In a completely void place, filled with black all around and some star-looking lights surrounding the empty space, an immense group of white spheres could be seen making a perfect line that was directed towards the biggest light visible in the empty place.

Millions of white spheres could be seen standing in line, each one in silence, even if some of these were not silent inwardly. After all, some of them were currently freaking out after dying, and among them, was the recently dead Dylan Knight.

{Ok… Now where the hell am I?} Dylan asked inwardly, after all, it’s not as if he could speak. And just as he looked around him.

[This is the cycle of reincarnation, office number 35.034.545. This is the initial room, Gate of Memory.] A mechanized voice could be heard all around him, but somehow, he felt as if it was speaking into his head.

[That is indeed the case.]

{Huh? Interesting…} Dylan nodded inwardly. {And, what is this supposed to do? Reincarnate me?}

[Yes. That is the functionality of this and other similar offices.]

{And do I get wishes?}

[No. That is not how this works. Once you enter this cycle of reincarnation, your soul will automatically move towards the Gate of Memory, where your past life’s memories will get deleted, to then send your soul towards one of the infinite possible worlds to be born again as a completely new living being. Randomly, of course. In fact, the usual procedure should be taken while being  unconscious.]

{But here I am, completely conscious of everything around me.} Dylan said with an inward sigh. {Do I at least get something for being conscious?}

[No. While not the usual procedure. You’re not, in fact, the only one in here that is conscious. Lots of souls are; it is not that rare. It is not common either, but you can find at least one such case every 1.000.000 souls on average.]

{Fuck… At least I thought I could get something interesting and unique…} Thought Dylan as he looked around. {Also, what are those lights? Galaxies? Stars?}

[Neither. They’re universes. The multitude of universes and dimensions that are close to this particular office.]

{Holy fuck… They’re a lot… And just for this office?}

[As a said, there’re infinite worlds, dimensions, or universes out there.]

{Say… Can I go to any of those instead of the Gate of Memory?}

[No.] The mechanized voice quickly said.[First, because you can not move while being in this state. And second, because even if you could, I wouldn’t recommend it.]

{Huh? You’re saying it as if in the hypothetical case that I could move, you wouldn’t stop me from doing it?}

[That is indeed the case.]

{Why?}

[First, because I am just an Artificial Intelligence charged with controlling the Gate of Memory only, and answering souls in cases like yours is only a side-job that has been recently given to me, I have no further control over what happens in the room. Second, the gods in charge of the cycle of reincarnation do not care about such things, and in consequence, neither I do.]

{Then why do you recommend not going there if you don’t care?}

[I was just answering your question.]

{Ok, so then why wouldn’t it be recommended?}

[Because your soul will cease to exist. Oblivion is what awaits those that do not follow the cycle of reincarnation. No matter the type of reincarnation, even if it is going back in time instead because of an external situation, a soul should go through this process. And getting out of this line will remove the protection given to you by this room, causing your soul’s demise.]

{Well… If you put it like that…} Dylan chuckled awkwardly. Though it only happened in his consciousness. But just as he thought that it was good that he couldn’t move and didn’t try to do something stupid, something that never happened, and shouldn’t be even possible to happen in the first place, occurred.

A ‘gust of wind’, or at least what seemed like one to Dylan, passed over his soul, and slowly pushed him out of the line.

{Huh? Hey… What’s happening…?} He asked dumbfounded.

[I do not know. There is not a record of something like this happening before. It is, in fact, impossible. I can not recognize the force that is currently pushing you out of the line of reincarnation.]

{THEN DO SOMETHING!} Shouted Dylan as he was being pushed. What seemed like a slow and weak process, started to gather force, and his soul was soon pushed out of the line, and towards the vastness of the ‘room’.

[I must apologize, but as I said early, I do not have control over anything that happens in this room, further than controlling the Gate of Memory. I can not stop whatever is happening to you.]

{FUCK! NO! NOT AGAIN! WHY ME!?} Shouted Dylan as he soon was pushed through what seemed to be a thin curtain of an unknown material for him. He knew, at that moment, that he was out of the ‘room’ and completely fucked up.

[It seems that was the only soul being pushed by the strange force. Danger level to the cycle of reincarnation was determined to be non-existent. No further records should be added to the thousand-year report.] The mechanized voice said, before shutting itself from Dylan’s inner conscious, seconds before he vanished.

{FUCK YOU!} Was the last thought he had as his soul disappeared from the proximities of the ‘room’.

***

{Ha… How sad… To die again…} Thought Dylan as he shook his head.

.

..

…

{Mm?} After a moment of silence, he finally discovered that something was weird. {Why I’m still conscious…?} He thought as he rubbed his chin. After a second or so, he froze. {I’m rubbing my chin…?} His eyes opened wide, finally noticing that he wasn’t in the ‘room’ anymore, and certainly not dead. But what was more shocking to him was… {I have a body again!?} That he had his body back.

“Well, technically, it’s not a body, but the form your soul took while entering this place.” Said a lazy voice from behind him.

“Huh!?” Startled, Dylan turned around, looking at a figure that seemed to be sitting on air while munching fries. Seconds later, just as he was about to ask who that figure was, he froze for a different reason. “How did I move that fast…?” Dylan muttered in shock. “It’s not possible with my-”

“How can your body be sick, when you don’t have a body anymore?” Asked the figure in front of Dylan as he threw a few more fries inside his mouth. “You’re a soul right now.” He said after gulping.

“...” Dylan looked at this figure with shock, while also turning to look at his hands and the rest of his ‘body’. It was after moving in different ways, that he finally confirmed the words of the stranger.

“I don’t know why you’re ridiculing yourself unnecessarily… I’ve already told you two times that you don’t have a body, why so surprised that you can move so much better?”

“You wouldn’t understand it…” Dylan said, he swear that he could feel tears falling down his cheeks, but he doubted he could even cry while being a soul. “All my life I’ve been crippled… Unable to move, running wasn’t even a possibility for me… And now? Now I can finally move like a normal human being…”

“Yeah.” The guy in front nodded lazily. “Well, doesn’t matter, you’re dead after all.” Before shrugging.

“Tch. I don’t care!” Dylan said. “I at least managed to feel what it was to move my body normally… Even if it’s just one time…” As he said so, he started to test what his ‘body’ could do now that it wasn’t limited by illness.

“Again, that’s your soul, not your body… Ha… Whatever.” The stranger shook his head and sighed. “Why is it that idiots follow me everywhere…? Ha… It’s not even funny anymore…” He muttered in a voice that Dylan couldn’t hear.

“Who are you, by the way?” Dylan, who was done with jumping and running around, asked. “And wasn’t I suppose to be dead?”

“Mm? Finally addressing the elephant in the room?” The guy said as he tilted his head, eating a fry as he stared at Dylan. Only then, Dylan managed to see the pair of crimson-red eyes. “Well,” the guy shrugged. “I’m a wanderer, and yeah, you would have vanished into oblivion if I wasn’t close at all.”

“A… wanderer…?” Dylan frowned. “What’s that? Are you not a god?”

“Kid, you would be surprised to learn that gods are just slightly stronger people… Don’t put too much trust in that name. And to answer your question. A wanderer… is someone… who… wanders…?” He said the last part while rubbing his chin. “Yeah… that must be it…”

“...” Dylan couldn’t stop his mouth to open wide. “Why do you sound as if you weren’t even sure of it?”

“Ha! Because I’m not!” The guy said. “I was just joking with you. I was simply on my way back home when I saw a soul being pushed out of a Reincarnation System. I was curious, as the way it happened was unnatural.”

“Yes…” Dylan sighed. “Tell me about it… A fucking gust of wind in a supposed void! Ha… But what could I expect with my luck…”

“Yeah, no kidding. That curse you carry is nasty as fuck.” The guy said as he nodded, munching on his fries.

“Huh? Curse?”

“Yeah. Didn’t you notice?” The guy tilted his head.

“No!” Dylan was dumbfounded. “Do you mean that all my life… It was a freaking curse that caused my bad luck?”

“Well, yes.” The guy nodded. “It actually reminds me of a friend. Though in his case, it was the contrary, the motherfucker had insane luck, it saved his ass from sure-death a lot of times.”

“...” Dylan fell to his knees, grasping his face. “How can this be…? Who would even want to course me…?”

“Who knows.” He said before picking a fry and throwing it into his mouth.

“Well… I guess now that I’m dead… It doesn’t matter.”

“Well, about that.” The guy said, his crimson eyes fixed on Dylan. “I was going to propose you a chance, to transmigrate to another world.”

“...Huh!?” Dylan’s eyes, which had lost any semblance of light, came back to life, as his head instantly turned to the stranger. “Are you for real!?”

“Yeah.” The guy nodded lazily. “Exciting, right?”

“I don’t know…” Dylan frowned. “I mean, yes. I’m surely excited about transmigrating… All my life, one of the few things that kept me sane was watching anime, and reading manga and novels, so I’m excited to go through the thing a lot of protagonists from these novels did… But the curse followed me to the afterlife… How I’m sure that it won’t follow me to my next life too?”

“Oh, that? You can relax, I took care of it.” The guy shrugged as he bit another fry.

“YOU DID!? WHEN!?”

“Just now?” The guy said as he looked at Dylan, asking inwardly if he was a complete idiot. “Are you perhaps an idiot?” Or well, not so inwardly.

“I’M NOT! And how did you do it!? I didn’t feel anything at all… And you said it was a nasty curse, I thought that meant it was impossible to cure…”

“Well, technically it’s not curing, so it’s indeed impossible to cure it. It’s more like cleansing? Yeah, something like that.” The guy shrugged. “Besides, I said it was nasty, because it was, at least for any normal human. That thing basically crippled you from the second 1 since you were born. So you can even count yourself lucky enough to not have died in your mom’s womb.”

“...” Dylan just looked at the guy dumbfounded, before letting out a sigh. “Well, whatever. At least that leaves me a completely new chance at life! Finally free of that damn bad luck!”

“Mhm.” The guy nodded, as he watched Dylan celebrate for a few minutes.

“And, well, where will you reincarnate me?” After calming down, Dylan let out a deep breath he didn’t know he was holding and then asked the stranger.

“Well, I’ve been thinking of where since a while ago.” The guy suddenly turned serious, his eyes losing the lazy edge they were carrying a moment ago. “I thought about sending you to a world that urgently needed a savior before a Demon Lord destroyed it completely…”

As Dylan heard that, he gulped hard. Hard excited to live such an adventure, and half scared of a creature that could destroy a world completely. But just as he was about to make up his mind…

“But, thinking it better, I decided to send you to the world of Naruto. It’s more fun.” The stranger nodded sagely.

“...” Dylan was dumbfounded. “Huh? For real?”

“Yeah.” The stranged nodded before munching on a fry. “...Besides, it’s not as if that world truly needed help. I just said what all those lazy motherfuckers in charge of some worlds tell every summoned hero while they are bored as fuck.”

“...I suddenly feel like I’ve been living a lie all my life.” Dylan said with a dazed smile, his eyes looking at the horizon.

“I know, right? Don’t worry. It happens to the best of us.” The stranger nodded sagely. “Anyways, with that said. Congratulations! You’ve won the chance to reincarnate into the world of Naruto! Well, a little bit of an alternate universe though.” He shrugged.

“Huh? A more dangerous one? Really!? Why!? The normal one is already dangerous enough!”

“Jeez… Chill your tits man…” The stranger said as he picked his ear, making it possible for Dylan to look more below his hood, he noticed a white-colored hair with dark roots, which made him question the guy’s style, and level of chuunibyou-ness. “I’ll ignore your last thought. Also, relax, I know that all your life you’ve been fucked over again and again, but this isn’t the case, I just said that it would be an AU because I’ll limit the appearance of the freaking Ootsusuki. I really hate Boruto, you see? So yeah, no Ootsusuki, at least not until the fight with Kaguya, and probably a few years ahead of that. That way you won’t have to worry about a random Isshiki. Also, no freaking time travel. For real, why the fuck does everyone want to fuck up a movie or a series with time travel? It’s like a ‘random plot generator’ ticket, I swear.” After a long rambling, the stranger finally sighed.

“Well, that doesn’t sound so bad, I guess.” Dylan said as he rubbed his chin, trying his best not to disclose that he did like Boruto. As if by miracle, he totally managed it. Though it was more like the stranger just ignore the random passing thought he had, while thinking to himself how bad someone’s taste could be.

“Anyways, now comes the fun part!” The white-haired stranger said as he stretched his arms, the fries that were in his hands moments ago, completely disappeared as if they were never there. “It’s time to give you cheats!”

“Really!? I will have cheats!?” Dylan asked with stars shining in his eyes.

“Yes!” The stranger said, his crimson eyes also shining brightly.

“Excellent! I WANT THE RINNEGAN!” Dylan shouted as he extended his hand to the stranger in a ‘give me’ gesture, his face full of excitement.

“DENIED!” The stranger, also with a face full of excitement and a bright smile, shouted as he showed the bird to Dylan.

“WHY!?” Dylan fell to his knees while supporting his body with his hands. A closed fist hitting the ‘floor’ with strenght as he shouted.

“Because that wouldn’t be fun.” The stranger shook his head, lamenting how people could be so stupid. “Anyways, we’ll make this exciting. Fuck the Rinnegan and the other plot-armor-like sharing. I’ll give you something different, and unique, and that will spice things up. But! It will be decided by luck.”

“I REFUSE!” Dylan immediately shouted as he stood up. “I won’t let luck decide my cheat!”

“Tch. Leave your fears behind, the curse is no more! Let’s try your new luck!” The stranger said as he crossed his arms. “Don’t be a fucking pussy.” With a snap of his fingers, a huge fortune wheel appeared a little bit behind him, at his right.

“This can only turn out bad…” Already lamenting for his fate, Dylan could only sigh as he looked at the words on the fortune wheel. After reading a few of the words, he was confused. “...What are these?”

“GREAT YOU ASKED!” The stranger said excitedly as he pointed at the wheel with both hands. “This, my stupid and fearful friend, is the Randomizer Wheel of Powers!”

Dylan’s mouth and eyebrows could only twitch at the wanderer’s words. But he decided to ignore it.

“Now, I’m sure that with your super-low-IQ you haven’t figured it out, so let me, this kind wanderer, explain it to you.” With a smug smile, the stranger said as he pointed at his expanded chest. “This wheel contains powers derived from some of my authorities and my powers. And once I spin it, the power that the wheel selected will become your cheat. Of course, as with any fortune wheel, there’re top-tier results and not-so-top-tier results here. So your luck will decide how strong your cheat is.”

“But… What if I get a crappy power?” Dylan asked, deciding to ignore the complete first part of what the wanderer said.

“Well, glad for you, even the lowest-tier power here will allow you to get to Kage-level power without a hitch.” Shrugged the stranger. “And that’s if you’re a complete and useless moron, with a little bit of brain and training, you won’t end up being a cannon fodder during the Fourth Ninja War.”

“I guess that’s not too bad then…” Sighed Dylan.

“Anyways, are you ready? Or do you want a slight explanation of the powers? I mean, not that I can’t, but you will probably feel bad if you get excited for one of those, and you don’t get it.” The guy shrugged.

“...” Dylan looked at the wheel with a thoughtful face. Some of the powers there were easy to understand, others were more cryptic.

Some of the powers that caught his attention were the words Gravity; Apocalypse; Destruction; and Nature; though the last one was more of what he tried to think what it could be. There were also others that looked more normal, like basic elements Lightning; Fire; Water; Earth; or Wind. And finally, there were those that were weird but didn’t catch his attention, like Eyes; Perfect Control; Beasts; and Spirit.

“I prefer if you just spin the roulette…” After thinking about it thoroughly, Dylan decided to just spin the wheel. He’ll worry about what each power is about later.

“EXCELLENT!” Shouted the wanderer as he spun the wheel with force. Enough so, that the wheel ended up spinning for a few minutes. And just as both the wanderer and Dylan were losing their patience, the wheel finally stopped.

“Huh… Look at that. Not so bad.” The wanderer said with a smirk, mildly amused, while Dylan’s eyes were wide open. Half in surprise, half in confusion. After all, the power the wheel landed on was…

THE CLIFFHANGER NO JUTSU!