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The massive entity emerging from the rift froze mid-crossing, as if Elder Souma's presence commanded even dimensional horrors. Around them, the corrupted creatures stopped their assault, becoming eerily still like puppets whose strings had been cut. The sudden silence was more terrifying than the chaos had been.
"Stand down," Elder Souma commanded, and his voice carried authority that transcended worlds. The dimensional entities obeyed, retreating slightly but not disappearing. Yasuo realized with sick certainty that they weren't attacking they were escorting. "We have little time, and much of it will be wasted if you continue attacking what you cannot yet comprehend."
Wolverine's claws remained extended, his body coiled for violence. "Lady, I've got maybe three hundred years of experience telling me when something's dangerous, and you're lighting up every instinct I've got. Give me one good reason not to introduce you to adamantium."
"Because killing me accomplishes nothing except wasting our limited window." Elder Souma's glowing eyes shifted to the X-Man with something like amusement. "You cannot kill what exists between death and resurrection, James Howlett. And before you ask yes, I know your true name. I know many things that should be impossible to know."
Steve stepped forward, his shield raised defensively. "If you're not here to invade, then what do you want?"
"To deliver a message. To provide guidance. To apologize." Elder Souma's gaze returned to Yasuo, and the weight of centuries pressed down through that stare. "And most importantly, to ensure my student understands what he's truly become and what role he must play in the days ahead."
Yasuo found his voice, though it came out raw with betrayal. "You orchestrated my death. Framed me for murder. Destroyed everything I was. And now you expect me to listen to guidance?"
"I expect nothing. I hope for much." Elder Souma moved closer, and with each step, his form became slightly more translucent, as if his presence in this reality was temporary. "What I did to you was monstrous, Yasuo. I will not pretend otherwise. I murdered myself and ensured the blame fell on you my most talented student, the one who least deserved such betrayal." His voice carried genuine pain. "But I did so because the alternative was the extinction of not just our world, but countless others."
"Explain," Natasha demanded, her weapons trained on Elder Souma despite their proven ineffectiveness. "Fast. Before S.H.I.E.L.D. decides to solve this problem with orbital strikes."
"The multiverse is vast," Elder Souma began, his form flickering like a candle in wind. "Infinite realities, infinite possibilities, all existing in delicate balance. But that balance is maintained by barriers dimensional walls that keep realities separate and stable. Occasionally, these barriers thin naturally, allowing brief glimpses between worlds. Rarely, they tear, creating catastrophes." He gestured at the rift behind him. "What you've experienced recently is neither natural thinning nor random tearing. It is deliberate weakening, orchestrated by an entity that exists outside conventional reality."
"The Devourer," Yasuo said, remembering shadow-Yone's warning.
"One of its many names. A consciousness so vast it exists across dimensions simultaneously, feeding on the energy released when realities collapse into each other." Elder Souma's expression darkened. "For millennia, cosmic forces have worked to contain it, to reinforce dimensional barriers, to prevent its feeding. But barriers require anchors specific resonances that bind reality together."
Tony Stark's voice crackled through multiple comm channels simultaneously. "Okay, evil grandmaster or whatever you are, we're getting some really interesting energy readings. Your dimensional tear is actually... stabilizing? Becoming less dangerous? Someone want to explain how the invasion force made things safer?"
Elder Souma allowed a slight smile. "Because this was never an invasion, Anthony Stark. It was a delivery." He turned back to Yasuo. "Your death, my student, created a unique resonance. Your consciousness, torn between guilt and innocence, between your world and the void, generated a frequency that could bridge realities without destroying them. Your brother's guilt, murdering his innocent sibling, created the complementary harmonic. Together, you formed a perfect dimensional tuning fork."
"So you sacrificed me to create a portal?" Yasuo's hands trembled with barely restrained rage.
"I sacrificed us both to create a solution." Elder Souma's voice softened. "The Devourer was approaching our reality. Would have consumed it entirely within a decade. I saw this through decades of dimensional study saw the future where our world simply ceased to exist, devoured by an entity we couldn't fight. So I made a choice. A terrible choice."
He raised his hands, and energy patterns formed in the air complex geometries that Yasuo's Sharingan strained to follow. "I arranged circumstances that would tear you from our world at the moment of death, casting your consciousness into the dimensional void where it would drift until finding purchase in a reality strong enough to contain it. This reality. This Earth, protected by heroes of impossible power, where beings fight cosmic threats as mortals once fought wild beasts."
"You sent him here as a weapon," Steve said, understanding dawning. "Against this Devourer."
"I sent him here as a warning beacon. An anchor. A bridge." Elder Souma's form flickered more severely. "My time grows short. Listen carefully, Yasuo. Your reincarnation was orchestrated by cosmic forces far beyond my influence I merely provided the catalyst. You were chosen because your power, your Sharingan, has the potential to evolve beyond anything our world produced. And in this reality, surrounded by dimensional energy and cosmic forces, that evolution can accelerate."
"My wind techniques," Yasuo said, pieces clicking together. "They've been growing stronger. More unstable."
"Because they're not wind techniques anymore." Elder Souma gestured, and the air around Yasuo began to swirl but not from Yasuo's will. From Souma's demonstration. "What you manipulated in our world was elemental energy, bound by spiritual laws and physical limitations. What you can manipulate here transcends elements. You're learning to control dimensional fabric itself the spaces between matter, the flows of reality. Wind was merely the metaphor through which you understood it."
Wolverine sniffed. "That's a fancy way of saying the kid's power leveled up."
"Crudely put but accurate." Elder Souma turned his glowing gaze on Yasuo. "You've felt it, haven't you? The way your techniques work differently here. The way they drain you not because they're weaker, but because you're forcing dimensional energy through channels designed for elemental manipulation. You're trying to pour an ocean through a reed and wondering why it hurts."
Yasuo thought back to every time he'd used his abilities in this world. The whirlwind in the corridor, triggered by emotion. The devastating blast against shadow-Yone, fueled by desperate fury. Each time, the power had been immense but the cost catastrophic because he'd been approaching it wrong.
"Teach me," he said, the words coming before pride could stop them. "If you're here to deliver guidance, then guide. Show me how to control this before it kills me or everyone around me."
Elder Souma's expression showed approval mixed with sorrow. "I have perhaps ten minutes before this manifestation collapses. Ten minutes to impart what should take years to learn." He moved closer, placing a hand on Yasuo's shoulder and his touch felt solid despite his translucent form. "We begin with breathing. Not to gather elemental energy, but to perceive dimensional flow."
"Breathing exercises," Wolverine muttered. "Great. We're doing yoga while reality tears itself apart."
"Logan, let him work," Steve said quietly. Around them, S.H.I.E.L.D. forces had established a perimeter, weapons trained on the dormant dimensional entities. The massive shape in the rift had stopped emerging, waiting with alien patience.
Elder Souma's voice dropped to teaching cadence, and despite everything the betrayal, the rage, the confusion Yasuo found himself falling into familiar patterns. Student and master. The role he'd known before accusations destroyed it.
"Close your eyes. Activate your Sharingan but turn it inward, perceiving your own energy flow." Souma's hand remained on his shoulder, grounding him. "What you call chakra pathways these were designed for one reality's physics. But your reincarnation has rewritten you at a fundamental level. You exist simultaneously in this reality and the space between realities. Your pathways have become bridges."
Yasuo followed the instruction, his Sharingan turning inward. And he saw it his energy network wasn't the clean channels he remembered. They were fractured, yes, but not damaged. Transformed. Each pathway branched into possibilities, connecting to spaces that shouldn't exist, touching dimensions beyond three.
"You see it now. Your pathways connect to dimensional fabric itself. When you call wind, you're not manipulating air molecules you're manipulating the space those molecules occupy. Compressing dimensions. Expanding them. Creating flows in reality itself." Elder Souma's voice carried urgency as his form flickered more severely. "This is why forcing power through old techniques causes such damage. You're trying to channel dimensional energy through pathways meant for elemental manipulation."
"Then how "
"Stop controlling. Start guiding." Souma squeezed his shoulder. "Wind responds to your will because you understood it intimately. Dimensional fabric responds to your intent because you exist within it. Don't force the technique. Visualize the outcome and let your transformed pathways find the route naturally."
It sounded like mystical nonsense. But Yasuo reached for his wind technique not forcing it, not channeling it, simply envisioning the outcome he wanted. A controlled vortex around his hand, spinning with precision rather than wild power.
The air swirled. Not violently, not explosively, but with elegant control. Energy flowed through his transformed pathways without tearing them, guided rather than forced. The drain was present but manageable, sustainable.
"There," Elder Souma said with satisfaction. "You begin to understand. Practice this. Every technique you knew can be reimagined through this lens. But remember you're no longer an elemental manipulator. You're something far more dangerous and far more necessary."
His form was fading rapidly now, becoming barely visible. Around them, the dimensional entities began withdrawing back toward the rift, their escort duty apparently complete.
"Wait," Yasuo said urgently. "If you orchestrated my death to create this resonance, why? What am I supposed to do with these abilities?"
"Fight what's coming." Elder Souma's voice was growing distant. "The Devourer has noticed your presence far sooner than we calculated. Your dimensional signature, your transformation it's drawn its attention directly to this Earth. It will come. And when it arrives, conventional power will be insufficient."
"Then tell me how to stop it!"
"You cannot. Not alone." Elder Souma was barely visible now, a ghost of light and fading will. "But you are not alone. Three other champions were reincarnated across this universe warriors from dying realities, sent through dimensional tears to act as anchors and protectors. You must find them. Unite them. Together, you may have a chance."
"How do I find them?" Desperation crept into Yasuo's voice. Despite everything, this was still his master. Still the man who'd trained him.
"Find the cosmic storms." Elder Souma's form was dissolving into particles of light. "Spatial anomalies where dimensional fabric is thinnest. The other champions will be drawn to these places instinctively, as you were drawn here. Where reality weakens, where the Devourer's influence bleeds through " His voice was barely a whisper now. " that's where they'll manifest."
"Master, I don't know if I can do this. If I'm strong enough "
"You were never meant to be strong, Yasuo. You were meant to be necessary." The last of Elder Souma's form scattered like cherry blossoms in wind. "And I'm sorry. For everything. But know this I never stopped believing you would rise to meet impossible odds. It's what you've always done, even when the world condemned you for it."
Then he was gone, leaving only fading light and the echo of words that would haunt Yasuo for what remained of his second life.
The dimensional rift began collapsing, sealing shut with controlled precision rather than violent closure. The entities that had emerged retreated fully, their purpose apparently served. Within seconds, Central Park looked almost normal if one ignored the crater where the rift had been, the damaged landscape, and the thousand witnesses who'd seen impossible things.
Yasuo stood in the sudden quiet, his hand still extended where Elder Souma had touched him, his mind reeling from revelations that rewrote his entire existence.
"So," Wolverine said into the silence. "That was weird, even by my standards. Anyone want to explain what just happened in words that don't require a physics degree?"
"Yasuo's teacher orchestrated his death to turn him into a dimensional anchor," Natasha summarized with brutal efficiency. "He was reincarnated here deliberately to serve as an early warning system and potential weapon against something called the Devourer. And apparently there are three other people like him scattered across the universe."
"Oh, is that all?" Tony's voice dripped sarcasm. "Here I thought we were dealing with something complicated. So we just need to find three needles in a cosmic haystack while preparing for an entity that eats dimensions. Simple Tuesday."
Steve moved to Yasuo's side, his expression concerned rather than suspicious. "How are you holding up?"
How was he holding up? Yasuo had learned that his entire tragedy his framing, his exile, his death had been orchestrated by the one person he'd trusted most. That he'd been used as a component in a cosmic defense system. That his second life was no gift but a burden designed to prepare Earth for something that could destroy reality itself.
"I'm functional," Yasuo said, which was as close to honesty as he could manage. "The technique he showed me it works. My powers are more stable now. More controllable."
"Good, because Fury's going to want explanations, and my report is going to read like bad science fiction." Natasha holstered her weapons, though her eyes remained alert for threats. "We should get back to headquarters. Debrief. Figure out next steps."
"Next steps," Yasuo repeated dully. "Find three other dimensional refugees. Locate cosmic storms. Prepare for a reality-eating entity. All while my body continues breaking down from existing in a world I shouldn't be in."
"When you put it like that, it sounds impossible," Steve said. "But impossible is kind of what we do."
Wolverine retracted his claws with that distinctive sound. "Kid's got a point about the impossible odds. But I've seen people survive worse. Not many, but some." He clapped Yasuo on the shoulder with surprising gentleness. "You need help tracking weird cosmic stuff, X-Men have resources. And I'm curious about what you'll become once you stop trying to be what you were and start being what you are."
As they moved toward extraction vehicles, as S.H.I.E.L.D. forces began securing the area, Yasuo's mind kept returning to Elder Souma's final words.
Find the cosmic storms. They are the key to everything.
Somewhere in the vast expanse of the universe, three others like him existed. Three champions torn from dying realities, reincarnated with purpose, carrying the weight of impossible expectations. Finding them seemed an insurmountable task.
But then, everything about his second life was insurmountable. What was one more impossibility added to the pile?
Yasuo looked up at the night sky, now clear of dimensional tears but no less alien for their absence. Somewhere up there, cosmic storms waited. Somewhere, other warriors struggled with transformations they didn't understand.
And somewhere beyond the stars, beyond reality itself, something ancient and hungry had noticed Earth's presence and marked it for consumption.
Elder Souma had called him necessary rather than strong.
Fine. Then he'd be necessary. He'd find the others. He'd learn to master dimensional manipulation. He'd become whatever this world needed to survive what was coming.
Not for redemption. Not even for heroism.
Simply because he'd already died once, and he'd be damned if he let this second life end with the destruction of everything he'd been sent to protect.
Even if that protection killed him in the process.
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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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