4"Very little in this world is as satisfying as getting to shepherd a brand-new gamer into this expansive world of ours."
- Seno Nakagami; 'Dragon of Hinata'
Chapter I:
Kendo Girl and the Legend of the Dragon Palace
Is This a Dream?
April 29, 2006
Main Room, Hinata Apartments, Hinata City, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan
0935 hours, local time
Peering through the scope of his sniper rifle, Seno watched as the armored form of Kaolla's fully-armored SPARTAN-II supersoldier crested the ramp onto the roof of the enemy base, the flapping blue-colored flag in hand and dashing for the teleporter currently hidden from his line of sight.
"I've got one on me," the foreign girl alerted. "Maybe two."
The swordsman glanced down at Kaolla's third of the screen—screen-watching was perfectly acceptable if you were all on the same team, thank you very much—but there was nothing to see as she was not looking at her pursuit. So he settled the circular crosshair over the ramp she'd come up. "Don't you worry about it, Kaolla-san, just keep on bringin' it home. I got you."
As expected, a blue Spartan came up the ramp hot on the foreign girl's heels, hellbent on stopping her escape with their flag. Before he could let off a single shot at her, a vapor trail drew an instant line between Seno's position on the canyon ridge and the enemy player's head, dropping him like a sack full of rice.
"Heheh, helmet ventilation services since 2004," he remarked with a chuckle.
Across the map to his left, Kaolla appeared from the receiving end of the rooftop teleporter, momentarily sheltered amongst a stand of trees. Instead of running for the cave entrance nearby, she darted for the large rock directly ahead of her, on the other side of which she knew would be a parked Warthog driven by Kitsune. As Kaolla boarded the vehicle and Kitsune took off back toward their base, Seno picked off another of the enemy team, then emptied the rest of his magazine across the top of the ramp to discourage further pursuit.
A few moments later, a decidedly-alien purple aircraft rose into the sky from behind the far side of the enemy base. "They got a Banshee up," he alerted the two ladies sitting in the living room with him. The craft banked toward him and started filling the air around him with plasma. "Aaaand it's mad at me. Just keep going."
Unfortunately for him, the layout of the map contained almost nothing in the way of cover near his vantage point that would offer him protection from the angry alien flier, and the Banshee of his own team was busy at their base fending off the other team's attackers. And so, under only a few seconds of assault, the enemy Banshee cut him down.
"Yep, that's my ass."
With her free hand, Kaolla gave him a comforting pat on the shoulder. "You'll be remembered, Seno!" she cheerily remarked.
By then, Kitsune had delivered them to the front of their base. Grabbing her controller back up again, Kaolla immediately dismounted and ran inside as Kitsune changed positions to the gun and started firing at the Banshee. Seno saw her feed the pole of the flag into a would-be sneak-attacker's face just before he respawned, and with little else to do, sighted his submachine gun at the oncoming Banshee and added his fire to that of Kitsune's.
It mattered little, however, as just moments later, the game announcer's voice called out, "Flag captured! Game over!"
"Whoo!" Kitsune cheered, raising her hand to collect high-fives from Kaolla and Seno. "That's what I'm talkin' 'bout!"
"Fine driving there, Kitsune-san," Seno praised as he backed them out of the multiplayer lobby. "And Kaolla-san, good hustle on those flags."
"You guys make a really good team," Keitaro remarked from the couch nearby.
The swordsman leaned back and grinned at his old friend. "Sorry to hog the set, but we're done now." He pointed to the slightly dinged-up Super Nintendo held in Naru's lap, who was sitting on the couch with Keitaro...albeit as far away from him as she could possibly be. "Going old-school there?"
Naru nodded as she stood up and approached the television, kneeling down to begin plugging the console's audio-visual cables into the back of the monitor. "I found it when I was cleaning out the storeroom," she said.
Standing up to wrap the cable of his controller around it and return it to its place on top of the XBox, Seno looked down at the game cartridge plugged into the Nintendo. "And what've we got for choice entertainment here? Legend of the Dragon Palace? Man, that's ancient."
"Yeah, it came out when I was in junior high," Keitaro confirmed, plugging the brick controller into the front of the console. Once Naru confirmed that the cables were in place, he switched the channel and powered the machine on. After a moment's delay, the title screen popped up on the television.
"I'm impressed ya still had it after all these years," Kitsune remarked, bundling up her controller and passing it to Seno. "So essentially, between y'alls teamwork, the Hinata's entertainment facility got itself an old-school boost."
Making his way back to where he had been sitting on the couch, Seno caught sight of Motoko standing against the wall in the hall nearby, observing the activity in the main room with a neutral expression on her face. He tipped his head to the side in curiosity, but refrained from calling out to her as he sat back down.
"So Keitaro and Naru are playing with each other?" Kaolla asked innocently.
The potential implications of her phrasing, however, were lost on precisely no one. Seno rubbed a hand over his face to prevent himself from making a remark, the slow grin forming on Kitsune's face indicated she wanted very badly to make a remark, and Keitaro began to stammer as he considered the other possible meanings of Kaolla's words.
Naru caught on just as swiftly, an irritated scowl forming on her face. "Don't get any funny ideas!" she snapped, rounding from behind the television and unleashing an infamous 'Naru Punch' at the hapless landlord. The strike sent him flying back across the room, hitting the wall underneath the stairwell and just narrowly missing Motoko, who didn't bat an eye at the near-miss.
Seno fixed Naru with a glare, having risen partway out of his seat in a failed effort to prevent the strike altogether. "Now just what the hell did you do that for?" he asked, in an altogether too-even tone.
However, Naru was not cowed by him. "He was thinking dirty thoughts!" she shouted, stamping a foot in anger.
"He might have been," the gamer swordsman answered with a shrug, his tone losing none of its steel undercurrent. "Last I checked, it isn't legal to punish someone based on their thoughts. You gonna come at me if you think I'm thinking dirty thoughts?"
Rather than get involved in the argument—and doubting it would escalate much further—Motoko pushed herself from her position leaning against the wall and made her way toward the front entrance, pausing only long enough to trade her house shoes for outside ones. As she stood again, her cell phone buzzed with a text message. She flipped open the device to scan the message as she stepped out the front door.
Hinata Tea House, Hinata City, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan
1000 hours, local time
When Motoko arrived at the tea house, she found it empty within, save for a table occupied by three girls from her school, all her juniors. The trio formed her unofficial 'fan club' within the school. The Shinmei-ryū heiress seated herself at the open chair at the table, and within moments, Haruka had wandered by and deposited a cup of tea before her.
With an inclination of her head in thanks to Haruka, Motoko looked to her juniors. "You wished to speak with me?" she asked.
The shortest of the three girls, a brunette with her hair done up in twin tails, clasped her hands together and exclaimed, "Oh, to be able to talk with the magnificent Motoko-oneesama like this!"
"What a wonderful day!" added the middle of the three girls, distinguishable by her short, light brown hair.
Motoko blinked twice at their exuberant statements, looking aside for a moment and giving a brief sigh before standing up and announcing, "I'm leaving."
The two girls who had previously spoken immediately began flailing in her general direction in distress, while the oldest calmly spoke out, "Please wait, Motoko-san. I beg your pardon, but we asked you here because we felt we had to warn you."
This stopped the raven-haired girl in her tracks, and she turned back partially to regard the other girl. "Warn me?" she asked, returning to her seat and waiting for what potential threat they had to tell her about.
The girl with the dark red hair gave a nod. "Yes. You have changed a great deal lately."
"What do you mean?" Motoko asked, greatly confused as to where this was leading.
"Until just a few months ago, nothing could disturb the sense you gave of complete inner calm," her friend explained, the edge of her tone and the look in her eye making it clear this was something she was very passionate about. "Your aura was as that of a wide, smoothly-flowing river. Yet lately, it's impossible not to see that you have begun to lose that calmness. Might not the problem lie in your living under the same roof with two men now?"
To be quite honest, Motoko had no idea where this was coming from. She was no less 'cool' and 'collected' than she had ever been. In fairness, of course, Keitaro's arrival had introduced a new brand of chaos into her life, but she felt that she had a sufficient grasp of things in that regard. Certainly, aside from that strange incident when she had mistaken a cold for early love, she was unflustered by the ronin's intrusion into her life. Well, except for the occasions when it was necessary to discipline him for one of his many perverted acts. But if nothing else, that would only increase her own focus and skill with her school's techniques.
When she passed several moments with no response, the girl continued, "And it is my belief that this new male, the one with the sword, is even more insidious a threat than the spineless one. His sharing a talent with you—" And here, she left unspoken that such a shared talent was something she was intensely jealous of "–allows him a path around your normal defenses. You must be cautious around him."
Something inside Motoko, some nameless instinct she couldn't properly identify, proverbially rubbed her the wrong way at her friend's callous disregard for the recently-met swordsman. What perplexed her even more was that she couldn't even begin to fathom where that reaction was coming from. "I..." she began, her confusion causing a momentary hesitance. "...will be mindful of them both. Thank you for your concern."
Heartened by her words, the three girls smiled and immediately launched into the sort of idle gossip common to schoolgirls their age. And though she listened with half of her attention, Motoko felt troubled, wondering just what that reaction had been all about.
I barely know him, she thought to herself. Why would I feel so offended about Kikuko-san's dismissal of him?
Laundry Deck, Hinata Apartments
1032 hours, local time
Hearing the creak of someone's weight on the stairs leading up from the main portion of the building, Motoko opened her eyes to see Naru coming around the railing toward her, a friendly smile on her face. "You wanted to speak with me?" the Todai aspirant asked, making her way across the deck and sitting down beside the Shinmei-ryū heiress.
Motoko nodded once. "Yes. Naru-senpai..."
Before she could explain what was on her mind, Naru let out a shriek of surprise. Looking over, she found a pair of light blue boxer shorts—slightly damp—covering Naru's face. The rather strong breeze tugging at her hair made it clear that the boxers had been improperly affixed to the nearby clothesline and had come dislodged in the wind. Growling in anger, Naru tore the offending article of clothing from her face and stood up, stomping back toward the line to properly hang them.
"Damn it," she cursed, scooping up the clothespin that had fallen to the deck. "Even Keitaro's underwear makes trouble!" She swiftly affixed the boxers to the line, then gave them a gentle tug to ensure they wouldn't come off again. "I swear, the fact that he even exists is a royal pain!"
Motoko leaned forward from where she'd been sitting, a hopeful expression on her face. "Naru-senpai, you feel that way as well?"
"Of course I do!" the older girl replied with a scoff. "He's dumb, perverted, and so indecisive about everything! He has no redeeming qualities at all."
So she was saying, but the careful way in which she was ensuring his clothes were properly in place on the line might have given an outside observer a different impression of her true thoughts regarding the kanrinin. Fortunately for the two girls, there were no outside observers present.
Nodding in satisfaction, Naru dusted her hands and turned back around as she said, "Okay, that's that taken care of. So, what were you about to say?"
Motoko shook her head softly and rose to her feet, stepping quietly into the house shoes that had been placed at her side. "No, it is of no consequence. You have already answered my question."
Shrine, Hinata Apartments Grounds
1107 hours, local time
A fair distance into the forests that covered the majority of the land on which the Hinata Apartments sat, an old shrine basked in the warmth of the mid-Spring sun. Motoko had discovered the neglected shrine within weeks of her first arrival at the Hinata, and taken it upon herself to restore and care for the shrine. In doing so, she gained for herself a private place where she could get away from everything if she ever felt she needed to do so in order to focus or meditate.
This was one such situation.
Having switched from her school uniform to her training attire, she sat atop the steps of the shrine in silence, her legs crossed beneath her, hands held steady in a meditative pose before her, breathing still and even.
Her problem was two-fold, and yet, also stemming from a single source. She, herself, had not noticed any deviance from what was normal for her; she still rose before the sun for her morning training, maintained all of her standard routines, and was swift and firm in meting punishment for moral transgressions. Yet the three girls of her self-proclaimed 'fan club' all professed that they noticed a change in her bearing, that her aura was unsettled.
Perhaps there was some accuracy in their beliefs. It was true that ever since Keitaro's arrival, she had been dealing with the increased stress of his perversions against the other residents. Even though Naru dealt with the bulk of his incessant transgressions, Motoko still felt as though she had to be constantly on guard against another of his assaults. So in that, yes; the girls were correct in that Keitaro's presence in her life did give cause for a shift in her aura.
That left the other problem. It was Kikuko's ardent belief that Seno was the greater threat, and in strictly physical terms, he most certainly was. Keitaro couldn't free himself from a paper bag with a blade, but Seno was a challenging sparring partner. That said, she had described him as a more insidious threat, which meant a means other than physical.
While it was true that the swordsman was far more tolerant of Keitaro's perversions than she was comfortable with, he had already demonstrated his own lack of such moral bankruptcy. In fairness, there was always the remote possibility that he was playing some kind of long con, but that sort of deception would require the complicity of Keitaro, and the ronin utterly lacked the capacity to keep an agenda of that magnitude secret.
In short, she could find nothing to support Kikuko's opinions of the swordsman, but that did not mean she would dismiss them out of hand. As advised, she would keep cautious of the new male.
Thus, all she had left to consider was the source. There could be no question that, at the most basic level, the root of her problems was the presence of the two men living at the Hinata. Keitaro, at the very least, was turning the dormitory into a toxic living environment. Without question, he had to be removed in order for the peace to return. And, knowing full well that Seno would defend his childhood friend, it meant that the swordsman had to be ejected as well.
It left an unpleasant sensation in her gut, to forcefully evict him after she'd been the one to tell him that she and the others were okay with him staying while his house was undergoing renovations, but she consoled herself with the knowledge that he would still be in the area, that she could still avail herself of him as a training partner.
If he didn't hold a grudge.
She couldn't be entirely sure about that, honestly. He certainly bore her no ill will for her—admittedly—horrid treatment of him the first day she had met him, nor did he hold anger beyond the times he interceded to protect Keitaro from either Naru or herself. He didn't seem the type to hold grudges, and she had always trusted her instincts before. She did not think they would lead her astray now.
Hinata Apartments
1133 hours, local time
Standing before the sliding wood door that led into Seno's room, Motoko took a deep breath to center herself, and to also give her a moment to convince herself once more that she was doing the right thing. She knew that she would have to act against the swordsman first; with him out of the way, Keitaro would be that much easier to deal with.
My only choice is to drive them off, she thought, opening her eyes slowly and letting her resolve wash over her. In order to remain true to myself, I must resort to force and drive away both Urashima Keitaro and Nakagami Seno.
She drew her sword in her right hand, the steel of the blade singing as it was drawn across the opening of the sheath. Letting the white wooden implement fall to the ground at her feet, she lifted the sword into a high right-side guard, tensing herself for imminent combat.
Here I go! she told herself, striding forward and throwing open the sliding door with her left hand...
Only to find another door behind it.
She did not think anything of this anomaly, so focused on her goal was she. Instead, she simply threw that door open as well, advanced, and found a third door behind it. By this point, she was 'in the zone,' figuratively speaking, and continued to move forward, shoving aside the doors as they presented themselves.
Finally, after the sixth such repeating door was unceremoniously shoved aside, she caught a break. Beyond that door was not another door, but nor was it the room occupied by the few odds and ends that Seno had brought in with him after being granted temporary tenancy. She found herself in the main room of the building, just off the front door.
The sole occupant of the room was Keitaro, judging by the outfit she could see worn on the back of the person facing her. Earlier, everyone had been occupying this room, but she brushed off the inconsistency as her plans were forced to shift. She would have rather dealt with Seno first, but as Keitaro was here...might as well.
She lowered her sword toward the ground, the tip pointing at the floor behind her. As she readied her ki, Keitaro staggered to his feet before her. He turned toward her, and the sheer shock of his utterly-haggard appearance, as though he were a freshly-risen corpse, caught her off-guard, causing her to lose her focus.
"Somebody..." the kanrinin groaned, staggering in her direction with arms outstretched. "The game won't end... Somebody take over for me..."
He collapsed onto her before she could get away, his arms seizing her like steel bands. "Get off me!" she shouted, pivoting in order to throw him away from her, but she couldn't dislodge his grip. "Let go, damn you!"
She glanced about for anything she could possibly use to pry herself free, her eyes falling on the television screen for a moment. In that spare glance, she took in the details of the game on screen: positively ancient graphics in comparison to the game that had been playing earlier, now showcasing two 8-bit characters standing in a blocky hallway in front of a non-player-character that looked like a princess, with a party menu open in the lower right corner.
After a few moments, she felt Keitaro's weight sag, his arms slipping from around her as he mumbled quietly, "Someone..."
She took a single step back, that being enough to let his own weight drag him to the floor, where he flopped onto his side and curled up slightly, before continuing, "...answer me..."
Her eyes narrowed slightly as she looked down upon him, all but forgetting the weight of her sword in her right hand. "Is he...dreaming?" she wondered aloud.
Without warning, the room went dark. And not merely 'dark' in the vein that someone had turned out the lights. It was as though she had been cast into an inky, impenetrable blackness. Strangely, she could still see herself with perfect clarity as though she were still in regular daylight conditions.
Before she could ponder further on this, she heard a voice call out to her, "Motoko-chan..."
She looked about in the area before her. That voice was familiar. It called out again, more insistently, "Motoko-chan!"
A bright light came from behind her, and she turned to find Naru hovering in the darkness before her—no, she was literally hovering several feet off the ground—dressed as a princess in a flowing white gown, elbow gloves, and a tiara with matching necklace. Not only that, but two beautifully-feathered white wings adorned her back, seeming to provide the means by which she was airborne.
"N-Naru-senpai?" Motoko asked in confusion.
Where had she come from? Why was she dressed like that? And for the love of all the kami, why was she sparkling?
"Why are you dressed like that?" she managed to get out from her dozens of questions.
In response, Naru opened her eyes slowly, a warm gaze sweeping over the Shinmei-ryū heiress as she turned to face the opposite direction and lifted her hands, making a grand gesture out away from her with her left hand. "Tonight is the night of the grand ball at the castle," she said in an answer that made little sense.
What ball? What castle? What the hell was going on?
"Handsome young men await my arrival," Naru continued, then turned a disarming smile toward the black-haired girl, extending a hand out toward her. "Motoko-chan, why don't you give up your sword and come along with me?"
Motoko's hand clenched around her sword instinctively, and as a sound of confusion passed her lips, she heard a light switch being flipped somewhere behind her.
The lights flashed back into being, and Motoko found herself standing in a small theatre, of the sort one might find in a high school, surrounded by cushions upon which an audience could sit. Naru stood on a stage before her—that explaining her height difference—and a backdrop behind her depicted a forested path.
But somehow she was still sparkling, and those wings really didn't look like props.
The older girl seemed to regard the lighting change in confusion for a moment, then continued on as if nothing had happened. It now appeared to Motoko as though Naru were practicing for a play. "Only when a man shows her affection does a woman's heart first know happiness."
Naru held her hand out toward Motoko again. "So come! Come with me!"
For her part, Motoko still had no clue just what in the hell was going on. As she stood there, her confusion writ plain on her face, Naru took her silence for refusal. "Oh," she said, her voice and shoulders drooping equally, "it seems that you don't wish to go, Motoko-chan..." She turned partially away, seemingly in preparation for her exit from the stage. "Then in that case, I shall go alone."
And then she turned the rest of the way around, and ran up the clearly-a-background-painting forest path, heading toward a bend that led toward a European-style castle situated on top of a mountain near the top of the painting.
Motoko was now sincerely beginning to wonder if Kitsune hadn't spiked her morning tea with sake.
Before she could contemplate further the bizzaro situation she found herself in, a sudden gust of wind scattered a torrent of dead leaves and other forest debris at her. She raised her right arm to shield her face with the flowing sleeve of her gi, observing as the sky in the background of the painted forest backdrop darkened forebodingly. As the storm of detritus continued, a menacing, evil laugh rose to accompany the darkening sky.
Naru, suddenly and inexplicably now back on the stage a few feet in front of Motoko, recoiled in fear from the sound. "That voice!" she cried. "It's the evil King of the Dragon Palace!"
The forested backdrop faded away, and in its place appeared a giant of a man, towering well over ten feet tall, dressed in the garments that theatrical bandits often wore in kabuki plays, complete with a white-painted face mask. This man, the supposed evil king, towered over Naru, and Motoko could feel the lecherous intent in his gaze.
"Beautiful Princess Naru!" the evil king declared very boisterously. "You will be my bride!"
Without warning, he reached down and grabbed Naru in one giant hand—Motoko estimated that he now had to be close to fifty feet tall to be able to hold her in a single hand—prompting the Todai-hopeful to let out a hammy, overacted shout of distress. The evil king stared down at Motoko for a moment, then vanished in a flicker of darkness, taking his prize with him.
"Naru-senpai!" Motoko exclaimed, lifting her sword and taking a step forward.
Before she could act, however, the illumination level of the theatre lightning rose immensely, the brilliant light blinding her.
When her vision cleared, she found herself on the shore of a lake or inland sea. Across the water directly ahead of her, she could see the far bank, and mountains rising beyond. Behind her rose tall forests. Lake Biwa, perhaps, was where she now found herself.
"Where am I...?" she wondered.
From her left, she heard a commotion, and looked over to see two young boys yelling and kicking at a strangely-shaped rock. Curious, she wandered over toward them, calling out, "What are you two children doing?"
They stopped what they were doing and looked back toward her, and she felt momentarily as though she'd seen them before. Then, to her great surprise, a puff of smoke engulfed them, and they had been transformed into versions of themselves closer in age to her. And now, of course, they looked even more familiar.
The shorter of the two, wearing a white-and-blue hoodie, raised his left hand in greeting. "Hi, I'm Shirai Kimiaki!" he enthusiastically announced.
The taller one, wearing a pink-and-red tee shirt with a long-sleeved gray undershirt, had raised his right arm. "And I'm Haitani Masayuki!" he said with just as much enthusiasm.
Of course, Motoko realized, sourly. These two are Urashima's womanizing friends.
"Then that must mean..."
She took a step and looked down past them at the rock they were kicking. Only now, she realized that it was the shell of a large land tortoise. And to both her surprise and consternation, peeking out the other end of the shell was none other than Keitaro himself, in the same small child form that she had originally found Shirai and Haitani in.
Sighing in exasperation, she remarked, "Of course, it's Urashima..."
Sensing that the beatings against his shell had stopped, mini-Keitaro lifted his head, spotted Motoko standing between the older forms of the two that had been abusing him, and leapt to his feet, clinging to her leg in the way that children are prone to do. "Help me, lady!" he begged pitifully, hiding his face in her hakama. "They're picking on me!"
The two other boys looked scandalized, but soon taking it in stride, Haitani pointed haughtily at Keitaro and remarked, "Well, he's an idiot that failed his entrance exam three times. And he's still hung up on going to Todai. I can't figure him out."
Not to be outdone, Shirai leaned forward toward mini-Keitaro at the same time he reached behind his back. "If that makes you mad," he began, then produced a calculus workbook and opened it to a random page before thrusting it toward mini-Keitaro, "then solve this cubic equation problem!"
Glancing at the book, Motoko decided not to comment on the fact that it was upside-down.
As this was going on, mini-Keitaro appeared to be squinting at the page in an effort to prove them wrong, but the more time passed, the more frustrated he became, until he eventually broke down in tears and hugged Motoko's leg tighter, begging, "Make them stop, lady!"
The two clowns had begun celebrating at this point, Haitani prancing about like a fool while Shirai waved the book at mini-Keitaro and laughed.
Growing increasingly-frustrated at the entire situation, Motoko snapped at both of them, "Stop this nonsense at once!"
Both boys recoiled in fear, then reverted to their child forms in a puff of smoke and ran away crying. As he ran, mini-Haitani shouted back over his shoulder, "You'll get yours!"
Motoko let out a sigh of annoyance, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath to reign in her temper. "Those two..." she muttered.
Feeling a small hand on her sword hand, she opened her eyes and looked down to see mini-Keitaro standing beside her and looking up at her in awe, his right arm extended to rest on her wrist. "Thanks for the help, lady!"
"You...are welcome?"
He seemed extremely eager as he announced to her, "This means I've finally met up with the first of my party members!"
"Party member?" she asked, growing ever more unsure of everything that was going on.
"That's right!" he said, jumping back several feet away from her. He reached up with his right hand and—somehow—pulled his tortoise shell completely off of him and tossed it to the side. She had to quickly duck to the side lest she catch it with her face.
"I'm Keitaro the Brave!" he proclaimed, dropping into a silly mockery of a martial stance: balancing on his right leg, with his left raised to knee height, left arm held with his palm knife-edged toward his face, and right arm held over his head in a matching posture. Even more inexplicably, the Rising Sun flag of Japan was now serving as his backdrop.
"I've been searching for a party to go rescue Princess Naru," he explained, "who's been captured by the evil King of the Dragon Palace!"
Having been leaned away in equal parts surprise, confusion, and mounting unease, Motoko suddenly had an epiphany. Now I understand, she thought to herself. The strange events, the rapid scenery changes, the clichés on display everywhere... I must be inside Urashima's dream. That fool. Playing that game too much must have caused him to have this insane dr...
Wait. Why in the hell am I here? I still have full cognizance. Who is the dreamer, and who is the dream?
The voice of mini-Keitaro drew her out of her musings, "Okay, let's go! Let's find our next party member!"
She turned away from him. "Do as you like. I refuse to participate in this farce."
He blinked up at her twice, seemingly not understanding what she had said. Then, without warning, his lip began to quiver and tears formed at the corners of his eyes. It took only seconds for it to degenerate from there into out-and-out bawling, which then became a tantrum as he exclaimed, "You're mean, lady!"
Shutting her eyes to once again keep herself under control, she tried valiantly to ignore the childish tantrum being thrown by someone who was supposed to be older—and implicitly therefore more mature—than her. But as the seconds passed, he showed no signs of letting up, the grating noise only further stoking the fires of her temper. Her left eye twitched, and she could practically feel her blood pressure rising.
Two minutes later...
Motoko had no other option but to walk partially hunched-over in order to allow the toddler-sized Keitaro to pull her forward by the hand, as he steadfastly refused to release her on the pretense that she might try to escape again. In all honesty, however, she had resigned herself to her fate on the matter; as a dream, she could do nothing but allow it to reach its conclusion until she awoke naturally. Whenever that may be.
"Okay, let's go find our next companion!" mini-Keitaro cheered, oblivious to the void of misery the swordswoman had become.
She hoped she awoke soon.
"Why must I suffer so?" she quietly muttered under her breath, lifting her gaze toward the horizon...
...In time to see an approaching cloud of dust in yet another cliché that indicated there was some kind of commotion bearing down on them. It took every ounce of her willpower to rise to her full height and forcefully remove her right hand from mini-Keitaro's, laying it in readiness on the hilt of her sword.
Of course, it all turned out to be entirely unnecessary anyway, as the source of the dust cloud was Kaolla, in miniature to match Keitaro, riding a brown and white bird of some kind. She squinted at the creature, and thought back to her early school biology lessons. An ostrich.
"Oi, Keitaro!" the tiny foreign girl exclaimed as she drew near enough to be heard—which was still well beyond where Motoko would normally assume a human being could be heard from. But then again, distance and physics were fluid concepts in dreams.
So busy was she musing, that Motoko nearly missed mini-Kaolla's follow-on statement: "A sip of my special ostrich drink will get your spirits up!"
At some unseen cue from the foreign girl, the bird mount took a prodigious leap into the sky, seeming to pass dramatically slowly over the heads of Motoko and mini-Keitaro. And then it began to bombard them with a physically-impossible quantity of ostrich eggs. These were not small eggs, either, being larger than a basketball. As mini-Keitaro shouted in delight, Motoko covered her head with her arms to ward off a potentially-harmful strike. Yet, none of the falling eggs actually hit either of them, instead leaving them in the middle of a circle of waist-high eggs.
Lowering her arms, Motoko glanced at the pile of eggs around them, trying and failing to come up with some sort of thought regarding this event, but the sheer absurdity surely felt as though it was short-circuiting her brain. She caught sight of a glint of metal peeking out from beneath one of the eggs, but didn't have time to consider what it might be before a force struck her in the back of her left leg and took her down.
Mini-Keitaro went down alongside her, and several hard metal objects sent the two of them—and all of the eggs—tumbling in a spiral. The eggs immediately shattered into a semi-viscous liquid, and in the time it took for Motoko to pull her head above the surface, she found herself and mini-Keitaro trapped inside an oversized blender. While the pint-sized kanrinin laughed uproariously at the turn of events, the heiress struggled to find something to grab hold of to arrest her movement.
Outside, sitting cross-legged on the button controlling the blender and looking extremely pleased with herself, mini-Kaolla asked, "So what'cha think? Tasty, huh?"
A short time later...
Seated once more on her ostrich mount, mini-Kaolla led the newly-expanded group through a dense jungle, happily cheering, "Companions~ companions~"
Right behind her, mini-Keitaro once more pulled Motoko by the hand, neither of them the worse for wear given their unpleasant encounter with a kitchen appliance several size categories larger than them. "I'm so glad we have another party member!" he proclaimed.
"How can you say that after what she did to us?" Motoko asked, half-facetiously.
Though, to be fair, it was as though it had never happened, given that neither of them had been physically harmed or even suffered from wet clothes from being in the egg yolk goop. She wasn't even questioning it at this point, simply firmly reminding herself that this was all a dream and such insanity was to be expected. Especially with the likes of Keitaro and Kaolla involved.
Before the 'party leader' could respond, an obscuring cloud of smoke burst into being directly in their path, startling all three of them and causing the ostrich to emit a deep, startled booming sound from within its throat. When the smoke cleared, it revealed a pair of ten foot tall amphibian creatures blocking their path. Once again, mini-Keitaro reacted with glee to any new development. The creatures' appearance momentarily startled Motoko, but she soon forced herself back under control and once more reached for her blade.
"Here we are, Keitaro!" Kitsune's voice called out, staying her blade before she could draw.
Atop the head of the frog-like creature, Kitsune appeared in a similar miniaturized form, peering down at them. Clinging to her back was an equally-miniaturized Shinobu, who in this form had seemingly been reduced to a toddler, complete with pacifier and pink onesie.
"Have some tea brewed with frog and newt, and it'll pick you right up!"
Unfortunately, while mini-Kitsune had been saying that, the large newt had taken it upon itself to try and eat mini-Keitaro, whose legs thrashed helplessly out of the creature's mouth. "Help me!" the miniature landlord begged.
Mini-Kaolla looked up at mini-Kitsune, pointing accusingly at the newt. "Hey, he's supposed to drink it!"
Motoko closed her eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out in the form of a long-suffering sigh. The frog creature, she had noticed, looked upon the actions of its compatriot with the same sort of resignation that she felt toward this whole ordeal.
Another short time later...
The party—sans large amphibian creatures of questionable loyalty—crested the rise of a large hill. Mini-Keitaro stepped to the edge of the cliff face and dramatically pointed downward. "The evil King of the Dragon Palace can be found in that city!"
Motoko, by dint of being the tallest member of the party—just barely edging out mini-Kaolla's ostrich by perhaps an inch—peered over the heads of the smaller groups into the valley. Low-hanging clouds shrouded much of the city, which stretched to the horizon, but the makeup of the city seemed familiar to her. It took a few more moments, and her sharp gaze catching sight of several of the people moving about in the town, for her to make the connection.
"Is that not just Hinata...?" she murmured.
Before the others could respond to her, the sound of evil laughter echoed from all around them. Dark clouds swept across the skies, and from within their midst, a massive image of the masked evildoer loomed over them, red eyes leering at them with obvious mirth.
"So you have come, heroes..."
To his credit, mini-Keitaro showed not an ounce of fear or hesitation, stepping forward and raising a fist threateningly at the image. "So you've finally showed your face, evil King! Give us back Princess Naru!"
"I shall neither run nor hide!" the evil King said in response. "If you want the princess back, you shall have to take her back by force!"
Then, with another round of evil laughter, the evil King's visage dissipated on the winds. Mini-Keitaro grumbled, "Damn that evil King. Let's save Princess Naru, everyone!"
Mini-Kaolla and mini-Kitsune both raised their fists into the air, proclaiming together, "Yeah!"
Unaffected by their enthusiasm, Motoko simply stared blankly off into the middle distance. "Just how long is this dream going to continue...?"
Out in the real world, the television displayed a scene within the game not too dissimilar to what the dreamers had just experienced. Though that resemblance was lost on the 'players' of the game, being that both Keitaro and Naru were passed out cold on the floor. Keitaro rolled onto his side, just barely managing not to roll over on top of Naru as he did so.
"Yes...I've finally passed the entrance exam... for Tokyo U..." he mumbled in his sleep, seeming to be on a different dream tangent entirely.
"We're here!" mini-Keitaro stated exuberantly, thrusting a finger forward at the building in front of him. "This is the mansion of the legendary White Enchantress!"
Motoko was unimpressed. "This is the cafe..." she said, though at this rate she was beginning to wonder if it was worth pointing out these discrepancies.
Before she could give any more thought to the matter, a puff of smoke heralded the arrival of a new figure, clad in a white and green dress with a blue headdress. Just as tiny as the others, the strangely-garbed Haruka held a staff with a large spherical orange gem at its head. "Welcome, ye brave of heart," she said, speaking in a higher pitch than was normal. "I, the White Enchantress, will bestow magical powers upon each of you."
"Haruka-san, not you, too..." Motoko bemoaned.
As the other three wandered quietly inside the cafe, Haruka returned to her normal size in another puff of smoke. She gave the Shinmei-ryū heiress a shrug, and said in her normal voice, "It's a dream. What can we do but play along?"
That took Motoko by surprise. "You are aware as well?" she asked, blinking rapidly.
Haruka nodded slowly. "Not just me," she answered. "All of us. Except for one..." At this, she gave an aside glance to the door the others had gone through.
"Urashima..." Motoko sighed.
As though uttering his name had summoned him, Keitaro's voice called out, "Okay, we've changed into our new outfits!"
Motoko looked, and indeed the trio had completely changed their attire. Keitaro was now dressed as she had seen European squires dress, complete with a broadsword sized to his chibi state. Kitsune inexplicably wore form-covering blue robes with gold trim and a gold circlet around her forehead with a purple gem set in the middle. Kaolla was dressed in a full-body tiger costume, down to ears and a tail.
The two women took in their outfits, and Haruka resumed her smaller form and 'role'. She gave an approving nod of her head. "Good, they suit you. In this world of swords and sorcery, we have to look the part."
"Right!" mini-Keitaro agreed.
"We're all set," mini-Kitsune said, "but what about Shinobu? We can't fight the evil King with her looking like that."
"Leave that to me," mini-Haruka said, stepping away from Motoko and lifting her staff into the air.
She gestured it at Shinobu, and a multicolored beam of light shot from the head of her staff and engulfed the young girl. Then, in a sequence that would not look out of place in a Super Sentai or Sailor Moon anime, Shinobu's normal clothing was transformed into that of a nurse outfit.
"My medical powers will heal you, body and soul!" the girl happily exclaimed, twirling once and giving a cute pose. "I treat wounds of the heart, as well. Shinobu, wizard of love and tranquility, at your service!"
It was silent for several long moments, during which Shinobu's natural shyness overtook her once more. "Um...was that a bit over the top?" she asked, shrinking in on herself.
"Nah, that was pretty par for the course," a new voice that they all recognized called out from the tables situated in front of the cafe.
Nothing to do with games would be complete without him here... Motoko thought dryly, turning toward the voice.
As she expected to find, Seno was seated at the very table she had met her schoolmates at earlier. And befitting this strange scenario, he also was clad in a costume. However, where the others wore obviously fantasy-inspired outfits, his was that of one of the power-armored soldiers in that game that he had been playing earlier with Kitsune and Kaolla.
"Alright, the super-powerful mercenary has joined us!" mini-Keitaro cheered.
Kitsune flashed back to her normal size and pointed an accusing finger at the swordsman. "Hey, how come you get to dress like a Spartan and we're stuck as RPG characters?" she demanded.
The swordsman offered a smug grin as he stood up. His sword was sheathed on his left as always, but he had a weapon that looked like one of the Halo ones on his back, and a pistol on his other hip. "Ain't no rules in dreams, so guns and power armor it is."
He turned away to pick up the helmet that was sitting on the table behind him and place it over his head. To Motoko, unversed in the ways of video game and movie culture, nothing seemed unusual about that. Kaolla, Kitsune, and Keitaro, however, struggled to suppress their laughter.
Seno gave a long-suffering sigh, the helmet on his head adding a mechanically-filtered quality to his voice. "Don't start."
Mini-Kaolla couldn't help herself. "Seno looks like he got dressed in his cosplay gear in the dark!" she sniggered.
Motoko furrowed her brow in confusion. "I seem to be missing the joke."
Taking pity on the effusively confused girl, Kitsune pointed to Seno's attire. "So that armor he's got on is the Spartans from Halo, right?"
"Yes...?"
The trickster pointed to the helmet, which resembled a round-topped bucket with a T-shaped visor in the front. "The helmet's from Star Wars!"
This only seemed to make Seno more angry. "It's a dream, Kitsune-san! It's not like I picked this mismatch by choice even though it's completely characteristic of me!"
Haruka popped back to her normal size. "Just let it go and stop making fun of him, Kitsune," she said. "If we dedicate any more time to this gag, we're going to go over our run time."
This proclamation was met by a lengthy pause of several seconds. Seno then deadpanned, "Haruka, it's my job to make the meta jokes."
Accepting that they did need to move things along, Kaolla turned her attention on the other sword user of the group. "Motoko's gotta change, too!" she cheerfully exclaimed.
Motoko felt a cold sweat break out as she took a step back. "Do I...have to?" she asked quietly, her expression a plea in the hopes that they might show mercy on her.
Almost as though they were possessed of a single mind, the others all nodded at the same time.
"Them's the rules," Seno added.
"You just said there are no rules!"
"First, you must find the legendary dragon!" mini-Haruka had told them before they had left. "To do that, you must first find the legendary Triangle Flag, which indicates where the dragon sleeps."
The marching order of the group as they made their way through town was mini-Keitaro in the lead, followed by mini-Kaolla, mini-Kitsune, and mini-Shinobu. Behind her, Seno retained his normal size and had done away with the helmet that didn't match the rest of his outfit. Bringing up the rear was Motoko in her new costume, which appeared to be based on a gladiator outfit and exposed more skin than she would have accepted were this not a dream.
Ahead of them, a group of town elders stood in a gaggle, preventing them from getting any further along that particular path. Almost predictably, mini-Keitaro pointed straight at them and proclaimed, "Let's ask them where it is!"
"The Triangle Flag? I've heard that it can be found at the gift shop," the bald man in the front said.
Motoko noticed that, quite creepily, his mouth didn't move as he spoke.
She tried not to think about that, instead asking the next logical question. "The gift shop? And where is that?"
"The Triangle Flag?" the man repeated, without a change in tone or inflection at all. "I've heard that it can be found—"
"You just said that!" Motoko exclaimed, stepping forward angrily.
Seno lifted a hand to bar her path, shaking his head. "Not worth the time. They're just NPCs."
She gave him a confused look. "NPC?"
Kitsune puffed back into her normal form and nodded. "Non-Player Character," she explained. "Pretty much anyone but the party you play as in a game."
"Older games like Dragon Palace didn't have a lot of memory because of the media and game systems of the time," Seno continued, producing a water bottle from somewhere and passing it to Kitsune. "So background characters, if you could interact with them at all, were only programmed to have one or two lines to give you a hint or some of the backstory."
"...I see," Motoko mused, considering that information. "So we know we need to look for a gift shop, and that's all the help we can get from them."
Kitsune, having finished taking a generous swig of water, passed it on to Kaolla at Seno's gesture. "Yep!" she said with a chuckle.
"We should just stick to RPG conventions," Shinobu added.
"On which I consider myself a learned authority," Seno said with a smirk that would have been infuriating if he didn't happen to be telling the truth.
The young healer happened to catch a glimpse of something out of the corner of her eye, and she quickly returned to her chibi form. "Something's coming!" she said.
This prompted Kitsune and Kaolla to return to their chibi selves as well. Seno, on the other hand, did not. Instead, he reached up behind his back and withdrew the long-barreled weapon that he had favored while playing the other game with Kitsune and Kaolla. Mini-Shinobu turned and poked Motoko in the leg several times, prompting her to look down in confusion. Before anything could be asked of the younger girl, however, there was a flash of white light.
When it cleared, they were no longer within the town, but in a large, open sandy area bordered by the buildings of the town. In front of them, some thirty yards distant, were the chibi forms of Shirai and Haitani. They, too, had undergone a costume change: Haitani was dressed in the tattered black cloak and bearing a scythe like the Grim Reaper, while Shirai seemed to be a generic reptilian demon wielding a trident.
"Feel our wrath, heroes!" Shirai boasted.
"None shall pass!" Haitani proclaimed.
Mini-Keitaro was the first to step forward, drawing his sword in a suitably heroic fashion. "Okay! I'll take these two!"
Standing in the back with Motoko, Seno took a sip of the water bottle and muttered under his breath, "Doubt..."
However, before mini-Keitaro could do anything, the two troublemakers poofed into their adult forms. Shirai's trident vanished into a globe of energy, which he took between his hands and projected out in an energy attack, all while exclaiming, "'What Can an Exam Failure Like You Do' Beam!"
Haitani likewise performed a similar maneuver, though he called out, "'You'll Never Get Into Tokyo-U' Laser!"
Their combined attacks both exploded on mini-Keitaro, stirring up a dust cloud that momentarily hid him from view. When it cleared, he bore the cliché appearance of a cartoon character that had just been in an explosion. He promptly fell over onto his back.
"That may have been the most devastating thing they could have done to him," Motoko remarked. "But those attack names..." She glanced over toward Seno, who had his face hidden in the palm of one armored hand. Clearly, he was no more impressed than she was. Still, she was curious. "Are those kinds of ridiculous attack names common?"
"Depressingly so," he said with a sigh, then dropped his hand and looked out toward their foes. "Even in a dream, looks like the computer's still a cheating bastard. Fine, I'm going out of turn."
He lifted his sniper rifle to aim, and though Motoko was curious about what he was saying, she noticed that the two youngest girls of the group were glaring angrily at the boys and were both surrounded by fiery auras.
"What's the big idea!?" mini-Kaolla demanded.
"I'm angry, too!" mini-Shinobu added.
So she was a bit confused, but she had the spirit.
"What are you two doing?" Motoko asked.
Kitsune chuckled as she reverted to her normal size. "Still ain't catchin' on too fast, are ya? When the main character gets beaten up, his friends get even for him! It's an overused gimmick, but it still hits the spot!" She poofed back to her smaller form, and likewise began to emit that curious aura.
"I mean, she's not wrong," Seno remarked. There was a momentary pause, and then without warning he suddenly screamed out, "You've gotta be shitting me!" and hurled his weapon at the two 'enemies' as hard as he could. It went about a quarter of the distance before falling harmlessly into the sand.
The sudden angry outburst startled Motoko, who looked back and forth between the pissed-off swordsman and the discarded weapon with visible confusion. "Wh-what...?"
"Damned gun gremlins..." he grumbled, reaching for his sword.
"What's the holdup?" Shirai asked.
"Yeah, it's your turn."
"C'mon, Motoko, get in the game!" mini-Kitsune called out.
Motoko resolutely shook her head. "No, I think..."
Shinobu returned to her normal height and turned her pleading gaze on the taller girl. "They're expecting it, so please just play along."
The Shinmei-ryū heiress immediately turned her gaze toward the 'Spartan' standing, or more accurately sulking, beside her. Before she could even question why he wasn't going to 'take their turn' or whatever was going on, he shook his head. "I'm so pissed that if I take a swipe at them, they're dead."
Giving him a half-hearted glare out of the corner of her eye, she stepped forward past the others and drew her sword. "Fine. If all I need to do is defeat them..."
This European-style sword wasn't to her liking, but a true practitioner of Shinmei-ryū was never held back in their use of the style by the weapon at hand. She channeled her ki, and though the unfamiliar weapon made it slightly more difficult, the Zanmaken she sent arcing toward them was no less potent than any other she had manifested. As a technique that was meant to only target evil creatures, it wouldn't greatly harm the two, but...
The ki attack struck the ground between their feet and released its energy in a decent-sized explosion, more than enough to defeat the two and leave them swirly-eyed in a smoking crater.
"Yeesh, it's just a game," Kitsune remarked, looking over Motoko's handiwork. "You didn't have to go that far."
Motoko didn't bother trying to explain herself, simply hanging her head in shame. Truth be told, she had put a little extra oomph into that technique to vent some of her frustration at this entire situation. "My apologies..." she mumbled.
When she felt Seno's armored hand give a comforting pat to her shoulder, she was equal parts mortified and genuinely relieved.
A short time of traveling later, the group found their way to an abandoned-looking building, notable for it being the only building they had come across in their travel. The sign over the door read 'Gifts', and it certainly had the look of a gaudy tourist trap, right down to the tanuki statue sitting to the side of the door.
"At last, we found it!" mini-Keitaro said triumphantly. "The legendary gift shop!"
There was no one inside tending the store, which initially struck Motoko as odd. Then she recalled what Seno and Kitsune had explained earlier about older game systems and their low memory, and simply chalked that up as to why no one was inside.
Among all kinds of assorted knick-knacks, the only thing that stood out to her was a pennant banner hanging on the far wall. Something that Keitaro immediately pointed to. "There! That's the legendary Triangle Flag!"
By now, Motoko was beginning to grow tired of hearing the word 'legendary'. She looked wearily at the flag. "But, it's just..."
She trailed off as Seno's hand came to rest on her shoulder again. She looked over, and he merely silently shook his head. Odd, that he enjoyed video games so much, yet seemed to be just as annoyed with all of this as she was. Perhaps it was due to that 'gun gremlins' he had mentioned earlier, whatever that was. Or perhaps it was the absurdity that was getting to him.
Still, it was nice to know that she wasn't alone in her misery. She afforded him a small smile of shared commiseration.
Oblivious to that moment, mini-Keitaro was pointing to where the 'Triangle Flag'—really just a garish local area map—was marked with a scrawled message that said 'Here be Dragons.'
"Look! The dragon can be found in Hinata Pond!"
A brief cut later, they all stood before a small pond—just a fishing hole, really—not too far away from the gift shop. While the others looked about for any sign of a dragon, mini-Kitsune noticed something nearby.
"Check it out, a ruin with ancient inscriptions carved on it!"
The 'ruin' was little more than an information sign for the pond area, but it did turn out to contain useful information. As Motoko slowly approached, mini-Keitaro was already reading off it, "It says that to awaken the dragon, the pure voices of the maidens are necessary."
"Bet we could wake it up with some good old fashioned dynamite fishing," Seno said quietly, busy skipping rocks across the surface of the water. He wasn't very good at it.
"We are the maidens you speak of," a pair of identical voices called out, drawing the party's attention to the top of the sign.
Seated atop the sign, clad in sleeveless tunics that hung off opposing shoulders, and with an odd purple feather protruding from their long, braided brown hair, were a pair of miniature girls—smaller even than the chibi forms of the others—that looked like they could be twins.
"It's nice to see you again," the one on the left said. "We're Otohime Mutsumi."
"We followed your lead and became little, just like you," the one on the right added.
"...But not that small," Motoko deadpanned.
The two identical tiny women looked abashed. The one on the right raised her left hand to her head in a gesture of airheadedness. "Oh, well, I guess it looks like..."
"...we've gone and done it again," the one on the left concluded, her right hand up in a mirroring gesture to her twin.
Seno, busy looking back and forth between them with a blank expression, leaned over toward Motoko. "Who's that?" he stage-whispered.
"Ah, that's right, you haven't met Otohime-san yet," Motoko stated. "She is, like Urashima, a Tokyo University test failure."
Kitsune took the opportunity to add, "And she acts a bit...touched...from time to time."
"Ahh," Seno nodded, as though he fully understood now. "And there's two?"
Motoko shook her head. "No, only one."
Meanwhile, the twins had stood up atop the sign and clasped their hands together as if in prayer. "And now it's time for singing!" they proclaimed as one.
They immediately launched into a song, presumably to summon this 'legendary dragon' they were to find. Kitsune glanced back with a smirk, waiting to see what Seno had to say about it, only to see the swordsman looking about in boredom while he waited. "What, no snarky one-liner about the reference or a meta joke?"
He shook his head to indicate that he wasn't aware of whatever reference was being made by the singing twins, then shrugged. "I think we've hit our episodic limit on fourth wall jokes. I might get in trouble if I squeeze any more in."
Ignoring that remark, the fox-eyed woman gasped in mock horror. "You don't understand a Godzilla reference? You uncultured heathen!"
A smirk and a chuckle met that proclamation. "My reference pools may be limited, but the ones I do have are fathomless in their depth."
A rumbling and the rush of water forestalled any reply that Kitsune might have made. The group looked out over the pond as a huge plume of water sprayed into the air. It quickly settled, and in its place, the enormous form of a green-shelled turtle floated on the surface.
"It's the legendary dragon!" the chibi girls all proclaimed as one.
"We did it!" mini-Keitaro exclaimed at the same time.
"That is not a dragon!" Motoko complained.
Seno merely watched in confusion. "Isn't that Keitaro's pet turtle?"
As though in response to both the question and Motoko's irritation, the enormous turtle waved a flipper to get their attention, then pointed to its shell. Where it had gestured, there was a sales tag tapped to its shell that proclaimed in three different languages that it was, indeed, the Legendary Dragon.
Motoko hung her head. "I'll...be quiet now."
"Well, you know what they say," Seno chuckled. "You get what you pay for."
The legendary dragon, as it turned out, was meant to be the party's mount to traverse the town and reach the evil King's lair. Despite the slow movements of the 'dragon', its large size meant that they covered a lot of ground very quickly.
On the back of the shell, the chibi members of the group entertained themselves in various ways by playing around. The two tiny Mutsumis rode along in a wicker basket. Seno had laid down and seemed to simply be snacking on some candy as he enjoyed the ride. Motoko, however, sat rigidly upright and very closed in on herself.
After a few minutes, the armored man noticed the tension in her posture. "You okay?" he asked, an uncharacteristically-serious tone to his voice.
"It's nothing serious," Motoko murmured, though her actions put the lie to those words.
An odd sound like something striking metal rang out suddenly, but nobody seemed to pay it any mind. Motoko's state of mind certainly didn't lead to her inquiring about it.
"I hate turtles..." she muttered under her breath.
She wasn't as quiet as she thought she'd been, given the way that Seno made a show of looking around them at their giant turtle ride. Then he simply nodded his head and held a hand out toward her. "Ahh, makes sense. Jelly bean?"
It didn't occur to her that the offer was more to take her mind off what was causing her distress than thinking she actually wanted any candy, which she didn't. "N-no, thank you."
He gave a shrug and tipped his head back to toss the offered candy into his mouth.
A shadow loomed over them, and Motoko looked up to see that the turtle-dragon had turned its head around to face them and was, presumably, speaking in its language. It took every ounce of Motoko's willpower not to freak out at the proximity of the turtle.
"She says that we have arrived," one of the tiny Mutsumis translated. "That is the castle where the Dragon King dwells."
Summoning her courage, Motoko looked past the turtle's head to where it was gesturing with one of its fins. There, just ahead of them, shrouded in the fog...
Wait.
That was just the Hinata-Sou.
While the thick layer of fog did lend it an ominous appearance, she couldn't help but think how unoriginal it was. But then again, the apartment was the one location that all of them were most familiar with.
Predictably, there was no such word as 'patience' in mini-Keitaro's vocabulary, and he drew his sword while calling out, "Let's go, everyone!"
Mini-Kitsune, mini-Kaolla, and mini-Shinobu all cried out, "Yeah!" and the quartet of small figures jumped down from the back of the turtle and charged ahead toward the fog.
"W-wait just a minute!" Motoko called after them.
"Oi, don't go running ahead, ya dopes!" Seno added. He sighed in irritation, then jumped down and drew his sword. "Come on, let's go round up the Diaper Brigade."
Nodding, Motoko jumped down after him and joined him in running through the fog. By the time they reached the open front doors of the apartment, their smaller companions had disappeared entirely. The front entrance area was ominously quiet.
"Of course they've vanished," Seno grumbled while Motoko looked about for any clues of where their comrades were. "Okay, I'll check down here if you want to go upstairs?"
"Very well," she nodded. "Meet outside our rooms in ten minutes?"
"I'll be there," he replied, tossing off a salute before disappearing into the dining room.
As she headed upstairs, Motoko considered drawing her sword since this place was supposedly the home of the Dragon King, but she didn't feel any threatening presence that suggested to her she should.
Her search of the rooms and corridors on the upper levels turned up nothing. Eventually, she found her way to Naru's room and entered it. Perhaps a more thorough search of her room might turn up some clues. She wandered the room as she looked about, perhaps not paying as much attention to her footing as she should have.
The ground suddenly disappeared underneath her and she fell through a hole in the floor to the level below. Fast as her reflexes were, she nimbly landed in a crouch without harming herself. She then remembered that there was a hole in Naru's room that led down to Keitaro's room directly beneath it. His was a room she definitely did not want to be in. Lifting her head to look around, she nearly fell over in shock at the sight that awaited her.
That mini-Keitaro was in his own room wasn't that much of a surprise, but the fact that he was sharing tea with the Dragon King took her completely by surprise. Their weapons rested nearby, but they seemed to be sharing a perfectly amicable conversation.
"Do you like them?" the Dragon King was asking mini-Keitaro, regarding a plate of cookies set between them. Neither seemed to have noticed her presence.
Mini-Keitaro took a huge bite of the cookie in his hand, barely even chewing it before swallowing the tasty snack. "Yeah, they're great!"
Because this was a dream sequence based on a video game, Motoko promptly fell on her face from the shock of seeing the two 'sworn enemies' acting so civil to one another.
She swiftly jumped back to her feet, pointing accusingly at mini-Keitaro. "What are you doing?" she demanded. "Is he not the enemy you've sworn to vanquish?"
Mini-Keitaro looked at her in confusion.
The Dragon King calmly sipped his tea, then turned partially toward her, the picture of utter calm. "I don't see what the problem is," he said. "This is a dream, after all."
Motoko could have screamed with frustration. "No! I refuse to accept this! Look at this obscene outfit I've been made to wear! I'll never be able to rest unless I defeat you!" She drew her sword, wishing not the for first time that it was her familiar Shisui. But it would have to suffice. "Face me!"
A brief sigh came from the Dragon King's mouth. "Very well, if you insist." Picking up the staff that rested on the floor beside him, he stood and turned to face her. "Well...shall we begin?"
The fog from outside began to fill the room, obscuring all three of them from sight.
As the fog cleared, Motoko found herself standing at one end of the Yukemori Bridge leading out of Hinata. At the far end of the bridge, the Dragon King stood regarding her silently. A glance down showed that she once again held her treasured sword, and had returned to her normal attire. She smiled faintly. Good. She would be facing this battle with her full strength.
She lifted Shisui from where she held it facing her adversary, taking it in a two-handed defensive grip up by her head. Her breathing slowed, even, steady breaths being the only movement she made. Her eyes were fixed, unwavering, unblinking, on the Dragon King.
Across from her, the masked man likewise brought his bladed staff to a ready position. Other than the wind faintly tugging at the ends of his clothing, he resembled a statue by the stillness with which he stood.
A silence fell, so heavy that Motoko could almost hear the rushing of the blood in her veins. She most definitely could hear her breathing, harsh yet steady. The tension was thick enough to stifle.
Somewhere, a bird's cry broke the silence.
Both combatants took it as their cue, charging toward each other at the exact same moment. It took only moments for them to come within reach of one another. Trusting in her sword and her training, Motoko swung Shisui and let the dice fall as they may.
As she passed the Dragon King, she heard the split of ceramics, and turned to look behind her as she landed. The kabuki mask had split evenly down the middle and fallen to the bridge on either side of him. He didn't seem out of the fight, however, standing upright and turning around to face her.
Motoko's eyes widened in shock as she saw the face hidden behind the mask. The purple cowl shadowed much of the Dragon King, but she could still see her foe's face. She felt as though she were looking into a mirror.
"Aneue..." she whispered in disbelief, gripping her sword tightly enough that her knuckles turned white. Fear warred with confusion in her mind. "Why? Why is my sister in Urashima's dream?"
"That's because..." the phantom of her older sister answered, then raised her head. In that span of time, it was no longer her sister in the Dragon King's attire, but Naru herself. "This is Motoko-chan's dream!"
The mists flooded back in again, obscuring everything around Motoko from her sight. Even the ground itself seemed to disappear, replaced with the formless fog. Her sword had disappeared from her hand, but she felt no exterior threats at the moment, and deemed it a temporary non-issue.
More important was the image that appeared before her like a scene from a movie. In it, she saw two children, a boy and a girl, playing in a playground sandbox. The two children were saying something, but the image played without sound, and she had no clue what they were discussing.
Then, unexpectedly, sound began to issue from the vision. "When we grow up, let's go to Tokyo U together, okay?" the little girl asked the boy.
Before the boy had a chance to respond, the girl leaned over the sand igloo they were building and kissed him on the cheek. Motoko felt her own cheeks burn at what was clearly someone's private memory of great importance. But just who were the little girl and the boy?
A clamor of noise—familiar voices—drew her attention behind her in time to see the chibi forms of Shinobu, Kaolla, and Kitsune—back in their normal clothes—run past her to join the little boy at the sandbox. The little girl was gone now, but a chibi Naru had likewise joined them. A few moments later, even a younger version of Seno ran past her to join the fun. Gone was his Spartan armor, instead he wore kendo attire different from her own only in its color scheme. It was now clear that the little boy was a younger Keitaro.
Motoko watched the young, carefree versions of her fellow tenants play and enjoy themselves, filling the air with a laughter that warmed the very air. By contrast, she stood alone and distant, surrounded by cold emptiness. She felt a pain in her heart as she realized that this dream world was laying completely bare for all to see the separation that she had from those she nominally considered her friends. She realized that she wished to experience joy just as much as they did, but she couldn't bring herself to let go of her responsibilities and join them in their carefree fun.
It was fear, she realized with a start. Fear of letting down her older sister, fear of tarnishing the reputation of the Shinmei-ryū. Worst of all, it was the fear of not being accepted, of being ridiculed for deviating from the stoic reputation she had made for herself.
She lowered her head, feeling the sting of tears at the corners of her eyes. I... I don't want to be alone...
"Motoko-chan, come play with us!" mini-Naru's voice called out, breaking through the haze of her bleak thoughts.
Daring to raise her head, she saw all of the others beckoning her toward them, calling out in a chorus of child-like voices for her to come to them. She looked from one child-like face to the next, finding nothing in their expressions but the happiness of children eager to welcome another friend into their midst.
The tears broke free, but they were short-lived, and of happiness. She smiled at them, her friends, and let her worries go.
In a puff of smoke, she too assumed a smaller form, wasting no time in running to join them in the sandbox. A white light appeared behind them and grew, and from its shining illumination she felt an incredible sense of warmth. Briefly, she wondered if this was how it felt to ascend to Heaven.
But no, she realized as the light grew overwhelming, Heaven was a place she had already found.
Motoko awoke from the dream, taking in a breath like a swimmer breaching the water's surface after a long dive. As she gazed out over the calm and still shrine around her, the words of Kikuko came back to her. The seeming loss of focus, the way her aura no longer resembled the calm waters that had given her sword its name.
She glanced down to her left and retrieved her sword, laying it across her lap. This sword had once belonged to her older sister, and had been passed down to her along with the title of heiress to the school. She had always striven to live up to the sword's name, seeking perfection in body and mind.
But that perfection had come at a cost.
Outside of her family, her older sister and her younger one alike, she had no one she felt close to. Her 'friends' at school qualified for that title by the barest of margins. Even here, at the Hinata, the others mostly just thought of her as the 'Kendo Girl', and most of them had a deep-buried fear of her and her abilities. They didn't often show it, but she could say with certainty that she wasn't thought of as a friend in the way that Kaolla and Shinobu thought of each other that way, or Naru and Kitsune. Only Seno had no fear of her whatsoever, but otherwise she had no idea what he thought of her at all. Had his coming, his lack of fear, awoken her own deeply buried desires for friendship?
Perhaps that was what Kikuko had sensed.
Still, she would be a fool to ignore the epiphany of her dream. Even if it had come about in a most unusual manner, her meditations had given her an answer she had been looking for. One that didn't involve violence or going back on her word. As a student of Shinmei-ryū, the fact that she could find such a solution filled her with an immense pride.
She stood from where she had been seated, ignoring the tingle in her legs from having sat in one position for so long. She forced her feet to carry her forward on the trek back to the main building, knowing that if she didn't act now, she may well lose her nerve.
Within minutes, she had made it back to the dorms and rushed inside, entering the lounge and calling out, "Urashima! I would like to—"
She drew up short as she found all of the tenants laid out on the floor and across the couches, all of them thoroughly sleeping. A shiver of barely-repressed rage shook her body. Here she was, stepping out of her familiar comfort zone, trying to partake of the things that they enjoyed, and none of them had the decency to be conscious for her to speak to.
"This... is inexcusable!" she shouted, forgetting entirely that she had an indoor voice.
Her outburst served to draw the others back to consciousness. Just in time, too, as her next action was to draw her sword and lift it into an overhead striking position in a knee-jerk reaction to take her frustrations out on Keitaro.
Seno, blinking himself awake, looked up from the couch he had been sprawled out on. His brain registered Motoko's battle stance, and spurred his body to motion before he'd even made a conscious thought. By the time his active thinking caught up with his actions, he'd bodily placed himself in front of Motoko, a hand pushing her wrists up to keep her from bringing her sword—or more likely, one of her vast arsenal of Shinmei-ryū techniques—to play.
"Whoa, easy there, let's take a rain check on the stabby stick," he said, then glanced behind him to where Keitaro was beginning to stir.
Kitsune and Shinobu were both already awake, watching the scene with mild amusement and shock, respectively. Kaolla was sitting up, rubbing her eyes sleepily, but that meant she was at least two minutes from full awareness.
"Dang, he's not even awake right now," the swordsman pointed out. "What's got you so bent out this time?"
The interruption to her attack and the direct question were the proverbial wet blanket thrown onto the fire of her anger. She took a step back, lowering her arms, and Seno likewise stepped back to get out of her personal space and allow her to sheath her sword.
"My apologies," she murmured, hating the heat she could feel rising to her face. "I momentarily lost control of my anger in embarrassment."
To her surprise, nobody made fun of her for that revelation. Not even Kitsune, though being that she was looking away, Motoko didn't notice that Seno had made a 'knock it off' gesture at the fox-eyed woman to prevent exactly that from happening.
Instead, Kitsune good-naturedly offered, "Don't sweat it, girl. It's like, human nature or something to make an even bigger fool of yourself when you're embarrassed about somethin'."
Rolling his eyes, Seno turned lazily to regard the sandy-haired woman. "Not really helping the situation here, Kitsune-san, but thanks for the input," he said. He glanced back at Motoko. "She's right, though. Man, the stories I could tell about some of the stupid crap I've done."
Motoko looked between the pair, feeling her unspoken wish for true friendship with this assorted bunch of well-intended people pressing against the inside of her ribcage. "I..." she began, then closed her eyes and forced herself to take a deep breath. "If it wouldn't be too much of a burden... I...would like to play that game with you three sometime. Halo, was it not?"
There was no hiding the stunned looks on the faces of the others at the completely out-of-the-blue request for Motoko to ask to join them in playing a video game. None of them could even begin to picture the normally-taciturn girl enjoying herself with any kind of game, let alone a sci-fi first person shooter.
Kitsune was the first to recover. "Hell yeah, girl!" she exclaimed. "We'd be happy to have you with us!"
Seno nodded, recognizing that to take any more time in answering might worsen her anxiety. "The more the merrier," he agreed. "There's always room for a fourth."
"Yay, Motoko's going to play with us!" Kaolla cheered. "More blood for the blood god!"
Keitaro gave a nervous laugh. "Easy there, Su-chan. I'm pretty sure it'd be her first time playing a video game. Don't want to throw her right to the deep end, right?"
Even though she couldn't shake the feeling that she was marching into the tiger's den wearing naught but a necklace of raw meat, Motoko didn't regret her decision in the slightest.
Onsen, Hinata Apartments
1946 hours, local time
Later in the evening, after being given a 'friendly' introductory gameplay session to the world of Halo and the wider world of video games—it had largely consisted of Seno genuinely trying to teach her how to play the game while Kitsune and Kaolla screwed around in the background killing all of them at random—Motoko relaxed in the hot springs bath with Naru.
"It was a bit dated, but pretty entertaining, wasn't it?" Naru asked the younger girl.
"Very much so," Motoko answered, idly watching the ripples of water in the bath. "I found such a story-driven experience to be very engaging. Video games are something I can definitely see myself enjoying in moderation."
Naru smothered a giggle with her hand. "Guess I shouldn't tell you that Halo is supposed to have a good story as well, should I?"
Both of them seemed to come to a realization at the exact same time.
"But wait, you didn't play Legend of the Dragon Palace!" Naru exclaimed.
"Did you have a strange dream, also?" Motoko asked at the same moment.
Then, as though cosmically arranged to ruin the moment, Keitaro skidded into the outdoor bath area, clutching a different Super Nintendo cartridge in his hands. "I found a new game!" he proclaimed. "You play as the manager of a girls' dorm! Kind of trite, but I think it's something I can totally get into!"
"Hey, dumbass!" Seno's voice drifted from above and some distance, apparently in his room. "I'm not in there right now!"
The exuberance on Keitaro's face vanished in an instant, replaced with mortal dread as he looked toward the bath to see the towel-clad forms of Naru and Motoko walking toward him at a slow, menacing pace.
"Ah, sorry girls, I thought Seno was in here," he murmured, already resigning himself to his fate.
"Sorry's not good enough!" Naru proclaimed, moments before she and Motoko launched him into the sky with a tandem kick.
Fortunately, being a kick rather than Naru's preferred punching style, his flight was short-lived. His flight arc carried him up to the third floor, where he struck the safety railing stomach-first and flipped over it, tumbling through the open doorway into Seno's room. The swordsman sat leaning against a wall, not looking up from the paperback Star Wars book in his hands.
"You had that one coming," Seno remarked, turning to the next page.
Keitaro simply lay where he landed, staring up at the ceiling. He gave a rueful chuckle. "Yeah, I really did."
