The world was white. Then it was orange. Then it was a very distinct, crispy shade of brown.
Kazuma sat up. His ears were ringing with a high-pitched eeeeeeeeee.
"Is everyone..." Kazuma coughed, spitting out dirt. "Is everyone dead?"
"My staff," a voice groaned from face-down in the mud. Megumin. "Did you see? The shockwave... the color grading... eighty points. No, ninety."
"WE ALMOST DIED!" Kazuma grabbed her cape and shook her. "You dropped a tactical nuke on our own coordinates!"
"But the enemy," Megumin muttered, flashing a thumbs up before passing out. "Gone."
Kazuma looked up.
The Chibaku Tensei—the giant gravity ball of death that Pain had created—was gone. In its place was a cloud that looked like a giant mushroom made of fire and bad decisions. The canyon wasn't a canyon anymore. It was a parking lot.
But standing in the middle of the crater, perfectly clean, was Gojo Satoru.
A faint blue barrier flickered around him and the Konosuba team.
"Hoh," Gojo whistled, looking at the smoking wasteland. "That kid packs a punch. Her cursed energy efficiency is terrible, but the output? S-Grade."
"It's explosion magic," Aqua hiccuped, checking her goddess robe for soot. "She's a one-trick pony."
"Where's the Two-Face guy?" Kobeni whimpered, still holding her knife.
Gojo pointed.
Half a mile away, dragging a disintegrated lower body through the dirt, was Pain-chimaru. The snake head (Orochimaru) was screaming.
"retreat... RETREAT..." the snake hissed. "The data... incompatible..."
"Let him go," Gojo said, stopping Kazuma from stealing the villain's pants. "He's retreating to the main base. He'll lead us to the other Villains."
"Since when are you the leader?" Kazuma snapped.
"Since I saved you from becoming grilled frogs," Gojo smiled, dropping the Infinity barrier. "Now, someone carry the small exploder. We have a Raid to finish."
Darkness picked up the unconscious Megumin, looking weirdly disappointed. "I didn't feel any pain from the blast... his barrier was too perfect... such neglect..."
Kazuma sighed. "Let's just find the others before I go insane."
Location: The Dungeon (Or what's left of it)
Team A: The Muscle
Saitama was walking on the ceiling.
Technically, he was walking on the floor, but since he had flipped the entire dungeon structure upside-down with his Table Flip, gravity was having an identity crisis. Stalactites were now floor spikes. Stalagmites were chandeliers.
"This is confusing," Goku said, hopping over a pit of lava that was flowing sideways. "My internal compass is spinning."
"It's just upside down," Saitama said, looking at a treasure chest that was glued to the 'ceiling' above them. "Also, gravity is weak here."
"WEAK?!" Vegeta roared, his hair grazing the floor as he flew upside-down. "YOU LITERALLY INVERTED THE CRUST, BALDY!"
"I slipped," Saitama repeated his lie.
They reached the central chamber.
It should have been a boss room. There were runes. There were ominous statues. There was a giant throne.
But the throne was currently occupied by Mash Burnedead.
The muscle-mage was sitting there, eating a creampuff. At his feet lay the shattered remains of a Dragon—a massive, robotic beast with gears for guts.
"You started without us!" Luffy complained, stretching his neck to see if the dragon was made of meat. (It wasn't. It was tin.)
"The door was open," Mash said, wiping cream off his lip.
"The door was literally buried under a mountain!" Vegeta yelled.
"I knocked."
Asta ran past them, eyes sparkling. "GUYS! LOOK! IN THE STONE!"
In the center of the room (which was technically the ceiling, but Mash had punched the Dragon into the floor-ceiling to make a platform), a sword was embedded in a pedestal.
But it wasn't a normal sword. It was glitching.
One second it was Excalibur. The next it was the Buster Sword. Then a lightsaber. Then a Minecraft diamond sword.
[QUEST ITEM IDENTIFIED]
[Reality Anchor #1: The Glitched Caliburn]
"That's the plot hole!" Asta screamed. "Pux said we need to grab it!"
"I got it," Vegeta scoffed. "Stand aside."
The Saiyan Prince landed. He grabbed the hilt.
"HAAAA!"
Golden aura flared. The room shook. Veins popped on Vegeta's forehead. The ground cracked.
The sword didn't move.
"It's stuck," Vegeta panted, letting go. "It's weighted with a singularity spell. Magic nonsense."
"Let me try!" Luffy grabbed it. Gear Third. His hand grew to the size of a house. He pulled.
The pedestal ripped out of the floor. The floor ripped out of the foundation. The sword stayed in the pedestal.
"It's bound by narrative weight," Anos observed, leaning against a pillar he had just repaired with time magic. "It requires a specific protagonist archetype to release it. Physical strength is irrelevant."
"Archetype?" Saitama blinked.
He walked up to the sword.
"It's shiny," Saitama noted.
He grabbed the handle casually.
Clink.
It didn't pull out.
"Huh," Saitama tugged harder. The entire dungeon shifted three inches to the left. The sword stayed put. "It's really stuck."
"I told you," Anos smirked. "It requires narrative resonance. The Hero chosen by destiny."
"Let me try."
Everyone turned.
Mash Burnedead walked up. He put his creampuff in his pocket. He grabbed the sword with one hand. He grabbed the pedestal with the other.
He planted his feet.
CRACK.
He didn't pull the sword out. He squeezed the stone pedestal until it crumbled into dust.
The sword fell out, clattering onto the floor.
Silence.
"I didn't pull it," Mash explained to a stunned Vegeta. "I just broke the thing holding it."
Anos actually laughed. "Brute forcing the plot itself. I like you."
"IT STILL COUNTS!" Asta cheered.
A holographic window popped up for everyone.
[REALITY ANCHOR 1/7 ACQUIRED]
[Glitch Status: Stabilizing Zone 1...]
The weird graphical errors in the room started to fix themselves. The texture of the walls stopped looking like low-res JPEGs and became real stone. The sideways lava flowed down.
Gravity snapped back to normal.
Vegeta crashed into the floor.
Luffy face-planted.
Goku landed on his feet. "Whoops."
"Okay," Saitama picked up the glitchy sword. It shifted into a plastic toy saber in his hand. "Does this mean we get food now?"
Location: Raid Command (Outside the Dungeon)
Team B: The Strategists
Kirito watched the notification pop up. "They got it. Thank god. I was worried they'd blow up the loot."
"They blew up the dungeon though," Naofumi pointed at the mountain, which was now shaped like a pretzel.
"Details," Genos dismissed, updating his internal map. "We have the first Anchor. But we have a problem."
"What?" Tanjiro asked, cleaning soot off his blade.
Rimuru pointed to the east.
Approaching the ruins was not an army. It was a single car.
A Toyota AE86.
Drifting.
Around corners that didn't exist. Through trees. Over rocks. Eurobeat music was literally emanating from the air around it.
"Is that..." Kirito squinted.
"I smell gasoline and tofu," Tanjiro said.
The car screeched to a halt in front of them. The door opened.
But the driver didn't get out.
Instead, a man in a straw hat—no, not Luffy—a man in a red vest with a scar under his eye stepped out from the passenger side. But he wasn't from the car's universe.
Shanks.
Red-Haired Shanks.
"Yo," Shanks smiled, resting a hand on his saber. "Are you the raid leaders?"
Naofumi raised his shield. "Friend or foe?"
"Observer," Shanks said. He gestured to the driver seat, where Takumi Fujiwara looked absolutely terrified. "This kid gave me a lift. Nice drifting."
Shanks' expression hardened. The fun uncle vibe vanished. The air grew heavy. Haki—Conqueror's Haki—rolled over them like a tidal wave.
Rimuru stiffened. Naofumi's knees buckled slightly. Kirito saw his HP bar flash a warning.
"I came to warn you," Shanks said. "You found one Anchor. But the Villain Alliance isn't just guarding them."
"What are they doing?" Deku asked, struggling to stay standing under the pressure.
"They're using them," Shanks said grimly. "To write a new ending."
He pointed to the sky. The giant black ring above Vector Prime—the hub—was starting to rotate.
"Aizen found the Ink," Shanks whispered. "The substance the Author uses to create us. And he's feeding it to something."
"Feeding it to what?" Naofumi demanded.
Shanks looked at the gathered heroes.
"To a creature that was never finished. The Deleted Draft."
Location: The Villain Alliance Headquarters
"The Draft Stage"
Aizen Sosuke watched the screen. He saw Mash crush the stone. He saw Megumin's explosion.
"Fascinating," Aizen murmured. "They are breaking the rules faster than I anticipated."
"We should kill them," Shigaraki scratched his neck, decaying the edge of the mahogany table. "Turn them to dust."
"Patience," Aizen smiled.
He turned to the center of the room.
There was a cage. Inside the cage was a swirling mass of scribbles. It looked like a sketch that had been erased and drawn over a thousand times. Eyes, limbs, teeth appearing and disappearing in ink-blots.
"Let them gather the Anchors," Aizen said. "The Anchors stabilize reality. And once reality is stable..."
He poured a vial of black ink into the cage. The scribbles roared—a sound like paper tearing.
"...My pet can finally manifest fully."
Aizen adjusted his glasses.
"And when he does, he won't just rewrite the ending. He will erase the beginning."
The door to the room opened.
Light Yagami walked in, holding a black notebook.
"I've analyzed their names," Light said, his eyes red. "But the Death Note... it's glitching. I can't kill Saitama."
"Why?" Aizen asked.
"Because," Light threw the notebook on the table in frustration. "Every time I write 'Saitama', the text changes to 'One Punch Man' and says Target Invulnerable to Plot Devices."
Aizen chuckled. "God mode characters. How troublesome."
"Don't worry," a new voice giggled from the shadows. A clown. Doflamingo. "We have a counter for the bald one."
Doflamingo stepped into the light, grinning.
"We found a sale," Doflamingo laughed. "A coupon... for a grocery store in the Void Dimension."
Aizen's smile widened.
"Perfect. Distract the strongest. Crush the weak. Divide and conquer."
[QUEST UPDATED: THE SECOND ANCHOR]
Location: The Sea of Lost Content (Zone 2)
Hazard Level: Glitchy Water Physics.
Back at the ruins, Kazuma sneezed.
"I have a bad feeling," Kazuma muttered. "Someone is plotting against us. And it involves wet socks. I just know it."