A/N: *EDIT*

If you get Saw vibes from this...well. That's intentional.

Suspend your disbelief and get ready to smile.

And the daily updates role on!

Here we are, another bit for the collection!

So lets clarify a few things.

In A Most Unlikely Drifter I mentioned that a few Alternate!Naruto's would show up, right? Allow me to list some of them.

Brawler!Naruto.

Explorer!Naruto.

Trapper!Naruto.

Healer!Naruko.

Still, these four have been revealed in this Collection. So here's the latter's backstory.

Also, a warning for FGO players. Nerofest isn't working properly. As in, its crashing phones. More aptly, its the finals. I have an up-to-date Iphone and decent internet, but a lot of the "Fatal Battles" aren't loading properly. No idea what the cause is, just a warning. To date, it still won't work. I know for a fact that I'm not the only one having an issue and I've been talking with others about it. No idea as to the cause, but there you are.

Speaking of which, I just got another four star in the form Saber!Lancelot! Didn't even know he was a thing. Apparently he's a really good Servant? I've also looked at the odds for summoning some of the Five-Stars and they are...concerning. Not even a single percent chance for some of them? Well. Time to put me luck to the test. I've also received Medusa, Billy the Kid, Diarmuid, Caesar-getting WAY too many of him!-and two more Neros. Seriously! I'm not even trying to get her! She just keeps showing up!

0_0

Which is nice, because thanks to each of them, Nero's Noble Phantasm now hits like a truck. One more now and I'll be able to max it out~! I'm onto the second singularity now, and still silently hoping for Saber Alter. Yeesh, if this keeps up, I'm going to have most of the Four Stars before we get that free four star ticket.

When IS that, anyway? Anybody know? Anybody at all?

*EDIT*

So I'm sorry if this introduction is short.

But I'm off to work again.

Hope ya enjoy~!

"Can't. You. Just. Play. ALONG?!"

~?

A Most Unlikely Game

Life's a game.

Wouldn't you say?

We all laugh and live and play.

Each of us-each and every one of us!-go through the motions that we call life. We eat. We sleep. We work. Rinse and repeat. Little pockets of monotony broken up by random events, brief starbursts of joy and happiness that fade just as quickly as they came. Because life's a game. And we all want to win. Don't we? You don't play a game to lose. Civilian, criminal or shinobi, we all play to win. The losers die, the winners live to fight again, be it in the streets or the alleys or even the sheets. That's what it means to play the game called life?

But what happens when you don't get what you want?

What happens when you lose?

When you fail?

Tell me, what happens when you kick a dog one too many times? It turns mean, of course. Even the most loyal mutt will eventually snap and snarl at all those who come near it, fearing that they'll be hurt again. Just as we have light in us, so too do we hold and hide our own little pockets of darkness. It can happen to anyone, really. One bad day. One poor decision leads to another and another STILL; a spiraling pattern that you're not quite aware of. But by the time you realize what you've done, what you've become, its too late to stop.

It happened to me early in my life, a simple and devastating change.

You see, everyone was always glaring at me. Whispering behind my back. In another world, I'd been naively blind to it all. But in this one? I noticed. I actually asked them to stop. They pelted me with stones. I cried. They laughed at me. I tried to make them notice me by acting out through pranks and other mischief. Their scorn only grew deeper with every year.

"You'll never amount to anything." They all said those words to me time and again

I ignored them for so very long; I thought I would prove them wrong. And one day... I...well...I just...

...I had a horrible thought. What if they were right about me? What if I was fooling myself? Was it all just a trick? A joke?

They failed me out of the Academy four times; funny thing, it was always the laughter that stuck with me. Those mocking jeers...those snickers...

It wasn't funny.

They stepped on me one too many times. Kicked me when I was down until finally, FINALLY something broke. My pranks were harmless for years. Everyone always underestimated them, and by definition, me. Yes, they were harmless. Until quite suddenly they weren't. You'd be surprised what happens when you mix certain chemicals together. Have you seen what acid paint can do to stone? No? How about skin? Those Anbu never did recover. Wire traps are a nasty piece of business by themselves; pair the bastards with one or two kunai and a few explosive tags and you'd be downright amazed what they can do.

Everyone wanted to blame the demon brat, but they never found proof. I covered my tracks.

Eventually it became obvious I couldn't keep doing this-least of all when a certain Uchiha was killed by one of my traps-so the village had to go. Rather, I did. Mizuki simply gave me the excuse. Steal the Scroll of Sealing and learn a jutsu from it? Bah. As if that would let me achieve my ambition. Life's a game, you see. And I play to win. That night I stole the Leaf's greatest secrets and left him holding the bag. Shadow Clones are a sight useful if you're clever. While they held a public execution for poor, poor Mizuki and "Naruto", I had already away to join the first hidden village that would take me.

Onoki proved rather...accommodating in the coming years, until Akatsuki came calling.

When they tried to rip that damn fox out of me? I SURVIVED. Through sheer bloody force of will. Instead of draining me, I drained their statue. It left me with nine individual voices in my head, nine beasts of chakra who refused to become the Ten-Tails. Nine minds who were of one accord regarding the Moon's Eye Plan. Nine. Angry. Tailed. Beasts. That was alright. I was angry too. So I let them put myself back together, sat up, and blew Tobi's precious hideout to kingdom come. I think he was too stunned to stop me.

Still, that left me with a world's worth and power and nothing to do.

After that, I kept making my traps, games, puzzles. Deadly gauntlets that I ran my people through for kicks. Some survived. Some didn't.

Sick?

Twisted?

Deranged, you say?

Probably.

I'm just a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one; much less if someone survived one my puzzles. When two kids actually did? I adopted them and taught that boy and girl everything I knew. I was nothing it not fair. If you survived, you earned a second chance. If not. Well. Really, its almost funny. They say villains never prosper. But I don't consider myself a villain. I'm just someone who likes to gamble. To play games. Roll the dice. Can't you just play along? It'd be so much easier for all of us if you did.

Life's just a bad joke, really. We're all just waiting for the punchline.

Eh? What's this? An invitation, now?

Hmm. Sure. Why the hell not?

I want to play a game.

A/N: Clarification!

This is not a Joker!Naruto. No makeup, no face paint, no green hair. Its one who simply lived life the way he pleased and paid the price for it. He's not the true villain, but he IS a bad guy. One of the few that haven't been hunted down and put to the sword by Snatcher!Naruto and the rest

He. Is. Not. Sane.

He thinks of life as a game, one without consequences.

Well, I'm off to work again, expect an update for "A Most Unlikely Saber" and "A Most Unlikely Berserker" as well as "Moon Cancer" and "Saver sometime soon.

And there we have it.

The other contestants might well surprise you.

Sorry, not feeling very well at the moment, think I've come down with something.

So In the Immortal Words of Atlas...Review Would You Kindly? Every word helps. Even a single word like "nice" means the world to me.

Sorry, no previews this time around. As I said before, I'm sick, and any that I do have would give away some CRUCIAL plot details that are coming.

Until tomorrow, then~!

~Nz.