An Uchiha in Marvel: Naruto Fanfic

Chapter 36: Chapter 36: Echoes in the Hall



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Dawn's gray light fractured through Berlin's shattered freeway canopy as the convoy wound down its slope toward the Tier‑3 district. Executive glass blocks lay cracked: shards glittered like splinters of dawn. Every streetlight flickered some alive, most blank a reflection of the public grid's faltering pulse. Tremors rolled beneath the ground in sync with the shard's hum at Aiden's chest. Stage Three had begun.

Aiden's knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. Beside him, Kiera scanned every building with calm surveillance, while Mandara sat in the back, body taut, eyes fixed on the shard-shaped node map laid out on the floor. Echo stood near the sliding doors silent sentinel, still moving through the crack in the world.

They reached a low-rise brick building at the end of a dedicated lane. A faded sign above the door: Gemeinschaftszentrum. Beneath it, a black sigil glowed faintly in graffiti: an inverted Sharingan iris.

Aiden hopped out. Rain began thin cold sheets, like the wash of light beneath an eclipse.

"Stay alert," he murmured, hand on his shard. They moved as a unit to the door.

Inside, the hall's rafters stood high. Pews and chairs were stacked. At the center, a man tall, hawkish, eyes spiraling red spoke to ten gathered hosts, cloned under shards opposite Aiden's party. They listened, faces thrown with despair.

Aiden stepped forward, his voice quiet but firm: "We're not here to fight. We're here to help."

The cult leader Berlin's host turned. His gaze locked on Aiden. A slow smile crawled across his face. "Help? Or control?"

Mandara stepped beside him, chakra flickering. "We've been where you are. You don't need to carry this alone."

The man's eyes flicked to Echo, who moved forward. "And you what are you? A disciple of the Directive?"

Echo's reply was calm. "I choose my own path. I'm here because I heard your call and so did he." He nodded to Aiden.

The man's shoulders relaxed slightly. "Then show me."

Aiden held out the shard talisman. The man's eyes widened. "That's Berlin's mark."

He murmured something beneath his breath an old auto-seal phrase. Eyes widening, his arm shot out to grab Aiden's wrist. For a moment, it seemed like betrayal. But then he closed his eyes, looked down at the shard.

Tears ran through the rituals in his mind. "I thought I wanted to ascend to become part of this god. But I feel more…lost. Without memory."

Mandara knelt, voice gentle: "Let me guide you back."

A hush formed. One by one, the followers knelt. Chairs clattered. Light above flickered, dampened by the seismic grid tremor.

Aiden nodded. Then the rafters rattled. The inverted sigil on their wallpaper scanned.

A low rumble rolled in.

In the back room roped off with medical plastic, Drey bent over his console. Dozens of shard-bearing clones lay unconscious in pods, instruments tapping status readings.

His own shard pulse spiked fast, then flickered. The stabilization lines he'd coded looped and snapped. He tapped frantically red error flashes bloomed in the code.

"Come on, come on…" he muttered, adjusting ion chambers and neural vector controls.

The shard throbbed. Pods twitched. The Berlin host's pod the largest began to steam. Drey froze, breath caught in his throat. Scanners showed cortex thread reading exceeding stabilization margins.

He yanked another shard casing nearby and pressed its contact sensors against the Berlin log. Tremors rolled beneath his feet.

Sync ERROR. Phase Misalignment.

He held his breath. Then the shard he'd implemented glowed white briefly stable. Then it dimmed. Backup code failed.

He looked at the pod's rising pressure gauge. Indicators in the PCA box flashed red.

He slapped his comm. "Aiden backup stabilization failed. The host is destabilizing again."

Echo stood near the rafters with a small comm-deck. His scanners pinged the rooftop.

"Cell tower breach," he said into the mic. "Inverted sigil broadcast coming from across the street rooftop. They're ramping it higher."

Aiden stiffened: "Deploy wave scramblers immediately."

Echo nodded. He dropped into the hall's back entrance, leaving Mandara to shepherd the kneeling hosts. Rain pattered through a busted window.

Outside, two broadcast vans bore the inverted sigil in neon stencils. A feed started in one, pumping live to local relays. Echo patched a jammer in an instant stealth bolts hurled invisibly through the night toward the rooftop.

Within seconds, the feed stuttered… then stopped. Lights in the vans snapped off.

Echo emerged from the alley, rain dripping from him a junkyard angel. One of the sleeper cell operatives lifted a yellow-sleeved arm, twitching.

Echo grabbed him by the shoulder. "You pressed play on their mind because you thought you had to."

The operative sagged. "We did because they promised purpose."

Echo closed his eyes. "Let them feel that purpose. Not terror."

He pressed a firmware implant in the man's temple. The sigil on his wrist pulsed and vanished.

Echo backed away and crushed the handheld into the van's relay. Sparks flared.

Back in the hall, Aiden stood before the kneeling host and Mandara.

Outside, glass banged in the windows. Another tremor. The inverted sigil painted in water dripped across the walls.

Mandara's hand shook. "He's holding it together, but the collapse wave is rising."

Aiden closed his eyes. He touched the shard.

"Everyone in the circle draw chakra." His voice was low. "Share it with each other. Let memory flow through all of you."

A silent pulse cascaded. For a heartbeat, the hall glowed in red-white drift. The hosts closed eyes. Their masks slid off. Memories drifted through their folds of buried lives, lost friends, children they once were.

It was healing softer, like snow.

Then a roar ripped through the building. The roof splintered. A black sigil scrawled across the sky. A deeper tremor bucked the floor.

The Berlin host's face convulsed.

He cried out, staggering forward.

Aiden caught him. "Mandara he's collapsing!"

Outside, static flicked through the screens again. Echo burst in.

"They broadcast again. This time it's citywide."

Kiera shouted: "We need to move the ceremony. The tremors are destabilizing everyone."

Aiden nodded, but when he looked through the broken roof, the rooftop clip snapped again Stage Three cascade now escalating and the Berlin host opened his eyes… fully awakened.

Cliffhanger: As the host upright himself, bloodred patterns blossomed across his skin. He stared at Aiden and whispered:

"I ascended… and I remember you."

On every screen, just for a sliver of breath, Aiden's eyes flashed spiraling red with unrestrained power.

And from the rooftop, a burst of distortion wave flashed outward bending the world's edges into fractals.

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