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Consciousness returned slowly, accompanied by the sterile smell of antiseptic and the steady beep of medical equipment. Yasuo's eyes opened to a ceiling of white tiles and recessed lighting clinically clean, impossibly bright. For a disorienting moment, he was back in the hospital where this strange new existence had begun, waking from death into impossibility.
Then memory flooded back. The Hulk. The genjutsu. The searing pain of chakra pathways pushed beyond their limits.
He tried to sit up and immediately regretted it. Every muscle in his body screamed protest, and a sharp ache pulsed behind his eyes where his Sharingan had nearly burned itself out. A hand pressed gently but firmly against his shoulder, easing him back down.
"Easy there, soldier. Your body's been through hell."
Yasuo turned his head to find the man with the shield sitting beside his bed. Up close, Steve Rogers was even more imposing not through size alone, though he was certainly built like a warrior, but through an aura of unshakeable conviction. His face was honest in a way that seemed almost anachronistic, as if nobility and genuine goodness had been carved into his features by an artist who believed such things still existed.
"How long?" Yasuo's voice came out rough, his throat raw.
"Eighteen hours. The doctors said you hemorrhaged from severe neurological strain." Steve's blue eyes studied him with frank curiosity devoid of judgment. "They've never seen anything quite like it. Your brain activity during the episode didn't match any known pattern. Dr. Cho said it was like watching someone weaponize their own mind."
"My Sharingan," Yasuo said, touching his closed eyelids carefully. Even that slight pressure sent dull throbs through his skull. "In my world, it allows me to cast genjutsu illusions that affect the mind directly. But here, with my powers diminished..." He trailed off, the memory of that agonizing backlash still fresh.
"You nearly killed yourself trying to reach Banner." Steve's tone wasn't accusatory, merely observational. "Natasha said you saw something others couldn't. That you connected with Bruce when every other method had failed."
"I saw a man drowning in his own rage." Yasuo finally managed to sit up, moving slowly until the room stopped spinning. The medical facility was more advanced than anything from his world machines monitoring his vitals with quiet efficiency, an IV drip feeding something into his arm that eased the pain in increments. "He reminded me of someone I knew. Someone who let anger consume him until there was nothing left but the need to destroy."
Steve was quiet for a moment, then moved to pour water from a pitcher into a clear cup. He offered it to Yasuo with the same casual ease he might show to an old comrade. "And did this person you knew ever find peace?"
The question hit deeper than Steve could possibly know. Yasuo took the cup, the cool water soothing his throat but doing nothing for the ache in his chest. "No. He found me instead. And I let him kill me because I had no other answers to give."
"Yone." Steve said the name like he'd heard it before, and at Yasuo's surprised look, he continued. "Natasha briefed me. S.H.I.E.L.D. has been monitoring you since your appearance, and after what happened with the Hulk, Director Fury wanted a full report. She told me what you shared about your world, your death, your brother." He set the pitcher down, his movements precise and considered. "I'm sorry. That's a burden no one should carry."
"Sympathy from a stranger." Yasuo's laugh was bitter. "In my world, I was hunted. Condemned. Everyone I met saw only the crime I was accused of, never the truth I couldn't prove."
"Then your world failed you." Steve's voice carried absolute certainty. "Justice isn't about what's convenient to believe. It's about finding truth even when truth is difficult. Especially then."
Yasuo studied the man before him, his normal vision still recovering from Sharingan overuse nevertheless catching details. The way Steve sat spoke of military discipline softened by genuine compassion. His uniform, hanging on a nearby chair, bore a star that matched the one on his chest when he'd appeared during the Hulk crisis. But it was his eyes that revealed the most: they carried the weight of someone who'd lived through things that should have broken him and emerged still believing in ideals the world had deemed naive.
"You speak of justice like it's simple," Yasuo said. "Like truth always wins in the end."
"I speak of justice like it's necessary." Steve leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. "And no, it's not simple. It's the hardest thing there is. But the alternative letting innocent people suffer because proving their innocence is difficult that's not a world worth fighting for."
The conviction in his words was absolute, unshakeable. Yasuo found himself wanting to believe it, even as years of bitter experience screamed that such idealism was a luxury the guilty world never afforded the accused.
"You risked your life for strangers," Steve continued. "Threw yourself between the Hulk and civilians without hesitation. That's not the action of a murderer, Yasuo. That's the action of a hero."
"Don't." The word came out sharper than intended. "Don't call me that. Heroes don't spend years running from their failures. Heroes don't let their brothers die believing them guilty."
"Heroes are just people who keep trying despite their failures." Steve's tone remained level, patient. "I know something about that. About guilt that doesn't fade. About wondering if you could have done more, been better, saved someone who mattered."
Yasuo's Sharingan unbidden and against his will activated for a brief moment. In that flash of enhanced perception, he saw past Steve's composed exterior to the grief buried beneath. Old loss. Old failures. The kind of wounds that never fully healed but instead became part of the foundation you built yourself upon.
"You lost someone," Yasuo said quietly, deactivating his eyes before the strain became too much.
"I lost a lot of someones." Steve's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "Friends. Brothers-in-arms. People who trusted me to lead them home." He was quiet for a moment, then continued. "I made a choice once sacrificed myself to save millions. Woke up seventy years later to find everyone I knew had lived and died without me. The woman I loved, gone. My best friend, gone. An entire lifetime I wasn't there for."
The parallel struck Yasuo like a blade. Different circumstances, same fundamental pain the ache of time stolen, of connections severed, of guilt that persisted regardless of intent or outcome.
"How do you live with it?" Yasuo asked, the question escaping before pride could cage it. "The weight of those you couldn't save?"
Steve met his gaze directly, and in his eyes Yasuo saw an answer more honest than comfort. "By saving those I can. By waking up each day and choosing to believe that what I do matters, even when evidence suggests otherwise. By honoring the dead through living the way they would have wanted with purpose, with integrity, with refusal to let grief make me cruel."
"That sounds exhausting."
"It is." A small smile touched Steve's lips, there and gone. "But it's also the only way forward that doesn't end in becoming the thing you fought against."
The simple truth of it settled into Yasuo's bones. He'd spent years defined by what he'd lost, by accusations he couldn't disprove, by the weight of Elder Souma's death crushing him beneath its burden. Even his acceptance of death at Yone's hands had been surrender disguised as justice. But this man this impossibly idealistic soldier from another era suggested something different. Not forgetting. Not even forgiving himself. Simply continuing forward with purpose despite pain.
"You're trying to recruit me," Yasuo said, recognizing the tactic even as he found himself not entirely opposed.
"I'm trying to offer you what I needed when I woke up lost in a world I didn't understand purpose. Direction. A reason to keep fighting that's bigger than personal pain." Steve stood, moving to the window where morning light streamed through. Beyond the glass, New York City continued its endless motion. "You have abilities this world has never seen. Skills that could help people. And from what Natasha tells me, you've got a fighter's instinct that kicks in when civilians are in danger. That's not something you can train. That's character."
"Or habit from a life spent in combat."
"Habit born from character." Steve turned back to face him. "You could have stayed in that hospital. Could have hidden, tried to find a way back to your world, focused solely on your own survival. Instead, you stopped a mugging. Fought beside Spider-Man. Threw yourself at the Hulk to save strangers." He crossed his arms, his expression serious but not unkind. "Those aren't the actions of someone who's given up. They're the actions of someone still trying to atone."
The words hit too close to home. Yasuo looked away, focusing on the medical equipment rather than meet those penetrating blue eyes. "Atonement for what? I didn't kill Elder Souma."
"No. But you carry guilt for surviving when others didn't. For the people hurt in Yone's pursuit of you. For not finding a way to prove your innocence before it was too late." Steve's voice gentled. "I recognize it because I carry the same weight. Every mission I survived that others didn't. Every choice that saved some at the cost of others. The guilt doesn't care about logic. It just is."
Silence stretched between them, filled only by the rhythmic beeping of monitors. Yasuo wanted to argue, to reject the compassion being offered, but found himself too exhausted for defensive walls. This man saw through him with uncomfortable clarity not through supernatural sight like the Sharingan, but through hard-won understanding of what it meant to survive your own story.
"What are you proposing?" Yasuo finally asked.
"That you work with us. With S.H.I.E.L.D., with the Avengers when necessary. We'll help you understand this world, figure out what happened to bring you here. In exchange, you use your skills to protect people who need protecting." Steve's expression remained open, honest. "No pressure. No obligation. But if you're going to be in this world anyway, might as well make it count for something."
Before Yasuo could respond, the door opened with pneumatic efficiency.
The man who entered commanded attention through sheer presence alone. Tall, wearing a long black coat despite the indoor setting, and sporting an eyepatch over his left eye that somehow made him more intimidating rather than less. His remaining eye swept the room with tactical precision, taking in every detail before settling on Yasuo with an intensity that rivaled the Sharingan.
"Director Fury," Steve said, straightening unconsciously. "Yasuo was just "
"Bleeding from his eyes after using impossible powers to calm a raging Hulk, yes, I read the report." Fury's voice carried gravel and authority in equal measure. He moved to the foot of Yasuo's bed, his single eye dissecting and cataloging. "Yasuo of Ionia. Swordsman. Wind manipulator. Possessing eyes that can predict movement and cast mental illusions. Died in your home dimension and woke up here with no explanation." He paused. "That about cover it?"
"Close enough," Yasuo replied, meeting that intense gaze without flinching.
"Good. Then we can skip the pleasantries and get to the part where your presence in our world just became a lot more relevant." Fury produced a tablet from his coat, tapping it once. The nearby wall lit up with holographic displays that made Yasuo's breath catch three separate locations marked on a rotating globe, each pulsing with ominous red indicators.
"The dimensional energy stolen from Stark Industries," Fury continued, his tone grim. "We've detected it at three locations worldwide. Tokyo. Berlin. São Paulo. Each site is showing massive reality distortions space-time fractures that our scientists can't explain and can't predict."
The holographic displays shifted, showing readings that Yasuo couldn't fully understand but recognized as deeply wrong. Energy patterns that twisted back on themselves, forming impossible loops. Space that seemed to fold inward, creating pockets that shouldn't exist.
"Reality itself is tearing," Steve said quietly, his face pale.
"Like tissue paper in a hurricane," Fury confirmed. "And it's accelerating. Best estimates give us seventy-two hours before one or more of these tears becomes permanent. After that..." He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to.
Yasuo's mind raced, pieces clicking together with horrible clarity. Dimensional energy. Reality distortions. His own impossible presence in this world torn from death and deposited in a new reality with no explanation.
"You think whatever brought me here is connected to this," he said.
"I think the timing is awfully convenient." Fury's eye never left him. "You appear out of nowhere with a power signature our equipment can't classify, and within forty-eight hours, someone steals technology that can punch holes between dimensions. Either that's the universe's idea of a coincidence, or someone knew you were coming and is using the same principles that brought you here for something much worse."
The implications settled over the room like ash. Yasuo had thought his arrival in this world was random cosmic accident or divine punishment. But if Fury was right, if his presence was deliberate, then someone had reached across the void between realities and pulled him through.
The question was why.
And what else they planned to pull through after him.
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