Loneliness plus fear plus despair plus self-worth divided by mockery divided by condemnation divided by misunderstanding times guilt times shame times failure times judgment, N equals Y where N equals Hope and Y equals Folly; Love equals Lies; Life equals Death; Self equals Luthor...

-----------

The words echoed and reverberated from nation to nation, house to house, mind to mind. They rippled through the air, through the very earth, forming and shaping the planet to their chord. For a horrible instant, the world realized its impending enslavement, teetering over the abyss of dominion...

...and then, inevitably, it fell, and even the consciousness of slavery was gone.

------------

Loneliness...

-----------

Dark forms of villagers loomed all about Naruto, all standing apart, none facing him, none looking at him. None even acknowledging him.

-----------

...plus fear...

-----------

Once again in the ravine beside his wounded dog, Kiba watched in agonized terror as the two-headed boy came forward.

-----------

...plus despair...

-----------

Lee heard the words but didn't want to believe them. "There is a high chance that the operation will leave you unable to ever be a shinobi."

-----------

...plus self-worth divided by mockery...

-----------

Cold white eyes stared at her as she heard the secret fear of her heart. "You cannot change yourself. Once a failure, always a failure. This will never change."

-----------

....divided by condemnation divided by misunderstanding...

-----------

The glares of all the villagers came at him from all sides. "There he is... the demon..."

-----------

... times guilt times shame...

-----------

"I'm the one who made Naruto suffer the most... I've just been getting it wrong... just been messing it up..."

-----------

...times failure...

-----------

A hospital room formed around him, and he heard the words, "Sakura... I'm sorry, I failed... I couldn't bring him back..."

-----------

...times judgment...

-----------

Chouji huddled in the middle of the playground, surrounded by faceless children crying "Fatty!"

-----------

...N equals Y where N equals Hope and Y equals Folly...

-----------

"Sasuke killed our mentor, the great Killer Bee." The news from the Kumo nins fell on her ears and she started to tremble. Deep down she'd always known it was hopeless.

-----------

...love equals lies...

-----------

Sakura's visage came into focus "Naruto... I said I love you!"

-----------

...life equals death...

-----------

"There is no method but death to escape this curse." Neji heard the words as his own, feeling once again their inescapable truth.

-----------

...self equals Luthor.

-----------

...is just a name I've been given. I'm nobody. I don't exist. I'm a tool of Lord Luthor.

-----------

"You know, I'm still not sure how they got here. Or rather, why," mused Luthor, staring through the glass at the sleeping prisoners below. "Some gambit of the Spectre's to prevent me from getting ahold of the Sharingan, I suppose. Perhaps he thought they'd be invulnerable to my Equation, being from another world." He straightened with a short bark of laughter. "Ha! Apparently he forgot that the Sharingan is from the same world. Foolish error."

"I... notice... you don't... have them... serving you tea."

Luthor rolled his eyes at the man in the wheelchair behind him. "Well, yes, they're not subservient to my will. So what? Even with that blasted chakra of theirs interfering, the sheer effort of resisting me renders them catatonic. I could kill them, all of them, right now, like that..." he snapped his fingers. "...but I won't."

"Wh-why?"

"The odd thing about becoming a god," mused Luthor, "is that it's so boring. I mean, apart from you and that Nara boy, there's no one to talk to, no one to defeat... nothing to do at all." He shrugged. "I suppose you could say I'm keeping them for a rainy day... once the euphoria of controlling the world wears off, perhaps I'll release one and watch him struggle against me." Apparently considering the matter, he rubbed his chin and continued thoughtfully: "Or perhaps I'll just restore the minds of one of your teammates. Which one, do you think? Wonder Woman? J'onn? Which would give me the greatest run for my money?"

"Lu... thor, why do... you always make the same... mistakes? You... release one.... overplay your hand... before... you know it... be back in your jail cell." The gaze of the wheelchair-bound man hardened. "Where you belong."

"Clark, Clark...." Luthor shook his head sadly at the man. "May I call you Clark, by the way? Odd, perhaps, after we've known each other for so long, but... well..." A smirk played around the edges of his mouth. "...Superman hardly seems appropriate anymore."

From his motorized wheelchair, hampered by the countless life-support devices hooked into him, Clark Kent glared back at Luthor. It was hard to recognize him as either the hero OR the intrepid reporter of a day ago. The muscle had withered away from his once-impressive frame, leaving little except skin and bones, about which the remnants of his mighty costume flapped loosely. His face, like much of his body, was drawn and pale, emaciated with his body's constant struggle against the Kryptonite bullet lodged deep in his chest. Only the power of Luthor kept the bullet from reaching his heart.

"Clark, you really don't understand it, do you?" Luthor stepped away from the glass and began to pace down the hallway, Clark's wheelchair rolling behind him. "You lost. It's over."

"If I... had... nickel for every.... time I've heard that..."

"Oh, I know. It sounds trite. But see, you're counting on the last-minute charge of the Light Brigade, the come-from-the rear that no one suspects. You're counting on the theory that good guys always win."

A slight quiver from Clark's shoulders expressed a shrug. "We... always have."

"No. See, this is a fundamental confusion on your part. You don't win because you're good, you're good because you win. Winners write the history books. Or in your case..." Luthor spared Clark a smirking gaze. "...the newspapers. Really, Clark, I find after all this time that the League had infiltrated the media? Shameless."

Clark gazed blearily up at Luthor. "Lex... don't... tell me that you... consider yourself a... 'good' person."

"No." A light chuckle escaped Luthor. "And I don't intend to convince anyone of it, either. But then... I don't have to, do I? Everyone agrees with me already."

They'd stopped before a new balcony, this one overlooking a wide meeting room. There, rank upon rank, stood the assembled heroes of the Justice League, milling about with apparent unconcern. Question sat at a table with Green Arrow and the bandaged Mr. Terrific, apparently discussing wormholes. Blue Devil polished off the last of his coffee and headed out the door. Everything seemed perfectly normal.

Apart, of course, from the fact that no one seemed to notice the greatest villain looking over them, nor that their leader sat immobile at his side.

"Why... you use... this place as your... base, Lex? Shouldn't you... be on a giant... floating 'L' somewhere?"

"Oh come now, Superman, there are limits to even my ego. Besides, the Metrotower has always been a symbol of progress and global unity. Why stop now? I find it a very fitting backdrop to my triumph." Luthor's glance lingered momentarily over the passing form of Wonder Woman. "For the moment, I enjoy the irony of using my opponent's base as my own. The giant floating 'L' will probably come later, after I bore of this."

"If you... get long enough... to be bored of it."

"Be honest, Superman. Have you ever seen your friends so happy? So serene? Just think, it's the same all around the world... people completely happy and completely satisfied with the world as it is." He smiled a long smile. "It's better than the real thing."

"Exactly. The... real thing. Never seen... Batman... this happy, but... never... wanted to." A wheezing cough. "Looks creepy."

"Mm. Perhaps." Shrugging dismissively, Luthor moved away from the window, again pulling a reluctant Clark Kent in his wake. "Look on the bright side, Clark. There's no more war, no more crime, no natural disasters—apart from those I find amusing—and no more prejudice. Everyone is perfectly united in a single frame of mind, working together efficiently and smoothly toward the same goal." He sent a mocking glance over his shoulder. "It's what your League has been aiming at for years, isn't it?"

"No... not... not like... this."

"Oh, so you dislike my method! Ah, I see. Well, say instead of brainwashing everyone instantaneously, I brainwash them slowly, over a period of several years. We can call it public education!"

Clark closed his eyes. "Luthor... "

"Oh, there, there." Luthor beamed at the wheelchair-bound man. "I know it's not easy to come to terms with your own inadequacy, but you've got to face it sooner or later, CLARK."

"My NAME," growled the other. "is SUPERMAN."

Luthor snorted. "You? Hardly."

"Wh-wh-what?" Clark blinked in skeptical confusion.

"I always wondered about the irony of your persona," continued Luthor, ignoring Superman's query. "Initially, I supposed you were merely some ignorant fundamentalist unfamiliar with Neitzche. Now, I find you're a college-educated journalist...!" With a sad little shake of his head, Luthor gazed pityingly at his prisoner. "...what were you thinking when you chose that name?"

Still blinking, Clark considered the question. "It... was a statement..." he decided finally. "...that I... was merely a man... merely what any man... could be... I felt... I should be... the best sign of what... humanity had... to offer." Another blink. "And... Lois got carried... away in... publicity." He admitted.

"The 'best of what humanity had to offer.'" Luthor sneered. "So nearly correct, and yet so abysmally wrong. The Superman IS supposed to be the ultimate goal of humanity, but you're not that goal, not you with your prattling little conventions and quivering indecisions and blind little obediences. You're nothing but a thug, following the laws of yesteryear, and one who's lost his edge." Luthor snapped his fingers and Clark's head exploded momentarily, only to recompose itself. "You? Superman? You're not even a man."

Clark, still wincing from the pain of having his brain blown apart, did not reply, but simply sat, head cradled in his hands.

"Shall I tell you what a super-man is, Clark? Shall I tell you what the ultimate form of man is? Here's a hint: it's not some alien from a dead empire who manages to get bigger muscles than anyone else. It's not an immortal magic-forged princess who was raised in an isolated society. It's not even some brooding billionaire who forced himself to physical and mental perfection." Luthor paused momentarily. "Though that is perhaps close." He admitted. "No, the perfection of humanity is not found in super-strength or super-speed or even super-intellect. It's the WILL of humanity that makes humans what they are, Clark. Their will to push back accepted boundaries and reach bold new horizons."

Turning as if bored, Luthor began to stride down the hallway, pulling Clark's wheelchair in his wake.. "You and your so-called 'Justice League.'" He chuckled. "You claimed to be the pioneers of the human spirit. In reality? You were its greatest jailers. Instead of pushing boundaries, you enforced them. Instead of reaching to bold new horizons, you made sure all new discoveries conformed to old guidelines. You didn't even THINK to change any of it!" Luthor gave out a laugh of scornful disbelief. "You didn't think at all! You blindly listened to the cant of the masses—or worse, of the regressives—letting others do the thinking, the deciding, for you. You simply accepted the world and its rules. Bah!" Luthor waved his hand, and the entire left wall dissolved into a Grecian garden. "Supermen? Pioneers of the human will? You were nothing but brutes and robots, following an outmoded script on an ostentatious scale."

"The Superman, the Ubermensch, was—or rather IS—the purest distillation of the quintessentially human trait of challenging. He is the human who accepts no boundaries, no borders, no constraints. He rises above good and evil itself and turns the world into what he WILLS it to be." He didn't even break stride as he paced straight through a concrete wall. "Sound familiar?"

"You're... not Superman."

"No. I'm LUTHOR." Stopping suddenly, the man smiled on his fuming enemy. "And in this world, any Luthor is far more than any superman, Neiztchean or otherwise. After all, Luthor is the man, the MERE man who subdued the mightiest creature in the universe, is he not?" He shook his head, wonderingly. "All these years, Clark. You were my greatest enemy, my ultimate challenge, the ungodly immovable object to counter my unstoppable force. No one could ever beat you, it was impossible." His eyebrows inched upwards. "So naturally, I had to. The only reason you're still conscious, Clark, is so you can be a reminder of that struggle and its inevitable conclusion."

Apparently recollecting something, he glanced at his watch. "Oh my. Is it that time already? I believe I'll take some tea."

He clapped his hands and a door materialized out of the wall to admit a slim woman in a professional suit. "Tea, Lord Luthor."

Clark's head whirled around at the voice and he groaned. "No... not again."

"Thank you, Lois my dear." Luthor smiled at the reporter as she trotted up, a golden tea set in her hands.

"You are welcome, my lord," responded Lois crisply, smiling shyly as she poured tea into the cup and mixed in a bit of sugar.

"You... bastaaaaard..." managed Clark. His pale veined hands clutched at the handles of his wheelchair, his face was practically purple with rage, his whole body trembled with the struggle to rise from his chair, but an unseen power kept him from moving in the slightest. "You... bastard. Enough... already... leave her..."

"My Lord, must you have this ugly old attendant everywhere you go?" Lois wrinkled her nose. "It seems unfitting to your dignity."

"Even an emperor must have a fool. Permit me mine, my dear. In fact, why don't you offer him a cup of tea?"

"If I must." Lois poured out another cup and held it out.

Clark's hand struggled fruitlessly on the arm of his chair.

"Oh dear, it seems he is too weak to take it. If you would, my dear, pour it down his throat."

"As you wish, my Lord." Elegant fingers prised open Clark's jaw, tilted his head back, and poured a whole cup of scalding tea down his throat.

"AAAGGGH!"

Lois stepped back and watched the invalid shake with pain. "He does not seem to appreciate it."

"Ah well. Ingratitude is the cross of all rulers. Thank you for the tea service, Lois, it was enjoyable as always." Luthor stopped, apparently in thought. "Now let me see... I think there was something more... something I forgot."

"Yes, my lord?"

"Lu-luthor..." gasped Clark. "Not... again... oh god not again..."

"Ah, that's right." And cleanly, without the slightest hesitation or hint of remorse, Luthor pulled a pistol from his suitcoat and shot Lois between the eyes.

"NOOOO!" Clark roared, straining against his own weakness, writhing in his chair. "LOIS!" He cried as Lois' body, the eyes oddly vacant, slumped to the ground. "Not again, oh god not again... you bastard."

"There's something honest about the pistol, you know." Luthor mused, nudging the body at his feet with his shoe. "Clean and efficient, yet... personal, somehow. Brings it much more down to home, makes it seem more realistic. There's not many ways to pretty up a pistol shot. A knife has romantic undertones and an electric chair has clinical ones... but a pistol..." He examined the gun. "...is just a pistol."

Absentmindedly, he emptied the clip into Lois' body, apparently oblivious to Clark's screams of rage. Then he tossed the pistol away. "Hm. Well, most amusing, but it gets old." He quirked a finger. "Get up, slave."

Lois' body floated upright, the blood flowed back into her head, the gaping hole closed up without a mark to show. For a few seconds, her face registered pure horror. "Oh... that hurt like... Oh my word, I'm back, I'm... where am I..." Her eyes seized on Luthor and widened. "No, no more, please, just let me go this time, just stop it and I'll..."

Smiling, Luthor snapped his fingers and the attentive look reasserted itself on her face. "Is there anything else, my lord?"

"No, nothing for now, Lois. Thank you, you've been most entertaining." He waved her away and watched as she tripped toward the door that materialized from the wall. "I'm not sure what you see in her." He confided to Clark. "I've seen far more impressive as far as looks go, and she really doesn't seem like your type. Still..." He smiled at Clark. "There is a sort of eccentric charm to her personality, don't you think?"

"You... bastard..." Tears were leaking their way out of Clark's reddened eyes, flowing down dry wrinkled skin.

"Oh, come now, Clark." Luthor laughed, turning from the invalid and making for the wall. "It was a quick one this time, wasn't it? Not like that electrolysis one I tried before. If I were in your position, I'd be glad I haven't made her do anything more offensive yet. Although, when I do, I'll make sure you're the first to know."

"You... maniac." Clark choked out. "You're... insane."

Luthor considered this. "Perhaps." He nodded. "Perhaps, and then the whole world is mad with me. And then, perhaps, you are the only sane man in the world. But," said Luthor as a new door materialized in front of him, "by the time I'm done with you, that won't be a problem."

-----------

"Have to say, I'm a little puzzled why you haven't brainwashed me yet," commented Shikamaru, musing over his pieces. "Unless you have, of course, and I just don't know it."

Luthor smiled at the teen across the table. "My boy, why would I tamper with a mind as challenging as yours? I'd have no one to play chess with. That Kryptonian is no good at all."

"So glad you find me an interesting spectacle." Shikamaru yawned as he moved his queen across the board. "I'm guessing that as long as I keep beating you, I'm going to stay interesting."

"Roughly that, Mr. Nara, but I must confess that even your losses are interesting to study. I foresee a long life of chess-playing ahead of you."

Shikamaru's eyes took on a dreamy tone. "Doesn't sound so bad..."

Luthor's fingers tapped against the chessboard, and instantly the pieces shifted, rearranging themselves into an utterly new formation.

"...although that little game of yours is getting troublesome." Shikamaru groaned, studying the new layout. "So my queen's back here now, hm?"

"Oh come, Mr. Nara, has it ever really set you back? You show a wonderful talent for improvisation, it does my jaded divine heart good to see it in action."

Shikamaru shrugged as he moved a knight. "Oh well, so long as you get your laughs in. I don't suppose there's any other way you're going to win."

"Still trying to enrage me, boy? It won't work. I don't need to prove my divinity to anyone now. I have it. I'm not only omniscient and omnipotent, I'm immortal."

"I've defeated immortals before." Shikamaru murmured absently, examining Luthor's latest move.

Luthor glanced up sharply. "Oh? Who was that?"

"Some religious nut. Called himself Hidan. Worshipped some Jaishin character, who gave him his immortality. He killed my teacher and I..." He shrugged.

"You killed him?"

Shikamaru glanced up momentarily. "You DID hear me say he was immortal, right?" Looking back to the board, he moved a knight laterally and captured Luthor's bishop. "No. I blew him to bits and buried the head in a private plot."

"Hm." Luthor nodded in approval at the board. "I take it, then, that you don't believe in this Jaishin character."

Shikamaru shrugged and flexed his feet. In celebration of his divinity, Luthor had obliterated all restraints, and Shikamaru sat freely on the other side of a completely open table. "Only thing I believe in is the Will of Fire."

"Interesting." Luthor moved his other bishop and captured Shikamaru's queen. "But Mr. Nara, so long as you're here, there's something you should understand." Looking up, his flint-hard gaze caught Shikamaru's lazy glance. "Here, there is no Will of Fire, no Lord Jaishin, nothing. Here, I'M the only god that matters."

"Whatever," shrugged Shikamaru, and moved his knight across the board.

Luthor glanced down sharply and smiled. "Clever. Very clever, Mr. Nara. You astound me. There are so many layers to your strategy."

"Not layers so much as backups. Unlike you, my backup plans HAVE backups."

"Ah? So what plan is this?" Luthor sat back from the board, grinning. "I believe I've deciphered your strategy, but are you on P or Q at this point?"

"B, actually. At this point I'm just trying to see how many times I can force you to rearrange the pieces." A smirk twisted the end of Shikamaru's mouth.

Apparently struck by something in Nara's tone, Luthor studied his face, then the board, before giving a long, slow smile. "One of your psychological tricks, Mr. Nara. But nonetheless..." his hand reached out and moved a pawn, "...you intrigue me."

"Oh yay." Shikamaru tapped over a bishop and moved his remaining rook into its place.

"Tell me," said Luthor, casually shifting a seemingly unimportant pawn, "that chess game we played before your friend's attack... what stage of your plan was that?"

Shikamaru moved over one of his knights before answering. Apparently thinking deeply, he folded his hands together in a single fist and rested his head on it. "B, actually. Plan A was pretty much what I told you... antagonize you with insults until you did something stupid and overt. Sasuke's arrival hastened things, I knew he'd go for the obvious strike."

"And you set his mind against me to prevent an alliance." Luthor nodded.

"Oh no. That happened almost automatically. Sasuke suspects EVERYONE. I just gave him ammunition."

"Nevertheless."

Shikamaru shrugged without moving his hands. "I certainly didn't encourage the alliance. Anyway, plan A involved getting you to expose yourself so my friends could kill you. Sasuke, though, meant you weren't going to be in a position to get killed." A frown creased his forehead. "That was unfortunate. There was another option, though. Such an obvious move would prompt a rescue mission. If you'd suspected it, you would have teleported us away before it could work. So I won a chess game to distract you."

"You honestly thought that would be sufficient?"

"It was, apart from Kakashi's arrival."

Luthor grunted in amused agreement. "But then, I did not need to. The rescue attempt failed, even without my interference. Your friend Chouji did not reach you in time."

"He got damn close." A small fire seemed to awaken in Shikamaru's eyes. "He was practically undoing my restraints when you said your bit with the Anti-Life whatsit."

"Nonetheless, the point is that he failed. And still would have failed, had I been here instead of attending to your Kakashi. Indeed, it would have made no difference if he had managed to free you before I said the equation."

"Don't be too sure."

"You seem very attached to your friend Chouji. I may have to bring him in to motivate you for some of our chess games." Luthor chuckled at the look on Shikamaru's face. "Oh, come now. Let us hope that day is a long ways off." His hand reached out for the chess piece, then slowly withdrew.

"Oh yeah. Checkmate. Sorry, should have mentioned that earlier."

For a moment something flared in Luthor's eyes, but the next moment it was gone. "Mr. Nara, Mr. Nara," he laughed, standing up. "Once again you astound me. A pity that your skill in chess is not equal to your skill in life."

"About that..." Shikamaru muttered, hands still clenched in a single fist. "...I never did tell you what my power was, did I?"

Luthor lifted an eyebrow, laughed, turned to leave...

...and found he couldn't.

"Kage Mane no jutsu..." murmured Shikamaru in a dead voice. "Successful..."

The next second the ground erupted under Shikamaru, knocking him back to the wall. Luthor was on him in seconds, clutching Shikamaru's throat, lifting him into the air. "Did you honestly think that would work?" He sneered.

"It did." A kunai appeared in Shikamaru's hand, stabbing down, burying itself into Luthor's chest.

Luthor didn't even flinch as his chest swallowed the kunai and spat it out the other side. "Again, did you honestly think that would work? I'm rather disappointed in you, Mr. Nara. After all this time, I thought you might come up with something a little more subtle. Incidentally, where did you get the kunai?"

"Chouji had one on him. I can use my shadow to pick up and move stuff too, and other shadows amplify it. He wasn't too far away," said Shikamaru in an oddly calm voice. "Thought it might come in handy."

"Not handy enough, I fear. You seem to have wasted it."

Shikamaru shrugged, a difficult act while someone is clutching your throat. "Oh well." He mused casually. "There's always the backup plan."

Suddenly the ground shook slightly, and the sound of a distant explosion came to their ears.

"You really shouldn't have shown me where the prisoners were being kept. You'd be surprised how many shadows there are in this base."