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The command center was controlled chaos. Holographic displays covered every wall, showing real-time satellite feeds of dimensional rifts tearing open across New York City. Times Square. Central Park. The Brooklyn Bridge. Each tear pulsed with energy that made their instruments scream warnings, and through them, shapes moved with predatory purpose.
Fury stood at the center of it all, his single eye tracking multiple feeds simultaneously while barking orders into a comm device. "I want Iron Man and War Machine establishing aerial superiority. Captain, coordinate ground forces at the Times Square rift. Thor " He paused. "Someone tell me we've reached Thor."
"Off-world," Agent Hill reported, her fingers flying across holographic controls. "Captain Marvel is en route from deep space, ETA twenty minutes. Doctor Strange isn't responding to summons."
"Perfect. So we're going into a dimensional invasion without our dimensional experts." Fury's jaw clenched. "Fine. Deploy all available Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. tactical units. Establish civilian evacuation protocols. And someone get me actual intelligence on what we're facing before they finish crossing through."
Yasuo stood near the back of the room, his Sharingan active despite the drain it caused. Through his enhanced perception, the dimensional rifts were more than simple tears they were surgical incisions, precisely calculated to maximize penetration while minimizing the energy required to maintain them. Whoever was orchestrating this invasion understood the physics of reality with terrifying sophistication.
"You see something the tech doesn't?" Natasha appeared at his elbow, her tactical suit reinstated, weapons checking complete.
"Strategy. Precision." Yasuo gestured at the main display. "These rifts aren't random. They're targeting infrastructure nodes power grids, transportation hubs, communication centers. Whoever's commanding this force understands modern urban warfare."
Steve Rogers moved to join them, his expression grim. "That's what worries me. Everything we've seen suggests these entities are from your world or worlds like it. They shouldn't understand how our cities function."
"Unless they've been watching," Yasuo said quietly. "Learning. Preparing. How long has the dimensional energy been active? Not when it was stolen, but when was it first created?"
Hill pulled up files, her face paling as she cross-referenced data. "The research started eighteen months ago. Initial experiments with dimensional barriers and " She stopped. "The timeline matches. The first successful experiment occurred approximately three weeks before you appeared in that hospital."
The implications crashed over the room like cold water. Fury's eye snapped to Yasuo with laser focus. "You're saying they created the technology to bring you here deliberately? That this whole thing your reincarnation, the stolen energy, the rifts it's all connected?"
"I'm saying I was bait." Yasuo's hands clenched into fists. "Whatever brought me through used me to map the pathway between dimensions. My consciousness crossing over created a route that others could follow."
"Then how do we close it?" Steve asked.
Before anyone could answer, alarms escalated to a new pitch. Every display flashed red simultaneously, and the largest hologram showed the rift above Central Park expanding to catastrophic proportions. The tear was easily a hundred meters across now, bleeding impossible light into New York's night sky.
"Energy readings are spiking beyond measurement," Hill reported, her voice tight. "Whatever's coming through, it's massive. Multiple contacts. Hundreds, maybe thousands "
The first entities emerged.
Through the feeds, Yasuo watched creatures pour through the rift. Some resembled the corrupted shadow he'd fought in Chicago humanoid but wrong, existing between solid and ethereal. Others were different entirely: beasts that walked on too many legs, flying things that defied aerodynamics, and shapes that his Sharingan struggled to categorize because they existed in dimensions his perception couldn't fully comprehend.
And they all bore traces of chakra. His world's energy signature, corrupted and fused with dimensional power.
"All units, engage!" Fury's command cut through the rising panic. "Hold the perimeter. Protect civilians. And somebody get me those reinforcements!"
The room erupted into coordinated action. Agents mobilized toward deployment zones. Tactical teams loaded into vehicles. Steve grabbed his shield and moved toward the exit, pausing only to look back at Yasuo.
"You coming?"
"Try to stop me."
They ran.
Through corridors now strobing with emergency lights. Past medical bays being converted to triage centers. Down to the vehicle bay where heavily armed transports waited. Natasha was already in the driver's seat of a tactical van, engine running, when Yasuo and Steve arrived.
"Central Park," she said, not waiting for confirmation before accelerating toward the exit. "That's where the primary rift is manifesting. If we can disrupt it at the source "
The vehicle bay's massive doors opened onto a New York transformed into a war zone. The night sky pulsed with unnatural light from multiple dimensional tears. In the distance, explosions bloomed as military forces engaged the entities. And cutting through it all, a golden streak that could only be Iron Man, his repulsors firing in controlled bursts.
"Romanoff, Rogers, mystery man with the glowing eyes," Tony Stark's voice crackled through the van's comm system. "Hope you're headed to the main event, because we've got enough of these dimensional nasties to start a zoo. And not a fun zoo. More like a zoo that eats visitors."
"On our way, Tony," Steve replied. "What's the situation?"
"Deteriorating rapidly would be the technical assessment. These things are tough conventional weapons barely slow them down. I'm having to dial my repulsors to maximum output just to make them consider retreating." Static burst across the line. "And there's something else. Something big still in the rift. I'm reading energy signatures that make the Hulk look like a green nightlight."
Yasuo's Sharingan flared involuntarily as they neared Central Park. Through the van's windshield, he could see the main rift clearly now a wound in reality so massive it dominated the skyline. And within it, shapes moved. Not the corrupted entities already pouring through, but something else. Something that radiated power his enhanced perception recognized despite impossible circumstances.
"Stop the van," he said.
"We're not there yet "
"Stop the van!" The command came out with enough force that Natasha complied, the vehicle screeching to a halt three blocks from the park's edge. Yasuo was out before it fully stopped, his Sharingan tracking something in the rift that made his blood run cold.
A figure was crossing through. Not rushing like the corrupted entities, but walking with measured purpose. Tall. Robed in traditional Ionian style. And as it emerged fully into New York's reality, Yasuo saw the face and felt the world tilt beneath him.
But the figure that stepped through wasn't Elder Souma.
It was someone else entirely. Someone Yasuo had never expected to see again.
A blur of motion, almost too fast to track. Something hit the corrupted entity nearest to them with enough force to send it flying. A man landed in a crouch between Yasuo and the rift shorter than average, built with compact muscle, wearing what looked like tactical gear mixed with something more personal. When he straightened, Yasuo caught the glint of metal between his knuckles.
Claws. Three on each hand, extending from his knuckles with a distinctive snikt sound.
"So you're the one causing all this fuss." The man's voice was rough, gravelly, carrying an accent Yasuo couldn't place. He sniffed the air, his head cocking like a predator analyzing prey. "You smell wrong. Not wrong like these dimensional freaks wrong like you don't belong here at all. Like you're from somewhere that doesn't follow the same rules."
"Wolverine," Steve said, arriving with Natasha. "Good timing."
"Rogers. Romanoff." The man Wolverine didn't take his eyes off Yasuo. "This the kid Fury's been making noise about? The one with the weird power signature?"
"Yasuo," Natasha provided. "And yes. He's with us."
"He's a dimensional anchor." Wolverine's nostrils flared. "I can smell it on him. Something ancient. Something that's been dead and brought back." His claws retracted slightly, but his stance remained wary. "I've lived a long time, kid. Seen a lot of weird. But you? You're something new. Something that makes my instincts scream that you're both a threat and something that needs protecting."
Before Yasuo could respond, the rift pulsed again. More entities poured through, but these were different organized, moving in formation like trained soldiers rather than mindless beasts. And at their head, the figure Yasuo had spotted continued its measured approach.
As it fully emerged from the rift, stepping onto New York soil with impossible grace, Yasuo's Sharingan revealed every detail. The traditional robes. The calm expression. The energy signature that was unmistakably from his world but enhanced, elevated, transformed by forces that should not exist.
Elder Souma.
His murdered master, who should have been dead for years. Standing in Central Park, surrounded by dimensional corruption, looking exactly as Yasuo remembered except for the eyes. Those eyes glowed with power that transcended mortal understanding, and when they locked onto Yasuo, the weight of their gaze nearly drove him to his knees.
"No," Yasuo breathed. "You're dead. I saw your body. The entire clan mourned "
"Death." Elder Souma's voice carried across the distance with supernatural clarity, cutting through the chaos of battle and dimensional energy. "Such a limited concept. So mortal in its understanding." He took another step forward, and reality warped around him, bending to accommodate his presence. "Yes, Yasuo, my student. I died. Murdered by forces that sought what I protected. But death, I learned, is not the end. It is simply a doorway to understanding greater truths."
Wolverine growled, his claws extending fully. "I don't know who grandpa here is, but he reeks of power that shouldn't exist. We taking him down, or what?"
"Wait," Yasuo said, his mind racing. "Master Souma, if you're truly here, if you're truly " His voice caught. "Then tell me. Tell me who murdered you. Who framed me for your death?"
Elder Souma's expression didn't change, but something that might have been sadness flickered in those glowing eyes. "Oh, my precious student. You still don't understand, do you? After everything your exile, your death, your reincarnation in this fascinating world you still haven't grasped the fundamental truth."
"What truth?"
"That you were never framed." Elder Souma raised his hand, and dimensional energy swirled around it like obedient pets. "There was no conspiracy. No hidden villain to unmask. No evil plot to expose." He smiled, and it was the saddest expression Yasuo had ever seen. "You were simply... necessary. A sacrifice required to set greater events in motion."
The words didn't make sense. Couldn't make sense. "You're saying "
"I'm saying that I arranged my own death, Yasuo. Left evidence that would point to you. Ensured that your brother would hunt you. Orchestrated every step of the tragedy that consumed your life." Elder Souma's voice carried genuine remorse even as he admitted monstrous truths. "Because your death your specific death, by your brother's hand, consumed by guilt and innocence in equal measure that death created the perfect resonance. The perfect frequency to breach dimensional barriers."
Yasuo felt his legs give out. Would have collapsed if Steve hadn't caught him, held him upright. The revelation crashed over him in waves, each one more devastating than the last.
"You used me," he whispered. "Destroyed my life. Turned my brother into a murderer. All of it "
"To save countless worlds from something far worse." Elder Souma's expression hardened. "And now, Yasuo, my student, you have no idea what you've set in motion by coming here. By surviving when you should have stayed dead. By resisting the role you were meant to play."
The dimensional rift pulsed again, and through it, something massive began to emerge. Something that made every entity that had come before look like insects by comparison. Yasuo's Sharingan strained to perceive it, and what he saw made his mind rebel against comprehension.
Ancient. Vast. Hungry beyond measure.
And reaching for him with intent that transcended mere desire for destruction.
"What have you done?" Yasuo asked, but he already knew the answer.
Elder Souma had turned him into a key. And now, something terrible had come to turn that key and open doors that should have remained forever sealed.
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🌟 If you'd like to support me or read EARLY ACCESS Chapters, you can find me on Patreon 🌟
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