A/N: Happy Labor Day~!

So here's a present for you all~!

Well. Just had my first summoning in Fate Grand Order.

HOLY.

SHIT.

I got, in no particular order, Jing Ke, Paracelsus, Alexander, Mephistopheles...and one more Servant.

Now, I may be new to this, but it was the fifth and final summon that got my attention. I fell out of my chair laughing.

By some bloody stroke of luck I pulled Stheno. Which is fucking IRONIC giving that I'm writing a story with her and Euryale in it, one updated it only a few hours ago. I didn't realize the Servants had a fair number of voiced lines either. 0_0 I...think I can see why this Gacha thing is addicting-No! Bad Neon! Don't throw money at the screen! Restrain thyself! You have to keep a sensible budget!

Oh, and thank you for the friend codes! I'm still slogging through the first bit of the story, but I'm having a blast!

I can't remember the name of one fellow who supported me, but he had a Level 100 Kiara? I owe ya.

I just need to be careful or this game is going to consume A LOT of my time.

*EDIT*

...these trolls are really getting me down.

Of course, now there are people complaining about me complaining.

Throw in the holidays, the hurricane approaching Florida, and no one's really reading.

Which really throws a wrench into my whole daily update thing. Still, I made a promise, so here we are.

As I said in another story, its hard to devote myself to a story when folks don't review. When no one reviews, I can't tell if I did a good job or not, you know? Lack of reviews send me right back into hibernation...

I worked extra hard to give this chapter a dose of personality.

Lord knows Sola-Ui needs it given we know next to nothing about the poor girl.

Some folks have been asking for power tiers. Presently? I'd say Fighter-aka True Lancer-is ranked third. Saber!Naruto and Ruler!Naruto remained tied is still the strongest of the bunch in raw power, with Saver!Naruto as close second. This chapter reveals exactly why. Lancer!Naruto's always a happy chap, but you really don't want to piss him off; he'll give you no end of chances to be a good guy as a whole, a good PERSON, but if you waste those chances...

...well. You're gonna have a bad time.

Obvious references are obvious and I own NOTHING~!

"I believe most people are good. Most folks are just looking for a chance, a helping hand.

And when you offer them that...why, you'd be amazed what happens.

But for everyone of them, there are people like you.

You...you don't want to help anyone, do you?

You just want to hurt others. To be cruel.

That's alright, partner, I understand.

Some people are just like that.

Now lets settle this, eh?

Come at me, bro."

~Lancer.

A Most Unlikely Forest (Interlude)

Sola-Ui wasn't sure if she should laugh or cry.

Half of her wanted to leap into Lancer's arms and never let go; the other wanted to run away, shrieking at the top of her lungs. It was only logical of course; this Servant had killed Kayneth. Yes the man had been an ass and mist assuredly brought it upon himself, but while there was certainly no love lost between Sola and her future husband, she felt...poorly about his end. Surely there was no finish him off in such a manner? She'd seen him plummet to his death from her window, heard his shrieks of impotent rage, then terror as he realized no one was coming to save him.

She'd seen his remains when Lancer marched her past his corpse.

Now she was walking only a few steps behind Kayneth's murderer and feared he would deliver the same fate to her if he found her displeasing.

True she had accepted the Command Spells as well as his mystic codes-Volumen Hydrargyrum was too useful to simply refuse on principle-and followed after Lancer like a good little mouse, but what was to stop him from turning on her as well? It might only be a matter of time. The attack could come at any moment. Panic was a constant companion as they slipped out of the city through alleyways and ghosted down abandoned streets like silent killers; and all the while a sursurus of whispers in the back of her head left her thoughts balancing on a razor's edge.

Oh god, the Archibald family was going to MURDER her for this. She'd just realized something horrible. Their crest had died with Kayneth. She was walking around with his murderer. Who would vanish at the end of the war, leaving her holding the proverbial bag and all the blame it contained. No!

"We're almost there. Keep up, Master."

Lancer-Naruto!-spoke suddenly, drawing her out of her morbid reverie all at once. Looking up at him-my, he was tall!-she ducked as he peeled back a branch for her. Without even touching it. Did his command of nature truly extend that far? Sola did as she'd been commanded and scuttled after him regardless.

"Where are we going?"

Naruto bounded over a fallen log, forcing her to follow in his footsteps. When she landed, she was greeted with a sunny smile.

"I don't much like the idea of running around the city chasing after my friends." he declared. "So I'm-we are!-going to invite them all right to our doorstep."

Sola's heart lurched in her chest like a terrified sparrow. Every Servant? At once? Was he insane?! She said as much. "Why?! Then we should've just stayed in the hotel-

"Now, now," Lancer raised a hand over his shoulder to forestall further judgement, never once slowing his pace. "I'm not going to fight anyone unless they give me a good reason to. But I know some won't take no for an answer. So we'll choose the terrain and make our stand at a place of our choosing. Not theirs."

"Really?" she ducked as branch whipped back and nearly caught her in the face. "That's your grand plan?"

"What can I say?" Naruto gave a light-hearted shrug. "I'm a man of principles."

"This from the man who murdered her master." Sola quipped.

"I regret nothing."

Abruptly he stopped in place, nearly causing her to crash into his broad back. It wasn't out of tension or anger of any sort; Lancer had simply reached a place of his choosing and deemed it satisfactory. A cheeky grin took flight over his shoulder at her and for a moment the young woman felt her heart race. Slightly less so when she realized what he intended to do.

"This looks like as good a place as any."

A bead of sweat ran down her brow.

"Naruto, there's nothing here."

"Yup." he nodded.

"This is a park."

"Precisely."

Blue eyes narrowed to hooded slits.

Pacing three steps forward, he adopted an odd stance.

"Might wanna hold onto something. Preferably me. This is going to be...intense."

Then his hands came together, her senses shrilled a warning, and the world positively shook.

Writhing roots burst from the loamy soil, overturning jungle-gyms and swings with punitive ease. Coiling and twisting around anything they could grasp, sprouting bark like a second skin, they continued to grow. And grow further still as they sprouted trunks. Leaves. No mere saplings were these; they were large, far larger than any living thing had any right to be. Sola had seen a picture of the Amazon once. This rivaled that and outgrew it a heartbeat later as spreading shadows blotted out the moon above. Realization rose with the treetops.

Naruto was growing a forest.

In a matter of mere moments, a thriving ecosystem stood where there had been little life at all.

A treasure trove of trees as far as the eye could see, great looming oaks stretching out into the skyline, and still they continued to grow.

Sola skittered back, only for a bough to bloom beneath her boots with a snap, crackle and pop. She tumbled back and an arm wrapped around her waist. Lancer's fingers were warm through the thin fabric of her blouse, a steady pulse beating through them in time with the evergrowing forest around them. No, beneath them the young magus realized, because they were still standing up on that bow and the world below had suddenly grown incredibly tiny and small underfoot. Her face went pale as she calculated the drop below.

"Easy now," the dulcet tones of Lancer's voice soothed in her ear, "I've got you."

And then as quickly as it began, the growth came to a jarring halt.

One had but to gaze out a the grand expanse of life around them to realize what Lancer had done. You'd have to be blind to miss something like this. And her circuits weren't even singed. Was that a glimmer of gold there in his eyes just now? Was he using some alternative means of mana to create these trees? Could they be sustained without him? Questions, questions, questions! But most important of all:

"What now?"

"Now?" Naruto released her-drat!-and sat. "Now we wait."

After a moment's consideration, Sola-Ui joined him on the branch.

(...0o0o0...)

They sat together for quite some time.

How long? Seconds? Minutes? Hours? Days? After such a stressful day it soon proved a struggle for Sola to keep her eyes open. Lancer began to hum a haunting melody beneath his breath and she began to lose the battle against her own heavy eyelids. Without thinking, she laid her head on the Servant's shoulder. Naruto didn't miss a beat in his mournful tune and soon enough she slipped into sweet slumber. She wasn't even wholly aware that she did, but it was inevitable, in its own wretched way.

Somewhere between Lancer's humming and her own fretful thoughts, she fell asleep.

And in doing so, she dreamed.

Her sleep proved fitful at first; she went back to the moment of Kayneth's death, but this time she was the one flung from the rooftop to her doom as her sneering fiance looked on. She reached out for a handhold and the world fell away from her as she failed to grasp anything solid. She felt only the wind boil behind her back as everything rushed past, Kayneth's face growing terribly small-like his ambitions-as she fell shrieking to the earth and its awaiting embrace. She struck the street and...

"Wake up." a muffled voice called to her.

...fell through into a realm apart.

"Up!"

Her body drifted in darkness and in that darkness she saw snatches of sight and sound, glimpsed a world that wasn't her own. Sola-Ui marveled at it. She saw...so many things. Frightfully beautiful bits of scenery cast over a field of battle, the scent of burning flesh, the screams of the damned and the dying. Then her world shifted again and she beheld something else. The voice spoke again, but once more, Sola paid it no heed. Because she saw someone there in the distance, a faltering shadow as the flames of war and hate faded deep into her subconscious.

"You can't gaze at all these timelines without being affected." the voice prodded. "You'll lose your grip on reality and go mad."

Someone else; a lonely little boy sitting on a swing ostracized by his peers.

Silently suffering, while the other children played.

She saw a tree bloom in his hands.

"Wake up!"

He turned to look at her and she gasped as she beheld the young face gazing back into her eyes. Lancer. Far younger than his present self, little more than a boy. Said boy stared at her for a long moment; then he offered her the sapling stretching out of his hands. Without thinking, the magus found herself reaching for it. Her hands closed around the tiny sapling gently, carefully, and the boy pulled away, leaving her cradling it in her grasp as though it were some tiny precious child.

And then he spoke.

"WAKE UP!"

Sola jolted awake all at once, senses screaming as she came back to the world. A hand clamped down on her mouth before she could think to cry out, rendering her yelp mute against a gloved palm. The only thing that kept her from panicking outright were a familiar blue eyes looming before her in the dark.

Lancer held a finger to his lips for silence.

"We're not alone." he mouthed the words mutely.

Sola nodded weakly, frowning as a distant tremor rattled their tree. Why was everything shaking? When he released her to pee over a bough, she reluctantly followed after him. The sight below took her breath away in the worst of ways; not out of awe, nor beauty, nor anything else. There was something moving down there, something lurking below. Something she almost failed to recognize at first, if only for its sheer size. But as it slipped into a beam of moonlight, she saw the creature for what it was, and her blood ran cold.

That was...a very large snake.

"Where did that thing come from?"

Naruto was silent for a long moment. "I know of only three people who can summon snakes that large. Pray this isn't one of them."

Sola scooted closer, seeking refuge in his shadow. "And if it is?"

...then just pray."

Standing slowly, Lancer weaved a tendril of bark around his right arm. The other snapped up in a handseal as he sucked in a deep breath. Something pulled hard on Sola's reserves and she crumpled to the ground, nearly gasping for air. Because the trees were suddenly moving, branches sharpening into dozens, hundreds, thousands of living stakes. Stakes that then shot down at the snake and its unseen summoner in a hall of vicious fury and white-hot retribution. The creature barely had time to cry out before it was dispelled; its death was near instant by comparison.

But judging by the oath Naruto swore, whomever commanded the snake had slipped away in the chaos.

Then a shadowy blur shot across the bow opposite them.

"Not another one," Naruto swore softly.

Thankfully it wasn't the owner of the snake; they looked just as startled by the barrage as the rest; and the jagged spear jutting through their left arm put paid to any such suspicion. They might have been clad in a cloak at once point, but now the black garment had been all but shredded by the blond's brash assault. Still, the sight of her stopped Sola cold.

"Why did you attack us?" the newcomer whined. "We were after the snake, not you."

Well.

How did she even get around in that getup?

Though she wore clothes in some semblance of modesty, they were entirely too small. That lacy little black getup would've been inappropriate on one not of age to begin with; but on a full grown woman it was downright sinful. This new Golden eyes like poisoned honey narrowed on them, framed by a cherubic face and long silver hair cascading down her nearly bare back. Indeed the newcomer looked all of an instant from spilling out of that outfit and ohdearshewasfartoocloseforcomfort...!

"Do we have to fight~?"

To Sola's dismay, Lancer collapsed on his knees.

"Its no good, Master. I can't do it. I can't hit someone that adorable."

A muscle jumped in her jaw. "Stop being dramatic and fight already, damn you!"

Events could have easily boiled over into conflict then and there as Assassin-this must be her-regarded them with a hint of distress. As Sola looked on, Naruto-Lancer!-pulled himself upright and made another seal with his off hand. But no moves of overt aggression were made; neither side willing to commit themselves to that first fatal action.

Then the assassin tilted her head.

"You...we know you." she murmured softly.

"Feelings mutual kiddo. You almost look just like-

Golden eyes widened in awe. Then recognition. "Papa?"

"Eh?!" Lancer's head snapped around with an audible pop. "Jack?"

Before he could say another word, the young woman lunged and glomped him.

In that moment, Sola-Ui honestly consider flinging herself from the tree. It would be less insane then this.

A/N: BEHOLD!

WARNING! LISTEN WELL!

Now listen to this author's note and listen good.

I hope I captured Sola's humanity in this chapter; the next one will be from Naruto's point of view.

The "Jack" here, isn't from the story, A Most Unlikely Berserker, not its true ending at any rate. She's from a different story/route, one that had a rather nasty bad end. A timeline that was erased. A world where she somehow grew up, impossible as that may seem. And there we have it. Don't worry, we'll see aaaaaaaaall of those juicy previews I mentioned in the next chapter.

On that note, A Most Unlikely Berserker is still safe, and still coming along nicely.

If I haven't said so before, the Grail is BROKEN in this story. Class limits? Class containers? They're been thrown right out the window. For example, there could be two Casters. Or two Sabers. Or a certain Berserker could be summoned, but retain the knowledge-and sanity-of another form. With me so far? Great!

Well, well, well.

Someone from Naruto's past is here and they aren't happy. I won't say who it is. Not yet. That would be telling. But I will say this.

It's not Sasuke. Nope. That's been done too often. So there. Ponder that matter for a moment, if you will.

Yes, I just did that. References are references and I own absolutely nothing~!

So...in the Immortal Words of Atlas......Review, Would You Kindly?

And of course, enjoy the previews! References are references and I don't own jack.

Really, everything is own by their respective media owners; I just play with their toys from time to time.

Reviews are Love, Reviews are Life, Reviews are Precious.

Every word counts, even if you think they don't.

So, in the Immortal Words of Atlas...

...Review, Would You Kindly?

And enjoy the previews!

(Previews!)

"Look what you've done...you killed me...!"

Naruto bowed his head over the fading Servant.

"I'm sorry it had to be this way. You left me with no choice."

"Don't move."

A gun planted itself against his back.

"You know, its funny." Lancer hummed aloud. "I think I know you. A version of you, at any rate. I've had a lot of weird dreams since I came to this timeline; hazy things, indistinct images, flashes of a life that wasn't mine and will never be mine. Multiple timelines, each odder than the last. You were in some of them. You were...happier. Not like this."

...when did you become an Alter, Emiya?"

Archer fired.

...mine."

Sola squawked.

"What?! No! Let go of him!"

"No! I'm not letting go of him! NEVER AGAIN!"

"You know, Fran, you're a lot more chatty in this form...

Berserker only puffed out her cheeks and clung to Lancer even more.

R&R~! =D