A/N: Welcome one and all!

As ever, GhostXavier is my lord and liege and my inspiration for all of this.

The moment I laid eyes on Fragments of Chaldea I was spellbound and inspired!

Here we have ideas that never quite made it off the cutting floor, as well as situations that shouldn't feasibly occur, and events that shouldn't take place, but do.

(EDIT!) It will also contain occasional story ideas as well, for your view pleasure.

Can I just say how amazed I am that this series became a thing? Berserker was the first, but from there it took off as you all began demanding more and more Servants, their motivations, and the like. Now, we have only two-technically a third if you count a Master of Black?-remaining, and they'll all be meeting down the road, but this...consider this a present for everyone who sticks with me through the good times and the bad.

A Most Unlikely Collection!

The scene you see before you was originally meant to be in A Most Unlikely Foreigner but got cut due to the fact that it wouldn't make sense to have him as a Servant at the time. So consider this to be whatever you will; an alternate universe, a fragment in time, or simply a chance meeting between two inhumanely powerful beings.

As ever, we're sticking with the "Most Unlikely" theme for titles.

Here we have Foreigner!Naruto vs Beast!Naruto...

...and what a fight it is.

WARNING!

Other chapters will be bright.

But this one...this one gets all kinds of dark.

References are references and I don't own jack!

"Hold on...now I see a light."

"Walk towards it!"

~?

A Most Unlikely Encounter

The message is relayed.

Across all realms, through worlds dying and dead.

The beast hunts any wearing its face. Some choose to hunt the beast instead.

One pair prove more successful than most. It is a threat to everything they stand for and so when the Grail offers them a deal, the take. Seek it out for themselves. In world after world. Sometimes they arrive too late to do anything more than pick up the ashes; sometimes they find a resistance; those who through some manner or means managed to repel the creature that calls itself beast. Some fall to it. Few know the truth. This is no true Beast but a pretender; something with the potential to become much worse.

And eventually they find it.

Or perhaps the beast finds them. Who can say?

On a world bleak and barren at the end of time, the sky scorched red and the earth cracked with fire, they finally cornered the man who became a monster. All around him the realm wept, no longer having the strength to resist the corroded presence that had ravage its decaying bones. All hope of victory had been beaten from it, blackening the earth underfoot. Like mud. It sucked at Naruto's boots with every step, trying to creep up his legs and drag him under the mire. He resisted it through sheer force of will, and in time, realizing it had bitten off more than it could chew without its master.

There were...things in the mud. Horrible, shapeless things, waiting for the right moment to drag them down.

"This is a bad place." Kaguya whispered as she clung to his shoulders tightly, pale eyes regarding the charred fields, muddy mire, and twisted trees in mournful silence. "I don't like it here."

"Don't worry." Foreigner's hand rose to pat her little head. "We won't linger long."

...I hope you're right."

A flock of withered crows scattered as they climbed the hill, forcing a flinch from the girl.

"He's watching us." she murmured.

Blue eyes regarded the looming crimson clouds. "I know."

Ascending a winding path that might have once been flanked by a picket fence, they reached their destination soon enough, and their target beyond. Indeed, they found the Beast easily enough. He didn't even try to hide, nor did he make any attempt to escape. This was his world now. The creatures here served him. What need had he to flee? Perched on the ruined remains of what might've been a small cottage, he loomed large over the landscape, the lord of his domain, of all he surveyed.

He was far too busy with his meal to greet them; too busy devouring the last dregs of a Servant to notice their presence.

Even from this distance, Foreigner recognized that distinctive grab.

"Is that...?"

The words clenched in his throat.

Kaguya saw who it was and retched. Naruto willed himself forward, hands balling into fists at his side. Until then, they hadn't want to admit it; they'd wanted to believe there was still some hope for this iteration of himself, that he could be redeemed, could be saved, brought back from the brink. Part of him still did. That part had just been dealt a grievous wound.

Seeing is believing, as some say.

He expected blind fury, a slavering, drooling monster. Instead he received something else entirely.

"Oh, good." that monstrous-yet-still-somewhat humanoid head rose at their approach, teeth still stained with the remains of its last meal. Whiskered cheeks-no, wrong, the marks were thicker than they should be-dimpled in a small smile. "One of you actually came looking for me." swaying, he clamored upright on the thatch roof. "Well, hello there! Welcome to my world! I wasn't expecting guests. Just let me finish up here and I'll be riiight with you. Don't go anywhere. kids~!"

Kaguya raised a hand to strike and Naruto swatted it down with a glower.

"Not yet." He hissed. "Wait until he's vulnerable."

She squirmed furiously. "But he killed...!"

"I know!"

"Its almost sad, really." The Beast sighed as he climbed down off the roof, one arm clutching what might've been a sword, once upon a time. "She barely put up a fight once I killed him and the kids, you know. Some king she was...though I suppose she wasn't at her best now, was she? No, she hadn't been for quite some time. Lucky me. I've fought that one at her peak before. She hits like a truck, let me tell you! But this thing...it was so very...rusty." those jaws closed down again and the sword broke like glass in his teeth and he glimpsed the ruins of what might have been her soul before his vision went red.

Rage coiled in Foreigner's gut, but Kaguya flung out an arm to stop him.

"What have you done?" she coked the words out. "What have you become?"

Blank eyes rounded on her with fain curiosity, the kind one might lend a passing cloud.

"Hmm? You're here too, Kaguya? No. Not Kaguya. Lesser." she flinched at his damning words. "Fascinating."

Quick as a flash those eerie blank eyes swung back to her other half, regarding him with far more menace. "So! Brought the bitch along for a ride, did you? How'd you manage that? What, she your daughter or something? Are you really that naive? Doesn't that get old?"

Naruto didn't deign to answer.

"Fair enough. Oh! I see those robes you're wearing." that smug smile turned cruel as the Beast began to circle them." Finally made Hokage, did you? Good for you! Did you ever get around to fucking anyone? No? Run the village into the ground?" that ghastly visage snapped into his face, forehead pressing against his own. "No? Burn it to the ground, then?

Still, he refused to give him the satisfaction.

"Silent treatment, eh? Well, if she's here...Guess that makes you, what, Foreigner then?" the smile that bloomed as he danced away was almost euphoric by comparison. "I've always wanted to try one of those."

...you won't. Not today."

"Ahahaha! So he speaks! After all! I was starting to think they plucked out your tongue or something."

Laughter burst from the self-proclaimed Beast all at once, sharp and high and so very mad. It was the cry of a man who had been twisted so far beyond the pale as to be unrecognizable. One who'd had more than just a bad day, but a bad life from the very beginning. Pity shriveled up in him and he felt the sudden, overwhelming urge to pummel some sense into this man. He was him, after all. A warped and twisted version of his psyche that he'd never wanted to see, let alone face, but it was still him underneath all that blood and scales.

"I'm grateful, really." the monster murmured between giggles, heedless of their boiling fury. "You caught me at a good time. I feel almost...giddy, after this kill. Feels good to have an easy victory after the last one. These idiots were out here alone, away from the world. They let it burn so they could enjoy a few more years together. Did you know that? If they'd stood there ground and fought, that would've been a better way to go. More noble, don't you think so...

Bloodied teeth flashed out at them.

...Naruto?"

Foreigner struck.

Looking back, he couldn't quantify what made him move; revulsion, disgust, or simple anger. It could've been any one of them. But it didn't change the outcome. Clenched knuckles barreled into the side of the Beast's whiskered cheek with all the force of a hurricane, shattering his jaw, rendering his right eye a stark scarlet smear, and his nose a twisted mess of cartilage and bone alike. He made no move to defend himself, much less evade as he tumbled backward, half of his visage rendered a pulpy mass.

Anyone else would've died.

Not the Beast.

"Good god!" his doppelganger crowed, flopping on his back like a drunken crab as he clutched at his ruined face. He was already healing, already able to speak by the time Naruto reached him again. "I felt that one! What are you, a Grand Servant or something?!"

"No." A hand closed around the ratty jacket he wore, jerking him upright. "And you're not me."

Beast spat in his face and he spun away, startled.

"Oh, but I am!" the monster laughed, climbing back to his feet to leer at him. "I'm the one bad day you never had, Naruto." a lone finger rose to accuse him, jabbing at his chest. "I'm the nightmare that haunts your sleep, the whispers as you creep. I'm that tiny, little voice in the back of your head that says burn them all. You just don't know it yet. But you will. You all will. The others knew too, before the end."

Kaguya's hand scythed out and half the creature's body-most of its right side-vanished in a grisly spray.

Still it continued to chuckle.

"Why aren't you dead?"

"You have your cells to blame for that, my dear." The Beast chuckled, already regenerating what it had lost. "But if its any consolation...that hurt like hell."

"How many of you are there?" She snapped at him.

Something dawned in those dull eyes then, a spark of realization.

"You came alone." Beast reared back, guffawing harshly in spite of their shared scowl. "You didn't bring anyone else with you. Not Saber, not Kurama, not even the slacker who calls himself Faker these days. No. Of course you didn't. They're too focused on their own escapades. You...idiots. You're not a Grand Servant. You're not an agent of a the Counter Force. You're just an idiot carrying around the dying embers of a goddess. A fool prolonging the Age of the Shinobi." his cackles redoubled as the blond planted his feet and grit his teeth. A long, drawling and twisted laugh leaped out of him.

"Foooooooool!" the word rattled the very world itself. "You two barely qualify as a Servant at all. What can you possibly do to me?!"

Naruto sighed. "Kaguya."

The little goddess perked up. "Yes?"

"Get off." the words were a growl. "Now."

A mad giggle followed as she clamored off of him.

"We're seriously going to do this, the? You're going to fight me?"

Foreigner silently took a stance, one foot sliding forward, his right fist cocked back.

"Very well, then. I'll humor you," the false Beast snickered. "I took Gunner first, but the former managed to get off a message before he was...converted." an ugly tongue flicked out, licking bloody lips. "Even seems like another took his place somewhere out there. Pity. Couldn't eat Launcher; he was mostly metal. Alter Ego...well. The less said about that one the better. Bit off more than I could chew, there. But I learned."

Something shifted his peripherals as the shadows began to stir.

"As you can see," a clawed hand rose to pick at his teeth, "I just finished with Gatekeeper. Keeper of what, I ask you? He wasn't even guarding anything. Just a reincarnated Servant trying to hide with his family. He gave up his power for them; by the time he reclaimed it, they were already dead. Shame about the kids, though. Least I got a decent puppet out of him."

Kaguya stiffened. "Children...?"

"Oh, aye, there were two of them." His head bobbed. "Twins, can you believe the luck? Don't worry, they never felt any pain. I'm merciful like that."

Kaguya shrieked; this time it was Naruto who held her in check.

"Monster! I'll kill you!"

"Monster, am I?" that twisted head tilted as though she were an ant about to be squashed beneath his boot. "Perhaps you should speak more softly to me then, little one. Monsters are dangerous and these days, Servants are dying like flies. And now...the two of you." he laughed, and the world shook with him. "How nice for dinner to seek me out for once. Ruins the thrill of the hunt, I suppose, but beggars can't be choosers. And your poor papa brought you as a snack for me! How thoughtful of you. Its been awhile since I had a god for dinner."

The diminutive deity shrank back and Naruto stepped forward to shield her with his body. "You won't touch her."

"Oh, but I will!" The Beast cackled, fingers sharpening into claws. "You have no say in the matter! You're just meat in the grinder. Fuel in the tank."

...then we have nothing left to talk about." Foreigner declared coldly, eyes pulsing white. "I'm sorry, but I can't be the one to save you. I don't think you even want to be saved."

Remarkably, that actually triggered a new reaction from the creature; because Beast's visage went terribly, horribly still. It was the worst thing he could've said. Foreigner couldn't have produced a more profound reaction had he walked right up and slapped the creature in the face. For the Beast had stopped smiling. For the first time since they'd met, that mad smile was nowhere to be found. Beast twitched. Jerked, like a puppet severed from its masters string, as though that last word had wiped all manner of thought from its mind and left naught but static behind.

"Saved?" he croaked out the word as though it were poison.

Then his expression turned thunderous.

"SAVED?! ME?!"

In a heartbeat the illusion of humanity shattered; revealed was the monster in all its ghastly glory. Gods, he couldn't even begin to describe it, only that it was large and scaled and might have been a fox once; before the change had begun. Kaguya yelped, a rare expression of genuine fear overtaking her visage as she took shelter behind his back in the face of his fury. The other half of Foreigner gazed calmly up at it and prepared the one countermeasure he knew; yet held it in reserve as the creature slammed its slavering maw into him, forcing him to grind his feet against the dirt as towering teeth snapped a thin inch from his face.

"You think I wanted to be like this?!" Rancid breath filled his nose; hot, fetid air blasting his hair with the foul stench of decay. "This monster? This thing?! THIS FUCKING THING?! NO, YOU IDIOT! AND YOU SAY I DID NOT WANT TO BE SAVED?! MY WORLD TOOK EVERYTHING FROM ME! MY WIFE! MY CHILD! NEARLY ALL MEMORIES! EVERYTHING! AND NOW EVERYONE WILL KNOW MY PAIN!"

"Even...so! That doesn't give you the right to torment others!"

A massive slitted eye had time enough to comprehend Naruto's smile; to widen just little Kaguya blazed in and grabbed its owner by the tail. The Beast stiffened, trying to coil back on itself and snap her up in its jaws, but it was already too late. With a singular herculean effort she stomped a foot down and threw it over her shoulder as though it were naught but a sack of grain. In the same instant, Foreigner released his hold on the muzzle of the creature, freeing it entirely. Yowling, it slammed into the sundered shack and tumbled down the ruined hill, wreaking havoc on its minions as it flailed like the abomination it was.

It was still flailing when Foreigner and his ward dropped onto its back to drive him deep beneath the earth.

"Where the hell did that come from?!" A distant growl rose from the ruined earth miles below. "Where the fuck am I?! When I get out of here...!"

Calmly, the stray Servant raised one palm toward the beast-shaped crater; with a gleeful grin, Kaguya seized his free hand and mirrored him only a moment later.

"BASTARD!" The Beast bellowed below them, shaking the world with its infuriated roar. "Just you wait until I get up there! You're dead! Do you hear me?! DEAD!"

It was utterly, summarily, ignored.

"Thought I told you to stay back." Naruto sighed, raising his voice to be heard over the rising swell of the light. A soft, graceful hum answered him, small fingers squeezing his aching hand as he gazed down into blackness and the beast struggling to rise within. He had time enough to risk a glance at his ward before it became visible again.

"You did." Those peerless white eyes gazed up at him. "You tell me to do a lot of things, papa. Doesn't mean I have to obey them all."

"Together, then?"

Her hand squeezed his.

"Always." she chirruped happily.

Exasperated, he planted a palm against his forehead.

"Jeez. You really can be a handful sometimes, you know that?"

On its own, the tailed beast bomb was a vicious technique by itself; one capable of blasting through mountains like driftwood. Few-if any-could withstand a direct hit. This was something...worse. Much worse. Heralded by the warped will of the universe and called to task by the unlikely entity beneath it, the dying spark of divinity rekindled itself all at once to merge with the attack. Building in a rising crescendo of black and violet light, only narrowly held in check by two pairs of palms, it swelled with each passing moment.

"H-Hold on! Just one second!" A nervous thread wove itself into the Beast's threats. "Now I see a light...?"

A heartbeat passed.

Foreigner snarled as one.

"Walk towards it, you bastard!"

The ensuing blast rattled the world.

"Hey! Wait, damnit! Stop! I said time out! What the heeeeeeeeell?!"

Everything shook; no, it would be better to say that all of creation cried out in triumph; a world's worth of wrath blazing down into the dark to hammer home against the ghastly ghoul trapped in the pit. The Beast's cry trailed off into a snarling shriek and Foreigner found itself forced to leap way to the hill lest they be consumed by the light of their own transcendent attack.

And the smoke cleared.

Incredibly, they found that the False Beast was still alive yet; they could see its head and shoulders still writhing at the base of the hill in the shallow valley below, struggling to pull itself up from the crater created by the blast. Even from here, one could see its movements were sluggish by comparison when one measured them against the eerie movements of moments before. Moreover it seemed...bound somehow, as though something were actively restricting its movements. Naruto's frown deepened further still at the sight.

"Did you...?"

"Gravity seal." the little one wiggled her fingers to reveal the mark inscribed upon her palm. "Slapped it on him when I grabbed him, earlier. He'll be breaking free any minute now, but its bought us some time."

"Clever girl."

The little one lifted her chin to preen. "Aren't I? You may shower me with headpats."

He granted her request and eyed some of the darker shapes lurking near the hill, watching the skeletal creatures rally to their master's side in a rising black tide. How many of them were down there? How many more yet hid themselves away? Hundreds? Thousands? They just kept coming, monsters and skeletons and abominations pulling themselves from the muck to aid the one who had corrupted them. Ugly. Sheer numbers might well do what skill alone could not. Even they would eventually exhaust themselves against a limitless army of that size.

Yet for some reason, the mud didn't reach the hill.

Here, this last bastion of humanity yet held.

"We still have the authority the Grail gave us for this." Kaguya nudged him quietly. "If we absolutely have to, we could summon another-

"That's cut our power in half. Not a good idea." he shut her down immediately. "Can you purify any of them?"

"Maybe?" she tilted her head as the Beast continued to wriggle and writhe in the mire below. "I'm not sure. Most look too far gone for me to do anything but put them out of their misery. Maybe a Servant, if they're not too far gone?"

"So you could, then?" Naruto asked.

"Do you think he'll be angry enough to send some of them out?" Kaguya inquired, grabbing his hand again. Sure enough, the Beast was righting itself, breaking free of the brief curse she'd laid upon it. "With our blessing, we should be able to purge one or two of them, if we can at least touch them. Assuming they aren't bound too tightly."

"What did I tell you about referring to yourself as we?" Naruto snorted. "Still, he'd have to magnificently stupid to do something like that."

"Indeed." her head bobbed in agreement. "If he were smart, he would drown us in numbers, wear us down, then strike."

"But he won't. He's too angry with us now."

They shared a look and smiled.

"Yes." they chorused.

No sooner had they spoken than the creature flickered and a man picked himself in place of the Beast.

Another flicker brought him back to the hill before them.

"Sorry about that little outburst." his voice didn't change, it made no further attempt to conceal what it truly was; for it had long since lost the thin veneer of humanity he pretended to. "I tend to get...carried away when people use that word. But you're right though, enough stalling. Would you kindly die?!"

With those words, the world began to stir around them.

Something-someone-rose up out of it, oozing shadow and flame. Then another.

Another.

And another.

Yet another still.

One might've been a man once, but his eyes were dull, his skin scorched by flame. A pale cloth concealed his eyes, yet that unseeing gaze snapped toward him the moment he moved. Could he..hear them somehow? Had he been blinded after the fact? Or was it some other fell sorcery he didn't understand? And there, a pair of vicious, massive pistols in his belt. Gunner, then.

"I'm...sorry." it recited the words on rota, as its body twitched and Foreigner fought down a flinch. "Illya...couldn't save you. Sorry...so...sorry...

"Whose Illya?" Kaguya whispered.

Naruto offered a helpless shrug, because the muck was stirring again.

Beast's second Servant rather resembled a twisted, corroded robot that had been smashed apart and put back together. Was...was that supposed to be a mechanical version of him? if so, the replica was rather startling at that. Crouched on all fours, it managed to look downright feral despite its blank, unassuming visage. He twitched and that metal faceplate whipped towards him with a dull whir. He was going to assume that this was likely Launcher at that. Ceaseless coded gibberish babbled its speakers, and he felt nothing but pity for it.

The last was worse by far, if only because he was...old.

Someone who had lived life and grown through age. A worn and torn leather curiass lay strapped against his body, concealing worn grey cotton and a weather-beaten brown shirt. Gatekeepr, probably. He held no cord or weapon in hand beyond a worn wooden plough, yet something told him he was the most dangerous of the bunch, despite his wrinkled visage and gray hair. In contrast to the others he was almost alive. Blue eyes widened at the sight of them, only to narrow a heartbeat later. He turned his head and spat on the ground with a heated hiss.

"Well." the word escaped him on a croak. "Today's certainly been an interesting day, hasn't it? First I'm killed by myself; now I'm fighting myself. And here I thought I'd seen it all. Saber would laugh if she saw this."

Foreigner choked. "You're...aware?"

"Oh, as much as I can be given the circumstances." the farmer shrugged as his companions twitched and shuddered beside them. "I'm sure it won't last. I can already feel my mind starting to go." he tilted his head, gave a slow blink, and sighed. "That girl by you...that's Kaguya, isn't it? Named one of the twins after her. Good to see her again. Brings back memories."

"What?" the little goddess blinked.

Gatekeeper scoffed. "Why the long face? You raised me. Only feels right to name someone after you. Didn't she raise you too, kid?"

Naruto blinked.

...no?"

"Hmm." Gatekeeper turned and spat again. "Strange times indeed. Multiverse theory really is a bitch."

"I don't understand, how are you so...

"Detached? On the contrary. I'm furious. That little shit killed my family. I want to bury this plough in his eye. But if I let myself give into emotion now, I'll end up like Gunner over there." his grey head jerked sideways. "A stuttering wreck with no sanity left to him. No, thank you. I'll hold onto my mind while I still have it, if only to spite him. Don't mourn me. Don't feel bad about this, you're doing us a favor." that ancient visage creased in a careworn smile. "We're already long dead. There's no saving us, not anymore. Just...kill us. Avenge us. Lay us to rest."

"That's enough of that!" the Beast interjected with another command. "You've run your mouth already, old man. Now be silent."

Gatekeeper glowered, but his body obeyed.

He immediately dropped his weapon and started using sign language.

"Oh, for the love of me! Stop that! Right now! No communication! None whatsoever!"

Three more Servants joined them then, their bodies likewise blackened by the mud of the Grail and the Beast who had consumed it.

One looked little more than a ten-year old girl with strange armor and blond hair, so fade as to be nearly unrecognizable. The fifth was barely a shadow, like an idea scarcely even formed before being cast aside. The last stirred a strange semblance of nostalgia in Foreigner, as if he were looking at some faded mirror image of himself, cracked and twisted by time. Kaguya's reaction was slightly more profound. She would have flown at that one in a fit of fury, were it not for his hand on her shoulder, clamping down with startling force. Even then she flung an enraged glance over her shoulder, but Naruto's grip remained ironclad.

Tainted and twisted, they started forward at a slow, inexorable gait. After a long moment's consideration, Beast waded in after them like a proud puppeteer.

There were seven of them in all, Foreigner realized.

Including Beast, they faced seven corrupted iterations of himself.

It was almost poetic, in a horrible, ghastly sort of way. His body tensed at the sight.

"One bad day can wreck a world." Beast cackled. "But one bad week? That can destroy a multiverse. Prepare to be assimilated."

"You really think you can win this?" Kaguya hastily skittered back, drawing up beside her own companion. She sounded afraid.

"Seven against one seems like good odds." The Beast beamed bloodily. "Any last words?"

Foreigner sucked in a deep breath through his teeth.

"Seven against one? No. Now its even."

His body tensed, lungs burning.

And the battle began.

A/N: I own no references, and I certainly don't own the "FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!" bit from A Hat In Time.

There we go. A scene that never happened, restored for your viewing pleasure. A fragment of time, of sorts. Hope you enjoyed it.

Which-or what?-would you like to see next? I have all manner of fragments lying around that I'd love to regale you with, but alas, duty calls! I've got a double shit ahead, and I would dearly love to read your reviews when I return tomorrow. And when I say fragments, yes, NGH-otherwise Not Going Home-Naruto is loosely connected to this as the instigator of it all.

I'm sure some of his counterparts would LOVE to have a chat with him.

Now then, by all means...tell me what you want to see.

So In the Immortal Words of Atlas.

Review, Would You Kindly?

No previews~!

Not today~!

R&R~!