A/N: (EDIT!)

Another update?! Gasp!

*EDIT*

No reviews for this chapter, eh? Well that's a spirit breaker.

We're gonna focus on Beast for a bit here, sorry if that offends people.

Also, be sure to pay attention to this...the events here have ramifications for other stories.

Remember, this isn't an actual Beast in the traditional sense of the word. He simply believes himself to be, poor deluded fool that he is. Speaking of delusion, he's about to make another mistake, one that might surprise you. After all, let it not be said that "Beast" is a smart cookie. He's regularly bitten off more than he can chew, physically himself apart across the multiverse like a raging virus of insane proportions-indeed, several of those copies were outright destroyed-and what does he have to show for it?

Nearly nothing? He's had a few kills to be sure, but he's far from omnipotent.

Reviews are love. Reviews are life. Reviews make me strive.

As ever, this will be gone in two days if folks don't like it.

References are glorious and I own nothing~!

Yes, its short, and that's deliberate.

I own no references or quotes and the one below encapsulates Beast!Naruto perfectly:

"Nothing personal, kid. But only I get to burn the universe."

~?

A Most Unlikely Separation

Pain.

It gnawed at his insides as he writhed on the ground, twisting and turning, guts gripping in the dark. Every breath was agony, his massive body thrashing against the tattered stumps of what might have been a forest not so long ago. Now? Nothing would grow here again. His prey had escaped him yet he could barely bring himself to move, much less think. Existence was suddenly an effort in-and-of-itself. He had no strength to chase after this new Archer he'd found, nor his unusual master he'd been about to devour. Instead he found his massive body skewered as the pair slipped away in the chaos.

"You have...got to be kidding me." he gasped the words out as sensory overload strangled him. "That's just not fair at all."

Really, it wasn't fair.

When he'd split his body multiple times he'd failed to account for a key weakness; copying his flesh with no waste for power was one thing, but these were not shadow clones. I took a lot of killing to put them down. Each incarnation shared a psychic link to him, a pseudo-sort of hive mine that he controlled. He saw what they saw. Felt what they felt. When one of them died he felt their deaths, their pain-which was usually minor enough to tolerate-taught him lessons about the next encounter.

Someone had just killed three of them. At once.

He'd sent three incarnations of himself, as well as a number of Shadow Servants, in search of a certain individual. An anomaly. Not the one Snatcher was guarding; because that bastard could carve through hordes of the pale copies with ease-but another more pressing threat. It was nothing personal, really. He was the only one allowed to burn worlds. Cooperation was something to be fostered, but competition would not be tolerated. He didn't need any rivals wandering around. Drifter was dangerous enough, but this incarnation was so much...worse.

Rather than be taken, that Servant had willingly blown themselves up.

They'd willingly self-destructed to save their Master, and they'd gone laughing.

He wasn't even certain they were dead, at that. Which made this defeat all the more galling.

Bastard.

Now he'd lost half of his army and he couldn't. Bloody. Move! Damnit! He was going to be stuck like this for the rest of the day at least! Nevermind death, the idea of being actively undermined was so galling that he near-vomited on the spot. That was was his role! His destiny! No one could take that from him...could they?

Just the thought made him shudder anew.

The pain was so loud that he could barely bring himself to breathe.

Now, he knew on some level that he'd corrupted several Servants in his service-that they would serve him-but he couldn't given them orders as he was now. Worse, he almost felt...proud. Happy, that someone had slowed his inexorable march, if only for a day. And he knew the root cause.

There was still good in him.

Common sense. Rationality. Hope. Love.

He hated that; that he couldn't seem to rid himself of this...weakness.

Loathed it.

It wasn't possible to simply kill it; once he did it would inevitably return to him. He'd tried. It always came crawling back after a few days. Guilt. Regret. Shame. Like a virus. He had no want for such weakness. He needed to purge it from his body; to remove this weakness so utterly that it would never return. But how? His scaled bulk shifted ever so slightly as a fresh spasm shook his twisted form. Generals were all well and good in the far future perhaps, but to command them properly, he needed to be ruthless. To rid himself of his life and the shadowy vestiges that still clung to his feet.

An awful idea took root in the back of his mind.

Well, then. Two could play at that game now, couldn't they?

Before he could think better of it, Beast reached deep inside of himself.

Wrapped a hand around that tiny flicker of light deep in his heart, a light the refused to go out.

He couldn't smother it; he knew better than that by now. So, instead of stifling it as he'd done time and again...

"Get. Out. Here."

...he pulled. Hard. Without thought. Without pause.

Separated it from himself and gave it form.

He split his soul.

This time the pain was more than intense; it was a fire scalding Beast's every thought, an all encompassing blaze that left him screaming, yet he daren't stop. If hesitated now he'd never be able to do this again; what was left of his soul would fracture into a thousand pieces, all vying for power. So instead he cut it cleanly. Straight down the middle. It felt...freeing. All the hesitation, all the doubt, all the guilt, all of it...just gone. As though it had never been. He would've laughed, had he the spirit left for it.

When his vision finally cleared, when he could breathe without screaming his throat He was looking a child, he realized.

A tiny whisp of a girl dressed in rags curled inward on herself at his feet, little more than three years old.

Wait. Why was it a girl? Semantics, he supposed. He didn't care who she was.

He couldn't kill her. She couldn't kill him.

He just wanted her...gone.

All the bulk of Beast's power remained with him-only a small fragment dwelt within this doppelganger. It was real. Alive. He was satisfied. A claw flicked them-telported-away out of sight-away from him!-and sure enough, he felt someone or something out there in this world reach out to take them. Good. That was the first step. It would never wholly accept him as he was now, but perhaps, with this incarnation, he might succeed where he'd failed before. He didn't care. Let the mages have her. This world would live. It was just too much trouble for him to deal with.

Growling, he dragged himself through a rift and left the ruins of Fuyuki behind.

And in doing so, he unknowingly created something new.

The key to his undoing; the end of everything.

Beast didn't look back. He didn't dare.

Never look back.

A/N: Well, would you look at that. Beast can be an IDIOT, can't he?

He's gone and inadvertantly created a false copy of himself. Whether said copy eventually turns on the others, obeys him, or simply finds its way in the world...well. That'd be telling now, would it? I think I speak for all of us when I say that "Beast" is an unrepentant, evil bastard, one shaped by his bitter beginnings.

Again, he's not a true beast, he just thinks that he is. Poor, poor deluded fool that he is...and so, he keeps losing.

After all, he wants to destroy everything and he's damn well not gonna let someone else do it.

Reviews are love. Reviews are life. Reviews make me strive.

As ever, this will be gone in two days if folks don't like it.

References are glorious and I own nothing~!

So in the Immortal Words of Atlas...

...Review...Would You Kindly?

References for days!

(Previews)

Launcher only grinned.

"Gah?! What are you made of, pure metal?!"

"Affirmative." came the stoic reply. "I am Mecha-Naruto."

The false Beast blinked, a terrible realization breaking with the dawn.

"Oh." he groaned, hissing as another tooth crumbled out of his mouth. "Errors have been made."

As he looked on, the cyborg raised a lone arm. His palm irised open, revealing a swell of light rising beneath.

And then there was pain.

Hope you enjoyed!

R&R~!