Prologue

It never ends does it?

The forest must go on forever, Contessa must have thought it fitting to dump me into an empty world with no other intelligent life. Wallowing away the days by myself out of sheer spite to those that wished me dead.

"Well," I said to myself, "that might not be one hundred percent accurate." My passenger was still with me even though it had been sporadically coming and going. My insect control would be with me one day, with greater range than I had ever perceived before, then the next day I would wake to the relative silence of my normal senses and a feeling of dread would encompass me. Every time my control went away I felt as if I might slip back into the thought processes of kephri again, unable to think of anything besides that which dealt conflict. I reassure myself that I'm not relapsing by speaking out loud, something I hadn't been capable of as Kephri.

Ever since landing here in these forests I've become reliant on finding and hunting food through my powers. Over the years I'd come to take them for granted, but now that my passenger is taking vacation days I found myself contemplating the things most people take for granted. like having two arms or not having severe mental trauma.

Once I realized that my passenger would be going AWOL on a semi-regular basis I made sure to collect enough supplies for a few days of survival whenever possible. It's not an easy feat when all I have on me is the outfit I wore as Kephri. Its visage now completely unblemished by the fighting it has seen. I managed to make a passable backpack with animal skins and spider silks. It's surprising what one can do with one arm and an unending swarm of random spiders.

The first few days in these forests had me trying to get a lay of the land. My first attempt involved using my swarm's senses to observe the highest point of my reach. That got me a blurry image of an endless green forest stretching out in all directions, save one. In the far distance there is a smudge of grey sticking out of the horizon."

Looks like I'm going that way then.

After a day or so of travel toward the proposed mountain, my power shorts out again.

"Maybe if I'm lucky this world will have some nice, reasonable people and I can get a nice hot bath." I continue muttering to myself as I trek through the forests. "But knowing my luck I'll probably find that the whole planet is inhabited by endbringer equivalents or giant carnivorous leeches…although the latter might not be a problem if my powers don't decide to fuck off for the day again"

XxxxX A few hours later XxxxX

Ya know, when I was joking about the endbringer thing I didn't mean to taunt you, murphy.

Contessa what in the hell were you playing at. Sending me to a world inhabited by skyscraper sized monstrosities with nothing besides a half broken power?

Late that morning I got a better picture of the creature, its size was enormous and it just heading in my direction, and the worst part was that it seems to be following me, every time I changed direction it would shift it's heading unerringly right toward me.

I almost sigh out loud.

This thing is definitely something I don't want to fight. Especially with how unreliable passenger is being.

The worst part was that despite how slowly it seem to be moving, it would probably still reach me before the end of the hour anyway with how huge it was. My only objective at this point was to reach the mountains id seen earlier.

Well better try something before it reaches me.

Maybe it will be allergic to ten thousand simultaneous bee stings. Id have to go for the eyes if it has any, that always seems to work… or maybe I can try talking to it.

The Endbringers from bet seemed much less murderous after everything that happened during gold morning.

Compared to Gold Morning and all the other shit Ive been through, this situation doesn't even rank within the top ten. Talking a monster out of murdering me should be easy comparatively.

I pause as I realize that my passenger had chosen that exact moment to black out once again leaving me to talk to said monstrosity in person instead of through a swarm clone like I had been planning to do…

"Well fuck you too, passenger".

XxxxX A few hours later XxxxX

Well the good news is that I'm not dead yet. The bad is that this creature is a no-show. It ought to have caught up to me even if it was crawling all the way to me. I wish my bugs could have gotten a better picture of what it looked like but it had been moving too fast.

Now I have something the size of a multi-story building nearby and I have no idea where it is or how something that large could possibly sneak up on me. The most unsettling thing is not knowing just what this creature was capable of. Having nothing better to do I suppose ill bed down under a tree again and see if I can't get to the mountain tomorrow.

Maybe then I'll be able to spot my pursuer, or if I'm lucky some kind of civilization somewhere nearby.

XxxxX The next day, base of mountain XxxxX

"Well that's a bit disheartening", I groan to myself while I look at the giant claw marks that racket the face of the mountain.

Apparently the creature must have lived here at some point, as there are old-looking claw marks pocketed all over and a massively large cave about three-fourths of the way to the summit. The entrance to which nearly encompasses 10% of the whole cliff-face. I have a feeling that no matter what I do I'm going to be facing this thing, I just wish my passenger would stop taking a break right now and fucking do something useful.

Frustration coming to a peak I exasperatedly start my long climb up the mountainside.

XxxxX same time, some distance away XxxxX

"Well isn't that intriguing", a deep voice mutters to itself as it observes a one armed human shaped creature muttering to itself in a language never heard on the face of that world before.

This creature contains hatred within it, yet I cannot feel anything else. It smells of insects and vaguely of humans, but no charka at all…that should not be possible. The colossal fox contemplates as it watches said woman-creature climb ever further into its territory.

Maybe today won't be so boring after all, Kurama though with a wide smirk.

Chapter 1

Alien Philosopher

"All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher."

- Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)

I'd just reached the cave entrance when I notice something moving in the forests near the base of the mountain in the periphery of my vision.

Passenger, are you seeing what I'm seeing?

My power actually flickers on for a moment at that thought, startling me almost as much as the realization of what had been following me on my way up the mountain.

A giant fox at least a hundred feet tall, casually steppes up the mountain like it was taking a stroll through a meadow instead of a mountainside with 45 degree incline. Its blood-red eyes were trained right on me and I could identify intelligence even at this distance.

Besides its overall vulpine form it did have some unique features, one of which being its almost human-like hands, multiple swaying tails, and its pitch black lip and ear colorations.

Even as it grew closer I didn't move, there wasn't anywhere I could go at this point besides the cave and given the telltale indents around the mountain this was probably its den.

As it grew closer to the cave its facial features became clearer, showing a strangely human like facade of blank disregard. That was both a good sign and a bad omen. This creature was too alive, too fluid in its movements, and strangely emotive even with its neutral gaze to be an endbringer. Normally that might be a good thing, however this also made me realize just how alien this creature was.

I wonder how something that large can even be alive, its bones would have to be stronger than steel. If this was a normal animal It would overheat, its organs would implode, and it would probably need to mainline butter just to get enough calories.

With that thought the great fox finally reaches the cave entrance and stops. It seems to contemplate something before a look of resignation falls onto its face. It proceeds to step straight over me, gouging deep furrows into the cave floors entrance.

"Hanashimashou", said the fox. And proceeds to walk into the massive cave.

Its voice was loud and the proximity to the cave gave a reverb to the words that gave an ominous quality to its tenor.

Its ability to speak surprises me, but what surprises me more was its capability to form human speech perfectly even with its inhuman facial features.

Am I really going to follow that thing right into its den? It could probably kill me without any real effort. Yet here I am. About to walk right into possible danger and death. Why can't I just rest. Just stop throwing myself into situations like this.

Yet still I walked forward. There must have been something wrong with me.

XxxxX XxxxX

The Inside of the fox's den was not what I had originally imagined it might be, instead of a bland grey hole in the wall there was instead a breathtaking visage of serenity. Most of the walls seemed to gleam with unnatural, crystalline stalagmites and stalactites. The farthest point in the room sported what seemed to be a straight hole. Its edges looked almost melted, as if someone had fired an anti-endbringer laser straight into the ceiling merely to add a small amount of light to the otherwise dim room. At the center sat the fox in all its immensity, back to the light and face shadowed. The fox merely stared at me before gesturing with its hand like claws for me to approach.

Struggling not to hesitate, I moved to stand before the massive creature, keeping eye contact all the while. Even to something like this creature I refuse to show even the smallest amount of trepidation, I had faced gods and won after all. An overgrown fox just didn't compare to that, powers or no. That doesn't mean that i'm not still a little intimidated by its sheer size.

Standing a comfortable distance away (and hopefully out of its reach) I began my introductions.

"Hello, my name is Skitter" I couldn't help but feel a bit ridiculous as I point to myself and then gesture toward the fox as if to say 'your turn'.

"…Kyuubi," the fox finally intones after a short pause. It said nothing more, and made no indication that it was going to continue talking.

"Well Kyuubi, I don't suppose you understand anything I'm saying do you?"

The fox merely stared harder

"All right well how abo-" I began before a massive claw dartes out and seizes me. I had been standing outside of its reach but the fox was blindingly fast, I didn't really stand a chance of dodging.

I could barely breathe in its grip yet I wasn't being crushed, the fox pauses for a moment before it starts muttering to itself. I thought I might have caught the word 'ninshu', but its ramblings seem more grumbling than any discernible language. Once I realize how thoroughly trapped I was my passenger tries waking up but it just kept stuttering, flickering perceptions of the bugs around the mountain appearing and disappearing. A migraine quickly built behind my eyes, spotting my vision.

Finally, the fox stops its muttering and closes its eyes. Before I could understand what was happening a sudden feeling of vertigo smashes through me and I found myself falling through space, surrounded on all sides by endless stars and the telltale streaks of colorful light indicating distant galaxies far far away.

The image was surreal, almost ethereal in its beauty. No earthy telescope could ever capture an image half as detailed as what I was seeing, not even the earth aleph ones that didn't have to worry about endbringers.

There was a shift in the darkness that caught my eye, a shifting mass that almost blends with the star field.

A tessellating, wormish colossus, writhing in the darkness. My perception of it shifted from moment to moment, making it impossible to determine just how close or far away it truly was.

For a moment I panic, remembering Scion's true form and thinking for a terrible instant that all I had done and sacrificed had been for nothing, but as the moment stretches and I had time to look, I realize this couldn't be him. This thing looks shattered and broken. Wounded. Gouges pock-marked its surface. This was my passenger, mutilated somehow. Half-remembered thoughts invade my mind.

- So many stars. We're s- so very small, in the end. -

Then a strange feeling passed over me, a feeling I dread more than death. Like I was a puppeteer trying to make the puppet move by tugging the strings from some remote place.

My passenger was trying to invade my mind, then something inside me SHIFTED.

A migrane the likes of which i'd never experienced before blooms within my skull, driving rusty nails into my brain. My vision flickers and shatters into a million differing perspectives. Is this how my passenger sees?

{Connection}

No Don't! We can't become that again!

{Regret}

{Sorrow}

{Determination}

Visions pass before my eyes of all the wretchedness of my life. All the compromises to my morality I made to try and do the right thing. Every mistake and every regret seared right into my brain.

{Fixing}

{Changes}

{Resolution}

My final conversation with Contessa is played back to me, as vivid as the moment I experienced them.

-"Because I think you have a chance to come back from this. Not much of a chance. Part of that rides on me. I could help you, or I could stop you from troubling anyone ever again. Part of that? It's up to you to win the fight, to take control and keep the Administrator from claiming everything you have, leaving you a shell."-

{Surgery}

{Weapon}

{Negation}

They did something to me... to us. Unbinding the connection between myself and the Administrator left both of us broken. Trying to fix us had left both of us in worse shape. We should not be able to function after what they did to us. By the end we should have been unsalvageable. Something else interfered, though, fixed us in a way that not even Bonesaw or Panacea could.

{Entity}

{Manipulation}

{Designation: Mother}

The memories scatter and the connection snaps back on itself like an elastic band. There was a final skull-splitting blaze behind my eyes, and then the stars fade out into blackness and the pain with them.

There was no emotions left within me, I spent it all already and I just wanted everything to stop. There was too much to take in and not enough time to process it all. No more conflict, no burning desire to seek revenge. I just wanted to rest. I just wanted to be done with it all.

Coldness slowly seeps into my back and I blearily opened my eyes. I was greeted by the blank ceiling of the fox's cave. The moon shone round and full through the skylight, a pale egg nestled in blackness.

XxxxX XxxxX

The morning light eventually brightens the interior of the cavern and still I don't move. The revelations brought to me through the Administrator left me in a loop of self-examination throughout the night. After Gold Morning I should have been a shattered wreck. Let alone the probable brain damage that occurred when separating the Administrator from myself. My emotions and actions of the last few days were nothing like how I should have been acting. Every action and every emotion was now suspect and after yesterday's revelation I just didn't have the mental energy to analyse each and every action.

I wonder if Heartbreaker's victims ever felt this way. That they just changed, fundamentally, and just didn't have the capacity to realize that something was wrong.

Eventually my musings are broken when a wall of shadow shifts in the corner of the cave. Instantly my eyes dart to the wall and I am reminded that I was not alone in the mountain.

My vision adjusts to reveal that the shadows were actually the form of a giant fox's back and tails.

It's waking up, I thought numbly. All the while the fox seemed to become more alive, lethargy giving way to slow languid stretching. Like a cat uncurling from a particularly restful sleep.

I manage to find the willpower to sit up as the fox finally moved its gaze toward my direction. Its entire body turning around to face toward me and stepping into the light coming from the ceiling. It stops a comfortable distance away from me and simply sat there, all the while its tails sway slowly behind it.

There was a moment where our eyes met and a strange understanding passes through me. This creature had been alive for a very long time and little caught its interest any longer. It wields power so great that no living being on the face of the world could truly match its might. It was a prideful creature and it was very curious of the small impossible creature sitting before it.

I broke the eye contact immediately as fast as I could.

That had to be a master power, that feeling was like the Administrators influence. Like it was deeply rooted in my mind and impossible to disregard. Similar to the pull toward conflict that my passenger had upon me, just more visceral and straightforward.

A moment passes before a deep voice pierces the silence, conveying an almost aloof attitude. Although the sounds of the language were foreign to me, I could somehow still understand them.

"It is widely believed that all things, dead or alive, contain a form of energy known as chakra."

I looked back toward the fox in a questioning manner, deliberately avoiding eye contact.

"It fuels all natural processes and is believed to be fundamental to all life." The fox pauses briefly. Red eyes boring straight into me.

"Yet when I first spied you trespassing within my territory there was not even a hint of chakra. In fact the very nature energy around you just seemed to vanish. Not be absorbed like I had initially hypothesized but literally vanished into nothingness." Another pause and then the voice returned with a more threatening tone.

"So tell me, little human-shaped impossibility, what are you?"

It took a few minutes to articulate what I wished to say. The fox all the while continued boring holes through me with its eyes. Its posture slipping into a more threatening cadence. Eventually my voice came, slipping and stuttering with the foreign language. Each word I spoke gradually became more certain than the last, until my speech became fluent syllables.

"I-I'm not s-sure what you're a-asking. I would s-say that I am human but I'm not c-certain of that anymore. Recently I think more and more that I'm simply a monster pretending to be human."

"I didn't mean the question philosophically, I meant the question literally. If you were human you'd be dead from your lack of chakra, plain and simple. 'Monster' is a vague term and it doesn't explain what you are." An irritated note edged into its voice.

I lick my lips nervously.

"I'm not sure what chakra is, but I know I was born human. And I'm pretty sure I'm alive. Although I might be dead." I said.

A silence once again descends. Reluctantly I gather together the questions that I felt needed to be asked.

"What did you do to me? I know I'm not speaking english right now, so you must have somehow implanted an entire language into my mind." The statement came out sounding like a question.

The fox seems to think for a moment before finally answering.

The foxes gaze drifts to stare off in remembrance as it explains.

"It is a long forgotten art that involves the manipulation of chakra. Originally designed to give the person a better understanding of themselves, as well as others. Normally this process is quick and effortless." The foxes gaze returns to its focus on me.

"However your unusual nature in regards to chakra seems to have complicated the process. The best I could manage was to impress proper language upon you before the connection was broken. By the time I was done you had fallen unconscious and so I decided to wait."There was another pause before the fox continued.

"Tell me, what was your purpose for entering my territory? If it were not for my own curiosity I would have killed you the moment you stepped foot on my mountain. Your reasons must have been extraordinary to risk my wrath." The fox stated in a neutral tone.

I decide to be completely honest, since I was wondering the same question.

"I haven't been myself since I arrived on this world. My emotions and memories have been tampered with. The extent to which I am still try..." I stop as I notice the surprise on the fox's face.

"What?"

"Your statement implies that there are other worlds, and you clearly are not one of the summons, nor could you have contacted them without chakra. I find the concept hard to believe. You claim to be not of this world, truly?" The fox asks skeptically.

"Ah, I guess parallel world theory isn't common knowledge here?"

The fox shakes its head in negation.

"Well the way I learned it was that earth has a number of parallel instances of itself. Weather that number was just 2 or if there were many others was not really well understood. I've found out myself that there are hundreds, if not thousands of worlds out there."

"You've been to them? These other worlds?" The fox couldn't help but ask.

"Other than my home world I didn't really spend too much time on any other world. Most of my time on other worlds was when I was fighting and running." I didn't like where the conversation was going. It brought up too many painful memories.

"What were you running from that could chase you across worlds?"

That question was hard to answer. How does somebody explain the concept of an interdimensional space-whale without sounding ridiculous.

"He was like a god. At first everyone worshipped him as a savior. Most people changed their minds once he revealed his true colors and became hell bent on the annihilation of everyone around him… He ended up killing billions before I killed him."

I didn't mean to say that last part but at this point I was numb to the conversation. I didn't want to think about HIM anymore, I just wanted to go curl up in a corner and just not think about anything for a while.

Still the fox raises an eyebrow and continues his questioning.

"You? Kill a God. I find that hard to believe when you couldn't even escape my grip yesterday."

"I wasn't alone, and the fight left me broken. The fact I'm even functional enough to be having this conversation is something I still don't understand."

There was silence for a time after that statement. I use that time to collect myself and try to parse the visions my passenger had shown me. It was a lost cause though, nothing new popped into my head and I continue to avoid eye contact with the fox all the while.

The silence didn't last long however as the fox spoke once more.

"Your story is similar to one I know. I would like to hear the whole thing."

I didn't know how to feel about the statement. I had experienced a lot in my short life and I didn't particularly feel like telling my life's story. However I did know that this was as good an opportunity as any to get to know the world I now inhabited.

"All right I'll tell you my story but in exchange Id like to know as much as I can about this world."

The fox contemplated this for a moment before reluctantly agreeing.

"Alright I guess the best point to start would be in 1982, an ocean liner was crossing from Plymouth to Boston whe-" Suddenly the fox interrupts.

"What is an ocean liner?"

This is going to take longer than I thought.

AN- I'd like to thank Dragonofshadows115 for all his help polishing up this mess I call a story. The first part here is rough but I promise it gets better. Crossposting from Spacebattles, check it out there for colored texts and other such things.