CAUGHT BETWEEN WORLDS
Sixth Symptom: The Great Train-Wreck of Reality
A Magic Knight Rayearth story by Rob Barba
Magic Knight Rayearth copyright vice copy left.
“She can’t be Umi,” Allison said, trying to flag Rick’s attention. “Umi died months ago, remember? You were at the funeral, with ‘Kari?”
Rick paid no attention to the other girl, even though he could hear her. He could only stare at the girl in shock, the shock that was still plastered to his face even after returning back to his place. They’d brought the unconscious girl there against Allison’s better judgement. If they were wrong, she argued, both of them were guilty of hit-and-run and kidnapping. He countered that if he was right, those two legal issues would be the least of their problems. But now, he had nothing to say, except to stare at a girl who might be his girlfriend’s best friend…a girl who died tragically and violently, many months ago.
“Look, I really need some aspirin,” Allison announced. “I’ll be right back. Want anything?”
“Coke,” he whispered to her, not really paying attention to what she’d said. It barely filtered into his mind, and he’d given an automatic response; quite natural, as his brain was on cruise control. She could have said anything, even that she was going on a ten-state killing spree, and the most conscious thing he would have done was to absently wish her the best of luck. His mind was nowhere near ready to approach the fact Allison was present, much anything else.
His mind was more than blank, though supposedly focusing on the girl that might be the recently deceased Umi Ryuzaki, RIP. His mind was a jumble of memories and thoughts, little things he’d remembered about her, times he remembered Umi and ‘Kari playfully ganging up on him and Lance, or her telling Kyle Sheridan that she really wasn’t interested in dating anyone, thanks. Or the time when she…when she….
The keyring flashlight in his brain decided to turn on at that point and automatically his hands moved. There was only one way for sure he would know if it was Umi, and he would probably be amongst a select few people who would know about it…assuming she ever told anyone else. His hands reached for her, beginning to tug at her pants.
-=(*)=-
She wasn’t sure how, but Hikari found herself in Umi’s room. Even months after her death, the Ryuzakis hadn’t touched the room and with the exception of a slight layer of dust that indicated the room was rarely entered, it looked no different than the afternoon that its occupant had left for a fencing tournament that day, one that she would never return from. That was evidenced by Umi’s spare fencing equipment, sitting in the corner of the room.
Hikari felt her friend’s presence her, as though she were still alive, as though Umi might burst into the room at any second with a bundle of energy, chattering on about this thing or that. It was had to believe that even now, months after she was gone, that she was really gone. She never admitted it to anyone, not even Hikaru, but it felt to her as though Umi wasn’t dead, but as though she was somewhere else, just waiting to come back as though she was offstage of a sort, waiting to make her grand reentrance. Like in a play.
Or like in Hikaru’s dementia.
That was the thing that bothered her. From what Hikaru had told her younger twin about that otherplace, it felt very much as though Umi was alive. Hikari knew the whys, whats and hows of that had come about, but there was a complete realism to the whole thing that Hikaru described, so detailed and vibrant that it really did feel that Umi had existed in another reality like that, and to a degree, Hikari wished she could have been there (although being assigned the vamp elf role of Nova wasn’t something she would have preferred). Hikari smiled to herself; with talents like that, maybe Hikaru should forget about being a veterinarian and follow in their father’s footsteps. With an imagination like that, she’d make one hell of a fantasy author in her own right.
Walking over by the dresser, the redhead spotted an old picture of them, taken at a Halloween party only a couple of weeks before the accident. All three of them had been there, the three of them together as always, as forever would be in the picture. She could still remember that party, with Umi complaining that her Sailor Mars costume was too skimpy, and that maybe she should have picked something else. Hikari, having decided to dress as Lara Croft, only laughed and teased her friend about how many times she was going to panty flash while moving, a comment that brought Umi no small amount of discomfort. Hikaru, in the meanwhile, dressed as Lina Inverse, was still slightly down; she’d meant to go to the party with Dave (he’d planned to go dressed as Gourry) and had shown up still dressed as Goury…with Danielle on his arm, bawdily decked out as Naga. Over the course of that night, though, Hikaru’s mood had improved, and at the time the picture was taken all three of them were on Cloud Nine, happy as the proverbial clams.
That had been the last time the three of them had done anything that major fun since. And now they would never be together, ever again, not even at Umi’s gravesite, thanks to some lowlife who’d defiled her grave. Hikari was part furious, depressed and sick; God knew how Hikaru felt, much less Umi’s family.
Setting the picture down, she left the room as quickly as possible. She didn’t want to cry, couldn’t afford to, not now, not while the police and her mother were still downstairs talking with Seattle PD about the events of today. Maybe tonight, she’d cry on one of her siblings’ shoulders, find comfort in Hikaru’s or Lance’s embrace. Or maybe she would call Rick, go over his place for a while and talk to the other person she loved much. Sure, her boyfriend could be immature and unreasonable at times, but there were few others who were as gentle and understanding of her as him, and few that could be there like that. Setting the picture down, she left the room just as her eyes got misty and began to well, threatening to rain grief onto her cheeks.
She was so tied into her feelings at the moment, Hikari never saw Nova in the other part of the room, watching as she left, seeing the elf-creature with an equally sad look on her face. As the door closed, Nova went over to the dresser and picked up the picture, gently wiping off the frame cleaning it of the dust that had settled on it over the months. There was a melancholy look on her face as she gazed at the three teens in the picture, her own eyes, so similar to that of the Shidou sisters, began to mist.
Nova knew the costs, and knew what was going to happen. She’d known all of this the moment everything had changed for her, that defining moment that felt like aeons ago. And all of that led to the here and now, and when this was all done, if they were very very lucky, the person responsible for all this would be dead and Nova would be free, but at a terrible price: the truth of it was also that the lives of innocents, of people peripheral to the coming conflict could be drawn in and crushed under the cogs of the great engine of fate. If what would happen if they should lose…. Madness would reign, and it would only be a matter of moments before all was plunged into hell and chaos. Madness and dementia were already part of the mix, the rest, should failure come about would be to upend the box of ingredients into the batch and press FRAPPE.
Nova set the picture down for a second, looking at it. On impulse, she picked it up again, stowing it in a pouch underneath her armor’s cloak. If all went well, this would be a war trophy of her struggle. If not, it would serve as the monument and last record that the trio in the picture had ever lived in a time before psychosis had gripped all of reality and twisted it far too much out of reason.
Nothing more to do in the room of Umi Ryuzaki, she disappeared again, using her flagging magic to continue on her plan.
-=(*)=-
The doll girl looked around with her new glasses, happy to have been able to get them. One of the things that she did with those new spectacles was to look at herself in the reflection of a nearby window, as if seeing herself for the first time. And what she saw, while it didn’t surprise her, did seem somehow different from how she remembered herself. It was the details that had changed, while the core of her had stayed the same: a young Japanese girl, wearing glasses, and old enough to be in school. Yet her hair had changed color, from the golden blonde she remembered to a slightly darker tea-hair, as though she were one of the Shibuya kogyaru that had dyed her hair from its natural black. On further retrospection, it suited her better, as though it brought out the color of her eyes better. Those eyes in question, sparkling forest green eyes, were yet another example of the very unusual person she was. She’d heard before how much like a gaijin she could pass; this was clearly the case.
“Ohmigawd!” a burbly and, for some strange reason, familiar voice spoke behind her. The doll girl turned around and ran into someone her age that, at first glance, reminded her of the slightly-too-young looking optometrist from this morning. However, she blinked and standing in front of her was a dark-skinned, much taller and older woman. Approaching her, the woman said, “Like, you! You are…just…the bomb! But we have…got…to get you out of those duds, girl! Shoot time is in thirty minutes, and like if I don’t find a replay, the boss is like going to soooooooo have my head. I can, like, see it now,” she said, moving her hands in a frame display as though she were some sort of movie camera on rocket fuel. “’Daphne’,” she said in a huskier voice that was meant to imitate the person she referenced earlier, “’if you don’t find a replacement model, you are like, so FIRED!’ Let me tell you, that would like, totally suck. But fortunately, you look like you’d fit in the clothing, and you’d be soooooooo awesome in them and—”
The doll girl, completely bewildered, muttered, “I…ah…well…I’m, um, not from here, and….” It was weird. Her English was pristine, far better than she’d ever thought it would be. Granted she studied it somewhere, in some time that she couldn’t remember, but it had never sounded this natural, never felt as though it were a normal speech and not some odd method that had to be used to communicate with people who didn’t speak your own lingua franca.
However, Daphne (was that her name?) grinned and chirped, “Hey, that is like so, totally even better! I can label the spread something about ‘Exotic Canadian Beauty’ or something like that. You are from across the border, right?” Well, nevermind if you are or not, that’s what I’ll tell the boss and he’ll just have to buy it!”
“Excuse me,” the doll said, “but I’m afraid I do not have the time to—”
Daphne cut the doll off, though not unkindly; the look in her eyes was one akin to desperation. “Oooh, but you gotta! Look, my editor really needs the pics for my mag, an—”
“Mag?”
An energetic nod of the head, followed with a bubbly, “Well, yeah! I mean c’mon, you’re going to be in Teen Fashion Scene magazine! And it’s not like I’m not going to pay you or anything and you can even keep the clothes! Look, my previous model bowed out on me today because she got pregnant when we planned the shoot months ago and now she’s too big to fit in the clothing! Just by wild co-inky-dink, you look like a perfect fit, and I really need someone to do this or else my boss is going to really, really fire me!” Daphne’s eyes were pleading once again, the look on her face seeming as though she were in the absolute worst of dire straits. “I’m absolutely desperate, and it won’t take long!”
The doll paused for a second, wondering what she should do about the girl’s situation. On one hand, she had a mission to accomplish, even though she had no idea what it was, or even for that matter who she really was. She had nothing to go by, other than the fact that whatever it was had to be accomplished soon, and that it was of the utmost importance that she complete it. But how does one complete something when one doesn’t even know what the hell it is to be done? The truth, of course, was that it wasn’t likely to happen without divine intervention…or at least someone around to explain what the hell was going on.
On the other hand, there was a woman here in need of help, a help that the doll girl could provide. According to Daphne, she was in dire straits, it wasn’t going to take long, and the doll girl would be recompensed for her time; money, which the doll didn’t have, was something that she was going to need at some point to come. Additionally, she might be able to get some extra information out of the encounter. In any case, the advantages would likely outweigh any liabilities, and the doll wasn’t sure that she was so pressed for time that she couldn’t spare the time to help out someone else, if it would benefit her.
But the other reason was that someone needed her help, and it was part of her personal code to help when she could. More so than just kindness or concern for her fellow man, it felt like a formal code, like the rules of chivalry… Like the code of a knight? she wondered idly, trying to figure out how that popped into her brain, and how it felt so right. Regardless of reason, the very fact that it made sense made it clear that such was the action to go, and therefore the route that she could travel. Looking at the woman, the doll smiled and said, “Sure, I think I might be able to help you.”
Daphne grinned. “Great! We’ll get you made over in that trailer over there, you can keep whatever fits you and the job pays about $400. Now come with me, and let’s get you started.” Taking the doll by the arm and all but dragging her towards the trailer, both women headed towards the trailer and a few new things to be had.
Standing some slight distance away, Nova leaned against a tree, her face pale and wan. She looked both tired and sick, as though she was on her last legs. That…was much harder than I thought it was going to be, and that’s my specialty, she mused, her body screaming at her that it would like to take a nice vacation in unconsciousnessville right now. The day I can’t do possession anymore tells me that I’m at my limits and that my magic’s about to go.
Slumping against the tree and sitting down for a second or two, she ran a few numbers through her bleary head and determined that magicwise, she was scraping the bottom of the barrel. If the magic ran out, she’d be trapped forever like this, in this half-world half-life that she was experiencing. But it was necessary, something she had to do. It was remotely the only way that she was going to get that idiot to look more along the lines of a normal human, and that photographer wouldn’t have bothered touching her with a ten-foot pole if Nova hadn’t taken the time to step inside Daphne’s mind and do a couple of tweaks here and there….
That itself opened up a few ugly things as well. Magic expenditures aside, there were ethical concerns, and those gnawed at the soul of the elfling. Messing with people’s minds was clearly wrong, and she’d done it in the worst possible way – several times today. From Daphne to the girl who was supposed to show up for the photo session (with a little help from Nova, the girl “suddenly” decided that hanging out with her friends was more important than a paying job) to the optometrist (who was going to lose hundreds of dollars from that all-day Guinness event) to a few others here and there, she was playing a grand game of chess, ensuring that everything had to be in the right place at the right time. But to do so meant ethical violations en masse.
Can it, girl, she told herself. You weren’t too worried about those ethics back…. Nova shook her head; to go down that path was madness, and she’d already resolved most of those issues. Most.
Struggling to get to her feet, she decided she needed some food again, and soon. That power pill stuff from the theatre was already depleted, and while the good thing about the matter-energy theories of magic was that you never got fat (all those calories being used up in the energy fluxes), it also meant that during tough times it would be a fat and stamina burner like no workout ever experienced. Heh. If I could teach the world magic, I could make a fortune in the fitness biz, she mused. Buns of Steel would have nothing on me!
She was about to continue on when she stopped. Something was wrong, something she could feel. And she didn’t like the feel of it, not one damn bit. It felt like another traveler, and if that was the case, they were all in serious trouble, the kind that stunk up to the armpits. The worst part of it, though, was that she’d have to prioritize, and that meant the newest crisis would have to be shoved to the bottom of the pile; Nova only hoped she could get to it before it exploded in her face.
Setting off another spell, she moved to make her next rendezvous, yet another dot to be connected to create the whole picture that needed to come together, because either there would be clarity, or there would be no such thing as sanity, ever again.
-=(*)=-
“Hey, that was a pretty cool movie,” Emily chirped, skipping around merrily in the mall, Mutsumi tailing behind her. Behind them both were Hikaru and Eric, who’d barely remembered what the movie was about. They’d both made up, and were currently walking together, though not holding hands and not the last because they were filled with the redhead’s latest acquisition.
Feigning that the weight was too much to bear, Eric smiled and said, “’Karu, what are you going to do with all of these?”
She smiled sweetly and said in her most sincere voice, “Not a damn clue. I wish I had an answer, but I don’t. Maybe if she wants, I’ll teach ‘Kari a little bit of kendo, but I don’t really think she’d be too interested, what with her gymnastics and all. Maybe you want to learn?”
Eric shook his head. “Sorry, sweetie, but not me.
I don’t think that kendo would help my pitching arm all that much. Different muscle toning,
and I really don’t want to ruin my fastball, no offense.”
“None taken,” she said, punctuating it with a light kiss to the cheek. “But I really wonder what I’m going to do with these. Maybe I can give them to Grandpa and Obasan and they can give them to the cousins on my Dad’s side. I’m sure Uncle Duke or Aunt Emi would like a copy. Don’t know if I can send one to Europa, though – not sure if it can go in the mail. Oh well, I’m sure I’ll think of something.”
“Wow!” Emily suddenly burbled. “Hey, guys, look!” The little girl pointed towards the center stage in the mall, where some firedancers from a circus in town entertained the crowds. All of them were enraptured by the sight, and a few seconds later, the swords were placed on the ground as both young girls were hoisted on Hikaru’s and Eric’s shoulders as they all strained to see the rhythmic syncopation of the performers over the gathering crowd. The throng oohed and aahed, few ever having seen the talent that came with Polynesian firedancing. To say it was so entertaining as to be practically hypnotic was an understatement.
But to say that in regards to Hikaru, it was not an understatement, but a truism. As Hikaru watched the tanned and toned man spinning around with the burning staffs in hand, a part of her mind seemed to open up, and suddenly she wasn’t entirely on Earth, but back in Cephiro once more. The whole event happened too soon for her to shudder as her soul recalled another time when it had been her that had been dancing with flames, controlling them in her hands, playing with it as though it were clay to be shaped and formed to her will.
Part of her rational mind told her that she was sane enough, healthy enough again to see Cephiro as nothing more than what it really was, just the imaginations of a girl who created them to cope with her problems. Yet, at the same time, as if bringing to recall a distant memory, she could feel the warmth of the inferno in her hands, feel its power, warmth and strength, under her control and hers to command…
…just like Lantis’ kiss, the warmth of that which she cherished so
much…
Something about that jarred her back to the real world, and just in time, too as Mutsumi, seated on her shoulders, screamed in fear. Her attention brought back to the here and now, Hikaru’s eyes focused long enough to see one of the dancers, having stepped on a loose floorboard and trip, crashed into one of his fellow dancers. Unfortunately, the collision caused both performers to accidentally loose their firesticks. The four staffs, self-burning with their own fuel source, were straight on a collision course with both teens, the girls and a couple of other people. Due to the press of the crowd and the number of people present, there would be no time to move out of the way as the two staves cut a burning swath into anything – and anyone – in their paths.
Hikaru didn’t even have to think twice; before the objects had even cleared the stage, she’d already set Mutsumi down and reached for her own sword instinctively. The second the blossoms of fire presented a threat to the crowd, Hikaru had unsheathed the ages-old katana and was already on the move, vaulting towards the projectiles.
Her movements, though appearing as though out of another age or time long since gone from the earth had a graceful, gazelle-like effect as she brought the sword to bear, slicing through two of the staves in an instant. While people were wincing, afraid to be hit by the staves, the redhead turned and with a reverse motion sliced through the third and moved towards the fourth, already mere feet away from careening into an unfortunate old lady who had no chance to move and who was not being protected. To lash out with the sword would risk injuring the woman, and no one jumped to her aid.
One chance, moving as fast as she could, Hikaru threw herself in the path of the staff. It slammed into her, knocking the wind out of her, and as it did, it exploded into a blossom of fire and smoke as the staff broke and disgorged its previously insulated payload of kerosene onto the redhead. At once, Hikaru turned into a bonfire of smoke and flame, screaming more from the impact and the surprise as people finally realized what was going on and moved the old woman to safety. Hikaru crashed to the ground, and at once people were there, pulling off shirts and light jackets, trying to put the flames out on the young woman.
“HIKARU!” Eric, finally realizing what was going on, almost dropped Emily and nearly ran over Mutsumi as he raced to his girlfriend’s side, fearing the worst. His mind, needless to say, was a morass of confusion and surprise. A few seconds ago – literally a few seconds ago – Hikaru had been by his side watching the show. Somewhere in between here and now, she’d moved with a speed that was fast even for her, brought her swords skills out with the caliber usually found only in kung-fu flicks and stepped right into the path of a potentially fatal projectile as though it were the most common thing in the world. Needless to say, this was bizarre to say the least, and as he told the girls to stay put, he tore towards the gathering crowd, expecting to see the worst and figuring out how he was going to explain any of it. As he pushed people out of his way, crying out her name, he was shocked to see…
…Hikaru, sitting up, slightly dazed, but otherwise no worse than wear. She was sitting with her arms folded in front of her, covering her modesty with a slightly disgruntled look to her face. At her side was her completely ruined shirt, the majority of it smoldering tatters; right next to it was a bra that had clearly seen better days. Looking up at him, she looked and said, “Um, help?”
“Hikaru!” Eric made to rush towards her, but was stopped by the classic not-right-now-dear look that seemed to be so instinctive in the female half of a couple. Realizing why she stopped him, he asked. “Are you okay?”
“Do I look okay?!?!” she asked, just as surprised by his statement as his. “My favorite T-shirt is ruined, not to mention my bra! Now, go be a sweetheart, march into the nearest store and get me something, willya?” What was surprising was that Hikaru wasn’t acting as though she was in mind-numbing pain, or even the traumatic shock of being hit by a fiery missile, but more akin to if she’d tripped and embarrassed herself.
Maybe it just hasn’t set in yet, he thought. Scratching his head and looking at the equally confused people around them, he muttered, “Um, yeah, sure, ‘Karu.” Seeing the paramedics approaching, he said, “I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere. I’ll leave the girls with you, ‘kay?”
“Thanks,” she said in sour tones, more from the fact the then spied the EMTs jogging her way rather than any attempt to take it out on him. “Oh great, here they come.”
“I’ll hurry back,” he whispered, giving her a kiss on the cheek. He waved Emily and Mutsumi to come on forward, and as they moved, so did he, towards the nearest T-shirt store. But as he did so, watching as the EMTs moved in, he had the chance to walk behind her, fearing to see what condition her back was in. He was expecting the worst. But instead of scars, charred skin and blisters, he saw a perfectly healthy back, the same pale-golden skin that he’d last seen last time they were intimate. Considering the condition her topcloths were in, that should be feasible, much less reality. And yet here was the reality, Hikaru looking absolutely no worse for the wear except for utter embarrassment.
What the hell…? he thought. He took one last glance at the crowd still gathered around and he could see in their eyes they were just as confused as him. What had happened? they all asked silently, as the group of onlookers unintentionally provided a ring of protection for a girl that seemed not to need it in the conventional manner. Oddly enough, that brought a note of pride in him: Hikaru was always so afraid that what had happened to her last year had left her fragile, and now she’d proved otherwise.
But I gotta admit, he thought to himself, I didn’t think she was capable of doing what
she did. It was almost as though she was
used to it, something she did on a regular basis….
-=(*)=-
Allison walked back into Rick’s room, drinks in hand. It took her only a split second for her to drop them in shock and scream, “What. The. FUCK?!?!?!” Both the can and the glass of water fell to the ground, the twin liquids scattering in all directions like fluid blossoms reaching for the four winds.
Rick looked up, the view on his face one of a person caught in what was clearly, in retrospect, a bad idea. Halway between embarrassed and fearing for his life, he stammered, “Um, look, ah, A-a-Allison. I can, um, explain everything. Really. Just, ah, give me a sec and…oh shit, am I in for it.” The last he said to himself, but loud enough that the brunette clearly heard his words.
Her eyes narrowing between shock and rising anger, she looked at Rick, his face completely flushing…
…and the still unconscious Umi, splayed out on his bed, pants completely off and Rick just beginning to tug at her panties. It didn’t take long for Allison, hung over or not, to be able to put two and two together.
“YOU ANIMAL!” she screamed at the top of her lungs while tackling him. “WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?” Though she wasn’t as adept at fighting as Hikaru or Lance (meaning she didn’t know the first thing about martial arts), she was able to lay an ear-shattering slap across his face, the kind that drew blood easily. “HOW THE HELL COULD YOU EVEN THINK OF DOING THIS?!?!?!”
“ALLISON, FOR CHRISSAKE, WILL YOU LET ME EXPLAIN?” Rick shouted back, to no avail, as she tried to slap him again. Finally, he whispered “Sorry,” and grabbed both her hands, spun around and body slammed her with as little finesse as possible on the floor. The air knocked out of her, Allison grasped for oxygen and was, for at least a second, completely stunned.
Hoping he had her attention, he said, “Now can I explain? What you saw was wrong an—”
“Don’t you dare lie to me, Rick! I know what I saw!” she spurted between desperate gulps of air, now trying to ignore the pain in her back as well as the still-active hangover.
“No, you don’t, Allison! Do you really think that I’m that kind of person? I admit, I’m not a perfect guy, but I thought you knew me better than that!”
“Then what the hell is the reason for molesting that girl, whether she’s Umi or not?” Allison managed to sit up and thrust an arm in the direction of the girl, all the while not taking her enraged glare off the guy she barely trusted at the moment. “What the hell are you stripping her for?”
“Um, you’re not going to believe this,” he said, “but I’m looking for a tattoo right by her…well, you know.”
The other girl crossed her arms, taking only a second to adjust her glasses. “No, I don’t – I never knew her, remember? But you have two seconds to enlighten me before I call the police.”
Shit, why do I always have the weird crap happen to me? he wondered. “Look, it’s a secret that only I know about, because I got it for her. Sometime around her last birthday, she and I got talking, and somewhere during the conversation she confessed to me that she wanted to get a tattoo, but that her parents would get pissed – they were already amping that their daughter dyed her hair a bluish shade. So as a birthday gift, I took her to go get a tattoo in a spot that her parents wouldn’t be able to see easily.”
“You’re joking, right?” Allison said, more out of the disbelief that a person as meek as Umi was described getting a tattoo in a rather painful location like that. Then again, this was Rick talking, and where he was, with whoever he was with, frathouse antics and childish notions were the rule of the day.
“No,” he continued, unaware of her pause. “We had to wait until parents were out of town for the weekend, and even so I had to get her drunk as hell so she wouldn’t feel the pain or chicken out. Then I snuck her in to the same place where I got my tats. Even so, she limped for a week and ‘Kari was pissed at me ‘cause I got Umi drunk.” He paused a second. “Do you really think I’d invent something like this? That’s why I was looking for the tattoo, because I’m probably the only one that knows about it.”
“Oh.” Allison stewed on that for a few seconds. It was so bizarre, it had to make sense. “Then why didn’t you tell me about it?”
“I didn’t think of it at the time,” he admitted, looking a bit out of sorts about it. “Besides, what would you have said if I told you I had to strip her naked below the waist just so I could prove it was Umi?”
The girl rolled her eyes as she slapped her forehead, knocking her glasses to the ground – as stupid as it was, it made a hell of a lot of sense. “Okay, okay, that’s so mindless, I’ll buy it. Okay, what am I looking for?”
Rick’s face showed obvious belief for a second, glad to be spared the burden. “It’s a blue Japanese symbol. Her name in kanji. It’s not that big, maybe about the size of a quarter, max, an….” He quieted down as he heard the girl on the bed moan softly in Japanese. He didn’t know a damn thing about what she was saying, but he did catch a couple of things, one of which was “Hikaru”. The oriental girl muttered a few more things before falling silent again, still as a corpse.
Looking at Allison with pleading eyes, it was the only signal he could send. Fortunately for him, his counterpart understood instantly, and with no further pausing moved right next to the girl. Whispering for Rick to “turn around for a second,” she gently moved the girl’s underwear for a slight second, exposing a clear sea-blue tattoo on her right inner thigh.
“Ohmigod,” Allison whispered. “It is Umi.” Gently moving the underwear back into place, she began to shiver, realizing that whatever laws that reality had set up on the planet, they were now null and void. A girl who died six months ago was now lying on Rick’s bed, breathing if looking worse for wear and certainly, undeniably, alive. That went against every tenet of life, everything that everyone in the world believed in. Before she realized it, she found herself back from the…person?...leaning against Rick and with a look on her face that said she’d all in all rather be drunk and in deep trouble with her folks than to be sober and realize that the rug of reality had just been yanked out from under her. The underpinnings of everything that ever existed was now clearly in doubt at best, and in the middle of it were two scared teenagers, with a person that just hours ago had been the corpse of a mutual friend.
It didn’t help much when the living dead girl, with no warning, sat up, looked at the two in front of her, then looked at her state of undress, then back at the pair in front of her, and began to scream at the top of her lungs.
-=(*)=-
Lance, Clef and company arrived at the Shidou home just slightly ahead of Priss, Hikari and the Ryuzakis. The short greeting between the two Shidou ladies and Hizashi and Harry was short but sweet, and with a lawyerly manner, began to describe the situation as it was. Within seconds, Hizashi went into maternal action, going over to comfort the Ryuzakis. She’d known what it was like to lose loved ones, so if there was anyone who could do something to comfort them, it would be the kindly old Japanese expatriate. Meanwhile, Priss and Clef went to talk with Harry, leaving Hikari and Lance to figure out what was next.
“Hey, how you holding up?” There was clear concern in Lance’s eyes; though Hikari hadn’t been effected by Umi’s death as much as Hikaru had, this was something different, something that affected them all and to no good, either.
“I’m fine,” she said, clearly not. Sitting on the stairs, she looked at her older brother and sighed. “This sucks. I mean it. Umi doesn’t deserve this. None of us do. I mean…oh hell, Lance, you know what I mean.”
Lance tried to foist one of his trademark grins on his sister, but found he didn’t have the strength to. Instead, he leaned against the wall and said, “Hey, people are idiots sometimes. I wish that wasn’t the case, but unfortunately, things aren’t as perfect as they like them to be. Sometimes things happen just because they can. I wish I had a better answer for you than that, ‘Kari. I really wish I did. But until I do, that’s all I can say.”
Hikari nodded, then thought of something. “Hey, do you think it would be okay if I told Rick? I know we probably should be keeping this under wraps, but he knew Umi as well, and I think he might want to know.”
“Plus you probably want someone to cuddle with,” Lance continued for his sister. “Yeah, I think you should. Maybe I should call Allison as well – she didn’t know Umi, but she considers you two her closest friends, so….”
“It’s really times like this when you really remember who you love, don’t you?” Hikari didn’t say that directly to her brother, but the implications were obvious. Turning to face him, she added, “Bro, we already know that you’re thinking your breakup was a mistake. Don’t let that haunt you forever. Go make up with her.”
This time, Lance was able to smile. “You know, ‘Kari, you’re just a doll.”
The redhead gave him a smile in return. “Of course. You’re my big brother; someone has to watch you for you, right?” The two went over and embraced briefly, glad that the other one was there; it was just another sign of how the Shidous were so close to one another, a genuine family.
The phone rang briefly and Clef called out, “Hikari? Lance? Can one of you two get that?”
“Sure thing, Dad,” Hikari called back as she let go of her brother and walked over to the phone. “Hiya, Shidou residence. Hikari speaking.”
“’Kari?” It was Rick on the phone, and he sounded agitated. Really agitated.
“Rick? What’s up?” The urgency in her boyfriend’s voice really bothered her. Did he know, and thought she didn’t? Or was he worried about her, the big sweetie? Or was it something else – as much as she loved him, she knew quite well he was known for doing stupid things from time to time, like the time he got a citation for illegally skateboarding and loitering at the mall….
“Um, yeah, sure. We’re home,” Hikari replied, waving her brother over to the phone. “Why, what’s up?”
“Um, I gotta – that is, we, Allison and I – gotta
talk to you.”
That worried her even more, and a chill crept down her spine. Maybe it was just the sudden fear in his voice. Maybe it was the way he said “we”, meaning him and Allison. Maybe it was the fact that both of them had to talk to both him and Lance. And from what she heard, Rick and Allison were going to that party at Elaine’s the other night.
He couldn’t have…could he? With Allison? She wouldn’t have, they were friends, and she was in total love with Lance. But then again, Lance had just broken up with her. And she could be depressed, or willing to take her anger out on him, and that could ambiently extend to Hikari as well. But she didn’t think that they would…. With Rick, a person that loved Hikari and whom she loved….
In the background, she could hear some muffled sounds, along with Rick shouting in the background, “Keep it quiet! I don’t want them to find out until we tell them in person!” Turning his attention back to the phone, he said, “Look, Hikari, we’ll be over later. We have something important to tell you. Gotta go. Bye!” and with an all-too-familiar phone click, the line was disconnected.
Hikari looked at the phone as though it were a live snake. Rick had rarely called her “Hikari”; it was always “‘Kari” or “cutie.” Now, he was too busy to talk to her? And why was he telling Allison to keep quiet until they told her in person? Ohmigod….
Nervously, Hikari placed the cordless back on the cradle, then ran upstairs towards her bedroom, the first sounds of sobbing beginning to sound. The world had decided today was a nice day to crush Hikari Shidou and now it was doing it with a vengeance.
Priss managed to poke her head out of the kitchen for just a second when she called out, “Who was that for, Lance? And I thought I heard your sister crying.”
Lance looked at his mother, then back towards the room. “Oh, just a call for ‘Kari. She had to end the phone call early so that she wouldn’t break into tears on the phone over Umi. I’ll go check on her and see what’s wrong.” As his mother went back to her conversation, Lance frowned as he headed up the steps. A call from Rick had just sent his sister into a tizzy, and Hikari looked like her whole world just dropped out from under her. Lance thought about it for a second, and about the favor that he asked Rick to take care of it, and that fact, combined with the look on Hikari’s face made him wonder if he wasn’t right about that.
Heading upstairs, he began looking for ways to explain what was going on. If what he thought had just happened, then he’d lost his girlfriend and cost Hikari her boyfriend, all because of his own stupidity. That was something that Hikari wouldn’t forgive him for, and if he’d indirectly hurt her like that, he wouldn’t forgive himself, either. Plus, if Rick hurt his little sister, best friend or no, he was going to be having a talk with him. The hard way.
-=(*)=-
That had to be, the doll girl admitted as she walked away from the scene, the most fun she had in a while. It was different, and though she wasn’t sure, she got the distinct impression that she’d never had the experience of being treated as beautiful by anyone before. Well, maybe there was one person, but she couldn’t remember. The fact that she couldn’t remember disturbed her very, very much.
She thought about what Daphne had said about her: her skin was so clear, that it seemed almost as though she were molded from something; and that she had a cute, oriental quality about her that seemed to be at odds with her light brown hair and green eyes. Additionally, with her looks, she was capable of pulling off any style, from the faux-70s look Daphne had seen her in earlier (whatever that meant) to the more contemporary fashion she was sporting now.
She reached up to touch her hair. It felt weird, this new hairstyle. For the longest time, she was sure anyway, she had her hair in that style that she wore when this whole misadventure started. But Daphne insisted that the doll girl change her hairstyle, that she would look so much cooler with it. Even now, looking at it through the reflection of a store window, it looked very different, a golden-brown orb of hair that gave her an actually older look, more sophisticated and tough, and didn’t, in retrospect, look as feminine and soft as the previous one did. Combined with her new clothing (which she got to keep after her modeling session), she looked very, very different than she figured she did the day before. That girl had been…someone else, visually. Now, she kinda sorta looked like one of those characters in that movie about Matrices and something like that. Trinity – that was it. She looked like a blonde, oriental Trinity. Which was, she had to admit, kinda cool.
Plus, she had some money to continue her on her
mission. She still wasn’t used to being
here in
She wasn’t the only one. From a respectable distance, seated in a windows seat at the café across the street, Nova downed a quick croissant sandwich and a cup of coffee as she watched the girl continue on her journey to where the elfling had set the three idiots to meet. Watching the blonde walk as though she had a purpose almost made the doppelganger laugh aloud, yet admittedly there was a sort of envy that Nova had for the girl. She had a purpose, a full life that she was seeking; if Nova’s plans worked, the doll girl would get everything she wanted, and if Nova had a miracle on her side, she might – might – get some sort of semblance approaching a life. Something much better than she’d been putting up with for what like seemed forever.
Maybe it is forever, and I just don’t know it, she mused, absently taking a sip from the cup. Maybe this is all just a dream, and when I wake up, everything will be back to normal. But that’s the problem, isn’t it? Normal for you is the nightmare, and the dream is just that, someone else’s version of what normal is, not yours.
Nova wanted so much to blame Hikaru for all of this, to beat her head in. Yet at the same time, there was no denying how she felt about the girl and how much she wanted her. But there was also the fact that she wanted more than just what was there, Nova wanted more and even things that she was never meant to have. And that quandary led to the worst part of all: despite her love-hate relationship with the pigtailed redhead, Nova also felt pity for her, because she was so blind as to what was really happening. For the girl to think the elf was a figment of her imagination – or even an elf, for that matter – showed clearly how much she didn’t want to see, couldn’t see, or even didn’t know about how much danger they were all in, all because of the past.
A past that no one expected, a past that no one ever expected or would have believed. Yet one that happened, nonetheless. That was probably the worst part of it all. If there was anyone to blame, it was Nova, at least indirectly, and now it would be up to her to stop it all with the help of the person she loved and hated most in the entire world.
Yet she was now straining herself past the point of no return. She was using what powers she had at her disposal, those that she had at the very beginning, and those she’d picked up while in the Other World. Under ideal conditions, they’d be considerable and formidable, but now they were the barest flicker of what she could barely keep up to get things rolling. She had to get Hikaru to wake up, to come alive again and to…
Nova stopped from her reverie and looked out the window. The doll girl was out of sight, having taken a different course. That was not going to do either that blonde or Nova any good. Time was running out, and if they were going to get this party started in time, Nova was going to have to expend the rest of her magic in order to get everyone where they needed to be before it was too late. So far she got one person on that path, now all she had to do was to convince the doll girl and Hikaru to get with the program as well and everything would be grand.
Dropping a sizable tip for the waitress who cleaned the tables (a definite hottie, that girl), Nova left the café, taking to the skies and back on her mission impossible.
-=(*)=-
On the ride back from the mall, Hikaru was deathly silent. Eric, not wanting to disturb his girlfriend, let her sit and stew quietly, figuring that when the time was right, she would tell him what was up. Fortunately for both teens, the girls were exhausted by the day’s events and were asleep in the back of Eric’s car.
Eric sensed that despite the girls, home was the least place that Hikaru wanted to go at the moment. She looked very fragile at the moment, her eyes wild with a confusion that he’d never seen in those sienna orbs before. She had every reason to be confused. Despite being hit by something that could have very well killed her, the most she got out of her ordeal was a slight bruise from where the projectile struck her back. At the moment she was wearing a T-shirt that Eric grabbed for her on impulse, a replacement for a completely torched tee and bra that should have been, realistically, embedded in third-degree burned skin. Yet there was no sign of any burn damage at all, and if there was anything that took a serious hit, it was that Hikaru was just not acting like herself. And that was the most disturbing part of all.
So they drove around the general
His eyes darted over to her for a second. “Hikaru, you’re not a freak. And yes, I love you. What would ever make you think otherwise – or that you’re some sort of circus show display?”
“I got burned today. Only…I didn’t get burned. All I can remember was one second, watching that dancer drop that firestick, then the next second later I’m moving like Michelle Yeoh on crack, doing everything that shouldn’t be possible. Then to top it all off, I dived in front of an old lady and took the object at point blank range. I should have been killed by that thing, and the worst that I got out of it is that my favorite T-shirt is ruined. What does that tell you?” Her eyes began to water. “Something happened to me while I was in the institution, and I don’t think it was as innocent as it seemed.
“What if all my dreams, everything I thought happened to me in Cephiro are real? What if I was taken in the span between instants? Maybe it sounds funny, but in one of my dad’s books there was a scene were Princess Cephiro’s soul was taken by the demon Windom to the netherrealm, where she had to learn magical powers to escape. When she got back to Mokona, she still had the powers for quite some time. What if that happened to me?”
“‘Karu, that’s just silly. Your father writes some of the best books out there, but they’re just fantasy, nothing real. Nothing like that happens in real life. Now as to what’s happened to you, I don’t know. I really don’t. But to be honest, it doesn’t mean a thing to me. You, however, do. I love you, Hikaru, and I love you for who you are and what you mean to me, not because you can use a sword like something out of a video game and shrug off fire as though it were nothing. Although, I do find that sort of a note of pride.”
“Huh? I don’t get it.”
“All the girls in the world who I could have dated, and I get the one who lives up to her name. Light? Hell, you take on fire like it’s nothing.” He smiled sweetly at her, his eyes clearly radiating how much he cared about her. “‘Karu, even if you were to find out tomorrow that you’re secretly a goddess of another world, or a mystic warrior of some fantasy realm, I’d still love you because I love the Hikaru Shidou that you are, not the ones that you might or might not be.”
She flushed for a second, then said, “Stop the car.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t kiss you passionately if you’re driving. We don’t want to have a wreck, do we?” Immediately he did as he was asked, and immediately rewarded for his efforts by the girl who cared for him so much. They were so busy kissing that they didn’t notice the two girls wake up and see them. In fact, they paid no attention until they heard the girlish giggling, followed by,
“‘Karu and Eric, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.
First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes ‘Karu
with a baby carriage!”
The lovebirds immediately broke from their kiss and turned back to face the windshield, their faces red as Hikaru’s hair. It was a few seconds before either could do anything other than sit there out of sheer embarrassment at being caught, yet swooning over such a tender moment between the two lovers.
Hikaru looked around for a second, then at Eric, the guy her world revolved around. It was clear to her now, something that she should have understood quite some time ago. Something that she was lucky to have, and ironically she would never have had if things hadn’t happened as they did. If she hadn’t had so much attention upon coming back from the institution, he probably would have never noticed her. Likely, he’d be dating someone like Lisa Gutierrez or someone, not her, and she’d be still on the outs, depressed about her breakup with Dave and saddened about Umi’s death. Frankly, she probably would have been unbearable by now.
Tragically, it was all due to Umi. In a roundabout way, her friend sacrificed herself so that Hikaru could find the man of her dreams. And now Umi would never have that chance with anyone, and she wouldn’t even have the opportunity to rest in peace, because of what they did to her grave.
Umi, you were my best friend – you always will be. I’ll never forget you. Closing her eyes for a second and whispering something in what very little Japanese she knew, Hikaru sent a silent prayer to her friend. Once done, she looked at her boyfriend, and while she said nothing, he clearly knew what she wanted.
“Look, ‘Karu, do you think that’s a good idea? I know you have to see it, and I’m not denying it, but what about the girls? Mutsumi in particular?”
“Wha’ ‘bout me?” the girl chirped from the backseat.
“Oh, nothing, nothing, ‘Sumi,” Hikaru commented.
“Eric and I were just wondering if you two wanted to go to the Chuck E.
Cheese over at
With a much lighter heart, the group started the car again and set off for their new destination.
-=(*)=-
“Okay, is there a reason why the hell you called the Shidous?” Allison said while keeping one eye on the girl who was possibly Umi. While they had managed to get her silent, it had taken Rick to hold her down while Allison put a racquetball in a clean sock, then shoved it in Umi’s mouth, followed by keeping it in place via tape. A few more seconds found Rick reluctantly tying her up using his bedsheets and a couple of extension cords, but at least Allison took the time to put Umi’s pants back onto the mystery girl.
Rick shrugged, looking at “Umi”, then back at Allison. “Um, because it seemed like a good idea at the time?”
“Real brilliant, Rick. ‘Hi, ‘Kari, this is your loving boyfriend calling. And, oh, by the way, I have your very dead friend here busy not being dead and I’m sure it’s her because I took off her pants and peeked under her delicates to make sure,’” Allison imitated with some venom. “Did it ever occur to you that wasn’t the smartest way to get your point across to her?”
“Um, no, now that you mention it.” He looked at his friend sheepishly. “But in the meanwhile, we have to do something about Umi here.”
“Are you so sure that’s Umi? I mean, c’mon, people don’t come back from the dead. This can’t be Umi! It’s just not possible.”
“I know, but what other answer do we have?” Moving away from the phone, he sat next to the girl and said, “Look, I’m going to remove your gag, so we can talk, but I need you to calm down. If you scream, I’ll have to put the gag back on, and I’d rather not do that, Umi…if that’s really you. Do you understand?” When the girl nodded, Rick reached around and began to take the tape off slowly, while Allison went to go get refills on the drinks that had been spilled just fifteen minutes ago. The Coke spilled on the carpet would probably leave a stain, but considering the disastrous state of Rick’s room, that wasn’t going to have an earth-shattering effect on the whole situation.
Rick sat down next to Umi and carefully undid the gag. As he did, he asked, “You okay, Umi?”
Umi looked at him as though he were proof of something gone wrong. “Ferio? What’s going on? Where are we? This doesn’t look like Cephiro.”
“Cephiro?” Rick did a double-take at that and slowly wondered what the hell was going on. Cephiro, as far as he knew, was the name of a character in the books that Hikari’s father wrote. Other than that, that was about it. It certainly wasn’t a place, and it shouldn’t be any sort of location that Umi would be referring to.
Umi, not quite catching his hesitancy, continued. “And who is the girl? She looks a lot like Alcyone. And where’s the rest? Fuu-chan and Hikaru-chan? I though they’d be with you!”
“Who’s Alcyone? Umster, you’re losing me here.” What’s a Foochan? he thought, but he did catch the “hekaroo” part of her comment. Could that be a reference to ‘Karu? He heard her name pronounced in Japanese was slightly different than how it was pronounced normally, could that be it?
Umi looked at him as though something was wrong…with him. “Ferio? What’s happening? Why are we speaking English – you shouldn’t know that. For that matter, why are we in a place that looks American? What’s going on?” The last comment in her voice carried the tone of someone who was beginning to distrust what she saw in front of her, and that usually meant there was trouble ahead.
Of that, Rick had to agree, as he wasn’t too comfortable with Umi’s attitude, regardless of what it was. She just wasn’t acting like the Umi he knew for so long, the girl who was always there with a smile, a joke and a ton of Hello Kitty knick-knacks. Instead, she was acting as though she were someone else. For that matter, she was acting as though he was someone else, as well. Of course, if that was the case, who was this girl that looked exactly like Umi – down to the tattoo, even – yet was not her?
“Look, Umi, for starters, stop being so formal,” he said, smiling and pouring on the charm. “This is me, Rick, remember? We’ve been buds for a while, and I want to help you, but I need to know what happened to you! I mean, you’re supposed to have bee—”
At this point, Allison walked into the room with a coke and two glasses of water. “Figured she’d want something to drink. Well, at least you managed to keep her clothing on this time,” she said with a fatalistic glance. “But couldn’t you have untied her a bit more so I can hand her a drink?”
Umi turned her attention onto the girl. “Alycone? Wha-what’re you doing here? I thought you were…you….” There was a shocked look on the Japanese girl’s face, as though she were seeing a ghost or something.
“Alcyone?”
Allison shrugged. “Do I look as though I know what the hell she’s talking about?”
Meanwhile, whatever confusion Umi was suffering got extensively worse. “I don’t know what’s going on, Ferio, Alcyone, but let me go now! Or is this a trick of Zagato or Debonair to try to stop us? What is going on! You can’t be the real Ferio and Alycone! Ferio would never do this to me! And Alycone – you’re dead!” She grabbed her head with her hands and shook in disbelief, as though she were witnessing a nightmare. “What’s going on?”
Rick and Allison looked at each other for a couple of minutes, then back at Umi, then back at each other. Finally, Rick turned back to Umi and said, “Umi, what the hell’s gotten into you? Are you even really Umi?”
“Of course I’m Umi! But you can’t be Ferio, nor you Alycone! But I can take care of you, you demons!” she screamed, scrambling to her feet. “Water Magic will defeat you, for I am the Water Knight, Representative of Ceres and wielder of the all-powerful water sword!”
Allison looked at the Japanese girl as though she were being absurd. She then took her glasses off, inspected them, put them back on, looked at Rick then looked back at the girl who’d apparently appointed herself the next Xena the Warrior Princess. “Look missy, I don’t know who you are,” she said, trying her best not to laugh in the girl’s face, “but are you aware that drugs are bad for you? I have no idea if you are Umi Ryuzaku, but from what I was told about her, she wasn’t some hopped-up acidhead who’s been playing one too many videogames!”
“That’s it; I’ve had it, and you’re through, demons!” The girl flexed, clearly calling upon arcane powers and inexplicable energies to free her from her bonds and layeth upon her enemies the most smiteful of smackethdowns. Unfortunately for her, she was in the real world, where things didn’t exactly work on the same physics, and in the end all she appeared to be doing was the Funky Chicken while having the facial expression of someone suffering through extreme constipation.
“I don’t believe this shit!” Rick, already having a bad day, had just reached the mother of all stupidity checks. Taking the girl, he sat her down and said, “Look. I do not need this shit. I don’t know if you really are Umi or not, even though you look like her, even though she didn’t spaz to hell like you’re doing, but frankly at this point I don’t give a damn.” Putting his face to hers close enough for her to peer deep into his eyes, he snarled, “Knock it the fuck off!”
Allison, behind him, rolled her eyes. “Great sensitivity, Rick.” Shaking her head and wondering why she just didn’t stay home instead of going to the party from hell, she gently moved her friend out of the way and looked at the girl. “Look, I never knew Umi – if that is who you really are – but I do know that your arrival here has stressed out the place. If you are Umi, we have to know: what is going on? If you aren’t, why are you impersonating someone who my friends cared about who died last year?”
At the sound of those words, Umi’s eyes grew wide in shock. “Dead?” Instinctively she moved back from them, as though they were anathema. “I’m not dead…I’m not! I’m not!” Those simple words immediately set off an unnatural terror in the girl, as though something suddenly switched on in her brain.
It did not go unnoticed by Allison. She watched the Japanese girl try to virtually merge herself with the wall in order to get away from them before she went over and sat down next to Umi, trying to be calm as possible as she said, “Look…we want to help, but we can’t unless you help us. Don’t answer that – just sit right there and we’ll be right back.” Grabbing Rick by the arm, she dragged him out of the bedroom and hopefully out of earshot. When she felt she was safely away, the brunette turned to Rick and stated, “As fucked up as it was, maybe you were right to call ‘Kari and Lance.”
“Are you sure? I really don’t think either Lance or ‘Kari are going to be able to help us on this one,” Rick reasoned, running his hands through his hair as he began to pace back and forth in a nervous pace. “Fuck, it’s going to freak them out, if anything. I don’t know about you, but I’m scared enough to shit my pants right now.”
“That was not a mental image I needed,” Allison drolled. “What I meant was that Mrs. Shidou might be able to explain something legally that we may not know about, and it’s better to have your ass covered.”
“Covered?” Rick’s brow shot up. “Look, Allison, I swear I wasn’t going to harm her, okay?”
“Jesus, Rick, and you were lecturing me a few ago on melodrama? Get a grip, man!” Allison hooked a thumb in the direction of the bedroom and added, “I’m thinking along the lines more of what the hell do we do since we apparently have someone reported dead, someone that ‘Karu apparently witnessed as dead, suddenly pop up? Think about what that’s going to do to her. Or, for that matter, to anyone else. We’ve gotta tell Mrs. S. She’s got enough brains to figure out something.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
“Go get your van ready, and I’ll talk to her and tell her we’re going to take her somewhere that we can help her. But don’t tell her that it’s the Shidous. I don’t want to trigger anything odd or anything. Maybe it’s just me, but I have a funny feeling that things are really, really going to get weird.” She stopped for a second and then changed tacks. “Hey, how much cash do you have on you at the moment?”
“Not much, maybe about twenty, why?”
“You owe me dinner for this one, Rick. We’re all stopping at Jack in the Box on the way to the Shidous. I haven’t eaten a damn thing all day, and frankly, I’m hungry as hell. I’ll bet she is, too.” As she headed to the bedroom, she said, “Oh, and one more thing.”
“What?”
“Remind me to never get drunk at a party again – dealing with this is worse than any hangover.”
Rick paused, then smiled
weakly. “Yeah, I heard that.”
-=(*)=-
Lance hung up the phone.
“Well, whatever’s going on, sis, there’s gotta
be a reasonable explanation for it.”
Hikari lay on her bed, her face
puffy from tears. “How could he do that
to me?” she whispered. “How could either
of them do that to me?”
Lance almost smiled.
“You know, you’re awfully sure about this. Do you really know your boyfriend so
little? Or your
friend? I don’t know about you,
but I’ve known Rick and Allison for ages, and neither of them would ever do
that to hurt someone. They’re not that
way.” A pause. “Okay, well, maybe Rick’s not the sharpest
knife in the drawer, but I know he loves you more than anything, ‘Kari. And I don’t think Allison would do anything
to harm the relationship between you two.
Just calm down, okay? Give them a chance to explain
themselves? I’m sure there was a good
reason.” There had better be a good
reason, he added silently.
“You know, this is all your fault,” Hikari
said, without looking up or moving from her prone position. “If you hadn’t given up on Allison, she
wouldn’t have had to do this. You two
were – are – in love, so what the hell?”
She shot up to a sitting position, and there was a rare anger in her
eyes.
Lance immediately went on the defensive. “Hey, that’s not fair, ‘Kari. I love Allison, and I would never blame her
for doing something like this. It’s not
her, and you know it. And the fact that
she and I broke up has nothing to do with this.” He crossed his arms and looked at her with
concern. “Do you really think that I set
this up? Or do you just feel the need to
take it out on me just because I’m a convenient target at the moment?”
Hikari backed away, slightly
embarrassed. “Sorry.”
“Hey, no problem. I understand.
But give Rick and Allison a chance.
I’m sure there’s a valid reason for all of this. Considering it’s
Rick, I’m sure it’s something innocent, but wild and insane just at the same
time.”
She grinned slightly at that. “Yeah, he does tend to come up with
interesting things, doesn’t he?”
“Trust me, sis – I’ve known him longer than you’ve been
dating him and I can guarantee that whatever’s going on, not only is it not what
you think it is, it’s probably something that will catch us completely
unawares.”
-=(*)=-
It took Hikaru some time, but she
managed to sneak out of the pizza place some time around when Chuck was leading
the rest of the animatronic puppets in another round
of some goofy birthday song. Feigning a
need to take a walk for a little bit, the redhead stepped out of the restaurant
and made a direct beeline to the cemetery, pausing only to buy some flowers
from the florist across the street. Once
in the memorial park, she moved on instinct, knowing exactly where the plot
was, even though this was the only the second time she’d been here. It would have been hard to miss it anyway,
considering the sizable hole, the yellow SPD – DO NOT CROSS: CRIME SCENE tape
circling it, and the solo cop standing by.
Once Hikaru convinced him that she was on the
level and not some idle passerby gawking at a freak show, she was allowed
beyond the confines of the yellow tape.
The officer, understanding the girl’s need to be left alone at the
moment, stepped out of sight to give her some privacy.
The redhead set the flowers down gently on the broken remnants of the gravestone, then sat at the edge of the hole. “Hi, Umi. I know it’s been a few months since I last came here, and I’m sorry for that. It feels funny that I’m sitting here, and you’re not here – not even your body – but it’s the best place where I can talk to you right now. I know I haven’t been as good a friend lately as I should be, coming to visit your grave, even though some would say that’s moving on. I’m not sure about that. I’ve never really had anyone I care about die before.
Hikaru looked around the graveyard for a second or two, eyes scanning the horizon in some vain hope that Umi’s ghost would appear. She might be freaked out about it, but at least she would get to see her best friend again. When that didn’t happen, she continued. “We miss you all, Umi, but we’re getting along fine. ‘Kari misses you too, when she’s not all over Rick – you know how that is. I’ve got a new boyfriend, I think you would have liked Eric – he’s a lot better for me than Dave was. Lance broke up with his girlfriend, but I don’t see that lasting – I think they’re really in love and’ll get back together again. Maybe it’s just me, but I can kinda sorta see those little details now.
“Things have been really strange for me. Since the…accident, I can do so much more, I’m capable of so much more. All those years I didn’t know that I learned
martial arts, just by watching Lance. I
guess I was working out more than I thought I was – yeah, I remember you told
me so – because I can keep up with my sis in her gymnastics, even though I’m
not interested in them. I caught up in
school from all the time I was hospitalized, and I’m doing better than ever in
my classes. It’s like, I dunno, like something happened to me when we crashed, and
all these abilities I never knew I had got busted wide open. But I’d trade them all in a heartbeat if it
meant that we could get you back, Umster. There are some things, that no matter what, I
just can’t do.
“Like last weekend, when Emily and Mutsumi’s
Girl Scout troop went into the forest for a ‘Big Sisters’ campout. ‘Kari took Emily, I
went with ‘Sumi.
We had fun, and like I said, we’ve stepped in whenever ‘Sumi needs us, but it shouldn’t have been us, Umi. It should have
been you there.”
“Oh, hell, I can’t do this, Umi! You know why I really came here, and I could
never beat around the bush, even to you.”
Hikaru took a second to wipe the tears forming
in her eyes, to clear the lump forming in her throat. “You know I have to ask this: why did I have
to live, Umi?
What was so special about me that I had to live? From what people saw of the car, I should
have died, too. Of all the people we had
to catch a ride with, why did we ride back in Scott’s car, which was one of the
few models they make with back-seat airbag?
Why didn’t we just take my car?
It doesn’t make sense to me that you’re gone and I’m not.” She smiled wistfully, not a real smile, but
more of a bare upturn of the lips.
“Yeah, I know all about all that ‘Survivor’s Guilt’ and all that, ‘cause both my uncle and Dr. Choi
told me enough about it, and how sooner or later I was going to feel it and
that it would be a natural thing. But
you know what? It’s not guilt I’m
feeling. It’s confusion.
“Why did I survive when there was no real reason for me
to? Why am I changing into Wonder Girl,
when before the crash I was just an ordinary girl? And why is everyone telling me that this is
normal, when usually it’s not – according to some statistics I read somewhere,
you’re supposed to get worse for a little while then come back to normal. But for me, once I got out of Everett Glenn,
I didn’t get back to normal…I went beyond it.
And I thought that was a good sign, I really did. But after what happened to me today – the
fire, my moving like a samurai – I have to wonder what really happened to
me. It’s like I’m not me anymore, but
someone else who is me but not me. Does
that make sense?” Hikaru
shook her head, trying to understand in her own mind what it was she was trying
to say. Gesturing with her hands, she
commented, “It’s like I’m a freak now.
It’s like I’m going to wake up one morning and find I have super powers
or something.”
Without warning, Hikaru’s left
hand suddenly warmed up. She tensed, for
a second genuinely concerned that her words were not commentary but a
harbinger. Looking at her left hand, her
writing hand, she saw something that shattered her world again, right then and
there, like a great train-wreck of realities coming together, the realms of
fantasy and reality having a back head-on collision at the corner of Hikaru and Shidou. There, sitting in that hand, was a glowing
reddish orb, about the size of a baseball, that was
throbbing with energy, occasionally streaming off a ray of light or a mote of
energy to the sky, as though it wanted to be noticed and seen, as though it
were waving to Hikaru. At that moment, Hikaru
began to shudder, nervously turning away from the energy ball, to look at Umi’s grave as if to ask, What the fuck?
Instead of an answer from the great beyond, she was answered
by a great column of dirt tearing into the sky from what had been Umi’s grave. Hikaru crawled backwards as fast as she could, her mind too
numbed by the sudden appearance of her “fireball” to think clearly. The column grew wider and wider, until a
being of some sort crawled through the geyser of earth, looking around as
though seeking something, before it set its eyes on Hikaru.
The redhead looked at the creature with a gaze of
terror. Standing before her was a being
that looked human…if God had been H.R. Giger. A mass of muscles and sinew on the outside,
its surface looked like ribbed metal, the carapace of some grotesque insect
given human form. It stared at her with
burning, air-warping eyes, a gaze as painful as it was laborious to meet. There was no doubt as to the intent of this
creature from nowhere, and what he had on her.
Hikaru didn’t have to think
twice. Terror overcame the girl in an
instant; she might be good enough to beat Frankie Lassiter, but whatever the
hell this thing was, was an entirely different story. Backflipping to get
to her feet immediately, she spun around, intending to get the police officer
for help. That she was having another
relapse of her delusions didn’t bother her at the moment. She’d rather be medicated than to really have
to deal wit—
The police officer lay on the hood of his car, red dripping
from a massive smoking hole where the left side of his body had been just a
second ago. Next to him was another one
of the creatures, its hands glowing with unnatural and arcane energies, the
same type that Hikaru’s was glowing with a second
ago. Behind that, there were several
more of these things moving in her general direction. The redhead considered for a second looking
around her to see how many there were, but something in her mind told her that
wasn’t necessary; she was unnumbered, outgunned and outflanked – not to mention
completely and utterly out of ideas as to what the hell was going on or why
this was happening to her.
There was no chance of