Leaves in a Windy Mind

by Shadow Master

(Drabbles, multiple crossovers) Decided to resurrect my old habit of putting any new crossover plot ideas into Drabble form rather than jump right into a full fledged story. Hope it'll help me focus on my in progress works and not get distracted. Please vote for the ones you want to see continued either as a Drabble or a true story.

16. The Three in One Guy and the Others

"The Three in One Guy…and the Rest of Them" By Shadow Master

(BtVS/Naruto/MHA/MCU)

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted materials contained herein. They are the rightful property of their respective creators and/or associated companies. I make no profit from this whatsoever and I have no intention of changing that in the future. I write because it's fun and because there are those who enjoy reading my stories. Therefore please do not take any legal action against me. I don't have near enough money to even cover your legal costs never mind pay for a decent meal afterwards.

Note : As usual positive reviews will be greatly appreciated, constructive criticism will be considered but not necessarily acted on and negative/venomous/trolling/bashing/etc reviews will either be ignored or burned as fuel to keep on writing. Everyone's entitled to their opinion but no one is going to stop me from writing the sort of stories I want to write. The only people that might be able to accomplish it would be the people who own or run the websites I post my work to. If they ask I might be willing to modify my work a little to be in line with the website rules. To anyone else I say this: no one is forcing you to read my stories but don't think you can make me do anything I don't want to do.

Note 2: This idea came out of a truly strange place in my mind but the more I thought about it the more it intrigued me. I don't know if you'll need to be drunk or stoned to enjoy it in full but I hope at least that you won't consider it a waste of your time. This is an experiment of sorts to get elements where I want them to go without relying on previously used methods so I don't know if it'll be a resounding success or a VERY painful writing bellyflop. Feel free to put suggestions in your reviews for how things could've been done better, written smoother or maybe gotten you a little more excited. I can't promise I'll use all your suggestions but I won't say no to something that'll improve my storytelling ability.

Now on with the drabble!

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The Three in One Guy…and the Rest of Them

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The In Between That is Neither Here or There but Rather Everywhere

All must be in balance.

That which does not contribute to the balance cannot be allowed to exist.

This was their creed and there were none who called this location home that did not thoroughly believe this. Thus it was their duty as caretakers of the Almighty's grand creation that was the multiverse to prune the weeds that occasionally appeared. Some weeds would simply be wiped from existence but others were judged to be worth harvesting for their few redeemable components before the desirable bits were fed back into the cycle of souls. None who inherited these components would inherit anything more than a whisper of who or what they had come from and such things were all too easy to dismiss.

Some weeds though took longer than most to be properly evaluated before a decision was rendered as to whether they should be wiped from existence or have harvestable qualities.

~I think this lot is going to take awhile.~ He thought looking down at the containment area where a group of seven below were behind held, ~All the easy ones have already been cast into the abyss of entropy never to be seen again. This lot…it's more a case of is it really worth the trouble to pry free the good from the bad.~

In most cases those beneath them in power did not possess the knowledge or the means of resisting the process but…well…the way they were put together was different so extra care was needed when taking them apart.

While some might not care about unnecessary damage those in administration insisted that nothing go to waste and penalized those found to be needlessly wasteful in 'recycling' desirable elements. He'd heard plenty of people griping about all the extra work this meant for them but none failed to do their job properly so it was pretty much business as usual.

"WARNING! TRANSFER OF A LEVEL 3 CSB INITIATED! WARNING! TRANSFER OF LEVEL 3 CSB INITIATED!"

"What? They can't be serious!" He exclaimed even as he moved to receive the transfer according to procedure.

CSBs or Chaos Seed Beings were life forms from the multiverse that possessed some quality that even without any conscious acts on their part threw off the plans of the higher ups. Plans that were designed from start to finish to maintain multiversal balance across the board and minimize any destabilization that could lead to one or more universes collapsing. Graded from level fives which were the least likely to affect the universe they were in to level ones that were so potent they were eliminated the second they were found this transfer made no sense. The containment fields, security precautions and even the harvester in his section weren't designed to handle a CSB stronger than a four. Even if he pushed everything to their design limits the possibility of a breach could not be overlooked.

Looking down he watched as the initial manifestation of the transfer beam appeared and then like door slamming the subject was suddenly there with the containment field snapping around him.

And it was a him.

More precisely it was a CSB that had managed to gain a certain notoriety no matter which branch of the multiverse he popped up in. Call him a bug in the program but no matter how hard the higher ups tried to negate the variables and conditions that resulted in the production of this CSB it still happened nonetheless. While some adaptations had been implemented in order to keep things MOSTLY on course he'd heard of enough examples of the higher ups throwing tantrums to know this particular CSB could still ruin things.

~Don't see why they bothered transferring him here.~ He thought as he made sure that every possible containment system was fixed on the CSB without freeing the others, ~Just wipe him from existence and be done with it.~

Even if another one would just pop up later there was nothing of value in a Xander Harris that wasn't tainted by the chaos energy soaked into every atom.

Deciding to find out what the hell was going on he opened a channel to his supervisor to find out why he'd been transferred a ticking time bomb. Thankfully their systems outshined even the most advanced universes in the multiverse so in less than half a second his supervisor was on the screen.

"Sigh…had a feeling you'd be calling about the transfer." The supervisor said visibly having been doing his job for a long time, "It's just temporary. There was a spike of CSBs in the multiverse, more than usual I mean, and even though we captured them all cancelling them out turned out to put a strain on 'The Furnace'. We've got people working on repairs and reinforcement as we speak. Once we're finished we'll take Harris back and toss him in right away. Just keep him contained until then."

"I'll do what I can sir but you know my section's not rated for a level 3." He said with comprehension, "If he puts up a fight or there's a chaos spike I'm going to need backup."

"I've already put security forces around your section on alert and locked down all transport pads within a twenty block radius of the room." His supervisor said showing why he'd earned his job, "Even if containment fails he won't get very far."

True.

Unlike the universe that Xander Harrises tended to come from there were no elevators, no staircases and what was there was literally millennia ahead of anything the CSB might know. It'd be more dumb luck rather than anything else for any escape attempt to last more than a minute before this Harris was either dead or restrained. Even if this CSB had gained potent abilities in his native reality that didn't mean anything. In their native reality the six Infinity Stones possessed the ability to reshape it as the wielder saw fit but take them to the neighbouring reality and they were reduced to shiny paperweights. The same was the case for any 'super powers' or 'mystic abilities' since both were meant to work in tandem with the specific rules and specific environments of their native reality.

In the multiverse the closer a CSB was to their native reality the more reliable their abilities would be to use but HERE they were the ones in control of everything.

They made the rules and they controlled the environment.

"Good to hear so." He said with a nod of trust, "All the same though I'll feel better once I hear he's been vaped."

"You and me both." The supervisor said with a commiserating grin.

With that the channel closed and he turned his gaze back to his job.

"Move the next subject to the harvester." He said through the microphone to the speakers in the room, "Let's not slack off just because we've got an unexpected guest."

Seeing nods from his subordinates he watched as they operated the controls of the main containment field to isolate another weed from the group before moving it over to the section's harvester. As usual the weed protested, struggling in vain to break free or interfere, but it was pointless with the deck so thoroughly stacked against them. They didn't have the power or the knowledge to free themselves much less stop what was about to happen.

"Subject in position. Restraints locked." He said voicing the readouts on his console, "Performing level one quantum scan…level two quantum scan…level three quantum scan…is…done. Identifying desirable quantum elements and classifying them according to established parameters."

This subject had below average quantum elements at least in term of number but as far as classifications were concerned there were a few valuable ones to be had.

"Establishing isolation fields around desirable elements. Completed." He said as each icon on the screen went from red to green, "Activating nullification field generator."

This was always the unpleasant part of his job.

The the energy produced by the nullification field generator was quite efficient as well as thorough when it came to eliminating the unwanted waste. However it was also excruciatingly painful for any living thing subjected to it and with the thoroughness of it the process was not swift. As a result there was a lot of screaming, a lot of struggling against the restraints and the only positive was that it often traumatized the other subjects into submission. As for people like him he'd gotten used to such things despite their unpleasantness with those that couldn't being reassigned someplace more suitable.

All in all the process took a little more over two minutes to complete.

With a few typed commands the harvested elements were transported to their respective containers awaiting introduction into the great well of souls. While the mortals might be aware of the concept of reincarnation it was only a child's understanding as opposed to their own which was equivalent to a doctorate's worth of know how. Nothing was left to chance when introducing a new life form into any part of the multiverse with each new being designed to be precisely what his higher ups needed to maintain the balance. True the stipulation of free will from the Almighty that could not be ignored allowed for some deviation from the original design once the being was placed in the desired reality but there were measures in place to control their choices. Agents planted in the destination reality, manipulating the environment of the being to influence their development without violating the mandate of free will and if necessary a way of eliminating them 'for the greater good'.

Not a phrase they could use whenever they wanted but with enough material to work with along with the belief that the whole was more important than the individual and they had adequate flexibility.

Maintaining the balance of the multiverse required sacrifice and the willingness to do what was necessary no matter what that might be.

Better that the mortals give their lives in service of a greater cause aiding the plans of their betters than for all to fall to ruin.

Only those whose lifespans are measured in thousands of years, have access to resources granted to them by the Almighty himself and have both wisdom as well as knowledge to a divine degree were fit to direct the course of the multiverse.

Noticing a light blinking on his console he focused and found that it was an amber warning concerning the containment field around the level 3 CSB Harris. Nothing too concerning since this just meant that it was approaching its limit rather than having reached it and a check of the readings didn't indicate it'd go to red sooner than twenty or so minutes. More than enough time for the tech boys with the furnace to finish their work.

At least it would've…

…if not for the fact that the lights as well as the systems began to go haywire.

Immediately he pulled up the omni-notice board that usually had posts on problems that affected the entire facility but much like he'd expected there was nothing there. A failure or a fluctuation on that scale would be catastrophic so every effort was made to either ensure that it wouldn't happen or that there'd be backups upon backups for every system. That meant this had to be an issue with his section as well as perhaps the surrounding ones.

~Could it be related to the problem with the Furnace?~ He thought as he tried to use what he had to stabilize things.

If an excess of weeds to be obliterated had forced a temporary cessation of work it wasn't impossible that other systems might've been affected as well.

Whatever the case his priority had to be keeping the containment fields on both the CSB and the other six weeds at full strength. If either one failed it'd be a bitch to deal with even with the heightened security. Much of the gear as well as the section systems were connected after all in order to maximize efficiency and give them the edge to maintain control. If the systems before him were screwed up the armour and perhaps the weapons of the security forces might also be experiencing problems.

Still not an even playing field for the weeds just more unnecessary damage and bother for him as well as his co-workers.

~Not good. The power fluctuations are making it near impossible to keep the energy flow to the containment field's stable.~ He thought trying to reroute power or bypass malfunctioning systems, ~Doesn't help that the controls glitch every other second.~

In the end he could only conclude that the best he could manage would be to keep things as close to operational and full strength as he could. The rest would be left to others to track down the cause of the mess and fix it before they wound up with a problem on their hands.

KKRRRSSHH!

The glass that should've required divine strength to break shattered and only by the slimmest of margins did he manage to cover up his face enough to keep anything important from getting hurt. Once the surprise passed though he looked through where the glass window had been only to get another surprise though this was MUCH worse.

CSB Xander Harris' containment field was GONE!

Not so much as a flicker of energy filled the air around the level 3 and from the looks of things the young man was somehow responsible for it.

"That's not possible…" he said almost unintentionally, "…No one from the multiverse has powers here but us."

Unless…

Without hesitation he immediately did all he could to access the environmental systems and omni-energy generation as well as control systems. These were the two key things that helped them make sure that nothing that happened within the facility happened without them being behind it. Officially it was only intended to optimize the work environment as well as neutralize the few powers that actually could work anywhere in the multiverse. However according to what he had learned over the centuries it wasn't entirely impossible for someone to alter the settings of both and maybe modify it to allow the weeds at least partial access to their powers. It wouldn't be anywhere near full blown but it'd be a lot more than anyone in the facility was trained to expect.

If…if the weeds moved quick enough…and security was taken by surprise…

"No…" he gasped as a summary of the environmental systems and omni-energy generators came up on his screen without flickering too much.

It was worse than he'd thought.

This wasn't just a case of some systems going haywire in the worst way possible or a disgruntled co-worker trying something stupid. The data he was seeing and the way the problems seemed to be expanding only pointed to one thing…

…but it should've been impossible for an organized act of sabotage to happen.

For countless, UNFATHOMABLE, years they had existed doing their jobs to maintain balance across the multiverse with each of them having been created by the Almighty for the task. In all that time aside from some grumbling that was usually corrected by the higher ups no one had ever had a reason to dislike much less go against their work. Yet according to what he was seeing these were no random malfunctions, power fluctuations or alterations in the environment of the facility. Everywhere he looked the alterations looked to be intended to put their people at a disadvantage while giving the weeds more and more openings with every minute that passed.

~Have to warn the boss!~ He thought deciding to use his divine telepathy rather than the comm-system since the latter was decidedly untrustworthy at the moment, ~He needs to get every security member possible here on the double! This has to be contained!~

The moment he felt himself make contact with his supervisor he could tell just by the emotions being conveyed that the man was aware that there was a problem but likely not the scale of it.

~What is it?~ His supervisor thought obviously multitasking at the moment, ~I'm a little busy trying to pull Maintenance and Control's head out of their collective asses! You'd think they would've seen a systems cascade like this coming!~

~It's not a system cascade sir! It's sabotage!~ He thought to pull his boss' attention away from the wrong conclusion, ~Someone or more than one person is doing this deliberately!~

He mentally sent the information he had managed to bring up as well as outline his thoughts that'd led to the conclusion he'd just declared.

~Great Almighty! Treason!~ His supervisor thought with both shock and fury, ~I'm dispatching a full battalion of security enforcers fully outfitted with termination gear. It's not as clean as the Furnace but it's better than letting those weeds run wild.~

~Sir I would strongly recommend that they target all transport pads in the area the second they're within weapons range.~ He thought submitting a course of action, ~Whoever's behind this couldn't be stupid enough to think that releasing and empowering a few hundred weeds would amount to anything here. Even if they can use a limited amount of their abilities here and now they're outmatched and the saboteurs must know this. The only thing that makes sense…~

~…would be if the weeds were meant to escape into the multiverse.~ His supervisor thought catching up to the gravity of the situation, ~In their native realities they were problem enough but if they escape to realities decidedly different and perhaps predisposed to enhancing their powers…it'd be like peppering the multiverse with explosives. BIG explosives!~

~Yes the amount and scale of the deviations would be like nothing we've experienced since the Beginning.~ He thought recalling those dark early times.

Even if the Almighty had gifted them with the tools and the knowledge for their great task it had still be a veritable war to bring the entire multiverse under their control. As time moved differently from one reality to the next some had managed to discover a means of multiversal travel either by science, sorcery or some sort of special ability. A small few merely used this as a means of going on adventures or making new friends but the vast majority focused only on the gains they could make regardless of the cost to others. Armies were formed, terrible weapons created and more than a few of the early realities wound up obliterated in the conflicts that ensued.

Once they established their control over the multiverse and implemented their methods of maintaining the balance they were able to eliminate threats before they got too far. In time heavy-handed methods were no longer required and far subtler as well as humane options became the norm. Indeed their 'plucking' of the weeds from their native realities was one such option that minimized the damage they did while maximizing the benefits to the multiverse.

Thus had it been almost for as long as he could remember.

However if the weeds escaped into the multiverse to realities not their own the changes they'd make to those realities would be incalculable by their mere presence alone. Even worse if the new reality enhanced their abilities or gave them a substantial advantage over the native inhabitants then the plans for the entire reality would be so much garbage.

While a bit of a leap if the realities the weeds escaped to possessed even the beginnings of multiversal travel…it could lead to a new war.

It was part of the nature of mortals to hold onto grudges and desire revenge after all.

~I'll pass the word to the security team but they might not get there in time.~ His supervisor said forcefully regaining his emotional composure, ~I need you to get down to the network hub and try a manual shutdown of the transport pads. The more you can take offline the fewer the weeds will have at their disposal.~

This was a bit of a surprise.

While he was as well versed in their equipment as any other section head this was outside of his usual duties making him uncertain as to whether or not he could pull it off.

~I know this isn't exactly what you were chosen for but communications are spotty with your section and not everyone is keeping their heads on straight.~ His supervisor thought anticipating why there was hesitation, ~We're in a race against time and finding someone more qualified and getting through to them will waste what little we might have. Can I count on you?~

~I'll…I'll do my best sir.~ He thought realizing that now was not the time to shrink from his responsibilities.

~I know you will.~ His supervisor thought before feeling distracted, ~Let me know when you're done.~

~Right!~ He thought before dispersing the connection.

Still a little nervous he opened the equipment case on the wall before removing a protective vest and a weapon. Everyone was trained with at least one weapon but he'd never had to use it in all the time he'd been a section head so he was probably a little rusty. He'd just have to hope that he didn't run into any of the weeds on the way to the network hub.

With that in mind he exited his control room and began to navigate his way to network hub careful to check corners and listen for signs of trouble every dozen or so feet. He could hear sounds of clanging metal and even back in the room he'd been handling he could hear multiple weeds trying to get out. With the environment changing to allow them to use their abilities he doubted metal doors would hold them much longer regardless of what type of metal was used. He could only hope that whatever changes the saboteurs had made wouldn't allow the weeds to fully unleash their abilities at maximum strength too soon.

He was going to have a hard enough time as it was without having to worry about energy blasts or speedsters!

It took awhile to get where he needed to go and thankfully he'd been able to avoid any direct confrontations with escaped weeds but that was mostly because they had bigger things to worry about. For one thing they didn't know the layout of the place so many of them were lost and for another thing the security forces that were already here were fighting back. It wasn't as decisive as he would've liked but with the environmental changes it wasn't all that surprising. In the end he reached the hub and used his authorization as section head to open the doors.

~Good! Looks like no one's here but me.~ He thought moving over to the central console, ~Time to get to work!~

He needed a minute to recall the manual shut down procedures but once he did he began to follow them step by step doing his best not to let the sounds he was hearing cause him to rush. Minutes ticked by as one by one he managed to shut down the transport pads in the area closing off an avenue of escape for the weeds. He was down to three when he heard the door to the hub room open causing him to stop, grab his weapon and aim it at the door.

Once he saw who it was though he relaxed recognizing who it was.

"I see we had the same idea." The new arrival said lowering his own weapon, "Gotten very far yet?"

"Down to the last three. Once they're offline the weeds will have nowhere to go and when the boss' battalion arrives they'll put down the weeds." He said turning back to the console to resume his work.

"You got through to him? I tried but the comm-system is as messed up as everything else seems to be." His comrade said walking up towards him.

"I used telepathy to get through to him." He explained continuing to operate the console, "He's sending a battalion with full termination load out. I also advised him to have them shoot out the pads once they get in range to make sure no one gets out. This should all be over soon."

"Smart thinking. Boss always said you had a good head on your shoulders." His comrade said coming to a stop just behind him, "Too bad that's gotta end."

Confusion swam through his mind for a moment at the statement before a possibility shattered his calm in the blink of an immortal's eyes. However just as his hand began to reach for his weapon it stopped and the room began to spin in an odd direction that he couldn't explain. It wasn't until his eyes registered that they were looking at a headless body that looked kinda like his and his comrade had a blood soaked sword that the reality of things became clear.

~Guess I'm not really cut out for this after all…~ was the last thought to cross his mind before oblivion took him.

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CSB Level Three Xander's POV

"RASENGAN!" He yelled before slamming the swirling blue sphere of chakra into the door finally managing to knock it off its frame.

"About time you did it!" A girl his own age but blonde and with a short fuse said before shoving past him to get out of the room, "Now get out of my way!"

He was tempted to snap at the girl for her lack of manners but threw that idea out the window given their collective predicament. None of them knew where they were or who the beings were that ran the place but they did know that staying would not be conducive to their future good health. He'd already seen what they had planned for him and there was no way he was going to be stupid enough to pass up this chance to avoid it.

~This is one 'weed' that isn't going to get tossed out with the garbage.~ He thought with a destination in mind, ~Just hope I don't wind up screwing things up.~

These guys, whoever they were, nabbed him by surprise back in Sunny-D and that was no mean feat considering everything he'd inherited thanks to Halloween. Thanks to the hodgepodge of accessories and self-made items that he'd put together for a costume he'd gotten a pretty diverse set of skills as well as abilities. Best of all while he still needed to practice to get the most out of them the lingering muscle memory from who he'd turned into had saved his ass more than once. For these guys to take him completely by surprise and restrain him before he could even form a single seal…he was definitely dealing with people outside a shinobi's usual list of foes.

Still he'd been smart and only pretended to be unconscious when they carried him off to wherever this place was. Even if he couldn't risk opening his eyes since that would risk giving away his ruse he was still able to sense every time they changed direction as well as how many steps they took. He just thanked his lucky stars that they weren't lazy enough to use teleportation to get around everywhere otherwise counting steps and keeping tabs on direction would've been pointless. It was only when they took their hands off of him and an odd tingling sensation began to dance over his skin that he let his eyes open.

Sci-Fi and fantasy did NOT prepare him for THIS!

While at first the green energy that was apparently his cage struck him as some sort of force field anti-grav combo he dismissed that when he noticed what looked like runes engraved around the edges of the energy field. When he'd looked at the restraints that he'd been put in they seemed rather primitive but when he gently tested their strength symbols lit up like Christmas lights and he got a light shock for his experimenting. He'd looked around to try and learn more but all he found were more objects that could either be classified as machines or magic depending on what part you were looking at. In either case he was clueless about how it all operated so he'd moved onto something that he'd hoped would be more fruitful.

Striking up chats with the locals about seemingly harmless topics.

Working with the Scoobies you learned how to dig for information without making people think you actually believed in the supernatural and his shinobi inheritance only made him better at it. Unfortunately all he got for his efforts was either being ignored or 'shut up weed' and if he tried to make them angry enough to let something slip he got more than a light shock.

The biggest surprise though was when he tried to perform a jutsu to break free only for nothing to happen. He'd tried it twice more each time taking care to feel the chakra flowing through his body but when the time came when something should've happened…nothing. He'd watched others that'd been captured try to do the same only to find themselves no more powerful than your average civilian. Even those with visibly large muscles found themselves helpless in their restraints behind some sort of force field. Trying to talk to them either obviously or covertly didn't get anyone very far since the shocks were quickly utilized to ensure silence.

Still he got educated whether he wanted to or not.

Through seeing and hearing he watched as one that'd been imprisoned in the same room as him was treated like property to be processed…

…and then guided into what he could best describe as an ornate phone booth containing the very core of a sun. As soon as the 'paperwork' on a prisoner was finished they were levitated by some unknown means through the air directly into the phone booth. The screams…the screams would stay with him forever for even if they didn't last long they didn't end nearly as quick as he would've preferred. The levitated prisoner only moved at what could be considered a casual walking pace so as soon as they came into contact with the light inside the booth they BURNED. For almost five full seconds they burned and they screamed before the front of their heads were submerged in the light returning all to silence. No matter how hard a prisoner struggled, no matter how desperately they pleaded, nothing kept them from being reduced to nothingness.

It'd almost been his turn when it looked like the booth had blown a fuse and wasn't operating properly. He hadn't known what to expect since he had no idea how hard or how long it'd take to fix but when he found himself teleported to another room he was both relieved as well as irritated. Relieved in the sense that he wasn't going to be burned out of existence anytime soon but irritated in that all his efforts to remember the route back to his arrival point had been rendered useless. Sure they might've just teleported him to the next room over but there was just as good a chance that they'd sent him to the other side of the facility he was now in.

Still he didn't let that get him down!

Whether a Scooby or a ninja both were the sort that endured the adversities life sent their way and persevered in spite of them.

Then something happened that came out of nowhere but he was definitely glad it had.

Malfunctions and problems began to pop up all over the room he was in and judging from the minions working here the issues weren't minor. It kinda irritated him that the people who'd gotten the drop on him and dragged him here weren't competent enough to keep all their tech in working order. Still seeing the people who planned on killing him having a bad day had him go from irritated to amused. However when the energy field he was trapped behind began to flicker and the symbols on his restraints began to slowly spark out of existence he realized this was more than he thought it was.

No organization capable of all this would let their equipment suffer such serious problems so if it wasn't poor maintenance…

…it was sabotage and that gave him hope.

He'd waited as long as he dared, until as many eyes were off him as possible, before forming the correct hand seal and releasing all the chakra he could out of his body all at once. It'd been painful and difficult, he wasn't a Hyuuga after all, but it'd proven to be enough to shatter the energy field around him. It had him breathing hard but he'd been far from out of juice and he'd known that he had to build on what he'd done or he'd be shoved back into his cage soon enough. He'd chosen to free the people in the other energy cage since they'd be good either as allies or distractions giving their kidnappers more to worry about.

At the same time he'd known that he couldn't afford to waste chakra either.

He hadn't known and still didn't know what'd changed recently to let him tap into it again but he doubted he was lucky enough to have full access to it. From the looks of things systems were unstable in this place but they weren't down making relying on anything unwise. Weighing the odds he'd chosen a technique that fit his requirements and ha been confident that it would get him results.

Leaping high into the air he'd done his best copy of a certain gambler's heel drop focusing on getting the timing right while not losing control of the chakra in his foot. In the end it'd worked out well enough with not even a single bit of collateral damage in the form of harm coming to his potential allies.

There'd been some chit-chat but since they were all strangers in enemy territory no one had felt comfortable talking until they got anywhere but here.

~Either that door was made of some damn strong metal or it can nullify a bit of my technique.~ He thought running out into the hallway before looking both right and left for the right direction to go, ~Definitely not a good idea to let them get their act together.~

Unable to think of a reason to go left or right he decided to take a chance and bank on the room he'd been teleported to being next door to the one he'd originally been taken to. With that done he charged to the left following the rough map he'd made in his mind of the route his captors had used. It was only at the second turn that he realized he had some followers causing him to look over his shoulder to see whether it was friend or foe.

He was relieved to find three people following and none of them looked like the assholes running the place.

The first was a brunette with short hair who seemed to have a thing for mixing the old with the new but according to his eyes had definitely been born in the same era as him. She looked to have quite the attitude if her expression was anything to go by making him think that following him was more a frustration spur of the moment choice than anything else.

The second was a young man roughly the same age as him with grey hair and green eyes but his expression was one of perfect stoicism. Running with his arms off to either side it was an odd sprinting position but the guy was using it perfectly. He had a feeling that getting answers from this one would be like playing chess rather than something more straightforward.

The last of his 'followers' was a woman in her late forties who either lost a bet or had decided to completely shave her head of her own free will. He didn't really care, that was free will for you, but personally preferred a lady with hair to one without. This one though was also difficult to read though more due to superior experience than what he suspected to be a stick in the mud personality.

Ideally it was probably for the best that only three of the people in the other containment field had chosen to follow him since it'd afford greater mobility and concealment options. However since he didn't know any of them planning would be pointless since no amount of talking would make them familiar enough with each other to work as a team. The most they could hope to manage was to build upon each other's individual moves and hope that it ended favourably for them and not their captors.

"Do you have a destination in mind?" The forty-some woman asked with a tranquil voice.

"I did my best to remember the route they took after they brought me here." He replied even as he continued to follow his mental map, "It's not perfect but it's all I got. When we get to the end I'm hoping that their teleporter or whatever it is won't be hard to work."

"And?" The brunette asked with a bit of impatience, "What else?"

"Nothing else." He replied letting his eyes wander a bit to be on the lookout for danger of any kind.

"Not much of a fuckin' plan." The brunette scoffed clearly unimpressed.

"We are in unknown territory built by an enemy we are unfamiliar with and do not know what means they will use against us." The grey haired stoic stated plainly, "Planning beyond the immediate is pointless."

"I have studied many languages both belonging to men and not." The bald woman said submitting her opinion, "If we get to this teleporter I believe I will be able to deduce the basics of how to operate it. However without knowing where we are I don't know where we'll wind up once we use it."

"Anywhere's better than here." He said turning another corner, "We stay here they'll overwhelm us with numbers or get their tech working again. If we wind up someplace random it'll work in our favour since it'll by us time seeing as they won't be able to find us right away. We might even go someplace that'll give them trouble if they try to follow us. We'll just have to roll the dice and take our chances."

He just hoped that his luck didn't wind up to be worse than usual.

What happened next did not fill him with hope when parts of the wall shifted and what his instincts identified as weapons began to take aim at the four of them. With no way of knowing just how effective they'd be he knew they needed to be taken out quickly.

"Sen'ei Jashu!" He declared before flinging out his left arm.

In response to his words snakes surged forth from his loose sleeves shooting down the hallway with each one targeting a different weapon. Two managed to hit their marks and succeeded in destroying them albeit with some difficult but the rest were vaporized by the weapons with one hit. The only good part about that was that the beams didn't keep going through to the rest of them making him think that they were target specific. It made sense since creating a weapon that would keep punching through things would just result in collateral damage that only amateurs were tolerate.

Still even as he used the technique again to try and destroy more he found that the snakes just weren't swift enough to cross the gap without most of them getting destroyed.

Thankfully his 'allies' didn't decide to dump everything on his shoulders.

"Teshi Sendan!" The stoic guy declared before five objects flew by him almost faster than he could see.

Even then he could only make out their rough size and shape with his present level of visual acuity.

The results though were to his liking since significantly more weapons in the walls were destroyed than what he'd been able to manage with his own technique. There was…a feeling of familiarity…produced by the name of the technique as well as what he'd been able to perceive with his senses but like many things from his Halloween inheritance the details were out of reach. He shook his head figuring that he could ask questions once they were safely someplace else.

Between him and the bone shooter they were able to keep the wall weapons from surviving long enough to get an accurate shot off. That wasn't to say that they didn't still need to dodge from time to time but it did mean that they stood a better chance than they otherwise would've. In the end with so little opportunity for deep thought time passed and eventually they arrived at a door that hopefully would lead to the transporter room that was their way out. This time though it was the angry brunette who knocked it down with a blast of crimson energy spewing from her hands. It was potent stuff and whether naturally more powerful than his rasengan or enhanced by her own emotions it destroyed the door allowing them to pass through without slowing down.

What they found on the other side…well…it was both awe inspiring as well as intimidating.

He'd been expecting a transporter room like out of Star Trek or a portal thingy like that new Stargate show.

Instead what he beheld could only be described a universe of stars interconnected by an infinitely complex network of structures that would leave any spider feeling inadequate. Honestly even with his vast library of sci-fi shows, movies and books nothing quite matched the scale or the complexity of the place he'd been kidnapped to. It made him wonder just who was responsible for the sabotage that'd provided them with their escape opportunity and just what it might lead to. While not completely and utterly impossible that it was just the act of a group of people no longer able to stand by and watch innocent people get vaped it was more likely to be the work of people with an agenda all their own.

As such he wondered just what the point of releasing them where that agenda was concerned and what might be asked of the escapees in return.

"Look!" The bald woman yelled pointing up and to the right.

Shaking himself free of his thoughts he looked in the direction indicated and saw what looked to be three 'aircraft' of some sort heading their way. He couldn't tell that their designed function was but he was willing to bet it was reinforcements intended to kill the escapees or force them back into that room for vaping. At their current rate of speed it wouldn't be long before they got close enough to open fire assuming their range was anything like the military attack aircraft back home.

Looking around desperately he was quick to spot something that fit almost all the things he thought a transporter should have so he began to run for it with the others following close behind. It was a large circle raised off the ground a few feet with steps ringing it so one would climb onto the circle and to the right of it was a pedestal that he'd bet good money were the controls. He didn't even need to tell the bald woman to do anything before she went over to the pedestal and went to work trying to decipher how to use it to get them out of here.

But she'd need time.

"Alright! You need to start trying to shoot them out of the sky before they get close enough to shoot back or drop troopers on us." He said looking at the brunette before turning to the bone guy, "You're on bodyguard duty. Keep Baldy safe so she can do her job uninterrupted. Both of you stick close to the transporter platform 'cause our window for getting out of here's probably not going to be very big."

"You don't get to give me orders!" The young brunette lady snapped before venting her anger on the approaching aircraft.

~Hopefully she really doesn't like me and this isn't some sort of tsundere thing.~ he thought before thinking about his own contribution to the defence, ~Probably wouldn't survive something like that.~

Turning his attention back to the situation at hand he immediately discounted going on the offence for two very good reasons. First most of the moves he knew were designed to be used against unarmored targets or at least only armour that was adequate against traditional melee weaponry. Given what he was looking at he doubted he'd be able to make much of a dent in those transports and that wasn't even taking into account the issue of range. Even if he threw a kunai as hard as he could he'd have to wait until they were at least twenty meters away to make sure it hit.

~So if I can't help by attacking then all I can do is defence.~ He thought as a course of action, ~Gotta be careful though since my body will be doing most of the heavy lifting on this.~

~Tiger, hare, boar, ram, dog, ox and SNAKE!~ He thought as he formed the seals before declaring, "Doton: Doryūheki!"

Just like his Halloween memories from Halloween as soon as he finished speaking his mouth began spewing out earthen material since the technique converted chakra into something solid. Unfortunately the amount of mud as he liked to call it depended on the skill of the user and while he didn't consider himself an amateur anymore he was still far from being a master. As such he had to be very strategic where he had the mud land and after he cut off the flow so he didn't shoot himself in the foot he dropped to one knee before placing both hands into the mud. With a pulse of high density chakra a stone well shot up from the mud until it was a little over twenty feet tall as well as almost three feet thick.

~Would've been better if I'd had natural dirt and stone to work with but no sense crying over what you don't have.~ He thought once he was sure his creation was permanent, ~Hopefully it'll take at least a few hits before coming down. Should be good for cover if girl needs to duck behind it and make it harder for those assholes to hit us if they can't see where we are.~

By his reckoning a little less than half his chakra had gone into making the wall so he had to wonder if there wasn't something else he could do to tip things further in their favour. Unfortunately as useful as his Halloween inheritance was back in Sunnydale in this particular situation he was useless unless the enemy got a lot closer. As such he chose to keep a close eye on the door they'd come through and prepare in case the enemy came from there sooner than the aircraft did.

BOOM!

"Yes! Winged one of them!" The brunette crowed before unleashing another blast to build on that successful strike.

"Don't get cocky!" He warned even as he peeked around his wall and saw the damaged aircraft, "Winged doesn't mean defeated!"

"Duh! I'm not that dim!" The brunette yelled focusing her blasts on the one she'd already hit.

Her aim wasn't terrible but it was clear that she hadn't spent much time at the proverbial shooting range sharpening her aim but rather was like a teenager with a paintball gun. She knew how to point and pull the trigger as well as to aim for where the target was going to be rather than where it was but that was it. Any other nuances or common practices used by people who specialized in long range shots were unknown to the girl. Still what she lacked in skill she apparently made up for in stamina because with the barrage of crimson energy blasts she let loose a lesser person would've worn themselves out by now.

BA-BOOM! CCRRSSSHH!

Persistance paid off as two shots managed to hit the already damaged aircraft and as a result it dropped crashing to the 'ground' half a dozen football fields away. Buried halfway into the metal of the 'ground and smoking from the damaged parts it wouldn't be getting back into the fight anytime soon. The only threat it still represented would be if any of the vehicle's occupants were still in any condition to fight. If so they'd be exiting the aircraft and heading his way giving him reason to prepare for a decidedly lopsided fight.

VVEEE! VEEEE!

"Fuck!" the brunette girl declared as the two remaining aircraft opened fire on her.

Only the fact that the people in charge of the mounted weapons impatiently opened up before they entered effective range kept his ally from getting killed in one go. Still the shots hitting the 'ground' around her spooked her enough to cause her turn to dash for the cover he'd created but that was only common sense. The aim of the aircraft's weapons would only get better the closer the enemy got so standing out in the open was just asking to get killed.

Two more near misses were all that came the girl's way before she made it behind his cover but just to be extra careful he motioned for her to get down on her stomach. If the aircraft planned on shooting through the cover to get to them they'd likely be aiming a little below waist level and above with their shots. If so by getting this close to the ground the only way they'd be hit would be if the shooter intended to literally take them out at the legs.

~Sadistic but considering what these people were doing I wouldn't put it past them.~ He thought imagining the mindset it'd take to kill people the way he saw.

"So are we just going to lay here with our thumbs up our asses or what?" The brunette asked even as shots began to pierce the wall a foot or three above their heads, "Baldy's a sitting duck and so's her backup!"

"You can risk taking another shot but you'll be giving away where you are." He replied not liking developments either, "Unless you can take both of them out in that first barrage it's too risky."

"Then WHAT?!" She asked not liking his answer.

"We either hope they touch own in front of us and let out their storm troopers so we can in close to take them down or we hope they fly past us and you shoot'em in the back." He replied going with what first came to mind, "Both are risky but it's all I got right now."

Too bad for him the people in the other two aircraft turned out to be smarter because with perceivable tremors in the 'ground' and a clear sight of only a single vehicle flying overhead the baddies had decided to go with both options. With a look into each others eyes both he as well as the young lady knew what to do and got to their feet to do their respective jobs. Dashing around his stone barrier he only heard the now familiar sound of the woman's red energy blasts as they tried to rear end the aircraft heading for Baldy. Hopefully the bastards wouldn't do something like double up on their rear deflector shields or something but if they did he could only hope that his ally's stubbornness would prove to be too much to be denied.

Looking ahead he saw the vehicle ahead touch down and judging by its size he figured there couldn't be more than twelve or sixteen troopers inside not counting the pilot. Not great odds but thankfully the vamps back home liked to use the whole 'overwhelm the prey with superior numbers' routine so he had ample practice dealing with situations like this. He also had some moves inherited from Halloween that were meant for taking on large numbers so as long as he kept a sharp mental grasp of the battlefield he could manage.

~Stay mobile, switch it up at the drop of a hat and no matter what don't let your guard down!~ He thought as the first of the troopers came into view from a hatch on the other side of the vehicle.

Honestly they looked like a mix between black ops soldiers and medieval knights if he was being honest but he wasn't about to judge their abilities based solely on their looks. Deciding to get the first shot in he decided to go with something that'd get their attention and hopefully buy him some time to get even closer.

"Mandara no Jin!" He declared before opening his mouth wide.

It took a moment but then he felt them.

He HATED this part of the technique and it was one of the reasons why he didn't use it if he could avoid it. Still it'd be big enough to be the distraction he needed and as long as he didn't invest too much chakra into the move it wouldn't make his situation much worse than it already was. If he'd intended to have them do actual harm to the troopers he'd need to pour in more energy but as it was this would be enough.

Slithering like the disgusting things they were snakes began to pour out of his mouth like water spreading outwards more than twenty feet before heading straight to the troopers. He waited until enough had come forth to rear up and form a good sized wave of snakes before he cut off the flow. He might be stubborn but even he had limits as to how long he could put up with the feeling of slithering things coming up his throat and out of his mouth. Besides with their vision now obscured he had to get moving or risk being right back where he started moments ago.

Sprinting forward like a true shinobi he kept his reflexes sharp and this proved to be right call since a few moments later shots of light began to pierce through the wave of serpents. With the first three he could tell that they didn't know where he was but instead were shooting based on logical judgment. As a result he could sorta predict where they'd shoot next based on one where they had already fired their weapons. Still he'd need to go a little further if he wanted to create an opening for himself and so he decided to go with something low costing but effective.

~Ram, Snake, Tiger!~ He thought as he formed the hand seals, ~Bunshin no Jutsu!~

In the space of three seconds the same number of clones of himself appeared and to the naked eye they were indistinguishable from him. The only downside though was that they had no substance whatsoever and if one had keen enough eyesight they were easily discovered to be mere images and nothing more. Fortunately it wasn't their purpose to do harm or even keep up appearances for very long.

They just needed to get and keep the attention of the troopers long enough for him to get the first hit in.

As a result he had one circle around the wave of snakes from the left, one from the right and one leaping over the top with all of them brandishing kunai as though ready to strike.

~Ram, Horse, Snake, Dragon, Rat, Ox, Tiger!~ He thought forming the hand seals before bringing his right hand up to his mouth, ~Katon: Karyū Endan!~

As if from the nozzle of a flame thrower fire spewed forth from between his blowing lips and his control over it was JUST good enough to keep from damaging himself by accident. Through the memories that came from Halloween he knew that experienced users of the technique could shape the flames into snake dragons to strike from three different directions but he wasn't that good.

Not yet.

The result was just a focused but steady stream of fire that punched through the wave of snakes and rolled over the troopers before they could react. He immediately saw that while he had successfully engulfed a large number of them three had been on the edges of the flames and managed to avoid serious injury. As fast as he was to notice this he knew they'd be just as fast so he needed to take them out before they could aim and fire their rifles at him.

Forming the snake hand seal he unleashed the technique that he'd worked the hardest to master and had earned him some looks in order to obtain the requirements for.

Ranjishigami no Jutsu.

It was a technique that temporarily enhanced the users head metabolism and manipulated the hair that quickly grew as a result. With chakra flowing through the hair it was rendered as hard as steel wiring and with control he sent three different ropes of it forth one to each surviving trooper. With speed the ropes wrapped around each of his enemies and once restrained he added a twist of his own that his 'predecessor' had never come up with. Normally at this point the one who he got this technique from would have just tossed his foes about or used kunai against those incapable of defending themselves.

He on the other hand simply took the hair lengthening and hardening aspects to a messy conclusion.

As though they were porcupine quills he caused four strands of hair to lengthen even further while also increasing their strength beyond steel wiring. As a result each of the remaining troopers suffered piercing injuries to areas that would be considered fatal if a human being were to be pierced in the same spots. Pulling back his hair and ending the technique he watched as those who'd come to kill him dropped to the ground but he didn't let his guard down. He had no idea how close or how far this bunch was from humans in terms of what it took to kill them and he refused to be taken by surprise. Already he was gathering chakra into his fists and feet preparing to time the release of the condensed energy to a split second before contact with the enemy. If piercing damage proved insufficient to kill them then perhaps adding pulverized bones and organs would be enough to eliminate the threat.

Seconds passed until he was fairly sure he was approaching two minutes without any of the troopers on the ground showing even the slightest sign of life. Did he dare turn his back to them? Could they perhaps be waiting for him to do just that before shooting him in the back? This bunch had no honour, of that he was certain, and would likely take their kill any way they could get it.

"AAAHHHH!"

In the end it was a scream that could only have come from the brunette that forced him to look away from his possibly defeated foes. Making sure the bunch in front of him was down would do him little good if the enemy eliminated his allies especially the bald lady. When his eyes were finally aimed in the right direction he saw the reason for the lady crying out in pain and immediately began sprinting to her aid.

Somehow one of her arms had gotten obliterated and in her agony she'd fallen onto her back.

Seeing a blast of crimson energy fly from her remaining hand he could see that the angry lady wasn't throwing in the towel just yet but she was at a serious disadvantage. On her back her mobility would take precious seconds to reestablish and that was assuming that the enemy allowed her to get her feet back under the rest of her. With only one hand to fire crimson energy blasts from her offensive potential had essentially been halved making it that much easier for the troopers coming at her to finish her off. All they had to do was divide their numbers to come at her from opposite sides and her death would come in no time at all.

Sprinting wasn't going to cut it!

~Just hope that I can keep this ninjutsu going long enough!~ He thought before forming the necessary hand seal, ~Hau hebi mōdo!~

Looking like modelling clay being smushed together his legs came together until to an observer they took on the shape of a snake's tail. From his point of view the best way he could describe it would be using his mind and chakra to temporarily reconfigure everything below the waist into a desired shape before moving the result the way a snake would in order to move fast. He'd tried it a few times back home but maintaining the shape of his lower body and moving it the necessary way had always been a challenge for him. Overall he could only keep it up for a little over five minutes before something caused him to literally trip himself up and fall into a tumble.

Good thing he didn't need five minutes in this situation.

Pushing himself as hard as he could without screwing up with the technique he shot across the 'battlefield' and when he saw his predicted scenario begin to take form he acted.

"Gamayudan!" he declared before sending a stream of chakra generated oil from his mouth towards the closest group of troopers trying to attack the brunette girl from her weak side.

This got their attention but just because the stuff was sticky and required extra effort to move in it didn't slow them down all that much. This however was just part one of his plan and with the seals snake, ram, monkey, boar, horse and tiger he put the second one into action.

Katon: Endan.

Best of all he only needed to keep the technique going long enough to ignite the oil he'd soaked the troopers in since once the liquid caught fire the flammable fuel would do the rest. Indeed the oil's stickiness would make it so that the only choices the troopers would have would be to either take off their armour or wait for fuel to be all burnt up. Either way they would have priorities other than killing the now one armed girl allowing him to move to add his muscle to hers. Hopefully that'd be enough buy Baldy the time she needed to get the teleporter pad running and ready for use because he'd bet good money that reinforcements were on their way.

These assholes wanted the four of them dead and this was their home territory after all.

He waited ten seconds to confirm that the now aflame troopers wouldn't be firing on the brunette anytime soon before cancelling the snake tail technique and sprinting for the other group of troopers. Doing so turned their own tactic back on them by forcing them to deal with threats coming at them from two different directions at the same time. Some of them did as expected but as a pleasant surprise the young brunette lady supported him by mixing up her shots to take aim at the ones shifting their focus towards him rather than staying on her. By shifting her aim at random the troopers would have to take the chance of leaving themselves open to take him out or focus on the girl thus letting him get in closer.

It was when he brought back a fist and leapt forward to deck one of the troopers though that he noticed something that caused his gut to tighten and his hopes to drop a bit.

Just as he started to come back down from his leap a wave of golden energy seemed to flow over the troopers forms before disappearing. In addition to that the ones that'd been wary about ignoring the brunette to fire at him now lost any hesitation in their movements. He could only guess what it meant but he knew he had to abort his attack FAST!

~Tiger, boar, ox, dog, snake!~ He thought as he quickly formed the hand seals, ~Kawarimi no Jutsu!~

In the blink of an eye he found himself to the far right and the piece of aircraft wreckage he'd chosen was now mid-air where he'd been. A good thing he'd acted in time because a second later two beams of energy pierced the piece of metal melting a hole ten times bigger than should've been possible before the melted parts vanished like dust in the wind.

His mind raced as he tried to figure out what'd changed but in the end he could only conclude one thing: whatever tech problems might've existed that'd provided an opportunity for escape had just taken a BIG step in righting themselves. He'd bet good odds that the wave of energy he'd seen was some kind of force field and it was strong enough to bolster the confidence of the troopers enough to act without hesitation. Would this be the extent of the odds shifting in his abductors' direction or would more happen?

~Better to assume it will instead of getting blindsided.~ He thought before heading towards the last of the troopers in a zig-zag manner, ~Gotta take them out fast!~

With all his speed, all his agility and his reflexes at their maximum he advanced but he could tell with every near miss that it wasn't just their defences that had gotten an upgrade. Before it'd felt like they were using their own judgment when it came to aiming and firing their weapons but now he could say for sure that someone or something was helping them shoot. Some sort of system adjusting their aim for them or something simpler like HUD indicators on their visors telling them where to aim? In any case the closer he got the harder it was getting to make sure he didn't get hit but he had no choice. Even with all the jutsu he'd inherited from Halloween he couldn't be sure any of the long range options would be enough to break through their force fields.

Only one move he knew of could end this and it was a bit of a gamble with how much chakra he had left. If it landed he was positive the four of them would have their opportunity to get away but if it failed then at best bone guy and bald lady would be the only ones to get out alive.

An all or nothing gamble with four lives on the line.

~Guess it's time to show everyone just how gutsy I really am!~ He thought once he was within leaping distance of his targets.

Pushing everything he had into a burst of speed he leapt a good thirty feet into the air faster than the eye could follow before he committed himself to his course of action. At first invisible with momentum that only increased he began to channel chakra into his hands in multiple different directions at the same time. Once he was sure the movement was right he force fed more power into it increasing both the volume as well as the density of the chakra further and further until he judged it too risky to add more. All this was done while containing the chakra in the shape of a sphere though to call it something like that would be a bit of an understatement. In order to be sure of victory he had done all he could to make the sphere as big as he could make it before bringing it in front of him as gravity began to pull him downwards. Strength was leaking out of him like a bucket filled with water but having multiple holes in it but he held on because the alternative was unacceptable to him.

With a final burst of willpower he declared the name of the technique!

"Gōketsu Rasengan!"

The reason he'd gone with this jutsu was twofold: first it'd work as a shield against incoming fire since it'd be energy vs energy and it was the most powerful technique he was capable of. The only drawback was the chakra requirement for it was HUGE especially since he didn't have a bijuu inside of him and hadn't so much as dipped a pinky into the senjutsu pool. He had the memories for it but given the consequences of screwing up pulling in and molding natural energy no situation back in Sunnydale had been dire enough to be worth the risk.

He could feel the second it made contact with the troopers and he was surprised when their personal shields didn't fail right away. The power of this technique was two thirds what his inherited memories said Naruto could manage with his Chōōdama Rasengan jutsu and that was no joke. For a moment he thought that he'd lost his gamble but when he suddenly dropped a full five feet and bits of the ground began spiralling away in all directions he knew victory was his. Holding the technique for five more seconds just to be sure he then cancelled it…

…and dropped to the 'ground' in a heap as exhaustion overtook him.

After Halloween he'd trained, did his best to get his body in the shape it needed to be in and practiced what he 'knew' someplace discreet where no one would see him. It wasn't easy considering he had to juggle school and Scooby duties at the same time but he'd been determined to make the most of the upgrade he'd been given. By the time that he'd been taken by these assholes there'd been few things on the Hellmouth strong enough to give him a reason to worry enough to call for backup.

That being said using so many powerful techniques in quick succession, especially that last one, had been seriously draining.

Pushing himself up onto his hands and knees he took a moment until his inner energy began to climb once more before looking about to assess the situation. The troopers looked like they were down or dead which by his reckoning meant his team had some breathing room but he had no idea how much. Forcing himself to his feet he began to walk or rather stumble over to where the young brunette lady looked to be in worse shape than him. Not surprising considering the fact that she was missing an arm but so long as no vitals were hit and the area where the arm used to be was cauterized she'd make it.

"As much as…I'd like to take five with you…we gotta go." He said as he approached where she lay on the 'ground', "We barely survived wave one…don't want to find out if there's a wave two."

She didn't respond and considering how much of a talker she'd been before he didn't like this.

His heart sunk into his stomach when he began to circle around to see her face and saw that half of it wasn't there anymore. Somehow…somehow…between his arriving on the scene and slamming the Chōōdama Rasengan into the troopers the brunette had taken a shot to the head. He didn't know how close it'd been but it'd been enough to melt off half of her head with only dumb luck making it so that the gory side was facing down rather than up.

~Damnit!~ He thought angrily before he began to make his way over to the transport platform.

One dead despite the fact that he'd given it his all from moment one.

Death might be a part of life for a shinobi but that didn't mean that they didn't give the grim reaper one helluva fight to keep it from claiming its prize.

Looking up he was gratified to see that Missus Baldy was still standing and working on the controls for the platform with no sign that she'd taken a hit. Letting his gaze pan left and then right he sought out Bone Guy hoping that he'd managed to stay in decent shape so at least three out of their four person group would be getting out of here. It took a moment, especially with his vision beginning to blur a bit, but he found the guy and the fact that he was standing in the middle of an arrangement of dead bodies on the ground with blood spattered over his frame was a good thing as far as he was concerned. From the looks of things the guy had opted to get in close and using a kunai made of bone went for one hit kill shots. A sound move since this would be efficient as well as allow the guy to conserve his strength in case more trouble came his way.

"You okay?" He asked not wanting to assume anything given how he'd learned the truth about the brunette girl.

"I am well. Better than I thought I'd be given my illness." Bone Guy replied turning to face him and showing bone growths beginning to recede back beneath soft skin, "It almost feels as though it has regressed back to how it had been when I had first begun to manifest symptoms."

Sounded like a terminal illness or at least something that needed regular injections of medicine to keep under control. Hopefully he wouldn't take a nosedive before they got out of here because he really didn't want to leave another teammate behind even if they just past being strangers to one another. To him every person that made it out of this hellhole was another victory over the bastards that thought they had the right to kidnap people, steal what made them special and then throw them in a souped up incinerator. If all three of them could get back to their native realities and resume their lives then it'd be the ultimate 'fuck you' to these assholes making it clear that super high tech or no they wouldn't always get their way.

"Let's hope that's a sign of good luck." He said before looking back towards Missus Baldy, "We're in the clear for now but I think we should check up on our expert to see how much longer getting the teleport platform working is going to take. I'm pretty much out of strength, the girl with the energy blasts is dead and that leaves you as there only one still able to fight. If they come at us again I don't know if we're gonna get outta here."

"Then let us hope she's had good luck." Bone Guy said as the two of them approached the topic of their discussion.

Seeing what looked to him to be some sort of holographic controls with symbols and diagrams floating mid-air Baldy was moving with mostly assured gestures only pausing occasionally. Personally he took this to mean that she mostly had the tech figured out and just needed to watch her step manipulating the controls.

"How's it looking?" He asked trying not to sound so wasted since her concern might distract her from her task.

"The good news is that this is similar enough to what I'm familiar with that I can navigate my way around it without too much trouble." Baldy replied with her Brit accent, "The bad news is determining the right set of commands to send us someplace better than here. The information I'm seeing all but confirms that the Multiverse is more than just a theory and it is much bigger than I ever imagined. Finding a reality capable of supporting human life and not a deathtrap is proving to be time consuming."

Made sense.

A lot of movies, TV shows and comics back home had stories involving alternate realities and timelines. The one constant among them seemed to be that if you could imagine it then there was probably a reality or timeline where it was actually happening. Finding one fast where they could rest and plan their next move without something like a T-Rex barging in or extra-terrestrials with acid for blood blitzing them couldn't be easy. Still…

…time was not on their side.

"Well time's not something we have a lot of." He said looking behind them for any sign of trouble, "We managed to take down the first wave but the next one's probably on its way. We might just have to go with a close match rather than something that checks all the right boxes."

"…agreed. Just give me a few more minutes." Baldy said with some reluctance, "Time may be against us but that is no reason to be reckless."

With the decision made he turned his back to the lady and focused on keeping tabs on their surroundings. Their survival would depend on spotting trouble the second their senses were able to pick up on it and acting swiftly to counter it any way they could. He wouldn't be able to do much himself save maybe throw a few kunai or shuriken but he'd contribute however he could. Bone Guy would be the one taking the more direct approach but with the mention of an illness he was worried that intense fighting might make it worse. While maladies were many none of them tended to react very well when strain was put on the body through serious exertion.

~God? Murphy? I know I'm not exactly in either of your 'nice' books but if you could just cut the three of us some slack I'd owe you a serious favour.~ He thought deciding that a little divine intervention or restraint couldn't hurt right now.

When hatches and the doorway they'd come through begin deploying more troopers, some of which looked to be more heavily armed, he cursed the fact that evidently Murphy had been listening but God's attention had been elsewhere.

Typical.

"We've got incoming! How much longer?" He asked without looking back at Baldy.

"Bollocks! Give me two minutes! Just two minutes and we can get out of here!" Baldy replied with angry exasperation.

Seeing the forces heading their way he had doubts that between him and Bone Guy that they'd be able to hold the goons squad off for ONE minute.

"Be ready to leave with her once the platform activates." Bone Guy said before beginning to stride towards the oncoming enemy forces, "I will do all I can to keep them focused on me for as long as possible."

"Are you nuts!?" He exclaimed at the idea, "They'll turn you to paste!"

"Most likely." Bone Guy said not showing even a little fear of the path he'd chosen, "However it is the one option that holds the most promise for you and the woman to escape from here. Letting them get too close to her puts her in danger and so does letting them think of all of as targets instead of just one. This is the path I have chosen. Please respect it."

Instinctively rejecting the no win scenario he tried to think of a strategy that'd work and make the whole self-sacrifice routine unnecessary. However with his depleted strength and the brunette girl dead a defensive fight would be suicide but only a little more than facing superior numbers at point blank range. In the end he had no choice but to nod in acceptance even though he hated the fact that there was no other choice.

Nodding in return Bone guy began to pick up speed and out of nowhere molten lines began to crawl across his skin from beneath the guy's clothing forming patterns that both came together and split away. However it was when this process seemed to be enhancing the bone based attributes of the teenager that a memory popped up to the surface of his mind.

A Juinjutsu!

The memory told him of what such things were but more importantly who had likely given this guy one.

~If it really is one of HIS Juinjutsus then Bone Guy might stand a better chance that I thought.~ He thought as the cursed seal continued to flow and grow.

While the new memory hinted that the level of enhancement varied from Sound ninja to Sound ninja if Bone Guy's kill count without using it was any hint Baldy might just get her two minutes.

By the time the approaching troopers began to open fire on Bone Guy he no longer looked human with dark skin, six bones as big as safety cones sticking out of his back and a tail that belonged to a dinosaur sticking out from between his butt cheeks. However it was too little too late for the enhancements had made it so that the suicidal warrior could move with amazing speed while also dodging with impressive agility. As such it didn't take long for close combat range to be reached and that was when the real show began.

"Tsubaki no Mai." Bone Guy declared before twin blades pierced the skin just behind the wrists before extending almost two feet past the tips of the extended fingers.

With speed and precision Bone Guy began to stab Troopers left and right with enough speed that one might think there was no in-between step from bringing an arm back to strike and the blade being buried in its target. He'd thought that there'd be some battering of the force fields the troopers had around themselves but to his eyes he couldn't make out more than one strike and that one was instantly lethal. Either his ally was a physical powerhouse and knew how to focus it all on the very tip of his blades or there were actually multiple stabs being landed and his eyes just weren't good enough to see them all.

With a target managing to kill them even with their suits getting back many of the bells and whistles the troopers definitely considered the killer in their midst a priority threat. Many of them tried to put some distance between themselves and their foe but Bone Guy was good at making sure none of them got very far. His ally even managed to get the old 'get the bad guys to shoot each other' trick to work a few times before discipline had the baddies making sure of their line of fire before shooting. The caution though only helped Bone Guy out since instead of dodging twenty rushed shots there'd only be ten disciplined professional shots.

A few who'd only just come out into view were down on one knee taking careful aim and waiting for the one moment they'd be able to fire the kill shot. If he'd been in their shoes he would've had the troopers on the edge ignore Bone Guy and focus on taking out the more vulnerable targets. They wouldn't have to be overly smart to realize he was on his last legs and that Baldy was distracted so two well placed shots would've added two notches to their kill count. Instead it looked like the troopers saw the two easy kills as something that could wait until the more pressing problem was dealt with.

~Guess Bone Guy's plan is working.~ He thought trying to mentally guess how many more seconds this needed to go on before they could get out of here.

As long as the number of troopers didn't increase to the point where they could afford to split off a group they'd be leaving here soon enough.

VVVRRRR!

VVVRRRR!

~No fair! I didn't say anything Murphy!~ He thought angrily as an unwelcome indicator that the facility's systems were getting closer to fully operational appeared.

This time in the form of something that reminded him of a four barrelled heavy machine gun with a seat in the middle and the whole thing being designed for aircraft not people. Two such emplacements rose out of the 'ground' barrels up before their operators began to take action to aim the barrels at the direction of their targets.

~Wait! If they open up with that kind of firepower with how deadly their rifles are they'll take out their own people!~ He thought not believing for a second that the troopers' personal shields would render them invulnerable.

More like their bosses saw them as expendable and it pissed him off.

Even if it pissed him off that they'd kidnapped him he still refused to believe that there was any justification for callously throwing away the lives of comrades. Each one of those lives was unique! They had connections be it to friends, family or just to the cause they believed in! There was no way in hell that he, Bone Guy and Baldy were so dangerous and in need of killing that taking out members of your own team was an acceptable loss!

More than anything he wanted to just this one time fulfill the role of the hero and somehow come up with a way to turn the tide once more in their favour. Sadly the realist in him, the pragmatist, knew that such turnarounds only happened in cartoons and comic books. In reality it wasn't whether you were the hero or not that determined the outcome of a situation but rather which side had more variables in their favour. Strength, skill, resources, strategy and allies were just a few of the things that played a factor in determining the outcome.

In this case all he had on him was some ninja gear and maybe enough strength to use them for one assault before staying conscious would be all he could do. Even with the explosive tags he had on him he doubted that they'd be enough to destroy even one of the weapon emplacements. At most, assuming that there weren't any barriers around the emplacements, he might be able to kill the operators but those could be easily replaced by any of the troopers present or perhaps be remotely operated at the cost of efficiency. Baldy couldn't do anything a Bone guy had his hands full with his group of troopers.

Bottom line: unless a miracle happened the most he could hope for was for Baldy to somehow squeeze through to a new reality.

A party of four but only one making it out in one piece.

Not exactly what he'd call a successful break out.

~Guess even with all I gained from Halloween I'm still not good enough.~ He thought bitterly as the light of hope that'd been within him increasingly faded away, ~I'm…I'm gonna fail…AGAIN!~

BBB-YOW!

Wind, debris and perceivable heat swept the area…

…and yet he wasn't dead.

Indeed he didn't feel any worse than before.

The reason?

Instead of two weapon emplacements opening fire on their designated targets the rear most one had opened fire on the one ahead of it. It was the destruction of this emplacement that'd displaced so much and unleashed so much chaos even throwing the troopers fighting Bone Guy for a loop. Fortunately for him Bone Guy was made of sterner stuff and completely ignored this new development seeing only an opportunity to reduce enemy numbers even further. Things only got better when whoever was manning the rear most emplacement fired precise shots at all the ways the troopers were using to emerge out onto the battlefield. The door and the hatches were being blown to bits blocking any further troopers from come out to cause them problems.

If…if Bone Guy could take out the remaining troopers and if Baldy could get the portal working…escape might still be possible.

Too bad someone else knew this as well for it was a moment later when shots from some other location slammed into the ground a few feet from the helpful emplacement. It wasn't enough to destroy the weapon or its operator but it was enough to knock it offline with sparks flying out of damaged components over and over again. Fortunately the operator didn't waste time trying to coax a few more shots out of it and swiftly fled narrowly avoiding a follow up volley that destroyed the weapon. However the defector was far from out of the fight retrieving what appeared to be a pistol form of the rifles the others were using from a holster at their waist. With shots that were clearly those of a master marksman more troopers were felled until the battle was over with leaving only his three teammates and their unknown ally.

"Don't know who you are but…thanks." He said figuring it was only polite to show gratitude.

The rogue trooper reached up and removed their helmet to reveal a stunning redhead with shoulder length curly hair.

"None needed. Now get out of here while you can." The woman said with a slight Russian accent, "At best you have a minute before the rest of the facility's exterior defences are back online and they bombard this location."

"What about you?" He asked not liking the idea of leaving the one that'd saved him to fend for herself.

"I have my own way out. Now go." She replied pointing to the teleporter pad that finally was beginning to light up.

Nodding both he as well as Bone Guy began moving to hook up with Baldy in order to escape enemy territory hopefully to get some breathing room in order to plan their next move.

"We good to go?" He asked looking for final confirmation.

"Yes. I don't know exactly what we will find when we get there but there'll be humans there and an environment relatively safe for us." Baldy replied pressing three final symbols before stepping onto the platform, "Now let's go. I've set it to activate in five seconds."

"No problem. I've got no reason to stick around here." He said following her onto the pad.

Sure they might be leaping out of the frying pad and into the fire but they'd definitely get roasted if they stayed here. With Bone Guy stepping up to his left side he could almost feel the steady increase in the, for lack of a better word, power humming in the air. Without any way of knowing how potent it would get before sending the three of them someplace else all he could do was wait. It was when the air began to distort that he knew they were less than five seconds away…

…then instincts he didn't have prior to Halloween flared.

Danger!

He tried to turn towards the source, pulling a kunai from its hip holster as he did so, but when he felt something impact his back and somehow attach itself he knew he was too late. A new sensation began to crawl outwards from the point of impact before blossoming to encompass all three of them. He didn't have time to figure out what it was or even see anything really before the world around him twisted in on itself like ink in the making of a tie dye T-Shirt.

Had they been betrayed?

Was this meant to kill them?

No. If the woman wanted them dead she wouldn't have intervened and just let the troopers finish them off.

This was something else.

Something MORE.

He just hoped that he lived long enough to figure out what it was.

---

The Unknown Woman

"And so it begins…" she thought as the last motes of teleporter energy faded away.

The first step towards a liberated existence.

Still she knew better than to linger especially with whoever had made that long distance shot possibly preparing to try again. With that in mind she reached into a pouch tied to her upper arm before retrieving a small device no bigger than your average cigarette lighter. With the press of a button at the top she activated the short range site-to-site transporter and in the blink of an eye she found herself where she'd placed a lock on beacon the day before. It existed in a security grid weak point that would've been made even worse when the system malfunction cascade occurred. Sure it looked as though the systems were almost restored but she'd rigged enough delays that the sensors for this room would be among the last to come back online. By her estimates she had roughly five and a half minutes before others would know what was in this room.

Plenty of time.

"Uuhhh…" groaned a voice from a few feet away.

"Ah…awake I see." She said turning to face the source, "Sorry about the bump to the head but take it as a compliment. You're every bit the operative the higher ups say you are."

Looking down to the floor she gazed upon one of the most infamous operatives that the so-called 'Balance Bringers' had at their beck and call. Over a hundred missions carried out and ninety-seven percent of them completed precisely as ordered with only a pittance of loose ends to worry about overall. What added to the operative's reputation was that she'd been recruited from the multiverse rather than being a local. Normally the higher ups kept new employees restricted to those that had been born and raised outside of the multiverse. This was done to ensure that no pesky emotions or attachments would get in the way of their work and possibly incite ideas of disobedience. So for a resident of the multiverse to not only be recruited but also rise in the ranks the way this one had was quite the achievement.

In other words quite useful.

"But don't worry. You'll feel right as rain soon enough." She said as she began to arrange certain tools and items around the room, "Just need to set the stage first."

She'd moved most of these things into the room over the course of several weeks in order to eliminate the possibility of being suspected of something shady. Only when she'd needed to lure a certain someone into position did she take something that would trigger pursuit allowing her to lay a trail of breadcrumbs to be followed. It'd been a mild challenge to do something that would get her the results she wanted but not spread further than her intended target but she had experience in these sort of things. Once her prized 'guest' arrived her carefully laid out ambush had done the rest. Most of it had been distractions and misdirection in order to successfully inject a sedative but in the end she'd been forced to deal a heavy blow to the head to seal the deal.

"There. A stage fit for an award winning performance." She declared before hearing the sounds of restraints being tested, "Don't bother. They're not the usual sort and I've modified them to make sure it'd take you at least thirty minutes to escape from. More time than you have I'm sorry to say."

All that was left was to for her and her 'co-star' to get into their starting positions and it could all begin. This with practiced ease she flung her hands forward sending near invisible threads of blue energy from each fingertip through the air until they landed on precise points over her co-star's body. From there she began to move her fingers, hands and wrists in a precise way causing the woman on the floor to stand up but definitely not of her own volition. The restraints that she'd put on the woman had a paralyzing function that made anything more that eye movement, basic autonomic functions and grunting impossible. It was a credit to her technique that the movements of her puppet were so fluid and natural looking and this was just the simple stuff.

With precise movements she had her guest withdraw her weapon from its hip holster and take aim before adjusting the direction in order to make sure it wouldn't hit anything important. With her knowledge of human anatomy she knew exactly where to make the shot land so that it would appear to be a near fatal wound but in fact would give responders time to 'save her'. Once that was done she focused on having one of her hands keep her co-star in position while the other one drew her own sidearm and aimed it albeit at someplace that'd be instantly lethal. It wouldn't make identification hard but it would guarantee that only SHE would be telling the story of what happened here.

"Do svidaniya, Black Widow." She said before triggering both weapons to fire.

Pain. It wasn't something new to her so even as she fell onto her back from the shot she managed to remain conscious and coherent. Releasing her chakra strings from her target she knew she had only a minute left to act before something unnecessary might be caught. First she remotely unlocked the restraints she'd placed on her now dead co-star and then she used a single chakra thread to yank it into her waiting hand. Secondly she reached up to her face and dug her fingers into the skin before pulling hard enough to rip that which was in her grasp. However she didn't feel pain at all but something more akin to cool air on one's skin after removing a barrier that had previously blocked it.

It wasn't something as ghastly as the Shōshagan no Jutsu but it did allow the user to manipulate the appearance of their face with enough precision to impersonate someone else. Her sensei had used it to overcome a flaw in one of his trademark techniques and ensure that he could keep up appearances when necessary. With it she'd been able to impersonate her co-star both in looks as well as the woman's voice to the point where only close friends might've been able to pick up on any oddities.

Not that the woman had any of those amongst her fellow operatives.

Removed from her face the 'mask' disintegrated as it was meant to leaving only dust fragments that no manner of forensic work would be able to identify. As for the hair she simply ceased diverting chakra to it and it immediately reverted its normal black chin length leaving one final step.

Namely disabling the paralyzing feature in the restraints she'd taken back in a way that looked unnatural before putting them on and locking them in place.

~There…done…and just in time too.~ She thought getting her body to assume the ideal position for being discovered by the response teams, ~Now as far as anyone knows the Black Widow is a traitor who helped three weeds escape into the multiverse before being discovered by young and eager new recruit Carla Radames attempting to escape. Naturally the more experienced operative quickly bested me and put restraints on to deal with me later but carelessly underestimated my potential. A blow to the back of the head dazed Natasha long enough me to steal one of the woman's signature duel pistols and aim it at its owner. From there it won't be hard for responders to conclude that both of us fired at the same time with chance allowing my aim to be better if only by a hairsbreadth. I'll still have to choose my words carefully and play my part but that won't be a problem.~

The higher ups overestimated their perceptiveness and often looked down on those beneath them as people incapable of pulling the wool over their eyes.

It was the single greatest asset she and her true allies had going for them.

For now at least.

Thanks to the efforts of her and the allies that had helped orchestrate the jailbreak three rocks had been cast into the lake that was the multiverse. More than that one of them was a CSB with the potential to disrupt if not outright obliterate the machinations of the higher ups just by being there. True a level three was limited in what it could do…

…but the CSB was no longer a level three thanks to her parting gift.

Now he was a level two with the potential for more with every change he triggered in the destination reality. By making him stronger cracks would begin to form in the plans the higher ups had for that reality in the name of 'The Balance' and like all cracks they would have the potential to spread into other nearby realities. True teams or elite operatives would be sent in to try and seal the cracks and get things back on track but she wasn't worried. The self-same Balance that the higher ups were so obsessed over would ensure that any action taken would be low profile and behind the scenes. Operatives would be disguised as locals and nothing impossible for that reality would be used to bring things back into place. With such restrictions she was confident that the CSB and his allies would be able to hold their own.

And if not the secondary benefit of a level two in such an area would come into play: soul reversion.

As she began to feel lightheaded thanks to her wound she decided to get her mind in order for her discovery and leave the future for when it arrived.

It would be GLORIOUS!

---

Earth-070714

Yamanashi Prefecture, Chubu Region of Honshu

Forty-three Years Before the Events of 'My Hero Academia'

'Baldy's' POV

~And just when I thought I'd never experience another first.~ She thought as the light faded and she found herself in an alleyway of a city she didn't recognize right off.

Considering she'd been alive for seven hundred years and considering her…well…former position she had been to quite a few places across the planet as well as elsewhere that was truly odd but refreshing. The method of travelling between dimensions was also new to her leaving a sensation on her skin that she didn't remember ever feeling before. However as she stretched outwards with her senses as was her habit whenever venturing into the unknown she got her second first in two dozen seconds.

In almost every dimension and world she'd visited using her Sling Ring there'd been some form of magic floating about. Sometimes it was similar enough to what she knew that she could tap into it with ease and do whatever it was she'd gone there to do but other times the rules were different enough that she had to learn them first before acting. A few simple tests and experiments were usually all that was required but sometimes it took over a day before she gained enough confidence to proceed with her task.

This world…this part of the multiverse…felt as though the rules had been reversed somehow. Normally there were three sources of magic that could be harnessed: the magic of the environment, the magic within oneself and the magic that could be harnessed from other dimensions from across the multiverse. The last one she was fairly sure she could tap into but the first two…it felt as though the former was somehow being channelled into the latter. Even though she could not see them she knew that there were other people around, some closer than others, and could sense the magic in nature being drawn into them.

There had been cases in the past where she'd encountered beings with strong connections to their environment that allowed them to draw on it for strength or manipulate it but never had she witnessed what she was sensing now.

"Uunnnhh…." Came a groan from the right of her pulling her from her thoughts to look towards the one that she'd chosen to follow after escaping her confinement.

He didn't look well and she didn't think it was because of the battle because while he'd obviously been exhausted from the fighting she'd seen no signs up until the teleport pad fully activated to suggest anything was wrong. However it was as she took a step towards him to see how he was that something fell off his back to the ground causing her to look to it. On the surface it looked like an ordinary piece of metal, a trinket that one might dismiss as a part of his red kimono jacket, but her studies told her otherwise. The shape the metal was forged into, the jewel at its centre and the more obvious markings that she could see from her present distance all indicated to her an item meant to affect ones internal magic or soul.

"Are you okay? What's wrong?" She asked taking hold of his left arm to steady him.

"Dunno…feel strange…" the young man replied sounding like he was having trouble stringing words together, "…haven't felt anythin'…like this since…since Janus…Halloween…"

Janus? She was familiar with the being who went by that name in her reality much like she knew Odin and Zeus. He was a being with power over gateways, time and other forms of transitions. Like Odin and Zeus they were not true deities as most of the people on Earth saw them but rather they were beings whose lifespans measured in millennia rather than the decades most humans did. As a result they amassed great power and knowledge allowing them a level of technology as well as an understanding of magic far beyond what any human could obtain. Then much like Arthur C. Clarke said when mortals witnessed the abilities of these beings they presumed it to be magic and that only a god could possess such power on that scale.

As for Halloween she was aware of its cultural significance as well as how it could affect the flow of magic in nature. Such a time would prove to be advantageous to one such as Janus since it brought certain worlds together elements allowing greater flexibility with how magic could be employed. Much like the myths stated the barriers between Earth and other realities did weaken at that time of year allowing a skilled practitioner to draw greater amounts of energy from across dimensions than they normally could. If Janus chose to do something on the young man's Earth and this felt similar then it could be more than simple dimension travel jet lag affecting him.

In an instant she made a choice.

"I'm going to try something in order to see if there's anything amiss." She said as she stepped back after making sure he could stand on his own, "I promise it won't hurt and hopefully it will let me know why you're feeling under the weather."

"..'kay." The young man said visibly trying to stay standing and as still as was possible for him at the moment.

With a nod she began weaving the symbols for the simplest yet most informative diagnostic spell she knew that wasn't likely to cause disruption to the local magic. The world she now stood in didn't feel too different from what she knew but she had to be careful lest she set off something the three of them couldn't handle at the moment. It didn't take long for her to finish and once done she used the collection of symbols to examine the young man starting with his flow of life energy before moving onto a search for any magical signatures.

On the matter of life energy she could see the expected signs of physical exhaustion as well as lingering remnants of what she suspected was the energy he used to perform his attacks. However there were surges in the flow that stood out and gave her a lead to follow so she shifted the scan to the next level. What she saw honestly made her wonder if the lad had good luck or bad luck because he was still breathing.

When she started to get results back for magical signatures she was amazed at what she found. First and foremost she found infernal energy traces that made her thing he'd been living next to a dimensional fissure connected to one of the more unpleasant demonic realms. However people who did that tended not to live very long or were changed by it over time as their level of exposure went up. Seeing as how there weren't any visible physical changes though something was keeping the young man human at least to the naked eye.

Second bit of strangeness were traces of primal spiritual energy akin to what the Black Panther of Wakanda possessed but she saw signs of a mental echo mixed in. Not enough to submerge the boy's own mind but perhaps enough to introduce certain traits on a subconscious level.

Third bit was likely what the young man was referring to regarding Halloween and Janus because even if the being was from another reality she recognized his work. Given the holiday she presumed it had something to do with costumes and pretending to be someone you were not but what she was seeing was too complex for a single identity. By her reckoning there were three identities and their associated attributes that'd been introduced into him but woven together in such a way so as to ensure both stability as well as reinforcement.

~Definitely not something done for a quick laugh.~ She thought scrutinizing the metaphorical needlework, ~If it was he wouldn't have put in such effort and it would've fallen apart within days.~

Whichever version of Janus this was he'd done this deliberately with intent.

Even with this knowledge however it still didn't explain the lad's current state especially since she saw no signs of it exhibiting dangerous signs. With a moment to decide she added on another layer of symbols…

…only to stop when the boy dropped to one knee and look like he was only a few steps from going into convulsions.

~A condition worsening on its own?~ She thought evaluating the situation, ~No. Whatever ails him only spiked after I began to increase the amount of energy used in my magic. A sensitivity to magic? Destablizing or enhancing? Either is a possibility and neither is good for the young man.~

In any case it meant that any further efforts had to be done using non-magical methods and given their environment that left only one option.

"Pick him up." She asked the white haired youth that'd escaped with them, "We need to get him to a hospital. Whatever is wrong with him it could prove harmful if left untreated for too long."

The stoic young man seemed to ponder her request for a moment before letting action be his response and picking up the ailing member of their group. Choosing to lead the way they navigated their way out of the alley and onto a sidewalk before she paused to take in the new sights. What she saw all but confirmed that they were in some multiversal variant of Japan by the writing on the signs as well as bits of culture she could spot. However a new hurdle presented itself when she laid eyes on the people walking on the sidewalks within her view or driving the vehicles down the street. Many of them looked completely human but the rest had features or forms that were distinctly not human as far as she knew.

But despite the oddness in appearances no one looked like it was strange and were simply going about their business as though everything was normal.

Dismissing the oddities for the time being she looked to the street signs and compared the names on them with what she remembered of her most recent visit to Japan. Sadly her last trip had been a good twenty years prior to her being abducted and evidently that was time enough for street names to be changed. She couldn't see a single street name that she knew and without that she wouldn't be able to find a hospital anytime soon on her own.

That left consulting with the locals.

"Excuse me." She said to a woman who seemed to have fox attributes as part of her body, "My friend is feeling rather ill. Could you perhaps direct me to the nearest hospital? I'm afraid this is our first visit to Japan."

"Then that's your problem." The woman said with a bit of disdain, "Stupid gaijin! You've only yourselves to blame for not bothering to pack a map."

With that the woman walked around the three of them intent on going about her business uncaring of the obviously ill person being carried. She could only sigh at this and hope that not everyone in this version of Japan had such an callous opinion of foreigners or they might have trouble getting help even if they did find a hospital. Prejudice, bigotry and racism in some countries got so bad that a person could be refused service on any one of a number of reasons. Race, gender, ethnicity, religion or what country they called home were just a few. Add to the fact that this was not her reality and it was possible that relations between the nation of Japan and those nations that were primarily caucasian in nature were distinctly unpleasant.

Still she had to keep trying.

It took four more tries before a person she approached gave them basic directions to a hospital but to her discouragement it was a fair distance away on foot. While based on what she'd seen of the battle the white haired youth could probably get their ailing ally there fast she did not get the impression that he was a people person. Add to that the glances he was having at their surroundings and she felt safe in assuming that whatever reality he was from was different enough from this one to make interacting difficult. Thus in the end all she could do was continue leading the way in the direction of the hospital and hope that the three of them wouldn't get there too late.

In her mind she already had a few possible causes in mind and none of them boded well for the patient if they failed to receive help soon.

"Do you need help?" A woman's voice asked and it was only the sound of fluttering fabric that caused her to look up.

A second or three of taking in the sight and she almost let out an incredulous chuckle at the sight of an Asian woman in her early thirties dressed up like a superhero. Her amusement was doubled when dropping down as though from the roof of a tall building was a young man similarly clad albeit in a primarily black outfit with a red cape. In her world the age of heroes had only just begun but was gaining in strength with every year that passed. However even the heroes she knew about and had foreseen had never worn such flamboyant outfits. Those heroes had realized that costumes which looked good in the comic books looked rather ridiculous in real life.

"Yes. My nephew isn't feeling well and this is our first visit here." She replied being careful with what she said in case things were different, "We're trying to get to a hospital."

"He looks pretty bad." The thirty-something woman said before turning to the caped youth, "Every second could count. You take his friends and I'll take the kid."

"Of course Master." The caped youth said moving to obey his order.

She could see her white haired ally preparing to take a more defensive posture against the strangers but she looked into his eyes before covertly requesting that he play along. It almost looked like he might resist but then he gave in. The woman gently took the ailing young man from her before leaping into the air with enough force and speed that it was obvious both strength as well as mobility were far above the human norm. Feeling a muscled arm wrap around her she soon got to experience a similar leap though she discerned that it was not as refined as the thirty-something woman's. If she had to compare it to anything she would say it was like comparing a first successful attempt by one of her new students to the same effort being performed by one who had long since learned enough from her to continue on their own.

~A student and a master perhaps?~ She thought as the group bounced from rooftop to rooftop towards a determined location.

It fit with what the caped youth had spoken.

It was a familiar setting and one she would factor into everything going forward. She would approach things politely in the beginning but if their new helpers had ideas that were different from her own she would use the dynamics of master and student to guide them. How harshly or how lightly would depend on how strongly the duo felt about what they thought should be done and what that course of action could mean for her group.

A few minutes later they dropped back down to street level in front of a building but it didn't look like any hospital she'd ever been to. Most of them had familiar symbols and markings on the outside to make it easy for people to recognize it as a place of healing plus this building wasn't big enough to tend to more than two dozen patients in house at the most.

"This doesn't look like a hospital." She said hoping for some explanation.

"It isn't. While I might only have basic First Aid training I was worried that he might not hold out until we got to a hospital." The thirty-something woman explained as she walked up to the front door of the building, "But then I remembered that a friend of a friend had a clinic close by. With any luck she can help him and if not she has friends in the hospital to ensure he gets the best of care."

A cautious course of action but not an unreasonable one.

She'd also known a few people who ran clinics in Japan who kept a good stock of medicinal herbs and ingredients on hand along with approved pharmaceuticals. It was indeed possible that the clinic would have what was needed to at least lessen the severity of the symptoms the young man was experiencing if not cure them outright.

It was the best option before them.

Entering into the clinic she found it to be bereft of other patients but there was a person behind the counter, a clerk most likely, and he was quick to act when he saw what had been brought before him. Immediately he rushed around the counter grabbing what looked to be a medical bag along the way.

"What happened?" The man said before beginning visual examination of the ailing young man.

"He was fine for most of the day but suddenly began to look sick. He had trouble speaking and became unsteady on his feet." She replied keeping to knowledge that the man would understand, "We were trying to get him to the nearest hospital when these two appeared and offered their help."

"Follow me. There's a bed available." The man said after finishing his examination, "Doctor Shuzenji! You have a patient!"

It was only after Xander was laid down on a bed that another person arrived in the form of a rather short dark blue haired woman who looked to be in her mid-twenties wearing a pink piece of hardware on her head that had a dark visor over her eyes. Add to that a white and red dress along with a doctor's coat and she looked a little odd for a doctor or at least she did when compared to ones that'd been encountered in the past. A superhero doctor perhaps? Were superheroes everywhere?

Mentally she had to shake her head at the place her hasty use of the teleporter pad had sent the three of them but she accepted that were was little they could do about it now. At present curing whatever it was that ailed her young ally took priority and then should that be accomplished they would find someplace to think matters through so as to decide the best course of action. After all while they may have escaped their captors for now it was likely that a pursuit force was being assembled or perhaps had already been deployed to deal with them. With no way of knowing how long they had before trouble found them they needed to come up with a plan and a good one at that.

"I can see that Hiro. Now step back and let me have a look at him." Doctor Shuzenji said stepping forward to claim the space vacated by the clerk Hiro.

It was half a minute later though that any organized actions were thrown out a window and the expected became the unexpected.

What was expected was for the doctor to use a mix of visual scrutiny and tactile contact with certain spots to write up a list of symptoms. From there she imagined the symptoms would be compared to a list of possible afflictions before logic and experience trimmed that list down to at least two or three. Once that was done treatment would be decided upon that would focus on options that wouldn't require knowledge of the patient's medical history or file.

What happened instead though was the moment the doctor's fingers touched the young man's skin a feeling of surging power could be sensed by anyone with even average awareness. She began to move to pull the doctor's hand away from the young man but before she took more than a single step white light filled the room causing everyone to close their eyes. Even with eyelids in place though she could still 'see' the light in all its brightness but more than that she could hear what sounded like the doctor in pain. Grunts and exclamations of pain filled the air coming in spurts with silent moments barely lasting a second in between however the sounds that came next worried her.

The sounds of skin stretching and bones breaking before snapping back into place.

She wanted nothing more than to help but worried that any magic used would only make things worse.

Fortunately someone else had a similar train of thought and a moment later the sound of someone landing on the floor could be heard.

Almost immediately the light vanished but it still took some time for her vision to return but when she could see she had to wonder if perhaps her choice of fleeing partners had been a mistake. She'd expected to find strength and resourcefulness both of which were advantages when trying to remain free of people who wished you dead. Indeed she'd seen before they'd come to this world that the young man possessed both qualities but she was beginning to think he had another one that might be more than she'd bargained for.

Why?

Because where once there had been a doctor measuring not much more than four feet tall there now existed an almost five and a half foot young woman roughly the same age. Whether it was good luck or fortuitous design the doctors clothes mostly survived albeit strained in places but the caped young man still did the gentlemanly thing by looking away. With a head of blonde hair now replacing the dark blue that'd been there before the doctor was unconscious but with her breathing becoming calmer with every second that passed.

Looking to her young friend she saw that his condition appeared to be improving as well with the symptoms that'd been developing since their arrival losing strength as time passed. It was as though changing Doctor Shuzenji had allowed something within him to vent something that was putting great strain on him. Would be the last time it happened or would he need to vent this mystery something in the future in order to remain healthy?

In the blink of an eye a thought, a possibility, came to her and the more she thought about it the more the details just slid into place one after another. There was one phenomena, one barely proven historical fact, that she knew of that mirrored what she had witnessed thus far. If she was right then the young man was both the lynchpin for getting home and perhaps a seed of change none could have seen coming.

A Scion of Chaos.

She had never met such a being during her time as a practitioner of magic but rather had read of them in the records of her predecessors. Nevertheless the facts fit the descriptions she'd read and there was one thing that the entries all agreed upon.

Properly guided a Scion could change things for the better.

Left to the mercy of the ignorant and their own devices they would live up to their namesake with only great sacrifice being sufficient to save the world.

~I know what I must do.~ She thought as she mentally made her choice and began to conceive plans for the future.

---

Two Years Later

A Dense Forested Area in the Nagano Prefecture of Japan

Xander's POV

"Not…good enough…not…good…enough…" he gasped out even as he recovered from his latest attempt to properly execute the Fūton: Daitoppa technique.

Then again nothing worth learning ever came easily and a shinobi was one who endured and had guts. So he wouldn't let this defeat get the better of him and would try again once he had the strength to do so.

Even with this technique being a pain in the ass he had made good progress in mastering the various Jutsu he'd gained he knowledge of that Halloween night. Of course this had been mostly due to the help of someone he had never expected to meet much less get a chance to learn from. He'd woken up from whatever it was that'd made him so sick that first day in the new world to find his allies, some strangers and against all probability one whose memories he shared.

Senju Tsunade: the Fifth Hokage.

He'd been dumbfounded but Baldy or as she'd later introduced herself later Tildy explained to him what'd happened as well as what she believed was the cause of it all. It'd made sense but it was also one of the reasons why he'd taken to living out in the woods rather than in any town or city. Apparently he had a power within him that in the right people could trigger someone to revert mentally, spiritually and physically into whoever they'd been in their preceding life. Oh they didn't forget who they were in this life and if one watched many of the mannerisms and personality traits of their current lives remained but their past life was present just the same.

However since he had yet to prove capable of controlling this power and they had no way of knowing who someone was in their past life they could not risk his power affecting anyone else. As such he'd been moved out to a log cabin in the middle of the woods of the Nagano Prefecture to learn to master himself both in body as well as in mind. Only once he'd done that did they believe that he would gain what was needed to master the mysterious power within himself and thus be safe to mingle with others.

Seeing as how he'd always been very much a people person he'd had all the incentive he needed to train well, long and hard.

Physical conditioning took the form of custom weights that were a combination of ones produced for people with super strength quirks plus ninja seals provided by Tsunade. He also ran various courses using the forest terrain in different ways to increase the physical demand on himself in terms of strength, stamina and cardio. It wasn't easy and he'd taken to asking the guests he'd had in the past for ideas on how to get himself in better condition.

Mentally he reviewed the memories he'd inherited from Halloween doing his best to dig out every secret and every speck of ninja know how he could. Where he fell short Tsunade stepped in putting what surfaced in her mind every passing day to paper before copying what'd be useful to him into a book that would then be delivered to him. Sometimes, when her clinic was not busy and it could be left to Hiro, she'd come to him in person to teach him what she could and help him overcome any difficulties he might have. It wasn't perfect since the memories of her time as Tsunade rather than Recovery Girl did not come all at once or in chronological order.

Still something was better than nothing.

Then came the days when he tried to put both into practice making him glad that he'd already gotten a good handle on the Shadow Clone technique. With chakra split evenly between two and the knowledge each had identical it was almost as good as fighting a real person save the fact that the clone vanished after one or two good hits. There were only so many times he could split his chakra in half before there was no longer any point to creating a Shadow Clone in the first place. He treasured the holidays and weekends that Tsunade could come herself to train with him but sporadic training with another true shinobi wasn't enough.

He needed someone who could fight with him on equal level and who wouldn't vanish if he managed to get a blow in.

~Not a lot of people like that around though.~ He thought taking a gulp from his water bottle.

He'd been lucky enough that the log cabin had a TV antenna on top that was able to pick up a few channels in order to keep up with the world he was now in. As a result there were frequent news broadcasts and other television shows that allowed him to see examples of Pro Heroes and villains as well as their quirks. Honestly it reminded him of people in the comics he'd read alongside Jesse where there were no two people who had the same ability and some of which were physically different from standard humanity in various ways. However none of the ones he'd seen in had a quirk or enough skill to make for a decent sparring partner even assuming an arrangement could be made.

Putting the cap back on his water bottle he got to his feet and began to make his way back to the cabin since he'd need to gas up on food to replace the calories he'd lost. Most of the time he went on grocery runs on his own using the money provided by Tsunade by getting as much as he could in a single shot he incorporated the trips into his training regime. Whether it was just carrying them all or trying not to drop anything or adding a bit of acrobatics without damaging anything anything that made things more challenging fair game.

Needless to say he'd only in the last few months gotten to the point where he could where not a single thing was broken or wasted.

Most of it was pre-packaged meals since cooking took time to do and he'd prefer to use as much time as possible to train. Still one got sick of microwave dinners pretty quick and fortunately ingredients for the meals he knew could be acquired easily enough. It kept things interesting outside of training to go through the list of recipes he knew, cook them and then try them out. Some he found he liked while others he promptly dumped in the trash before making a solemn promise to NEVER try them again.

Upon entering the cabin he went to the fridge and took out leftovers from last night's dinner but before he could even sit down to eat them a knock came at his door. With a sigh he answered it and was only a little surprised to find both Toshinori and Nana standing there with smiles on their faces.

"Well what brings you guys here?" He asked before falling into old habits by nonverbally inviting them to come inside.

As best as he could figure this world didn't have vampires or demons or anything supernatural really. Best he could tell quirks essentially replaced the slots meant for anything beyond the natural or scientific including other forms of life.

Still old habits were hard to kick and it did no harm soooo….whatever!

"Training." Nana replied walking in, glancing around and sitting down in the nearest chair, "It's taken awhile but Toshi's pretty much gotten the hang of his power so we don't need to worry about him hurting himself with it. Now though he needs help learning how to use it without hurting someone or wrecking several blocks. So then I remembered someone who lived out in the woods away from anything more valuable than a tree and…"

"…you decided to see if I'd help out." He finished catching onto what the woman wanted, "You do know that if he slips up not even Recovery Girl's gonna be able to put me back together right?"

"I know but I can't help him with this because I'm too strong and he knows I can take his best punch with barely a scratch to show for it." She replied adding more reasoning to her case, "You on the other hand he'll need to learn to pull his punches every single time and if he's about to screw up you have those techniques of yours to get yourself out of the way in time. Plus he needs experience fighting someone with different quirks and I've already seen you breath fire, create walls and have snakes come out of your sleeves. Sparring with you is his best option."

All good points.

Didn't change the fact that if either of them messed up he'd either die or have to spend his entire recovery period listening to Senju 'Recovery Girl' Tsunade read him the riot act. Apparently while accepting that some things just happened the now blonde woman didn't hesitate to come down on someone for getting hurt when it could've been prevented with some common sense. Though he did suspect that the woman would lecture just to vent any irritation or anger she might be feeling even if the targets didn't really deserve it.

It was only human to do such a thing after all.

"Fine. But you'll act as referee." He said naming a term to be agreed to, "If it looks like Toshi's control is slipping you step in and we take a break until he gets it back. Good enough?"

"Good enough." She replied nodding in agreement.

"Then as soon as I get some food in me and digest we'll get to it." He said moving back to the dining room table to eat, "Training needs fuel and I'm running on fumes."

He paused though when he recalled something that made him wonder if he'd ever learn.

There were things that were absolutely essential when one had guests in Japan.

Catching himself he changed course for the cupboards opening one up before taking out a container, taking it over to the stove and then filled a kettle with water before putting it on the stove and turning the kitchen appliance on.

"Give me a few minutes and the tea'll be ready." He said with a smile in order to make them think this'd been his intention from the beginning.

They believed him.

Right?

---

One Year Later

An Offshore Urban Testing Ground of a Major Support Item Company

Xander's POV

~Should've known the old Harris Luck was gearing up for something big.~ He thought picking himself up off the shattered concrete that was the ground beneath him, ~Almost three years without anything bad happening to me was defying the odds just a little too much. Didn't think it'd be this bad though.~

Since arriving in this reality he'd dedicated a lot of his time to training in order to become as skilled and as powerful a shinobi as he could be. He knew that his old kidnappers would show up sooner or later and that they'd arrive armed with overkill to make sure their escapees got dragged back or got dead. In order to defy either fate he knew he had to train to the point where he surpassed their expectations of him and tuck a few aces up his sleeve as well. Whether it was alone or with help from the others he'd pushed himself as far as he dared before the risk of doing more harm than good became a reality. It'd been two months ago that he'd reached the point where some real life experience was the only way he'd grow stronger so he'd approached Nana and Toshi with the idea of accompanying them on their rounds as Pro Heroes.

They'd pointed out that technically Toshi was just a U.A student on an internship and she was the registered Pro Hero. Letting a civilian accompany them would break quite a few rules and attract attention especially since the revelation that he, Tildy or Kimimaro were from alternate realities. It'd taken a bit of convincing but once he'd proven he could keep a low profile and vanish in an instant using the Shunshin technique they'd consented. The only condition would be that he would only get involved when the odds of getting caught on video or in a picture were below five percent. Naturally he'd agreed and followed them around but the restrictions on this meant he'd only had a few instances when he could put his training to use. With all the variety in quirks each villain possessed it was almost like he was facing ninjas from the memories he'd inherited Halloween night. The only thing missing was skill since it quickly became obvious that the bad guys were relying too much on their quirks and had done little to strengthen the rest of themselves. He was sure that there were villains who were dangerous and had trained to get that far rather than relying solely on their quirk but hadn't fought any…

…until today.

It'd been about two or so hours ago that Nana had received a call from one of her contacts in the Minato police precinct of Tokyo about a troubling call that'd come in. It'd been brief and without much to go on the captain of the precinct had elected to label it a prank call since there'd been no official alert from the Hero Public Safety Commission. Thanks to the bureaucracy that'd arisen from the adoption of 'Pro Hero' as a real job anytime something happened that warranted Pro Hero involvement all nearby precincts received an alert. Usually it all boiled down to for the police to focus on keeping civilians clear of the danger area and to be ready to haul the villain off to Tartarus. Since the coming of Heroes and Villains conventional police officers had essentially become a clean up crew slash support teams doing things that were beneath a Pro Hero to do.

In any case no alert meant no problem since normal crime done by non-villains aka quirkless people had all but vanished from the world. With it being estimated that only about twenty percent of the human population had been born without a quirk to call their own and those people scattered across the planet virtually all criminals were Villains.

Nana's contact however had heard the call to the precinct and believed the matter to be more serious. It'd only been long enough a call for the location to get out and for the person on the other end to get across that they were afraid. While civilians who worked at the location were hardly made of stern stuff and would panic like any other person when under attack by a Villain her contact felt otherwise. Thus he'd asked if she'd investigate the location for him discreetly and report back if there was trouble.

Seeing as how it'd been something low key he'd been brought along but almost from the moment that they'd arrived he'd sensed something was off. The air was filled with sounds of machinery at work and if he focused he'd been able to sort of make out people talking but when they searched the place for signs of trouble they hadn't seen a single person. Granted there weren't too many windows or places they could discreetly spy through but what places they could see no human could be found. When they'd regrouped at the agreed upon time none of them had felt at ease and wondered where all the people were.

Steady, advancing, footsteps were the only reply they'd gotten causing all three of them to look towards the source guard up. When a figure began to emerge from the shadows he'd thought for a moment that it might've been the location manager or someone in charge but when the unknown man's face became visible both Nana and Toshinori's faces changed dramatically. Nana's face became quickly consumed by a mix of fury and fear but her spine was solid enough that he'd been able to tell that she wouldn't be fleeing like a coward. Toshi on the other hand did his best to put on a brave front but bits of sweat were trickling down the sides of his face all the same. However it was only after the man began speaking that he too brought his guard up fully and began to go through which amongst his best justu might work.

Then Nana had named this newcomer and he knew they were in some pretty deep shit.

All For One.

While it'd taken some time to learn about the demon in human form from the duo what he'd heard frightened him more than almost any demon back home. Someone who could steal the quirks of others and bestow them upon others as needed. Someone who could house multiple quirks in his own body and combine them to devastating effect. Someone who'd supposedly been around since the dawn of quirks and had used his power to construct a vast criminal empire. More than anything though was the fact that it was THIS man that One For All was meant to take down once and for all but that the previous six holders had failed to do. Even though the power of One For All grew stronger with every holder even with the strength of six people the monster of a man had emerged victorious.

Nana never said just how many different quirks All For One could hold at the same time but she had made it clear that the crime boss could change the line up whenever he wanted. Essentially it meant that even if you identified every quirk the monster had in one fight there was no guarantee that it'd be the same combination in the next fight. This made it virtually impossible to plan an attack strategy since the variables could be completely changed rendering any past battle data useless.

The only thing that Nana said remained consistent was that the man was evil incarnate, intelligent enough to manipulate thousands to do his bidding and might act on an unpredictable whim even if it meant scrubbing a previous scheme.

Dangerous indeed.

Still whether as a result of past experience or deductive reasoning Nana had declared that there was no one but them in the facility and that the entire call had been staged. What the caped woman had not asked was whether her friend in the police department had been in on the deception or was simply another innocent to be fooled.

All For One merely said that they weren't completely alone before using some manner of Mister Fantastic power to reach behind some equipment and pull someone into view. Without a care for further injury the crime boss had tossed his hostage to the ground between the two sides revealing who it was: Gran Torino. One of Nana's friends and a well known Pro Hero the man looked like he'd been seriously worked over but when the man woke before managing to sit himself up it indicated that mobility wasn't too impaired.

Wary that this could be bait for some trap he'd used Sen'ei Jashu to snag the fellow Hero before pulling him to friendly territory. Seeing as how he was a decent distance from where Nana and Toshi stood he'd been confident that if Torino was booby trapped only he'd suffer any harm. Nothing had happened for a good few seconds so he'd moved on to using the Shōsen technique to begin tending to the visible wounds.

All For One had conversationally expressed interest in his 'quirks' stating that they represented an oddity since he could not find a common thread that linked them all together. In this reality most people only had one quirk, one special ability, with a rare few being lucky enough to gain what appeared to be two quirks but were in fact one that operated on a spectrum of sorts like temperature. Naturally he hadn't educated the man on the truth but neither did he try to mislead the crime boss since he wasn't smart enough to think up a convince lie on the spot. Instead he'd focused on prioritizing the injuries he could find that would hamper Gran Torino's mobility and ability to think straight. If All For One was really as dangerous as Nana had described they couldn't afford to be protecting any dead weight and themselves at the same time.

When Torino had been well enough to stand without being all wobbly Nana had been able to convey with a look that she'd create an opportunity and then ALL of them would make a run for it. There was no look of cowardice on the woman's face and after a moment of thought he'd concluded that it was the right move. With no idea what quirks beyond the stretchy arms All For One possessed they were in too disadvantaged a position to fight. When added to the fact that the entire facility could be filled with traps and only an idiot would choose to remain.

However before they'd been able to take a single step All For One spoke and planted a seed of concern that immobilized them: could they really leave before making absolutely sure that no innocent civilians were present? The man admitted to setting up speakers and configuring the machinery to make it look as though people were present but that'd only been meant to draw them in. Were there people? Were they somewhere in the facility helpless? Then just to twist the knife even further All For One had implied that if they didn't stay and 'entertain' him he would order minions to attack a school full of children.

That had been the nail in the coffin as far as they escape plan was concerned.

Even if they'd been willing to call the man's bluff about there still being workers in the facility the very real possibility of an attack on school children rooted their feet in place. Everything he'd been told about All For One had made it clear that nothing was taboo for the monster of a man if it got him what he wanted.

With a single statement labelling what was about to start a 'game' the crime boss attacked all four of them at once using some form of magnetism quirk.

That had been a little over twenty minutes ago.

Needless to say he considered it a sign that his training was working that he had only suffered mild to moderate cuts and bruises so far. So far he'd counted some sort of purple flame quirk, matter reshaping quirk and something that resembled the Black Lightning technique of the Cloud ninjas. Add to that physical enhancements that allowed the man to tank even Nana's strongest hits this monster was proving all too much why no one had been able to take him down yet. The four of them had tried different combos based on experience, 'quirks' and sheer unpredictability but none of it had bought them more than half a minute of advantage before All For One took it back. Sometimes the asshole did it simply by showing the depth of his experience in the area of combat but other times it happened by revealing a new quirk the man possessed.

Most recently he'd gotten slammed to the ground by some sort of air bullet quirk and MAN OH MAN was he going to be feeling it tomorrow. At the moment his adrenaline and focus on the battle was keeping him from hurting too much but it was anyone's guess how long that'd last.

THUMP!

THUMP! THUMP!

~A lot of that going around.~ He thought looking down at Nana, Gran Torino and Toshi.

"This isn't working." Gran Torino said forcing himself to get back on his feet, "There's just too much we don't know and we've had no time to prepare for a fight like this."

"NO! We can still do this!" Toshi declared unwilling to admit defeat, "His arrogance is his weakness! He's toying with us and giving us time to gain experience fighting him! If we can just hold on a little longer we can do this!"

"No. Gran Torino is right." Nana said grimly looking up at All For One who stood looking down at them from atop a misshapen stone foot, "This entire time we've been playing things his way and by his rules. If we keep doing that this fight's only going to end one way."

With them dead.

He didn't want to admit it or give up since surrender was not in his nature but even if they did what Toshi suggested none of them would be in any shape to take advantage of their acquired experience. Then all that'd be left would be All For One killing four defenceless.

"Any plans then?" He asked unable to come up with any suggestions of his own.

It was a second later that he saw her expression shift and whether by instinct or past experience with Buffy he knew what she had n mind.

"NO. You are not gonna do what I think you're gonna do." He said gripping her shoulder for two reasons, "All Might's way too green and people still need you. YOU know that."

Looking her right in the eye when he said those words he could see the momentary widening of the eyes and that was all he needed to confirm that SHE knew what he was talking about.

Her secret.

It'd been pure chance that when he'd been practicing his ninja maneuvering and the Shunshin technique that he'd come upon Nana and a boy that looked six or sevenish. They were standing in front of the Nagano Orphanage and while he was too far away to make out anything spoken he could easily tell that the kid was upset and a little clingy with Nana. He'd wondered if it was just some kid the woman had saved who didn't want to return to the orphanage or really wanted to go with Nana for some reason. When he'd seen her drop to her knees and hug the boy tightly he knew this was no idle stranger his friend was dealing with but rather someone she knew and cared about.

It'd only been the glimpse of her face that he'd gotten before instinct had caused him to use the Shunshin technique to bolt before he was spotted that had clinched something for him.

The boy Nana had left in front of the orphanage had been her own.

With this conclusion in his mind he'd known that training any more would be pointless since he'd be too distracted to make any real progress. As soon as he'd gotten back to his cabin in the woods he'd gone over what he'd seen countless times to try and deduce what the truth was and in the end only one thing made sense given his experiences with Nana.

The boy was her son and she was putting him into the orphanage to protect him from a Villain or Villains who liked to target the families of Pro Heroes.

Seeing as how the woman was plenty strong and skilled whoever she was a afraid of was either very strong or very smart or maybe both. He'd spent a week going through every infamous Villain he could think of to see if one of them fit that description but none of them did. None of them had a big enough bone to pick with Nana to consider going after her child and those that did were already in jail. In the end he'd been unable to identify who she'd been afraid of but now, after experiencing All For One firsthand, he knew and it made perfect sense. This guy was like Apocalypse, Wilson Fisk and Angelus all rolled into one powerful package. With so few people capable of fighting on her level and evidence that the bastard had connections in quite a few areas Nana had likely believed that the only way to protect her son was to leave him. Throw him into the Japanese foster care system and likely torch any paperwork that had any mention of the boy existing.

On the surface it was a solid plan since if she never had contact with her son from that day forward and there was no evidence connecting the two of them All For One wouldn't be able to use the kid.

Too bad for him he had a knack for seeing things other people missed and was all too familiar with how Murphy worked.

Nana's plan could only work if All For One had been in the dark about the boy's existence from the day the child was born until the day Nana turned her back on her son. However if All For One's reach was truly as great as he suspected and if he was a master manipulator then the second she appeared on the Pro Hero scene the monster had been watching her. Okay…maybe not immediately but definitely once she'd made a name for herself and proved she was not just another face in the crowd. In his opinion any true Villain would keeps tabs on any opposition capable of foiling plans and most certainly anyone capable of challenging him directly. Nana definitely fell into that catagory and since most Pro Heroes started their careers around eighteen or so she'd had over a decade to grow both in strength as well as skill.

"Besides even if I wasn't willing to get in your way have you even considered the pain you'll cause these two?" He asked as he put a hand on both Gran Torino and All Might's shoulders copying what he'd done to Nana, "One's been your friend for years and the other is your number one student who probably sees you as family. Self-sacrifice might seem like a heroic thing to do but only a handful actually think about those left behind. You really willing to subject them to that?"

"Of course I don't but there's no other choice." Nana growled cracks forming in her self-control, "Better one fall than four."

"True but that one isn't gonna be you Nana." He said before rapidly forming the Ram, Monkey, Bird, Dog and Boar seals, "Gyaku Kuchiyose technique! Version two!"

Slamming his hand onto the ground at the exact middle of the distance between Nana, Gran Torino and All Might he watched as the justu formula he'd come up with expanded. It went all the way out until it was the size of a trampoline easily covering the distance needed before one after another his three allies vanished in puffs of smoke.

~I really hope that worked like the last couple of times.~ He thought turning to face All For One who had an unexpected look of surprise on his face, ~The range is a lot greater and this time I'm not using food or caged wildlife.~

It had been something he'd come up with when he'd been trying to come up with ways to evacuate people from a dangerous location when they couldn't get out on their own or be carried. One method had been to create a sealing scroll and simply put the people into that before taking them to a place of safety. Unfortunately after five times of trying that with a rabbit and some mice with none of them emerging alive he'd been forced to move onto something else. It'd been then that he'd considered the Kuchiyose technique and its variations since in the memories of Jiraiya, Tsunade and Orochimaru that he'd Halloween inherited it could be used on people. The only downside was that in all of those cases the very nature of the technique needed someone to be at the destination to make it work not the departure point. Sure there was one move that did something similar but it had its own limitations that made it impractical for evacuating people from danger.

It had taken some trial and error, mostly due to the incomplete nature of his inherited memories, but eventually he had cobbled together something workable: Gyaku Kuchiyose technique Version two. The set up for the technique was easy enough: first choose a destination point and write out the receiving part of the technique formula with an expert level of precision. In this case he'd chosen a slab of stone he'd erected behind his cabin that would take someone with a super strength quirk or something else with a powerful impact attribute to destroy. Second make sure to infuse the circle with chakra every day without failure until just before the energy would begin to burn away the ink. The destination point needed to be a beacon of sorts in order to successfully draw in the people being sent towards it otherwise there'd be no telling where the people he was trying to save would show up.

The third part was what he'd done to Nana, Gran Torino and All Might without their knowledge: he'd attached a technique formula to them in a place they wouldn't be able to see without a mirror. This was what the technique would attach itself to before relocating the marked people to the receiving location in the blink of an eye.

Once he'd gone as far as he could without actually executing it he'd once more gathered an assortment of living things both animal as well as plant life. It'd taken practice to be able to attach the technique formula to them consistently and accurately but when he'd managed that all that was left was to form the hand seals of the Gyaku Kuchiyose technique and slam a hand to the ground. Every time he performed the technique he did his best to change the variables in order to match potential situations he might find himself in. Distance, altitude, depth, number of 'victims' and the 'health' of those victims. Eventually he was satisfied that it worked but this would be the first time he'd used it on humans.

Still it was necessary.

Nana needed to live in order to reunite with her son and take care of him even if she needed a kick in the pants before she'd do it.

Gran Torino had been invaluable in helping him train and would likely be needed to train All Might when Nana wasn't available for one reason or another.

As for All Might…the guy was green as far as the Pro Hero thing went but everything he'd learned told him that the blonde man had the potential to be the best. We're talking Superman level best! No way was he gonna let that be snuffed out before it even got half way!

To top it all off he'd rigged a camera at the cabin to be focused on the receiving circle and send an internet feed to Doctor Tsunade's computer with a note saying her help was needed. If something bad happened to the trio in transit to the point that medical aid was needed he knew it wouldn't take long for the former Fifth Hokage to get there. With a combo of scientific medicine and medical shinobi techniques any damage done would be healed or at least pulled away from being fatal.

~Now…~ he thought as he watched All For One go from being surprised to being smilingly furious, ~…I have to deal with the mess I made.~

He had little doubt that All For One had intended to either kill or seriously harm all four of them with special emphasis on Nana and Gran Torino. The sight of two experienced and known heroes lying bloody as well as perhaps dead would send a powerful message to whoever found them later on. It would stoke the fear in those who knew of him and thought to oppose him and it would compel others to do whatever they needed to in order to be considered an ally. By removing them from play he had essentially ruined All For One's plan especially since he was a complete unknown and no one would care if something happened to him.

In the three years since they'd arrived in this reality his two allies, Tildy and Kimimaro, had created lives for themselves here and he was happy for them. However with the isolation his training required, the lack of compatibility with his shinobi abilities and the fact that Kimimaro needed regular treatment for his bone affliction meant they hadn't really stayed in touch. A few phone calls, some visits and in his fellow Shinobi's case some training periods but that was it. They would be sad when they heard what happened, wondered at what might have happened had they been there, but they'd get over it swiftly enough.

Not like it'd have been if Willow, Buffy, Giles, Cordy and Faith had been in this world with him.

If they had all been here he was sure that news of his death would've devastated them, Willow most of all, with the two Slayers swearing to hunt down All For One for revenge.

But they weren't…

…because they were all dead or they might as well have been.

It had been during his kidnapping when his attackers had been dragging him away to be be unmade completely that he'd heard one of them order the placement of filament nullifiers and weave facilitators. It hadn't meant anything to him at the time but he'd had years to think it over in preparation for when his kidnappers eventually found him again. Eventually he'd concluded that each reality must be like a rope composed of many individual strands wrapped around each other with each strand representing a part of that reality. In placing filament nullifiers his kidnappers intended to erase a strand from his home reality in its entirety and the weave facilitators would help in remaking the 'rope' or the reality into what it would be without the missing filament. His mind was not made to understand the complexities of it all but he likened it to altering a timeline by erasing a specific something or someone from existence in their entirety. Everything from their birth right up to the present would vanish and the world would reshape itself to what it would've been if that thing or that person had never existed.

Unfortunately if the filament his kidnappers had intended to erase had been his a lot would've changed and very few if any of the Scoobies would've survived.

Jesse still would've been killed and turned at the hands of Darla.

Cordy would've either been drained by Jesse or turned into another vamp.

Buffy might not've gotten out of the sewers without his help when they'd gone into the tunnels looking for Jesse and even if she had she would've died at the hands of The Master.

Giles might've lived but would've been called back to London in disgrace for losing a Slayer or he might've died since without Scoobies he would've aided Buffy alone.

And Willow…his yellow crayon Willow…she'd either have been killed, vamped or been forced to grow up in Sunnydale all by herself. It'd been harrowing enough getting by after learning the truth about the world with the Scoobies by their side. The images his mind had come up with of Willow trying to survive in the town with perhaps only Faith for protection and all the baddies they'd faced prowling about…his only faint hope would be that once she was old enough she would have the sense to flee Sunnydale for someplace safer.

He wasn't exactly willing to put money on that faint hope and instead leaned more towards the darker outcomes.

Sunnydale was just like that.

"While I must say you continue to surprise me young man I do not take well to having my guests depart without my permission." All For One said in a menacingly polite tone of voice, "I'm afraid you're going to have be punished for your insolence."

"Yeah I kinda expected that." He said before taking on a strong taijutsu stance, "But even if I turn out to just be a pothole in the road to you asshole IT'S GONNA BE ONE HELLUVA DEEP POTHOLE!"

Trump card number one.

During his training he'd known that he would need to have trump cards he could bring into play and more than likely they'd need to be ones that his kidnappers wouldn't see coming. By his estimation they'd be expecting moves used by Tsunade, Orochimaru and Jiraiya so in order to sow a little chaos he'd need to throw in something completely from left field. As such he'd done all he could to focus on the inherited memories of the three watching others fight or train in their respective styles of shinobi combat. Even if Orochimaru, Tsunade or Jiraiya had never used the technique themselves they were still exceptional shinobi and were quite capable of picking apart a technique they saw and understanding how it worked. Orochimaru was a scientist and while unethical in many areas still had a keen enough mind to analyze the techniques of his enemies in considerable depth. Tsunade was the top medical ninja of Konoha and thus was quite familiar with the effects of certain techniques on a ninja's body some of which required knowledge of how the technique worked in order to help people.

As for Jiraiya…well…what he lacked in academic smarts he more than made up for in sheer guts and creativity.

Thus many of his memories contained breakdowns of a variety of techniques that had the Sannin member wanted they could've used effectively if not better than the original user.

Such as the Eight Gates technique.

"Eight inner gates…first gate of opening…release…" he said more to himself than All For One, "…second gate of rest…release…third gate of life…RELEASE!"

With every gate that opened he could feel the chakra surge within him as one natural limiter on its flow was opened up thanks to months of training and sheer fucking willpower. Along with the surge however came the strain that was put on his body since the limiters specifically existed so as to prevent a ninja from seriously injuring themselves. However the enhancement of physical prowess had been in his top ten list of things he had to do if he was going to survive the second coming of his kidnappers. As such he'd made sure that he pushed himself to his physical limits with his body conditioning in order to ensure he'd be able to handle the technique.

At present though he could only go as far as the third gate since going further only caused a level of strain that impaired his ability to focus. Considering the common side effects of going fourth gate or higher he wanted his head to be as clear as possible before he went anywhere near them.

Once he felt his body adjust fully he surged forth towards All For One at speeds that only veteran Pro Heroes would be able to keep up with. His foe responded by using a quirk to seriously bulk up his body to the point where the suit the man was wearing was barely able to keep itself from ripping apart. No doubt the asshole believed that his bulky muscles would be strong enough to tank whatever blow he launched then allow a potent counterattack capable of shattering ones resolve.

Careless.

With skill born of both memory as well as diligent training he threw a punch at All For One and as expected it impacted on the man's forearm that had been raised to block the blow…

…however that was where 'expected' ended at least for the crime boss.

No doubt the monster had believed that the Eight Gates merely enhanced his speed and nothing else since that would be in keeping with the quirk rules of this reality. A speedster was a speedster no matter how creatively they tried to apply that quirk and even if it evolved into something more its roots would remain irrevocably tied to speed.

BIG mistake.

The Eight Gates enhanced the users speed AND strength by giving them more access to the chakra within them resulting in significantly improved physical prowess.

As a result bulky muscles that would've been enough against just a speed enhancement quirk proved to be less than ideal in this case.

As a result the man flew through the air off his misshapen perch and through a building before falling down to a lower rooftop. He didn't let it stop at that though because the moment he was close enough to push off against something he went in pursuit determined not to give All For One time to gather his senses and counter. However just punching wouldn't be enough and so when he was close enough he executed a feint before delivering a passable Konoha Senpū that once more took the guy off his feet and into the air.

It was then that he began to feel an ache in his body and he knew the time limit on his current physical prowess was visible on the metaphorical horizon. While he might've been able to condition his body to withstand and endure the Third Gate long enough to land a few blows it was only by the slimmest of margins. Last time he'd gone this far he'd only managed to last two or three minutes before he'd been forced to stop and even then he'd needed Doctor Tsunade to make a house call. Naturally she was annoyed at what he'd done but he'd take that over being angry and beating him over the head with whatever seemed handy any day of the week.

~Gotta end on a high note.~ He thought before going to one trick the former Fifth Hokage had taught him.

With that in mind he closed the gap between himself and All For One and prepared for his last blow while under the influence of the Eight Gates technique. It wasn't his best move and he'd yet to pull it off without receiving some form of criticism from Tsunade but it'd still had an effect on Toshi during their sparring so it was worth trying. Tapping into his chakra he worked to change it's nature to lightning then massing it within his right hand before coming alongside All For One's left side. Reaching out with as much speed and precision as he tried he slapped the back of the crime bosses neck releasing the built up lightning chakra into the monster's body.

~Ranshinshō!~ He thought as he executed the technique before allowing his momentum to carry him clear of his foe.

Once he came to a stop he cancelled the Eight Gates ending the strain on his body but not the ache that'd likely stay with him for the next few days at least. Turning to his foe he was pleased to see that while not completely immobilized there was also mild to moderate disruption of his motor control. The technique was intended to confuse the nervous system of the target so that an attempt to move an arm would instead cause toes to curl or instead of taking a step their arm would be thrown up into the air. Done right it'd render the target fit for capture or the killing stroke.

In his case though all it seemed to do was induce jerky sporadic movements that were not random but definitely would reduce All For One's ability to effectively fight for awhile.

"What did you do to me?" All For One asked even as the man tried to force his body to move normally.

"Sorry but this isn't the part of the fight where I explain to you how my moves work." He replied even as he tried to think up another trump card, "You'll have to figure it out for yourself."

With his body aching like this he'd likely be slower than he'd been before opening the Third Gate so whatever he tried would have to make up for that reduced mobility. The Shadow Clone technique would be good for confusion since All For One wouldn't know who was the real him and who was just a copy that would go poof if it got hit. Unfortunately the technique divided up the user's chakra equally amongst the copies and the number he'd need to make to do any good against the man before him would render him too weak. A strong elemental ninjutsu? No. Even if the monster's movements were hindered by his last technique dodging might still be an option and he'd already seen signs of some sort of durability enhancement quirk.

One after another he went through the techniques he knew he could do as well as those that'd be worth trying even if he couldn't do them perfectly.

In the end he went with what was probably the most risky of the lot even though he had the equipment for it sealed in a scroll strapped to his belt. He'd been meaning to train on it with Toshi and Tsunade later on when Nana received the call but now it looked like it'd be a trial by fire.

Before All For One could stop him he ran for the nearest building using the Ki Nobori no Shugyō technique to get to the roof swiftly. Once he reached the top he pulled the scroll off his belt and unfurled it managing to do so just in time since All For One had leapt towards him and was almost in reach. Pushing off the rooftop with a jump of his own to get some distance it also put him into a corkscrew spin before he used the unsealing technique on the scroll. With a small puff of smoke a uniquely formed kunai appeared but he quickly threw it at All For One aiming for the man's head. While it didn't exactly bounce off of the man's skin it also didn't sink deep enough into it to draw blood but he didn't mind. He just did his best to keep throwing kunai as they were released from the scroll with some aimed in All For One's direction while the others went in seemingly random directions.

Well…random to someone who couldn't read his mind that is.

"It would seem that your last attempt to best me has left you tired and short of options." All For One said his voice regaining its usual malicious polite cheer, "How unfortunate that this evenings entertainment must be brought to close."

"Oh I don't know." He said as the last kunai flew from his hand to land just behind his foe, "I think we're just getting started!"

Forming the Ram seal he watched as the world shifted and with what felt like a second or two of disorientation he found himself at the last kunai he'd thrown behind All For One.

~Hiraishin technique successful!~ He thought before pushing off the ground as well as through his disorientation to attack his foe's blindside.

Once again surprising the crime boss the palm thrust landed but then he added a little something extra since he doubted that he'd get another shot. Putting his all into it he did his best to burn his seal formulae into the man's skin hoping it'd be fully formed as well as not easy for even a guy like this to get rid of. He used the pain his palm thrust to mask the burning of the seal formulae into the skin before once more forming the Ram seal once more to fly to a kunai just ahead of where the man was flying.

~Snake, Ram, Monkey, Boar, Horse and Tiger!~ He thought as he formed the seals before declaring, "Katon: Endan!"

Letting the chakra formed oil gather in his mouth he then propelled it forward before igniting it once it got two inches from his mouth forming a mass of fire. It impacted on his foe as expected but he heard no sounds that made him think the man was in pain or feeling threatened with pain. All his fire jutsu accomplished was blunt force and sending his opponent back the way he'd come albeit not as quickly. Once more using the Ram seal to travel he flew to a marked kunai albeit not the one he'd used to first get behind the Super Villain. Instead he went to one below and to the side of the man before forming the Tiger, Ox, Dog, Rabbit and Snake seals.

"Fūton: Daitoppa!" he declared before taking a deep breath and blowing the torrent of air out of his mouth.

Learning multiple elemental natures was a trial even for the best of shinobi with most jounin only managing two or three in their lifetimes. Those who rose to the rank of S-Class or kage could manipulate a fourth but no one outside of the fabled Sage of Six Paths could use all of them at moderate to high levels. Yet he'd found during his training that he had greater flexibility than he should especially with how little training he had gone through. After he'd determined that what he'd gained from Halloween wasn't going to fade away and vanish over time he'd begun training to master what he had gained. When he got to this world and he didn't have to worry about school or Scooby duties he was able to devote almost every waking hour to training. But that still amounted to less than a decade of time and nowhere near enough to gain moderate if not greater strength in all the elements.

His going theory was that the same magic that gave him his assortment of memories from the three Sannin and his chakra also instilled their respective elemental affinities. Not to the same degree and there was bound to be some variability in terms of potency but it meant that a great deal of the legwork had already been done for him if his theory was right. He'd still need time, years most likely, to attain the same level as the Sannin but it was indeed a goal within his reach.

He just hoped that he could keep All For One on the back foot long enough for an opportunity to use his final trump card.

Against the more experienced foe the only reason he was doing as well as he was was because of the element of surprise and how different his techniques were from quirks. It wouldn't last forever, he knew this, sooner or later All For One would adapt and use his superior experience to turn the tables.

At that point his defeat would be all but certain.

Death would likely follow.

He was betting it all on this last move.

He had to make it work!

Or else all this would be for nothing.

Over and over as minutes passed he used the Hiraishin technique to maneuver in order to make up for the after effects of using the Third Gate. Whatever attack he sent his foe's way was dependant on how far they were from a marked kunai and his own measure of how quickly All For One would recover from the blow. It was a costly strategy since the moves needed to be strong in order to have any effect at all on the man and that meant burning through chakra as well as stamina. Any one of the Sannin could probably hold their own against him and last longer against the crime boss in a battle of attrition. Any one of them would probably have come up with the perfect plan to beat him even with all his stolen quirks.

All he had was what he had and all he could do was what he could do.

He didn't know how many minutes passed by but he soon felt his chakra levels quickly approaching a point where his strategy was in peril.

~It has to be now or never!~ He thought delivering the heaviest kick he could to send All For One in the direction he wanted.

The moment he no longer felt the pressure of the man's body against his foot he used the Hiraishin to get to the destination point and began preparing a Ōdama Rasengan. It was an exercise in control to use just enough chakra to successfully form the technique while leaving enough for the final trump card to be played. With a squeeze of his hand he compressed the swirling chakra concentrating its power and with all the strength his legs were capable of at the moment he shot towards All For One. Doubt existed within him but he did not let it cause him to hesitate when he thrust forth the sphere and slammed it into his body. Thus did the top criminal in Japan get thrown back surrounded by the swirling chakra crashing through no less than three buildings before hitting the ground.

A quick flight to the closest marked kunai and he was only a short distance away from his foe but the rest of the distance he travelled on foot.

His final trump card was something he'd talked about with Doctor Tsunade and practiced in private when he had the chance albeit incompletely. With what he intended to use it for he couldn't afford to experiment until he was sure he was good enough to handle the consequences of failure.

Now though he had no choice but to take a chance.

Bringing his dominant hand back he went through the steps in his mind even as he gathered the required chakra to the tips of his fingers and thumb. One by one he shaped the chakra into the symbols he desired until he was confident each one was firmly in place and was not at all crappy. Then just as All For One was about to stand up he thrust the hand forward as though they were claw tips intent on piercing the man's skin but the truth was a helluva lot bolder.

"Sealing Technique: Soul Door Ramparts!" He declared as his chakra surged forth from the points of contact and the seal formula spread out on the man's torso.

The idea had come to him after almost a year of watching the news and hearing from Nana and Toshi about how some people chose to use their quirks. While some might've had a hard time due to the type of quirk they were born with it pissed him off the way some despite having a quirk that could be used to help instead chose to satisfy their dark desires. In this he came to the conclusion that some people didn't deserve to have their quirks and deserved to experience life as a human without one. He knew Doctor Tsunade, Nana and the others native to this world wouldn't agree with this. They'd advise him to let the current justice system deal with those people and that taking the power out of the hands of that system put him dangerously close to Villainhood.

Sadly he'd lived in a world, in a town, where if you wanted evil to lose and good people to be protected you had to do it yourself.

Sunnydale had existed for a hundred years and in that time twelve cemeteries worth of people had died and likely even more had died without anyone ever knowing it. Thanks to Wilkins no one ignorant of the supernatural knew the true reason and even the cover stories were crafted specifically to make others gloss over what was happening atop the Hellmouth. However those who knew about the supernatural whether they be the Watchers Council or some government group must've known about Sunnydale.

And yet they did nothing before Buffy showed up.

No attempt to unseat Wilkins before he could Ascend and become a true demon or even drive out the demonic and warlock population in order to save lives. HELL! They could've just thrown their weight around to turn Sunnydale into one of the many ghost towns that existed across the USA!

But they did nothing.

Even after Buffy and Giles showed up the Council provided only the bare minimum support needed to keep the world spinning and the Hellmouth closed. An organization that claimed they had been around for millennia lacked the resources to properly clean house in Sunnydale? BULLSHIT!

In the end the only people he could count on were the Scoobies and they handled trouble in whatever way was necessary in order to eliminate the threat.

So he'd written down everything he could recall of the sealing arts from Halloween as well as what he could ask Doctor Tsunade about without giving away his intentions. From there he'd done his best to create this sealing technique using the Five Elements Seal Orochimaru used to cut off Naruto from the kyuubi's chakra as a starting point. From there he began the slow, agonizing and sometimes infuriating process of modifying everything so that in the end it'd block off a human's connection to their quirk. It'd still be there just in case it was somehow vital to staying alive but no matter how hard they tried they wouldn't be able to access it.

The innocent would be safe from those people until such time as he chose to remove the seal and MAN would those people need to be convincing for that to happen.

In this case though, through the sensations provided to him by his chakra invading All For One's body, he was seeking one specific quirk to seal away for good.

The man's original quirk.

That which allowed him to steal quirks from others and then bestow them to whomever the monster wanted.

With that one sealed away All For One would be stuck with whatever quirks he currently had and once the Pro Heroes got a handle on them the man's defeat was inevitable.

His chakra encountered many things that he figured had to be quirks and cringed at the lingering echoes of their original owners crying out but he pressed onwards. He sought the one that had nothing and no one but this bastard attached to it, the oldest of the set, and no other. Only when his chakra came into contact with a mass that was repugnant in the extreme did he know that he'd found his target.

"SEAL!" He declared before twisting his dominant hand in order to lock the technique and with it the cursed quirk.

"RRAAAGGHH!" All For One bellowed in fury even as he felt the man trying to resist the effects of the sealing technique.

No doubt the man didn't know what was being done only that it was targeting the very thing that allowed him to reach the top of the criminal community. It was only natural that such a thing would be fought for, would be defended, but pouring more chakra into the jutsu he threw his own will into the fight to make sure he succeeded.

The will of a black hearted crime boss versus the heart of a defender of mankind.

So focused were they upon their efforts that they failed to notice how their power influenced the air around them, the ground beneath their feet and the structures that surrounded them. What they both noticed though much to the shock of one and surprise of another was that metaphysical cracks were forming on that which represented All For One's core quirk. On a lesser thing this would've been understandable since if one person is turning something to the right while the other is exerting force in the opposite direction strain would be put on the something. Be it metal, wood, plastic or some other material all natural things had a limit to how much force could be placed on them before they just broke. However this was a quirk and even with all the studies that had been done since quirks first appeared no one had nailed down the specifics of what it was, where it came from and how it could be manipulated. Some of this was because those in power outlawed such work out of fear of the abominations that might be produced but in other cases it was simply because the phenomena didn't completely obey the laws of science.

Even All For One with the aid of Doctor Garaki had never thought such a thing as a quirk cracking would be possible.

Too bad for them they were dealing with Xander 'no middle name admitted' Harris who unbeknownst to himself was a Chaos Seed Being that three years ago had been upgraded a level. Whether it was being affected by Xander's willpower, stress or just the perilous situation itself the chaos energy within him was surging in strength allowing the improbable to become possible.

It was when one of the cracks in the quirk opened just a little further though that something truly miraculous happened.

~^…Leysritt…Sella…Oni-chan…help…ME!^~

This shocked Xander because in a way he couldn't define or explain he somehow KNEW that this girl's voice wasn't some trick of All For One's. More than that in his mind's eye he could somehow SEE and otherwise feel a barely visible girl's arm reaching out from the crack that'd just been widened in All For One's core quirk. In the space between seconds his entire objective changed and it was less due to well considered debate than it was more due to an instinct that was intrinsic to who he was.

That and after years of phantom urges and instincts the echo of the primal hyena matriarch surged in strength with single overwhelming demand: SAVE CUB!

And so he chose to do so.

However seeing as how neither he nor the Sannin to whom he owed his shinobi prowess to had ever encountered something like this before he'd be playing it by ear from here on out. With instincts guiding him he chose to mentally go with a variation of chakra threads and flung them towards where he felt the young presence crying out for help. It was a lot easier to do this on the mental plane through his connection to All For One than it would've been in the real world and so it was only to be expected for the four threads to succeed in attaching. What he didn't anticipate though was that upon making a connection with the spirit or mind of the little girl his mind was assailed with memory fragments. They weren't more than a few seconds long and he got the distinct impression that they were out of order but one thing he was sure about.

If he wasn't determined to save the girl, to save Illyasviel, before he damn well was now.

The girl had been born to loving parents only to lose both to the selfish ambitions of her grandfather and the members of her family outside of her parents.

She had been lied to, fed hate inspiring stories and had her body altered in such a way that even if all went according to plan she would know neither adulthood or a happy future.

And to top it all off that bloody BASTARD killed those who the girl cared for most after being without the love of her parents for so long!

He would not allow her to suffer for even an eye blink longer!

With strength and with care he sent more threads to attach themselves to the girl both to increase the odds of extracting her without doing further harm and to keep her from being pulled back into All For One's quirk. It was a good thing that he'd acted when he had for it was a brief moment later that forces indescribable to him began to work to reverse what'd been done. He didn't think that it was the crime boss behind this for the man looked to have no knowledge of chakra or the techniques utilizing it.

No one, no matter how gifted, could fathom the details of something so beyond their frame of reference in so short a time.

Instead it was far more likely that those who'd given birth to the bastard he'd been fighting were responsible.

Even with all the various quirks that existed in the world he now called home the odds of there existing one capable of forcibly taking another's quirk, using it and then transferring it to another were astonishingly small. Indeed if it were something normal then there'd be quirks similar to it or capable of other feats just as mighty. Instead there was only one and perhaps its counterpart if his suspicions were correct.

The whole thing stank of 'balance' and 'order'.

It stank of THEM. The ones who'd kidnapped him, erased him from his world and rewove it so that those he cared about were either dead or worse than that!

All through the time he'd been on this world he'd contemplated his foes, scrutinized every memory he had of them, looking for anything that might give him an edge. One thing that was made clear was that his enemies saw it as their duty to decide what was allowed to remain and what needed to be removed. Those things that aided the 'balance' would be preserved and aided while those things deemed threats or just plain unneeded would be eradicated. This however could not be done by remaining outside observers and only acting when necessary.

No.

In order to maintain 'balance' those bastards would need to control the flow of events in as many realities as possible either by placing agents there or assets of some sort. Seeing as how he'd been here three years and had probably done a terrible job of maintaining a low profile he figured it was the latter. More specifically they'd set things up so that they could control the proverbial game board on both sides Hero and Villain. If there existed people qualified to play the necessary parts already fine but if there weren't then his kidnappers likely created the actors and actresses they needed for the performance. Like all performances there'd be the stars, co-stars and supporting cast all of who would follow a script written by his kidnappers to guide things towards a set objective.

In this case All For One was definitely the lead antagonist of the script for what other reason could there be for the man to possess so potent a quirk. With that quirk it'd be all too easy to remain at the top since the monster could change the assortment of quirks he possessed any time he wanted with an entire world of people to choose from. With enough time and effort All For One could gain experience, knowledge and skill surpassing anything anyone other than him could gain in a single lifetime. For any hero it'd be hard enough to defeat a powerful villain with just a single set of quirks of an unknown number but if the villain could change the line up between encounters plans would be pointless.

It'd all come down to which side came to a fight with the right combination of abilities and who miscalculated when choosing their load out of quirks.

No matter how he looked at it now it was clear that All For One was meant to embody 'evil' in this world with perhaps Nana or Toshi being sized up to represent 'good'. THEY had likely created All For One's core quirk and used 'materials' they had harvested from various 'weeds' they'd captured before unmaking them in a horribly painful way. How the girl he sought to save had managed to retain any sense of self or a form he didn't know but to him she was a victim just like he'd have been. Just like the Scoobies back home were.

He WOULD save her!

Once he was sure that he'd gained a strong enough yet gentle enough grip he pulled on the girl spirit with all of his willpower. When he felt resistance he used what he'd done so far to increase the strain on the core quirk in order to widen the crack from which the girl spirit reaching out to him. Again and again he worked to free her until finally all resistance vanished and he felt a presence shoot down the chakra threads before descending into the depths of his being. He knew she had no choice, a spirit needed a vessel or container to remain in the living world, and he accepted her without hesitation. Whether he had no choice but to share his body with her or found some way to give her a new one he would settle the matter later.

It was as his focus ceased to be one saving the girl spirit and forcibly using his sealing technique to facilitate this rescue that his instincts warned him of lethal danger.

Without hesitation he leapt backward intent on putting distance between himself and the most likely source of that danger…

…be he wasn't fast enough to escape harm entirely.

Just death.

"AARRGGHH!" He cried out as black and crimson tendrils lashed out like razor sharp whips to slice four parallel cuts into his torso.

In such pain his attempt to land on his feet collapsed almost immediately and the impact on the ground only caused the agony he was feeling to flare up even further. For a moment he worried that he would blackout from the pain but his stubborn will and the fact that some part of him knew it'd be his death if he lost consciousness kept him awake. Only after he'd come to a stop and the pain subsided enough did he work to force himself at least into a crouching position so he could look back at where All For One most likely was. He didn't need to be a doctor of any sort to know that the cuts he'd suffered were serious and while not deep enough to cause internal organs to begin spilling out between the gaps that would change if the fight resumed. Flesh and muscle would further rip if he did anything drastic assuming of course the pain didn't KO him immediately.

Though from the looks of things All For One was experiencing issues of his own.

From what he could see the sealing technique he'd attempted still lingered on the man's torso albeit distorted in places and definitely not looking as it should've had it been successful. The battle damage from the fight up until now still remained but the most telling of the lot though was that gone was the man's aura of malicious invulnerability. When the monster of a man had first appeared he had a presence of power and evil that only his inherited memories of Uchiha Madara could match.

Now? Now when he looked at the man the best he could do was describe All For One as a man on the road to a nervous breakdown.

"What did you do?! What did…you…YOU STOLE SOMETHING FROM ME!" All For One yelled with rising fury, "I can FEEL it! A piece, an IMPORTANT piece, is GONE!"

It made sense that someone capable of stealing parts of other people would have a heightened sensitivity towards his own bits especially if something was removed.

"GIVE IT BACK!" All For One declared full of anger even as signs of his various quirks amping up began to visibly show themselves.

He knew what was coming and he knew he was in no shape to protect himself from it with his injuries. Even if his half done sealing technique and the damage it'd done to All For One's core quirk couldn't be ignored the guy still looked like he had the power to paint the area bloody red.

What could he do? How could he both live and escape?

The reverse summoning technique? Could he attach the formulae to himself and send himself away?

No. The technique required that the sender remain at the departure point.

The Hiraishin technique?

No. All the markings that he had attuned to his version of the technique were on the kunai he'd thrown about or on All For One himself. Going to one of the Kunai would at best buy him seconds and that was assuming the pissed off crime boss didn't snap and perform some sort of area of affect attack that took out most of the facility. Using the one on the baddie was also not a good idea since he didn't have anything that'd knock the guy out or deliver a fatal blow. All getting in that close would do was make sure All For One couldn't miss.

In the end he decided to give up on being rational and just go with his gut since it probably didn't matter either way.

~Boar, Dog, Bird, Monkey and Ram!~ He thought forming the hand seals before declaring, "YOU WANT IT? YOU'LL HAVE TO GET THROUGH THIS FIRST! KUCHIYOSE NO JUTSU!"

It was the mother of all gambits.

He'd already confirmed long ago that he or rather the person he'd turned into Halloween night had signed the contract scroll he'd tied to his back. It wasn't his name written in English but rather the Japanese name that meant 'defender of mankind' or whatever was closest to that while still being a Japanese name. However he'd never tried to summon the sentient animal connected to the other side of the contract both because he doubted anything was there and even if there was they might not consider the contract binding. It was after all the result of a chaos spell powered by Janus and so there was more than enough ground to argue that it was not valid. Now though he had nothing to lose by trying and everything to gain if against all odds it succeeded.

As he brought his hand down though three things that had not been considered came into play that would take things into an interesting direction.

The first? His blood. It was both catalyst and key to many powerful shinobi techniques and thanks to his wounds the hand coming down to the ground was absolutely soaked in it. Where officially only a single line of the red liquid was needed to successfully perform the summoning technique circumstances had made it so that overkill was the word of the day. When added to the fact that blood historically had the power to form bonds both between family members as well as friends and it was anyone's guess how this would affect this jutsu.

The second? While Xander had welcomed in the girl spirit into his body he had not considered fully what might happen next nor had he been given time to sense internal reactions. As such he'd been oblivious to the moment when the echo of the primal hyena matriarch came into contact with the spirit. He'd been oblivious to the fact that the girl while she'd been a part of All For One's core quirk she'd been put through such a hellish experience that even the demons back in Sunnydale would've been in awe. As such when the spirit sensed the echo of the matriarch she found qualities reminiscent of both her great protector as well as her mother. Even though she was not thinking clearly she didn't care for this echo offered her safety and comfort both of which she was in dire need of at the moment. Thus without hesitation the spirit threw herself into it not caring what might happen.

Not caring that she would become enveloped by the echo.

Not caring that it would graft itself onto her to provide more comprehensive protection.

Not caring that even in death the changes done to her by her grandfather existed imprinted on her very soul and were awoken by the echo of the primal hyena matriarch.

The result though was the birth of something both unique as well as familiar and in time perhaps it'd be enough to seize a position currently occupied by a certain horned horse creature.

The last? In all the time that had passed since Recovery Girl had regained the body, abilities and memories of one Senju Tsunade the power hidden within Xander had not shown itself. Most speculated that it had exhausted itself in the act and would take years if not decades to become an issue once more. What they failed to realize, perhaps due to their lack of understanding of the energy, was that chaos defied prediction and acted whenever it pleased however it desired to at the moment. Only the fact that it was as much a part of Xander as he was a part of it gave it any direction at all and in this case it was the desire to throw power in whatever form into the summoning technique.

Thus when hand met cracked street the technique did activate but instead of something the radius of a pitcher's mound the black symbols shot outwards from the point of contact until it spanned the entire facility. Then smoke exploded into existence as air was violently and suddenly pushed away causing all manner of debris to be cast into the air adding to the lack of visibility. However when things began to calm down there was one thing that Xander could not argue against and that was the fact that he was NOT sitting atop a giant ninja animal. Indeed he wasn't even sitting next to one that was a little bigger than the biggest quirkless human. Thus he could only conclude that despite sinking a large amount of chakra into the summoning technique as well as as much of his will as he could muster he had failed.

He'd exhausted his last option and was now exhausted in more ways than one.

~At least…at least I managed to get…the others clear.~ He thought as the smoke and debris cleared enough for him to once more see All For One, ~With any luck…the damage…done to…the core quirk…will give Nana and Toshi…an…edge…~

"You're last effort has proven to be just as hollow and worthless as you are BOY!" All For One declared looking to have somewhat regained his self-control but still feeling quite a bit of fury, "Now I shall rip off your limbs, beat what remains into a bloody mess and then take you to Doctor Garaki so that he may extract from you that which you have STOLEN from me! Once that has been done I will have him study you inch by agonizing inch to learn just how it is you can do what you do. Once I have those answers I will use them to become even stronger and the first people I will test my newfound strength upon will be-gagh!"

The crime boss was unable to finish his grand threat because out of nowhere a white glob of something smacked into his mouth like a big wad of white glue.

"Blah, blah, blah! You know you should really take some time away from your cliche villainous scheming to work on your threatening dialogue." A woman's voice said from within the lingering smoke, "I swear it's like you Villains all went to the same public speaking seminar and decided to plagiarize big time!"

With an angry jerking motion All For One ripped the glob off his mouth with teeth bared to emphasize how he felt.

"So someone else wishes to experience pain and suffering." All For One growled daring the unknown woman to try again.

"To walk the path of a shinobi is to be acquainted with both…" spoke an older man's voice from a direction different from the woman before, "…but to endure nonetheless. Doton: Doryū Taiga!"

With those words the ground beneath All For One turned to mud and began to flow swiftly to the right dragging the surprised crime boss with it. Only when it slammed into the wall of a building hard enough to cause it to collapse onto the Super Villain and bury him did the mud become still.

The mound of concrete and steel didn't last long though for moments later it exploded outwards with All For One once more sporting the muscled physique from before.

"Guess the questions is: you can dish it but can you take it?" Asked another voice, that of a young man, before an artificial hum drew attention to a beacon of white light to All For One's left.

However before the Villain could say anything a blast of energy shot forth from the beacon slamming into All For One in the blink of an eye. So potent was it that the monster was sent tumbling end over end and when the asshole was on his back a visible burn mark could be seen where the blast had struck but sadly had not succeeded in penetrating any deeper. One thing the attacks had succeeded in doing was knocking All For One out of his anger enough to make him use the intelligence that had made him feared the world over.

~Too bad.~ He thought grimacing from where he sat, ~Seeing him get his ass kicked was doing wonders for my mood.~

"Enough of this. AIR CANNON!" All For One declared before throwing his arms out to the side.

In the blink of an eye a blast of air that could only be matched by the strongest of hurricanes shot forth from the man's hands. The air flowed around briefly the various structures in the facility before the power proved to be enough to cause them to collapse under strain they were not designed to withstand. All in all the air attack only lasted about five to ten seconds max but when they stopped it was clear that the Super Villain's goal had been to blast away that which prevented him from seeing his attackers. With both the smoke as well as the kicked up debris gone all was visible once more…

…but through the shock he was feeling when he looked ahead he got the suspicion that All For One should've kept things smokey for his own sake.

Why?

Well by the voices alone All For One likely believed he now faced no more than three new opponents who were probably Pro Heroes of some sort.

Turns out the malevolent man was only a third right and that wasn't a good thing.

Arrayed about the area as far as he could see and at different vantage points were ten people not three and while some were colourfully dressed he could safely say they weren't Pro Heroes.

They were superheroes.

A brunette woman clad in red and being held aloft by crimson energy.

A white haired man who looked similar enough to possibly be a sibling.

A masked woman hanging upside down by a rope made of the same substance that'd momentarily muzzled All For one.

A redheaded woman pointing two hi-tech looking pistols with eyes that indicated only one capable of wielding infinity could break her will.

A man in a suit of armour hovering on light emitting boots hands raised with the same light as the beacon from earlier at the centre of the palms.

A woman with purple markings on her cheeks and dressed more like a shinobi with drawn kunai in hand.

A man who looked to be in his late fifties clad in a black jumpsuit, a green gauntlet over much of his right arm and an armoured hood on his head.

A woman with hair that was tomato red clad in armour that was a mix of metal and leather that would not hinder movement but protect that which was vital.

A spike blonde man clad in similar armour but with a white short sleeved coat on trimmed in red.

Some he recognized given that their gear was similar to his own shinobi gear but the others he couldn't identify save that all of it was custom and none of it was without function. Bottom line: he'd gone from being moments away from being smushed by All For One to having nine people for backup. Given how three of them had managed to do pretty well in terms of opening moves he now felt much better about his odds of seeing tomorrow.

"Don't go smiling yet brat!" A familiar anger filled voice snapped from behind him.

Cringing instinctively he slowly turned his head towards the voice and soon saw proof that his sense of hearing had not been lying to him. However the situation was MUCH worse than what he'd feared because Tsunade was not alone behind him but rather had two more standing by her side. They were people he'd never expected to see anytime soon but had no trouble recognizing thanks to their distinctive wardrobes.

Jiraiya.

Orochimaru.

The legendary Sannin of Kenosha reunited…

…and not one of them looked like they were pleased with him.

Considering what usually triggered Doctor Tsunade to be less than pleased with him and what always happened afterwards he predicted concussions in his future.

Concussions, poison and probably an introduction to what a pincushion felt like.

"I've got a few things to say to you brat and I'm not going to let blood loss to let you miss a word." Tsunade declared stepping forward before kneeling next to him.

Two hand seals later green energy enveloped her hands before she placed them on his chest began to heal his wounds. He knew she wouldn't be able to do it all at once much less here but if she could close up the most serious ones enough to stop him from bleeding out that'd be enough. However as he felt his body begin to heal faster than it could've on its own his attention was brought back to All For One who by now had gotten over the change in numbers.

"One more, a dozen more or a hundred more it will make no difference in the end BOY." All For One declared tearing off what remained of his jacket and shirt, "There is no one stronger than me. I have ruled the underworld of this planet since the dawn of quirks! All who tried to oppose me are either dead or broken! Those are the only two fates that await you! ANY OF YOU!"

"Yeah well I go for option C." The man in the red and gold armour said as compartments began open all over his armour, "We kick your ass back to whatever dead end tavern you crawled out of! Who's with me?!"

One by one the rest showed where they stood either by flaring their powers or taking one a stance that clearly meant they were ready for battle.

"Oh yeah…you're so screwed now!" He said a lopsided grin making its way onto his face even with the slowly fading pain from his healing injuries.

This was going to be good!

---

Post Drabble Note: I decided I'd take this time to explain how this all came about. It began with reading a fan fiction where Sakura with a piece of Kaguya inside of her was relocated to the My Hero Academia universe. It's a great story and I eagerly await new chapters! So I decided to pull off my own version. However I didn't want to go with the predictable so I tossed out all Uchihas, Uzumakis and Rinnegan users out the window. From there I decided to go with one of the Third Hokage's students since they were strong enough to change the course of the MHA universe without being too overpowered. However after a week of debate I couldn't decide which one to go with so I went with the 'Xander took pieces from each of their outfits and combined it into a costume' route so he could get all three.

From there I needed a way to get him to the MHA universe and for that I decided to go with the basic concept of the Powers That Be, reorganize them into a combination of the Ministry of Magic, the TVA from Loki and a few other mixable organizations. They could pull Xander out of his reality for messing things up and then Xander could beat the odds and break out only to land in the MHA universe a few years before Nana Shimura would've been killed.

Naturally the first big thing I wanted to change was Nana dying in the first place so I had to comb through the Naruto wiki website for jutsu ideas, an X element to leverage things even further and then a believable sequence of events to get the end result I wanted. I'll admit I stretched and twisted and pushed suspension of disbelief quite a bit but hey this is a fan fiction story so whatever.

As for all the co-stars not of the MHA universe or the BtVS universe I've always been a big fan of bringing characters from various fandoms back to life. So I came up with a list of people whose deaths I wanted to undo and then used the whole soul reversion thing in combination with the harvesting/reincarnation business to get what I wanted.

I also thought it'd be fun if Tsunade, Orochimaru and Jiraiya showed up since if they did I could make it so that they each considered or would come to consider Xander their son. Maybe I could even have it so that Janus tweaked Xander genetically so that from a biological point of view he would be their child. Crazy I know but also funny and potentially interesting if you take a moment to try and imagine how each one of them would take to parenting.

Let me know what you think!

PS- Bonus points to whoever can come up with the best Pro Hero name for Xander given his powers and skill set.