Adroitness and Finesse Chapter 17, a Marvel + Naruto Crossover fanfic

Chapter 17

Flipping a butterfly knife over and around her hand, Akari looked over the city, humming softly to a song only she could hear.

Recently, she'd been having weird moments of melancholy, and she couldn't figure out why. Maybe it was the boredom, with arena fights just being so utterly beneath her weight class that eventually, she just left Sakaar entirely and without any warning, using the Hiraishin to travel back to Earth. The Grandmaster had gone back on his end of the deal to get in contact with Asgard anyway, so it wasn't like staying there was needed.

If she needed to, she could probably hunt down the Valkyrie on Sakaar and get her to help in finding Xandar, since she was fairly sure that Thanos would show up there eventually. But no, it was what Koratas had said to her during one of their talks that really stuck in her mind. He had basically told her that if he had her power, he'd probably have set himself up as the ruler of a planet somewhere. Not just because he could lord himself over other people, though that did appeal to him, but because it would give him something to do.

And that was what really was getting under her skin. Combat wasn't...it didn't work for her any more. Melee fights were so hilariously under her level that it was just an exercise in futility for her opponents. And anything that stood even a chance at beating her wasn't using melee, they were esoteric and non-corporeal beings like Dormammu, who didn't really fight physically, but by using dimensions and bizarre forms of attacks that didn't work with physical damage.

So here she was, having found her way back to Earth, trying to figure out what she wanted to do. Honestly, the idea of simply flying to an isolated planet and spending a good few moments grinding to a practically infinite level was probably in the cards for her. If she wanted to avoid being simply deleted from existence by some bizarre attack from Dormammu as revenge, then she'd probably need to get to a level of goddess that counted as being above him.

What would happen when she reached level 300,000? Or 500,000, even 1,000,000 levels? Possibly even a billion levels? And the fact remained that she could genuinely do it. With her ability to tie the time-stop seals to her clones, she could exponentially increase her experience gains and become quite literally as high a level as she wanted to be. But...was it a good idea?

If she did do that, go to those kinds of numbers, that were pretty damn incomprehensible, she would be putting herself on a pedestal of her own making, putting herself out there as quite possibly an extradimensional being. Those numbers meant that with a punch she'd be able to shatter a planet, and with some of her abilities she could erase reality on terrifying scales.

The Dust Release for example. Using that, and with her available stores of Chakra, she could erase the entire Solar System in one go. If she went up to a million levels, she'd probably be able to erase the entire Galaxy, and at a billion she'd quite possibly be able to delete the entire Universe, maybe even beyond that and into the Multiverse, she wasn't sure of the math and didn't bother working out the specifics. Of course, she wasn't Thanos, Universal-scale genocide wasn't exactly in the cards for her, but that was the kind of power level she'd be courting.

And really, it wasn't just that. It was the fact that she honestly didn't trust herself. She couldn't remember who said it, but somebody said that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. If she, who was once, such a long time ago now, a normal everyday human, got her hands on that level of power...orders of magnitude above her current level, would she go mad with power?

Sure, the Entity could step in, but he very likely wouldn't, because that wasn't his purpose. So if she did go off the deep end...who was there to bring her back? None of the Marvel gods would bother, she wasn't of interest, they'd likely just kill her if she was a nuisance, or avoid her if she was too powerful. Thor, while powerful, was already beneath her, and Odin...he definitely was powerful, but also vastly beyond his prime. In his conquering prime, maybe, maybe he could have handled her, but even with her current power level, she could probably beat him.

Getting up from where she sat, Akari leaned over the edge of the building before rolling her feet over the edge and beginning to slide down the side of the building, knife still flicking around in her hand. As she slid, she tried to think of anyone she could even trust to keep her in check. There was...nobody really. Back home, nobody was strong enough to challenge her, not by a long shot.

In the Potterverse, Star Wars and in Marvel, nobody she could think of that was a potential candidate was strong enough to beat her, and neither were those who were strong enough were people she trusted enough to actually do so. So if she went through with this, and she did honestly intend to do so, she would be above anyone who presented even the vague notion of a challenge.

But, in return, she'd be able to lay the most almighty bitchslap on Dormammu, so it was totally worth it.

Using information she nicked from a slaver ship on Sakaar, Akari picked out a planet to use for her grinding.

It was a planet not connected to their form of travel, the Universal Neural Teleportation Matrix, because it was barren and utterly worthless. A young civilization that travelled using a different method had found and subsequently strip-mined the entire planet clean, including the core, and caused it to collapse into the smaller ball it currently was, with no atmosphere and zero resources of literally any kind aside from stone. There was still a notation of it, but the planet was never connected to the UNTM because there was literally nothing there.

Though, when she arrived, that wasn't quite true. There was a small and well-hidden smuggler base, empty of anybody but still evidence that at some point someone decided the same thing she did, that the planet was perfect for a hiding place. There was some random stuff there, either profits that the smugglers were hiding or just their own belongings, but she had absolutely no interest in any of it.

Instead, she simply put it out of her mind as she prepared to summon a whole bunch of clones. Doing some very quick maths, she deduced that if she used 380 Chakra for each clone, she would end up with about 2.9 billion clones, give or take a few hundred million. When she realized that, she shivered ever so slightly. 2.9 billion multiplied by 24 for the number of hours, then divided by 3 for the drain of the Time Stop Seal leaving each clone with 8 hours of time, and then multiplied by 500 for the average experience earned an hour, and that left her with...about 1.1 trillion experience earned in one go.

Since it only took five minutes...ish, for her energy bar to refill, if she also used a Time Stop seal on herself to even negate that, according to the Universe, she would have levelled up countless times in an instant. However, she didn't really care about doing that. So instead, her clones each took a Time Stop seal, or at least as many as she had in her inventory.

For those that didn't have one, they split into two even groups. One group produced a Time Stop Seal using the Banbutsu Sozo no Jutsu, which they could afford thanks to the seal actually not being too expensive really, just really hard to draw, and then burst, and the other half took those newly made seals and adhered them to their bodies. Under her keen eye, all those clones flickered out of existence for a brief moment, then re-emerged, put their seals away, and finally disappeared, blasting her with the accumulated experience and immediately kicking her level up immensely.

Smiling to nobody, she sat down and spent her points entirely on Wisdom and Intelligence, then spent her time playing with her butterfly knife as she waited for her energy to recharge. Maybe in the future she'd regret what she was doing, but honestly, she could no longer turn her back on facts. She was, admittedly, being a big dumb bitch by not grasping power that was quite literally sitting in front of her face. It would be her fault if someone died under her care. Everybody who died in Dormammu's invasion of Konoha was on her fucking head. Sure, she wasn't there when it started, but if she hadn't been sat on her ass refusing to level up under some childish notion of not completely overpowering her opponents, a fact that she should have long-since accepted was already evident, she could probably have simply forced him away through using her own title.

When her energy was recovered, she created her clones again, watching as they all grabbed their seals, the extra clones splitting in half and producing more seals to use, then vanishing again. Every time her clones blipped out of existence and returned, she spent the experience she received on Wisdom and Intelligence, meaning the next cycle had even more clones. And, thanks to how Intelligence was multiplied by Wisdom, her energy reserves climbed ever higher with every single point she spent. This meant more clones, which meant more experience, meaning even more points, a cycle that got higher and higher every time.

After just a single day of power levelling, she went over a million levels, a fact that made her go over the maths with confusion. Because she had been getting more experience each time, her rate of progression had an exponential increase, which meant that while beforehand a day of grinding clones would have given her about 600,000 levels, thanks to the increase in experience earned, she rocketed up faster than she expected.

That led her to ask herself a simple question...when should she stop?

Spawning 'small' groups consisting of tens of thousands of clones, Akari watched her experience climb, rising until she finally hit her target.

Level: 1,000,000,000

Strength - 200,000,000

Vitality - 200,000,000

Endurance - 200,000,000

Intelligence - 2,000,000,000

Agility - 200,000,000

Wisdom - 2,000,000,000

Luck - 199,695,275

A billion levels. It took a few months, but thanks to her increasing energy reserves, it got faster and faster the more points she put into Intelligence and Wisdom. Most of her points went into those two attributes after all, which left a little under a billion points to split between her remaining five options, which meant Luck got the odd number of points. If she actually cared enough she could have gotten more points to even out all the numbers, but she preferred having a round level rather than correcting one of her stats.

She also got an updated title, Multi-dimensional Universal Goddess, which upgraded her health and energy multiplier from 50 to 1000, since she had skipped past multiple other upgraded titles. She had, after all, leapt from level 270,000 all the way to 1,000,000,000, a rather...substantial increase in level. With that and the immense increase in her stats, as she glanced at her stats, she had to admit that it felt...good, just to see those large numbers that dictated to her exactly how powerful she now was.

Energy Points: 900,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Nine-hundred sextillion Energy Points. If she made clones, each with a year's worth of energy, she'd be able to make more than ten sextillion clones. That was more clones than there were ants on Earth! By several orders of magnitude no less. And that was with a year of energy, each. It was honestly just the tiniest bit terrifying trying to comprehend that amount of power, and she possessed it. She could do...well, pretty much anything. Plus, she also had an interesting tidbit that her new title gave her.

Multi-dimensional Universal Goddess - Your power has reached a realm no mortal has ever, nor was ever, supposed to attain. This is the highest level of deity possible in any Universe, on the level of entities such as the One Above All, Azathoth and other omnipresent and absolute beings. Your vast and dense power allows you to rewrite reality to be as you will it, though to lesser beings the energy cost of such an act would be utterly exorbitant. To a being such as yourself, it is a mere drop in the bucket of limitless power.

When she put it into actions, it was like...a switch had been flicked. By grasping reality itself, she was able to twist it according to her whims, far more easily than using a Jutsu, Spell or other form of reality-warping ability. It drained millions of points of energy to do, but as the tooltip suggested, it really didn't matter. To test out exactly how far her ability extended, she created increasingly esoteric and complicated fictional items.

First it was a simple Star Wars blaster rifle, then a personal shield generator, then she switched to creating a Noisy Cricket, the firing of which amused her greatly as it tore a giant gouge through the ground. What was important was that she didn't have any clue how to actually make that weapon, and wouldn't easily be able to recreate it with the Banbutsu Sozo no Jutsu. But with her new ability, as long as she was able to dictate what she wanted, she was able to warp reality to her will.

Curious, she formed a vague copy of the Infinity Gauntlet, except forming it out of fabric instead of metal as a more formfitting glove, then attempted to create an Infinity Stone. The one she chose to attempt to replicate was the Power Stone, it was the one that she found was actually the least afraid of. Well, she was also not too afraid of the Space Stone, but it'd be irritating if she got teleported across the Universe. Sure, the Hiraishin used an alternate dimension, akin to making the distance utterly meaningless, but there was still no reason to risk it. If Peter Quill and the other Guardians were able to handle and direct the strength of the Power Stone, she was definitely capable of the same feat.

And, surprising Akari significantly, it actually worked, the purple gemstone appearing in one of the sockets and lightly shocking her arm with energetic feedback that quickly dissipated. Granted, it drew out several dozen quintillion energy from her to do it, but...that was weirdly low. She had 900 sextillion energy, so that number was utterly inconsequential to her. Bolstered by this success, she then attempted and succeeded in creating a replica of the Space Stone, filling in another slot.

Blinking a few times, she then replicated the Reality, Soul, Time and Mind Stones, filling up each slot on her glove. As the final stone appeared on her hand, the six stones worked in concert, small sparks of rainbow-coloured energy dancing across her exposed arm. As she observed the six stones and the glove they were seated within, she honestly didn't really feel...anything. No urge to exercise her 'great power' upon puny mortals, no draw to have others bow down before her greatness. It was just...well, another source of power for her, one she literally created from nothingness. "You know I never did either?" Akari blinked, then let a smile draw across her face.

"Yeah I know, Obito was the one to blame. I just...I don't know, I guess I was worried that getting so much power would change me somehow." Kurama snorted, making clear exactly what he thought of that notion. "Yeah yeah, I know, stupid human over here thinking that getting power meant changing myself. So, anything you want to ask of me? If you wanted I could try to see if I could recreate your siblings for you, but I'd guess you wouldn't want facsimiles of them?"

"Impressive vocabulary." Akari rolled her eyes. "But you'd be right. It wouldn't be them, it would just be identical versions of them. I'd rather simply keep them in my memory and let them rest. Though you will have to see whether you can actually create life now. If my father was able to do so then I have no doubt that you'll be able to as well."

"Well, what he did was more repurposing the Juubi's life into nine separate lives but I get your point." Ignoring Kurama as he pointed out, in detail, all the points that were incorrect with that statement, Akari shut her eyes and focused. She honestly wasn't sure how or what she wanted to make, nor was she sure that it was a good idea. Playing with lives was a slippery slope, as Orochimaru definitely proved.

Eventually, she settled on a very specific person, extending her arm out and willing them to come into being. After a moment, she opened her eyes, tipping her head slightly as a real, living version of herself, or rather her first-life self, stood in front of her. It wasn't a Shadow Clone, this was a living breathing alternate version of herself. She had willed that this version of herself need no oxygen, food, water or anything biological, but other than that would be totally normal.

After a few moments of unfocused eyes, the version of herself she had created focused on her, surprise evident on her face. In her mind, Akari had settled for creating a version of herself just after she had died, before she had been nabbed by The Game. The alternate version of herself opened her mouth to speak, but with no atmosphere, she wasn't able to.

Grinning, she raised a hand and willed into being a normal atmosphere around them that would be conducive to conversation. "So...is this heaven? Am I about to be judged of my sins by myself or something?" Akari snorted, watching as the alternate version of herself looked at the area around them, paying a lot of interest to the giant gouge in the terrain that the Noisy Cricket had left. "It's a bit messy if it is."

"I mean, while I am a goddess at this point, I don't think this is heaven." Her words brought her other self back to focus on her with a raised eyebrow. "So, let's get things straightened out. I am...kind-of you? The easiest way to put it is that I am you, but...ugh, souls and memories are weird. Basically I just created you since I am right now powerful enough to do pretty much whatever I want, but...give me a sec."

Thankfully enough, her alternate self seemed more than happy to give her a moment, upon which Kurama chimed in a better way to explain things. With a wave of her hand she created a glowing golden string in the air. "So, this is me, or rather, our timeline." At the end of the string, she split it into two. "This string is me, and this one is you. This split point is when we died." She then threw her hand out and had her own string extend outwards into the distance. "For you, you only just died, but for me, that was decades ago."

"So...you are basically just a parallel version of me then?" Her alternate self asked quietly. Akari shrugged in response. "I mean, the only other alternative is that my memories are just artificial and I'm not a proper version of you, just a homunculus or something. But that gets into philosophy and if you really are just a further along version of me we both know we don't care about stuff that deep. If I can think, feel, touch and all that stuff, then from my perspective, I'm real and I'm me. Works for us, right?"

Akari nodded, grinning at her alternate self. "Right. I...didn't actually have much of a plan when I did this though. I just sort of...did it?" Her alternate self shrugged in response. It was honestly weird talking to herself, since while she had changed over the years, she still felt mostly the same way about things, so they had a lot of similarities...obviously. "Well, want to go see the Death Star, but for real?" Her alternate self stared at her for a moment, blinking, before she grinned and nodded.

"Sounds like a fucking plan."

So...yeah.

Uhh, sorry about this taking so long, I kinda just...I've got literally nothing really aside from just being lazy. But yeah, Akari is now literally able to make Infinity Stones casually, since they are a Universal Item, and she is beyond that now. The way I think of it is that when the Big bang happened, they got a lot of energy, sure, but they cannot possibly exceed a sixth of the energy used to make the Big Bang. More than likely even less than that in reality. As such, since she is able to make her own Universes if she so chose, she is able to make Infinity Stones with 'relative' ease. Sorry if that pisses you off and you think this is a stupid decision and I should go overdose on my pills but hey, free world and all that.

And of course, she also duplicated herself, that's a fun thing to mess with. I think the way she explained it is the best way to look at it, and since it's literally her but from the past their likes and hobbies and stuff mostly align. I honestly, as I have said innumerable times, have no plan for this, I just put my hands on my keyboard and words come out until they form an incoherent mess.

Anyways, hope you enjoyed ^.^

Name: Akari Uchiha

Level: 1,000,000,000

Age: Ageless (17 - Appearance)

Experience: 52,500/1,000,000,000,000

To Next Level: 999,999,947,500

Title: Animal Tamer - Rank 5 - 100% chance to dissuade creatures from attacking during encounter. Prolonged or repeated exposure allows reputation, rapport as well as affinity to build with any animal. Note - familiars and mind-controlled creatures are exempt from this ability.

Secondary Title: Multi-dimensional Universal Goddess - Your power has reached a realm no mortal has ever, nor was ever, supposed to attain. This is the highest level of deity possible in any Universe, on the level above Universal Entities such as the One Above All, Azathoth and other omnipresent and absolute beings. Your vast and dense power allows you to rewrite reality to be as you will it, though to lesser beings the energy cost of such an act would be utterly exorbitant. To a being such as yourself, it is a mere drop in the bucket of your limitless and regal power.

Health Points: 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 - (((100 Base + (Vit x End)) x 10) x 3) x 5) x 1000

Regeneration Rate - 2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000/m - 33,333,333,000,000,000,000/s - (((Vit x End) x 2) x 5) x 5) x 1000

Energy Points: 900,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 - ((((100 Base + (Int x Wis)) x 10) x 1.5) x 3) x 5) x 1000

Regeneration Rate - 200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000/m - 3,333,333,300,000,000,000,000/s - (((Int x Wis) x 2) x 5) x 5) x 1000