The wave of white mana that poured over him soothed his soul and gave him knowledge of a crystal of some kind. It didn't feel very big, but it would take a ridiculous amount of mana to create. Climbing to his feet, he brushed off some of the ash that used to be his clothes before a number of people started yelling in Japanese and he was suddenly hit with a pair of attack spells.
An arrow of flame struck his chest like a pot full of boiling water, raising blisters but doing no serious damage. The lightning bolt that followed stung like he'd stuck a fork in an outlet and caused some involuntary twitches, but also did little actual damage. A wave of fog clouded his vision before he was hit with another wave of light, that healed his wounds once more. "What the fuck?!" Xander exclaimed, his mind and memory still a bit scrambled as he looked around him blindly.
A beam of golden light stabbed into his side, leaving a burn like a hot poker, before he was hit with fire and lightning again and quickly healed by the wave of light once more. He tried to dodge the next attack, but he was fighting blind, nearly naked, and unarmed. The next wave of white mana hit and he soaked it for all it was worth, his mind clearing enough for him to use his new instincts and tap into the land around him.
The power of the city poured through him, granting clarity of mind and speeding his thoughts. He was being attacked by simple elemental attacks, followed by an overpowered heal spell. The next wave of attacks and healing hit, but this time he was aware enough to get a feel for them, not that they hurt any less just that he was sure he could have thrown them as well if he'd had the appropriate mana to use.
"Stop attacking me!" he yelled, only to get a double dose of attacks before the wave of white mana hit him again. Unable to see, lacking a way to defend himself or fight back, he ripped a hole into the blind eternities and jumped in.
The blind eternities was not what he expected it to be. It was... everything, all at once, at full volume. Reality, multiple realities, pounded at his brain. In a panic he got ready to leap anywhere to escape it, when he saw a crack and dove through it.
The office he landed in looked vaguely Asian. He reached out and tapped into the city around him, the flow of multicolor mana helping to clear his head once more as knowledge of the land seeped into his skull.
"That is not a toad," the third Hokage noted, gesturing to ANBU to be wary.
"Sorry to barge in like this," Xander apologized in the local version of Japanese, "but someone opened a hole in front of me."
"Where were you?" Jiraiya asked, curiously.
"The space in-between," Xander replied. "Know of any place I can get some clothes, cheap?" He paused and sighed. "Better make that free, I don't think you use the same currency I do."
"And how did you get there?" Jiraiya asked.
"Natural ability," Xander replied, "but it's overwhelming and I haven't figured out how to reliably go from one place to another yet. I'd really like to get some clothes and maybe a meal or two before trying it again."
"Got any profitable skills?" Jiraiya asked.
"Maybe," Xander said thoughtfully, "not real sure yet."
"I'll spot you some pants and a meal on the off chance we can find something," Jiraiya said. "Let's leave the old man to his paperwork and get a drink."
"Remember to finish up those reports you owe me," Sarutobi said, seeing that the toad sage was going to use a light approach to find out who and what this new being was, which was understandable as he felt quite powerful.
"Will do," Jiraiya said, waving for Xander to follow him.
An hour later...
"So what would be your most valuable skill?" Jiraiya asked, once he'd gotten Xander fitted out with some local clothes and set up with a bowl of ramen.
"Skill I have now that I could apply locally?" Xander asked thoughtfully as he considered it. "I'm not sure if my knowledge of science is valuable or not, since I'm just a student and you guys are at least as advanced as my home in some ways, but with a strange mix in where you apply it, from what I see. My knowledge of magic is just starting out, but is probably our best bet for profitable skills." Xander felt his connections to the city around him and the one he just left. The leaf village was a tri colored land containing red, blue, and green, while the Tokyo he'd been in was white and colorless, but you had to accept both mana at once. Reality seemed a bit thin in that Tokyo with additional mana seeping in from somewhere outside it.
"Healing," Xander decided. "I'd need to be taken to two separate sections of plains so I could use their mana, but after that I'll have the use of one massively overpowered heal spell."
"You draw mana from the land to use your magic?" Jiraiya asked.
"Exactly," Xander agreed before taking a sip of tea. He wished he had a soda, but they didn't have those locally. He made a mental note to stock up on them when he got a chance. "Different lands produce different types of mana with different characteristics."
"And forests aren't useful for healing?" Jiraiya asked.
"Forests are the best for healing, but the only heal spell I know uses mana from the plains. It takes twice as much mana for me to use, but it affects an area rather than a single person."
"Does it require a lot of concentration to heal a group of diverse people with various injuries?" Jiraiya asked, thinking about the mystic palm technique.
"Nah," Xander shook his head, "all the details are handled by magic, you just have to cast the spell and it takes care of the rest."
"We'd have to test it to see how it works, but that does sound valuable," Jiraiya said cheerfully. "How large an area is each... land?"
"Varies really," Xander said thoughtfully. "Plains and swamps are about seven and a half square miles on average, while mountains and islands are counted individually, regardless of size. Forests depend on density, with some producing two to three times as much mana as you'd expect."
"Any defensive spells?" Jiraiya asked between slurps of his ramen.
"Just one. Using a single blue mana I can create a fog that muffles the senses, but it doesn't stop attacks," Xander explained before copying Jiraiya's manners as he noticed most of the customers were slurping their ramen as well.
"Poor defense, but better than nothing," Jiraiya said, signaling for another two bowls since Xander still looked hungry. "You any good on offense?"
"Three very basic elemental attack spells," Xander replied as he considered it.
"Don't knock it kid, most people have to make do with only using two elements, unless they train really hard," Jiraiya said.
"I only learned them because someone shot me with them," Xander said. "Come to think of it, that's how I've learned everything so far."
Jiraiya laughed. "While handy, I'm pretty sure there are better ways to learn things."
"You got that right," Xander said. "Still, it's a fast way to learn, if painful."
"The students in the Academy would probably prefer your method," Jiraiya said, smirking internally as Xander took the bait and started asking about the village. Xander was so open and honest that it almost made him feel guilty to manipulate him, but Jiraiya had done far worse for the sake of his village before and no doubt would again.
That evening
"Report," Sarutobi ordered as he glanced up from his paperwork.
"Not sure the kid is human, probably a demigod of some sort," Jiraiya replied. "He's probably the most honest and open being in the entire village. It's painfully obvious that he's not from around 'here'. His attacks are low jounin and he can't fire very many at present which will change the second he gets a little travel under his belt as everything he does is powered by sage chakra that he draws from the land itself regardless of distance."
"So he's safe enough for the moment," Sarutobi said, lighting his pipe.
"There's more," Jiraiya said. "His strength and durability is easily on par with Maito Gai, though that appears to be a recent thing, as he was as surprised as we were."
"And?" Sarutobi asked, hearing something in his former student's tone.
"While I doubt he'll even be on this world for longer than it takes to get back on his feet, I do believe he'll make this a regular stop in his travels if we make him feel welcome, and I believe that is something we should encourage for a couple of reasons," Jiraiya said, unusually serious for once.
"I'm listening," the old man said.
"He's very protective of the people and places he's fond of and he'll only grow in power, in addition to this is the wealth of knowledge and techniques he has the potential to find and share with us, but most importantly at the moment, I believe the 'massively overpowered healing spell' he mentioned will allow us to return nin who are currently beyond our capability to heal, back to the field," Jiraiya explained.
"That would be an incredible boon to the leaf," Sarutobi agreed.
"To ensure he thinks of the village fondly, I have Anko keeping him company," Jiraiya said smugly.
"I trust you let her know she had the choice to refuse a seduction mission," Sarutobi replied.
It was not a question.
"I assigned her to watch him because she'd already started seducing him," the toad sage replied with a grin. "She showed up when we were demonstrating techniques. They are almost complete opposites with only one thing in common, a disturbing love of explosions. Despite all that, they hit it off immediately and enthusiastically."
"ANBU keeping an eye on things?"
"As always," he assured him. "I'll be taking him out to… acquire some more land in the morning... after he recovers."
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Setsuna wasn't often surprised, so it took her a minute to understand what she was seeing; where she'd expected to see the usual ebb and flow of the timeline, she was seeing the colorful scrawl of an infinite future. Crystal Tokyo was no longer guaranteed, but then neither was the death of seven billion people that lead to it. She much preferred fighting for a brighter future rather than a guttering candle anyway.
Unaware of the determined look on her face or the rare smile that touched her lips, she locked the gates and prepared to teleport home to call a meeting of the scouts. They were going to have to work much harder than they had been, but a future of infinite possibilities now awaited them.
Several hours later...
"Why is she smiling like that?" Minako whispered to Makoto. "It's creepy!"
"Maybe she's drunk?" Makoto whispered back.
"What could be bad that Setsuna would start drinking?!" Usagi moaned.
"I'm not drunk, nor have I been drinking," Setsuna said, revealing she could hear their whispers. "I'm smiling because I have good news."
"Tell us what it is already," Haruka said. "You've teased us enough, we're all here, so spit it out."
Michiru gave Haruka a look, but she just shrugged in response.
"Alright," Setsuna agreed with a smile. "The great freeze is no longer guaranteed to happen, meaning we are no longer destined to watch six billion people die of cold or starvation."
"That is good news!" Usagi exclaimed.
"What about Crystal Tokyo?" Haruka asked.
"Not possible or desirable," Setsuna said flatly. "Crystal Tokyo required the death of the majority of the human race. My advice is to restart the Moon Kingdom."
"What's the difference?" Ami asked.
"Crystal Tokyo was an Earth based kingdom where we used magic to keep our little section of the world warm and fertile. The Moon Kingdom on the other hand would require us to use our magics to return life to the other planets in our solar systems and draw in settlers to populate them once more. Much like the Moon Kingdom of old, I expect Earth is not going to desire an empress," Setsuna explained.
"Lots of hard work but a brighter future," Usagi said, much to everyone but Setsuna's surprise.
"Exactly," Setsuna said, smiling even more as she saw the matching smile appearing on Usagi's face.
"What changed?" Michiru asked, causing everyone to turn towards Setsuna. "Something had to have happened to make all this possible. What was it?"
"I have no idea," Setsuna replied. "The gates show infinite possibilities, so it's impossible for me to tell, but whatever happened, happened recently."
"How recently?" Minako asked nervously as she recalled what had happened the night before.
"The last twenty-four hours," Setsuna promptly replied. "What do you know?"
"That Dark General that ran away last night," Usagi said. "Ami, did you record it?"
"You guys faced a Dark General and didn't think to mention it?" Haruka demanded.
"All he did was stand there, cuss, and run away," Makoto said. "Not exactly a lot to say."
"We were going to bring it up at today's meeting," Ami assured them as she brought up the recording on the Mercury computer and hit play.
Setsuna paled as the video played, pulling a bottle of whiskey out of nowhere and taking a slug as the video ended.
"OK, that's bad," Minako noted, just in case no one else understood.
"How big a threat is he?" Haruka demanded. Haruka had to wrestle the bottle away from Setsuna to get her to stop drinking and give them an answer.
"All the power the Senshi have is based on what he is," the time guardian explained.
"He's a Senshi?" Rei asked doubtfully.
"Senshi tap into the land of their home planets for power," Setsuna explained. "A single unit of power to transform and one to three to power their attacks. Connecting the Senshi took centuries of research and a decade for each unit of power or mana they could access at once."
"So we access four mana at max?" Hotaru asked.
"You can access five," Setsuna said. "One mana unit for your transformation and four for your ultimate attack, the rest of us only use four total."
"And this guy?" Haruka asked.
"He's a planeswalker, though a new one from the readings," Setsuna explained. "He's tapped into somewhere between two to four mana units from these readings."
"So we have to take him before he gains any more," Makoto said with a firm nod. "With a decade between mana units, we have time."
Setsuna sighed. "It took a decade per mana unit to connect the Senshi based on what they understood and observed a planeswalker doing."
"And how long does it take a planeswalker to tap into an additional mana unit?" Ami asked.
"About three seconds," Setsuna replied.
"Stop that!" Michiru said, snatching the bottle away from Haruka.
Typing by: Abyssal Angel