Karenbana didn’t speak much after that, even hours later when night had fallen, and we had set up a small campfire in the forest. We hadn’t set up a tent either, the sky was clear, and the temperature was still warm. I made sure we still had a line of sight on the castle just in case.

It was almost midnight when I finally pulled my shit together and did what I should have hours ago.

“Karenbana,” I smiled, “Sorry, I’m an asshole.”

Karenbana snorted.

“Idiot,” Karenbana said quietly.

“I’ll make it up to you,” I promised.

I smirked in the dark.

“I can see you waggling your eyebrows,” Karenbana said, amused. “Idiot.”

Damn, her night vision was better than I thought, I couldn't see anything at all.

“Tomorrow, we will be going into the belly of the beast, so to speak,” I grinned like a shark, “So I’ll finally be revealing the dreaded secret of the inventory and its dark power.”

Karenbana just sighed.

“You want something in exchange again, don’t you?” Karenbana said dryly.

“I’ll take another secret of yours or a favor.” I said easily, “You get to choose, but I won’t be revealing anything more until you hold up your end.”

I held out my hand in front of me, and I assumed she was looking at it. I mentally opened my inventory, and a fish suddenly appear in my hand without warning, still flopping around in panic.

“What the fuck?” Karenbana said, alarmed. “Where did that come from?”

I started laughing.

“Is there a storage scroll in your sleeve?” Karenbana demanded, grabbing me by the wrist.

I placed the fish back into my inventory without a word and smirked at her again. Karenbana pulled my sleeve up to study my wrist in the dark.

“Nothing,” Karenbana muttered, twisting my arm around. “How?”

“I can store things inside a subspace.” I said confidently, “There doesn’t seem to be a limit to how much I can store in it, but I have to at least be able to pick the item up physically for it to go inside.”

Karenbana stared at me in the dark.

“My plan is thus, we walk in the front doors of the fake castle, find the scroll and put it in my inventory.” I said easily, “That should cut its connection to the summon animal, which will dispel it, and then we will have exactly one Chameleon Summoning Contract, which is probably worth a lot.”

I assumed she was impressed by how amazing I was, but if she thought that was cool, she was going to love what I had figured out by accident the other day. I reached out with my still trapped arm and grabbed the front of her shirt before inventorying it silently.

I grinned at her in the dark, unable to see anything.

“Nice tits, idiot.” I snickered.

“I’m going to beat the shit out of you now,” Karenbana said evenly.

“You dare challenge me?” I said bravely, “You could have at least put a shirt on first.”

Karenbana did indeed beat the shit out of me, but at least she wasn’t moping anymore.

We approached the fake-castle at daylight, and it lit up to my senses like a sun.

This thing was gigantic, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a creature this large before, it was kind of terrifying in a way. Lizards were kind of cute, though, so I swallowed my fear and moved up to the front gate and felt around it more thoroughly with my Energy Sense.

The inside of the castle was fucking complicated, everything was made of the Lizard, and every inch of it had chakra coursing through it, the gaps where the rooms had been formed had less chakra, but still far more then there should be in an empty room.

Some of the rooms were also moving, which was weird as hell.

I could feel chakra twisted into complex shapes, doors, door handles, staircases, paintings, statues, and more, there was also a single bar of blue chakra that stood out starkly against the yellow of the summon beast.

For whatever reason, the creature had left an open pathway to the scroll, which was strange because if you were laying a trap, you wouldn’t even give them a chance to catch the bait, well not if it were priceless anyway. It wasn’t even inside any of the moving rooms, it was literally down a staircase, down a hallway, first door on the left, it was almost like directions to a bathroom.

I remembered in the source material it had been here for fifty years? I think? Summoned as a last-ditch effort of a spiteful summoner to kill anyone who wanted to possess the castle. The summon had been here for ages, and I was starting to think that it would have wanted to get the hell out of here.

I certainly would have, I hated being alone for more than a little while, my mental state started rapidly deteriorating the longer I went without someone to talk to. I couldn’t imagine how this creature must have felt after fifty long years. Didn’t summons all have families and shit? This poor thing probably just wanted to go home.

Like Gamabunta, Gamakichi, and all the others. Manda, and the snake that wasn’t Manda. There were heaps of them as well, this poor chameleon had been stuck out in the middle of fucking nowhere for fifty actual years.

Not fifty off-screen anime years, fifty real years.

Away from its family, its friends, its world, just to carry out the last orders of some spiteful asshole who didn’t want the enemy to take his Land. We stood at the threshold of the castle.

“Ready?” I said firmly.

Karenbana looked a little afraid now that I was paying attention.

“How are you okay with this?” Karenbana said, strained. “I am going to get eaten.”

“I didn’t hear you complaining last night,” I said cheekily and then sprinted into the castle.

I headed for the staircase moving as quickly as I could, Karenbana still managed to catch me in a couple of seconds, cheeks bright red.

I tore down the stairs, and the Summon finally started to move; either it had only just noticed us for the first time, or maybe it had been asleep. I felt the chakra inside the front gate start to seal itself shut, something was rising from the floor slowly to cover the exit.

Well, that was terrifying.

I caught something moving on the wall out of the corner of my eye as we came around the corner but ignored it, I could already see the door to the treasure. The moving rooms that were elsewhere in the ‘castle’ were going a hell of a lot faster compared to everything else that was moving around, either the Summon was deliberately slowing this down to allow us to get to the scroll, or something else was going on.

I saw the ground at the door slowly start to rise, at less than half the rate of the front gate, and it was only knee height when I dove over the top of it and into the room. Karenbana was inside in an instant before she dragged me up off the floor and away from the slowly growing tendrils that were reaching for my legs.

I stumbled over to the altar and snatched the scroll up.

“Don’t worry, buddy!” I said cheerfully, “We’re going to send you home now, but we will probably call you back up in a little while, just for a quick chat cya!”

I inventoried the scroll, and then without a single frame of transition, we were suddenly standing on the stone foundation that had sat beneath the castle. Massive plumes of white smoke surrounded us in thick roiling clouds that drifted off into the air before vanishing after several long moments.

I turned to Karenbana, who looked equal parts terrified and amazed.

I pulled the scroll back out of the inventory with a thought and tossed it at her head, Karenbana was a ninja, so of course, she snatched it out of the air before it hit her in the face, but it was the thought that counted.

“That’s two months pay, shitty bodyguard,” I said easily, “Don’t spend it all at once.”

Karenbana just stared at me with wide eyes.

“You should probably sign it straight away and then try to call him up,” I said thoughtfully, “I told him he had a few minutes and they can probably tell when someone signs it, I’m pretty sure they can do some weird reverse summoning thing to get back here, better to establish that relationship as quickly as possible, especially while he’s still grateful that we saved his leathery old ass.”

Karenbana stared down at the scroll in her hand in disbelief and made no move to follow me when I left.

I headed back towards the foundation staircase.

I wonder how many people were going to freak out when they noticed the castle was suddenly missing? That would be hilarious, there were a couple of small cities in the Land of the Neck, at least Karenbana had said there was earlier, none of them were very near though, so the news would probably take a while to spread.

Actually, it was probably better if we just left as soon as possible because if they did notice it and were pissed off that an important landmark had suddenly been stolen, they might hire a ninja to come find out what had happened.

I wanted no part of that nonsense.

The other thing that had been on my mind since I realized the castle was still here was that everything did seem to exist here. Naruto was still going off on a training journey with Jiraiya, which was the main story content, Land of the Moon mission existed, which was movie content, and they actually went there which implied they might go to other movie locations.

I don’t know where that Janin nonsense was from, but it reeked of filler.

Mount Koryū also existed, which was fucking game content, and the fucking summoned animal castle existed, which was uh, was that filler?

Only Naruto hadn’t done this one, but he had done the Land of the Moon, and what did that mean exactly? Movies were probably happening here, and Naruto was out here doing filler stuff when he should have been with Jiraiya doing main-story stuff.

Some of the events from different mediums overlapped during the same periods, like how the Dragonblade game took place during the Hunt for Itachi mission, somehow. If both of those things existed in this world, the Dragonblade and Itachi, but Naruto could only be present for one of them

What the fuck happened then? What if Naruto didn’t stop that stone of Gelel crap? What if it happened later instead? Why didn’t I ask him? I had only stumbled upon this by chance because I wanted a strong sword, and I had immediately remembered the game.

The shadow demon asshole from Land of the Demons happened right at the start of Shippuden, so what happened if Naruto went to save Gaara instead? Or would he go stop the massive immortal army, and Gaara would die?

What about that Blood Prison movie with Naruto and that white-haired ninja that could somehow revive people. When had that happened? What if Naruto ended up in prison while one of the other big things happened?

Which events were going to be ignored? Were these the things I was supposed to ‘Save the World’ from? The ones that he couldn’t be present for? How did I figure out which ones?

What about events that had already happened before I had gotten here, the ones that had overlapped? Did Team Seven go and save that snow-princess-actor chick from that movie? Or was she still pretending to be an actress? Were they busy somewhere else when that was going on?

Was she was just shit out of luck? Why didn’t I ask when I had the chance? I wasted so much time! I should have been thinking about this already!

I sat down next to the coals of our long-dead campfire and thought furiously.

What about that sky ninja movie, that was during Shippuden, and Orochimaru was still alive at that point. Would Sasuke actually go and get the immortality jutsu for Orochimaru as he did in the movie? Or would Sasuke just kill him as he did in the anime, because he was sick, and his arms didn’t work?

Naruto would most likely be there for that one because those ninjas attacked Konoha, so Konoha shinobi would definitely respond to the aggression, but if Sasuke didn’t go for the technique and gank the sky dude, what would happen?

Would Naruto just die there?

What about that time travel puppet asshole, Naruto had also gone to that thing, but it was in the same period that he was supposed to be training sage mode I think? Sometime after, Jiraiya had already died. I don’t know about all that time travel nonsense but if Naruto weren’t there to help his own dad then that puppet-guy would win in the past, Minato would either flee or die, and if he died Naruto wouldn’t be born so he couldn’t do any of the stuff he had already done? Or something?

I don’t fucking know.

“Sora,” Karenbana said quietly, from directly behind me.

“I am having a mental breakdown right now, Karenbana,” I said honestly. “I’m afraid I’ll be unavailable for any consultations, please schedule in an appointment for yourself sometime later this week.”

“What?” Karenbana said, confused.