The whole trip had started because of a hiccup in Dr. Kuseno's lab.
The bio-android project—the one Jordan had seeded with cross-dimensional technology months ago—had cleared most of its early hurdles. The doctor was brilliant, methodical, and frankly terrifying in the depth of his polymath range. But the first cultivation attempt had failed. Not from any flaw in Dr. Kuseno's approach; the framework was sound. The problem was simpler and harder to solve: not enough gene samples.
The bio-android's genetic architecture drew from a staggering cross-section of sources—Z Fighters, Namekians, Earthlings with extraordinary latent potential—and one final ingredient that made the whole cocktail genuinely unique in this universe. Frieza's genetic code. The blood of the galactic emperor himself, carrying four natural transformation stages, an armored physique that laughed at temperatures that would flash-vaporize steel, and a power ceiling that had defined the upper limit of an entire era of the cosmos.
It was, objectively, irreplaceable. Dr. Kuseno had apologized with the gravity of a man who understood exactly what he was asking.
Jordan had told him to stop apologizing. Research didn't follow a schedule; decades of dead ends were just part of the process. And besides—
For someone else, "go collect a blood sample from the Galactic Emperor" might have sounded impossible.
Jordan had visited Frieza before.
Somewhere in deep space, aboard Frieza's flagship—
A certain Frost emperor: Achoo!
He stared at the sneeze on his white-gloved hand with imperial distaste.
The timeframe Jordan chose for re-entry into the Dragon Ball world was modest—just a few months after Vegeta's failed invasion of Earth. Frieza's armada was still in transit, weeks away from the planet that didn't know what was coming for it.
That worked perfectly.
Jordan had no interest in waiting. Thanks to the Instant Transmission technique he'd picked up on Yardrat—there's nowhere in the universe I can't go, as long as someone's ki is strong enough to serve as a beacon—the flagship might as well have been parked next door.
For the sake of the mission—and, more specifically, for the sake of Genos—Jordan locked onto Frieza's enormous, inescapable ki signature and stepped through space.
He reappeared in the throne room with a pleasant smile.
"Your Majesty!! The blond Saiyan is here again!!"
Dodoria's shriek rattled the hull plating.
In the aftermath, Frieza's newly purchased hover throne lay in three pieces. The emperor of the universe had contributed two additional bowls of blood to the ongoing tally of their encounters.
Frieza pressed a hand to his mouth, pale eyes blazing with a fury that had nowhere productive to go.
"...Pfft." A thin line of crimson on his lower lip. "You despicable, scheming Vegeta. And that golden-haired Saiyan. I will never. Forgive. This."
Jordan was already gone.
Back on Earth—the Dragon Ball Earth, still blissfully unaware of the storm approaching from space—he caught up with old friends on both the surface and Namek before punching back through to the OPM world. The whole round trip had taken no OPM-world time whatsoever.
He handed the gene sample to Dr. Kuseno personally.
The doctor received it with the careful reverence of a man who understood exactly what he was holding. Then he delivered his own piece of news, and Jordan stopped thinking about Frieza entirely.
The Universal Capsule prototype was finished.
The space-folding technology from Capsule Corporation had required Dr. Kuseno to stretch across multiple disciplines simultaneously—physics, materials science, spatial engineering—but the man had a gift for treating the supposedly impossible as merely difficult. The first production batch was complete. Once the mechanized assembly line was operational, large-scale manufacturing could begin.
And more immediately: Genos's new mobile suit had already been fitted with the early units.
The previous modification had been a proof-of-concept—a meaningful upgrade, but restrained. This one was not restrained.
Jordan watched Genos run a post-upgrade diagnostic in the courtyard of the institute, and reconsidered his definition of the word "firepower."
The young cyborg had always been powerful. Now he was something else. The spatial folding technology had solved the engineering problem that had always haunted heavy-weapons platforms: you could either have devastating output or operational mobility, rarely both without crippling compromises. The Universal Capsule architecture collapsed that trade-off entirely.
Genos stood in the afternoon light, running quiet system checks, the faintest hum of restrained energy audible even at distance. A human-shaped artillery installation that could also throw a punch.
He's going to be absolutely insufferable to fight, Jordan thought, with something that was mostly pride.
"The integration hasn't affected your close-range output at all?" he asked.
Genos turned. "Negative. The Iron Fist system is unaffected. Incineration Cannon output has increased by a significant margin without additional burden on mobility systems."
"Good."
That day is coming, Jordan had told him once. He still meant it.
That had been a month ago.
Now Jordan sat with his legs crossed on the floor of his room in Z-City, the familiar weight of accumulated resources pressing pleasantly against his awareness. F-boy floated at the edge of his peripheral vision—pale purple, faintly translucent, CEO aesthetic immaculate—running quiet background tallies that Jordan had long since stopped micromanaging.
Two thousand, one hundred and forty-three Fate Draws accumulated.
The Limiter Fragment count had pushed past three hundred and twenty. F-boy's next evolution threshold was long since cleared.
Jordan turned both numbers over in his mind with the satisfaction of a man who had stopped being stingy and started thinking in bulk.
The old Jordan—the one who'd counted every single draw like a miser counting coins—felt like a previous lifetime. Back then, five accumulated draws had felt like a windfall. Now he could run a Divine Draw session at ten-times the spiritual expenditure and not feel it.
Start with hundreds. Don't overthink it.
There was one task on the agenda before the big pull session: finding a new world to absorb F-boy's next evolution. The fragment count was there. The evolution itself, however, had collateral damage potential that made doing it inside Z-City inadvisable. Last time, F-boy's breakthrough had registered on Saitama's passive energy sensors. This time, with 320 fragments fusing simultaneously—
Different venue. Uninhabited. Preferably somewhere with good structural tolerance.
The Dimensional Walk cooldown had expired. Options were open.
But before any of that: the card pool.
Jordan's current loadout was combat-heavy, systemically deep, and offensively overwhelming. What it lacked was variety. The ninjutsu tradition of the Naruto world offered exactly what was missing—jutsu, genjutsu, and sealing techniques that added tactical dimensions no amount of raw power could replicate. He'd already touched that world once. He knew the catalogue.
Divine Draw. Naruto world. Ability cards only. Let's see what the system decides I deserve.
Decision made.
There was, however, one preparatory step that Jordan considered non-negotiable.
He got up.
Saitama was in the living room, seated at the low coffee table with his afternoon tea and a small plate of pastries. He looked up when he heard footsteps, and his expression immediately shifted—the particular flat wariness of a man who had learned, through hard experience, that a certain someone approaching with that specific grin meant something was either about to be eaten or ruined.
His hand moved to the plate.
"Hey." Saitama's fingers closed around the rim, pulling it fractionally toward himself. "If you want tea and snacks, find Genos. Don't touch mine." His eyes narrowed. "The last piece is always the best one. I know you know that. Don't—OW—what are you doing—"
On the balcony, Genos had been in the middle of a meditative diagnostic cycle, processing the week's combat data. Something registered in his peripheral sensors. He opened his eyes.
He stood up.
...I don't understand.
In the living room: Jordan, with both hands firmly applied to Saitama's thinning hair, vigorously working the crown in small circles. Saitama, plate still clutched in one hand, listing slightly from the force of it, looking less like the strongest man on Earth and more like someone who had been ambushed by a very enthusiastic golden retriever.
"Jordan, would you like refreshments? I can—" Genos paused. "...Uh?"
Saitama, for all the invincible durability of his person, was starting to go slightly cross-eyed. The head-rubbing technique Jordan employed was operating at what could charitably be called full enthusiasm.
Jordan's hair, perpetually and aggressively blond since the Saiyan training arc, seemed to be generating its own ambient glow. The ki residue that came with a passive Super Saiyan state had certain properties that were difficult to categorize medically, but "transferable good fortune through vigorous physical contact" was one theory Jordan had never officially committed to and also never stopped testing.
Saitama surfaced from the dizzy spell with the expression of a man emerging from rough weather.
"Don't—" He shoved back, finally finding leverage, his usually flat voice climbing somewhere genuinely alarmed. "Don't rub so hard! I'm losing enough hair as it is! If you keep doing that there won't be anything left—"
"I know what I'm doing." Jordan straightened up, flexing his fingers with the satisfaction of a craftsman checking his work. He turned toward the balcony, where Genos was still frozen in a posture of profound confusion. "No need to bother with the refreshments, Genos. I've already handled it."
Saitama stared at him.
The thinning had reached a point—Jordan had noticed this over the past few weeks—where the texture was already approaching the final destination. Not quite there yet, but close enough that the sensation was distinctive. Close enough that the accumulated aura of a man who had punched his way through every physical ceiling the human body possessed was practically bleeding through the scalp.
Perfect friction coefficient, Jordan thought professionally. Excellent energy transfer.
He dropped his hands, completely satisfied.
Saitama, who had seen the light of day again, fixed him with a glare that would have been significantly more threatening if he weren't still slightly listing.
"I washed my hands first," Jordan offered.
Saitama sniffed. A pause. His eyes narrowed, recalibrating from fury to something more complicated.
...He actually smells like soap.
The fury came back, slightly different in character now—the particular irritation of someone who has realized their primary complaint has been pre-empted.
"That's not—that's not the point—"
"Luxury Wagyu sukiyaki. Downtown. That new place they just opened." Jordan was already heading toward the hallway. "Tonight. My treat."
"Don't think I'm going to let you buy me off with some fancy—" Saitama began, voice still carrying the heat of righteous indignation.
It trailed off.
His gaze shifted. Something behind his eyes went very quiet, then very attentive, in a way that had nothing to do with being bought off and everything to do with Wagyu sukiyaki specifically being an extremely good thing to eat.
When he spoke again, the fire was gone. His voice had become the calm, neutral tone of a man doing very careful internal calculations.
"...Huh?"