The Hulk only lost the use of one arm; the other still worked. All in all, he should have been able to endure another snap, right?
If so, wouldn't Tony be alive?
Even if the Hulk couldn't bear it, there was still Thor and Captain Marvel. One of them should have been able to, right?
Electromaster: "Could it be they didn't have an Infinity Gauntlet?"
Nature's Child: "That possibility is low."
Normally, inventing something from scratch is hard; manufacturing it when you already have the data isn't. Since Tony Stark had already created a nano-tech Infinity Gauntlet, he would certainly have left the relevant fabrication methods behind. Relying on that information to make another one wouldn't be difficult.
Given Wakanda's technological capabilities, reproducing a nano-tech Infinity Gauntlet shouldn't have been impossible either.
And if all else failed, you could travel back to before Tony had resolved to confront Thanos and have him build one then, couldn't you?
So the most likely reason was still the demands of the plot.
Tony Stark: "…Damn plot."
You're all set on letting the actor who plays me retire—how about letting me have a good outcome while you're at it?
Uchiha Dance King: "So, strength is what matters most."
Uchiha Dance King: "These past few days I've already started seeking out Jinchūriki to extract their Tailed Beasts."
Uchiha Dance King: "Once I reach the Six Paths level, I should head to the moon and reclaim that Tenseigan, too."
Uchiha Dance King: "Across the myriad worlds, even the Six Paths level is still too weak."
Whether it was the Angelic Civilization in the Super Seminary world, Tony Stark's Marvel world, or Misaka Mikoto's A Certain Magical Index world, his power was far too small by comparison.
The road forward lay right in front of him. This narrow Shinobi World had long since ceased to be a place he set his sights on.
Uchiha Dance King: "And Ōtsutsuki Kaguya—she should be eligible for reclamation as well."
Uchiha Dance King: "A living being, once it loses consciousness, can likewise be reclaimed as an 'item.'"
Boil Dagu into Soup: "A living being… Right, so living beings can be reclaimed; I'd actually forgotten."
Boil Dagu into Soup: "But better not. Knocking someone out seems harder than killing them."
Tendō Sōji: "On that point—indeed."
At what Dagu said, Tendō Sōji could only sigh.
With Worms of any level, either their strength exceeded his current self, allowing them to easily withstand his attacks; or they were far too weak—or equal—but under a Rider Kick they would be pulverized into dust.
That made reclamation extremely difficult.
So every time he struck, he had to control his force, doing his best not to damage the integrity of the body.
Ordinary Group Owner: "So this is what it feels like to be a big shot? I don't feel anything like that at all."
Pulverizing things—she couldn't do anything of the kind.
Umaru the Homebody: "In a slice-of-life world, there's absolutely no way to earn points."
Umaru the Homebody: "Sobbing.jpg"
Electromaster: "Isn't a slice-of-life world nice? There's no danger."
Electromaster: "And you don't have to worry about dying."
Richest Man: "I, for one, would love it if my world were just a normal slice-of-life world. Unfortunately…"
Richest Man: "Luckily I joined the chat group. Otherwise—looking at that future—I truly wouldn't want it."
Back then, he'd had no choice. If he did nothing, Thanos would reset the universe; he had no option but to give his life to save it.
The consequence of doing so was that he failed his wife and daughter.
Perhaps in their hearts he would be a hero, but before being a hero, he had hoped to be a proper husband and father.
Come Be My Son: "In our respective worlds, everyone should have already changed their futures, right?"
Come Be My Son: "Teach is dead, the Summit War will never happen, and the Whitebeard Pirates won't end up like in that memory playback."
Richest Man: "To change the future, the prerequisite is powerful strength."
Richest Man: "You, yourself, are one of the top combatants in the Pirate World. Once you learned the future, changing it wasn't difficult."
Richest Man: "But it's not the same for us. The gap in power is too big. Right now, all we can say is that we're on the road to change."
Electromaster: "Exactly, exactly."
Electromaster: "And those Magic Gods—after learning about their power, I keep feeling like I died countless times in the past."
Misaka Mikoto had especially much to say about this. When they were still human, they were only that strong; it wasn't even certain they could destroy the Earth. But once they advanced to gods, they leapt straight to the cosmic tier.
The two weren't even on the same dimension!
Could we not at least have a few tiers in between?
Uchiha Dance King: "Powerful strength is essential if you want to change fate. Black Zetsu is dead, and Hashirama has long since passed."
Uchiha Dance King: "In today's Shinobi World, there's no longer a strong man worthy of my eyes."
Uchiha Dance King: "After reclaiming Ōtsutsuki Kaguya, I, too, will leave this place and embark on a campaign across the cosmos."
Like the Ōtsutsuki clan, he would roam among the stars. Perhaps he would choose to plant God Trees' fruits, reclaim them, and convert them into points to raise his strength.
He also wanted to know whether this universe, beyond the Ōtsutsuki, still had other races—and whether they possessed energy systems similar to chakra.
交流—exchange. 战斗—battle. From this universe onward, he would become the strongest.
Before that, this Shinobi World, too, needed to change.
Remember, his first wish had been for peace in the Shinobi World—to free it from the scourge of war.
It was only that the method he chose at the outset had been… unusual: to let everyone live in a beautiful world of his own imagining.
Permanent peace is impossible. Where there are people, there will be war.
It is merely a question of sooner or later.
He had always pondered how he might change this world—but to this day, he still had no answer.
Ordinary Group Owner: "Black Zetsu is gone already?"
Ordinary Group Owner: "Ōtsutsuki Shinka was actually sold off?"
Ordinary Group Owner: "How did you even do that?"
Black Zetsu's combat strength was poor, but his skill in hiding and fleeing was superb; and though Uchiha Madara was powerful, sealing Black Zetsu wouldn't have been easy… would it?
Uchiha Dance King: "I simply asked whose will he was. Without hesitation, he said he was my will."
Uchiha Dance King: "The chat group automatically determined he belonged to me, so I could freely choose to reclaim him."
Even Uchiha Madara had been astonished by this. He had only wanted to intimidate Black Zetsu; that Black Zetsu would give such an answer was, of course, to be expected—but he hadn't anticipated the chat group would immediately judge Black Zetsu to be his property.
And then he had reclaimed him without the slightest hesitation.
He'd been thinking about how to kill him anyway—this just made it convenient.
(End of this chapter)