SUPER SMASH ANIME
A FUTURE IMPERFECT

Episode Two: Mirai


CLANG!

TWACK!

BOOM!

The stage of the World Martial Arts Tournament was alive with destructive sounds. The stadium was almost completely empty save for the brave few who chose to stay and fight. Goku and Naruto were forced to sit on the sidelines gathering their strength while Satsuki and Sailor Moon fought for their lives.

The strange creatures that had attacked the stadium – these hooded figures with their strange masks – were remarkably resilient. Satsuki dashed up the center of the arena at blinding speed, running past one of the assailants while swinging her sword so fast it looked like little more than a blur. Her blade cut deeply into then attacker's side, creating gaping gash in its flesh and splattering its blood across the stage floor. Satsuki turned around, sword raised in a ready stance, as she waited for the assailant to make its next move. An attack as severe as the one she delivered should have been crippling, but not only was the invader still standing, but he spun around on it heel and threw itself backwards into a spiraling swing towards Satsuki.

The hooded creature threw its arm out to swipe at Satsuki's face, but she surprised the attacker by lunging forward to meet him halfway. In another sudden burst of speed, Satsuki appeared directly behind the masked attacker as she slowly (and dramatically) returned her sword to its scabbard. She fully sheathed her Secret Sword Bakuzan with an audible click! Blood sprayed profusely from the masked assailant like a leak in an aerosol can. A line of red formed directly down the middle of the attacker starting from its head to its pelvis...then it split in half with a sickening squelch. Satsuki let out a heavy sigh as she stood up straight, casually brushing the dust off her uniform, and looked back at the two halves of the attacker.

"Hmm…they're not as strong as I would have imagined," said Satsuki thoughtfully. "Did they merely catch Goku and Naruto off-guard?"

"Ew, that's so gross!" Sailor Moon shouted, gagging. "C'mon, this is supposed to be a kid's show!"

"Your anime is directed towards children," Satsuki retorted calmly. "I come from an anime where everyone is naked ninety percent of the time."

"People actually watch that!" shrieked Sailor Moon, going red in the face. "What kind of anime are people making these days? What happened to good, wholesome family shows?"

"Shouldn't you be paying attention to your enemy?" said Satsuki, challenging. "Or have you lost your memory in your old age?"

Sailor Moon puffed out her cheeks childishly and turned her back to the swordswoman. What Satsuki didn't realize was that Sailor Moon was already dealing with her attacker much more effectively that the younger anime star.

In the first few minutes of the fight, she had opened up the floor with her signature Sailor Moon Kick, landing a solid blow to the attacker's head. The hooded assailant, however, rebounded off the ground and crouched low to the ground on all fours, hissing like an angry cat. It raised its left arm to call forth another red goopy snake from beneath its sleeve and silently commanded it to lunge at Sailor Moon. The combination of the attack's speed and the overall creepiness of it caused Sailor Moon to panic slightly and let out an involuntary shriek when the red snake was on top of her. And whether intentional or by accident, the jewel on her hair buns glowed and let out a blast of supersonic sound that amplified Sailor Moon's cries. The red serpent became unstable by the sound waves and splattered all over the arena floor. The assailant clapped its hands over its hood, trying to cover its ears, and dropped into a fetal position.

It was after that the stopped to talk to Satsuki, but now that she turned back to face her adversary, she saw that it was slowly getting back to its feet. The masked assailant seemed very disoriented; its movements were shaky and its stumbled at least twice before standing proper. It was still holdings its head, its head waving back and forth subtly as if it were trying to get its bearings. It was left wide open for Sailor Moon's next attack.

"For love and justice, the Pretty Guardian in a sailor suit, Sailor Moon!" shouted Sailor Moon with a dramatic, sentai-like pose. "In the name of the Moon, I'll punish you!" She touched the gem on her tiara, which started to glow with white energy. "MOON TWILIGHT FLASH!"

A narrow beam of pure white light shot from the gem upon Sailor Moon's tiara and cut cleanly through the attacker's chest. Now you would think this wouldn't cause much damage, especially to a creature that obviously has high tolerance for pain. But for some unexplained reason, the masked assailant just suddenly…evaporated. Like, he completely dissolved away without any logical explanation, and left only a smoking scorch mark on the ground. Her enemy defeated, Sailor Moon posed once more.

"Justice has been delivered!" said Sailor Moon dramatically.

"Is the posing really necessary?" asked Satsuki blankly. "And where did you even get the moonlight energy for that attack? It's the middle of the day."

"Anime logic!" said Sailor Moon proudly with fists on her hips.

"…okay, that makes sense," said Satsuki quietly.

Just then, Goku and Naruto ran up on stage to meet the girls, both of them still looking a little winded, but regained a little bit of their color.

"Are you guys okay?" asked Goku, worried.

"Yeah, it wasn't any trouble at all!" said Sailor Moon proudly with a victory sign. "I'm honestly surprised you guys didn't put up much of a fight. They were incredibly weak."

"They caught us off guard, okay," said Naruto defensively. "And they had those weird snake things biting us at the time. I don't know how, but those things somehow managed to drain all of our energy in an instant. We're lucky to be alive, if I'm being honest."

"I don't think they were expecting any resistance," said Satsuki. She walked over to the corpse she had personally cut in half and kneed next to it. "They were trying to be discreet when they attacked, blended into the crowd so that the two of you wouldn't see them. And then, when your guards had been lowered, they attacked you with their strange power and were either attempting to poison you or suck out your life force – either one is a possibility. They clearly didn't know that Moon and I were in the audience, otherwise they wouldn't have acted so boldly."

"Where do you think they're from?" asked Goku.

"Well…all the red stuff kinda looked like blood, doesn't it," said Naruto, crossing his arms thoughtfully. "There are only a few animes that have characters that can make stuff out of their own blood. And based on their outfits, I'm guess they're part of a larger group of people with the same power. There's only one anime I know that has a whole lot of people that use blood powers."

"Deadman Wonderland," Satsuki concluded. "An anime that revolves around blood slaughter and psychological torture. It's the only possible conclusion."

"Seriously, what is wrong with this generation!" Sailor Moon squeaked, looking a little pale. "I remember back in our day when anime was family friendly!"

"Yeah, thank god that's over," said Satsuki.

"HEY!" Sailor Moon snapped.

"But there's something weird about these guys," said Naruto. He kneeled down with Satsuki and turned the corpse's head his direction; Sailor Moon made a gagging sound and Goku rubbed her back gently. "I've never seen these guys in the anime before, and believe me, they wouldn't be easy to miss in a one cour anime. I don't remember any characters that wore masks other than the main antagonist and definitely not two people with the same ability."

"They must be from the manga," said Satsuki. "The story is further ahead than the anime. They must be characters that weren't introduced in the anime."

"Uh…guys…," Goku said slowly, pointing above their heads. "The sky's turning black…."

Sailor Moon, Naruto, and Satsuki blinked strangely at the oldest of their group, then craned their heads back to follow his line of sight. It was just as he said: one minute it was crystal clear skies, and then then the next, thick, ominous black cloud of rolling thunder swept over the skyline; lightning forked from the darkness, striking in every direction, striking the bleachers once in a while. The anime heroes guarded themselves as a powerful wind blew through the stadium. And then, from deep inside the clouds, something enormous began to emerge.

It was a massive airship with a wingspan that matched the length of the World Martial Arts stadium, made entirely of pitch-black metal with silver details. The engines roared with unnatural blue fire and the massive cannon on the top deck looked strangely familiar to Satsuki and Naruto, though they couldn't place where. And stamped on both of the wings was a black star symbol coated in blue flames that matches the engines heat.

"Does anyone recognize that ship?" asked Sailor Moon.

"You got me!" shouted Goku.

"I got nothing!" said Naruto.

"I don't know why, but it reminds me of somewhere," answered Satsuki. "I just can't place the name."

Once the massive airship was directly over the tournament stage, the hatch underneath opened. Something large fell out and was falling directly at them in a blur of silver and red. Goku quickly grabbed Sailor Moon and hopped away while Naruto jumped in the opposite direction and Satsuki made a mad dash to the side, all of them only barely able to get away within second before the object smashing into the arena with a thunderous crash! With extreme caution, the heroes approached the object in question. It was a metallic orb bigger than even Goku, who was the tallest one among them, bearing a menacing red "X" that was glowing with energy.

"Is that…," Sailor Moon spoke softly, leaning sideways for a better look, "a bomb?"

"A retcon bomb to be more exact," a new, distorted voice sounded from above.

The four anime icons dashed away sharply on the bomb and immediately went on the defensive; Goku raised his fist in a fighting stance, Sailor Moon held up her wand, Naruto withdrew a kunai from his pouch, and Satsuki's hand was on the hilt of Bakuzan. All of them raised their eyes to the sky above the bomb and took in the sight of the abnormal creature that floated above it.

Whatever it was had the shape of an adult human male, but that was about the extent of the details they could make out of it. The floating humanoid was made entirely of a blinding white energy that made it very difficult to look at, which was molded into the basic outline of a human, but lacked any features other than the two black holes in its head that must have represented its eyes. The strange creature floated down until it was standing directly on top of the bomb, slouching slightly as if unaccustomed to its own weight.

"Who the hell are you?" Naruto sneered.

"I am Mirai," said the humanoid creatures, its sound warped with multiple overlapping voices. "I am the future."

"Yeah, we know what your name means," said Sailor Moon, scowling. What are you doing here? Are you the one who sent those people to attack us? What are you going to do with that bomb?"

"You talk a lot…for a relic," Mirai scoffed; Sailor Moon gasped at the insult. It craned its head toward the split body of the assailant. "Though, I will admit, sending a couple of Forgeries from Deadman Wonderland might not have been the best idea. They are relatively useless if their opponents are not Deadman – the were designed specifically to counteract a Deadman's Branch of Sin and nothing else. But they are easy to mass produce, so I use them anyway."

"Why did you attack us?" said Goku. "Tell us right now!"

"I have nothing to say to you, fossil," said Mirai scathingly. "And once my retcon bomb goes off, it won't even matter."

"You keep calling it your retcon bomb," said Satsuki. "What is it? What does it do?"

"I thought the name would be a giveaway," Mirai chuckled mirthlessly. "As you may have figured, this is no ordinary bomb. It doesn't blow up things. It also wipes their very existence from reality."

"What does that mean?" asked Naruto.

"It means…," said Mirai, pausing for dramatic effect, "that anything caught in the blast radius won't just be destroyed, it will be wiped completely from all memory, both in this world and the real world."

"What?" Sailor Moon gasped.

"You can't do that!" yelled Naruto.

"Oh, but I can," said Mirai. "When this is over, no one will even remember that the World Martial Arts Tournament even existed…and the same goes for you four relics as well."

"We're not going to let you get away with this!" roared Goku furiously.

"If you think you can stop me," said Mirai, taunting them, "then you are welcome to try."

Mirai floated off the bomb back into the air towards the airship. Not long after he did, two more Forgeries suddenly appeared from behind the retcon bomb and inserted their hands into the openings on either side. They heard a sharp hiss before the Forgeries pulled back, opening the metal casing down the middle. Inside the bomb was a transparent tube holding what looked to be a dark energy core, which was pulsing like a heartbeat as the countdown timer beneath it flickered to life, indicating it would go off in three minutes.

Goku was the first one to notice the timer. Despite several warnings from the others, Goku threw himself forward flying at the bomb, ready to smash it to pieces with his fists. But he only made it halfway across the stadium before a rumbling thud made Goku stop midair and the other heroes to stumble on their feet. The four anime icons looked behind there where mysterious cloud of dusty sudden kick up, obscuring that section of the stadium. Goku narrowed his eyes suspiciously at the dust cloud…and then a beam of energy shot out from it, hitting Goku squarely in the chest. The Saiyan warrior cried out in immense pain, the upper half of his gi completely obliterated, and was last seen flying over the horizon into a twinkling light.

"Goku!" Naruto cried.

"NARUTO!" Sailor Moon suddenly screamed.

The young shinobi, temporarily putting Goku out of his mind, spun around on his heels and nearly stumbled over himself when he looked up.

Both Sailor Moon and Satsuki were trapped in what looked like forcefield balls made of tainted purple energy; both of them were trying to fight their way out, but the barriers were resistant to their attacks. The massive creature holding their energy prisons resembled a massive humanoid girl three times Naruto's size made from black and purple substances, its hands coated in thick metallic claws and its head concealed in an alien-like hood with a pair of glass baubles that looked like eyes. The giant girl-beast let out a low chuckle; its voice was warped just like Mirai's.

"Please, keep struggling, little humans," said the enlarged female monster. "It only adds to the entertainment."

"What – is – that!" Naruto yelled.

"A little something I picked up over in Kaiju Girls Season 2," Mirai called from above, pausing to savor the show. "The ultimate dark Kaiju – Shadow General!"

The giant shadow Kaiju roared following its introduction, creating a powerful shockwave that made Naruto slide back by several feet.

"Shadow General, get rid of the orange eyesore," Mirai commanded. "But be sure to save the women. They were unexpected, but I could still have some use for them. Bring them back to base when you are done."

"With pleasure, Master Mirai," said Shadow General with a wicked laugh.

With his commands given, Mirai floats up and disappears inside the airship, which was beginning to exit the borders of the tournament stadium.

"Get back here!" Naruto yelled as he started to give chase, but stopped in his tracks when the Shadow General suddenly zipped in his path.

"You will not be going anywhere, little ninja," said Shadow General with an amused tone. She held up the energy prisons in her hands, reminding Naruto that Sailor Moon and Satsuki were still in her grasp. "You wouldn't want to leave your friends behind, would you?"

"Naruto, help!" Sailor Moon cried.

"You must break us free from these prisons quickly!" yelled Satsuki.

"Well, little ninja, what will you do now?" said Shadow General with a hint of challenge.

"That's kinda obvious," said Naruto as he crossed his fingers. "I'm gonna kick your ass and save my friends. Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

Several clouds of smoke exploded out of nothingness, filling up nearly half of the staging area, and when the smoke cleared, Shadow General found herself faced with a small battalion of blonde ninjas with terrible fashion sense. The army of Narutos echoed with overlapping battle cries as they charged headlong at the shadow Kaiju, but the Shadow General merely laughed.

"Using a half-witted spam attack against a kaiju?" Shadow General cackled. "You really don't know what you're getting yourself into, do you?"

The Shadow General raised its head slightly so that it's bulbous yellow eyes could be partially seen underneath its hood. The dark Kaiju's eyes glowed with an ominous energy, and before the Naruto clones could move out of the way in time, she unleashed a powerful ray of twin eyebeams on the crowd. The Shadow General's lasers cut a clean path down the center of the legion, effortlessly taking out twenty percent of their ranks. With a malicious grin, she started to swerve her head and the twin lasers began to sweep back and forth throughout the arena. The Naruto clones scattered like cockroaches, many of them climbing over one another to escape the laser's path, though it proved fruitless for many of them. In under a minute, the entire stage was covered in a thick cloud of smoke created from when all of the clones were destroyed.

The Shadow General powered down its eyebeams and grinned proudly at her accomplishment…or at least until something shot out of the haze into the air above her head. The dark Kaiju made a curious noise while tilting its head back to look up. Naruto had emerged from the smoke relatively unharmed other than a few singe marks on clothes. Upon closer inspection, the Shadow General could barely make out the orange pigmentation around his eyes; Naruto had gone into Sage Mode.

Naruto raised his hand over his head and instantly started to gather a massive amount of blue energy, shaping into a ball that quickly filled his palm. But rather than stopping, the energy orb continued to expand more and more until it was equal to him in size.

"Why don't you try this on for size?" roared Naruto. "Sage Art: Big Ball Rasengan!"

"Gladly!" cackled the Shadow General.

As Naruto came flying at her with his Sage enhanced rasengan, the Shadow General launched forward to meet in the middle and threw out her right hand, which was holding the prison containing Sailor Moon. The pretty guardian squealed, terrified, as the Shadow General used her cage in a similar manner as Naruto's rasengan and the two forces collided in the air. A great deal of pressure rippled throughout the stadium when the two forces collided, causing much of the already destroyed stadium to break down even further until the bleachers were nothing more than a pile of rubble. Naruto struggled to hold his rasengan's shape; the Shadow General's energy prisons seemed almost indestructible and his attack was likely to give in way before hers. Of course, he knew he wouldn't get the chance to test that theory when the Shadow General started to chuckle in a low voice.

A centipede-like creature suddenly appeared from the Shadow General's waist, curving around the air and latching its mandibles around Naruto from behind. The blonde ninja was forced to dispel his rasengan, which Sailor Moon was more than gracious for; all that shaking made her dizzy. Naruto tried to pull himself out of the centipede's grip, but the creature had a secure hold on him.

"Hey… not…fair…," Naruto grunted.

"At what point did you think I care?" said Shadow General

By her command, the shadow centipede tightened its grip on Naruto, causing the young warrior to cry out in pain. Naruto could feel the centipede's pincers starting to dig into his skin; the only reason they haven't cut him in half already was because his Sage Mode was enhancing his durability. But at this rate, it would only be a matter of moments before he was snapped in two…. It was a good thing he had the foresight to plan ahead.

The Shadow General relished the torture she was subjecting, that she almost didn't realize that the smoke clouds were still covering the stadium arena, or that there were still others lying in wait. Sure enough, the smoke rose from either side of the Shadow General and it didn't take long before she realized that there were two more Naruto clones had appeared. Both clones, the Shadow General could tell, were in Sage Mode like the main body and both of them were holding a pair of Big Ball Rasenagans over their heads.

"We got you got!" the Naruto clones echoed. "Sage Art: Big Ball Rasen – "

"Now you're just wasting my time with pitiful tricks," the Shadow General interrupted, frowning in annoyance.

In a surprise move on the Shadow General's part, the dark Kaiju commanded the centipede monster to drop the original Naruto, throwing him back into the dust cloud that covered the arena, and withdrew it back to her waist. She let out a monstrous roar that would make Godzilla proud as she craned her head forward, bringing everyone's attention to the glass eyes on her hood, which started to glow with the same tainted purple energy as Sailor Moon and Satsuki's cages. Purple lightning shot wildly from the eyes, simultaneously destroying the clone's Big Ball Rasengans and landing direct hits on the clones' chests. Both doppelgangers fell into the haze of smoke that still covered the arena, even though logic dictates that it should have cleared up by now.

"All of your little stunts have failed!" the Shadow General declared. "And the retcon bomb will go off soon. This fight is already lost…."

"At least I still have time for one last trick!" Naruto's voice shouted across the arena.

The Shadow General turned in the direction that the voice had come from as a sharp whistling noise filled its ears (Sailor Moon: Wait, does she even have ears?) For what seemed like forever, the smokescreen around the stage was finally, finally, cleared away as a torrential flow of wind started to kick up in the middle. The original Naruto, looking slightly battered and breathing hard, had his hand held over his head as he proudly carried his famous rasenshuriken. The Shadow General stared for a long minute. She could feel that the attack would definitely kill her if it landed, but she showed no fear of it.

"If you think I'm just going to stand and let you hit me with that," said the Shadow General, "then you are even stupider than the fan comments say you are."

"I'm not stupid! Why does everyone keep saying that?" Naruto snapped. "I've outsmarted some of the biggest bad guys from Zabuza to the Third Raikage! Why do people keep thinking I'm dumb?"

"I don't really care about your personal problems," said the Shadow General. The glass eyes on her hood glowed with energy, ready to fire. "But you are really dumb to leave yourself wide open…."

The dark Kaiju leaned forward as its electrical charge reached its peak and the alien eyes started to spark with energy. But just when it was seconds away from discharging its power, the two Naruto clones that she had thoughts she had destroyed minutes ago suddenly appeared out of nowhere and threw themselves at her from both sides. The duo doppelgangers were each holding a spiraling ball of energy in their hands and smashed them into the Shadow General's eyes, shouting out their attack: "Rasengan!"

The Shadow General howled horrifically as the clones slammed their rasengans into each of her eyes, smashing the glass into thousands of tiny shards. The dark Kaiju snarled furiously and swung the energy cages of her prisoners into the shadow clones, slamming into them with the force of a speeding train. Both clones exploded into nothingness immediately.

The Shadow General shuddered and shook its head, trying to shake off the pain. For a moment, its felt like she had forgotten something very important…but the shape whistling noise quickly reminded her as she immediately turned back around to face Naruto. The young shinobi had already thrown his Rasenshuriken while she had been distracted and it was already halfway across the arena by the time she figured out what was going on. The Shadow General seemed to freeze in a panic for a moment as the young boy's around curved around in the air and started to make a beeline for her chest…. But then at the very last second, the Shadow General gathered her wits about her and jumped straight into the air, hopping over the rasenshuriken. The Shadow General cackled victoriously.

"Ha, ha!" shouted the Shadow General proudly. "Looks like your ace in the hole has – "

Whatever it was she was about to say, no one would ever know because a blade of energy suddenly sliced the dark Kaiju cleanly down the middle. Without the Shadow General every realizing it, Naruto had remotely commanded to turn its body so that its bladed edged were facing vertically and expanded the range to three times its normal size. This allowed the Rasenshuriken to reached the dark Kaiju and sever its body into two equal parts, much like Satsuki had done to the forgeries earlier.

The Shadow General's body slowly, more like dramatically, hovered in the air for a long minute before the two halves started to slide against one another – then her body as a whole evaporated into black smoke. The dark Kaiju's energy prisoners were subsequently thrown in different directions – the closest one landed a few feet away from Naruto's side – and dissolved away shortly afterwards. It turned out that Sailor Moon had been in the prison that landed near Naruto; he immediately dashed over to her aid.

"You all right?" asked Naruto, offering her a hand.

"A little dizzy…and a little nauseous…," Sailor Moon said with a grimace. "But I'll be fine."

She took Naruto's hand graciously as he sharply pulled her up to her feet. But before they could even think about celebrating their victory, the sound of an engine motor suddenly screeched through the air. Naruto and Sailor Moon searched around curiously when Sailor Moon suddenly shouted and pointed into the air. Someone had just shot over the rubble that used to be the stadium, apparently riding atop a motorized vehicle to get here – it looked like a vespa. They landed roughly in the craggy arena, bouncing lightly on their scooter, and came to a screeching halt a few feet away.

The person sitting atop the vespa was a young woman with faded-pink hair cut into a flare and gem-like yellow eyes. She dressed herself in a bright-red coat with baggy white sleeves, a pair of sleek-looking black pants, bulky orange gloves, and a pair of white gogo boots that matches her flimsy scarf. The other noticeable aspect about her was that she was carrying a guitar on her back, but the many dents and scratches on it told a story that she did more than just play it.

The strange woman grin maniacally and said, "Hey, what's up, bitches! How's it hangin'"

HARUKO HARUHARA (FLCL)

"Haruko, what are you doing here?" asked Sailor Moon.

"You know her?" Naruto said to Sailor Moon.

"She was recently instated for veteran status," Sailor Moon answered. "We had a party for her a few months ago."

"Yeah, and that was really awesome of you to do that," said Haruko, grinning widely. "That's why I kinda feel bad for what I gotta do."

"Whaddya mean?" asked Naruto.

"Yeah…ya see…my new boss kinda wants me capture you guys and make sure this place gets blown to smithereens," said Haruko, picking her ear in a nonchalant fashion. "I think ya might know him. It's that uh…Mirai guy or whatever."

"Mirai?" Sailor Moon gasped. "You're working for him? Why?"

"The same reason I do anything," said Haruko wickedly. "Because I want power, and lots of it. The big boss promised to give it to me, so I'm going along with his crazy shit. And since you basically killed off his pet," she gestured to the spot here Shadow General had faded, "I guess it's up to me to pick up the slack."

"We're not going to let you take us so easy!" Naruto roared as he and Sailor Moon moved into defensive positions.

"Yeah, you guys look like you might put up a fight," said Haruko, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. "I really don't want to get my clothes dirty, so…."

Haruko hummed to herself and looked around over her shoulder when she saw something that brought a smile to her face. In all of the excitement, Naruto and Sailor Moon had forgotten about Satsuki. The swordswoman had just been freed of her prison, but was very disoriented from the whole experience; she was dizzy and holding her head to fight back the throbbing pain in her skull. Haruka chuckled darkly.

"Yeah, she'll do."

Haruka reached inside her pocket and pulled out a metal ball with neon-pink lines tracing the outside. Naruto and Sailor Moon failed to stop her in time before Haruka did an exaggerated version of a pitcher's stance and threw the metal sphere with enough speed to break the sound barrier. Satsuki had very little chance of defend herself when the metal ball slammed into her shoulder and exploded in a blinding flash of pink light; Naruto and Sailor Moon raised their arms to shield their eyes.

When the light dimmed seconds later, Naruto and Sailor Moon lowered their arms and gasped appallingly. Satsuki body was covered entirely in bright-pink crystal shall that froze her in the position she had been in before the ball had hit her. The heroes were too stunned by the development that they didn't offer up any resistance when Haruka kicked her vespa to life and took a u-turn towards Satsuki's crystallized statue, snatching the figure up as she passed by.

"Whelp, it's been fun, but really need ta get goin'!" Haruka called over her shoulder as she soared over the stadium debris. "Catch ya later, if you're lucky!"

"Hey, wait, come back here!" cried Sailor Moon. "Naruto, we got to save Satsuki."

Naruto finally came out of his stupor when Sailor Moon sprinted past chasing as Haruka's vespa, which sounded like was getting further and further away by the second. Naruto didn't know what chance they had at chasing down a motorized vehicle, but the idea was quickly showed to the back of his mind when they ran past the retcon bomb, which they had completely forgotten about. Sailor Moon didn't seem to have noticed the countdown timer, but Naruto did: they had six seconds left before it exploded.

Naruto grinded his teeth. He wanted to save Satsuki, but he needed to think of them first. The blonde shinobi pushed forward with an extra burst of speed, wrapping his arm securely around Sailor Moon's waist while biting down on his thumb to draw blood as the timer reached it's final moments –

3…

2…

1…

BOOOOM!

The dark energy core inside broken free of its container, expanding farther and farther away from its casing. The black void crawled across the stage, then the ruined bleachers, and then, in a matter of minutes, it consumed all of papaya island. For one long, heart stopping moment, the entire island was replaced by a massive sphere of dark matter where no light could penetrate. And then, just as fast as it came…it vanished. There was no withdrawing process, no evaporation, no fading energies…. It the span it takes for a person to blink, everything just…vanished. Papaya island couldn't not be found anywhere; there was only an endless stretch of ocean from this spot to the mainland.

A tense moment of silence washed over (quite literally). And then, the calm ocean surface bubbled before something emerged from beneath the waves. A fifty-foot warty red toad breached the surface with a relieved gasp of air, and sitting on it wide head, coughing up salt water, was Naruto and Sailor Moon.

"Tha - *cough* thanks…Gamakichi," Naruto said gratefully to the toad. "You really saved our necks."

"Hey, it was no problem," said Gamachiki, his voice booming in their ears. "Say what was that thing, anyway? Gave off some kind of weird energy. Nothing like I ever felt before."

"No idea," Naruto admitted, falling back on the toad's head. "We managed to make it out safely, but that Haruko person ran off with Satsuki. We need to get her back before something bad happens to her."

"Anymore than they already have," said Sailor Moon, flopping down next to him. "We should go back to the mainland and see if we can find help. Satsuki's sister, Ryuko Matoi, is supposed to be exploring the Makinata Forest near the village of the Tiny People. She'll want to help out."

"Hey, Gamakichi, think you can take us back to the mainland?" Naruto pleaded.

"Sure thing," said Gamakichi. He started paddling ahead, his wide eyes focused on the distant landmass that was thankfully not too far away. After a few minutes of swimming, Gamakaichi said, "Hey, just a quick question while I got you guys."

"Sure, what is it?" said Sailor Moon tiredly.

"What're you guys doing this far out in the middle of the ocean anyway?" asked Gamakichi. "There's nothing out here by an endless stretch of water. There aren't any islands or underwater caves nearby, so I thought it was kind strange that you'd both end up here."

The heroic duo blinked owlishly at the great toad's question. They scrunched their brows in thought and looked to each other for answers –

"I…I really don't know…," said Naruto hesitantly.

- for the memory of Papaya Island, and the World Martial Arts Tournament, no longer existed.


[Naruto Uzumaki and Sailor Moon have joined your party]


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