Tokyo, Japan. Late Afternoon – Summer of 2009
The sun cast a golden hue over the quiet suburban streets of Kiyosu, Aichi Prefecture, where Akira Toriyama had made his home. The neighborhood was humble, simple — almost defiantly so, given the creative titan who resided within. It was far from the flashing lights of Shibuya or the industrial halls of Tokyo's gaming expos. But Ajax Evarson preferred it this way.
He stood before a modest wooden gate, wearing a fitted black suit with no tie, holding a small gift wrapped in golden cloth — a gesture of old-world respect. Behind him, Alfred's voice buzzed faintly in his earpiece.
[Are you nervous, sir?]
Ajax smirked, eyes locked on the front door.
"I've fought gods in other realms. But this is the man who drew my childhood. Yeah, I'm a bit nervous."
[Shall I run through your practiced speech?]
"No. If I recite it like a script, it'll sound like I'm here for business. I'm not. I'm here to thank him."
He took a breath and pressed the doorbell.
After a few quiet moments, soft footsteps approached. The door opened slowly, revealing a man in his mid-fifties, slightly shorter than Ajax had expected, with silver-streaked hair tied back loosely and a calm, slightly bemused smile.
"Ah… you must be Ajax-san?"
Ajax bowed slightly and offered the cloth-wrapped gift. "Toriyama-sensei. Thank you for agreeing to see me. This is for you — a limited edition model of the Capsule No. 9 bike, restored and printed using dimensional-grade resin."
Akira Toriyama chuckled, accepting the gift gently. "I designed that when I was in my thirties. You made this? Looks better than I remember."
"I used your original sketches as a base. I wanted it to be accurate."
Toriyama stepped aside and motioned him in. "Come on in. Don't stand there like a delivery boy."
Inside the Artist's Den
Toriyama's home was both cluttered and serene — overflowing with sketches, prototype figurines, art books, and old manga volumes. A shelf in the corner displayed models of Goku in every major form, from the youthful monkey-tailed boy to the battle-worn Super Saiyan God.
They sat at a low table. Tea was poured. There was no entourage, no translators, no press. Just two creators from different eras.
"So," Toriyama began, sipping his tea, "you run a game company, right? Axer Games? Not very public, but I hear whispers. Someone said you bought out Stark tech from America."
Ajax nodded. "Yes. I've spent the past year building the digital framework of an entire dimension. One where imagination is the law of nature. A world where players don't just play — they live."
Toriyama leaned back. "Sounds ambitious. But everyone's trying VR these days. What makes yours special?"
Ajax leaned forward slightly. "Mine isn't VR. It's immersion. Not just sight and sound, but emotion, temperature, inertia. When you fall in that world, your heart races. When you fly, your stomach flips. The world you enter isn't coded. It's grown. Like a second Earth. I call it Gaiaraheim."
For the first time, Toriyama's eyes sharpened, curious. He set his tea down.
"And why are you telling me all this?"
"Because Gaiaraheim is only the beginning. I want to create worlds — realms built not by me, but by those who already inspired generations. Worlds inspired by shōnen, by legacy. I'm starting with the Big Three. But before that, I had to come here. To you. Because without Dragon Ball, there would be no Naruto. No One Piece. No Bleach."
Toriyama's expression softened, and a faint smile touched his lips.
"And what would I do in this… dimension you're building?"
"I want to create a world in Gaiaraheim inspired by your vision. Not just a Dragon Ball MMO. A realm. One where players train under Turtle Hermit masters, gather Dragon Balls, fly with ki, and experience sagas born of your spirit — not just your stories."
Toriyama raised an eyebrow. "Sounds like licensing hell."
"I'm not asking for licensing. I'm offering you creation rights. You'll be the administrator of your own realm. Everything from physics to landscapes will follow your vision. I'll give you the tools — the AI assistants, the terrain forges, even art-to-matter converters. You draw it. The world will make it real."
Toriyama didn't speak for a while. He picked up the model bike again, turning it in his fingers.
"You're saying… you want me to be a god in your new world?"
Ajax smiled. "No. I want you to be you. The man whose pen gave flight to millions of dreams. Let me give that pen a new canvas."
Toriyama stood and walked to the window. The late afternoon sun poured in. He watched a few kids pass by on bicycles, one wearing a Goku backpack.
"When I was younger," he said, "I drew for fun. Then I drew for deadlines. And later, I drew for fans. I never expected to change anything. But… maybe now I can draw for something new."
He turned to Ajax. "Let me think about it. If I do this, I want no half-measures. No studio approvals. No merchandising plans. Just creation."
"Of course," Ajax said, standing. "This isn't a business deal. It's a thank you. A tribute. A world that says… 'you mattered.'"
Toriyama chuckled and reached out to shake his hand. "You're a strange man, Ajax-san. But I like strange."
Ajax grinned. "Then I've come to the right place."
Later That Night – Outside
As Ajax walked back to the car Alfred had arranged, the stars were beginning to show. He looked up for a moment — thinking about dragons soaring across skies and Saiyans screaming into power.
[How did it go, sir?] Alfred asked through the earpiece.
Ajax exhaled with something close to wonder.
"He said maybe. But his eyes…? They already said yes."
[Then it begins. The Father of Shōnen joins the digital pantheon.]
Ajax smiled to himself as he climbed into the car.
"One down. Three to go."
[Tite Kubo has agreed to meet you in three days and a day after that, you will be meeting Masashi Kishimoto and Eiichiro Oda together. What will you be doing in the meantime, sir?]
"This Japan. There are many things to see here. And you can't forget about the heart of manga industry." Ajax said with a smile.
With a bounce in his steps, Ajax walked towards his car to his next destination.
Toriyama watched Ajax driving away from his house and thought with a smile 'Free rein in creation. That's not a bad deal.'
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It was early morning in Akihabara, and the district buzzed with the crackle of neon and the hum of endless possibilities. Ajax Evarson, dressed casually for once — dark jeans, a Capsule Corp hoodie (a gift from Toriyama), and mirror-shade glasses — strolled through the crowded walkways with a focused gleam in his crimson eyes. Behind those glasses, real-time digital overlays highlighted storefronts, scan-matching manga logos with global analytics.
[Caution, sir, you are approaching sensory overload.]
Alfred's voice rang dry in his earpiece. [You've stopped in front of six different stores in the last ten minutes. Even for you, that's indecision at a dangerous scale.]
"I'm calculating potential worlds, Alfred," Ajax replied, picking up a collector's box of Shaman King.
"Some of these series have untapped dimensional potential. Imagine this as a soul-bond realm — spiritual combat and all."
[Ah yes, nothing screams 'relaxing game world' like ghost possession and ancestral trauma.]
Ajax smirked, placing the box in his tote bag. "You're just mad it doesn't have your British charm."
[No AI tea ceremonies or sarcasm battles. Tragic, really.]
He ducked into Mandarake, the treasure vault of rare manga editions and obscure series. His eyes lit up at a sealed first print of Blame! by Tsutomu Nihei.
"This one's cyberpunk. Atmospheric. Could work as a survival horror arc in Gaiaraheim."
[Or a loading screen simulator. That pacing is glacial, sir. Are you sure you don't just like the aesthetics?]
"Guilty."
He spent hours combing through titles — 20th Century Boys, Berserk, Claymore, Psyren — carefully scanning volumes and mentally categorizing them by genre fusion: dimensional viability, combat system depth, lore integration.
[You've now spent more on manga today than Stark Industries spent on their Arc Reactor patents last month.]
"Tony doesn't know what real treasure looks like."
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The next day took him to Nakano Broadway, a haven for collectors and manga connoisseurs, quieter and more labyrinthine than Akihabara. Ajax moved like a shadow between stalls, his eyes darting to rare finds — doujinshi versions of now-forgotten classics, indie works with raw, unpolished power.
He paused in a second-floor booth. A faded manga titled Ginga Jinrai caught his eye — unknown even to Alfred's extensive database.
"Alfred?"
[Accessing… no digital footprint. Self-published, 1989. Creator unknown. This could be your holy grail or a creative black hole.]
Ajax flipped through it. The art was rough, sure — but the storytelling had soul. It was about dimension-walking samurai chasing a cosmic blade that could cut timelines.
"Alfred… I want this scanned and archived. This one's special."
[You're developing a soft spot for forgotten relics. Should I be worried about you picking up ancient cursed VHS tapes next?]
"Maybe. But I'll just digitize the curse."
By nightfall, he had a shortlist of underground series — cult classics, overlooked one-shots, abandoned serialization attempts. He wasn't building a game world for just the mainstream. He wanted the depth.
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Day three was suit-and-gloves day.
Ajax arrived at the corporate triangle of Shueisha, Kodansha, and Shogakukan — the three empires of manga publishing. Thanks to Alfred's subtle manipulations and Ajax's growing reputation, meetings had been arranged, albeit behind closed doors and through quiet connections.
Each publisher greeted him with varying degrees of curiosity and caution. He wasn't asking for blanket licensing. He came with a new model: world collaboration. Ajax offered tools and frameworks to let authors and their estates extend their stories into digital immortality — not sequels, but dimensional echoes, sandbox realms that lived alongside their canon.
At Shueisha, he proposed a digital reimagining of Rurouni Kenshin's Meiji Era — one where players shaped their dojo, joined police forces or rebels, and learned real-time swordplay.
At Kodansha, he pitched a Fairy Tail-inspired guild economy, where magic types and regional conflicts led to evolving politics and territory wars — all procedurally driven by player factions.
[You're starting a multiverse with these people, sir. I assume this means I'll be assigned to some talking cat character in the Fairy Tail realm.]
"You'd make a decent Exceed. Just fluffier."
By the time he left Shogakukan, he had verbal interest from three properties and formal invites to further negotiation. Not everyone was convinced — but they were intrigued. Some older editors, now semi-retired, even passed him forgotten manuscripts: rejected series from the 90s that never saw the light of serialization.
He took them all.
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That evening, Ajax stood atop Tokyo Tower with a bento in one hand and Alfred narrating softly in the other.
Below, the city pulsed with life — glowing red, blue, white — a map of souls and stories. And above it all, stars.
"This world," Ajax whispered, "is full of what-ifs, Alfred. So many stories left unfinished. Ideas lost to time. Authors gone before their universes could bloom."
[And you want to build a home for them. A library of living dreams.]
"Exactly. A place where forgotten characters remember who they are. Where fans can walk beside them, fight beside them, become them."
A pause.
[You're not building a game, sir. You're building an afterlife.]
Ajax smiled, tossing a rice ball into his mouth.
"Then let's make sure it's worth dying for."