Hunter x Hunter: War of the Anime Worlds

After a while, Xiang Nan managed to contact Beishi.

When the latter saw him return, he clearly felt a huge weight lifted off his shoulders.

At the very least… their "Hunter x Hunter" squad wouldn't end up with only him left as the sole survivor.

What surprised Xiang Nan, though, was that Beishi had two other players with him—

—intruders from another world!

Even more surprising, the encounter hadn't erupted into the kind of hostility or skirmish that had flared up between Xiang Nan's team and the white-haired woman.

Xiang Nan's sudden appearance still put the two newcomers on their guard. After all, this Reincarnation Dimension was designed for cross-world conflict…and they had already learned that the man in the trench coat in front of them was apparently the squad's captain.

"I ran into them on the road," Beishi explained a little awkwardly. "They were badly wounded and being chased, so I lent a hand."

"By story-line characters?" Xiang Nan asked, turning his gaze on the two players.

Their clothes were clearly modeled on some ancient island nation's style—hardly fashionable—and both wore short, jacket-like garments over their robes. If they'd been driven relentlessly by story characters and only unlocked battlefield restrictions this late in the scenario, their combat ability couldn't be great; modern police gunfire would be hard for them to withstand. Both bore obvious injuries and looked ashen-faced.

Xiang Nan did not scold Beishi. Normally players had to stay wary of people from other worlds. Still, with troops about to enter the city and no certainty that Xiang Nan was even alive, Beishi had probably decided it was safer to travel together. These two, by the look of it, posed little threat.

"It was Terry, Joe Higashi, and the rest of the Team Fatal Fury, with quite a few police…" Beishi added in a low voice.

"There were twelve of us to start with; now only the two of us are still alive. The mission ends in a little over thirty hours. In our current state, we won't last that long…" One of the newcomers—a man in a worn-out kimono—suddenly knelt and bowed his head to the ground before Xiang Nan. "This may be rude, but…please, help us get through this ordeal. We beg of you!"

He was clearly decisive enough to sense death drawing near.

"Impressive—you can see it at a glance," Xiang Nan thought.

Whether a player came from a low-power or high-power world was obvious in the Reincarnation Dimension. Confidence was hard to fake. Players from low-power worlds moved cautiously; those from high-power worlds tended to act more boldly—though personality also mattered. Xiang Nan was only speaking of tendencies.

He didn't answer right away. Instead he stared at the two men. "Which world are you from?"

"Basilisk: The Kōga Ninja Scrolls," the kneeling man replied, head still bowed.

Basilisk? Xiang Nan glanced at Beishi—clearly he hadn't seen that anime either. Beishi shook his head as well.

"My world is set in Japan's Edo period and focuses on ninja conflict," the man continued before Xiang Nan could ask more. "Because of the Tokugawa succession, two ninja clans—Kōga and Iga—are slaughtering each other. The two of us are ninja. There's no high technology in our world, let alone firearms…basically it's a cold-weapons setting."

No wonder, Xiang Nan thought. Even so, twelve people had managed to kill players from the King of Fighters world, unlock battlefield restrictions, and escape modern gunfire. The power level might be low, but these "ninja" clearly weren't useless.

"You can come with us," Xiang Nan said after thinking for a moment, "but we'll only look out for you within a reasonable range. If things get beyond our control, we'll put our own safety first."

"I understand!" The man lifted his head, gratitude written all over his face.

Xiang Nan's willingness to help wasn't kindness; after glimpsing the dimension's rules he was sure the Basilisk world posed almost no threat to Hunter x Hunter. No threat meant no hostility. Otherwise…

"Let's go."

With that, Xiang Nan led the three of them away from South Town. The official cordon around the city was full of holes; they slipped through easily.

On the way, Xiang Nan got a quick rundown of the Basilisk world—its power system, setting, and so on. Ninja there used "ninjutsu," but on a far more grounded level than something like Naruto; no chakra, just odd tricks based on esoteric arts—subtle and limited.

The storyline itself sounded simple, confirming for Xiang Nan that Basilisk posed no danger to Hunter players.

"Unlike you Hunter x Hunters…" the man sighed once they reached a deserted area outside the city. He and Xiang Nan had just finished treating their wounds. "Even though I haven't seen your anime, I can sense your world is powerful. For people like us from a low-powered setting, the moment we enter any world with modern technology—never mind a supernatural system—even ordinary folk can kill us."

"Our world's highest historical ranking—and current ranking—are both outside the top fifty," he went on, half-mocking himself. "I figure that doesn't mean we're close to the top five hundred; it's just that anything below five hundred isn't shown—could be a thousandth, or dead last, who knows?"

Xiang Nan's eyes turned cold; he shot Beishi a glare. Beishi gulped—clearly he had told the newcomers they came from Hunter × Hunter.

The Basilisk players had revealed their info because weakness left them no room to bargain; but Beishi had casually exposed their own main-world details.

Against ill-intentioned players that could be suicidal—anyone familiar with Hunter × Hunter could predict their abilities and tactics. In this line of work, you had to stay vigilant.

"Has your story started yet?" Xiang Nan asked.

"No," the man shook his head.

If Basilisk's plot were underway, given what he'd described, everyone there would be scrambling just to survive—and whether the world collapsed would depend on other players' whims. Most likely it would become a "farm."

"By the way," Xiang Nan changed the subject, turning to Beishi, "I killed that woman. But she was strange…" He described the white-haired woman's combat behavior and bizarre death, hoping Beishi might have an idea.

"You actually killed her?" Beishi was stunned; he'd assumed Xiang Nan had merely clashed with her and withdrawn. Considering the icy power she'd displayed, how had Xiang Nan managed it?

"Not human?" Beishi muttered, racking his memory but coming up empty.

"Sounds like a yuki-onna—snow woman," the Basilisk man suddenly said.

Xiang Nan and Beishi hadn't bothered hiding their conversation. After deeming the newcomers harmless, Xiang Nan hadn't paid them much mind.

"A yuki-onna?" Xiang Nan raised an eyebrow.

"Yes—a female spirit from Japanese folklore," the man explained. "Beautiful, seduces men, freezes them into ice statues, then devours their souls. Plenty of anime feature them—for example, the well-known Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan."

"I can't be sure she really was a yuki-onna," he added, "but that's what your description suggests."

"Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan?" Xiang Nan narrowed his eyes, repeating the title softly. "How much do you know about it?" he asked.

"Just a little."

"I mean the world's power system and setting. If you understand that, describe it—we can confirm her identity that way."

"You're talking about…Fear?"

"Fear?"