Chapter 4 – Spark of Creation

"Enter."

Perhaps it was a bad habit but those in his employ were well-used to his quirks; the assistant he recognised by aura far before sight let themselves in without giving the knock he'd foreseen,

"Master, someone at the door for you."

"I wasn't expecting a call; if it's any of the guild representatives... no, it's not," his telepathy was now so strong he read unguarded minds almost without meaning to, though he'd more or less learned to block out the babble, "I'll see to her. Set wards over the libraries, just in case."

"And the laboratory?"

"Already warded," a telekinetic pulse sent the book he'd been reading back to his desk, "you left her in the lobby?"

"I did master, somewhat expediently I'm ashamed to say;" the mage smiled, patting the other man on the shoulder as he walked past,

"She has that effect on people; lock the door behind me."

"Very well," he said no more, he didn't need to; though that business with the Consortium was thankfully behind him his star had somewhat risen due to it and few crossed him now; well, few here anyway. It's always those from other places; remembering the interloper he'd seen in his servants' memories Jace Beleren mentally recanted a few of his favoured illusions and counters, preparing himself for a reckoning a long time in the making against someone he'd rather not reckon with.

She saw him first; even before the main door safeguarding his townhouse clanged shut behind him she'd broken the silence,

"You took your time," with a puff of greasy smoke the trio of flickering fireballs around her fingers snuffed out, something the Ravnican nodded at,

"Your control's improved, shame about your temper, though I wonder what the Izzet would pay to know what happened to their gauntlet prototype," red glasses flashed as the woman stepped forwards menacingly but he ignored the threat, "why are you here Nalaar?"

"Not for the scenery; I need a bookworm."

"Charmed," Jace sighed, inwardly grateful she didn't want a duel; after all, we hardly parted on the best of terms; "how did you find me?"

"Went 'walking 'til I got lucky, been at it a while now – listen I don't like you, let's get that out the way but there's a chance I, er," Jace cocked his head; he'd reigned in his powers partially out of respect for the other planewalker and partially because reading a mind as volatile as hers gave him a terrible headache but just by looking he could tell something was amiss, something Chandra's next words only confirmed, "I've seen something, I don't know what it is and I need someone who does, quick."

"I see," he replied after a second, "what...?"

"Not here," she cut him off, glancing around suspiciously, "where's the nearest bar?"

"The, what?"

"Bar, tavern, inn," she snapped, sparks snapping the ends of her braids, "less you want something heard the noisier place you need."

"Chandra Nalaar, are you inviting me for a drink?" If looks could kill; biting down on a smirk the mind-mage politely ignored his guests' filthy glance before she turned away,

"You're paying."

"I didn't need mana to know that was coming. Very well, just let me sort a few things..."

Though they certainly weren't friends Jace was reasonably sure he knew the other planeswalker enough to sense something awry. Practitioners of the crimson arts were impulsive and reckless, much like their mana, but through their trip to this downtown bar Chandra had said nothing and, other than snarl, hadn't reacted to the one or two whistles she'd gotten on the way. She also hadn't objected to his minor glamouring, Jace now looking like an ordinary gateless due to a thin sheen of blue mana as he set a goblet in front of her,

"I got red, I hope you don't mind," Chandra shrugged, sniffed and knocked back a slug of the drink, ignoring his wince at her lamentable manners,

"It's drinkable; listen Beleren I've not got time. If you know what you're looking at tell me, if not I'll find someone else."

"I feel so valued, though it would help if I could see what I'm supposed to know about." He waited for her to produce something, a token, a treasure, a map like the one that had led to them crossing paths before but instead she merely closed her eyes and took a breath. Still he waited; only when she cleared her throat irritably did he realise she'd leant forwards slightly,

"I ah..."

"Hurry up; there wasn't anything I could take and you wouldn't believe me if I told you," the fire-mage snarled lowly, eyes down and building mental walls around what was important, "don't go where you're not wanted."

"Very well Nalaar,"; this must be serious, she hates mind magic at the best of times; respectful of this Jace glanced around the bar and carefully wove a small impulsion in the minds of its patrons, making them look away as he stretched forth two fingers; her brow was warm under his touch, he could feel heat, the mana with her and...

... the celebrations were unexpected; last time she'd been here she'd nearly died but, that notwithstanding, she had unfinished business with Zendikar. On her guard as soon as she'd finished her 'walk the pyromancer conjured living fire about her, hearing distant bangs and screaming. She would have left well alone had she not recognised both the shouts as those of joy rather than fear and, more pressingly, a scute bug nearby, waving its tendrils. Incinerating it with a flicker she left quickly towards civilisation – there was no such thing as a single scute bug on Zendikar.

She'd 'walked into a forest, well away from any civilisation even if large cities never lasted long here, but in the few minutes it took her to find the noise source nothing tried to kill her. This only made her more paranoid so it was only by a combination of shock on her part and extreme luck on his the man who leapt upon her as she pushed into a clearing through a curtain of trees didn't end up a pile of ashes,

"My dear," he bellowed, half-deafening the planeswalker as he span her off her feet, "long into your travels are you; come, sit and celebrate. The Eye of Hope has opened; peace at last!" She didn't even get a chance to speak before the stranger, tattooed and reeking of ale, dropped her and staggered away, leaving her in his wake utterly shocked. Carefully touching the mana of the violent plane she was first surprised, and then amazed; Zendikar's power had always been erratic but this time the red mana flowed like water at her command. Summoning a few tiny birds of flame and dismissing them before anyone noticed the pyromancer decided something very strange must have been happened and set about finding answers.

It was a small caravan in the Oran Reef, what was left of it after the great fire but that blaze was nothing compared to the firestorm that had overtaken the whole plane in her absence. From what she could tell Zendikar, somehow, was at peace – there were far fewer of what the goblins called 'God's Practical Jokes', sweeping natural disasters that wiped out people without warning or mercy. Better than that, or worse depending on your viewpoint was the Roil, or rather the lack of it; it had simply ceased to exist one day, leaving all on the plane mystified until something had made them all look up. A new light had been born in the heavens, a new star above them that all had named the Eye of Hope, something that had calmed the vengeful fury of the fractious plane. All paid homage to it and she raised a mug towards the distant cold light as she took the caravans' offer of a bed for the night, though as she did she was thinking hard – she had never truly seen the Roil but respected Zendikars' fury and its history. Following the battle with the mad dragon-mage she had immediately left, her gut telling her to run, regroup and deal with the one who had set her on the trail of the scroll that had led her here before coming back, and now she had returned to this?

Something was wrong and that star had something to do with it; she had slept little, instead extending senses most didn't have through the space between planes. Nothing to do with the Blind Eternities was a science, more a matter of luck and feral instinct and this time both came through; she lay down upon hard carved wood and awoke upon warm grass, a strange sun overhead and wind fanning her flaming hair as she stood. A plane, one she had never travelled to before – the Roil must have blocked it out. Standing up and shading her eyes the firebrand saw nothing but rolling hills around her and mountains to the north so she headed north, seeking someone or something to tell her where she was.

It was a seeking that went unfinished; within an hour she was perturbed, within three she was coldly afraid and glad to be gone. Many people thought red mana users were brash, foolhardy and arrogant and all three were true but they also lived by their instincts a lot of the time, more so than any who weren't touch by green magic. Three hours in this place, a simulacrum of a perfect world had her instincts screaming to get the hell away and she did, 'walking back to Zendikar so quickly she spewed up half her breakfast...

The dislocation made him wince but no more; he recovered so fast he raised a hand to her volcanic glower before she could speak,

"I saw; a new plane?"

"Not just a new plane, tell me what you saw there."

"I ah, I didn't really see much; I saw through your thoughts not your eyes, it's difficult to explain," he admitted, defusing her anger; for now; "I sensed you were uncomfortable there though, why?"

"Why? Too long in that library's ruined your eyes Beleren; did you see anything in that plane, anything at all?"

"No I..."

"Exactly, nothing, that's what I wanted you to see! Gods damn it," she cursed at his nonplussed expression, "that plane, that whole place; I was there three hours or so and I didn't see anything. No people, no animals, not even a bloody fly – just the wind and the trees and the mana, mana I've not felt before."

"How so?"

"It was, it was," she fumbled for words, it was quite endearing to watch, "fresh, like it wanted to be used. I didn't have to tap into it, I just touched it and it came to me. I've never had that before no matter where I've been and that really got me concerned."

"I see; so," Jace took a sip of his wine before recounting the facts, "we have a formerly-violent plane at peace with a new star above it, the Roil is vanished and you've found a new plane nearby with mana but nothing else. What about those creatures on Zendikar?"

"Which ones?"

"The ones we... oh," belatedly he remembered she left just after he'd awoken, "never mind, you weren't there. I fail to see a problem; what do you need me for?"

"You need me to spell out the bloody obvious Jace? Mana is life right, so on this new plane where the hell is the life? It was a perfect world without any living thing on it that wasn't green, what the hell could do that?"

"Do; wait," a horrible suspicion bubbled up in his prodigious mind, "you think something affected it? How?" Chandra chuckled,

"If I knew that I wouldn't be here; even at my best I couldn't burn a whole bloody plane to cinders and even if I could the trees wouldn't pop right back up. I need to know what kind of magic could do that, remove all life from a plane, and who could wield it." Jace gave an unseen shiver; I don't know if he can but I know one who'd like to have that power;

"I understand, and much as I wish you were I know you're not lying. Very well, drink up," he drained his goblet, Chandra quirking an eyebrow before following suit, "once I've picked up a few things from my lodgings we're going to Zendikar."

"Whoa," the pyromancer shot to her feet, eyes blazing, "this is mine Beleren; all I need from you is an idea or two. You don't get to muscle on in this."

"Muscle in on what, a plane with nothing on it – pardon my mirth but I prefer Ravnica. This is merely something to study and explore, no more no less; you can do whatever you like with your plane when I've made a few notes, move a whole cadre of pyromancers there and have them train for all I care."

"No chance, a spark there would send the whole place up. Wait," there was something approaching guile in her eyes as she squinted across the table, "my plane?"

"You discovered it, or is the phrase 'finders-keepers' not known to the red mages"; I shouldn't tease her; really he of all people should know better than to irritate a woman able to charbroil him where he stood; but it's so much fun;

"Watch your tongue before I rip it out; still, my own plane," Chandra put a delicate hand on her chin, expression rapt, "hmm, might have to call in a few favours but, yeah, I could get used to that..."

XXX

A few days later Jace heavily doubted his new partners' earlier convictions, though he didn't blame her for them. After stocking up on essentials or, to quote the fiery Ms Nalaar, 'packing up the library' the two had travelled to Zendikar quietly, spending a week or so there and marvelling at how peaceful the entire plane seemed. Jace had quickly sought out the sages of the gates of Halimar, placating Chandra's insistence to go to her plane now with promises that she'd learn more about the Roil there, though the introduction of the fire mage to the wizened archivists was an experience he'd gladly scrub from his mind later,

"So you people actually worshipped these, things?" Chandra said, turning a strange hunk of stone over in her hands as she sat with her feet on the table, examining its many facets,

"Worshipped, feared, lived in ignorance of," the merfolk clarified, swatting her boots as he walked past, "well, ignorant until they were reborn again."

"Reborn; you said they died out?"

"That is not dead which can eternal lie," the water-dweller said cryptically before brightening, "though it's strange. This has ever been a frightening world and those monsters were just another part of it, albeit the greatest threat save the Roil itself. We've chroniclers still scouring the lands but it seems likely they've fallen back into their torpor." Jace looked up sharply from the scroll he was poring over,

"The great ones have gone?"

"Aye, and taken the Roil with them; we call it the Calming. Overnight, or almost, the Roil vanished and everything settled; after a month of waiting for the sky to fall it seemed all was over. That was when people first saw it; the Eye of Hope – some say the Roil rolled right off the world and became a new star as we'd survived its trials long enough. You've heard of it?"

"Heard of it, heard its names sung in praises, it's not important," Chandra grunted, idly tossing the carved figurine back to its former place, "you don't know what's happened to the Roil?"

"We have ideas..."

"That's a no then," Chandra overrode him, standing and addressing Jace imperiously, "we've wasted too much time here already mind-mage."

"We've wasted nothing, but," he added just in time; racks of priceless ledgers and an angry pyromancer didn't mix well, "I see your point. My thanks for your time Halmig, we'll meet again."

Jace would stick to that promise; if nothing else he owed the merman after feeling somehow guilty for some of the peril Zendikar had found itself it, though he wasn't sure exactly why he felt that way. He was thinking of said peril when he opened his eyes to see Chandra grinning down at him,

"Well, we're here; welcome to Illustria."

"You just made that name up."

"It's my plane I'll name it what I like," she declared, "anyway, stop lazing around and feel the mana, though I didn't see any oceans for you to tap."

"That won't be necessary"; I barely needed to think; a small orb of water was already in his hands, reflecting his pensive face, "you were right, the mana here is different."

"I was; sorry say that again, slowly," her grin was becoming insufferable, "I want to remember that, the great mind-mage Beleren said I was right!"

"And the great mind-mage can make you forget he ever said it as well Nalaar, remember that." The reaction was immediate, flame spreading up her arms as her hair rose menacingly,

"Just try it." He was sorely tempted to douse her with the water he'd gathered but through better of it, instead dropping it and watching it soak into the earth,

"Even a stopped watch is right twice a day," he muttered caustically, banking Chandra's ire with confusion, "now, let's see what I can find out..."

XXX

"Nothing!"

"Did I stutter; yes, nothing."

"But you said you were looking into the past," the pyromancer's fingers were drumming at her temples as though trying to hammer in what he was saying, "did you cast it wrong?"

"No," the was definite frost in his voice as he recovered his mana, though casting the spell had drained him less than the shock he'd had completing it, "I did not cast it wrong. This plane has always existed like this and it has been in existence for about... four months by the Ravnican calendar."

"That's a ten month cycle isn't it?"

"One per guild, yes"; the fire mage did some quick addition on her fingers,

"So half a year normally, but that's impossible..."

"Nalaar we travel between planes of existence in the blink of an eye; we of all people should use the word impossible with great care."

"Say that again."

"I don't want to fight..."

"No, no, say it again, about the planes," there was excitement rather than fire in her tone as her eyes crackled anew, "half a year ago I would have been... yes, yes it fits! Haven't you noticed 'walking's been easier recently?" Caught aback by the question Jace stumbled,

"Uh, no; I've not really left Ravnica much."

"Of course, entombed in the library chewing your books; alright pin your ears back. I've been travelling around a bit and it has been getting easier, I can't believe I didn't see it before. I can 'walk further, without risking death in the Blind Planes – I thought it was me getting stronger and until you I hadn't seen another planeswalker, so I still can't prove it since you've been sat on your arse half a year." Ignoring the slight Jace added this fact to his mental tally,

"It did seem easier to travel here, even with a guide, so what do we have now? Zendikar becalmed with a new star in its sky, planeswalking becoming easier in your experience and this newborn plane."

"So what does it mean?"

"Would you hit me if I said no idea?"

"I'd be tempted," she admitted before shaking her head, "there's got to be something we're not seeing. Do you know of anything that could make a plane; what about," she straightened as though hit by lightning, voice dropping to a whisper, "the older ones, from before."

"No, the Mending altered every spark," Jace told her forcibly, half to convince himself the planeswalking demigods of the past were truly lost to history, "I've met the eldest of us and even he admits he's less now than he was. If he now couldn't create a plane I doubt anyone else could."

"But could he destroy one then remake it?"

"What?"

"Your spell says this is new and we agree; huh, first time for everything; that if there is something out there that can create a plane we've never met it, okay?"

"Yes..."

"So what else could alter history; burn down a tree, plant its seed and let it grow, you wouldn't see the same tree would you?" Jace pondered this for a moment,

"I've never tried but you could be right; yes, yes calm down you annoyance," Chandra merely smiled, her conjured fireworks now spelling out 'right again' over her head, "you think there was a plane here and someone or something, what, took it apart and then put it back?"

"Without the people, somehow; look I'm slinging fire in the dark here, that's why I came to you in the first place. Do you know any magic that could do it?"

"Very powerful temporal magic, maybe; that means time," he explained wearily at her confused look, "precise banishing magic, but that would leave an echo and shouldn't explain the lack of history of this place and possibly mana use of other colours. I don't know of any great users of time any more, it's a difficult power to even understand let alone try to use."

"Back where we started," Chandra muttered, kicking a tuft of grass petulantly, "a place with nothing in it and no idea how it got this way or how none of us saw it before."

"Possibly the Roil, though none of this explains how the Calming came to Zendikar," Jace added another mystery to the pile making even his prodigious mind groan, "you've stumbled onto quite the conundrum here Nalaar; bring back the days when you were just a thief stealing scrolls I had to find."

"You had to bring that up didn't you? It all worked out in the end didn't it?"

"I find that rather rich coming from someone who'd have been dragon crap if not for me."

As the still of the young world was broken by a furious curse and the crackle of fire none noticed, none but the wind and those unseen behind the veil, who took flight back through what had been to inform someone of the interlopers.

And as the news came to his ears he paused for an instant, smiled, returned to his labours and slowly but surely drew up his plans to deal with them.

XXX

Home-plane sweet home-plane; the sound, the smell, the touch of the mana was like nectar to the mind-mage as he opened his eyes upon the guild-city once more. Night had fallen, as much as there was night in the city that couldn't sleep, so he quick assumed his normal guise of a gateless citizen. Ignoring a casual brawl breaking out between a goblin dressed as a jester and an imp wielding a whip of lightning Jace stepped forwards, though his attempt to act normal was spoiled somewhat when a blast of fire sent the fighting goblin running away squealing and slightly singed,

"So much for trying to be a good neighbour," he muttered as Chandra blew on her fingertips, silently daring any nearby to make something of it before Jace seized her arm, "not now, we've work to do."

"Never any fun with you is there?"

"Not when it involves burning people, now come on; we shouldn't be too far from my home if I'm reading the street-signs right. Hopefully we won't have to cross the rubble-belt to get there."

"Why not, bit of hiking never killed anyone unless they've spent their life sat down reading books." Despite her teasing the pyromancer kept pace as Jace led the way, keeping him in sight as she knew getting lost in this city meant she'd likely never find her way out again,

"Pray you never go hiking in the rubble-belt; some of the beasts in there would make even the Gruul think twice before trying to tame them."

"Even dragons fear fire Beleren."

"And that means...?"

"Put enough effort in you'll get your reward," she explained, the saying one a few she remembered from her village, "so, if there's nothing for me in your stack of books I'll..."

It was then she realised she was talking to herself; Jace had stopped some half-dozen paces ago and, worse, had dropped his glamoured disguise. His pale face made the pyromancer back-track; he helped me get this far after all;

"You look like you've see a vampire smile."

"Sense."

"Sense what?" Swallowing to regain some composure he faced Chandra squarely, voice calm but entire body tense,

"I've lived on Ravnica for most of my life that I can remember Nalaar, I know its guilds, its gates, some of its secrets and its mana. And I know," he looked up, scanning the sky and hating that his senses had been right, "that star wasn't in its sky when we left." The words struck dread into even a soul as fiery as Chandras', the fire mage following his finger to the new light above,

"But, we were only gone what, a month?"

"If that, you sense it though don't you?" She did, much as she wanted to deny it, "Another plane next to my own and no Roil to mask it. I have to go."

"No you damned well don't," it was her turn to grab his arm, "use that massive brain; when someone leaves a snare out you don't just walk into it, I thought you'd be bright enough to work that out."

"A snare?" He almost laughed, "Nalaar this plane has billions of sentient creatures living on it and from what we've gathered something might be altering the Multiverse itself. If it's like you say and planes are being broken and remade, if it happens here the guild wars will look like a Rakdos squabble – everything will die or be unmade. Can you walk away from that?"

"Did I say I was leaving? I never said we shouldn't go, I said we shouldn't go now – we've been walking and 'walking all day and we're both tired; if whatever this is decides it wants a fight we need to be fresh to stand a chance." Jace breathed harshly then, to her surprise, smiled wryly, regarding her anew,

"It's strange when the firebrand gives sage advice."

"No stranger than the bookworm taking up arms," she shot back before tugging him on, "come on, where's your place; I'm famished."

XXX

"It's definitely getting easier," the following morning after a night of sleep and meditation for Jace and 'battle-practise' involving lots of flaming spheres of death being put to creative uses for Chandra the two had met up close to his home, nodded and 'walked without saying a word,

"Quiet Nalaar," Jace said, eyes already glowing as he sensed through the murk around them, "if there's anything here I want to find it, not the other way around." She was tempted to shout just to spite him but strategy triumphed over petulance and she responded with a fierce whisper,

"Okay but you have to admit getting here didn't hurt as much as it usually does."

"I'll admit that, and the mana here," it rippled at his slightest touch, obey his whim rather than his spells, "it's the same, fresher even; this plane is younger than the other."

"How? This doesn't make sense, and it stinks," they were in the middle of a bog after all, the black mana around them oozing like tar, "can you clear the air or something?"

"For the guilds' sake don't light a spark," Jace warned her, stirring the air around them, "we'll be incinerated before either of us could get away."

"Fine, not like anything's here to get us or the midges would be eating me alive by now. It's the same as Illustria."

"But different," Jace corrected her, already scrying through the fog slowly, "before was a place of mostly harmony, this time black mana is in abundance. Whatever did this doesn't seem bound to one colour of mana as you or I are – this could be very bad," thinking it over the mind-mage was forced to draw a blank, "I would have sensed black mana this strong so close to Ravnica even in the midst of a Rakdos carnival. This is new, it must be, but how did it come to be so quickly while we were gone?"

"Maybe it was in a hurry?" Chandra offered, still looking around as they made for higher ground, "Can you sense anything alive; I don't want to use my mana here." Jace's eyes glowed ethereally, azure power trickling through the muck as he mastered the blue mana in this sickening place and, a moment later, shook his head,

"No but there's no telling how big this plane is; it could still be here."

"Well I'm not staying to find out, I'm sinking," Chandra shot back hotly, pulling first one, then the other foot free of the swamps' embrace, "unless you can sniff a way out of this mess I'm getting out of here."

"I'd have to agree; aha, this way," squelching away even if he wasn't getting wet due to a small warding spell the Ravnican called over his shoulder, "there's a lake over here."

"How's that any bloody good to me?"

"You can wash up before we return; I'd rather not have muddy boot prints on the carpet. No fire," he drawled as the pyromancers' fists clenched, "this swamps' new but I'd wager it's as volatile as you are. Dragons fear fire you said Nalaar, do you?"

"As soon as we're back in Ravnica..."

The rest of her threat went unspoken, Chandra pushing her now-sodden locks from her face as she arduously followed in Jaces' wake. Even as he led the two of them towards the small reservoir of blue mana his senses had discovered it was too late. None saw or felt the still wind whispering through the streets, ever-moving until it arrived at its final destination and paused enough to smile; the chickens had flown, and the fox was in their coop!

XXX

"Worst. Plane. Ever!"

"So you won't be claiming that one then?"

"Feh, no, it's too close to yours for a start," Chandra snorted, barging the mind-mage aside as she strode into his house, "how'd you afford this place anyway? You're hardly ever here."

"I was here a lot more before you came about," he riposted, letting himself in and grateful his attendants had all dispersed for the night, "and I'll be glad to be here again. You'll be at the same tavern I showed you last time?"

"Yeah, after I've borrowed your shower," any protest Jace may have had to this withered under her flaming gaze, "I am not using that inns' tin bath, it smells like a goblin went in there last."

"I didn't think goblins bathed."

"Not went in, went in; you're hopeless," she declared at his puzzlement; brains none can fathom, not a lick of common sense; "where is it?"

"Second on the right upstairs, just turn the heat down when you're finished," he said absent-mindedly, thinking about what they had seen today and what he wanted to eat. He heard Chandra's muffled,

"No promises," as she left the main kitchen, the two of them having come in through the servants' entrance to avoid tracking in reeking, black mana-infused mud. Another plane, another mystery; absent-mindedly picking down a few herbs and spices the Ravnican focused on the problem while hunting for a knife; a mage or 'walker, obviously skilled in controlling black mana, staking out Ravnica somehow; memories even he couldn't erase teased the back of his mind and he shivered; we were once far more than we are now. Is that true Bolas and, if it is; he shivered again, reaching for the sharp steel; have you found a way to become more again...;

In hindsight it was fortunate he never started chopping; between his dire suspicions, the sudden gushing explosion and its accompanying shriek he'd probably have lost a finger. Knife clattering in his wake Jace pelted after his unwelcome guest and almost paid for that haste, skidding in the water now flooding down the stairs. The thought it was going to cost him an arm and a leg to get the carpet re-laid was swiftly banished as he slewed to a halt and looked up, words and, thankfully, laughter catching in his throat. Twin enchantments, mirrored on the staircase walls; his rational mind devoured the problem as the rest of it tried desperately not to react at the aftermath; when she walked past they triggered and realised their contents. Water, and cold water that that; Chandra had been halfway up the stairs when the geysers had been unleashed, now she was panting hard and shivering harder as the shock doused even her fire. Jace should have said something, really it would have been less painful for all involved if he'd got the first word in but her bedraggled state was just too much; biting his lips until they threatened to bleed only just held his mirth in. She must have sensed him, steam beginning to wisp around her as she slowly turned around,

"Beleren!"

"Not..." he choked before trying again, "Nalaar I didn't do thi..." It was as far as he got before he felt a pulse of mana under his boot; there was the strangest rushing sensation all over him but before he could unleash even his hastiest counter-spell it was gone, leaving just a vague chafing. He glanced upwards only to be met by a gobsmacked expression, Chandra's eyes wider than her goggles as she pointed tremulously,

"You, it, it..." She managed, Jace shivering at the nip of the water around his ankles; wait, why am I cold now? He glanced down only to yell in shock as she burst out laughing, covering himself as best he could with his arms and desperately trying to undo the now-glowing trap that had stripped him of most of his clothes and all his dignity. Howling with mirth Chandra grasped the banister to steady herself but this proved to be a big mistake; with a sudden click all the stairs vanished into a slide, the water under her feet acting like grease as she flew down it with a despairing yelp. Preoccupied with the trap Jace had no time to react before she hurtled into him, sending them both the floor with a splashing thump,

"Gaahhhaa, gods that's cold!"

"Getoffa me!"

"You're on me; ah-ahh, hands off, watch your gauntlet!"

"I need a grip."

"It's trapping my chest-hair!"

"It'll grow back..."

"Well isn't this cosy?" Both froze, orange staring into blue before they whipped their heads to the source of the unfamiliar voice. In their slanted vision they saw a small figure, dressed mostly in orange, regarding them from a high-seated chair with a book in one hand, a glass of something in the other and an air of amusement,

"Oh please," the interloper insisted, sipping his drink, "don't stop on my account." Chandra threw herself to her feet, not hearing her former cushions' agonised yelp as she ripped her armoured glove free, the steam boiling from her hair and body making her look like an enraged demon,

"Who the hell are you?"

"A guest of master Beleren, unofficially; excellent cellar by the way, though unlike you pair your reading material's a little dry. Finally with us again?"

"Finally," Jace agreed, having unravelled the trap as he'd retaken his feet and grateful to be back in his clothes as mana flared beneath his hood, "what are you doing sitting in my chair, drinking my wine and reading my book?"

"I'm sitting on your chair, drinking your wine and reading your book, and until very recently I was watching two planeswalkers pratfall into my traps then start floor-wrestling."

"So," Jace was never more dangerous than when he was calm, something Chandra no longer was as her hair rose into an inferno, "these traps were your doing?"

"Duh," the child, for even perched on the edge of the seat his feet barely touched the floor, grinned, "always been a prankster at heart; it's not my fault your security sucks."

In the face of a ball of white-hot destruction, unseen by his opponents, he smiled at the déjà-vu; once he had been forced to learn a harsh lesson, now it was his turn to be the teacher; and I only hope you pick up the lesson better than any of us did! Kakashi-sensei, this one's for you...;

XXX

As the fire died away Jace sighed,

"That was my favourite chair and that book was one of only two copies left on this plane."

"You've memorised it already," Chandra said dismissively, "and it was worth it to be rid of that nuisance."

"True but I'd have liked to speak to him first; he got thought my sensory wards, I'd have liked to know how." She snickered, pointing the gently flickering fires before them,

"Well unless you know a good necromancer it's not happening," luckily he managed to hide the pang of pain before she turned to him, "you clean up this mess, I'm going for a show..."

She vanished so quickly he thought she'd planeswalked away; only a tirade of vehement swearing near his ankles made him to look down and see Chandra glaring up at him, struggling to break free of the floor as water lapped her chin. Blue mana flaring up around him the mind-mage extended his senses throughout the room as he jumped backwards from the disembodied head. Nothing was hidden from his sight beyond sight, the blue mana infiltrating every nook and cranny of his home to forewarn him any attack so when he bumped into something directly behind him and heard the warning,

"Look before you leap," he got a nasty shock that only got nastier as the stranger quickly span him to the floor, mashing his face into the sodden carpet with one foot and twisting his arm into a painful lock; damn, he's well trained;

"How'd you do that?"

"I don't think you're in any position to ask questions," from the corner of his eye Jace realised it was the child Chandra had just incinerated; unless that was an illusion of some kind; "and considering you just tried to barbecue me I'd watch it."

"After you bloody half-drowned me," Chandra spat back, trying to melt her way free of the stone prison as he waved his free hand dismissively,

"Details, and the way you pair have been stalking me recently I don't think there's a jury who'd convict me even in this city. Actually that's why I came here," the firebrand scowled but stilled as the child suddenly twisted Jaces' arm, making him snarl in pain, "why have you been following me?"

"I don't even know who the hell you are!"

"I don't believe you," those were not the eyes of a boy; they were cold as the water submerging half Jaces' face, "and I have ways of making you talk."

Pinned as he was there was little Jace could do; whoever this saboteur was he either knew of the mind mages' abilities or was exceptionally lucky. The gloves he was wearing stopped skin contact, hampering Jaces' touch until he could gather enough power to push through the material to the mind behind. Unable to break the surprisingly strong grip Beleren was forced to watch helplessly as the trapped pyromancer stiffened, eyes widening as she looked down as much as she was able to,

"What are you doing? Hey, hey let go, leave that alone!"

"Don't touch her," Jace shouted, glaring as much as he could from one eye and struggling to gather mana, "we don't know you!"

"Stop it, I'm sorry I tried to burn you; what are yoohhuuurk!" Her face went white, then purple, the crimson mage thrashing madly at an unseen torment, gritting her teeth hard,

"Chandra," they weren't friends but Jace had seen too many acquaintances harmed while he was powerless, he refused to let it happen again, "stop this, please!"

"Too late Beleren," the child's voice was sing-song, he seemed to revel in misery and pain, surely a scion of the Lord of Riots, "you brought this on yourselves when you meddled in my business, and now," his smirk was sinful as he looked forwards, "payback."

"Chandra!"

"PPfffftttehehehehehehe - stoppit!" Jace's jaw dropped, only his incredible mental control preventing his accumulated mana slipping away as she crumbled, "No fahahahahair, lemme go; not funny!"

"You seem to be laughing."

"I'll kill yohohohouuu! There won't even be cinders le-aaah! No-no-nohohohohoho!"

"Now that's the kind of talk that got you into thi...oh." What her torturer had meant to say was lost as the room flooded azure; power flickering from every pore Jace forced the breach, a spear of icy mana extending from his hand straight between the boy's eyes.

Thank the gods; as the boy was impaled by the powerful blue cantrip Chandra caught her breath, finally able to concentrate enough to start loosening the prison around her; saved by bloody Jace Beleren though, again – I'll never live this down;

"Ah, that could be a problem," fear choked her fire, the blue lance had guttered out and Jace wasn't moving, limp and lifeless as the devil-child dropped his arm,

"What have you done to him?"

"He did it to himself, poking his mind in where it's not wanted. Don't worry, nothing I can't fix; keep quiet a minute." Forcing herself upwards, uncaring as hot stone scraped her bare skin the pyromancer pushed herself free to her waist just as their attacker did a strange thing; with a single motion he pushed his hand somehow through the air, a shimmering split opening that he peered into,

"Hmm, can't be far... aha, gotcha!" As she pulled herself fully loose Chandra forced herself calm; though she'd love nothing more than to reduce this demon to blackened bones she couldn't do it yet, not when he had one arm pushed through the scrying portal he'd created and Jace at his mercy, "come here ya slippery... Oi, no; drop the planeswalker," the boy suddenly became stern, talking as though to a disobedient puppy, "drop him... drop! Good," with a blur the portal was closed and Chandra blinked hard; there was another Jace, pale blue and ethereal, dangling by his ankle from the boy's right hand as motionless as the flesh and blood one,

"Hmm, wrong end," he tossed the ghost into the air, catching it again by the collar on the way down and bringing his free hand up, "if-you-let-your-mind-wander-off-again-I-won't-bring-it-back-next-time!" Each word arrived with a slap to the Ravnican's phantom face and despite herself Chandra snickered; she'd wanted to do that for a long time. Ending his tirade the house-breaker suddenly stooped, slamming the ghost back into the torpid body and Jace convulsed, gasping as Chandra rushed to his side, the boy stepping away from them both,

"Jace, Jace talk to me!"

"The river..."

"River? What river?"

"The river, it flows backwards," he babbled, eyes wide and unfocussed, "back to the beginning where string's only as long as you cut it. I walked into Mordor, I know why there's no spoon and I found the droids I was looking for; Cthulu fhtagn, buggrit, millennium hand and shri..."

There were many types of magic that could heal a broken mind; the soothing waters of the islands could wash away trauma, the invigorating life of the forests could regrow the damage or the lancing strength of the plains would sear away the pain like light banishing darkness,

"Snap out of it!" Unfortunately the closest thing Jace had to first aid adhered to a different school of medicine; on the one hand it was effective, on the other it left a huge red mark on one cheek and his eyeballs spinning in different directions,

"Ooowwww," he moaned, trying to will the agony away, "what happened?"

"You went where you weren't wanted," the voice made him roll over and try to conjure a few scraps of mana in paltry defence, "don't try, it won't work. Listen, just for a change let's all act like adults; get yourselves sorted out and we'll all sit down and talk like rational people, and Kami that's weird coming from me." The two planeswalkers shared a look before silently agreeing, neither of them was in a fit state to duel and whoever this person was if he wanted them dead he'd had chance to do it. Chandra pulled her reluctant partner to his feet, Jace leaning on the wall as Ravnica span, trying to logically order his traumatised mind as he recanted basic mental exercises with his eyes closed, listening to the ongoing conversation,

"Hey, how'd you do that?"

"Do what?"

"This place should still be smoking, how'd you fix the damage?"

"Was there ever any damage; I'm a prankster not an arsonist, that's your field. What I actually did is a long and boring story, the short version is I absorbed your fireball and cast a minor genjutsu on both of you making you think it had sent me to a lamentably early grave, giving me the chance to set up the trap that had you spilling your guts."

"Watch it," Jace smiled; despite all that had happened and might still happen yet seeing the pyromaster humbled almost made up for it, "I still owe you for that, and what's a gen-jutsu?"

"Illusion, of sorts – you with us now?" Opening his eyes and grateful nothing appeared to be moving Jace turned and nodded,

"I believe so."

"Good, you better get more seats; I'm sure you've got questions."

XXX

Considering their introduction it was surprisingly civilised, the boy even let Jace have his favourite chair back, saying he preferred to stand and Chandra, one shoe still missing, was content with a footstool, at eye-level with the child even seated; such a runt, how did he beat the two of us?;

"Before we get started on why I'm here, introductions; my name is Naruto," the boy said, looking between the two of them as they swapped a glance and, in Jace's case, slightly more,

"Kamigawa maybe?"

"You..." she just caught she'd spoken aloud in time to swerve the question to Naruto, keeping the mind-mages' telepathy secret, ."..'re definitely human? I've met a few shape shifters in my time."

"Uh, kind of," Naruto made a waving motion with his hand, shrugging apologetically as she quirked an eyebrow, "unfortunately that's going to be a running theme with my answers here, it's complicated."

"Oh dear, Nalaar is doomed," Jace cut in only to be cut down in turn,

"I'm sorry whose dirty laundry did my trap just air? Be grateful I left you your underpants and her name's Chandra."

"I know her name," he also mentally cursed it as he saw her shaking shoulders from the corner of his eye, "and now I know yours. What I don't know is why you're in my house and why you attacked us."

"Like I said your security sucks and don't look too smug Chandra-san; you walked straight past me earlier and I'm wearing bright orange."

"Thought you were a fire," she mumbled before going back on the front foot, "still, what he said, why are you here and who sent you?"

"Not who exactly, what and I'm here because I wanted to meet the two of you; I thought I'd have a little longer before anyone found me but you caught on a lot faster than I'd intended."

"Do you have any idea what he's talking about?" Not trusting soundless speech Chandra shook her head minutely before asking,

"Found you where; I said I don't know you and I was telling the truth, I've never seen you before."

"No? Just off Zendikar, ring any bells?"

"Illustria!"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Illustria; my, or that plane; how do you know about it?"

"Illustria," he said again, rolling the world around in his mouth like a sweet, "that's a nice name. Still, I will answer but," his raised hand forestalled further questions, "before I do I must tell you a story, a long one, and I'd rather do that while we 'walk."

"So you are a planeswalker like we are?" Fishing, Jace was interested to see the boy smile at his query, though the answer only deepened his intrigue,

"Yes and no; I am a planeswalker of sorts but not like yourself or your good lady there," the Ravnican cringed, not daring to look at how well Chandra had taken that insinuation; though I can't smell anything burning – yet; "anyway time's getting on and I don't like running late – had enough of that before in the past," a faint flicker rippled across his eyes but was gone before either Jace or Chandra could decipher it. Stepping away from the wall Naruto turned his back to them and moved, then both the other planeswalkers were scrambling back aghast at the swirling nexus that had engulfed the far wall,

"What is it?"

"I'm not going in there, I've seen what it did to him and it wasn't pretty!"

"Neither are you; it's a perfect match," Naruto riposted sardonically, Chandra gaping at his cheek before he went on, "you will be perfectly safe, you 'walk here all the time." Jace grasped the significance was what he was seeing slightly the faster,

"That's the Blind Eternities – impossible..."

"It is and it is not; now would you mind stepping through, time is precious after all."

"Just a minute," Chandra demanded, limping towards the foot of the stairs, looking at the carpet like it had insulted her, "alright, spit it out!" Seeing her plan Jace likewise excused himself, his cantrip for sponging up the spilt water masking his other mana use as the floor shifted, heaved and belched up the pyromancers' boot,

"Do we trust him?"

"No bloody chance," he suppressed a wince; Chandra had no inside-voice, "we go with him though, I don't think he'll take no for an answer and he's already beaten us once."

"With surprise and trickery."

"And that's supposed to be your forte," she clipped her footwear back on, triumph in her eyes and crowing in her mental voice, "he made you look an amateur Beleren, you're slipping."

"Like you did down my stairs and into his clutches," he retaliated, a sardonic smirk gracing his lips as he sublimed the water into the air, "ticklish?" Her glare was venom incarnate but more worrying was the smile a second later, almost sickening in its sweetness,

"Absent-minded?"; ouch; Jace cut off the mental connection and faced the stranger in his home again, subtly gathering mana should he needed it,

"Sorry for the wait Naruto, we are ready." He didn't turn around,

"Good, step through when I do," not a second later the three were gone, the only hint they had ever been the faint whisper that echoed before it too was lost,

"'Walk with me."

XXX

The Blind Eternities were so called because precious few who could traverse them ever did with their eyes open and none ever did so twice. The space between planes was turbulent and traumatic, several 'walkers had died in their cloying embrace; the first and most fundamental rule every planeswalker learnt upon ascension was that 'walking should be done quickly, over short distances and as little as possible.

As Jace had already begun to suspect however, the normal rules didn't seem to apply to Naruto.

They had stepped through the portal into serenity; the Eternities were chaos no longer but rather a white mist, held back by an invisible bubble Naruto seemed to control, though how he did so the mind-mage had no idea. Within this sphere all was calm, the tumult held at bay until Chandra got bored with the view,

"I thought there'd be a bit more happening."

"Why so?"

"Don't be an idiot Jace, you know how painful it is to 'walk," she snapped, "all that cold and buffeting, it should be like a rock-slide or a huge crowd, not this mist."

"Unless there's something hiding in it," he countered, turning his attention to the back of a head of a blonde hair, "is there, just out of interest?"

"No, in here what you see is what you get; whether you can understand what you see is a different question," Naruto said without turning around, though before either planewalker could do more than share a puzzled glance he went on, "anyway, I promised you a story and the meat of what's going on so let's get into it, though, unlike most stories this one starts at an end."

"An end – what, you're telling it backwards?"

"No, literally it began with an end, the end actually," the short figure went on, guiding their bubble through the mist with tiny waves of his hands, eyes firmly forwards, "the end of everything that had been. Don't ask me what it was or what caused it, all I know is that when the end ended nothing was as it had been before the end." Chandra groaned,

"My head hurts already," she complained, massaging her temples, "the end of the end happened?"

"Good, you're keeping up," Naruto said encouragingly before going on, "and the main change of the end was that something, or actually a lot of somethings had been violently dislocated; they had been in one place, now they were in another. And I'm not talking just a few somethings either, I'm talking huge, beyond counting amounts, all crushed and mashed and mangled together far from home and reduced to the most basic form now in the Multiverse."

"Mana," Jace answered the unspoken question, "someone created a large reserve of it?"

"That's one way of putting it, but here's the strange thing; he, she, it or whatever event it was that heralded the end created too much of it, far too much. Tell me Jace-san, what happens when you have a critical mass, too much of something?"

"It burns, if it's mana," Chandra interrupted, recalling a few past mishaps with a wince, "try and hold too much it'll break free and you don't want to be anywhere near it when it does." Unseen, the youngest planeswalker smirked; you don't know how right you are, on both counts;

"It does but that's not quite what I was looking for – think of insects, or even people; what happens if their colony grows so large they dominate their environment, use up all their resources, what do they do?"

"They adapt," the answer was obvious, too obvious; though maybe that's me being paranoid, for good reason; "they move on, evolve or cannibalise themselves."

"They do and our unfortunate font of mana, or at least mostly mana, there were other bits thrown in there as well when the end came, found itself in the same boat, trapped and away from its origins. Over time though, the inevitable came to be; the mana evolved."

"Into what?" Chandra's curiosity burned like her fire did,

"Into nothing; it evolved a mind, no, apologies, mind would be too grand a word for it; perhaps consciousness would be better. Yes, that will do, a consciousness slowly came into being amid this sea of mana, a very vague intelligence bent on one task; to undo the end and return to where it had come from."

"Mana that can think? How can that work?"

"And where is it; I mean," Chandra explained as both glanced at her, "mana's bound to things and planes, we summon it to use spells. A huge amount of unbound mana, someone would have sensed it."

"Indeed," Jace surprisingly backed up the red mage, facing Naruto's back as he guided their bubble of calm, "I sensed a plane of black mana close to Ravnica. If the amount of mana, or mostly mana, you're describing is free, where did it go to remain hidden?"

"It's not hidden, it never was; we're standing in it."

"What?" Chandra's voice was flat, Jace at her side already glancing into the mist as though expecting them to swarm forth in a devouring tide,

"The Blind Eternities were created by the end," Naruto said, as though re-writing the history of the Multiverse was little different from commenting on the weather, "it had always been of course, the space between, but the end engorged it. It grew far, far too large and nothing was as it had been before; time has little meaning here but even so the first conscious understandings took eons to form and eons longer to coalesce, be given purpose and then bend to their task."

"Their task was to undo the end?" Jace said carefully, not taking his eyes from the back of Naruto's head, "But wouldn't that have destroyed these... thoughts?"

"Restored, not destroyed; it's very complicated but regardless the Blind Eternities eventually came to a decision about what to do to get things back to how they used to be. However in the time it had taken to reach those decisions other effects of the end had become apparent already, much to the dismay of your predecessors I'm sure."

"Predecessors? Other planeswalkers you mean?"

"Older ones yes, those who wandered lost and were claimed by the mists," the childs' voice was solemn at Chandras' question, "all the Eternities remembers what was and all would see existence restored to how it used to be. In those who bore sparks they saw those who could help them but," he shook his head, "mortals can't persist here. This place is anathema to even the most powerful planeswalkers and many were lost, drowned in the need of the Blind Eternities." Chandra snapped her fingers,

"So that's why 'walking's so hard; this place is haunted," she declared, "the, what, the ghosts tried to keep us here until we died?"

"Not out of malice I assure you, and there are no ghosts exactly Chandra-san; imagine the Eternities is a single organism, one gigantic being we are moving through. The longer you're within it the more likely it is to sense you, recognise you and react; sometimes it takes a long time, others not so much; it's mostly down to luck and, loathe as I am to say it, fate in a sense."

"Ick, digested by a big ghosts' belly," the pyromaster grimaced, "give me death by fire any day."

"With pleasure, I'll get a match."

"You'd only try once," Chandra's glower met Jaces' amusement, neither budging an inch until the third member of their party cleared his throat,

"Play nicely children," both rounded on him before looking away, though they paid attention as he continued his story, "so, the Blind Eternities was created and the first planeswalkers were granted their abilities to traverse it while it dreamed. But none can dream forever; for a long time the merest and most basic thoughts collided within this sea of mist, lesser ideas falling and being cannibalised by their betters until at last the greatest stood alone, willed into being the majority of the Eternities itself. Each was a pinnacle, the true idea if you will, of how this disparate mass would undo the end and restore what was lost; in the beginning there were four."

"Four?"

"Four," Naruto confirmed, "as I'm sure Jace-san would agree, sometimes there's too much on your mind for just one idea to solve a problem. So they began their task with their own methods and all, it must be said, with a distinct lack of success. Not entirely their fault, they were effectively ideas from a very simple mind, unfashioned, crude and driven by a single purpose, but given their coming preceded calamity, devastation on a scale unseen in the Multiverse until they were curtailed, and it's for the best they were. The methods they used were too crude and destructive; it would have been the Multiverses' ruin for them to go unchecked. However the rest of the Blind Eternities became aware of the fours' absence, though the fourth was lost to avarice rather than fear, and realised none of them had shown the desired result."

"Back to the drawing board then?"

"Exactly"; I'm beginning to hate that spell; for the third time in quick succession Jace was forced to endure the small firecrackers and gloating words of his companions' success before Naruto's voice hushed them, "the Eternities had evolved even over this time, better able to think and rationalise and with these better instincts realised a different approach, far more subtle than the first four, was created, a scalpel rather than a hammer. So a fifth idea was spawned and tore its way from the hidden into the real Multiverse, this time with a much different method to its brothers. Weaker than them all by far it arrived on a nameless plane as a simple seed." Jace didn't need telepathy to realised Chandra was as disbelieving as he was,

"A seed; it was planted there?"

"Yes; well it planted and artificially grew itself but in the end there was a giant tree in the middle of my world so close enough," Naruto explained, recalling what the being who had once been part of that great idea had told him within the mists, "the tree bound itself to the mana of the plane and grew within it. By doing this it became something more than just an idea; it became a tangible thing, something that interacted in and with the world around it and, like all children, by doing this it learned."

"That makes sense," Jace agreed, though his eyes never dropped from the back of his guides' head, "and you discovered this... idea?" Naruto chuckled,

"No, it was a legend long before my grandparents were a sparkle in their parents' eyes. It was called the Shinju and the legends said one who could ascend it would become a god, hence its other name of the God-tree. The plane it was on, however, was a fractious place, its people warlike and dangerous, and all human oddly enough. There was war for a long time before someone seeking peace did the impossible and climbed the Shinju, claiming the legendary treasure atop it, the power of a god."

"But," Chandra thought for a second, "if the tree was an idea from this place how could it...wait, did it give her a spark?"

"Would that it could, it would have made everything a lot easier but it had learnt from earlier mistakes. No, what it had done over its long lifetime rooted into the ground was merge itself, the need of the Blind Eternities, with the planar mana. This blending of idea and reality would, in theory, allow the one who accepted it to both know and have the power to begin undoing the end of everything, theory being the operative word."

"What's a theory?"

"A scientific guess that can be tested by experimentation, the Izzet are famed for them," Jace supplied before a devil made him add, "for example, I have a theory one out of us three is somewhat lost by this conversation."

"Oh yeah," the pyromaster cracked her knuckles, "well I have a theory that I'll make you swallow that theory along with your teeth if you carry on!"

"That would be a certainty Nalaar, not a theory," only his supreme poker-face kept Chandra from swinging, neither of them able to see their host smirk slightly as he took their situation and related it to another he was familiar with; hmm, can't see either of them in green spandex though – well, maybe Chandra-san... dammit Ero-sennin, your corruption lingers!; "though, I imagine this Shinju's theory didn't end so well."

"As you'd expect, not first time; I don't know the full story but what I do know is its treasure was actually a fruit and it did what it said on the tin. The one who ate it gained powers akin to a god and was able to quell all the fighting on the plane, becoming worshipped as the Rabbit Goddess – however it wasn't quite right, and the Shinju knew it, for two reasons. First the power it had was still stuck on the plane but also its power was too much for a single being to fully comprehend and control. Its first host went somewhat mad, becoming a despot and refusing to give back the power she'd taken; when this happened it took matters into its own hands, er tentacles." Chandra shuddered,

"Sounds like something a black mage would have."

"Having never met one I wouldn't know," Naruto admitted, not entirely truthfully, "but anyway the Shinju awoke after realising its power was being abused; however by this time the one who'd eaten its fruit, a princess called Kaguya, had had two children who inherited her powers and, realising she was going slightly nuts, had taken her down to save the plane. After that, driven by visions and thoughts they could not truly comprehend as they weren't bound to the tree as their mother had been, they went around unlocking within others the power their mother had granted to them."

"Mana," Jace said unexpectedly, deducing the answer from the evidence he thus far had, "the Blind Eternities are a reservoir of it and the Shinju was part of them, so it stands to reason that was their power."

"And it was; my world was changed by the one they called the Sage of Six Paths, one of Kaguya's sons who created ninshuu, abilities unlocked with spiritual energy, mana, blended with physical energy to create the jutsu ninja on my plane use."

"Kamigawa then?"

"Never been but heard rumours, though they're just normal skilled thieves aren't they?" Without waiting for an answer Chandra pressed on,

"So your sage, he taught all humans on your world spells, of a sort?"

"Definitely of a sort, though like everything we've evolved them since he died. Anyway, this is the important bit; the Shinju tree set out to retrieve its lost power while the Sage was still alive and, thinking it was a monster, he set out to take it on. In the end he couldn't beat it so did something different; he sealed the Shinju's spirit within himself, binding the mana of the idea while leaving its physical shell more or less untouched and that, right there, was when he figured this whole mess out. He came face to face with a, well he considered it a god, and the two were able to communicate..."

"How come he didn't go as mad as his mother?" Idly wondering how much of a pain in the ass his interruptions must have been to his teachers, Naruto explained the pyromancers' interruption calmly,

"He'd already been exposed to the Shinju's power from his mothers' blood and likely had an inkling of its true nature; I can't prove it of course but that's what makes sense to me. Face to face with it in his own mind was likely a different bag of kunai but, from that, a real way forwards was finally seen; the Shinju was still just an idea, one more subtle than anything the Blind Eternities had coalesced yet it was still very crude and completely alien to virtually anything outside there. The Sage, however, was a man and as a man he could hone the Shinju, whittle the God-tree into what it needed to be. Because of that he travelled the plane, learning all there was to know until, on his death-bed, he split the Shinju into nine equal pieces and hid its physical shell on our moon. While mobile the Shinju had taken the form of a great beast with ten tails; what the Sage created were the bijuu, the tailed beasts, each one a fragment of the idea merged with mortal sentience."

"Smaller pieces, and each granted, understanding?"

"Emotion," Naruto corrected Jaces' hypothesis, "the sage gave these children of the Shinju the power to communicate with mortals, albeit at a rather crude level. Together with the power of his ninshuu he had discovered the ultimate way of seeing the Shinju's idea realised; the humans he'd allowed to use mana would evolve his teachings into many things, primarily war, but regardless one of the main offshoots was what we called fuuinjutsu, the sealing arts. These were methods by which the bijuu could be sealed, though of course they didn't make it easy for those who wanted to restrain them." That doesn't make sense;

"How would that help?" Chandra queried, honestly confused rather than frustrated, "If they were sealed how could they teach people about this idea they were part of?"

"Because of what they were sealed into; remember Chandra-san despite being just parts of the Shinju these nine bijuu were still massively powerful beings of pure mana, immortal and indestructible. To cage them, especially the ones with more tails, required they be sealed into beings that could already use mana – anything else would likely shatter from their power."

"They sealed the bijuu into people?"

"Children Jace-san; don't look so shocked, I've seen what your guilds consider initiation rites," that quickly knocked the horrified look off the Ravnican's face, "this created jinchuuriki, powers of human sacrifice and did three things. First and most important it meant the bijuu couldn't rampage across the land unopposed as some of them liked to, second it meant the village that did so had a living chakra; that's what we call mana where I'm from; battery in their ninja ranks and, unknown to everyone else, gave a chance that the dream of the Eternities might be finally realised."

"Are you going to make me ask?" Naruto sighed,

"You have no appreciation of the fine art of dramatic pausing," he said reproachfully, Chandra not looking at all guilty as he went on, "the idea was that the Eternities alone couldn't undo the damage, so they'd need help from beyond the veil. They needed a mortal to work through, they needed a planeswalker."

"But staying here would ki... wait," Jace's own thoughts were disturbed as he saw Chandra take a step back, face paling as one trembling finger pointed at his back, ."..you?"

"Yes, I was a jinchuuriki," Naruto confirmed, at last glancing over his shoulder with a slightly sad but whimsical smile, "and when my spark ignited it merged with the bijuu I contained, ripped off the emotions the Sage had given it and made it remember what it truly was. I was dragged into the Eternities and learned of what had happened and my role in undoing it. Because of that I've got one foot in here, one foot out there and I'm working on putting to rights whatever started this whole ball rolling and made the Eternities as we know them." Jace and Chandra glanced at each other and this time didn't need telepathy to tell what the other was thinking,

"So," the pyromancer said carefully a few seconds later, trying to sound casual, "what, ah, what do you have to do?"

"Not much, a few alterations here and there, add a bit, take a bit and eventually end the Multiverse; ah, speaking of which, we're here."

Just as the veil of reality parted and they were propelled through, the two planeswalkers' last sights were of each others' paling faces as the message behind his words coldly and horribly sank in.

XXX

The blackness was so complete Jace only realised he wasn't dead when he blinked; orientating himself by the searing orange of his guides' attire, he wetted his lips enough to speak while trying to conjure a few scarps of mana,

"Uh, forgive me Naruto... what?" The insistent pawing at his arm made him break off only to see his companion transfixed; following her eyes he looked past the diminutive planeswalker in front of him and was likewise enraptured. Not everything was black, he'd just been looking between his feet; before Naruto, who still had his back to them, was the most dazzling, dizzying and beautiful thing he had ever seen through his or anyone elses' eyes.

Across a canvas of midnight was drawn a sky of purple, blue and golden yellow, the streamers and strands of colour twisting and plaiting together as though alive. Here and there, suspended like raindrops, shone tiny jewels so white it hurt to look at them, the whole thing rendered both majestic and eerie by the absence of all else. There was no noise to accompany this ethereal beauty, no way to reach out and touch it; only with the eyes could one glut themselves on such unearthly magnificence. Swallowing hard and blinking to stop his vision breaking, Jace mastered himself enough to ask,

"What is it?"

"A big cloud of dust, gas and radiation drawn together by gravity and a little help from me," Naruto said clinically, heeding a tiny explosion in the back of his mind and counting down, "it's called a nebula."

"Nebula," Chandra parroted the word entranced, not taking her eyes from the stunning cosmic parade, "it's beautiful; you made this?"

"Thank you and kind of; I provided the raw materials and the rest, well," Naruto swept a hand out towards the past, "it kind of goes from there once you've kick-started it. It's a cradle, no, actually birthplace fits better – well, it was." The woman glanced at him askew,

"Was?"

"Yeah, technically what you're looking at no longer exists. Forgive me a second of grandeur, I love this bit," he brought forth one hand, the fingers on it primed and ready,

"And there was," he snapped them, "light!"

There was, so bright and all-encompassing the only reason none of them went immediately blind was because Naruto had strengthened the shield around them all, blocking out all but the merest fraction of the light and all of the more harmful emissions from the new globe of fire his clones had helped birth. Still, that was the easy bit, now after they put the rocks together I get the hard part;

"Turn it down," someone behind him shouted and, eager to oblige and feeling mischievous, he did the next best thing,

"Sorry, should have warned you."

"You should," Jace agreed, grateful for the sudden shade, "still, all is forgiven if you wo..."

The rest of his words withered to nothing as he looked ahead and saw exactly what had blocked out the light, a fiery oath to the side of him letting him know Chandra had done the same. Hurtling towards them was darkness incarnate, a chunk of earth so massive it dwarfed them all and was still expanding; lost in its shadow he reached hastily for his stored mana; no chance of a shield it's, it's titanic! I have to incorporeate but, if I do...; he wasn't sure why he glanced at the others but in doing so and blocking out Chandra's frantic swearing, he just noticed Naruto raise one arm and intone two words in a language he'd never heard before. Something huge and invisible rippled from his outstretched hand and raced towards their onrushing doom; force met force and all was still, the gargantuan stone now spinning gently, no longer threatening to splatter them. The mind-mage caught his breath just in time to see other such monoliths, twins and greater than the one Naruto had stopped, whizzing overhead and all around them, their sheer scale driving even his prodigious talent to vulgarity,

"What the hell is going on?"

"What have you done you lunatic?!"

"First I can't be a lunatic, there's no moon yet and second this is what you wanted to know, both of you," finally the shortest present looked over his shoulder and both his guests recoiled; the eyes that regarded them weren't those of a child, they weren't even human, "Chandra Nalaar, Jace Beleren," ripples that had once been pupils span, his grin stretching beyond sanity as the two planeswalkers readied themselves, "this is where the magic happens!"

He looked forwards and they realised they were moving only when the rock that had threatened oblivion was behind them, Naruto whipping a hand behind him and whispering the two words again to send it flying on its way. There was no wind, no noise, nothing for them to judge how fast the mad planeswalker was pulling them towards the globe of fire somewhere in the distance,

"Jace," he looked across at the shout, unable to really move as he was suspended by the strange magic, "still alive?"

"I think so, unless we're both already dead."

"Don't even joke," the red mage demanded, trying a few sculling strokes before a lick of flame whipped from her far hand, propelling her as he reached out. Her skin was warm in his palm and he gripped tight, seeing his fear echoed in her face,

"Stick close," she breathed and Jace almost laughed; what could either of them do? Naruto had bested them both on Ravnica with trickery, in the Blind Eternities with mystery and now, wherever this was, with inhuman power and magic beyond anything he'd seen. But she's right; he would swallow his gall and admit that now, Chandra gripping his shoulder as he had her forearm, both of them equally wondering, fearing and doubting what Naruto's plans truly were and what part he would have them play.

The space around them was empty and vast, there was no up or down as they were dragged along in Naruto's slipstream. If he lets us go we'll float here forever, at least until we die of thirst; the thought was only marginally less comforting than doing nothing until the madman leading them finally acted but, the lesser of two evils, Jace bit his tongue and looked down and away from the burning light ahead until Chandra bellowed in his ear,

"Look, ahead," wincing as his hearing rang the Ravnican did, seeing the small patch of blackness ahead, "another rock?"

"Yes, but it's not moving," it was also oddly shaped compared the irregular lump Naruto had stopped earlier; from what he could see as it bit into the outline of the distant fireball, this one was roughly spherical, "I'm almost sure that's where we're going."

"You genius," somehow he was grateful that, even as the Multiverse fell to pieces, he could count on the red mages' sarcasm, "can you tell what it is?"

"Not from here; stay alert and try to sense a way out of here," his spark hadn't latched on to any plane within 'walking distance but she might have better luck, "we have to run if we get the chance, I've no mana for a fight."

"I've no mana for anything; this place is a void," the spitfire agreed, eyes glued forwards as the orb before them swelled in their vision, "how big is this gods-damned thing?"

"Huge," given a minute and a flicker of blue he'd have been a lot more precise but Naruto didn't give him that long; the entire rock, definitely a rough sphere, stretched out below and before them, the distant blazing light whole above them as they suddenly came to halt above it,

"Brace yourselves," Naruto called and despite himself Jace clutched the pyromancers' arm tighter, only adrenaline stopping him wincing as she did the same and her nails dug in, "it might get bumpy."

That was all the warning they had before they dropped, the featureless rocks below them gaining in sudden and terrible clarity as they free-fell though, sensing around him with a flicker of mana, Jace was able to prevent his companion making a mistake,

"No," luckily his voice broke her concentration before he was forced to expend his meagre reserves, "we're safe."

"How the hell...?"

"There's mana all around us," though it cost him a quarter of what he had left he let the power of water flow around them, suffusing the nothingness behind Naruto aquamarine as it highlighted the invisible colourless mana trailing in his wake, "it's stopping us falling."

"How did you, in fact forget it," the azure glow faded into her, Jace's power rebuffed as she slowly absorbed some of the shapeless mana into herself, "get what you can, we might need it." He nodded and focussed, forcing his mind calm and allowing the shapeless to flow into him. It was directionless and diffused the strength he'd taken from Ravnica but it was powerful and, should the worst happen, he could only hope it would be enough.

Logic, however, told him that should this end badly, hope was likely a fools' errand.

XXX

The end, when it came, was much softer than either of them had feared; Naruto had dragged them the whole way with his invisible colourless mana and preceded their plunge towards his unknown destination. From what they could see of it beneath the cruel glare of the furiously harsh white fire now above them it was an empty wasteland of jagged rocks and naught else, then Naruto suddenly stopped about twenty or thirty feet in the air, even having the gall to wave as they plunged past. Still absorbing the latent colourless mana around them the two planeswalkers had little time to react but mercifully the landing was soft, the residual navy of Jace's illumination spell suddenly condensing under them, acting as a cushion before dispersing. Despite this Jace still stumbled only for a firm grip to haul him upright just as a massive mana flare went off overhead and then vanished,

"Up," Chandra's voice was strangely calm, "get ready."

"Ready for..." she wasn't looking at him, she was looking above with her face expressionless and, as soon as he turned around, he realised why, ."..oh."

As a natural telepath Jace had always had an instinctive grasp of the psyche, one that the ignition of his spark and subsequent training had only improved. Because of that training the rational part of his training carried on working like a well-oiled machine even as his instinct shrivelled in horror; the mana flare never died. Like all beings humans had tolerances for what they could comprehend and Jace knew what he was seeing was so far beyond what he'd thought possible he could no longer understand it, rationalise it or even try to trick or fight or run from it – all he knew was that unlike the madman from Zendikar this time his and Chandras' fates were solely in the hands of the planeswalker who had led them here.

Naruto, or at least the thing that had been Naruto, was radiant with mana beyond anything Jace had felt before. Colourless, it leaked from another gash into the Blind Eternities, connected to its wielder like a strange umbilical cord and inundating him with more raw mana than the Ravnican had even dreamed a mortal frame could contain. He could no longer see the other planeswalker, just a single, shimmering slash against the blackness above them as his body glowed from the power within; suddenly the slash widened, Jace caught by surprise as the colossal bolt suddenly streaked towards the ground. That much; a strange calmness settled over him as he calculated his odds of survival; none. Emboldened by the certainty of death he had enough time to glance over and offer a last smile and shrug to his companion even as she looked away, eyes shut and fists clenched, both awaiting the inevitable that came a split-second later...

...and then it went.

How strange; the mana was too bright to look at directly but he could see it passing straight through the rocks, coring into the earth like a needle; what is he planning? That much mana, will he blow this place apart? He didn't dwell long on the question, instead glancing over his shoulder as he heard a sigh from behind him,

"You're here so I'm either in hell or still alive," Chandra stated, scowling as she saw both Jace and the pillar of power behind him, "are we dead Beleren?"

"If we are it's your hell; there's no fire about," he pointed out but the pyromancer didn't seem to hear him; instead she squatted, one hand touching the scattered rocks beneath her boots. She must have felt something in the stone, something that made her look up at the Ravnican as though seeing through him,

"Jace," he licked dry lips as she pulled her goggles down; that never bodes well; "jump!"

He'd been ready the second the crimson glass had replaced her eyes, a mix of experience and gut instinct trusting her enough to obey, a spark of blue mana propelling him towards the black sky. With a roar and bright glare Chandra was onto him, wings of dragonfire blossoming from her back and sweeping her aloft as she caught the mind-mage by his shoulders, carrying him as a hawk would a mouse. It was hardly comfortable and even less dignifying but as a shimmering blue disc solidified under his feet Jace was able to ease the burden on the pair of them,

"What's going on?"

"My arms just stretched a foot; you're heavier than you look." Silently praying for patience he tried again,

"I meant below."

"It's fire Jace," Chandra's wings were beating softly, letting her look down, "I don't know how but that's red mana."

"Red? That's impossible; if it were that hot," a glance at the continuous lance had him blinking spots out of his eyes, "we should be ashes by now."

"I know but we're not, let's be grateful for that, look," he followed her nod and his breath caught in his throat; where they had recently stood was being slowly sublimed to molten redness, the stone turning to magma under the touch of mana that potent, "and it's going down, like he's trying to melt it all."

"Why? If he wanted us dead..." He was cut off by another sound, a low, slow rumble that swiftly grew until both had to cover their ears, Jaces' disc now solid enough to bear his weight. Blocking out as much of the hateful noise as they could the planeswalkers glanced around to see the effect of whatever spell the madman was calling down; they didn't have to wait long as a pulse of purest green passing down the pillar of white fire and into the softened rock. It vanished for a heartbeat, then another before with a noise like the end of the world the ground off to their left as far as they could see shattered and collapsed.

Nothing before or after his spark had ignited had left Jace Beleren as humbled as he felt at that moment; had Naruto done the same upon Ravnica he doubted anything would have been left. Only the basic need to preserve his hearing stopped his arms dropping as his jaw did, mocking words echoing in his ears as he stared at the devastation; we willed our desires upon the worlds, and the worlds obeyed – is this what you meant Bolas? Is this the power the older ones had when the spark burned brightest? The thought was chilling but displaced mercifully quickly, further rumbling and explosions from all around telling him the all-but-omnipotent being behind them wasn't done. Countless green pulses were sent into the now-molten ground, each one greeting with tectonic shifts as the land heaved, threatening to split apart entirely.

Suddenly there was a flash of red, Chandra's wings sweeping her over the destruction; he thought of going after her but as she banked back thought better of it, instead mentally erecting a sphere around him to block out most of the noise. This done, he was able to use his hands to push it outwards, its surface extending and engulfing the red-aligned planeswalker who arrowed back towards him,

"Jace, Jace," her shout echoed within his dampening sphere as he frantically signalled her to take her hands off her ears, "huh, oh, neat trick." He nodded at her praise before turning more serious,

"How bad is it?" She shook her head, wings beating lazily and sending embers spiralling,

"I've heard of geomancy and lithomancy but this isn't either; it's just, destruction," Jace saw his reflection in her goggles, as pensive and panicked as she was, "everything's broken like a dragon in a mud-hut village. I can't even see how far it's gone; can you...?"

"No; I have terrible trouble reading your mind when it's aflame, trying to link to his would likely kill me," Jace admitted, goading his disc closer to the hovering pyromancer, "all I know is he's not trying to kill us, if he was we'd be dead long before now."

"So why are we here?" Chandra's wings shrank a little as he approached – she might not have liked the Ravnican but right now he was another survivor and the best company she had, "Is he just gloating, no," her throat bobbed as she swallowed, "he's destroying; this is it Jace, he's going to unmake the plane and us with it, he must have done the same thing with Illustria."

"So why keep us alive?"

"How the hell do I know – sparks maybe, he wouldn't be the first who'd killed for that."

"He hasn't killed us and gods know he could have. There's something else going on, something we haven't seen," he was more grateful than he let on when she nodded; two people believing in his theory gave him a lot more confidence than going solo, "be ready for absolutely anything." Despite herself she snorted, folding her arms in mid-air,

"Sorry, who was it got us off the ground in the first place?" She's got me there; swallowing the prang Jace merely nodded, coming to her side to better see the violent beacon of pure mana who seemed bent on tearing the world around them apart.

XXX

Eventually even terror gives way to boredom.

Encased within Jace's defensive spell the two planeswalkers were cocooned from the worst of the tumult outside, watching on as an incredible amount of mana was poured into the rocks below, the pure white-hot red interspersed with pulses of green that made the earth judder. Watching on and counted ten under her breath, Chandra sighed as it seemed the process showed no signs of slowing down,

"Channelling that much mana, he should be a crisp by now," she declared, shifting her shoulders as her wings continued to beat slowly, "I've never heard of any planeswalker doing this, or any artefact either."

"And I've heard only legends," Jace added, repositioning himself to avoid being scorched by her fiery pinions, "you have enough mana to hold yourself up?" Chandra chuckled,

"It was soaking through the rock I touched; I could stay here forever if I had to."

"After just a few seconds contact? That shouldn't be possible but, wait, no it makes perfect sense; I have it!"

"If your next word is eureka I will punch you," Chandra's warning was only half-serious as she leant in, "what?"

"Remember Illustria, and the plane after, the mana there was so easy to touch; this is why, Naruto is the reason Chandra," she'd never seen the mind-mage this excited before, it was quite funny, "he knew about the planes we travelled to because they're his, he gave them mana like he's doing here."

"Gave them mana? But how would he get there, how did he know where Illustria was, it's..." she wanted to say impossible but she'd seen impossible too often today for it to have any meaning so quickly changed her track, .".. and anyway the only thing he's making here is a mess. Look at this place," now more than ever the ground beneath them was a wasteland, dribbles of lava oozing from the hole bored through the rock, "and it wasn't much to look at before. Now what?"

"No idea, we'll have to wait and see." Chandra shot him a quizzical look, light flashing off her goggles before she seemed to realise something and pointed forwards,

"Not for long, it's stopped."

Jace paused a second before realising the pyromancer was right; even through his partially sound-proofed sphere they'd been subject to continuous, uninterrupted Armageddon all around them – now all was eerily silent. The child, still suspended by his plait into the Eternities, was still, no fire flying from his feet and Jace needed no further bidding, his eyes glowing as he willed the aether to bend through his pupils, glimpsing into the future. It was unwise to look too far for fear of second-guessing yourself, a trap he'd fallen into several times but, right now, his foresight left him certain of what to do. Caught unawares Chandra yelled as she was tackled from the side, a shock of icy blue mana dispersing her wings,

"Stay still," Jace demanded, holding tightly to stop her falling off the platform he willed downward, "we've got to drop; if you know any defensive spells at all now's the time"; seven seconds...;

"Let go!"

"Don't fall, we have to stay low," Jace warned before complying, taking a half-step away and quickly moving through complicated patterns in the air with his hands, all the time ticking off the count in his head. The shield around them grew denser, bolstered by his mana to become semi-opaque but it didn't block out the sight of what came next; above them the small figure twitched, no more than that, before with a whirling howl new destruction was unleashed upon this cursed earth.

The earth had stopped them seeing what his red mana had done but in the sky there was no such defence; twin hurricanes of blue and white, one before and one behind the dangling figure, tore through the nothingness, the umbilical into the Blind Eternities disgorging yet more mana through its wielder. The sphere became quickly smeared, lashed by a liquid neither planewalker spared much thought for; their minds were fixed solely on the symphony of obliteration above them,

"Have you ever summoned anything like this?"

"I wouldn't even try," his answer was as much a croak as her question, "if we hadn't moved we'd have been blown to pieces."

"And if we hadn't gone up we'd never have survived that long," it was her tone, thoughtful, quiet and much unlike the Chandra he was familiar with, that made the Ravnican look over in time to see her lift her eyewear, brow furrowed and deeply pensive, "red and blue Jace, if we didn't know the spells or mana that got us out of there we'd be dead now."

"Would we? No, I'm not arguing," he held up a hand as she scowled, "what I mean is fire that hot, white hot, it should have charred us to bones where we stood so why didn't it? And here," he pointed up to the twin twisters above them, each one disgorging a monsoons' fury with every fraction of a heartbeat, "it's almost directly away from us. It's like he was protecting us somehow, or at least aiming away."

"Good point, actually," she stepped toward the barrier, "can you let some of this through?"

"It could be poisonous."

"Just a drop," she persisted and, despite his misgivings, Jace carefully weakened a sliver of his ward, sealing it back up the instant a few sparkling drops landed on the back of the pyromancer's hand. He watched on eagle-eyed as the fire-maned woman carefully touched the tiny pool, then sniffed it and probed it with her tongue before finally letting it spill, breathing heavily. Jace stepped forwards, unsettled and unsure why she seemed so affected,

"Chandra what is it?"

"Water," she mumbled, "it's just water. Water, fire, earth," she pointed above them, "and air. I was wrong Jace; Illustria was never my plane."

"Don't say that," the Ravnican surprised himself with the brusqueness of his voice but as it made the firebrand flash him a sharp look he considered it worthwhile, "the only one of us who knows what's going on is the one making it happen. Until it ends we're just guessing, there's no point in that – we know Naruto doesn't want to kill us so when he's finished we'll ask him. He said he had a story to tell us; I'll wait for the denouement."

All was still for a moment between them, their bubble shield an oasis of calm in the turbulence around them until Chandra smiled, something that made Jace wince a second later as she swatted his shoulder,

"I'd agree if I knew what a denouement was; sounds like something dirty. Have you been reading gutter-trash novels again Beleren?"

"No I have not and a de..."

"Aha, I knew it," she cackled, "so you've read them before. Who'd have guessed, the stoic mind-mage has a trace of corruption in him; you don't tap the odd swamp now and then do you?"

"I can kick you out of this barrier Nalaar," the Ravnican threatened, eyes glowing again, "and the more you go on the better an idea that sounds." She merely grinned,

"For someone so level-headed you're easy to wind up; cool off Jace, your barrier's glowing."

"Yes, my barrier, something the 'always on the attack' pyromancer would be severely lost without," he cut in acidly, "and it's not glowing."

"It is, you've flared too much mana into it," Chandra argued, glancing at the now rain-lashed transparent shield only to find she was wrong, "holy pyres of every plane, look! The sky!"

"I see it," Jace agreed, as awestruck as his companion at the transformation above them; where before there had been naught but darkness a deep blue now glowed, a blue that was lightening by the second, "how is he doing this with mana alone?"

"No idea but it's not all he's doing; gods Jace the light," Chandra's finger tracked across to the brightest light in the sky, no longer stark white above them, "it's a bloody sun!"

The Ravnican sat down before he fell, even his brain unable to compute so much in so little time,

"This is madness," he said, half to himself, "even those who persisted past the Mending, who 'walked in planes made by other 'walkers; there's no records of this. It took years, decades to create the smallest of planes when 'walkers were as gods."

"He's no planeswalker, not as we know the word," Chandra sat next to him, gazing at the figure lost in the centre of the maelstrom with reverent awe, "so what is he?" Jace shook his head,

"I don't know Chandra."

"Bugger; so much for asking you then!"

The voice made both planeswalkers jump, Jace fastest to react as he put a finger to his temple, hardly daring to believe who he was hearing,

"Naruto?"

"Who else but?"

"How are you doing this?"

"A little trick called multi-tasking, ask Chandra-san about," the snort from the side of him let the mind-mage know he wasn't the only one in the mental conversation, "listen, sorry about the mess but it should be over soon. Once I've done this bit you can come out that bubble but don't go on the floor 'til I send out the last wave."

"Last wave?" Chandra's voice was a psychic thunderclap, "What else are you doing?"

"Plenty but it shouldn't take long, one big pulse should do it, this is a fairly standard job," Naruto answered even if the twin storms he was controlling never wavered, "well, better get back to it."

"Wait," Jace cut in, ignoring Chandra's scandalised expression, "just one question – why didn't you tell us what you were doing here, or give us a warning at least?" There was silence and Jace thought the connection severed until, at length, a quiet reply came though,

"If I had told you would either of you have believed me?"

"Not really much you can say to that," Chandra said a moment later, watching the raging gale above them play out after Naruto's voice faded from their minds, "and I knew you were stuck-up Jace but really, you asked him that while he was in the middle of controlling this?"

"It was a valid question," he defended before admitting, "and a valid answer – I doubt there's anyone in the Multiverse who'd have taken him seriously if he'd told the truth."

"Really? Even crazy-dragon-man from Zendikar?" Jace opened his mouth to answer, then closed it and thought for a minute before correcting himself,

"Alright, nobody sane in the Multiverse," he conceded, hood rustling as he shook his head, "and as I sit here under this lightening sky I wonder, have I lost my mind as well?"

"That was strangely poetic, and don't worry too much about it; if you're mad so am I."

"Indeed," despite himself Jace smiled, glancing over at her, "for me a tragedy, for you a slight divergence from the norm." A second later he was extinguishing his cloak as a small snake of fire bit into it,

"And there's more where that came from," the pyromaster warned, fingers flickering threateningly, "honestly, try to say something nice and get a mouthful of smarm for it, why do I bother?"

"No idea, you usually wouldn't; when I heard you were on Ravnica the first time I expected my house and at least the surrounding quarter to go up in flames before you left."

"Don't tempt me," she warned, though her chuckle undermined the warning before the noise outside began to drop. Glancing up and seeing the maelstrom at last beginning to calm Jace stood, offering a hand to pull Chandra up as well as with a gesture he lowered their ward by degrees.

The sweetness of the wind was like honey, the soft breeze making Chandra's hair sway; blue mana was on the air, filling Jace's lungs as he inhaled, the sun above them glowing yellow in a pale blue sky. Familiarity with the noise off to his left made him glance over and then gape; the destruction, he covered it with this?;

"Nalaar..."

"Wow," she sounded as awed as he felt, "it's definitely water?"

"Definitely, I can smell salt," the breeze from this new dark sea stung his eyes, the foamy waves crashing on the bare rocks below, "first he made an ocean basin, then he filled it with an ocean."

"And he's planning something else; here he comes now," forewarned, Jace tore his eyes from the endless grey water before him to see its creator descend. The connection to the ethereal Eternities spooling behind him like a marionettes' string, both planeswalkers tensed as he neared the surface only to breathe out relieved as he tapped down without further world-shattering calamity. All was still for a second, a second in which the onlookers could both pick Naruto out in the glare, his form dimmer than it had been but still alight with colourless mana. Only his eyes were unchanged, the ripple patterns unmoving as his hands came together, flicking through patterns neither of them were close enough to see as he called out words in a language they had never heard,

"Ninshuu," he started to glow again, his connection to the Eternities swelling as it fed him power beyond reckoning, "Sekai no rimeiku no kotan!"

He fell to his knees, slamming his hands into the rocks about his feet, now solid again after his fire had melted it en route to igniting the worlds' core. Those same rocks, and everything else around him, were then reduce to dust by the mana he unleashed, a rapidly-expanding circle that left the ground cover in powder and Chandra swearing, having almost toppled backwards as her seat gave a sudden lurch upwards,

"Warning next time Beleren!"

"Black mana"; he didn't even apologise – that's settled, as soon as it's safe I'm beating him bloody; "it's turned the stone to powder." Peering over from her now-birds eye view Chandra had to agree, the rocks the ocean hadn't drowned now no longer existed; the ocean! Even as she thought of it she saw the change there and understood what was happening,

"Not just black Jace look, the shore," the mana had worked there too but, rather than grey, the dust left in the mana's wake was golden, "its sand!"

"Black and green, maybe white too; gods above and beyond he's not made dust, its soil!"

"Take us down," she demanded, wonder coursing through her veins and unusually Jace didn't argue, nor did he advise caution. The platform fell away, Chandra leaping from it as soon as it was safe enough; her boot-soles bit into honest earth, the smell like perfume as she reached down to touch the new land; it was thin, slightly loamy but it was real and alive; Jace dismissed his floating platform in time to hear her laugh,

"Flowers," she said almost absently, touching one of the blooms sprouting in the new ground, looking up at Jaces' shadow as grass pushed through around her feet, "Illustria was never my plane."

"No," Jace agreed, watching over her shoulder as, in the distance, the brown soil was heaved aside, thick-trunked trees forcing their way upwards and unfurling branches into the light of the new sun, "and I have to wonder after seeing this how many planes are really... Naruto!"

At his sudden shout Chandra looked up to see a collapsed figure lying very still, then she was

snapping at Jaces' heels, the Ravnican already sprinting towards the downed boy.

XXX

It was only as Jace knelt by his side the firebrand truly realised Naruto, despite his unearthly power, was just a child. He was barely half the Ravnicans' height and Jace wasn't particularly tall but right now that didn't matter; seeing the fingers on his neck Chandra tried hard not to imagine Brannon lying in his place,

"How is he?" Jace looked as concerned as she felt but before he could say anything the orange bundle shuffled enough to croak,

"M'okay."

"You are certainly not 'okay'," Jace cut in, trying to recall any healing magic he knew; precious little, and I'd wager Chandra's the same; "I've no idea what you've done or how but you should be dead!"

"An' you don't know how right you are," the shorter figure croaked, somehow managing to get a hand underneath him and heave himself painfully back to his knees, "sorry but I have to recover now, it could take a while."

"Take as long as you need, just promise you'll explain what you've done when you've rested." Somehow the exhausted child managed to smile, giving a shaky thumbs-up at the pensive pyromaster,

"Believe it; now back up a bit, actually back up a lot," a mere spark of mana caught light on his thumb and both did as they were bid, watching as Naruto traced his thumb across the air, a white split appearing; why would he...? Jace's question went unanswered as the gate to the aether was suddenly forced open, a formless mass oozing through from the other side. Terror biting deep into his soul the Ravnican could only watch as a monstrous figure, kin to something he had only glimpsed before, bled into reality, blocking out the new suns' light as it stood to its full, hideous height. Time stood still, then a single tentacle, shapeless, pulsating and sickly, extruded from its centre, aiming at the speck of orange lying helpless beneath it; he summoned it? But that's...

"No!" The shout snapped him out of his horrified realisations to see Chandra stand tall, blazing like a torch with her gauntlets plugged in. He was just fast enough, the pyromancer's flaming trail evaporated a sheen of pure blue mana and she span on him, eyes blazing and face struck with betrayal as the appendage engulfed the helpless child,

"Murderer!" She screamed, the ground around her scorched black in her fury, "Heartless bastard, he didn't deserve that!"

"Wait, please Chandra wait," he pleaded, arms raised as he deflected shots of flame, hoping to calm her outrage, "Naruto's not dead; let me explain."

"Talk fast," she demanded, not letting up in the attack as the flame from her hair began to kindle into a fearsome bird of prey,

"It's his summon Chandra," Jace shouted, a swiftly-conjured illusion distracting her phoenix as it lunged for him, "he called it here from the Blind Eternities. I've seen these things before on Zendikar!" The fire banked slightly, Chandra pausing in her furious attack as the planes' name resonated,

"When?"

"After you were gone from the Eye I took a ship to Halimar and on the way something like this ate my steed; at the order I found out about them. Remember, we were there just before Illustria?" Chandra paused, the shadow of her phoenix sweeping over both of them in sharp circles as the red of her eyes reappearing from the pits of flame they'd become,

"The mermen, but," her eyes snapped onto the massive being now stood like a grotesque sentinel over this new world, "he said about the old gods and their heralds; this is one of them?" The Ravnican nodded, feeling cold inside as he turned to that monstrous silhouette,

"An Eldrazi," even to a plane where death walked close to every shoulder that name was a terror, "a monster that destroys planes and devours mana; they were the ideas of the Blind Eternities."

Chandra's mana flared for a heartbeat before it collapsed in on itself, her phoenix giving a last keening cry before vanishing in smoke as she regarded him severely,

"The ideas?" Jace nodded,

"Look at it Chandra, it's everything you'd expect an idea to be. Crude, shapeless, waiting to be sculpted but undeniably powerful for being unfinished, just as Naruto described. The Eldrazi, most of them, are beyond the colours of mana and now I know why; they were never from the planes, they originated in the spaces between."

"Native to the Eternities," she agreed before stiffening, "and one of them was bound to him before he ascended, well something like that, I can't remember the word he used. When his spark ignited it merged with him; is he an Eldrazi too?"

"I don't know but, going on what we do know, I'd wager pretty much every book in my collection that he's not going to be killed by one."

"Heh, enough kindling to last a year there; okay Beleren," with a hiss and pop she disengaged her gauntlets, "I'll wait and if you're right I won't be frying you today."

"I prostrate myself at your mercy," he cut back waspishly, thinly amused as Chandra quirked an eyebrow at his confusticating language, "so it appears we're waiting here for Naruto to revive. A good plan," he sat down and then reclined in the new grass, breathing out a gaseous wisp to keep watch, "wake me when he's ready."

"Wait, you're just going to sleep?"

"Indeed I am," he pulled down his hood to block out the overhead light, "and I'd be most appreciative if you could somehow keep the noise down." There was silence, blessed silence long enough to take in and savour a breath before, as he knew would happen, his companion opened her mouth and murdered it,

"You are the most, most... oh forget it," the Ravnican smiled, grateful his hood stopped her seeing it as she stomped away, "the bloody Eldrazi-thing's better company than you!" Fortunately she didn't hear his chuckle as he slipped into a half-trance, his warning illusion primed to snap him to full alertness the instant anything went amiss – promises or not he wasn't fool enough to lower his guard around something as dangerous as the beast that had engulfed Naruto. He slipped into meditation, calming his mind and logically going over all that had happened on this extraordinary day and, more importantly, how it could potentially impact not just Ravnica but also the entire Multiverse; especially; a sudden coldness opened in his gut as the childs' voice whispered to him once again; as Naruto said he seeks to end it.

The thought gave him pause but perhaps not as much as it should have done; though he'd not known Naruto long and their introduction had been far less than cordial, to say nothing of the world-shattering power he possessed, something about the child forestalled his usual nihilistic paranoia. He was first to admit he thought little of people in general and had scars from several betrayals for proof as to why but with Naruto, he just couldn't see him falling to madness or grandeur as many spark-bearers had. Breathing in and out again, one of the simplest magical exercises, he filtered through his experiences of today and tried to fit them into scientific reasons for them occurring; light, when it moves through a medium it splits, hence rainbows occurring. Would that even happen in air, hence the sky turning blue, and if so why didn't Chandra and I asphyxiate when we landed...?

Time fell away while he was thinking, his trance lasting as long as it needed to; he had several ideas of what had happened but there was only one way of getting them confirmed. Letting out a yawn and dismissing his conjured familiar he sat up only to freeze in horror as a streak of red shot up in front of him,

"Nalaar what are you doing?!"

"You've got eyes," she shouted back as he scrambled upright, too late to stop her launching a spit of flame towards the silent Eldrazi. Appalled he saw the shot strike home; the creature didn't flinch, twitch or otherwise react to the fire, it just seemed to swallow it. Evidently Chandra seemed to regard that as a challenge, another flare covering her hands as Jace pelted towards her,

"You're mad," he declared, half in exasperation and half in wonder – of all the planeswalkers he knew only Chandra would be both foolish and headstrong enough to tackle something like this without help, "what are you trying to do, melt Naruto out of there?"

"Or get this thing to do something," she admitted, glancing over her shoulders with goggles in place, "I tried talking to it, shouting at it, trying to speak to Naruto inside it and now this," she hurled the conjured flame into the mighty beast, thought it proved as ineffective as the last, "what is this thing made of?"

"I'm amazed."

"I know, even if it can't feel pain it should react to fire right?"

"Not that, I'm amazed you tried talking first," Jace explained, chuckling at the rude gesture she flicked his way before conjuring a spear of white flame, "though while you were throwing fire at the huge monstrosity from outside existence as we know it, did you not stop to consider what would happen if said monstrosity took offence at having fire thrown at it?"

"I started small."

"Of course you did"; I give up; "just be grateful it's in a good mood or you'd have a lot of angry tentacles to deal with." She almost dropped her spear, staring at him,

"That's disgusting!"

"It's the truth; if it wanted to attack us we'd both be being absorbed by now." Chandra stared, blinked and stared some more, looking to find any hint, the merest trace the mind-mage was playing her but saw nothing, he honestly seemed clueless; I give up;

"Go back to reading your denouements Jace, you might learn something," she muttered, drawing her arm back for the cast and letting fly,

"Nice throw," he commented, following its blazing trail, "been keeping in practise?"

"Yeah, never know when you might have to nail a rabbit for dinner, or a nosey mind-mage out of principle."

"I think you'd find me a harder target than him and if I remember rightly the score between us is in my favour."

"Only 'cause you cheated..."

She tailed off as finally one of her continued barrage of low-mana fire spells got attention; there was a ripple in the Eldrazi's chest and the spear tip was caught, flickering to nothing in the grip of a human hand. Both planeswalkers stepped back a bit as the hand was joined by its twin before, with an athletic twist, the boy who had formerly seemed on the edge of exhaustion leapt to the ground, twisting like an acrobat to avoid any injury before stretching up,

"Ahhh, great rest," he exclaimed before glancing behind him, "thanks pal, you better get back now, I've got some 'splaining to do." Jace could have sworn the Eldrazi nodded, just fractionally, before its bulk began to effervesce, dispersing into nothingness as Naruto stepped forwards before appearing to remember something, putting two fingers of each hand before him in a crossed gesture; what does that mean? As soon as the smoke cleared and the Ravnican found himself staring down a dozen of the child who could crush him in an instant, he once more cursed his curiosity,

"Whoa," Chandra, of course, ignored peril, "what are they?"

"On my plane we'd call them kage bunshin, shadow clones; they're a kind of mana simulacrum that can think and work away from me."

"Neat trick," she admitted, watching the orange bodies either rushing away or disappearing in swirls of leaves or, in one case, through the Blind Eternities, "what are they doing?"

"Scutwork; getting the salinity levels of the seas sorted, making sure rare metal deposits are in the right place, basically just tidying up and making sure all's where it should be," Naruto explained as he approached, stopping a few feet from them all looking as hearty as he had before his work began, "anyway here we are, the denouement as it were," Chandra snorted, shooting Jace a sly look while he shook his head at her childishness, "and I have to say I'm quite surprised. Half of me was afraid I'd wake up and see the two of you trying to kill each other."

"What was your other half afraid of?" Fortunately Jace didn't see either Narutos' corner of the eye glance or the pyromancer left clutching her nose as he spoke up,

"Fortunately we managed to avoid that unpleasantness, not through lack of trying," oddly Chandra didn't react at his flaying glare, in fact she wasn't looking at him at all, and was she blushing; strange woman; "and I had some time to think. That creature you summoned, it was an Eldrazi?"

"It was," Naruto confirmed, sitting on the warm grass and bidding them do the same, "I heard some of your thoughts while I was recovering; don't worry, I have to concentrate really hard and be close to people to do that, I can't read minds anywhere near as well as you can."

"Good," Chandra sniffed, repressing the unsubtle pictures Naruto had thrust into her mind; and Jace can never know about!; "one like him's enough. But the Eldrazi – I'm first to admit I'm no expert on them but didn't something happen on Zendikar that meant they were there, and what happened to your eyes back there?" Ocean blue looked up at her then split into the concentric rings she'd seen before, the sight unsettling and she was grateful when he dropped the transformation,

"Had them since my ascension, they help me see how things need to be," Naruto explained briefly before moving on to what he knew was likely to be a sore topic for the two planeswalkers, "anyway lots of things happened on Zendikar, in fact most roads cross there but let's start at the beginning. As you guessed the Eldrazi are the ideas of the Eternities, the methods by which the end would be undone. However, as I'm sure you know, once you have an idea you always look for ways to modify and improve it, all sorts of tangents spark off your core idea and the same thing happened in this case. Each of the big three, the Eldrazi idea-titans if you will, has a brood of lesser ideas that trace their lineage back to him, hence the Zendikar gods and their heralds."

"So the Eldrazi were spawned from the Eternities; how did they get to Zendikar?"

"They were lured and trapped there by three of the great planeswalkers; for the best, considering the damage they were doing. It was only by luck that when they were released I was close enough to sense it and deal with them before they ate the plane. I absorbed them into the Eternities again, explained that their brother idea had been realised and I would see that which had created them undone; luckily, after that they went quietly."

"If they're that powerful though, how were they trapped?" Chandra enjoyed a good story and it was a fine day on this plane mere hours old, "And more importantly how did they get free?" Naruto didn't answer for a minute, seemingly pensive, but eventually he sighed and spoke,

"They were attracted by the Roil, the mana there so powerful it caught their attention. While they were trying to, ah, educate the masses the planeswalkers had devised a trap to contain them within the hedrons. It worked, locking and sealing the Eldrazi titans and their broods away behind innumerable traps and dangers where hopefully they would get free again; however"; forgive me for what I say now; "that hope was later dashed. What was locked could be unlocked the same way; at the Eye of Ugin three sparks entered and left, but they weren't the only things to leave."

A horrible, crawling cold clawed its way up Jaces' spine,

"But we were... no, the dragon-mage," for once he cursed his near-perfect memory, "he was a planeswalker as well!"

"His was the third spark."

"No," Jace held his head in his hands, the horror he had seen stalking across Zendikar now shown in a new and far more terrible light, "we didn't, damn it we didn't know!"

"Know what?" Chandra, loathe as she was to admit it, knew she wasn't as smart as the Ravnican, hence why dealing with him was such a pain, "What about the Eye?"

"It was us Chandra; the scroll was a map to them," the mind-mages' voice was leaden with self-loathing, "us and that shape-shifter unlocked their prison; we set the Eldrazi free."

For the first time Jace saw his words utterly stun the firebrand but what should have been a sweet moment tasted only of ashes,

"How," she breathed, face bloodless, "was it the fight?"

"The heat without light, the colourless fire," Jace moaned; it all made horrible, horrible sense, "it was the key?"

"The final one yes, in the presence of three planeswalker sparks."

"I cast it," Chandra's voice was dead, looking at her hands as though she'd never seen them before, "it set, I set them free. I should have burnt that scroll to ashes, I should never have..."

"Should and would don't matter – listen to me, both of you," Naruto was on his feet, a sudden edginess to him that shook both planeswalkers out of their aghast dolour, "what happened at the Eye wasn't your fault, not entirely. Other factors were at play there that might have seen the Eldrazi unleashed regardless – I'm actually glad it was you who found me, it gave me a chance to set this straight."

"We found you?" Naruto nodded at the mind-mages' question,

"I've met many like you since I began this work and I made a promise that I would reveal myself to the first planeswalker or walkers to set foot on one of my planes," Naruto explained, smiling gently as realisation dawned on their faces, "you Chandra-san, on Illustria as it's now named. The Eldrazi knew your sparks and because of that I realised what role you'd had in releasing them and how much it was likely to hurt you both if you found out. Trust me," there was hard assurance in his tone as his smile strained a little, "I know what it means to blame yourself, and be blamed, from things you couldn't control."

Naruto wasn't sure if it was the right time to admit such things but it seemed to work; neither of the older 'walkers were looking as depressed as they had before, Chandra even managing a wry smile,

"Known by the ideas of most of the mana in the Multiverse? Heh I feel important," she chuckled brittlely, "so what happened once they were released?"

"They went about doing things as they had before; time restrained didn't teach them much," Naruto admitted heavily before, doomed by his depressive nihilism to know how bad things were likely to be, Jace forced himself to ask,

"What would they do though? You said these three ideas had different methods, and what about the fourth?" Naruto paused, regarding both him and the pyromancer for what felt like a long time before, to his relief, the boy nodded,

"I suppose it can't hurt to tell you since they'll not do anything again; alright," he nodded, stretching off and idly wondering where his most important clone was; if he's stopped for a snack on the way I'm holding him head-first in a swamp until the bubbles stop; "first thing is you've probably already heard their names, or parts of them anyway. The planeswalkers who trapped the titans named them and when they left the Zendikarians took on those names to mean their gods; Ula, Cozi and Emeria."

"Those gods actually do exist then, in a way at least."

"They do, and strangely enough if there was ever a plane that deserved gods like them Zendikar would be it. The oldest and most powerful in a way is Emrakul; he would undo the end by tearing down the barrier between the Eternities and the Multiverse, hence the older planeswalkers called him the Aeons Torn. Second to him is Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre who'd destroy everything in the hope that when all was nothing something else would be reborn. Kozilek was third, he would enlighten those in the Multiverse to the truth of what had happened in the hope they'd find a way to undo it; unfortunately doing this had the side-effect of complete and utter insanity, hence his moniker of the Butcher of Truth. Those were the three that were trapped on Zendikar while the fourth," Naruto paused, thinking of how to frame what he had to say next in a way that wouldn't arouse too much suspicion, "he was never named, a tragedy and a mistake. He tried to give something to the Multiverse but chose poorly who received his gift, dying as he tried to reclaim it from the one he had given it to. The Multiverse has suffered much because of that poor choice and the misuse of its power, but it won't suffer any more," there was hardness in his eye, a razor edge to his smile that neither planeswalker felt the urge to challenge,

"Glad to hear it, and thanks for clearing up our mistake up as well," Chandra offered, for once reasonably humble as Naruto chuckled,

"Like I say don't worry; once I met the three on Zendikar and they realised I would undo the end they went back to the Eternities. While I was in Zendikar I managed to calm the place down as well so all's well that ends well." Jace jolted,

"Wait, you calmed the plane – as in the Calming? What did you do to the Roil?"

"Dispersed it between the plane and the Eternities, took a night or so. Don't know what happened to make the mana that unstable but it can't have been anything good. Still it's sorted now and I made Illustria a few days after that, my first restructuring actually, so that Eye of Hope business took the heat off me." Mention of Zendikar's new star made Chandra look towards the sky,

"That reminds me; the sun, did you make that as you made this plane?"

"The nebula did, it's how stars are born; you can't do that with just mana, one of the reasons the light of suns and stars penetrates the Blind Eternities. That's how Ravnica got the one that led you to me," Naruto didn't miss the definite flicker of interest in Jaces' eye; perfect, keep reeling while the other pieces are gathered; "you can do things once they're born though. I had to do a bit of ageing to that ball of fire up there; clones with temporal magic are awesome for that."

"How much aging?"

"Five hundred billion years give or take," Naruto said blithely, not giving them a chance to look shocked as he went on, "but anyway, that's my story; I'm Uzumaki Naruto, a planeswalker whose spark merged with an Eldrazi as it ignited and is therefore bound to undo the end that created most of the Blind Eternities. In doing this I've got to end the Multiverse as we know it." Jace and Chandra glanced at each other before, at length, the Ravnican spoke,

"I'm assuming it's not as terrible as you make it sound."

"Nah, though you should have seen your faces in the Eternities; everyone assumes an end is a bad thing," he admitted, chuckling at the memory as he held forth a hand, "let me show you." Suddenly his palm held a spinning ball of brilliant blue, the concentrated mana sphere beautiful to behold,

"This is what was," he said before tapping the top of the sphere with his free hand. Its motion shattered, most of the ball becoming a much paler blue while fragments of deeper navy sifted slowly through the pallid bubble, "this is what is now. And this is what I must do," both planeswalkers watched as, slowly, tiny specks of light began to glow within the shattered sphere, dying away to reveal other fragments,

"You're creating new planes," Chandra's throat was dry as she beheld the bewitching spectacle, "from the Blind Eternities?"

"Yes, the ending transmuted almost everything into raw mana, it's my job to transmute it back until all the pieces are made and fit back together," the shining ball was whole again for an instant before Naruto and dispersed it, "when I'm done the Multiverse will end as the Universe is restored."

"Uni-verse," the word sounded strange on Jaces' tongue, strange but not without appeal, "so it's a conversion process? I mean, you take mana from the Eternities and convert it into planar mana."

"Basically yeah, though as you've seen it's a bit violent," Naruto admitted before suddenly beaming broadly, "though not without its rewards."

Glancing over his shoulder Jace stood and moved to the side as another Naruto stepped forwards, a set of brightly-coloured cartons in his hands,

"Sorry boss, bit of a queue."

"No worries; get out to sea, I think I made it a bit too salty out there."

"On it," the clone passed its creator its burden before saluting and running off towards the surf, Chandra watching him go and laughing slightly as he raced onto the waves,

"Can you show me how to do that?"

"I could try – why?"

"You can never have too many minions, plus more of me means more of me to burn things."

"Good point..."

"No," Jace had to pour cold water on that idea before it started catching light, "for the sake of your Uni-verse please no; one bad-tempered pyromaniac is more than enough."

"Hey, I am not bad-tempered," Chandra defended herself, Jace saying nothing but with an expression that spoke volumes as Naruto coughed to disguise his chuckling,

"And I'm supposed to be the kid here? Listen I've just finished work and I'm about to celebrate, you're both welcome to join me." He rattled one of the cups his clone had given him and, intrigued, Chandra held a hand forwards, catching the tin he tossed her,

"What is it?"

"Ramen, food of the gods," Naruto declared, peeling back the lid of his tin before frowning, "uh, needs water and to cook. Would you mind, I'm kind of dry?"

XXX

Three and a bit minutes later, swirling the salty broth around, Jace had to concede the ramen was actually quite enjoyable; though, since Naruto's eating it, I suppose it is the food of a god;

"So, Naruto," Chandra spoke through a mouthful of noodles, "how many times you done this now?"

"Since I was four; jiji took me to a noodle shop and I've been going ever since." Chandra paused before swallowing, snickering at his confusion,

"Not the ramen, this," she pointed out to the horizon, the sun beginning to set and mark the end of the reborn planes' first day, "how many planes have you actually made, and how long have you been at it?"

"Uhh, no idea, I've been ad-libbing up 'til now," Naruto replied somewhat sheepishly, scratching the back of his head with a free hand, "I keep meaning to get myself a diary and write down how all this works but it always slips my mind. Don't ask about time either, I've no idea but I'm sure I haven't been about that long, certainly not more than a year."

"And two planes we know of, three if you include this one," Jace mused, drinking the dregs from his cup, "you're keen."

"No choice really," how true that was they didn't need to know; yet; "sooner it's started the sooner it's done. Still, we'd best get going soon, my clones will sort the rest out."

"Uh huh," Chandra drained what was left and wiped a trickle of juice off her cheek, "that was great, where'd you get it from?" Naruto tapped his nose as he stood up, preparing for the last sacrifice to be made on this place,

"Sorry Chandra-san, trade secret; anyway, before we go mind if I ask you guys a question? Well, actually I've already asked the question but I'd be interested in your answer." Chandra caught the mind-mages' nod and replied,

"Sure, what do you need to know?"

"What am I?" Even Jace was wrong-footed by that one, though Narutos' swift explanation helped quell the confusion,

"I know I'm not a planeswalker, I can't be; my spark isn't like yours. It's merged with the Blind Eternities, it exists there, that's why I can channel so much mana and I know what I have to do, the Eternities tell me what was, I do the rest. I can travel as freely as you but," he shook his head, somewhat sad but stoic, "I'm not the same – a scion of the Eldrazi and bound to the Eternities so, what?"

There was a short silence at this, the two planeswalkers mulling the question over until one of them gave a muffled laugh,

"Hmm," Chandra struck an exaggerated thinking pose, "you bend all colours of mana to your will to make planes and stopped the Multiverse being eaten by the thoughts of the space between. I'm sure there's a word for beings like that, it's on the tip of my tongue; three letters, starts with G..." Naruto laughed,

"No chance; gods create things from scratch, I'm just rebuilding what was there originally. None of this is my own work, I'm just the prism really; it's all being made off the backs of those who were there when it used to exist. Besides how do you think that's going to go down when I meet other people; hi, nice to meet you I'm a god – they'll throw away the nuthouse key."

"I suppose not, even he's not arrogant enough to call himself a god except in front of a mirror"; you'll get yours later; Jace refused to be baited even as he schemed revenge, "going by the laws of the jungle you can call yourself what you like; you can back it up better than most."

"I prefer not to fight, and trust me that's a sea-change from how I was before this happened," the ninja confessed, shrugging, "ah well, I'll have to give it more thought."

"Maker."

"Pardon?" Jace explained his choice of word,

"You do not walk the planes, you create them; therefore you are a planesmaker, quite probably the only one in the Multiverse." Naruto beamed for a moment before the expression dropped off his face,

"That was one of those you-have-a-great-power-use-it-responsibly talks wasn't it? Well, thanks for the brevity." Chandra laughed, punching the mind-mage on the shoulder,

"Subtle," she mocked, though she fractionally squeezed his arm before she withdrew her hand as at the bottom of her heart she feared the same thing the Ravnican did; if he turns, we're all doomed; "still, this is your place Naruto, which way out of here?"

"One minute, last thing to do; I loved your name Chandra but the Eternities were very forceful for this one. There were powerful echoes for this plane, including its name," he raised his ramen cup towards the setting sun and turned it, speaking as the last drops of salty broth christened the virgin earth,

"Ilyonde."

XXX

Some minutes later, encased in another bubble and speeding through the Blind Eternities with Naruto in the lead, Jace felt a tap at his shoulder and silently established a mental connection,

"Whisper, Naruto may hear us."

"Yeah," miracle of miracle Chandra could control her volume, "seven months Jace, that's how long he's been 'walking, or 'making in his case." That made him look around,

"What makes you say that?"

"Because that's how long it's been getting easier," she replied, "think about it, because of him the Blind Eternities know that whatever created them will be fixed and they'll go back to being planes or whatever they were before right?"

"Right, so?"

"So, how much of relief is that for the Eldrazi?" Chandra's expression was earnest, he voice gaining volume until Jace gestured for her to lower it again, "Imagine this, you're innocent of a crime but whoever's in charge has had you locked in a room for you-don't-know how long. All you can do is grab at people when they come through your room. Suddenly in comes someone who listens to you and says don't worry, I know what's wrong and I'll get you out of here – wouldn't that make you more patient, you wouldn't fly into such a rage and leap on everyone you saw?"

"So the Eternities are, what, tolerating us more because of his work? It makes sense; if you start those ridiculous pyrotechnics again I will imprint an extremely irritating and catchy tune in your mind," Chandra scowled at the threat, though the small smoulders on the end of her braids obediently vanished, "but I do think you're right. Bear with me a second – Naruto?" Terminating the mental link he spoke aloud, the newly-dubbed planesmaker looking over his shoulder,

"Yeah?"

"On Ilyonde you created air from the Eternities correct?"

"Yeah, it's kind of a necessity; ever seen living things in a vacuum?"

"No, what happens?"

"You don't want to know," Naruto answered the firebrand's question warningly, "it's really, really gross. Anyway, you want to know why it didn't happen to you right – simple really, I took a lot of air from Ravnica and held it while we were travelling through the Eternities, just like I'm doing now. I had it wrapped around the two of you and me while I was restructuring Ilyonde, you were safe."

"Uh, thank you," slightly wrong-footed by the sudden answer Jace was left to block out Chandras' sniggering as he went on, "so, where will you go now?"

"On; I've got other places to make and plenty of work to do; I've got clones making the stars and suchlike but for the planes themselves I have to be there in person. Try to channel that much mana through them they'll burst like grapes."

"Nasty," Chandra commented before the speaking in a softer voice, "but what about you though, you don't do this all the time surely – you looked half-dead when you were done on Ilyonde."

"I've always healed fast; anyway, brace for landing, we're about to arrive and whatever you do don't look behind you until we do."

It was instinctive, it was uncontrollable and it was the scariest thing either of them had ever done; just as they were pulled out of the mists both planeswalkers caught a glimpse, just the meanest sight of something else, something truly gargantuan moving through the fog of the Eternities, following them as a whale might a fishing vessel. It was an impossible nightmare from beyond space and time and it was the last thing they saw before there were cobbles under their feet and the unreal was sealed away, a sight that would haunt them both for a long time as Naruto squinted up at the signs above then,

"Tin street? Jace-san are we in the right place?"

"Uh," forcing the image of the otherworldly being from his mind the Ravnican glanced around and remembered his way through the city, grateful it was dark and the Azorius weren't out in force, "this way, follow me."

XXX

Naruto, citing good manners, accompanied them to the door but declined Jaces' invitation over the threshold,

"Sorry, no rest for the wicked," he apologised before looking thoughtful, "there was something else I was going to tell you but... ah, it's probably not important. Anyway I'm sure we'll meet again; watch the skies, if you see other stars it means I'm doing my job right."

"I've always wanted to dabble in astronomy," Jace admitted before glancing down at the diminutive planesmaker, "well Naruto it's been... interesting."

"That's one word for it; try and keep yourselves out of trouble, hard as it might be for one of you," Chandra just shrugged before, to the surprise of the other two, her expression softened,

"Mind if I ask you something Naruto?"

"Please do."

"You've told us about the past, all about the end and what happened, and the part we played in making it happen; what about you?" She pushed on before she lost her courage; she had all his attention his now and, even normal, his eyes seemed so much older than a childs' should, "What was it like before your spark lit?" There was no denying it this time; even in the semi-darkness his eyes were hooded, his formerly-smiling face stony; Chandra knew she'd taken a gamble but his explanation following the revelations of the Eye's aftermath had helped turn a sharp knife aimed at her heart. Few sparks ignited for holistic reasons; she only knew of one planeswalker with that advantage and he was, or had been, an order-obsessed moron last she'd checked; and she'd thought Naruto likely the same, something his answer of,

"Another time perhaps, I'm afraid I'm running late," only made a certainty in her mind. With a last bow he departed, wisps of power around him as he 'walked away, leaving the two alone in the doorway of a Ravnican townhouse.

XXX

Jace didn't remember inviting the woman in but she was sat at his table regardless, looking up at him as he shut the door and looked back. Neither said a word, what could they say; more than once both opened their mouths as though ready to break the billowing silence but nothing came – only when Chandra clenched her gauntlet in front of her and began gently thumping her forehead off it was there any noise,

"My sentiments exactly," Jace agreed, chuckling as she glanced at him sidelong,

"Two planes Beleren, we found one first thing and were then dragged to another after being humiliated – even that feels like weeks ago!"

"Yes, finding the truth of the Multiverse and how we played a part in almost destroying it tends to bury titbits like that," the aqua mage agreed, slumping into a chair opposite her, "gods I need a drink."

"You have booze here?"

"Mostly wine but there should be some ale about; I take it you want a glass?"

"Jace Beleren give me enough alcohol to get me drunk and I will steal every volume, encyclopaedia and research paper from the guild of your choice and deliver them to you by hand!"

Jace stared across the table before for the first time since Chandra had known him he threw his head back and roared with laughter. She was stunned, even singeing the end of a finger to make sure she wasn't dreaming but as the mind-mage's convulsions eventually stilled and he wiped his eyes she couldn't help but chuckle herself,

"I would say no but remembering how difficult you were to track that's a tempting offer," he remarked, "the cellars' over here, how strong?"

"Melt my brain; gods above and below what the hell, just... what the hell?"

"I know," he agreed, sliding the bolt out of the cellar door with his foot, "someone akin to a god; regardless of what he says Naruto has the power to do or undo as he pleases; the mana he used was beyond anything else. I won't be long." He disappeared into the cellar and Chandra was left with her thoughts, trying to order some and forget others, especially the revelation of that monumentally stupid trip into Zendikar. I should never have gone; it was so easy to say now, why hadn't she seen it then; I should have forgotten that scroll, left the Purifying chamber and never looked back. But if I had I wouldn't be here now, would any of us be here now? It was a question she couldn't answer, much like hundreds of others she had swirling in her mind – would Jace remove some of them for her? He'd done it before on business, maybe he could do it again if she asked nicely enough? The sound of boots on wood brought her back to the present and, more importantly, promises of sweet, alcohol-induced forgetfulness,

"Thought you were going for wine," she quipped as the back of Jace's robe appeared from the cellar, "What were you doing down there, pressing it?"

"No, I was making a discovery," he said, not turning as Chandra groaned,

"Dare I ask?" Jace's shoulders sagged before he slowly stumped around, a garish dye now staining the front of his aquamarine robes a bright yellow,

"I just discovered what Naruto meant to tell us before he left," the kitchen silence was shattered by raucous hysteria for the second time in a few minutes, Chandra almost falling out her seat at the sight of him and only able to hear his offer when she ran out of air to laugh with, "if you don't mind pre-paying your bar tab would you help de-trap my house?"

That was an experience of shared trauma; not only had two of the three traps from before reset (Jace had unpicked the clothes-stealing one, something Chandra recalled an instant after she'd stepped on its trigger and it mercifully failed to go off) but there were a multitude of other pranks each found maddening when they were hit by them and hilarious when the other was. A falling box of fake spiders made Chandra yell and stamp on them all in a manner that sorely tested Jace's bladder control and when a rug suddenly came to life and wrapped the memory adept up it was several minutes before she was composed enough to unravel him. A mirror in the hallway made the firebrand double-take and check her hair wasn't electric blue (Jace, on the other hand, thought white made him look rather distinguished) but the final indignity awaited in the library, Chandra quickly slamming the door and standing in front of it protectively,

"Ah, we should deal with that tomorrow." Jace looked like he was about to cry,

"How bad is it?"

"How much alcohol do you have?"

"As much as I need; just let me see the worst of it." She sized him up before stepping aside,

"Don't say I didn't warn you." The handle clicked and she nudged it with her heel, letting the door swing open; Jace looked in, looked around and then, with mounting horror, looked up. For a long time he was motionless and Chandra was afraid his mind had finally blown a fuse before, at length, he spoke in a reedy, high-pitched squeak,

"He's been, thorough."

"That's one word for it," Chandra agreed, wondering how much glue the planesmaker had gone through to secure everything to the ceiling; even the ink-pot on the perpendicular table was where it should be with the quill still in it, "drink?" Jace nodded, pulling the library door shut with a soft but very final slam,

"Drink."

Company loved misery but somehow the first few bottles burnt the bitter edge off the night; by halfway through the third they were joking and laughing about some of the surprises Naruto had left for them,

"You should keep that mirror," Chandra advised, nodding self-importantly, "real eye-opener, made me look twice."

"I'd look twice at you with blue hair," Jace assured her, fumbling for a refill, "jus' like you'd look at me with yellow robes. Hope this dye washes out, an' I needed to reorganise the library anyway."

"Jus' as well," she assured him, holding out her glass for the mind-mage to refill, "hey, don't leave me gasping." Jace, however, didn't top her up immediately, instead he looked at her as piercingly as a man several goblets south of sober could,

"Chandra, why did you ask Naruto about before his spark caught light?"

"Umm, why not? He's young for a 'walker, or 'maker," she pointed out reasonably, "an' did you see his face, I don' think it was good."

"Me either, not good; I was lucky, didn't realise when my spark lit."

"What?" Chandra was honestly surprised, "How's that?"

"Master of mine, said it was a spell that backfired," Jace admitted, his expression becoming more drawn as he remembered those memories of his past he hadn't excised, "he was planning, well, don't know, but he kept me from knowing about the spark an' what happened, I found out by accident."

"What did you do?" He looked away,

"I can't remember, I made myself not remember so nothing good; came here and stayed ever since. Not the best, not the worst but people won't leave me be."

"'Cause you're telepet, uh, telespo... you speak in people's heads?"

"'Xactly, an' it's even worse 'cause I can 'walk; who wouldn't want that? I could look into the minds of kings, leaders on lotsa planes; that's why I was in the Contosium, that was a mistake."

"The what?" Jace shook his head as though bothered by flies,

"No, not sayin' 'bout that, we were talking about sparks – how did yours light?"

"Mine? Oh," even if the Purifying Fire had let her lay those ghosts to rest it wasn't a story she liked telling, "mine wasn't good." Jace nodded, understanding in his eyes as he offered the bottle,

"Sorry; you don't have to..."

"No, you were honest; I can't remember where I'm from..."

They talked for a long time of many things; sadness, joy, narrow escapes, crazy adventures, battles won and loves lost. Night had truly fallen but as she glanced out the window a sudden thought flashed over Chandra's mind, making her smile,

"What's so funny?" She pointed towards the dark sky,

"You think he's out there now, making more stars?"

"Probably, we'll see him again," the mind mage assured her, "an' next time I'll take notes. For now though he can work alone; I've got to sleep and if he's left a trap in my bedroom I, I'll, do something next time I see him."

"Yeah right," Chandra stood, stumbled and caught herself on the table edge, "what's that inn called again, is it six streets down and two over?"

"Inn? No," Jace shook his head at the state of her, "you'd not get ten paces 'fore the Azors got you, drunk an' disorderly an' that's if you're lucky. Got a guest room, you can use that."

"Really?"

"Yeah," only when he saw unadulterated shock on the firebrands' face did he hazily remember a roof over her head she didn't have to pay for was likely a rare thing, "I'd only have to bail you out the Boros jails in the morning otherwise."

"Thanks," and she was grateful, following in his footsteps as he led her up the stairs and along, "none of your minions are coming in are they?"

"No, I call when I need them, usually when I'm 'walking," he assured her, counting off the doors, "three, four... wait, what? Oh," he waved a hand, oceanic mana flickering over it erratically and the door he was stood in front of shimmered and disappeared, revealing a blank wall, "missed that one." Chandra grinned, shoulders shaking as he opened the next door along,

"Not the biggest."

"It's fine," she assured him, stepping inside as the bed began to sing a lullaby she couldn't resist, "thanks, I mean it."

"Don't worry, see you in the morning." She made a noise that could have meant anything, the wine in her belly and dreams in her head combining to draw her towards the pillows. She remembered sitting on the beds' edge, kicking her boots off, falling backwards onto softness and, after that, nothing.

XXX

She's gone.

He shouldn't have been surprised and wasn't, not really; as he looked at the shoddily-made bed what did surprise him was the slight pang in his chest – would saying goodbye have killed her? But she wouldn't be Chandra if she did; she was wild, reckless and impulsive like the mana she used and even for fire her flame burnt quickly. Making a mental note to tidy the room up when his hangover was gone Jace turned away, looking to hunt down some breakfast as the; ramen, if that's how you pronounce it?; from yesterday wasn't keeping him full any longer. He had a hand on the banister and one foot dangling over the top step when a sudden thump made him pause; the library? No chance; he didn't realise he was smiling until he heard the unladylike language from within, gently nudging the wooden portal open to see a familiar back.

Some would have called it determination, others hard-headedness but whatever it was he had to admire it. Chandra had somehow levered his chair off the ceiling first and was now stood atop it, retrieving stacks of the upside-down books from their shelves. She was faced slightly away from him as he leant on the doorframe, trying hard to keep his face straight as she carefully ripped the books from their unnatural perches, greasing the wheels with profanity as she read their spines upside down. With a decent armful she slowly stepped down, feeling around with one foot first to prevent herself tumbling backwards; Jace waited until she had both boots under her before breaking the silence,

"Thought you'd already gone?" The pile of tomes swayed but didn't topple as the red-aligned planeswalker jumped,

"Son of a bitch Jace, knock next time! How long have you been there?"

"Not a minute, I honestly did think you'd left; what are you doing?" Chandra looked away, the ledgers in her arms rustling as she shifted uncomfortably,

"Trying to find a denouement in here" she mumbled, glowering as Jace snickered,

"Do you even know what a denouement is?"

"No and don't tell me; I'll find one myself."

"Fine, fine but how about you continue your search after something to eat," that made her prick her ears, "I can start clearing this place out while we turn it upside-down again." Placing her pile with the others she'd taken off the now half-bared bookshelf the pyromancer snorted,

"It's already upside down."

"Yes, so if we turn it upside-down again it'll be right side up."

"Stop, it's too early for mind-mage logic," Chandra demanded, straightening up and brushing herself down, "right, breakfast then we get this done."

Even with a decent meal, Jace being a reasonable chef and Chandra negating the need for coal, it took most of the morning before the last ledger was back in its proper place and Jace wiped his brow, looking at the reasonable pile of old texts he'd winnowed from the flock,

"All yours; I'm sure you're itching to burn something." The red mage grinned,

"You know me too well; come on, I'll start it in the kitchen, save your servants filling the coal scuttle up. Stand me one more meal and then I'd best be going."

"Fair enough, never let it be said I don't pay the hired help," she shot him a rude gesture even if his tone was joking, "where will you go?"

"Uuh, not sure," she admitted before brightening, "I want to see how much more Naruto's made but I've got no idea where to look. I'll just travel and sense 'til I find something."

"Not the worst idea," Jace agreed before being struck by a sudden thought and following it quickly, "and you'd likely be the first there, no-one else knows what to look for. Listen Chandra, I know we've poor history but I'll make you a deal; whatever you find make a note of it and bring it back here, there'll be a bed and warm meal for you." She was stunned, too shocked to be angry as she regarded him agape,

"What – why the hell...?"

"Because it makes perfect sense," Jace went on, surprising even himself with his spur-of-the-moment plan, "I'm as excited about the planesmaker as you are but I can't be away from Ravnica for too long, the politics change too often to forgive a long 'walk. If you want to go exploring fine but don't let your discoveries go to waste; I can catalogue them and, if you want, Ravnica can act as a base for your expeditions; you can buy, or steal, if you have to, anything you need and I'm sure a few of the spells I've collected would be useful for you to know. It's fair as I see it, what about you?"

Chandra said nothing for a long time, probably the longest time Jace had ever seen her quiet and for good reason – she valued freedom above all things and an offer like this, even for mutual benefit, would be scrutinised as a potential cage. Jace did nothing that might affect her decision until a flash of inspiration crossed his mind,

"In any case you'll need somewhere to be while you're raiding the Izzet; I doubt you can carry the whole guild here on your back." Thrown off completely by his wild tangent Chandra could only ask,

"What are you babbling about?"

"I remember a certain 'walker not a thousand leagues from here promising me a lot of research material in exchange for alcohol," he reminded her smugly, amused as her expression dropped, "I held up my end of the bargain, your turn; I choose the Izzet for you to ransack."

"But I, ah, no you didn't; do I look hung-over?" There was a feral cunning in her eye as she squared up to him, "Very nice wine but wasn't enough to get me drunk."

"Should have been, we went through enough of it; you've built up a tolerance?"

"A bit but it's mostly my mana," Chandra explained, conjuring a small fire on the end of her hair, "burns off the beer soon as I channel it, stops the red-eyes you've got going on." Having not checked a mirror that morning Jace felt the sting of that comment and chambered his own in retaliation,

"A neat trick, though I imagine your hollow legs help; those thighs probably hold half a barrel each." Fortunately Jace realised he'd said the wrong thing just before the booted foot connected to one of the thighs he'd insulted swung for his vulnerables,

"Outside," Chandra's breath was smoking as she stared through him, "no smart-talking's saving you this time Jace, we're duelling!" He thought for a way out of this before, suddenly, he stopped thinking; it had been a long time since he'd duelled properly and he was reasonably sure she wouldn't kill him,

"As you wish; follow me," serene blue clashed with flaring orange as he rose to her challenge, "I suppose you'll need the practise if you will throw yourself headlong into the unknown." She merely grinned, fire crackling up her arms as he led her into his manor ground, beckoning her to halt and marching on another score or so paces, eyes glowing as he faced her again,

"When you're ready..."

Fire roared and water hissed as it quenched it, the battle of mages and mana as old as the Multiverse begun anew as, far away, one who would see the return of something older than the Multiverse heard echoes of the fight and nodded to himself; the biggest mistake corrected, some of the worst that could have happened unfulfilled and; he glanced at the new adornment he'd replaced about his shoulder after leaving Ravnica; a way to make sure all this gets recorded for the right moment. It all seems to be going rather well...

...so then; his thoughts turned grimmer as he looked to the new burden over his shoulder, feeling it rustle and knowing exactly what his oldest friend meant; time to shift focus a little. The Multiverse can wait a little – there are matters much closer to home I have to attend now...