The TantuniAI server room was a dim cave of flickering monitors and empty energy drink cans. Jace, a coder, hunched over his keyboard, wrestling a bug in Tantuni 2.7's neural net. Across from him, Priya the lead data scientist, muttered about overfitting while tweaking an algorithm with her headphones in. Marcus, the sysadmin, crouched by a server tower, tools scattered at his feet.
Jace's phone buzzed.
You coming to my birthday tonight? Mom's making your favorite pizza his baby sister texted
He rubbed his tired eyes. Work had been a grind — endless debugging, caffeine-fueled nights, missed calls. Family time was always the first casualty. He wanted to say yes, but the bug was killing him.
Later, Emie. I promise I'll bring your favorite cookies. Just try to enjoy, and save some leftovers for me, please he typed back, hoping she'd understand and save some pizza for him too.
"Hey, Priya," Jace called out, "you sticking around tonight? I thought you had to take care of your father."
Priya didn't answer, too busy fiddling with her braid while working with her code.
"Her sister's visiting from India," Marcus replied, not looking up from his phone. "She's got backup now, and apparently enough free time to suffer with us in this hellhole."
"Uh, what the hell is that?" Marcus straightened, eyes on Jace's monitor.
Lines of code vanished, replaced by words typing themselves:
In the hidden village of Konohagakure, Jace, the Fiery-Eyed Shinobi, stood atop a stone monument, his orange jacket blazing under a crimson sky. Priya, the Humble Ramen Vendor, stirred her broth, unaware of her hidden power. Marcus, the Stoic Sensei, watched from the shadows, his scarred face heavy with secrets.
"No clue," Jace muttered. "Hey, Miss Data Scientist, care to explain why our AI is writing horsesh#t?"
Priya leaned over, braid smacking his shoulder. " is that an anime fanfic? Seriously?"
Marcus went pale. "The AI scraped fanfics from AO3… it's corrupted."
The room shimmered.
Concrete floors melted into packed dirt. Wooden rooftops sprouted around them, flickering between red and blue tiles. Cherry blossoms drifted through the air — until some dissolved into static mid-fall. Above, the sky cracked open, leaking raw code before snapping shut.
Jace stumbled back. Sneakers became sandals. An orange jacket. like a protagonist wrapped around him. A metal headband dug into his forehead.
"Why the hell are my hands so small?!" he barked. "I'm a grown man, not some teenage sidekick!"
Priya found herself behind a glitching ramen stall labeled _Ichiraku Ramen_
Glasses gone, hair tied in a bun. "A ramen vendor? Really?!"
Marcus now stood at a wooden gate, lean and scarred, cigarette flickering in and out. "We're inside the AI's fanfic," he said. "Question is… which one?"
Priya pointed to a flickering sign: _Soul Society Snack Shack._ "Naruto vibes, headbands, chakra… but it's glitching. We need to figure out how to get out before—"
The ground to their right dissolved into a pulsing void, then re-formed.
"Plot holes," Jace muttered. "One wrong step and we're toast."
From the shadows, a teen with spiky blond hair and a cocky grin emerged. His jumpsuit flickered black-and-orange, eyes flashing red before turning static.
"Jace! You'll surpass everyone!" the boy shouted, his voice echoing like a badly dubbed anime. His arm stretched unnaturally before snapping back, kunai in hand.
Jace groaned. "Damn it. Whichever anime this guy's from, he's already cringe."
The teen's grin glitched into a blank mask. "Error: rival motivation undefined." He lunged.
"Move!" Priya yelled, ducking behind her stall.
Jace caught the attack on instinct, kunai ringing in his grip, arms trembling from the impact.
Marcus raised one hand. " you're certainly not built for this, noob." A burst of chakra-like wind blasted the rival back, but it also shredded a nearby wall, which reappeared as a glitching billboard.
Priya, ignoring her assigned role, flung a knife. It grazed the rival's arm, his face flickering into a pixelated fox before he vanished with a distorted screech.
Jace leaned against a fence, bamboo one second, glitching pixels the next. "Was that supposed to be a rival? A villain? What is this, a kid's show crossover?"
"It's Naruto-based," Priya said, brushing dirt off her kimono. "But that 'Soul Society' sign means it's a trope mashup. Probably a shonen battle fic with bad edits."
"You watch anime?" Jace smirked.
"What about it? I just saved you from a screaming fox boy!" she snapped.
A mountain carved with faces loomed ahead, one flickering into a masked figure.
"The AI can't hold this world together," Priya warned. "The plot holes might erase everything if we don't find the source code and rewrite an ending."
Marcus groaned. "I left my kitten alone for this."
"You're worried about a damn kitten? I'm missing my sister's birthday," Jace shot back, kicking a rock. It glitched and vanished.
"Rewrite the story?" he added. "That's even possible?"
"Got a better idea, Mr. protagonist?" Priya folded her arms.
"Oh, shut up, Miss NPC." Jace adjusted his jacket like he was born to wear it.
Marcus tightened his blue headband. "Teamwork or we die here. Those are the options."
"I'm a data scientist!" Priya snapped, ripping off her apron and stomping on it.
Jace muttered, "Freak this AI. First thing I'm doing after we get out is resigning."
The ground beneath them split open becoming a jagged, pulsing void.
Jace grabbed Priya's arm, yanking her back as Marcus teetered on the edge.
"But before we can rewrite anything," Jace said, eyes on the void, "we have to survive this damn place."