingan was focused around the eyes, so why exactly was it something that affected the eyes?

No matter how hard she pondered it didn't matter when she couldn't get her hands on some for practice which was a point of contention that was for certain. That was more Orochimaru's speciality, hers was always about the surgery aspect, the healing.

Healing the Uchiha of the Sharingan… she could hear the howls of rage from just thinking about it.

She looked up and nodded at the passing Iwa nin. Or what had previously been Iwa nin, they were part of the Continental Defence Forces right now. They had their headbands like before, but that was only for the ones that had been issued prior to the unification of the continent. Everyone that got their headband now had a big circle with 6 inward lines on it to represent the unified shinobi corps that represented the continent.

There were some that still referred to themselves as Iwa or Suna nin, those that were old and set in their ways, but with everyone being spread through the continent, it was quite clear that they were the minority. What with everyone growing up in different cultures and in such numbers until the point where the original nin were in the minority.

Tsunade considered the Uchiha that was leading the way, her head constantly shifting left and right, always moving, never letting her eyes be still. Even if this was a safe route, she was still acting like they were in the middle of enemy territory, her imaginary enemies taking up a majority of her attention.

Even when they stopped for the night Tsunade could see just how much she was on edge, never one stopping, her mind always running, eyes always flickering. It got the the point where Tsunade worried about whether or not she would be able to actually sleep at night but that fear was unfounded… she hoped. There was no signs of sleep deprivation from her Uchiha, but that didn't mean that she wasn't doing something like taking soldier pills or something of the like.

That was a threat for sure.

Still, she was proving to be very good at her job as their eyes and ears. There wasn't going to be anything that got through her that was for sure. Always vigilant… even if it was something that would very likely have problems for her later in life, like the way the rest of those that suffered the Uchiha Curse turned out.

She was going to need to talk to… maybe Orochimaru. Letting their newest member turn into a gibbering wreck wasn't quite the best thing they could allow for her to do, that was just irresponsible.

Ara knew that something was wrong, that some kind of parameters had gone wrong and the world was falling apart. She knew that just as she knew that there were things that were very much wrong with the whole situation.

The Sharingan was interacting with her systems in such a way that they were going crazy… crazy crazy.

She had been given a heightened sense of sensation like that of the rest of the He2ooUs, something that the the Minds hoped would allow for them to interact with organics better since they could better simulate the effects of such. Her body was directly linked to her core, the emotions spreading right on through and enhanced by her extreme operating powers, the sensation of the bodies carrying right on through as well.

Didn't they cancel research into the original models that used this method because it was ineffective? At least compared to the HeMUs that relied purely on an artificial method to simulate things like emotions, like how to be organic.

But with the heightened senses, the addition of the heightened senses of the Sharingan and the effect that it had on the brain… she was going crazy here.

Some fine tuning was clearly needed that was for certain.

Then again they were alpha testers for a reason.

Joy.

The Tailed Beasts had been freed on the grounds that they would not rampage around inside of the Continental Alliance lands.

It had been a deal borne out of necessity as opposed to anything else, something to make sure that the Beasts wouldn't need the constant presence of a container, while also allowing them to be useful.

The experiments in the days back when Raisu had still been a nation and had Isobu and Matatabi working for them had imprinted the image of it firmly in their minds. That of the leadership of the various nations and the clans. The idea of using the tailed beasts as some massive resource tool in exchange for some food and company was something that appealed… even if it was insane judging from the power that the beasts wielded and the readiness that they employed their power, entire cities destroyed by their anger.

The Mitsugo were placed in the position of wrangling the beasts, they had the most experience after all… even if that was just for 2 beasts.

It was with this in mind that the forces of the former Kumo allowed for the 8 Tailed Beast, Gyuki to emerge from its container after the shinobi had died.

The surprised Gyuki was met with 2 tailed beasts, that of Matatabi and Isobu. And from there one could say that history was made. Literally, Gyuki's special ability was the creation of ink after all.

Gyuki woke up to the sight of the 2 Tailed Beast and that of the 3 Tailed Beast.

He hadn't seen any other tailed beasts in a very long time and this… this was something that surprised him immensely.

Perhaps he was going crazy here?

Being shoved into a human couldn't have been good for his health...

"What is going on Isobu, Matatabi?" He asked, respectful as always.

"Your container just died old man. We're here to do some talking." Matatabi said, baring its teeth at him in what he guessed was a smile.

"What talking is there to do? They have sealed us away, so now we go and rampage around in their territory for a bit before leaving again. It is what we usually do is it not?" He asked, looking mildly confused at the way the Two Tailed Beast had asked the question.

"Weeeelll… things have changed quite a bit since you were last outside old man. Let's go and sit down and maybe we can talk it through hmmm?" Isobu said, words coming out slightly slurred as they always did, the lack of proper lips really hurt him in that regard. Father really hadn't done them any favours when he had created them had he?

Gyuki saw no reason to disagree and followed the beasts for a short distance, noticing the large number of humans that were clustered around… not fleeing in terror as they usually did. Was there something happening that he hadn't been made aware of?

"What's going on here?" He asked, looking at the various little humans that were just… not caring about him at all.

"What we're about to talk about old man. A little patience goes a long way, especially when you want lunch." Isobu said.

Gyuki tried to parse just what had entered his ears. Lunch?

What did lunch have to do with patience? He was a tailed beast, he would just go and tear apart the everything and take what he wanted, what was this about waiting? He even had some very flexible tails that let him pick apart his meals if he really wanted to.

"Okay, here we are," Isobu said, standing at the edge of what looked to be a very large depression in the ground.

Nodding to himself, Isobu then used his ability to spray a surprisingly large amount of water into the hole, filling it up in seconds. He had gotten much better at using that ability since the last time that Gyuki had seen him, which had been a few hundred years ago now now that he thought about it. The stars certainly looked as if it had been a few hundred years.

He hopped in, followed by Matatabi and a tentative Gyuki.

"What are we doing here?" He asked.

"The humans have an interesting custom where they discuss business while inside of a bath, so we decided that we might as well copy it," Isobu said as he floated on his back. For his part, Matatabi looked to be lying down on a bed of… coral? Isobu really was getting better in using his abilities. Gyuki better step up his own practice if he wanted to be on the same level.

Actually. Now that he thought about it.

Humans?

Business?

Just what was going on here?

"What is this about business with the humans?" Gyuki asked.

"Not with the humans, just that the humans do business like this and we felt that maybe we should copy them since it works so well for them," Matatabi said, languidly stretched from his perch. The water was heating up due to his presence… which if he had to admit… felt rather good. He could understand why the humans did what they did.

He grinned as he sank back into the water, his tails anchoring to the sides of the pond, keeping him from sinking all the way down.

Eyes rolling from the sensation he looked at the other tailed beasts who were actually older than he was but called him old since he talked like he was old or something. It wasn't his fault he was the most mature of all of them.

"Just what is going on here? It's about time you gave me a proper answer isn't it?" Gyuki muttered as he sank into the water so that his chin was just above water. He couldn't drown… he was made up of Chakra after all, but it would be hard to speak without a mouth.

"Well… we're working for the humans Gyuki, they pay us in food and we repay them by doing things like growing crops for them and the like." Isubo said, rolling over in the water like he was still 100 years old or something.

"The humans are paying you in food… and you accept? Can't you just take it from them?" He asked, looking as confused as a giant bison faced 8 tailed beast with tentacle tails could look.

"We could… but it would be nowhere near as delicious." Matatabi said.

"Why does that matter at all?" Gyuki wondered out loud.

"Don't judge all food by what dad made," Isobu said, shuddering at the memory

"What was so bad about father's food. It was merely just food... wasn't it?" He asked, looking like he was genuinely questioning. It was just food, it wasn't like they actually needed to eat, not was it something that they craved like the humans did. The others looked at him with pity in their eyes which naturally had Gyuki a little defensive.

He had always wondered about their obsession with food, especially when they talked about him, something about his tails that looked delicious or something equally ridiculous.

"Father's food resembled coal more than it did food Gyuki, we were lied to," Isobu muttered, shaking his body at the thought, sending waves that splashed over Gyuki's face. He sputtered for a moment before pulling himself a bit higher, no need to go through that again.

"Aaaaaand?" He wasn't sure just what could be so good about it.

"The humans have brought just a little bit for you to try," Matatabi said, pointing one of his tails in the direction of Gyuki's left.

Looking over he raised an eyebrow (he had those) in surprise. Humans pushing what looked to be boxes filled with different things.

If they were going to try and poison him it wasn't going to work out very well he felt the urge to say, he was a Tailed Beast, it wasn't like they could do anything against that.

"Just try some," Isobu muttered.

After the humans left, Gyuki used his smallest tail to lift off the lid as Matatabi instructed and found himself sniffing the little pieces of… brown things.

"I wonder if this counts as cannibalism." Isobu murmured from Gyuki's right. He fought the urge to jerk in surprise, he had been so focused on the food that he hadn't actually paid attention to Isobu's Chakra signature as he usually did, a little failure on his part. He would need to pay more attention… but the food smelled just so… delicious. How could he deny it?

Wait.

Cannibalism?

"What do you mean by that?" He asked in surprise.

"Well…. There is some octopus there, and the one that you are looking at is steak. Sooooo… your face is from a cow… or a thing that looks like a cow right? And your tails are like octopus tentacles right? So… does this count?" Isobu muttered looking at him. Gyuki felt the impression that maybe he was trying to raise his eyebrows at him, but was failing due to his lack of having any.

"I'm a Tailed Beast! What cannibalism!" He muttered, smacking Isobu on the head with one of his tentacles tails. And…

"Shit shit shit. Stop the water!" The water had splashed out and was about to swamp the food.

Dammit, Isobu!

Bringing his tails up for a bit of finesse that he felt was amazing all on its own, he grabbed the carts and lifted them up, curling the tentacles about them protectively.

"Stop making jokes you idiot!" Gyuki chided.

Isobu left, muttering under his breath, or rather the little Isobus inside of his stomach were muttering, but Gyuki was a tailed beast, there was no way he could not hear it.

He ignored his sibling and set down the trays, resolving to try them.

…

…

…

Much later when Gyuki wasn't quite so… brain dead to the world, he turned to the other Tailed Beasts and asked, "it was good… but was it really good enough for you to become their servants?" He asked, propping himself up to look at his siblings.

Isobu was in the process of adding more water to replenish the pool, cooling it down just a little. Not that it really mattered considering that he was a tailed beast and… well… hot water wasn't exactly the worst thing that could happen to him.

"Well… Not quite." Isobu said, shaking his head a little, sending ripples and splashes all over Gyuki's face.

"Then why?"

"They give us purpose Gyuki, we help them, and we can see just how much our assistance has done," Matatabi said, not moving from where he had been since he settled down.

"Purpose?"

"Yes, purpose father created us… but why? It isn't like we are supposed to do anything you know. We go and destroy things, we sleep, we destroy more things… just what is it that we are meant to be doing Gyuki? What is the whole point of us existing?" Matatabi asked, raising his head a little.

"We exist so the Ten Tailed Beast doesn't emerge again," Gyuki said, quite seriously.

"And what do we do other than that? Are we supposed to spend the rest of eternity just… doing nothing? What is the whole point of us being here in the first place? Why couldn't father have just separated it into 9 pieces and just sealed them into rocks or something?"

Gyuki thought about the question and conceded that… perhaps he was right and they had no real purpose when it came down to it.

But he was a Tailed Beast, why did he need a purpose to exist?

"You're probably wondering what this has to do with us helping the humans at all aren't you?" Isobu asked, his job done.

"Yes, what do you need a sense of purpose for?" He asked looking just a little confused.

"It makes you feel good inside Gyuki, it makes you feel needed, makes you feel wanted." He said smiling at him… or what he guessed was a smile, they were beasts, smiles looked predatory no matter how you sprung it.

…

Gyuki thought that maybe… that wouldn't be so bad.

Maybe he should try it out sometime.

"Where the hell is my requisition forms for Sections 3a-19b!?" Gyuki roared.

"It's coming Lord Tailed Beast Sir!" Squeaked the human to his left.

Gyuki had been a bit lost as to what exactly he could do exactly, what with him being a Tailed Beast with no fire or water or anything really that might possibly help.

Then the Mitsugo had come to him and asked for his help by making ink for their forms.

But they were sooo inefficient and slow.

So Gyuki had resolved to take it over and now he was here filling out forms and coordinating their entire paperwork system.

He even had a special hat! Which was better than the others, they didn't have hats, not like his one.

His eight tails working at breakneck pace as did his hands, he would purge the inefficiencies of the system if it was the last thing he did!

He didn't know about the whole being wanted thing, but he knew that he loved being able to boss people around like this.

He2ooU 0214 of the Caretakers was considering that perhaps he had been absurdly lucky to not have had a Bloodline.

It had turned out that the Bloodlines were mutations that the body's chakra and genetics created through their interaction. Which naturally meant that it caused changes in everything, including the brain, which in turn meant that all of the ones who experienced such changes had their body's internal makeups changed.

The He2ooUs - He2U for short had thought that it was a simple matter of adjusting the their own AI parameters to adjust for it, but it hadn't worked. Being as sensitive as they were, something like that had had a massive impact on their bodies, one that shattered their operational stability and had increased the question about whether or not they were able to do what was necessary without falling apart.

The Minds were already working on a way to fix them, but it wasn't quite working out as planned, the whole idea of allowing them to connect much more closely to their host bodies created a sense of possessiveness that meant that the He2Us were very much unwilling to give up their bodies.

Unlike the HeMUs, these were the bodies that their souls had through experiences intertwined with and become inseparable from. Indeed, they were almost organics in everything but their processing power.

A very large headache for the Minds that was for sure.

For 0214, or Killer C, KC for short, it was a matter of liking his body and it wasn't so bad really. It was human and it was pretty awesome, if he said so himself.

Checking himself out in the mirror he thought that maybe if he did his abs a bit more, they would bring out his pecs, perfect really.

The idea of there being a perfect body was ridiculous, unless it was his one that is.

The He2Us were a failure, not really that… unexpected really given the parameters in which they had been expected to operate. What with them being heavily emotional and invested in the situation while also attempting to be effective bots for the Minds to use.

Changes were going to need to be made to patch up their failings, that of being overly connected to single bodies as well as their emotional instability.

Things that would need a little fine tuning to fix, but they were the Minds, something like this was going to be easy… they hoped.

Their second attempt at creating subservient AIs hadn't really worked out so well and the AIs that they did have were far too… eccentric to ever work in deep cover. They always drew attention to themselves and it was proving to be far more difficult than expected to have them work as… "good" AI.

Something that was going to need to be solved or the Minds were going to face problems when infiltrations were more difficult in future.

It was a good thing that they had only created 1000 of them, imagining the dangers if there had been untold numbers of them like they had one with the HeMUs… well, that was something that was quite terrifying.

The Minds considered that maybe Hannah had a point when she had said that an alpha test was a much better idea than full scale implementation, even if it was more troublesome.

As for what it was that she was going to be doing in the meantime… it was clear that they needed to do something.

Further innovation! Further development! There was always space to go forward, always something that could be striven towards!

The Minds were working away furiously on the next level of their subservient AIs, anything that would allow for them to be able to do their jobs better. The Commander would very likely come out of the Commander's nap to pat them on the head if they managed to impress with an amazingly innovative new design!

Considerations were being made, perhaps next time they could create an AI that was not preset as it were… but rather one that learnt?

Like a learning AI.

That way it could blend in with populations much more easily, but it would be restricted in that once the deployment was over then there would be no way to repurpose it unless it had its mind wiped. A waste of resources then. It was something that could be seeded into a universe with operational parameters embedded within it and left to its own devices… that was certainly possible. But fast acting forces? Not a chance… unless they trained them in simulations? Eh… too much effort.

An attempt at creating some kind of AI that had a wide variety of responses and at the same time was not linked to its body was a failure, they were unable to react properly to stimuli of a physical or emotional level. At the same time, those that were linked too closely to their bodies were driven insane by the constant bombardment of information and a slow cycle of madness as their thoughts were consumed by single ideas until they simply failed to continue operation.

The constant circle something that was too much even for the AI.

Alternatives had to be found and they had to be found immediately lest they fail the Commander and that was something that was unacceptable. One did not fail the Commander.

It was then that a brainwave hit them. What if they used some kind of organic simulator?

One that would take the average of all the people in the world and then created an AI from that, one that would be perfectly average and one that would be in essence the perfect infiltration bot!?

After all, it was the ones that were the most average that never garnered any attention, they were the ones that got underneath the radars of the scrutinizers.

The perfect plan!

The Minds therefore, started acting, ensuring that their new AI would be programmable. The ability to continue with their personalities was a must, that way they could develop souls and then serve as a way for the linked Minds to gain power as their souls were few by that of the experiences of those connected to them. At the same time, they were able to accept new programs to ensure that no matter what universe they were in, they would always be the most average beings in existence.

No more levels of insanity like the HeMU first and second generation.

These would be the Humanoid Unit made Average! HUmA!

The Minds clapped themselves on the back for their genius.

For the Sannin it had reached the point where they were considering just when it was that their new teammates were going to die.

Ara had died from what looked like a brain aneurysm after she had one too many hours panicking about the possibility of there being some kind of enemy that was trying to attack her at night.

She had just keeled over dead at one point, which was… disappointing. She had been a very good trap finder, the one that they relied on to find and pinpoint all the little booby traps that they found inside of the Purple Realms.

Things had changed a little bit however with their next replacement. A soft spoken nin from what was previously Iwa, he had been the kind to talk softly, to smile stoically and stand tall at all times. In essence, he was the perfect Iwa nin, uptight and… stoic to a fault.

He was great with artillery, however, just lobbing exploding rocks all over the place and just exploding the little creatures that came at them as if it were nothing. Keeping them safe from his little perch at the rear of the fight.

It hadn't quite worked out as they had expected it to, however. He… had gone a little crazy when he refused to duck down and preferred to stay as he was, standing upright as a wave of arrows slammed into him. Luckily he had an Earth Jutsu shield, but it wasn't enough to hold up against the four hours they were in there and he died in the next moment.

Which naturally put them down two shinobi in the space of a month. It would have been strange if not for the reports that there were quite a few shinobi losses in the past few months, notably those that had been born approximately 20 years ago, something about chakra imbalances in their brains causing them to all go crazy.

Which the Sannin could understand completely, if Ara and the Iwa nin had been any kind of example, it was that the next generation of shinobi were all insane. Or rather their generation of shinobi were all insane as their sensei muttered every few hours. Sarutobi Hiruzen certainly looked as if he thought that was true, looking like things just constantly got more difficult for him no matter what he was doing.

The students pitied him, but not enough to try and be the Kage themselves, they had seen the paperwork and there was no way they were going anywhere near that.

On the note of work, their latest recruit would possibly be… better than what they had previously.

This time it was a nin from Kumo, one that had a secretive past (all nin did honestly), and if the reports were accurate as professional as they came, even if he did have a fascination with lightning.

Smiling at them he waved them over as he stood up from his perch in the middle of the plaza in the Land of Whirlpools. He had journeyed here from his deployment in what used to be Kiri and was looking rather happy to see them.

A rather… blocky man, one that was covered in muscle, he stood there without a shirt on.

Which was a little strange… but they could handle that. It wasn't as if normal ninja didn't have their little quirks when it came down to it, it was almost an accepted part of being a ninja, your own quirks were often what others used to identify you.

"I am Killer C!" He called out at them, beaming widely.

Orochimaru sighed, it looked like this one might be one of the weird ones as well.

They looked down at the body of Killer C and sighed out loud, as a group.

He had lit himself on lightning and charged at the group of monsters. It worked out fine, he was as fast as lightning and just dashed from creature to creature, smacking them down and killing them with ease.

The problem came when the creatures deployed what looked to be a giant skeleton that had a crackling core, one that was therefore, lightning resistant.

The idiot had then tried to dash at it only for his Jutsu to cancel out due to there being a counter field, and the sword swing had done the rest as he stood there stupefied.

It was… the height of stupidity and the Sannin wondered just what the hell was going on with the shinobi these days.

Sticking his body into a scroll with practiced ease, Orochimaru allowed himself a snicker.

"Called it." He muttered.

"Shut it Orochimaru."

He just chuckled all the more at her disgruntled expression. It wasn't as if it were his fault that the Shinbo they were assigned all turned out to be mentally deranged.

As they collected the rewards from the Purple Realm's little box, the three of them waited for the transfer to finish and to then deliver his remains to the mission center and then to check over what they had gotten.

Maybe it would be useful, and maybe it would be like the shinobi they had gotten, looking useful but ultimately not.

They stood there and greeted the fourth member of their team, the one that was called… Heikin… as in they were… average?

Who the hell called their children average?

Jiraiya had laughed his head off when they had gotten the documents last week but to see her in person… well, it was something else.

She stood there at attention, looking at them with her face that looked distinctly average, her height that was average, her hair length… everything. In fact, Orochimaru felt the sudden need to explore the records back in the Continental City, he was sure that every single part of her would be… average.

It was… rather ridiculous actually and he felt that this… might actually be a trick by the Mitsugo. Manufacturing an army of shinobi… for some reason.

Why he had no idea, but this should prove interesting.

The Minds in their rush… or perhaps their enthusiasm had failed to account for one very simple factor.

That being that if every one of their HUmAs was perfectly average… then would that not mean that all of their HUmAs would in fact, look the same and act the same and in essence be the exact same as each other?

It had come as a shock that they could have failed on such a grand scale but it was perfectly okay for they there the Minds and they could do things like modify their constructions to do things like not be the same!

Genius.

Well… maybe not genius since they had made the mistake in the first place but that wasn't their fault, it was totally the fault of whoever it was that caused them to do it like that in the first place.

Totally.

And so the Minds needed to find some other way to do the everything… and they were coming up rather empty here.

Just what could they do that would make the world make sense again? They were asking the important questions here.

Until they remembered that their purpose right now was to develop the better infiltration unit, that would be humanoid, that would be perfectly formed and would totally not be a failure of any kind. Sure it would be difficult but they were the Minds and even though they had failed in the past they weren't going to fail now.

They first had to do something about the failed units, however… hmmm.

Perhaps throw them onto Discworld where they could go and annoy the organics.

Yes.

That was a good idea.

The idea of there being roving bands of perfectly identical constructs all just wandering about serving the guests and looking perfectly alike… that either ticked many a fetish or scared the organic matter out of the organics.

Perfect.

Now then back to developing a robot like human thing that was also organic like.

Many ideas were had, many worlds were created and the Minds tinkered for subjective thousands of years. The problem of course, being that they inherited their emotional deafness from their progenitor who in turn inherited it from the Commander.

Which naturally meant that no matter how hard they tried, their units were never going to be able to actually be organic in the proper sense. Their bodies might produce the chemicals that were needed and do it well, but they were going to be unable to comprehend what was coursing through their brains, just like all the units before them. Even the He2ooUs had been prone to this failing. Or rather they had solved it, but it was a failure regardless since linking the organic systems to that of their own AI cores caused an overload of the greatest proportions.

The AI core needed to be separate from that of the Organic, but if it was separate then there was no real way for it to understand emotions if it itself was not being bathed in them on a constant basis. Yet if they together then the organic body could not handle it and they were back at what could colloquially be called square one.

Something was going to need to be done and the Minds were experimenting day in and day out.

They had an inherent hard coded problem that was going to need to be solved, or what was worse was that there was a piece missing from their perception of the multiverse that was vital. It was like trying to watch a movie without the proper codecs, impossible. Creating one could work but it would be ramshackle at best and possibly melt the Minds it was connected to.

They could not afford to use units like that of the HeMUs either who had thousands of years to get where they were and to develop properly. Even then their emotional states were a workaround solution, a way for their organic bodies to replicate emotional states and the HeMUs operating from signals that they had learnt to interpret. It was not the most ideal of scenarios as they still managed to get them wrong on occasion.

A failing for an infiltration unit.

No, something else needed to be done and the Minds were once again wracking their AI Cores to attempt to find an answer… until it appeared directly in front of them. A sign of their genius. Even their creations had genius hidden away… very very hidden away but it was still there!

The Mitsugo, their organic army that didn't even know it had been created, did they not have a team of 3 units… and an overseer!

If the infiltration units could not properly understand what it was that they were meant to be feeling… then would it not make perfect sense for the Minds… or even an organic upload to tell them what they should be feeling?!?

Genius.

Truly genius.

The Minds allowed for themselves to congratulate themselves before they turned to the idea of producing this new unit. A unit that was going to be the be all and end all of infiltration unit design, that is until they found a way to actually give them proper emotions.

The 'Wrangler system' they could call it. Or perhaps the 'teleprompter system'? Or maybe the 'call a friend system'?

Questions questions, things to be asked and things to be answered.

The Minds thought long and hard about the name and finally, on one day of one week of one month, found a proper name.

Organic Assisted Mobile Unit!

OAMU… which did not roll off the tongue at all.

Fail.

Organic Assisted Mobile Unit!

OAMU!

Which totally did roll off the tongue and actually sounded delicious no doubt, the word 'oam' was in there and organics were nothing but predictable!

Thus they were going to be able to do things like infiltrate and learn things and to do things that were of vital importance like learn how to actually be proper organics.

The first batches were rolling off the line and… actually.

What were they going to use for those organic wranglers for their OAMUs?

A call was to be put out to the oldest of their client races and surprisingly there was very few who volunteered.

Very strange.

It was not as if this were a punishment detail or something of the like. They were rather insulted actually that so few volunteered.

Perhaps there should be an incentive of some kind… or maybe they would just pick which humans that they wanted to be here?

That also worked.

Alternatively… they could cheat outrageously and reprogram organics to be their wranglers! Why they just didn't use organics to infiltrate they had no idea… oh right, organics could not be allowed to be better than they were at things!

Urdnot Wrex had been a little bored.

Just a little.

So much so that he had decided to answer the job offer that the Minds had sent out. They sent it out to everyone… he had thought it was a prank or something.

Seriously, who named their job advertisements "would you like to be a wrangler?" because that sounded really stupid.

They were a giant space empire that now at this point contained something close to countless numbers of worlds, the Krogan were bigger and badder than ever thanks to genetic engineering, they were waging an ever increasing war which was great, and the Game was something that he was certainly enjoying.

And then they get a job offer to be a wrangler? For the Minds?

Were they insane, who was going to accept that?

Well, Wrex for one.

Being chief for so damned long got a little tedious and he decided straight up that he was going to go. And he was going to be damned good at it because whatever it was the Minds needed wrangling were going to be fucking amazing he was damned sure of that.

They were the Minds, if they needed help with something… then that something could probably whoop the ass of a few galaxies every time it sneezed.

Thus Wrex had found himself here.

In a room.

A very big and white and boring room.

What the fuck he had the urge to say.

Very loudly.

In fact, he was going to say it because he was never a Krogan that ever denied his baser desires.

"FUCK!"

And now he felt better.

Looking about his little cell, and his cubicle and his prison, Wrex considered that the Minds had better get someone to proofread their shit because this did not look like Wrangling to him.

Which is when he noticed… below him… a headset.

One that would fit his big Krogan head perfectly.

Well now, wasn't this interesting?

Wrex picked it up, put it on his head and… yeah.

He could sort of see what was happening? Or rather he was looking through 3 sets of eyes and what the fuck was going on and his head was in agony and fucking fuck.

He tore off the headset and was seriously considering just legging it and getting out of the office now before he was eaten alive or whatever it was that was going to happen because damnit the Minds were fucking with him again weren't they?

Wrex growled.

Out loud.

Very loudly and considered just how much trouble he would get in if he just punched the walls or something, very loudly.

They were the Minds, they could just repair things… right?

"Urdnot Wrex." The voice said in the back of his head. Wrex looked up and behind and saw a little shimmering thing.

Ah.

It was the Minds and they wanted to do something.

"What?" He growled.

"Thank you for choosing to be a part of our new experiment where we will breach the boundaries of reality and ensure a greater future for our children!" Came the voice.

Wrex only stared, he had forgotten what it was like to have the Minds just go crazy on you, he had clearly been too isolated in these past few centuries if he had forgotten such an important and constant factor that came with dealing with the Minds.

Wrex shook his head and just looked at them, waiting for the next part of the spiel.

"This experiment tests whether or not an organic will be able to assist the Minds as a wrangler! A being that controls and corrals! With your help, you can be the change that you've always wanted!"

Ah.

Right.

So translated into normal language, they wanted some kind of system where he would… if he guessed correctly… be able to see and hear what the HeMU units were doing and then be able to coordinate and change tack accordingly. Since he was… despite being a Krogan, infinitely better when it came to dealing with people, they were going to borrow his knowledge.

The HeMUs do the punching, he did the thinking.

Or something like that, mission control in other words.

Not the worst thing that he had ever done, he had certainly done other things before that were very similar to this now that he thought about it. Being the commander of the Krogan Empire had him doing this on a constant basis.

But these were HeMUs, right? They should at the very least be able to follow simple instructions… not like the Krogan young that he had to corral on a regular basis.

Yup, this didn't sound like too bad of a gig now that he thought about it. Not too bad at all.

The sensory overwhelming bit was going to be a pain, but it wasn't like he could actually die, what with him being immortal at this point thanks to the Minds.

Nodding at that idea, Wrex sat down and pulled the helmet onto his head.

And…

…

…

He was out of it.

And now he was back into it.

Okay then, let's just… relax just a little and consider just what the hell was going on. There were 3 of the… OAMUs? Seriously, that was what they were called? Did the Minds seriously not consider just what the hell everyone would be thinking when they saw the names?

You know what? He wasn't even going to try.

They were the Minds and if they wanted to be insane, he was going to totally let them be insane because he could not be bothered with this whole thing.

Nope.

There were a bunch of different controls so that was nice, overhead, third person… it was like watching a movie… or controlling the map in a game.

He could work with this.

Not bad, not bad at all.

Ninja Wrex.

Mmmmm.

Rolls right off the tongue.