Hi everyone. Been a minute, hasn't it?

So, for starters, I'd like to apologize for the lack of updates and slow progress in releasing new chapters for these stories. I know there's several people who've been waiting patiently for another chapter

Long story short, a lot has been going on in my life, and to be perfectly honest, I've lost a lot of my motivation and drive to write these stories most of these days. New job, struggles with a few mental and self-confidence issues, and the last thing that's kind of thrown everything out of whack for me.

At the end of September, I will be going on a combat deployment for a year to a region with little to no internet service. So I'll effectively be gone for an entire year.

For obvious reasons, I can't talk about where I'm going or what I'll be doing, but this has caused me to reflect on a lot of things in the meantime. My life. Family. Friends. Job. My future. All of those obviously, and while I am nervous, frightened even, about the possibilities of what I may or may not face while on deployment, we're not here to talk about that. To put it simply, I can't really fret over something I have no control over, so I won't. I will simply march on forward towards this upcoming life-changing event with the mentally that I will return home in one piece and nothing will happen. Instead, I want to talk about how this will affect my presence here and what it will mean for my aspirations as a writer.

For one thing, I'm not happy with the quality of the stories or my lack of willingness to continue writing these stories. Overall, I feel like I could have done a much better job planning out the story and thinking it out before even beginning writing. I was basically just making it up as I went, which wasn't necessarily a bad idea. Some people can just do that and be fine, but over time, it was harder and harder to keep the story going and come up with ideas on where exactly I wanted to take the story. I had a general idea and direction, but my biggest issue was that I had trouble telling it and describing it, which in turn led to me losing the desire and motivation to write it. A nasty domino effect that I struggled to find a solution to.

So, I've decided that I'm going to use this year that I'm gone to reflect on my stories and work on both the backstory and overall storyboard for this story as I'm rewriting it, as well as the other stories I have in the works, such as the Aliens-Starship Troopers story. (Which, I am sorry to say, will not be getting uploaded this year as initially promised. That was made before I found out I was getting deployed, and I don't feel like it's fair to you, the audience, to upload one chapter and then disappear for a year.) There are several story ideas that I would love to do, as some of you might have noticed on Deviantart, and I think this year-long absence will actually help do wonders in both giving me time to establish everything in the background needed for these stories, as well as perhaps help regain my drive to write again.

In regards to the primary story that's more or less my main story, Halo-Naruto, it will be undergoing a massive rewriting and reorganization into two separate but universally connected stories. These two stories will be titled Halo: Diaspora Secunda and Halo-Naruto, respectively.

Halo: Diaspora Secunda will essentially be the story covering the Halo side, ie the wider galactic affairs and story that is Halo, within the Halo-Naruto universe. Everything that happens in the Aquarii Star Cluster with the Dominion and Falkirk and Helstadt, the Local Home Cluster of the UEG, Covenant Space, etc, will be told and explored in this story that will serve as the 'Halo' half of the two stories. This will also allow me to tell stories within this fic that could remain canon-friendly, such as Jericho VII or Actium, or even explore new stories that could fit perfectly within the original Halo canon without breaking it, even with this being an alternate universe.

Halo-Naruto will be the opposite of Diaspora Secunda, as it will focus exclusively on everything relating to the Naruto side of the story and effectively everything happening on the Naruto world of Shinsei, though on rare occasions the story might travel to other locations such as the Ludogorie Arc. This story will effectively cover everything involving the people and locations of the Naruto side of the story, from the people of the Hidden Leaf Village or the Sky Nation to the continent of Esura and the Romanus Empire. This will be the story that tells of all of that, including, eventually, the tale of Naruto Uzumaki and his story within this world of two completely alien universes colliding with one another.

Another thing I'd like to do regarding this story, something I should have tried to pursue a little more but hesitated to do out of fear of conflicting ideals, is to collaborate with other writers to tell the stories set within this universe. Despite my best efforts and expectations, the scope of the story I planned to tell ended up becoming massive, too massive for one person to realistically write. So when I return from deployment, I would like to try and contact other writers who may be interested in writing stories for either part of this odd little crossover and creating an incredibly unique and fantastic fan universe together.

For everyone who has read my stories, I genuinely appreciate all the support you've shown me as I brought them to life, both here and on DeviantArt. I do not want this to be where it ends as my dream as a writer, as one day, I'd love to write an actual novel that could be published. However, before that day comes, I have to first regain the motivation, drive, and passion needed to get back into writing and bring all my wild ideas to life so that they can come to life. And hopefully, you'll continue to support and cheer on every step of the way when I come back.

Thank you for everything. See you all in a year.
-Azores