Chapter 1 - A New World
"Oh, come ON!"
Peter was used to strange experiences by now. Swinging away from Lady Liberty when the world suddenly shifts and changes, leaving him without either of his weblines and twenty meters in the air of some other city, it wouldn't make it into his top ten. It wouldn't have been the first time it happened in the last few days.
Reacting quickly while he still had the forward momentum from his previous swing, Peter shot out a web to one of the nearby buildings and then yanked the flexible cord so that he landed on the side of the building.
Now that he had a solid wall to stand on, he tried to get his bearings. He was in a city in the middle of the day. The buildings were, on average, ten stories tall and close together. It looked much like his last residence in Queens, with plenty of vehicles and pedestrian traffic. A few of those pedestrians were even looking up at him and pointing.
Deciding he didn't want to invite more onlookers, he crawled up the rest of the way to the roof of the building he was attached to while putting his mask back on. He was glad he had gotten it before he tried to leave Staten Island.
Standing on the roof, Peter looked out towards the city skyline and quickly determined he was not in New York. Or New Jersey. He didn't recognize any landmarks that could tell him where he was. It was when he noticed a billboard several streets down that gave him a clue.
"Is that Asian?" Looking as closely as he could from this distance, it resembled some Asian letterings he had seen in different media. He was no expert, even if he liked the occasional manga or anime, to tell if it was Chinese or Japanese. Or Korean. Or Vietnamese. All he knew was it was lettering from somewhere in Asia.
"That is Japanese," said a woman with a barely detectable English accent who spoke into his ear.
"Uhhh, Karen, does that mean I'm in Japan?"
"Possibly. No Stark network is detected. Auxiliary networks are also missing. Signals are present, primarily using a binary signal, but the higher languages do not match previously known languages. I can only access them once I have enough time to process and decode them. Accessing local computers to observe their languages could speed up the process. This includes satellite signals for GPS locations."
Peter sighed but looked back at the billboard. It was of some man in a costume flexing his impressive muscles. He figured it was some advertisement for an Asian superhero movie since he didn't remember anything about any supers from Asia. That was also when Peter felt a tingle to warn him of something, but not directed at him.
BOOM!
The explosion took him out of his introspection, swinging his head to look at the growing plume of smoke several blocks behind him. "Oh god!" He leaped from the roof and aimed an arm to catch a corner of a building further down to start his web-swinging. He needed to hurry if he was going to get there in time to be of any help.
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"Oh, hell no!"
Sakura had already been falling, so being in the air wasn't surprising to her. Going from a wasteland to a city certainly was. A moment ago, Kaguya had been below her after hitting her head with her fist. Sakura flipped forward and adjusted her fall so she would land on her feet. The various pedestrians and strange machines nearby had all stopped to gawk at her arrival.
"Sasuke! Naruto! Kakashi!" she yelled out, scanning in every direction to pinpoint her teammates: nothing, no sign of them or Kaguya. Sakura was seriously worried this was another attempt to separate them.
Sakura wasn't sure if Kaguya was neutralized or not. Naruto and Sasuke had just touched her when the world had shifted like the previous times. But unlike those times, she was alone. Knowing Kaguya's propensity to appear out of portals near and far, she turned her senses to detect her arrival as best she could.
The pedestrians around her started mumbling, wondering what she was doing. Some ignored it and returned to what they were doing before; some sped away even faster, and others even pulled out little metal sheets and looked between those and herself. One or two, however, moved closer.
"Miss? Are you okay?" A gentleman in strange clothing asked her. He seemed to have a white shirt and some black pants, a black jacket, and some cloth hung around his neck that went down the front of his chest, completing the ensemble. The slicked hair to the side presented someone who was well-groomed. The man was not a fighter.
"I'm fine." She barely glanced at him, still trying to keep her senses on detecting Kaguya. She didn't want to be rude, but getting distracted could be fatal.
"You don't look fine." Said another pedestrian that had come forward, this time a middle-aged blonde with shoulder-length hair woman in a light-blue sundress. Her hair had hints of gray in them. "Your sleeve is ripped off, your clothing is damaged, and those are acid marks on your arm!"
Sakura wanted to avoid explaining the situation. The amount of time spent trying to tell them she was fighting for the world's survival could be a critical mistake. The destruction of her headband and losing her flak jacket made it much more difficult to prove she was a Konoha ninja. She supposed she could show off a chakra technique, but that wasn't assured to work. Now that she had thought about it, she realized there was a discrepancy. 'Why weren't they under the Infinite Tsukuyomi?'
She turned more of her attention to observing her surroundings and noticed that the buildings seemed larger and blockier than the wood buildings of Konoha she was familiar with. They looked like they were made out of brick or cement primarily. The street was entirely solid, as were the sidewalks. Those strange metal machines had people inside them and moving without anything pulling on them, faster than carriages.
"Girl, you are clearly in distress," the woman said, watching Sakura's bewilderment increase as she started looking everywhere. "I think we need to call a pro-hero for you."
Sakura turned back to the woman, her puzzlement at her words just another stone on the pile. "A pro-hero? What is that?"
The woman looked confused for a moment before firming herself up. She turned to the young man, "Dear, please call emergency services. We need to get her some assistance as soon as–"
The screams startled the woman out of completing her instructions. She turned to look down the street from which chaos had sprung.
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"Zzzzzzz…"
Ranma didn't wake from his sleep as he fell from fifty meters into some foliage. He did register the small tree that snapped and cracked under his fall, but only in the way a person might bang their feet into a wall while dreaming. The sunlight shining through the trees and hitting him on the eyelids was more annoying than any fall could hope to generate.
On the other hand, the angry squirrel, with righteous anger at having nearly been crushed by the stupid human, did register for Ranma, primarily by jumping on his face and attempting to scratch out his eyeballs and permanently marking his good looks.
"Gah! Get off! Get off, pops!" Ranma cried out as his hands reached up to get the annoying appendage off his face while sitting in a daze. "Huh?" Ranma asked in confusion as he noticed it wasn't his father attempting to wake him up but an angry squirrel several feet in front of him. His brain was still sluggish as the squirrel barked and screamed at him as it stood on its back legs, trying to size him up for a rematch. The staring match was good for Ranma, giving his higher brain functions time to finish the boot process.
"Pffft. Get lost, shorty." Ranma dismissed the squirrel, instead turning his eyes and head to stare at the forest he'd woken up in. The squirrel looked ready to attack because of the snub, but then Ranma twisted backward so fast from where he had been sitting that his legs rose over his head until his arm tapped on the forest ground, pushing himself into a standing position in one fluid motion. The squirrel took the loss gracefully and went to find a new home.
"Where the hell am I?" Ranma asked as he inspected his surroundings. He didn't see any camping equipment, signs of his pops, or his various acquaintances that would explain why he was in a forest. Though the destroyed tree gave him a clue that they weren't nearby, he had experienced another flying lesson. Though, on closer inspection, the damaged tree and ground weren't that serious for one of his typical sessions.
Ranma ignored that part and leaped to a nearby tree, bouncing between the various branches to get to the top. He looked out to find no signs of civilization from the direction he had come from. The hill in front of him was blocking his sight. "Sheesh, Tomboy! I think you set a new record." He presumed it was Akane's handiwork since he was still in his boxers and the white muscle shirt he always wore to bed.
He had to leap to another tree to get a good view of the area. He saw a large body of water with more hills and mountains beyond it. There was some form of civilization that way, a village at least, and some smoke rose from it. It seemed as good a place to start as anything else.
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Peter swung around the last corner to see the building putting out smoke. It was a ten-story building; the lowest floors were reserved for various shops, while the ones above were for apartments. It had a sister building that together they took up the city block with an alleyway between the two.
The main concern was the gaping hole on the side of the building. It went deep inside the interior from the third floor up to the seventh. There was a raging fire near the hole that appeared to be starting to spread at a rapid pace.
Peter swung around and landed on the roof of a building across the street. Looking into the hole, he saw the damage was even worse inside than it was out. Floors were gone, making it an entirely open structure, leaving only fragments from the top floors. The bottom was covered with debris, showing some of the lower levels had collapsed further from the weight of the falling material. The damage extended nearly to the other end of the building.
The only upside was that it had only hit the hallway, removing many doors and entrances but leaving most residences intact. Though, the spreading fire wasn't going to leave them alone for long.
Peter was trying to figure out what he should do when his lenses flared to life, showing an x-rayed wireframe with highlights noting the building's framework and interlaced with infrared to show hotspots and possible life signs appearing on his HUD display. The most important part, however, was the line of 'Structural integrity compromised, collapse imminent.' There was even a little timer noting that he had approximately two minutes.
"You need to hurry, Peter."
"Thanks, Karen," Peter said as he leaped into action. Too much pressure on any structure point, like a wall, floor, or ceiling, could worsen things until he had a better idea of what to do. As he flipped into the building, he used some webbing to hold a few of the structure points inside together into a single thin string that also acted as a platform he could stand on.
Inside, the heat was intense, even in his suit that had thermal protection, and it looked like it was starting to weaken some of the steel beams used to stabilize the building. Peter shot his webbing out at the structure points and the fires, mainly since his webbing had been redesigned at various points to provide improved thermal resistance. When he had finished, the inside looked more like a funnel spider's nest. The ambient temperature had dropped significantly, instead of the roasting temperature that could burn flesh, to a temperature more applicable to standing close to a heater. The timer for the collapse had shot up, earning him many precious minutes.
Just as he was finishing replacing his web cartridges with some fresh ones when his spider-sense (thank you, Peter two for that much better name) went off before one of the floors above collapsed and dropped a terrified and screaming resident down into the maw. Peter reacted quickly, leaping and catching them mid-air in a princess carry and then landing on one of the walls.
"Hang on, I'll get you out in a moment," Peter said as the startled teenager clung to him tightly. Peter hopped out of the large hole and landed on the sidewalk, setting the boy down. Once he was sure the boy had his footing, he re-entered the building.
"Karen, create a plan based on priorities and positions to maximize chances of getting everyone out safely." His HUD started displaying new information as calculations began to occur and potential routes started to appear.
"Peter, start with the critically injured. I am listing them in order with efficient paths to follow to maximize your time. I also have listed how much time to spend on each, depending on the available information. These figures will update as new information is acquired, and I calculate more efficient paths." Karen said, her calm voice doing much to help his nerves as he found the first target on the list.
Peter went into action, finding the ones in the most danger were in a residence that had already partially collapsed. "Hello? Is anyone there?" Peter called out, hoping that getting their attention would speed up getting them out. He couldn't see anything with normal vision; too much debris from the ceilings, walls, or furnishings was in the way. But the enhanced vision did let him know people were over there.
An older woman's voice whimpered near the center of the room that he only heard because his suit had enhanced the sound, near what must have been a dining room table. Peter crawled on the walls and ceiling, occasionally moving stuff out of the way as carefully as possible to prevent further collapse. He reached it a moment later and found the source of the sound trapped beneath the table and part of the ceiling.
"Ma'am, just hold on; I'll get you out of there in a second," Peter said calmly and reassuringly. His HUD was updated with the best focal point to lift the table, and even recommended where to put it. Peter grabbed and threw a few more significant and complicated pieces of debris. Soon as he had the dangerous parts taken care of, he carefully lifted the table that still held chunks of debris on top of it. He tossed it to the side as soon as he was sure it was safe.
Peter's HUD updated again, displaying the older man as in critical condition and unconscious but relatively safe to move. The woman looked to be in her early sixties and was holding her side where blood was leaking out due to some rebar sticking out of her. When the woman went to try to pull it out, Peter softly grabbed her hand, keeping it away from the metal.
"You can't, ma'am; you'll bleed too much." The woman stopped reaching for it, whether from doing as he said or losing the strength to do so, Peter didn't know. But it did give Peter the time to inspect the rebar piece, finding it had punctured the flooring below her. Reaching down, he used both hands to stabilize her, though it did cause minor jerking of the rebar in her side and a cry of pain, but he put one hand around it, using just his fingers, and carefully squeezed the rebar, causing the metal to dent around his fingers. He lifted her carefully but firmly, ripping the rebar from the floor.
He set her back down for a moment before he used his webbing to carefully wrap around the wound to keep the pressure up and minimize blood loss. After getting the approval from Karen, he lifted her into his arms again.
Peter looked around for the best way to exit the building. He was not going back through the hole like this. His HUD quickly showed him that the window would be safe enough, but he would have to kick out part of the building as the window was too small to go through.
Peter walked up to the window, checking down below to make sure the way was clear before he attempted anything.
Seeing that the ground below was clear enough, he stepped away from the window and prepared to kick it out.
"¿Anata wa hīrōdesu ka?"
Peter turned towards the voice, finding a pre-teen girl looking down on him from the floor above and to the side, seeing as the wall had collapsed on that part. She was on her knees and had been crying.
"Peter, she is speaking Japanese," Karen said. "I will display translations and help you speak any responses as needed." Peter's HUD then lit up with a translation of what the girl had said. 'Are you a hero?'
Karen started displaying a response for him when his spider-sense warned him something was wrong, and then his HUD updated that the ceiling below her was collapsing. Peter wanted to shout a warning, but it was too late. As the girl fell, Peter aimed one of his hands, still holding the woman, towards the far wall, shooting off a web wide enough to act more like a hammock as the young girl fell into it. As she rebounded, Peter breathed a sigh of relief as he timed it just right to catch her between the ceiling piece she had fallen with so that she didn't hit the more rigid surface. He slowly released more webbing until she was safely on the ground.
The girl stood up before staring at his mask, unsure of what to do, and seemed to be waiting for Peter to do something. Peter got a suggestion and followed it, "Wa-ta-shi wa Hi-ro." He followed Karen's slow wording to help him sound it out. Peter was sure he butchered it. But it appeared to have worked as the girl's eyes lit up before closing them with tears, and she rushed to him. He had to lift the woman a little so she wasn't jostled when the girl slammed into him at waist height with a crushing hug.
Knowing he was in a desperate time crunch, he looked to the window again. His suit's AI came up with another solution. He turned back to the girl and spoke as Karen continued to help him with pronunciation. "Sen-aka ni not-te."
The girl looked up at him, then nodded while releasing her hug on him. Peter turned away from her and kneeled, giving the girl access to his back. She hopped on, looping her arms around his neck as best as possible. Part of his nano suit pulled away from his arms and legs and wrapped around the young girl, securing her to him.
Peter walked to the window and took another quick inspection of the ground below, noticing more pedestrians were gathering outside and looking up. Stepping back again, he lifted a foot and kicked out hard at the base of the window, destroying it and sending it flying to the ground below while startling some nearby pedestrians. Peter followed it quickly and landed as softly as he could, letting his legs bend and absorb as much of the impact as possible.
Peter hoped Karen would give him the words to let the girl know she could let go, but those nearby pedestrians made it moot as they rushed to his side and helped get the young girl off his back after his suit had retracted from her. Once she was off, he lowered the woman to the ground, setting her on her side to reduce the touching of the rebar.
Another pedestrian reached to inspect her as Peter was taking stock, but he had to reach his hand out again to stop them from trying to pull on the rebar. When the man looked up in shock at being thwarted, Peter shook his head before moving his hand over the wound and said, "pur-es-shā." The man got the hint, taking off his shirt and applying pressure to the wound and his webbing. Seeing as his two deposited charges were in decent hands, Peter leaped to the new hole before returning moments later with the unconscious man.
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Junichiro was not a happy man. He had just finished liberating the money and jewelry from that stupid Old Man Danuja on Main Street. The Old Man pissed him off enough times in the past, deriding him just because his first name made him sound like a thief. So what if he sliced up the Old Man? The Old Man deserved it for that final insult to him about how he always expected this of him.
He had just left the building when a freaking pro-hero arrived outside; just his luck. And it was one of Ingenium's sidekicks. That meant he didn't have the time to fight him because the bastard's teammates would swarm him if he stuck around. Getting away also would take a lot of work; he needed to create enough distractions and time to get away.
Smirking now that he had a game plan, he sprinted down the sidewalk as pedestrians watched on. He came upon the first group as they desperately tried to get out of his way. It didn't matter to him, as his hands flashed out with his knives and cut through them as he passed them by.
He ignored the screams as he ran, slicing every other pedestrian, some with minor cuts to deep lacerations. He didn't go for killing blows right now, as that would be a waste of a swing. He needed the heroes occupied, so creating as many bodies as he could to keep them too busy to follow. "Oops." He said before smirking. That one had cut off the arm of a young boy.
"Stop, you villain!" The sidekick was still chasing him, and it was getting annoying. He needed to disappear as quickly as possible.
Turning his head around as he ran, he yelled at the guy, "I'll stop cutting when you stop chasing, loser!" He cut two more on his way until he noticed the hero finally got the hint. Good, it looks like he would get away. Now, he'd cut through the alleyway ahead, and he would be in the clear.
He was smiling in triumph when he was just a second away from the alleyway when it became impossible to smile because a fist had destroyed his jaw. His body slammed into the concrete wall, which cracked with the force of his body impacting it. Unlike his victims, he was lucky in that he fell unconscious immediately.
Sakura watched him closely for a moment to ensure he was down for the count. Satisfied that the scum wouldn't be getting up for hours and that even if he did, his screams of pain due to the destroyed mandible that would alert anyone nearby that he was awake was enough for her to ignore him for now. She had considered just using a kunai to his temple, but this place was strange enough, and she didn't want to attract too much attention.
She looked to the long sidewalk filled with injured civilians, noticing that none had reacted quickly or aggressively. Moving to inspect the closest injured civilian, she saw the cut was sharp, leaving relatively smooth lacerations. But they were deep, tearing through all the muscles, ligaments, blood vessels, and bone.
At this point, the woman who had been talking to her ran up to her, panting hard in her sprint. "Miss, we need to get them to a hospital as quickly as possible. Some of those lacerations look deep, and they could bleed out if th–"
"I know," Sakura said, interrupting the woman while giving her a nod of approval. Her terminology was different from what ordinary civilians used, meaning she had training in medicine to some degree. That could help significantly with getting this mess organized. "We need to get them to a centralized location to treat them by the severity of their wounds more quickly. I don't know what you use to classify injured patients, so please inform me on the way."
The woman was getting one surprise after another. First, seeing the young girl with pink hair at neck level appear out of nowhere from above. She was injured and disoriented, though she had a sharpness to her eyes she had only seen in heroes or professionals. Then the screams started, and she watched as a villain ran down the street as the villain was cutting people up along the road at the intersection, obviously trying to occupy the pro-hero chasing him. She saw him give up as he started trying to treat the wounded. She had already started running towards them before she realized what she was doing.
Before she even had time to think of shouting something back at the girl, she had already moved, appearing right beside the villain and punching him in the jaw, causing him to hit the wall and then collapse. That had almost stopped her sprint, but she kept moving.
Now this girl was showing skills and enough knowledge of medicine for at least implementing a temporary field hospital. She suspected she might be a Pro-Hero, but her earlier reaction made her question that.
When she saw the girl reach back to the laceration, she got another surprise when her hand started to glow, and the laceration, with the muscle and flesh beneath the wound, closed with the same glow. 'A healing quirk!'
"Follow me," the woman said before turning and yelling at the civilians that had stuck around, some trying to help their injured friends and loved ones. She let the pro-hero that had been chasing the villain secure them. She turned back to the pedestrians and yelled at them. "Grab them and follow us!" She then led the way toward wherever this incident had started.
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Goto screamed as he cradled his destroyed left eye. He was used to pain, but this one stung severely. The two pro-heroes had used pressurized water to tear through his skin and eye, bypassing his rigid muscles. After adjusting to the pain, he looked up with his one working eye and gazed where he had thrown the two pro-heroes. They had smashed into the side of a building, and both were down, especially with those broken limbs. One of them was barely conscious, looking in his direction. He was trying to lift his arm to send another attack his way.
Goto snorted at the attempt of bravado. But he also noticed that the two had eaten up too much of his time; he couldn't see any other villagers around at this time for him to sate his bloodlust. Goto was pissed; he had been looking forward to adding at least a dozen more corpses to his score. With his injured eye, it might eat up too much time trying to chase them, and more heroes might arrive, meaning he might not get anyone else and could risk capture.
The village was supposed to be an isolated area with little to no risk, allowing him to go wild! He decided that the two would have to do it for now. He had to give them some minor points for pulling that off; he had expected them to be easy to squash, allowing him to move on to the other villagers. But instead, they offered up their bodies as a sacrifice.
Goto looked around, finding a nearby boat big enough for people to live in. He went to the side of it, using some recent damage from their fight as a handhole. His muscle fibers swam over his body as they rearranged themselves to give him enough lift strength for this task.
He lifted it above his head and turned towards the downed heroes. He smiled maliciously on seeing the fear in the man, knowing there was no chance he or the woman could stop this in time. He reared his arm back and threw it like a javelin toward the pair.
His smirk died as the cabin cruiser was stopped mid-air, leaving grooves in the gravel from the feet of the figure that was bleeding the momentum. The boat hung there for a moment before lifting and revealing a kid. He was barefoot, wore dark boxers, and a white muscle shirt, had his black hair in a freaking pigtail, and had a smirk. Goto hated him immediately.
Ranma turned back to the two people in the life preserver jackets and matching water masks behind him who he had just saved. He could see the woman had short brown hair, while the man had even shorter black hair and a little mustache.
"Are you two alri– gah!" The interruption came courtesy of a blast of water to his face. She had to juggle with the boat for a moment as her height and balance had shifted, but it was a minor issue. She momentarily rested the cruiser on her shoulder as she wiped the water and wet red hair from her face and glared at the man. Her glare relaxed as she noticed he had already fallen unconscious.
Ranma stepped to the side and out of the way as she put the boat down gently before it tipped to the side. With that finished, she turned back to the asshole who had thrown it. "Dude, not cool. That would have killed them." He was reasonably tall, had a large upper body musculature, blond hair, and a big fresh wound on his face over his left eye. He looked like one of those muscle gym guys that gave off an air of superiority just because they thought they looked impressive and believed they were the top dog. She enjoyed destroying their egos. Doing it as a kid had always been fun, but doing it as a girl would be new.
She saw him eyeing her wearily, obviously put out by her catching something that took him a bit of effort to do. But then he smiled maliciously. She knew that kind of smile, someone who got bloodlust. Guess he was one of those types.
"Aren't you a little young to be a hero?" Gota asked calmly, "And what the hell kind of quirk lets you be strong and turn into a girl?"
"Don't know what the hell you mean by quirk, dumbass, but I'm a martial artist. It's my job to protect the weak. Even if it is from other weaklings," Ranma goaded him, smiling as if she didn't have a care in the world with her arms behind her back as she slowly walked towards him. It worked perfectly. Again.
Goto's muscles burst from his arms in a massive bulk as fury took him. He sped forward with an intense burst of speed faster than the human eye could track, cratering the ground behind him. He brought his arm down, prepared to crush her. But as his arm passed through her body, she disappeared entirely, and he cratered the ground where she had stood with his fist.
"Missed me," a cheerful voice said just to his right, literally right by his face, less than a foot away. She still had that mocking smile, and her eyes were closed. He ripped his hand out of the ground and swung it at the annoying brat, hitting her head clean off– only for her to suddenly be a few feet back, his swing having missed her by centimeters. The air pressure from the swipe only swished her hair around.
Goto growled deeply as his muscles increased in quantity and size. He howled in anger and eagerness. "Let me see your blood!" He shot off, faster than before, closing the gap, but still touched nothing as his arm shot through her. He saw her beneath him as his body passed over her previous position. She had folded her body back and so low that she treated his massive form like a game of limbo. Even as he passed her face, he noticed she was still smiling!
He crashed his massive foot into the ground, stopping his forward momentum as quickly as possible and turning to face the little bitch. But she wasn't there. He turned side to side, but she was nowhere in sight.
"Yo! Slowpoke! Up here!" He twisted his head up to look above himself to see the baffling sight of her standing right above him, leaning down to look him in the eyes. Standing on his head!
The muscle fibers around his neck sprung up to attempt to catch her foot while his arms raised to do the same thing. Just as they closed on her, she disappeared again, and then there was pain!
His body folded forward, making it easy to see her in front of him with her foot sticking out of his gut. Her smile still mocked him as if she wasn't concerned about facing him. It was becoming something he hated with every fiber of his being! Now, he'd use every fiber he had to snuff her out!
Ranma hopped backward as the guy's body exploded with what looked like muscles bulging out and reforming. His muscles started building to ridiculous proportions, at least quadrupling his starting size, covering all of him save his face. It didn't matter to her if the loser had to try to use some cheats to even the playing field. It wasn't going to make a difference in this fight.
"You can't hurt me like this, even if you are fast. Your punches won't get through my thousands of layers of muscle!" It was apparent his empty and bleeding eye socket was not a detriment to him. More likely, it was just egging him on.
"You're still a dumbass," Ranma said as she dropped her smile and looked him sternly in the eye. "It's still easy to hurt you."
Goto gave her an unimpressed look, broken out of his rage by her changing attitude. "Oh? And how do you– ACK!" Goto was interrupted, his nose crunching due to her fist. He flew a few feet back from the force of the blow, which put him in a severe daze. After a moment, he steadied himself using an arm on the nearby building.
He sneered at her, "Dirty little trick, you bitch. You don't have the balls to take me on mano-o-mano."
"I was just showing you how much of a dumbass you are, dumbass. But I said it's still easy to hurt you. That includes not using your weak point."
"Wha–"
The explosion of noise spread throughout the entire village, and the shockwave destroyed most of the nearby windows and threw a wave of dirt into the air. Not that Goto cared about that.
Goto was barely conscious. His gut was screaming at him in agony, making the destruction of his eye and nose pale in comparison. It was a sharper and deeper pain than any he had felt in his entire life, and it spread to the rest of his body, making his arms and legs lose any strength they once had as they became numb to everything but the pain!
His one good eye could only barely see a blur through the torture, but the girl's cold and indifferent eyes stood out as she stood there with her fist thoroughly jammed into his stomach, lifting his entire body by a foot. He had no more time to register this disaster as she casually tossed him ten meters into the air before a kick sent him flying faster than most missiles over the town and into the surrounding forest. He crashed through the trees until his body embedded itself into the hill by several feet.
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Kamihara Shinya, or Edgeshot as he was more widely known, was certainly not in a happy mood. While he tended to be very understanding that not everyone was on the same level as himself or the other top-tier heroes, it got to be very frustrating when dealing with those with a gross misunderstanding of their capabilities and badly overstepped what they should be trying to do.
Case in point. Even though he was smiling and used a cheery voice, the words he was using as he browbeat and threatened, subtly, the other pro-hero morons that had been on the scene. His questioning them about their intelligence and competence would have the people that knew him best either run or try to get between him and the draw of his ire.
The reason for his ire was due to the massive amount of destruction that had occurred, with casualties mixed in. While the villains that had caused most of the damage had been handcuffed, they had been taunted and underestimated by the same pro-heroes he was chewing out. Instead of trying to contain or de-escalate the matter, it exploded with disastrous results. The villain with the plasma-based projectiles had been alarming, causing untold amounts of damage and injuries, and if the information was correct, a few lives.
To add to his aggravation, he had seen an enormous plasma bolt launched well past the local crisis zone, and he had just gotten confirmation that it had hit an apartment building. He desperately wanted to leave the scene to further reduce the damage from this disaster, but he couldn't until law enforcement with the proper type of restraints arrived to make sure the plasma user didn't wake up and make it worse than it already was. So the moron's got his ire.
He was enjoying the white-faced idiot's looks of terror after describing how thorough the investigation into this incident and all other incidents involving them would be. As well as the possible monetary and legal consequences of just today's actions would probably incur. He then noticed a new group of police vehicles approaching.
He left the hopefully soon-to-be ex-pros to contemplate their fate to step up next to the plasma user. He observed the newly arrived officers getting equipment out of the vehicles, paying particular attention to the thermal-based restraints a pair of officers was carrying. He genuinely smiled as the two officers hustled over and watched as they quickly and methodically attached the restraints to the villain. Shinya closely watched the villain to ensure he wasn't faking it or suddenly woke up. He waited until they were attached correctly and inspected to ensure no more failures occurred. Finished, he breathed a sigh of relief.
"Thank you, officers. I would stay and chat, but there is another emergency I need to get to quickly." Shinya waited for the two officers and their supervisor to nod in acknowledgment before he shot his body at an incredible speed toward where he knew the apartment building was. Even at the speeds he could travel, it still took him nearly thirty seconds to arrive, showing just how far away that bolt of plasma had gone.
His string-like body reformed as he arrived, only to witness something he had not expected. While it is evident that this was the building, considering the gaping hole and some smoke escaping from the various gaps in the structure, he had not been expecting it to look more like a spider's nest around the large hole and multiple points of the building. He saw one of the large webs being actively used by residents as a slide, landing them in front of rescue workers that greeted them as they escaped from the building. Other webs appeared to be holding parts of the ceiling in place, keeping the sagging structure in those parts from collapsing. Others were holding up collapsing walls, preventing them from falling toward the crews below. The entire structure looked like some young kid's poorly made homemade paper model that got infested with spiders.
He wasn't sure whether he should be amused or annoyed by the trapped local pro, caught in a spider's web attached to a lamppost several feet above the ground. He could hear mild muffled screams, barely getting through the webbed mouth. The fact that the local first responders and other nearby pro-heroes were ignoring him as they went about safely getting as many of the residents clear of the building was quite telling.
He was wondering where all the webbing was coming from, but got his answer as a hero in a full coverage costume that was skin tight leaped out of another hole on the ninth floor. He had grabbed the wall on his way out and flipped himself up so he was standing on the outside of it.
He pointed his hands toward the ground as the first responders backed up. He quickly shot webbing out to attach it to the street and then to the base of the window and its sides, creating another slide. He then turned his head to look inside and gave whoever he was looking at a thumbs-up before the first resident climbed out of the window and slid to safety. The hero watched as more residents started repeating the same action before he somersaulted down the wall and entered through another opening in the structure.
Things looked reasonably well in hand, which pleased Shinya greatly. Much better than the potential horror show he had expected. The only concern he had was who the newcomer was. He didn't remember any reports of new heroes anywhere near this city with any sort of quirk similar to what this guy was displaying.
He was figuring it best to kill two birds with one stone by offering assistance to the one that seemed to have things in order and sate his curiosity about the hero's identity. Shinya folded his body and shot across the street, sliding through an open window to reform himself a few feet from where the other pro was lifting a second child into his arms. The children's mother stood nearby, waiting for the hero.
Before he had even begun to reform himself, he noticed the hero had reacted to him, turning and pointing a hand toward him. The hero still seemed cautious but started lowering his hand, even as the civilians jumped. After he finished, he asked, "How can I help?" His ego did not require him to demand leadership in this instance. He knew good work when he saw it.
Shinya got his first good look at the hero. He was shorter than himself, though not by much. His suit had a dark blue base, with red boots, red midsection, mask, and part of his arms and gloves were red. The red had a web-like pattern stylized on it. His chest had a giant golden spider, with the legs going up and down his chest and around his back. The mask had some white lenses, preventing one from seeing his eyes. It was one of the most professionally made super-suits Shinya had ever seen.
"Edgeshot! Good thing you're here as well!" the woman exclaimed as she smiled at him. She turned to look at the other hero with a puzzled expression, clearly unsure of what to do in this instance. It didn't take her long to decide as she turned back to Shinya. "I don't think he speaks much Japanese; he only seems to be saying small sentences slowly."
Shinya found that curious, but hopefully, something he could work with. "Can you understand me?" He waited as the other pro seemed to take his time before receiving an "Hai" in response. The accent was helpful since it gave him an idea to start with. {"Do you speak English?"}
The hero sagged in relief, having been extremely tense. {"Oh, thank god! You don't know how stressful trying to speak Japanese has been!"} He had to juggle the kids momentarily, as they had both noticed and recognized Edgeshot. The hero's voice sent some alarm bells off in his head. He sounded young. Something to deal with for later. {"Anyways, we just need to get these three out of here and then som–"}
The hero interrupted himself as he tensed up, and his lenses widened. Shinya was about to ask what was wrong when the hero threw the two children out the window. It happened so fast Shinya didn't have the time to react. His body started folding up, prepping to save the two kids thrown out the window, when the other hero aimed one of his hands towards the children, shooting two strands of those webs that he had observed earlier, while his other hand and body reached for the woman. That is also when Shinya heard it. He had been around enough collapsing buildings to know the sound of their death knell.
Reacting quickly, he reached the window just as the other hero tossed the terrified woman toward him. He caught her as they both exited the building, and Shinya could see the ceiling collapsing. But the hero didn't make for the window either; he took off deeper into the building and went through a hole in the floor Shinya had noticed earlier. Even as he was falling and folding parts of his body to catch the rebounding children as they started swinging downwards, he kept an eye on the building to observe the other hero's progress. He caught glimpses of him as he scrambled through the floors, crawling and leaping between ceilings, walls, and floors even as they fell around him. Just as Shinya landed safely outside, the building ceased its collapse.
Shocked by this turn of events, he handed the children to the mother before folding himself even smaller and creeping through the building until he found the other hero holding up where the ceiling was collapsing. After checking the building, it was clear that without the hero holding it, the entire building would finish collapsing in on itself. It had to weigh so many metric tons that he couldn't give a proper estimate, being the focal point of seven floors. The warped metal I-beam on the floor proved the heat and weight were too much for it.
{"Anyone else?"} Edgeshot asked, not wasting time. He'd already wasted too much with his previous interruption.
The hero grunted, trying to make minor adjustments as he held up the entire building. The building started collapsing again, even with his efforts of holding it up, when four golden metal spider legs exploded out of his back, then two shot upwards while the other two shot downwards. They spiked into the ceiling and floor before appearing to create washers. They acted as an additional brace that halted the collapse again. The front of his suit had also changed, the arms, legs, and torso looking very different than before.
{"Northwest! Corner!"}, the hero grunted as he tried to speak, pausing as he got out the words. {"Top three! Floors!"} Another pause filled with hard breathing. {"Fifteen! People!... Hurry!"}
He shot up through the multiple ceilings to reach the first of the floors, finding four people. He didn't waste time with the introduction; he used his quirk to shoot several strands to destroy the wall and windows, making it easier to exit. After enough of his body had reformed, he picked them up, using some strands to wrap around and secure them more tightly, before leaping across the alleyway and into the next building. He set them down roughly, not having the time to be kind about it before he was out the window again and went to the next floor without even going into the building and then up.
This time, he got out five people in another repeat, though he could set them onto a roof this time instead of breaching a building. As he glanced back as he was settling them down, he was glad the ones from above had seen him do it and started backing away from the window.
He entered the final floor, finding the last six. As they started to come together, he felt the building shake again, the building had finally given up, and he didn't think the other hero would be able to stop it. He hoped he would get out okay, but considering his strength, he probably did have a way out. He saw and heard floors and walls collapsing, moving from the inside and out. He saw the entrance to their room caved in and the ones across the hall as they fell into the maw of destruction. He finished gathering the panicking residents and prepared to exit the building when he heard it.
A faint cry. It sounded like a young child, a girl around five or six. Only due to his years of experience could he pinpoint where it had come from as fast as he did. Deeper on the tenth floor was a cabinet large enough for a child to crawl into, and it had already tipped into the abyss.
Shinya's arm folded and shot off towards the cabinet, but it was too late. It had slipped past his line of sight as he looked on in horror. Before he could even consider moving to save her, the other hero was in the air, holding the ripped-off cabinet door while his other hand had yanked the young girl into his arms.
Shinya finally left with the last of his charges, depositing them with the others. He watched the building for signs of the other hero as the outer wall and roof collapsed inwards. He saw him explode from the collapsing ceiling, his back taking the brunt of any impact away from the girl. He was high in the air and started falling toward the street below. The hero twisted one of his arms to shoot a web off to a nearby building, causing him to crash into the side of the building with a painful grunt, again taking the brunt of the impact away from the girl. Unfortunately, he lost the grip on the webbing, sending them falling towards the ground again, though only six stories instead of the previous twelve.
The hero reached out, his fingertips barely catching on the side of the building, and slowed his fall again before that was lost as well. Shinya moved to grab them but was too slow compared to the metal spider-legs as they shot out of the building and intercepted the falling duo. The legs seemed to melt into the hero before bursting out of his back again, catching onto the side of the building and stopping their fall about three meters from the ground.
Shinya reformed himself just below the hero as the legs lowered the two by carefully crawling down the few meters. The hero rested on his knees as he set the young girl down. Finally alone and the job completed, the hero started trying to stand on his shaking legs before he lost his body's fight with consciousness and collapsed. Shinya caught him before he could fall to his knees again.
The hero never heard the cries of triumph from all the rescued residents, first responders, and pro-heroes.
-o-0-o-O-o-0-o-
Ai was extensively familiar with medical emergencies. It came with her job of twenty years as an Emergency Medicine Physician, more commonly known as an ER doctor. She had seen nearly every conceivable type of injury and physiology, being head of her department. She had to see the victims of hundreds of villain attacks in the past, most as they arrived at her hospital and others when she arrived on the scene. Though it was rare, she had also been first on-site for a few villain attacks.
The site of a villain attack was always a terrible mess that took a force of will and strength to herd shocked and injured pedestrians into anything that resembled order. And order was essential to make sure people were diagnosed and treated correctly. Failing to give an injury proper care could lead to significant blood loss and infections. Failing to treat symptoms like shock or burns could lead to patients' systems crashing, complicating their treatment.
The young pink-haired girl, who gave the name of Haruno Sakura, was already showing signs of being perfectly capable of commanding a field hospital. Her tone of voice, charisma, knowledge, and the force of her personality made every person listen to her as they ran along.
Sakura commanded nearby pedestrians to get blankets or coats and start putting them on the sidewalk in a line just as they appeared at the start of this incident. Everyone obeyed her nearly instantly; if anyone so much as started breathing a sign of backtalk, her glare leveled them, and they followed whether they wanted to or not. Ai was already getting some tape out of her purse, four different colors to note the triage levels. After the patient was placed on an impromptu bed, Ai tore a small piece of tape and started applying them based on the severity of their wounds. Some were easy to determine, while others took her a few seconds as she had to move clothing or limbs away from the injuries to assess their damage.
There were only a few greens, including the person she had seen Sakura already heal. There were a few more yellows than greens, but the vast majority were red. She was not happy to put a few black tapes, one of them being the shop owner brought out by another pro-hero, holding his bleeding throat. She hoped the girl's quirk could prove crucial to saving them. The number of patients was already past twenty.
She had almost finished categorizing them when she heard some exclamations of alarm. Ai looked up to see Sakura pushing several people back and away to create space. When the girl pulled a scroll from the pouch on her leg, she wondered about its importance. She rolled it out, and AI could see some odd lettering on it. The girl brought her hands together when she finished the section she had rolled out. Her hands rapidly performed a few strange signs before a puff of smoke exploded from the scroll.
While it was startling, seeing rolls of compressed white cloth and rolls of large blankets appear from the puff of smoke and now resting on the scroll was astonishing. The girl then took one of the rolls and unfurled one of the blankets, putting it in the open space. She then spread another roll of cloth, showing medical tools. The white cloth looked like gauze, which Sakura had someone distribute. Lastly, she took out a jar of dark pills.
"Shuzenji-san!" Ai looked up at being called by Sakura. "Move anyone that needs immediate medical surgery to this blanket! I'll be ready in a moment!" Ai nodded to the girl, allowing her to return to preparing her field hospital.
Ai looked around to see who was available and was pleased to see another of Team Idaten arrive. "Enigma! Please carry the patients with the black markings to Sakura!"
When the sidekick looked at her, she pointed to where the pink-haired girl was waiting. She knew the girl, who went by the hero name of Enigma, had enough experience and training to know what to do. Enigma's size increased as her quirk was activated, making her body turn black and look more like putty with how malleable it was. It allowed her to pick up one of the injured civilians and then carefully deposit them where Sakura directed her.
Ai went back to categorizing the rest of the patients, glad there were only three blacks. She had been directing available people to apply pressure on the wounds to reduce the bleeding as she went along and was pleased that people continued to do that. Finished with that part of the task, she returned to Sakura's side to see her starting on the shop owner.
The man was holding on by a thread, having been sliced by one of the blades across his throat. He was suffering from asphyxiation and going into hypovolemic shock. He didn't have long, and it was a miracle he was still alive. One of the other pro heroes who had recently arrived had been holding a cloth to the wound, buying him precious time. Sakura removed the hero's hand carefully, and for a moment, the inside of his throat was visible before being covered by the man's precious lifeblood. She put her hand over the wound, and her hand glowed again along with the injury. After several seconds, she used a wet cloth to show the new raw skin.
The pro-hero holding his neck closed almost recoiled in shock at seeing that before he gathered his courage and continued to apply pressure to the man's other wounds. One by one, Sakura closed those wounds. The skin wasn't perfect, still red and marked, but it kept the man from losing any more blood.
After closing the wounds, Sakura put her ear to his chest as the man took shallow breaths. She removed the man's shirt by making her fingers glow again and cut it away from the chest area, throwing it to the side. She took those same fingers and cut into his chest over one of his lungs.
Ai wondered how she would get the blood out of his lungs when the girl's hands glowed again. She sat there watching for a moment before the blood flew out of the wound and floated in the air, radiating the same glow as her hands. She then sealed her incision and put the floating blood on one of the clothes previously used to hold his lifeblood.
She then took a few pellets from the jar and opened the man's mouth, inserting them. Then she raised him so he was sitting up before she applied her fingers to his throat. They glowed again, and a few moments later, the man swallowed.
Sakura breathed a sigh of relief as she lowered him and turned to Enigma, "Take him back to another bed; he's out of the danger zone for now. He'll still need some rest and needs to be kept warm." Enigma carefully lifted the man before transporting him to another blanket.
Ai wanted to talk about what had just happened, but she knew now was not the time. They had too many patients to alleviate their curiosity. She moved over to the following critical patient and prepped them.
It continued like that, moving from patient to patient, closing wounds, and feeding some of them a pill. More patients took their place after Sakura stabilized the critical patients. Ambulances and EMTs arrived, providing additional assistance and reducing their workload by taking the already healed patients and all the green and yellow tags. More sidekicks from Team Idaten came, along with the police. They helped get everything organized and the uninvolved pedestrians out of their way.
When Sakura started working on the boy with the severed arm, all of the medical professionals paused as they watched the girl reattach it after a few seconds. She asked him to move his fingers one at a time, and the boy could do it. When Ai finished watching that miracle occur, she had to yell at them all to get back to it.
When they were down to the last few patients, Ai noticed that Sakura was starting to struggle. Her brow was sweating badly, and her hands were shaking. But she soldiered on. Her hands stopped glowing halfway through work on the last patient before she pushed herself to finish it.
Sakura's eyes could barely focus after that. "Who's next?" she asked AI.
"That's all of them, sweetie. You need to rest. You're too exhausted, and we must treat your burns."
Sakura struggled to get up, fighting against several soft hands that tried to keep her down. "I need to get up; they still need me. Sasuke-kun… Naruto… Kakashi-sensei…" She was starting to win the tug of war, even with Ai and one of the other pros using both hands to keep her down. "They need m–"
Sakura finally collapsed, allowing Ai to breathe a sigh of relief. She flagged one of the EMTs for a gurney, and they set the girl on it before wheeling her to an ambulance.
-o-0-o-O-o-0-o-
Iyashi no Sato was a beautiful place to live. The air was clean, the view of the lake was pristine, and the people were some of the friendliest you could find in Japan. Everyone who lived in their village loved it. Everyone knew everyone else and worked to help each other out when the small things that life threw at them occurred: medical hardships, financial woes, romantic dramas, or petty thefts.
Their village was home to a husband and wife duo of pro-heroes that dealt with some of those problems and acted in harmony with their local sheriff. They acted as tour guides and rescuers for the surrounding forest and the lake, helped with medical emergencies, and de-escalated and protected them when violence occurred. And they did it with professionalism, courtesy, and kindness. Every villager loved their pro-heroes. When the duo started a family, the village helped raise their son Kota. That family was their village's treasure.
So when the walking disaster that was that man entered their village, they had no idea of the monster in their midst. When Sheriff Koji approached the lost man to assist, they never expected the villain to reach out and grab his head. The man's muscles had increased and looked to be trying to crush Koji's head like a grape, but the timely arrival of their heroes saved him. While they hadn't hurt the man, it was distracting enough that the man had dropped Koji.
Their heroes played a game of cat and mouse with the man. Unfortunately, the pro-hero team of Water Hose was the mouse since the man shrugged off everything the team threw at him. All they could do was knock him off course and distract him while they tried to evade. They had to intervene a few times when one of their villagers had gotten too close to the villain. Their fight raged on as buildings were destroyed and people were evacuated. One of the buildings must have caused a gas leak as an explosion sent smoke into the air.
Muto Daichi, their village leader, and Mayor for over thirty years, was terrified. He was doing his best to lead the retreat of his charges. Volunteers searched the buildings and homes as quickly as possible, and those that needed medical attention were carted away. They had no idea how far they had to get from the monster, so they fled. Daichi tried to keep things organized.
He had already contacted the next closest hero agency, and other pro-heroes were coming. Daichi had been informed that further agencies, some with more prominent names attached to them, were contacted and on their way. That is also when he got the name for their villain: the A-rank villain Imasuji Goto, also known as Muscular—a man with scores of murder charges to his name.
Daichi was on the outskirts of their village, waiting for the last few stragglers checking the homes for anyone attempting to hide away, when they all felt the explosion rattling their village and shattering some glass.
They knew the heroes couldn't do anything like that, which meant it could only be the villain. He noticed most villagers had stopped to gawk at where the explosion had come from. "Go! Keep going! Don't dawdle, or their sacrifice will have been for nothing!" As the last villager scrambled into the surrounding forest, Daichi noticed figures in the air before one of them shot off like a missile in their general direction, crashing through trees and sending up clouds of dirt.
Daichi was glad that none of his villagers were in that direction since the terrain was rockier and harder to traverse. Considering the object that the villain must have sent flying might be one of their heroes, Daichi decided to take the risk to see if they could save them. "Gou, come with me!" The larger man nodded as they both moved toward where the cloud of dirt was slowly calming down.
It took them a minute to reach the site. They used their shirts to cover their mouths and used their hands to shield their eyes as much as possible. They arrived at the crater, swinging their hands to help clear the dust as they tried to get a good look at what impacted the ground. Daichi fell back with a scream of terror as he saw the face of their tormentor. He scrambled around like a crab before running into Gou's legs.
The dust finally settled, giving the two a good look at the villain. His left eye and the skin around it were destroyed, and his nose was crushed, causing it to bleed. His one good eye was open but completely white, showing they had rolled back. His mouth was wide open as they noticed several teeth had been smashed. The image was of someone in total agony and had lost consciousness, which was precisely what had happened.
Knowing something must have happened in the heart of their village, Daichi got up and sprinted toward where Goto had come from. Gou was a few steps behind him, with other villagers that had kept an eye on the two following behind.
When he reached the center of their village, he was not expecting to see their unconscious heroes set down on a blanket with a young red-headed girl moving them around and inspecting their wounds. As they neared them, Daichi was thrilled to see both heroes breathing, though slowly. The young girl also noticed their approach.
"Hi! Can you guys get some pillows and medical supplies for these two? They are a little banged up." The girl smiled at them before going back to inspect Moriko's arm.
Daichi didn't know how to respond for a moment, but it didn't take him long before he turned to the others, only to find them already rushing towards some of the still-standing buildings. He turned back to the young girl, curious to discover what had happened, but saw her walking towards a nearby stack of newspapers.
The girl grabbed a few and rolled them up, putting them in an armpit before she reached for more of them. Just as the girl had held a few more, her hand stopped as she stared at the paper. She sat there for several seconds, just staring at it. Daichi was worried, so he questioned her about it. "Is something wrong, miss?"
She remained silent as if she hadn't heard him before she finally responded. "What's the.. date? Today's date?"
Curious as to why that mattered so much to her, he responded. "March 30th."
She remained silent but then, in a quiet voice, asked, "What year?"
Further confused, Daichi answered, "2146."
"Shit!"
-o-0-o-O-o-0-o-
[Author's Note - Feel free to review. Only types of feedback I don't like are negative ones that don't tell you anything. If you don't like it, explain why!]