"UNIVER quantum signature verified," Alyss affirmed. "Your current location is Nerima, Tokyo, Japan, sector classification MA-19. I'm transmitting dataslots #1 and #3 now."
Edge raised one open hand; there was a soft, mellow gleam of light, and his fingers closed around an embroidered steel scabbard - one that housed a katana, seemingly ordinary in every way save that it lacked a tsuba. Edge thumbed the blade an inch from its saya, eying it critically, and then, duly satisfied, resheathed it with a metallic click. "Received," he reported, his voice a dull monotone as he fastened the blade to his side.
"Are you alright?" Alyss asked.
"Bored." Edge shrugged. "When every assignment comes down to nothing more than hunting down rogue system glitches, well, you tend to get jaded after a while."
"There's a reason there aren't any jaded Avatars serving at S.H.O.D.A.N. They're all dead." Alyss' tone carried a slight hint of reproachment. "Be careful."
"I always am," Edge retorted, slightly affronted. For a moment he almost opened his mouth to ask regarding his target, but bit back the urge. The overriding rule at S.H.O.D.A.N. - superceded only by the directive that its operatives upheld absolute secrecy at all times - was that one did not ask questions. He took a deep breath. "Okay, I'm ready."
"Assignment Z-19 officially commences now," Alyss stated. "Radio silence is to be maintained until your mission objectives have been accomplished. Failure of your assignment, or the compromising of your identity, will result in immediate UNIVER quantum signature termination to prevent Fourth Wall corruption."
In other words, S.H.O.D.A.N. would simply kill and abandon him if he failed, more out of necessity than any begrudgement over his inability to deliver. It never failed to unsettle him, but Edge merely nodded, preserving the tight-lipped, mildly bored expression that had become his calling card of sorts. "Thanks."
Alyss appeared slightly perplexed. "Thanks?"
"Never mind," Edge muttered. "Assignment status acknowledged."
Alyss opened her mouth to reply, but was cut off as Edge removed his shades, and then promptly crushed them beneath his heel. It was early morning in Sector Beta 6, and, as Edge stepped out from the alley, he found time to glance at a nearby puddle of water, inspecting his reflection. He was clad in gray cargo pants, black T-shirt and sneakers, which were topped off incongruously with a wide-brimmed cowboy-style Stetson hat. He wasn't wearing any socks, but his trousers tapered off at his ankles in such a manner that it was hard to notice. A small, rectangular magnesium alloy-finish PErsonal Terminal was attached to his left wrist, secured via a Velcro strap, while the Kikuichi Norimune, reforged and modified to his own personal preferences - his weapon of choice as an Avatar - hung from his side. He frowned, almost worried that he was dressed far too eye-catchingly, until he remembered that he was in, of all places, Nerima -
- otherwise better known as the Ranmaverse.
He adjusted the brim of his hat, setting down the street at a steady pace, smiling as he did, though the grin was hidden beneath the hat he wore.
It wasn't a very nice smile.
But then again, he wasn't a very nice person.
Saying that Saotome Ranma was a good martial artist was quite an understatement. The 16-year-old heir to the Muzabeto Kaketo-ryuu school had been trained since young to succeed the Tendou Dojo - he was talented, in every sense of the word, and had compounded that talent with natural instinct and dedication, taking to the arts of fighting like a fish to water. Through sheer ingenuity and luck, he had mastered the finest fighting techniques of both his father's style and the secret skills of the Joketsuzoku clan. Despite his youth, Ranma had done battle against crowds of hardened warriors more than twice his age and size - he had confronted legendary animalistic warriors, demons, even a god - and had, on each and every occasion, acquitted himself admirably. Martial arts was his life, and he had devoted himself to it, mind, body, and soul.
Ranma was also finding himself in a rather unusual position that morning. He was, in fact, in the very position of positions in which he most rarely found himself in.
He was getting the crap beaten out of him.
The wall he had his back crumbled as his opponent drove another charge of energy at him, one that Ranma took the brunt of the force of as he was blasted cleanly through the wall behind him. Principal Kunou was not going to be happy about the extent of the damage and havoc he and his adversary had wreaked upon Furinkan High school premises, but it was the least of his concerns at the moment. His opponent advanced - levitating several inches off the ground, arms crossed imperiously before his chest - as Ranma struggled to pick himself up, trying to not let it show that the mere effort itself was causing him tremendous amounts of pain.
"Is this all you have, Saotome Ranma!" Chronos demanded. Ranma's eyes narrowed, noting the unnatural glow of light that was building in the other boy's right palm. Blue-haired and cold-eyed, the warrior was clad in white satin robes and dragonscale armor that had allowed Ranma to recognize his adversary as one of the Musk clan. "You disappoint me. I had hardly expected that one who defeated Herb-oujisama in single combat would prove this unworthy."
"Heh," Ranma smirked, trying to ignore the wracking pain in his ribs. "A grudge match, isn't it? It doesn't seem like Herb sent you, though."
"A meaningless fight," Chronos replied. "If I had known you were such a weakling I would hardly have bothered. Your helplessness has stripped this fight of all its significance!" Chronos' voice reached an apex of contemptuous rage. "HITOU RYUU ZAN HA!"
It was all Ranma could do to throw himself aside as gigantic, scythe-like blades formed from pure ki arced through the air, instantly slicing through anything and everything they touched. One of the blades nicked Ranma's arm, burning open skin and flesh, cauterizing the wound even before blood could flow. The eastern section of the school block was demolished instantly. Ranma raised both arms, shielding himself as pieces of decimated masonry and rubble surrounded him in a angry hurricane, leaping back out into open air as he did even as the building collapsed all around him. He was rapidly running out of options - fighting Chronos was almost akin to fighting a manically depressed Ryouga capable of unleashing endless Shi Shi Houkoudan blasts, making it almost impossible to get in close to the Musk warrior. That, and Chronos had been careful to avoid being trapped in a spiral formation - almost as if his opponent had known about his Hiryuu Shouten Ha technique in advance -
His thoughts were abruptly cut off as a bolt of kinetically excited air slammed against his shoulder in a glancing blow. Ranma suppressed a scream of agony as his bones were collapsed by the attack in an instant, yet with no visible flesh wounds. The attack hurled him backward like a rag doll - Ranma hit the ground, skidding as he did, gouging a furrow through the freshly cut grass of the school soccer field.
"Saotome Ranma!" Chronos roared. "For your crimes of humiliating the Musk Dynasty - for defying our lord and master, Herb-oujisama - I hereby sentence you to death -"
His outburst was suddenly cut off by black blur of speed that slammed into him, driving a raised knee into his face. Unlike Ranma's blows, this attack was unusual in a very remarkable way - it broke through his ki field, connected with his face in an extremely painful fashion, and sent him flying.
"What..."
A second blow, this time a rising snapkick that blasted itself against his spine - his attacker had matched his flight speed and path, intercepting him even before he could reach the earth. The force of the blow bent him double, hurling him vertically upward, and, through his agony, shock, and surprise, he caught a glimpse of his assailant this time, clad in black T-shirt and beige cargo pants, his features hidden from view by his bowed head and cowboy hat. He was close, closer than he should be, and then he realized why. His adversary had leapt up after him, even though he was now thrown almost ten stories high into the air -
"X4 Zero Saber System..."
The sun's rays glinted harshly in his eyes, reflected by the elegantly angular daikatana Edge had pulled from his side. For a moment Edge seemed frozen in pose, a dark shadow silhouetted against the wide, pale blue expanse of the early morning sky, fingers closed around the tip of the Kikuichi Norimune in such a fashion that the blade almost seemed like a silver, crescent moon - until the daikatana exploded into a blazing aura. Edge wasn't just holding the blade itself now - ice-blue shards of wintry ice coalesced themselves around the Kikuichi Norimune, forming a secondary cutting edge the width and size of a bus as the Avatar drove it downward like a lance.
"HYOURETSUUZAN!"
Chronos vanished amidst the arctic onslaught, trapped and entombed in a virtual ice glacier. Both combatants reached the earth - Edge gracefully on his feet, the other smashing into the ground with enough force to crack the asphalt. The Avatar rose to his feet, his breathing still heavy from his exertions, but one look at Chronos, buried - frozen and unmoving - in a jaggedly solid block of ice, confirmed that his mission was complete.
"Get up," he muttered, nudging Ranma lazily with the toe of his boot, and then - before Ranma could do anything - picked up the battered, bruised martial artist by the collar. Edge eyed the boy coldly, with a professionally cultivated air of boredom and disinterest. The Muzabeto Kaketo-ryuu heir was next to unconscious, but he was still breathing, and would continue to do so - satisfied that the boy would survive, Edge tossed him carelessly aside, and then replaced his daikatana back into its saya.
"This is Edge to S.H.O.D.A.N. Beta 6. Assignment Z-19 has been successfully completed. Sector stability not compromised." Edge cast one final look at his surroundings, and then, "I'm porting out now -"
He paused, his brow darkening, as the sound of cracking ice reached his ears.
The glacier, the one he had buried Chronos in, exploded.
A stifled curse on his lips - and Edge moved, breaking into a dash, leading with his side as he lunged towards - instead of away from - the glinting, razor-sharp fragments of flying ice. The Kikuichi Norimune was flicked from its saya in the blink of an eye; Edge gripped the weapon tightly, sweeping upwards, cleaving the very air apart in a pressure strike that blasted the atmosphere away, deflecting the ice shards away as if they were no more than paper scraps. The blade reached its apex, and the Avatar turned it about in his hands, reversing its path, angling its tip at where Chronos' throat would be -
Chronos was gone.
Edge afforded a split-second to blink in surprise, before a kick smashed itself against the back of his skull, hurling him violently forward. Starbursts filled his vision; the kick had been delivered with enough force to almost rip his head off his shoulders. Blithely he felt himself hit the ground, felt the pain as the earth ripped open countless gashes on his flesh -
- felt the raw, searing agony as Chronos mashed him with a ki blast the size of a house.
The world exploded into a blinding, screaming, tortured white haze, and Edge bit down on his lip, hard enough to draw blood, forcing himself to not scream, to gather whatever senses he had left as the impact of the blast lifted him bodily, slamming him repeatedly - mercilessly - against a multitude of rubble, debris, and other objects he wasn't cognizant enough to recognize. A fence halted his course as he crashed against it, back-first, his fingers scrabbling desperately for his daikatana - until he realized that he was still holding it.
He allowed himself an instant's worth of numbed motionlessness, and then picked - dragged - himself back to his feet. The blast had flattened everything within vicinity, but Edge didn't really care. His Stetson hat had been blown off his head during the fray, and was now hanging from his back via a length of coarse string. The Avatar put it back on carefully, adjusting it to its customary low angle, one that covered his eyes, allowing him to observe other people without making it immediately obvious that he was doing so. A quick, diagonal swipe of the Kikuichi Norimune dispersed the cloud of ash and debris, almost as if it had been sucked away, revealing Chronos standing in the middle of what had once been the street.
"Who are you?" Chronos demanded angrily.
"I don't need to give my name to someone who's about to die."
Edge charged.
Chronos blinked, and Edge was already upon him - head bowed, body tilted, a hand resting lightly on the grip of the daikatana that was tucked neatly against his side - a daikatana that was ripped free from its saya in a swift motion as Edge unsheathed the blade, hammering the bottom of the hilt against Chronos' chin in an uppercut motion, sending his head snapping backwards. Now that they were this close, Chronos caught a brief, fleeting glimpse of his adversary's face for the first time. A pair of crimson eyes, blood-red in hue with a startling intensity, stared back into his own - soulless and depraved, set against a sharp face that almost corpse-like in its cold, apathetic emotionlessness.
Zero Saber System-
"ENGOKUU RYUU SEN!"
A massive cyclone of black flames erupted around the Kikuichi Norimune, swirling with overwhelming intensity as Edge tore the blade upwards in a vertical rising slash. The tornado of flames exploded, sending arcs of ravenous, spiritual fire pouring outwards in incinerating, destructive blasts of midnight flames. Chronos tried to scream, only to find his voice drowned out by the roar of the hellfire as it ignited the very air around the two combatants, even as Chronos was thrust upwards by a vertical rising strike that had all but sliced his right arm apart. There was no emotion on Edge's face - no hint that the Avatar was aware of what was transpiring, or that he even cared - there was no joy of the kill, no sorrow over the persecution - both fighters reached their respective apexes, with Edge slightly higher, the blade of the Kikuichi Norimune glowing as it was heated to a white-hot cutting edge by the summoned flames.
A soft whisper on his lips, Edge leveled the daikatana at his opponent -
As if by a concerted, collective will, every last arc of hellfire blazed through the air, directed by the sword, pouring into Chronos' falling, beaten form in a single, destructive surge, burning away at both flesh and soul. Chronos screamed - Edge ignored it, drawing his daikatana to his side with both hands as gravity began to will him back towards the ground as well, his eyes closed as he braced himself for the correct state of mind that the next kata would require.
"Rakuukoujin."
His arm straightened, the Kikuichi Norimune held erect above his head even as he plummeted after his opponent - green circuit lines flowed around the daikatana, summoning and executing digital codestrings from cyberspace. Chronos had somehow managed to regain enough presence of mind to land on his feet, staring balefully at Edge - even as the Avatar swung his weapon downwards single-handedly, sending it crashing onto the earth with enough force to sink the gigantic blade into the ground, splitting Chronus in two -
- and missed.
Edge looked up, the sunlight filtering past the brim of his cowboy hat, and saw his opponent, levitating in mid-air, albeit with visible effort - just as the ground exploded beneath his feet. Edge leapt aside, one hand holding his weapon, the other clutching at his Stetson hat - running, dodging in every direction as the earth blew up in sporadic charges from below him, seemingly at random. Edge spared an instant to glance at Chronos, and smiled briefly as he recognized the technique.
"I am Chronos, prince of the Musk Dynasty, descendant of the dragon race!" The Musk warrior's face was frozen in livid rage as he swooped after the Avatar. "I come to avenge the dishonor of my clan at the hands of Saotome Ranma - I WILL NOT BE DENIED!"
"Chigao desu yo" Edge shook his head. "You're just an error... a glitch in the systems. There was never a Musk warrior named Chronos in the Ranma 1/2 series." Edge stared calmly at Chronos, and, for a fleeting moment, there was a flash of what appeared to be pity in his blood-crimson eyes. "Whoever you are, you don't exist. You never did."
His grip tightened on the Kikuichi Norimune. "And I'm here to make it that way."
"WHAT IS YOUR PURPOSE!" Chronos screamed. "WHO - WHAT ARE YOU!"
Edge merely tilted the rim of his hat in response. "I told you. There's no point in giving my name to a dead man."
"It is you who will die, fool," Chronos spat. "For all your prowess with a blade - even if you are Hitokiri Battousai himself - you can't kill someone you cannot reach, while I have all the time I need to annihilate you as I will." The Musk's face twisted into a cold grin. "I will make sure that your death is a slow one."
A metallic, sliding sound rasped as Edge sheathed the Kikuichi Norimune with a slow, deliberate movement, and then raised a foot, tapping the toe of his boot against the ground twice in rapid succession, testing his traction, and found it satisfactory. "I wouldn't do that if I were you." There was a strange smile on the Avatar's face. "If you're going to kill me, I'd advise you to finish it in one blow - it could very well be the last move you make."
"AS YOU WISH!" Chronos roared, his robes flaring in a sudden backlash of energy. Edge dropped to his feet in a half-crouch, subtly aware of the delicate changes in atmospheric pressure around him as Chronos manipulated ki-excited air around himself to maintain his flight.
And then it came - a sudden streak of pressurized air as Chronos launched entire salvos of seeking ki attacks all at once. Edge tensed, pure exhilaration running through his body, hot blood pounding furiously in his ears in a way that he felt only in combat...
"It ends now!" Chronos yelled. "RYUU SEI HISHOU -"
You're right, Musk. It ends here.
"Onsoku no Geeto... Open."
Except that it's you who's going to die.
Edge moved - lunged - and disappeared, footsteps ripping through the earth as he hit full speed in his first step, blurring and vanishing from sight - moving too fast to see, let alone follow, as the ground exploded from charged, invisible ki blasts that came nowhere near to hitting. Chronos howled in frustration, letting loose a veritable hailstorm of power in every direction, shredding the ground in the blind hope of hitting a target he couldn't see -
"X4 Zero Saber System, access granted..."
To those who wish to take my life, come. Come for me; slay me as you will. It is of no use to me. Rather, it has been a burden that I have shouldered for years -
Chronos turned, his mouth agape in surprise and horror as a shadow fell over him - the cursed boy had somehow ran up the side of a fence, leaping off it, and was even now descending upon him. Fear - as well as a vehement refusal to accept the fact that Edge had somehow been capable of the inhuman speed and reflexes that the Avatar had demonstrated - froze him in place, his mouth wide open in a muted scream as the accursed daikatana flashed from its saya in a mid-air battoujutsu stance.
But I would not hand it over to someone like you.
"Shippuuga: Shun. Ten. Satsu."
Edge was falling.
The ground was right beneath his feet, but it didn't prevent him from plummeting like a stone. At the moment, he was less than a ghost, falling right through the floor, only to have another reappear right beneath him in an endless cycle. The concept would make no sense in the real world, but Edge was, in fact, falling in a circle; the 'floors' that constantly appeared beneath him would eventually run out, and he'd be back on the very first one he had started falling from, only to fall again in a perpetual loop.
He took a step forward, at the same time tapping a key on his PET -
The falling stopped. The world around him, which had been hued with vibrant reds and indigoes of the infrared and ultraviolet spectrums, suddenly turned physical and corporeal. Even though he had been falling for what seemed like five minutes at gravitational acceleration, there was no shock to his vertebrae - the feeling was, instead, akin to simply having jumped down from the porch to the ground.
TRANSFER COMPLETE. YOU ARE NOW IN SECTOR: AON.
He was standing just outside his apartment, in the dead of the night. Here, his name wasn't Edge anymore, nor was he anything near a swordsman. The dataslots had been deactivated - they held no jurisdiction once he was outside the Fourth Wall. Here, in this world, he was simply Ishida Yukito, no more, no less.
And he was dead tired.
Yukito fumbled for his keys in the darkness, located them, and opened the locks with a soft click. He didn't bother with the switch. It was too dark to see, but Yukito knew the apartment like the back of his hand - well enough to turn aside at the fifth step to avoid stepping on the fork he had dropped on the floor that morning but had yet to pick up.
"Tadaima," he called out as cheerfully as he could. He snorted inwardly even as he called out the greeting. Even if there was anyone else besides himself - which there wasn't - they would have long been fast asleep at this ungodly hour. He tore off the Velcro that bound the PET to his left wrist, put his hat aside, and, with some measure of reluctance, turned his attention to the manila folder in his hand that Alyss had handed him before he had been ported out of the Aniverse.
"What's this?" he had asked suspiciously.
"They're the profiles of your teammates." Alyss stared pointedly at him. "I know you're not going to like this, so use the night to have a good look through them before you're introduced to each other tomorrow."
"What teammates?" Edge snarled.
"Starting tomorrow, you won't be working alone anymore," Alyss replied crisply. "S.H.O.D.A.N.'s decided that we can save resources and improve efficiency by assigning dedicated teams to enforce allocated sectors instead of calling on freelancers like you every time something crops up."
"I work alone. I thought we'd agreed on that."
"I know it's a lame excuse, but it wasn't my decision, Yukito." Alyss looked at him pleadingly. "They're talented operatives. At least give them a chance."
"Don't call me Yukito," Edge snapped, irritated.
"Great!" Alyss smiled. "In fact, they've all arrived at Tokyo ten hours ago - you'll be formally introduced to each other tomorrow... well, today, actually. Don't be late."
"I NEVER SAID I AGREED, DAMMIT!"
Yukito sighed, tossing the folder carelessly onto the coffee table. The profiles could wait; he hadn't realized it, but he was tired enough to pass for a walking corpse. The Avatar plopped himself down onto the couch, not bothering to change his clothes, and was adjusting a cushion when his watch beeped.
He looked at it, suddenly noticing that it was 6.30 am in the morning.
Snarling and muttering obscenities in every language he knew, Yukito stalked his way to the balcony, tearing the curtains aside. Tokyo city lay sleepily beneath him, but, before him, the eastern sky was already tinged with the slightest hint of reddish pink. His pseudo-reflection in the glass of the sliding doors stared back at him - fiery, bloodsoaked, crimson eyes that seemed chillingly alien even to him. Coal-black rings hung beneath his eyes, almost as he had painted his own face with soot. For a moment, he wondered Chronos had seen in his eyes as he had sliced the Musk warrior in two with a single sweep of his daikatana, the halves of the mangled body falling apart as they dropped to the ground in a gruesomely blood-spattered mess -
He clenched his jaw, tearing away from the sight of his own reflection, purging the thoughts from his mind with an effort borne of discipline and strength of will.
There was something he should've remembered, something of vital importance, but he was far too groggy to rack his brains at the moment, as he went about the task of getting himself presentable and prepared for school. It had been another sleepless night, Yukito noted gloomily. Thursday morning - and this had already been the third time this week so far.
I can't really remember when they discovered the Fourth Wall, but it wasn't that long ago - two years, perhaps, or three. The finding was hailed as one of the greatest discovery in physics since Einstein proposed the Theory of Relativity, and has, by itself, sparked an entirely new branch of mathematics and physics. It also created a worldwide craze - at least, it would have, if the findings had been publicized. I have no difficulty imagining that it would have made the man who discovered it (I don't know his name, by the way) a well-known a household name as Einstein was. Perhaps I should explain what the Fourth Wall is. It's simply a metaphysical barrier of sorts - the fabric of reality that shields our world from others. And beyond that wall were other worlds. Worlds that have long existed in fantasy, and were thought as only that - fantasy. Worlds that we have created simply by the act of imagining it. Beyond the Fourth Wall, each separated and isolated in its own sector, were worlds of anime and manga. Take Neon Genesis Evangelion - its sector code is Gamma 9. Manipulate the Fourth Wall correctly - even a small child is capable of it, if only they are able to shape the correct thought - and you could very well find yourself in NERV headquarters. I know. You think I'm crazy. But just bear with me. We - the select few of us that knew of it, anyway - were gods of the Aniverse, in the sense that the Fourth Wall was simply a collection of mathematical formulae that could be manipulated and applied at our whim. We could theoretically make ourselves stronger, faster, change our physical appearances, create and erase memories, summon various technological and organic constructs - anything we wished, if only we knew how. S.H.O.D.A.N. was the agency set up to research Fourth Wall anomaly, and was so secret that it didn't officially exist. Over the years, it has played god, monitoring and governing the various sectors within the Aniverse, making sure that everything goes according to order. Because it doesn't always does. Perhaps you're wondering how I know all of this, if it's all supposed to be secret. I don't know all of it. I don't know a whole lot of it. My security clearance at S.H.O.D.A.N. is... low. Very low. I only get to know things on a need-to-know basis... and most of the time... well, I don't need to know. I'm an Avatar. That means I'm one of the group of people S.H.O.D.A.N. calls upon whenever a glitch appears in the systems. From what I hear, even S.H.O.D.A.N. scientists still don't know all that much about the Fourth Wall, but apparently they know enough to make superhumans out of ordinary people that are sent into the Fourth Wall. Each Avatar is equipped with abilities and weapons of their own choice, all of them drawn from various anime and manga worlds. They can get awfully creative. I've seen standard weapons - most of us opt for a simple badass sword, or DBZ-style ki powers - and then I've seen Avatars who summon monsters from a deck of cards, construct AT Fields, manipulate cyberspace, pilot Gundams - you name it. I usually work alone, though. I just... don't mix well with other people, let alone work together in life-and-death situations. In a nutshell, we police the Fourth Wall - and make sure the stories go as they are planned. In real life, I'm just an ordinary student - no more, no less - otaku, and part-time pizza delivery guy. When I'm not on Aon (that's what S.H.O.D.A.N. calls this sector, where the 'real' Earth is in), I'm also a swords specialist, and close combat and tactical warfare expert. Every time you leave Aon, there's a chance you just might never come back - I have my will written and ready, left in my desk just in case - but it's a fun job, and it's a really great way to earn extra pocket money for a high school student living alone in a rented apartment. My Avatar codename's Edge, by the way. Welcome to my world.