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The quinjet's engines hummed with a frequency that Yasuo felt in his teeth. He sat across from Natasha in the aircraft's passenger bay, watching her review tactical data on a transparent screen that floated in the air between them technology that still made his mind struggle to accept its existence despite days of exposure to this world's wonders.
"Chicago," Natasha said without looking up, her fingers swiping through holographic reports with practiced ease. "The dimensional disturbance manifested forty-eight hours ago in an abandoned warehouse district near the South Branch. Local authorities reported power fluctuations, electronic interference, and several civilians claiming to see 'impossible things' before S.H.I.E.L.D. established a perimeter." She finally met his eyes. "Your first official mission. Try not to bleed from your eyes this time."
"I'll do my best," Yasuo replied dryly. The past three days had been a crash course in modern existence learning to navigate smartphones that contained more computing power than entire libraries, understanding vehicles that moved without horses or wind, accepting that humanity had reached the stars and returned to tell of it. Natasha had been his guide through it all, patient in ways that surprised him, sharp when his frustration threatened to boil over.
"You're adapting faster than most," she'd told him yesterday while demonstrating how to use the training facility's equipment. "Most people from significantly different time periods take weeks to stop flinching at automatic doors."
"I've spent years adapting to survive," he'd answered. "Different world. Same skill."
Now, watching her work through mission parameters with lethal focus, Yasuo found himself noticing details his Sharingan didn't need to be active to catch. The way her jaw tightened slightly when reports mentioned civilian casualties. The unconscious habit of touching her left wrist where a scar barely visible suggested old injury. The careful distance she maintained even in close quarters, as if proximity itself was a tactical consideration.
"You're staring," Natasha said without looking up.
"You're interesting to observe."
"That's not creepy at all." But there was amusement in her tone. She closed the holographic display with a gesture, leaning back in her seat. "What do you see when you look at me, Yasuo? With those eyes of yours?"
The question was casual, but carried weight beneath it. Yasuo considered lying, deflecting. Instead, he chose honesty. "I see someone who's built walls so high she's forgotten what it feels like to not be defending something. I see scars physical and otherwise that speak of a life spent in violence. And I see someone who's tired of being what everyone needs her to be instead of what she wants to be."
Natasha's expression didn't change, but something flickered in her green eyes. "You got all that without your Sharingan?"
"I got that by recognizing my own reflection."
Silence settled between them, not uncomfortable but weighted with mutual understanding. The quinjet banked, beginning its descent, and the pilot's voice crackled over the intercom. "Approaching Chicago landing zone. ETA three minutes."
Natasha stood, moving to the weapons locker with fluid efficiency. She pulled out two sidearms, checked them with the muscle memory of someone who'd done this thousands of times, then offered one to Yasuo. "You know how to use this?"
"I understand the principle. Point the dangerous end at threats. Pull the trigger." He took the weapon, finding the weight strange compared to his missing katana. "But I'm better with a blade."
"Join the club." She produced two combat knives from the locker, offering him one while securing the other at her hip. "But until S.H.I.E.L.D. can manufacture something comparable to your original sword, modern weapons will have to do. Try not to shoot me by accident."
"I make no promises."
The hint of a smile touched her lips before the professional mask slid back into place. The quinjet touched down with barely a tremor, and the rear ramp descended to reveal Chicago's industrial district at twilight. Abandoned warehouses loomed like metal carcasses, their windows dark and broken. S.H.I.E.L.D. had established a perimeter three blocks out, keeping civilians clear while specialized equipment monitored the disturbance.
Agent Hill met them at the perimeter, her expression grim. "Romanoff. The anomaly's been growing more active in the past hour. We're detecting energy spikes every six minutes, increasing in intensity. Dr. Selvig's team thinks we have maybe four hours before it destabilizes completely."
"Define 'destabilizes,'" Yasuo said.
Hill's eyes flicked to him, assessing. "Best case, the dimensional tear collapses harmlessly. Worst case, it expands and tears a permanent hole between our reality and whatever's on the other side." She handed Natasha a tablet displaying real-time readings. "The energy signature matches what was stolen from Stark Industries, but the pattern is wrong. It's not random bleeding it's structured. Deliberate."
Yasuo felt cold certainty settle in his gut. "Someone's controlling it."
"That's our assessment." Hill gestured toward the largest warehouse, where energy readings pulsed in ominous red. "Site is clear of civilians. We've got snipers positioned at cardinal points and a tactical team on standby, but until we know what we're dealing with "
"We go in first," Natasha finished. "Standard reconnaissance. Yasuo, you're with me. Your Sharingan can see energy patterns our equipment can't. If there's something unusual about this tear, I need you to identify it."
They moved through the perimeter, past armed agents who watched with the controlled tension of soldiers waiting for battle. The warehouse district was silent except for wind whistling through broken structures and the omnipresent hum of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s monitoring equipment.
"Stay close," Natasha murmured as they approached the target building. "Watch my signals. If I tell you to move, you move. If I tell you to get down, you don't question you drop."
"You're protective," Yasuo observed.
"You're my assignment. You die on my watch, there's paperwork." But her hand briefly touched his shoulder, a gesture of reassurance before falling away. "And despite being a dimensional refugee with impossible powers, you're starting to grow on me. Try to keep existing."
The warehouse's main entrance had been blown open, the metal doors twisted outward as if from internal pressure. Inside, darkness pressed close despite the tactical lights S.H.I.E.L.D. had set up. And underneath everything, Yasuo felt it a wrongness in the air, like reality itself was holding its breath.
His Sharingan activated instinctively, and the world transformed.
Energy patterns filled the warehouse like spiderwebs of light, but these weren't the clean electromagnetic signatures of technology or the chaotic swirl of human life. These were something else entirely dimensional energy, Natasha had called it and it formed structures that made Yasuo's enhanced perception strain to comprehend. Geometric shapes that existed in more dimensions than three, angles that shouldn't be possible, pathways of power that looped back on themselves in ways that violated causality.
And at the center of it all, a tear in reality itself. A wound in space that bled impossible light.
"Gods," Yasuo whispered.
"What do you see?" Natasha had her weapon drawn, covering angles while he processed information.
"A pattern. Not random at all." He moved closer, his Sharingan tracking the flow of energy. The more he studied it, the more familiar it became. "This is a summoning circle. Or this world's equivalent. Someone's using dimensional energy to create a gateway, a pathway between realities."
"Like the one that brought you here?"
"Similar principle. But this " He gestured at the complex patterns. " this is being controlled from the other side. Someone's trying to come through."
As if responding to his words, the tear pulsed. Energy spiked, and Yasuo's Sharingan caught movement within the rift shapes pressing against reality like hands against wet paper, seeking purchase, seeking entry.
"Natasha, we need to "
The portal exploded open.
Light erupted through the warehouse, blinding and wrong, carrying frequencies that shouldn't exist. The dimensional tear widened from a crack to a gaping wound three meters across, and through it Yasuo saw impossible things landscapes that existed sideways to normal geometry, skies filled with colors that had no names, structures that defied physics.
And something was crossing through.
It came through in pieces first tendrils of darkness that weren't quite solid, wasn't quite liquid, moving with predatory intelligence. Then more of it emerged, pulling itself through the portal with terrible purpose. The entity if entity was even the right word stood nearly three meters tall, its form constantly shifting between states of matter. One moment it appeared humanoid, the next it was something else entirely, something that hurt to perceive even with supernatural sight.
But what froze Yasuo's blood was the energy signature.
It was chakra. Real, undeniable chakra from his world. But corrupted, twisted, fused with something that belonged to this reality in ways that created an abomination of both.
The creature turned what might have been a head toward them, and in the shifting darkness of its form, Yasuo saw eyes. Red eyes. Sharingan eyes, but wrong too many tomoe, spinning in patterns that violated every principle he knew.
Natasha fired. Three shots, perfectly placed center mass. The bullets passed through the creature like it wasn't there, embedding in the warehouse wall beyond.
"That's not possible," she breathed, and for the first time since Yasuo had met her, he heard genuine fear in her voice.
The creature spoke. Its voice came from everywhere and nowhere, resonating in bones rather than ears, carrying words in a language Yasuo recognized old Ionian, the dialect of his homeland but twisted, corrupted.
"Brother's blood. Brother's eyes. The gateway opens through shared pain."
Yasuo's hand went to his chest where Yone's blade had pierced his heart. The creature saw the gesture, and something that might have been laughter rippled through its form.
"You thought death was escape. You thought the wind's silence was punishment." It moved forward, and reality warped around it, the warehouse's geometry twisting to accommodate its impossible existence. "But you were chosen. Pulled. Prepared. The barrier between worlds weakens where consciousness crosses. And yours crossed so... conveniently."
"Yasuo," Natasha's voice was tight, controlled despite fear. "What is it saying?"
"That I'm the reason this is happening." The truth hit him like a physical blow. "My death, my crossing between worlds it created the pathway. Weakened the barrier. And something's been using that weakness to "
The creature lunged.
Yasuo's Sharingan tracked the movement, but the entity moved through space in ways that didn't follow normal physics. One moment it was three meters away, the next it was on them, tendrils of corrupted darkness reaching for Yasuo's throat.
Natasha dove between them, her combat knife flashing. The blade standard S.H.I.E.L.D. issue, nothing supernatural about it shouldn't have affected the creature. But when it touched the corrupted chakra, something happened. The entity recoiled, a sound like tearing metal echoing through the warehouse.
"The knife," Yasuo realized. "It's not the weapon. It's your will behind it. Your absolute certainty that it will cut."
"Philosophy later, fighting now!" Natasha rolled to her feet, positioning herself between Yasuo and the creature. "We need backup. We need "
The portal pulsed again, widening. More shapes pressed against the tear from the other side, and through his Sharingan, Yasuo saw them clearly now. Dozens of entities like the first. Maybe hundreds. All bearing corrupted Sharingan, all twisted fusions of his world's power and this reality's dimensional energy.
All trying to cross through the pathway his death had created.
"Natasha," Yasuo said quietly, his mind racing through terrible implications. "I need you to leave. Now. Get everyone back. If they all come through "
"I'm not leaving you."
"You have to." He met her eyes, letting her see the certainty in his expression. "Because if Fury's standing orders are to prevent greater harm, then what's about to happen might require exactly that."
Understanding dawned in her face, followed by something that looked almost like grief. But before she could argue, before either of them could act, the creature spoke again.
"Too late for sacrifice. Too late for heroism. The door is open, brother-killer. And Yone sends his regards."
At the name, at the impossible, undeniable mention of his brother, Yasuo's world tilted on its axis.
And through the widening portal, backlit by impossible light, a figure began to emerge. Tall. Armored. Wearing a demon's mask that Yasuo would recognize even if every other memory was stripped from his mind.
Yone stepped through the dimensional tear, his blade already drawn, and his eyes visible through the mask's slits burned with the same corrupted Sharingan that marked the creature.
"Hello, brother," his dead brother said in a voice that echoed with two worlds' worth of pain. "We have much to discuss about the nature of death, justice, and what happens when neither can set us free."
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🌟 If you'd like to support me or read EARLY ACCESS Chapters, you can find me on Patreon 🌟
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