I have decided to halt my work on this story. Over the last two years since I updated this, I have written over a thousand words. That's it. Real life has gotten in the way of me ever writing this. I don't want to leave my readers unsatisfied, so here is a general outline of how the story would have ended.

-Naruto continues to get stronger and fights in the Konoha invasion arc helping the hokage defend against the revived dead hokages. The third hokage dies, but tells Naruto that he is proud to have known him. (This was the Make Me Proud questline which Naruto sometimes thought about in my story).

-Sasuke deserts the village and fights Sakura who goes to bring him back (in lieu of Naruto in the cannon). Sasuke ends up killing her after activating his cursed seal. Ami disobeys orders from the fifth Hokage (still Tsunade in cannon) and leaves the village, swearing to get stronger and kill Sasuke. (I liked this plot point because of how ironic it was that Sasuke had created his own brand of mindless avenger. It fit in well with the whole cyclical theme of the story.)

-Naruto and Ami were going to be the pairing for this one. Naruto is sent by the hokage to go look for Ami and redeem her. Naruto doesn't have the personal issues he had with Sasuke in cannon and he is more concerned about Sasuke. I had a big three person fight scene between Sasuke, Ami and Naruto planned.

-Orochimaru was going to discover the existence of the game. I didn't have an idea on how he was going to do that, but the idea was that he was capable of messing around with the numbers of the game and make himself stronger.

-Akatsuki are still active and looking for Naruto. Sasuke manages to kill Itachi, but a weakened Sasuke is killed by Ami very quickly afterward (making it impossible for Madara to show him the truth). Sasuke was going to die without knowing what his brother actually stood for. Ami feels an emptiness after taking her vengeance and leaves. Naruto is heartbroken of course.

-Naruto is too strong for the Akatsuki at this point and defeats all of them, including Nagato. (Jiraiya doesn't die in this story. I feel like enough people were killed already.)

-The final arc was to be the 'World Anchor Unhitched' arc. The concept of the game was that it was a race of observers who take over infinite worlds in infinite universes and run experiments on them. I never really wanted to explain why they did this (probably because I lack a decent explanation.) Remember Orochimaru messing with the numbers of the skills? He was going to be an opponent even Naruto with his fudged up numbers would struggle to defeat. The world was tied to its 'anchor' which was Naruto and anything happening to Naruto would mean that it was the end of the world. When Naruto finds himself in trouble, the game begins glitching out and people begin disappearing, this is when the fox somehow manages to break the chains the game placed on him (not sure how, hadn't thought that through) and manages to defeat Orochimaru. He dies in the process and the world ends.

Only for him to wake up staring at a new game screen. Doomed to repeat.

I want to thank everyone who read my story and participated in the comments. Many people hated how angsty it was but to be honest, it was a guy dealing with the death of a loved one, at least some levels of angst is justified, isn't it? Many more loved it. This was my most popular story by far and the one I was most confident of breaking a million hits. It never got there, and I don't think it ever will, but I wanted to give myself closure. MY other fancitions haven't been abandoned. I'm busy with a professional life that doesn't allow me time to write. Some day, I hope to get back into it and finish those stories.

To everyone who is reading this for the first time, I want you to not follow this story as there will be no updates. You can read my other work and maybe I'll read reviews if you leave them, but I wouldn't make the effort to do that.

This story gave me purpose during a tough time of my life. My life is somewhere else now and I have other things that keep me going. Thank you for taking this journey with me. I love you, I will miss you and I wish you all a Merry Christmas, happy holidays, a happy new year and the best for the rest of your lives.