(A/N and we are back with chapter 2. Today we meet the soul from earth mentioned in the summary. As a reminder: Italics denotes a charactersthoughts. Without further ado, lets get into it)
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A man sat in front of two computer monitors. His old chair creaking as he leaned back.
"Man the war arc was wild. Still can't believe Kishimoto actually killed off Neji."
Sam was 32. After a long day at work he'd settled down with a soda and was watching anime clips on youtube.
Sipping a bit of his drink he leaned a bit further back as his chair groaned again in protest. Man, he really needed a new chair. This thing was getting rickety.
"I mean he was basically just a sacrificial lamb. It's like Kishimoto realized that not enough named good guys were dying so he took someone the fans liked and offed them. It certainly wasn't to get Hinata and Naruto closer. They had a whole damn movie for that after Shippuden ended anyway. Thinking of, 'Naruto:The End' was a pretty good transition movie. It was awesome to see the byakugan get some love outside of the novels." The all seeing eye definitely got the short end of the stick when it came to dojutsu in the anime. Despite being Sam's personal favorite, even one offs like the ketsuryūgan beat it out. Yet, in the novels, the byakugan could actually stand up to the sharingan, at least the pre-mangekyo ones. A skilled user could split jutsu by identifying the chakra points of the attack. Not much threat in a fireball when you can just cut it in half. Even having a single eye conferred high tier genjutsu resistance, better setting up the rivalry with the illusory eye of the Uchiha.
But the tenseigan, now there was an upgrade. Gravity manipulation on par with the rinnegan, a unique chakra mode, truth seeking balls, affinity with all 5 natures as well as the illusive yin-yang release, and a whole host of unique jutsu. Toneri cut the whole damn moon in half with one of said jutsu. Yes, the tenseigan took the all seeing eye from the bullied little brother of Indra's pink eye afflicted clan, to a planetary level threat.
Speaking of planetary threats, it was time to move on to the main course! "That's enough about shinobi. Toriyama-sensei was the goat anyway." Pulling up some early clips for Dragon Ball Z, the Z-fighers sans Goku facing off against Vegeta and Nappa to be exact, Sam settled in. Bracing his feet against the back of his desk, he ignored the complaints of his aging chair a started enjoying the boastful Yamcha taking on a saibaman. "You gotta feel for the guy. Fresh off a power up and a training arc he immediately bites the dust to up the ante for the Z-fighters."
Unlike Neji, however many more of the main cast would be following the desert bandit into the afterlife. "Still though, I never got why he was such a joke in the community. Honestly once the power scaling went from the strongest man on earth being able to destroy a moon at his maximum output, to god like beings casually wiping out solar systems, I would probably hang up my gloves too. Yamcha got out, had a career in baseball, even got famous." Yes, much like his taste in dojutsu Sam had a soft spot for the underdogs in this series as well. Tien Shinhan and Yamcha were two of his favorites. The high speed assaults of the wolf fang fists were awe inspiring when he first watched Dragon Ball as a child, and who could forget Tien's stand against semi-perfect Cell in Z? Yes, if there was one bone he had to pick with Toriyama, it would be with the handling of every non-saiyan Z fighter. Barring the occasional moments of glory, most of the shine went to Goku and his kin.
"Still though, in terms of humans Krillin definitely won out in the end. Little man wound up with one of the baddest women in anime." He was relaxing now, using his feet to rock further back in his chair. "Honestly, the gentle fist would probably work well with Yamcha. The parallels of the various forms of the 8 Trigrams and Yamcha's style presented in games like FighterZ are there. I wonder how Ki would stack up against chakra?"
The end of the fight was approaching rapidly now. The saibaman was down and the desert bandit was gloating. "It's a shame really. If he'd been a bit more aware he'd probably be able to dodge the little cabbage's grapple. A bit more serious of an attitude too, given that the entire planet is on the line here." But he couldn't fault the scarred martial artist too much for that one. Given the personalities in the Dragon ball universe when it came to battle, his was actually pretty mild. That, and Sam had a tendency towards irreverence in serious situations himself.
"And that's that," He thought. "The little green bastard's got him in a bear hug. Nothing to do now but explode. Sorry bud." It was all down hill from here for the turtle school graduate. His ex hooking up with the guy responsible for his death. Getting impaled by a robotic old man with a vendetta. Hell, even just dying here spawned a thousand memes. Poor guy couldn't control his death pose, he was dead! Sam let out a sigh as he rocked back in his chair, just as the saibaman was self-destructing.
*CRACK*
He was falling?
"STUPID FUCKING CHAIR"
another *CRACK*
This time the sickening sound of a grown man landing on the back of his head. Finishing the deadly back flip he landed on his stomach. He tried to swear, to move, anything. All that came out was a gurgle as blood foamed out of his mouth. Vaguely, as his consciousness faded, his position registered. "You've got to be fucking kidding me..."
And so, assuming perhaps the most famous death pose in history, Sam breathed his last breath. Leaving only his parents and a room mate. A room mate that, being as much a weeb as he was, would likely get a good laugh out of his embarrassing end.
For a moment, there was only color.
Or maybe not even that — more like feelings painted into light. Confusion. Warmth. Panic.
"Okay... okay, this isn't the afterlife I was promised," Sam's consciousness murmured, though he wasn't sure if he actually had a mouth anymore. "Am I... Am I getting isekai'd? I swear to God if I wake up as Yamcha—"
Something brushed against his essence. Vast, ancient... furious.
WHO DARES— the voice thundered, echoing not in his ears but in whatever passed for a soul-brain.
"Oh, great, I annoyed a deity. Classic me. Sorry, uh, Big Guy! I didn't mean to—"
The presence hesitated. It wasn't exactly divine — more... proud. Caged. A falcon that had only just remembered it could fly.
You are not from this realm, the being said, its tone shifting from anger to curiosity. Yet your spirit clings to mine.
"Well, to be fair," Sam quipped, "your world's reincarnation system doesn't seem to have good firewall protection."
The two energies spun, colliding and merging in flashes of memory. Sam saw fragments of another life — a boy training under an oppressive seal, eyes that saw everything and nothing, a mark burning on his forehead. "Holy shit you are the Neji Hyuga!"
Meanwhile, he could feel Neji's soul probing his— flashes of strange worlds, glowing screens, people laughing at shadows of stories that felt too real.
"This... is you," the falcon whispered, realization dawning. "You've seen so much." He could feel they're beings beginning to intertwine. "Hopefully it will help us wherever we end up." His signature levelheadedness holding steady even in this bizarre scenario.
Sam could only respond weakly: "Well, I always wanted better eyesight."
The two souls spiraled, light and shadow twisting until their essences overlapped.
Confusion turned into fusion.
Thoughts blurred — Sam's memories folding into instinct, instincts bleeding into understanding. Chakra, ki, the Byakugan, the Tenseigan, the endless reach of the stars. A strange equilibrium began to form.
Somewhere between laughter and terror, the unified soul felt itself being pulled.
Toward a rift.
Toward life again.
Invisible to all in this world, a small crack lingered in the fabric of reality. Two souls twisted together. One a vibrant bird, flapping it's long caged wings towards its next life. The other a wisp of a thing, barely holding onto only the things most important to it. The feelings of familial love with his parents, the joy attached to the few good friends he had, and strangely some of his favorite stories. Anime's and games he'd absorbed countless times, and which gave him comfort during difficult times. Together they rocketed towards a strange new destiny.
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(A/N: This chapter went a bit longer than expected. Hoping to have chapter 3 posted tomorrow. Hope whoever reads enjoys!)
(A/N 2: Little bit of revision and addition to this chapter. Added a brief interaction between the two souls. In hindsight it seemed a little cruel having Sam's soul immediately mutilated and losing all sense of self.)