A burst of laughter erupted.
"HAHAHAHA, did that dude just trip while trying to attack someone?"
"SHUT UP, SHARK TEETH!" someone snapped.
I didn't want to resort to this.
[Confused Face]
"Perhaps I wasn't clear. Shall I repeat myself again... kidnapper?" Shadow pointed dramatically, his voice dripping with theatrical gravitas no one asked for.
"Yo, Pinkie," said the shark-toothed guy with a grin, "you got any idea what he's saying?"
I sighed. This was already spiraling faster than Akechi's monologues.
"Oh yeah? Just gonna ignore me like that?" said the guy in the tracksuit who had just tripped. His pride clearly wasn't as bruised as his ego.
He grinned. "STEAL!"
Suddenly, a pink glow flickered in his palm.
Kazuma opened his hand, confused. "A... clip?"
Oh no.
The air shifted. Reality itself trembled like it was holding its breath.
I felt the weight of the atmosphere double.
That idiot just took my limiter.
"I have a feeling," Kazuma muttered, "I shouldn't have done that."
A long, dreadful pause.
DROP.
I sighed again. This is why I don't go outside.
"Toritsuka. Get the clip back. Now. I don't care how."
"A voice?! Wait, Saiki-san?! What's going on?! Memories are—ugh—flooding in. Focus. Priority: pin. Got it!"
Toritsuka launched himself toward Kazuma.
He tripped.
"What was I expecting?"
"What are you trying to grab, huh? Are you one of those perverts?" Kazuma narrowed his eyes. "I don't swing that way."
"WHO ARE YOU CALLING A PERVERT?!" Toritsuka shouted mid-tackle.
"THE PIN! GIVE THAT PIN BACK!"
Across the room, a guy with a notebook vanished into thin air. Fantastic. We're losing people now.
"I DON'T HAVE IT! I DON'T HAVE IT! YOU'RE GONNA GRAB MY—"
Toritsuka froze.
Something stiff. Something horrifying.
"...Dude. Did I just—?"
"Yes. LET. GO."
I was this close to turning everyone into vegetables.
Then, a sharp voice cut through the chaos.
"I have a feeling you're ten billion percent the reason we're here," the spiky-haired scientist said. "Start explaining. I'm Senku."
Ah. A rare intellectual. I like this guy.
Unfortunately, the moment Kazuma grabbed the pin, a feedback surge from my psychic core pulsed across the world.
Now, everyone has inherited three years of future memories.
In other words… they all remember events that haven't even happened yet.
Good grief. This is the worst episode of a time-travel anime I've ever starred in.
I looked around. Blank faces, panicked eyes, absurd stances. Toritsuka was still on top of Kazuma, whose pride may never recover.
"Settle down. I'll explain everything—after I fix what that idiot just caused."
I removed my antenna again.
A glow surged across the room.
Mind control activated.
"It is normal to go back in time three years once, and only this time."
It echoed like a hypnotic suggestion, seeping into everyone's minds.
...
Nothing.
Senku blinked. Kazuma scratched his head. The guy in the cloak struck a dramatic pose.
Still nothing.
Right. They're from different universes. My mental suggestion didn't sync.
Why would anything be simple?
Then again, why would they gain memories from a foreign world?
I sighed.
"Good grief. Sit down. One order of coffee jelly, please."
"Saiki, explain what's going on," Toritsuka whined. "Also, you owe me for that traumatic tackle experience."
"Firstly, who are you people? And how did you end up here?"
If I don't deal with this now, more characters might pop up.
Good grief.
"Earth, huh... back here again, but in this body..." the blonde guy muttered.
A boy with a staff and worn robes spoke up. "I'm Rudeus Greyrat. I heard your name was Saiki?"
A white-haired elf girl stood beside him, glancing at the others cautiously.
"Rudeus is speaking that weird language again. The one he used to talk with Nanahoshi," Sylphy mumbled.
"I am Shadow... the one who lurks in the darkne—"
There is no need to repeat your introduction. You already said it.
"Hi, my name is Kazuma. Kazuma Satou." Wait, why didn't I sound as cool as those guys?
You look like a background characters
"Natsuki Subaru's the name," said the other tracksuit guy.
Shark-teeth guy spoke. "The name's Denji, pinkie. I'm also with Miss Makima." The woman beside him had a terrifying aura.
An ugly demon barged in with a swordsman. "WHY AM I IN JAPAN AND NOT KOREA?! THAT STUPID DRAGON, I SWEAR—"
System statement translated to Japanese.
Yep. More characters. I'm not even surprised anymore.
"I'd like to know who did this to the great Lloyd Frontera."
Saiki shouted via telepathy, "Shut up and sit down."
Lloyd looked around the cafe at the chaotic group, all dressed like anime convention rejects.
"Okay," he mumbled. "Javier, don't let your guard down."
"I'm Itadori Yuji, and this is—"
"Gojo Satoru," said the tall, white-haired man confidently, flashing a flirtatious smile at Makima.
"Ishigami Senku. But you already knew that."
A shadow twitched. Saiki immediately noticed another.
"Another Korean? Hey, fugly, is that guy with you? You were shouting about Korea earlier."
"FUGLY?! No, he's NOT with me. And if you keep insulting me, I'll rupture your eardrums."
"He saw my shadows?"
System scan. "No threats found... Scanning... Monarch-level powers detected."
"Monarch level? It's probably best to resolve this peacefully," the figure muttered. "Okay, you got me. My name is Sung Jinwoo. And no I'm not with him."
Some of these guys are from Earth. A different Earth.
"Saiki, what's going on here?" Toritsuka asked, looking as clueless and pervy as ever. Wait, no—that's just his face.
I'd like to know that myself.
"In my world, I entered a dungeon via portal. We call them gates. It usually doesn't teleport me to another country."
Hmm. A portal, huh?
Lloyd stood up. "Oh, what a coincidence. I also came from a portal. Though made by that dragon geezer."
Rudeus glanced over and mumbled. "Perhaps Orsted?"
Why would you even go in there?
Shadow struck a pose. "I became so powerful I accidentally created one."
Portal? Again? What is it with portals? And stop flexing.
Kazuma approached the circle. "Actually, we were on a quest to find divine artifacts handed out by a useless goddess."
That damn Aqua.
"The artifact created a portal. The goddess went in, so we followed. Weird, my party's missing though."
Seriously. Stop entering random portals.
A bald man spoke up. "I was fighting someone hopping through portals. There were too many, so I just picked one."
Who even are you?
"I'm Saitama."
"So, I'm guessing all of you entered a portal too?"
"Not quite," said Rudeus, his face thoughtful. "There was a teleportation calamity when Nanahoshi tried to get back to Earth. And there were portals in our world caused by the Dragon God Orsted."
I'm in another world. Which makes me wonder... if my Return by Death still works. And if I can tell them without Satella crushing my heart...
Subaru began, "In my world, I—" Then stopped. He looked... pained.
What the hell was that?
What does he mean by Return by Death?
Makima remained silent. Denji took the initiative.
"I just got out of literal hell and ended up here."
"This is exhilarating," Senku added. "I'm from a world recovering from petrification. We were trying to build a time machine to prevent it."
Saiki turned to the last pink-haired guy.
"You. How did you end up here?"
Yuji rubbed the back of his neck, glancing at Gojo.
Gojo shrugged like, You're on your own, kid.
"Well," Yuji began, "we were in the middle of this super intense fight with a curse—like, really bad, probably special grade—"
"Definitely special grade," Gojo interjected. "It had more eyes than a spider on caffeine."
"—Right, so I'm mid-air, about to punch it into next week, and Gojo-sensei goes, 'Watch out, dimensional rift!' Like that helps me—"
"Hey, I warned you. You just screamed 'YOLO!' and jumped in."
Yuji continued, ignoring him. "Next thing I know, I'm flying through a purple wormhole and land in a food stand. Took out three stacks of ramen and an old man. Still apologized. Then I landed on that guy." He pointed at Toritsuka.
"Wait, THAT was YOU?!" Toritsuka flailed. "You gave me a concussion?!"
Yuji grinned. "In my defense, you broke my fall."
"I broke something alright—my spine!"
Gojo gave a thumbs-up. "Nice entry. Very dynamic. 8 out of 10."
Yuji slumped into a chair, exhaling. "So yeah. Portal. Fight. Flying. Food stand. Here."
Saiki slowly blinked.
He regretted asking.
"Thank you for your... theatrical recollection," he said dryly.
Yuji raised a finger. "Wait, one more thing. When I came through the rift, I felt something. Like pressure in my chest. Like I was... being pulled."
Everyone turned.
"A force pulling you?" Subaru echoed.
"Yeah." Yuji tapped his chest. "Not random. Like fate or... I dunno. A bad script."
Saiki narrowed his eyes.
This wasn't just random portal-hopping anymore.
Something—or someone—was orchestrating this.
Yuji blinked at everyone's stares. "Did I say something weird?"
"No," Saiki muttered, sipping his coffee jelly. "Just something dangerously accurate."
---
End.