GA: Chapter 144: A Bewildered Tony Stark — Changing the Future Requires Strength as Its Foundation
The Hulk only had one arm out of commission — the other was still functional. He should still be able to handle one more snap.
Which would mean Tony lives.
And even if the Hulk couldn't take it, there was still Thor and Captain Marvel. Surely one of them could manage.
Electromaster: "Is it because there's no Infinity Gauntlet left?"
Child of Nature: "That seems unlikely."
Normally, inventing something from scratch is difficult — but recreating something with existing documentation is a different matter entirely.
Tony Stark had already built the nanotech Infinity Gauntlet, which meant he'd certainly left behind the relevant schematics. Constructing another one from that information wouldn't be particularly difficult.
Wakanda's technological capability should be more than enough to replicate a nanotech Infinity Gauntlet.
And if all else failed, you could go back in time to before Tony had made up his mind to face Thanos and have him build another one.
So in all probability, it came down to narrative decisions.
Lighthouse Richest: "...This godforsaken plot."
All they thought about was retiring the actor. Nobody thought about giving the character a better ending.
Uchiha Dance King: "Which is why strength is what matters most, in the end."
Uchiha Dance King: "Over these past days, I've already begun seeking out Jinchūriki to extract the Tailed Beasts."
Uchiha Dance King: "Once I reach the Six Paths level, it will be time to go to the moon and retrieve that Rinnegan."
Uchiha Dance King: "Across the myriad worlds, Six Paths level is still far too weak."
Whether it was the angel civilization of the Honkai world, Tony Stark's Marvel world, or Misaka Mikoto's A Certain Magical Index world — his current strength was laughably small against any of them.
The path forward was right in front of him. This cramped and limited ninja world was no longer something he needed to keep in his sights.
Uchiha Dance King: "There's also Kaguya Ōtsutsuki. She should be recoverable as well."
Uchiha Dance King: "A living being that has lost consciousness is still a recoverable item."
Turn Da Gu Into Soup: "A living being... right, living things can be recovered too. I'd forgotten."
Turn Da Gu Into Soup: "Though I'll pass. Knocking something unconscious without killing it seems considerably harder."
Tendou Souji: "That is true."
Tendou Souji found himself in complete agreement with what Daigo had said.
Whatever the class of alien creature — if it was stronger than him, it could easily withstand his attacks. If it was weaker or on par with him, a single Rider Kick would reduce it to fragments.
Neither made for an easy recovery.
Which meant every strike required careful calibration — holding back just enough to avoid destroying the body entirely.
Ordinary Group Leader: "So that's what it's like being at the top. I have absolutely no idea what that feels like."
Shattering things without trying — that was entirely beyond her current ability.
Worst Spirit: "Isn't a daily life world good though? No danger anywhere."
Worst Spirit: "No need to worry about dying either."
Lighthouse Richest: "I'd actually love for my world to just be an ordinary everyday world. Unfortunately..."
Lighthouse Richest: "Thank heaven I joined the chat group. Because that future — I didn't want a single part of it."
Back then he'd had no other option. If he hadn't acted, Thanos would have reset the universe. So he'd had no choice but to give his life to save it.
The consequence of doing that was betraying his wife and daughter.
Maybe they'd think of him as a hero. But before being a hero, he also wanted to have been a proper husband and father.
Be My Son: "Everyone's futures have probably already changed, haven't they."
Be My Son: "With Teach dead, the Paramount War won't happen. The Whitebeard Pirates won't end up the way the memory copies showed."
Lighthouse Richest: "Changing the future requires a foundation of real strength first."
Lighthouse Richest: "You were already a top-tier powerhouse in the pirate world — once you knew what was coming, changing things wasn't exactly a challenge."
Lighthouse Richest: "We're different though. The gap in strength is too big. Right now, all any of us can say is that we're on the road toward change."
Electromaster: "Exactly."
Electromaster: "And then there's that Magic God — now that I know what they're capable of, I feel like I must have died a few times without realizing it."
Misaka Mikoto had particular grievances about this point. As a human, the strength ceiling was already that high — questionable whether she could even destroy the planet. Then they ascend to godhood and suddenly they're operating at a cosmic scale.
Those weren't even in the same dimension.
Couldn't there have been a few intermediate stages?
Uchiha Dance King: "Powerful strength is the prerequisite for changing one's fate. Black Zetsu is gone, and Hashirama has long since passed."
Uchiha Dance King: "There is no longer anyone in the current ninja world worth my attention."
Uchiha Dance King: "After recovering Kaguya Ōtsutsuki, I will leave this place and set out on a campaign through the universe."
Like the Ōtsutsuki clan before him — wandering from planet to planet. Perhaps he would plant God Trees, harvest them, convert the yield into points and use them to grow stronger.
He also wanted to know whether this universe held other races beyond the Ōtsutsuki, and whether they possessed energy systems analogous to chakra.
Exchange. Combat. Starting from this universe and becoming its strongest.
Before that, though, the ninja world itself needed to change.
Because his original wish had been for the ninja world to find peace — to no longer be consumed by endless cycles of war.
He simply hadn't chosen the most conventional means of pursuing that. He had wanted everyone to live within a beautiful illusory world of his making.
Permanent peace was an impossibility. Wherever people existed, conflict would follow.
It was only ever a matter of when.
He had been turning over the question of how he might change this world, and as yet had found no answer.
Ordinary Group Leader: "Black Zetsu is already gone?"
Ordinary Group Leader: "You even sold Kaguya Ōtsutsuki?"
Ordinary Group Leader: "How did you manage that?"
Black Zetsu's combat ability was nothing remarkable, but its capacity to hide and escape was formidable. And even with Uchiha Madara's strength, sealing Black Zetsu was no simple matter.
Uchiha Dance King: "I simply asked whose will he represented. He said, without hesitation, that he was the manifestation of my will."
Uchiha Dance King: "The chat group automatically determined he belonged to me — and so I could freely choose to recover him."
Even Uchiha Madara had been surprised by that. He'd only intended to intimidate Black Zetsu, and Black Zetsu's answer had been entirely predictable — but what he hadn't anticipated was the chat group immediately classifying Black Zetsu as something that belonged to him.
So he'd recovered him without a second thought.
He'd already been thinking about how to get rid of him. This was simply a more convenient method.
...
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