Ah My Goddess Fan Fiction ❯ Trial By Tenderness ❯ Part 35 - Petals ( Chapter 35 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Part 35 Petals



"W..where the hell am I?" Urd said with a twinge of fear after the initial shock wore off. She glanced around and saw her two sisters; they were as surprised as she was. Once she noticed that she wasn't alone, she felt a sliver of relief in the face of the enormous yaw of her disorientation. Then she looked at herself and realized that she was nude; as nude as she was when she was relaxing in the hot bath waters at the sento. Another glance informed her that she was anywhere but someplace familiar.
When she came to, Skuld fought her panic by compassing their surroundings with an analytical eye. There were many enigmas here besides the biggest mystery of all: how did we get *here*? First, she was floating off the floor...which was impossible, since she had her powers stripped by the Almighty months ago. None of the Goddesses where wearing any clothes, and Big Sister Urd was also floating in the air...despite having almost no powers. Second, the room was almost hermetically sterile...and chock full of post-modernist interior design motifs. Glazed ceramic-like white walls with high-tech recessed blue lighting mounted within white metal grillworks surrounded them. There was no sign of a door or portal anywhere in the room. No air exhausts, fans or air conditioning/heat vents. No electrical outlets. No windows. Nothing to indicate that this room was a place of habitation. The recessed lights in the floor and ceiling seemed to create a diffuse glow, rather than a source of light.
"What is making us float?" she wondered as an ill-boding apprehension gripped her with a silent roar. She suddenly hunched her knees up to her chest and curled her long slender legs under her. She looked at Belldandy, who was also peering around, examining their immediate environment.
"<We're being watched,>" Skuld thoughtcast quietly to her sisters.
"<How? There's no window, no glass, nothing!>" she heard Belldandy's reply in her mind. Belldandy glanced at Urd and then curled herself up in a floating near-fetal position. Urd also curled up protectively.
"<How is it that we are *here*?>" Belldandy thoughtcast in exasperation.
She remembered that a few minutes ago, they had been soaking in the women's bath: her, Urd, Skuld, Megumi and Sayoko. Belldandy had been recounting her anniversary date with Keiichi to the other girls, while Skuld was spraying Megumi and Urd with a porpoise-shaped watergun she had bought from a vending machine in the lobby. She could hear Keiichi's voice through the divider walls...the guys were laughing it up. Urd had told her how happy she was now that Cevn was apparently himself, but she added that she didn't know for sure *how* much of himself he was. The walls of the women's bath were tiled with a pastoral scene of Lake Biwa, depicted in pseudo-relief in such a way to lend the visual impression that the bath itself seemed to be an extension of the lake. Behind her was a mosaic expression of a forest scene, one wall had a traditional Japanese village; the remaining wall portrayed a scene of rice paddies with a temple in the horizon.
One minute, she was soaking in the soothing waters of the bathtub, her fever abated by the soothing comfort of the 40C degree water and the pleasant fresh scent of the bath. The next minute, everything went novabright for a split second...and then she was windmilling down some kind of endless tunnel. She felt herself gripped by an *incredible* power; it was as if an invisible hand had scooped her up in midair and hurled her down the corridor. The expansive passageway looked like the interior of a black hole-white hole convex, but it was even more colorful...and filled with awe-inspiring flashes of energy. The flurry of sights and sounds overwhelmed her into unconsciousness...and then she was here.
"Where are Megumi and Sayoko?" she asked aloud. Both Skuld and Urd inclined their heads to indicate that they didn't have an explanation for their sudden appearance here, let alone what happened to their fellow bathers. If they were gone, then...
"Keiichi!" she shouted desperately.
"<Where's Keiichi? I..I don't even know if he's safe!>" she thoughtcast to her sisters, her panic rendering her thoughts haltingly. She sensed Urd and Skuld's thoughts...they could only respond with a like confusion, as they were both gripped with disorientation and alarm as well.
Belldandy felt the fear choking her...surrounding her. Her insecurity increased exponentially at the thought of being separated from her beloved Keiichi. Belldandy looked to her two sisters with a distraught expression. She felt her confidence waning...whatever had done this to them could have caused even worse problems for Keiichi and the guys.
One thing remained the same...Belldandy still felt sick with the flu. She had a ringing headache and a fever. So there *was* some continuity between the time in the bath and the present situation.
"<Bell, why don't you try and extend your senses?>" Urd suggested. Belldandy felt a slight tuck of relief at her sister's suggestion; the initial shock to the system had worn off enough to allow them to begin to rationally seek options and explanations.
The Norn of the Present closed her eyes and felt her mind expand beyond her physical attribution. It stretched across the room...and then reached a barrier of some kind. Her Goddess-enhanced senses revealed that they were inside of some kind of bubble...consisting of an unknown matrix of arcane energy.
"Drats! If Urd had her powers, she could probably identify what kind of magical force is enveloping us," she thought, momentarily filled with a rare flurry of recalcitrant thoughts towards the Lord.
"<Skuld...Urd! We're surrounded by some kind of energy field. This room appears to be in a bubble-shaped sphere of arcane energy...a kind of force that I have never encountered before!>" she telepathized with an anxious thoughtcast.
Urd clenched her fists angrily at this news. She was by far the most versed of the three in arcane matters...but her knowledge was useless as long as she couldn't experience the energy empirically.
"Leave it up to the Lord to make this even more difficult than it has to be," she growled in a low voice.
"We're..in..a..cage," Skuld said in a muted voice trembling with fear. The last time she was confined was when she was kidnapped by Mara...with all those horrible *things*. This was just the same. Skuld felt a series of flashexit terrors strobing horribly in her conscious thoughts...the sensation of being trapped was so strongly fixed in her heart, she started gasping, eyes wide with anxiety.
"Skuld...calm down! Calm down!" Belldandy pleaded as she saw her youngest sister dissolving emotionally into a frightened state. Skuld was darting her tanbrown eyes all over the room, while her chest heaved with gasping breaths.
"I'm trapped!...We're trapped!...There has to be a way out!...What if...it was caused by a ghost or a Demon?...What if it's Mara?...what if we're all in that horrible lair of hers?...We must be at someone's mercy because we're trapped," Skuld screeched in a panicked staccato of circular paranoia.
Belldandy and Urd reached out and each grabbed one of Skuld's shoulders, then reeled themselves closer so they were floating right next to her. Rubbing shoulders with Skuld, both sisters tried to comfort her with words of empathy and confidence...while massaging her neck and back to try and physically soothe her. Belldandy could feel Skuld's baby-smooth skin quivering under her hand as she tried to backrub the tension of her neck.
"Skuld...we're all scared," Urd said over and over in a calming mantra-like repetition, trying to get her attention and let her know that she wasn't alone in her fears.
"Skuld, it's going to be okay. We'll find a way out of here. We always do, despite everything that Mara has thrown at us," Belldandy assured her. Skuld's heaving ribcage slowed down and finally she resumed a somewhat normal breathing pattern.
"You promise?" she asked sheepishly as she looked at both her sisters, embarrassed at her overblown reaction of panic.

* * * * * * * *

Megumi felt consciousness returning to her slowly. Her head was still swimming somewhere in the spindizzy zone, many times worse than the worst hangover she had ever experienced. She tried to sit up and realized that she couldn't budge an inch. She could only turn her head and move her fingers and toes.
"Restrained," she realized with a mounting sense of vague fear. This awareness offered a mixed blessing; her immobility had initially brought up fears of that she had somehow been paralyzed. Lifting her head, she observed that she was in a gurney-like bed, covered with white bedsheets and blanket. She could see several white straps wrapped around her wrists, waist and ankles, confining her. The ceiling looked *weird* in a sci-fi sort of way. Twisting her head, she saw Sayoko lying unconscious in another bed. Sayoko was also covered by a white blanket and bedsheet, over which a half-dozen straps were visible.
"If she's strapped like that, then I must be too," Megumi thought. The bed was comfortable, at least. But she couldn't move any of her limbs; she was tightly pinned to the bed. It dawned on her with a flush of embarrassment that, underneath all the bedding, she was *naked*!
"M..Megumi," she heard a hoarse voice interrupting her thoughts. She saw Sayoko looking at her with an expression that revealed that she was also disquieted and disoriented.
"Do you know that your bed is *floating*?" Sayoko asked.
Megumi felt a nauseous play of senses overcome her; a feeling of *otherness* at the notion of being in a floating bed. She closely examined Sayoko's bed...and saw that it was lacking any legs or other visible means of support.
"This...is bad. What can defy the laws of gravity?!" she thought, immediately suspecting that they were dealing with paranormal powers. Unearthly powers. Demonic powers. Feeling fear in reaction to this realization, Megumi looked all over the room for evidence of Mara.
There was a series of holographic display units in the wall over her head, floating in the air like the kinds of holograms she'd seen in anime. The engineering student in Megumi's mind took over, allowing for a moment's disciplined reprieve from her anxiety. She gulped down hard as she realized that these displays reminded her of Skuld's Holophotic Videmeotron. The room seemed to be illuminated, but there was no source of lights, like hidden florescent fixtures or cleverly recessed incandescent bulbs. Instead, the ceiling and floor seemed luminous. She couldn't see any kind of door or windows.
"What happened to us?" Sayoko asked in a voice that was choking down panic. "This room is maddeningly the same, it's so bright and nondescript. And I can't move an inch!"
"I don't know," Megumi replied, echoing her friend's frustration.
"What do you remember, Megumi?" Sayoko inquired.
"I remember that we all were in a square bath with nice walls; it was really serene and quiet. We all were talking about guys and stuff...and then I felt like the bottom of the floor just opened...and then I *disappeared*. I recall that I was hurtling through some kind of corridor...like in that last part of 2001: A Space Odyssey," she said, straining to put words to the incredible visions of flight.
"My memory gets really blurry after that. Then I woke up here with you just a few moments ago!"
Sayoko looked at her thoughtfully.
"I was worried that I was losing my mind, Megumi! But I saw the same thing...or something just like you described. Which means that it happened to both of us. Where do you think the others are?"
Megumi was disquieted by Sayoko's question. She was so involved in her own plight that she completely forgot about the three Goddesses who were bathing with her. Could they have been spared the knee-jerk abduction that she experienced?
"I don't have a clue, Sayoko. I just wish they'd turn the lights down in here."

* * * * * * * *

Keiichi woke up with a splash of thick ruddy mud. While bathing in the relaxing, cleansing water of the public bath, his skin felt like it was being smoothly caressed. In contrast, the mud was tautly drying on his skin, which made him feel like he was clipping out with aridness. "Hhhh!" he gasped as he felt a sudden pressure on his chest. Raising his head, he saw a large toad resting there.
"Wauggh!" he screamed, scampering to gain his feet, sending the toad on a hop-skip-jump to safety. Once he was standing, it dawned on him that he was a naked as the day he was born. Looking down at his body, he saw that he was plastered in mud, partially dried. He quickly wheeled around and saw a human-shaped imprint in the muddy paddy where he was laying.
"Isn't it winter outside?" his mind scrambled a message to him, cutting through his initial wooziness. Keiichi looked to see Genji, Tomohisa and Cevn all lying in the mud at irregular postures.
"As if they'd been dropped there from some point overhead," he observed.
Genji woke up and looked at himself with mud splashed all over his face. Keiichi almost wanted to laugh at the fact that Genji was plastered with mud...but this was too strange to be finding humor.
"Wh..where are we?" Genji asked him.
Keiichi sat down in the mud, not wanted to be seen in his current state of nudity. They were *outdoors* in the middle of what looked like a rice paddy; the rice was just peaking over the loosely packed mud. Towards the horizon were small hillocks on one side, and a wooded area on the other. In the distant horizon, a mountain range compassed the plane of view all the way across.
"I'm guessing...rural Japan?" Keiichi ventured.
"Yes, but there's something extremely *strange* about this. It just doesn't feel right!" Genji replied.
"Yeah...like how in the hell did we get here?" Keiichi stated the obvious.
"But it's *hot*! This humidity is as bad as it gets during July! And it was *snowing* when we drove to the public baths!" Tomohisa said, referring to the weather. Indeed it was hot, which ruled out the fact that they were in Japan.
"Even Naha in Okinawa isn't this hot in December!" Keiichi noted.
Cevn sat up and realized that he was somewhere else. Immediately noticing that he was naked and caked with a combination of wet and dried mud, he crouched into a near-fetal position.
"What's going on?" he yelled in confusion and fear. "I was with you guys, balneating..."
"Balneating?" Tomohisa asked. Keiichi glanced at his friend, knowing that he was rattled into panicked defensiveness...because he was using obscure terms.
"Sorry...bathing, Tomohisa," he corrected Cevn.
"Where are we? Where are my clothes!" Cevn screeched fearfully, totally inattentive to sudden change in locale and weather. All that mattered was that he felt *exposed*, vulnerable!
Keiichi knew that Cevn was on the brink of a panic attack, and tried to settle him down. Keiichi knew his friend enough by now to say the right things to mellow out his fears. A moment later, Cevn seemed to listen in on Keiichi and gradually recover his wits. He looked around...and then looked at Keiichi with wide-eyed astonishment.
"We seem to be in the middle of a rice paddy...by my estimation," Genji answered.
"If we are, then you know as well as I do that the rice must have just been planted, because it isn't very tall yet. It must have just peaked...so it must be late springtime here, possibly the fifth month. Wherever here is," Cevn guessed.
"How?" Keiichi asked in anguish...suddenly realizing that his beloved Belldandy was nowhere in sight. "How did we get here? And where are Bell-chan and the others?" He didn't have time to finish his thoughts.

**AIIIYYYYYEEEEEEEEHHHHHRRRRR**

Genji leapt up and jerked his head in the direction of the sound. Almost two dozen people were rushing upon them, bearing crude hoes, sickles and spears...and menacing looks on their faces. They looked like something out of place. "*Centuries* out of place," Genji sensed with panic. Dressed in rags and loincloths, the crowd advanced with murderous intent, closing the distance fast.
"C'mon, let's get the hell out of here!" he shouted, alerting the others. Scattering all concerns about their natural state aside, three men and a boy started running towards the woods, hotly pursued by a small band of peasants shouting hostilities at them. Sprinting at the top of his abilities, Keiichi saw a flash of color amidst the verdant thickly wooded forest. Tall trunks of Japanese ashes and bamboo trees were everywhere, blurring as they dashed even deeper into the darkening forest canopy. Looking back, he noticed that their pursuers were still in dogged chase.
"Over there!" he shouted, point towards the splatch of color.
"It's a shrine!" Genji shouted excitedly.
"Which means that they probably won't attack us there," Cevn said, expressing his hopes out loud. "I mean, isn't the Kami a form of sanctuary, even in 21st century Japan?" he asked in a winded voice.
"I don't think we're in the 21st century," Keiichi said grimly as they dashed with deep gasps towards the Shinto shrine. All three of his companions shuddered in mid-pace in reaction to his observation...then started running even faster, narrowing the gap between them and the shrine. The shrine to the Kami was in a natural clearing fifty meters ahead. Their random sprint through the forest finally converged on a footpath leading to a crude wooden torii.
"Get them before they reach the God!!!" the angry mob shouted.
Keiichi and the others passed through the wooden torii and sprinted another ten meters up to the shrine. Ascending the wooden stairs, they passed through the curtains in the doorway and almost stumbled into the two-room shrine. Outside, the mob of peasants semi-circled the shrine.
"We don't allow naked beggars in our rice fields! How dare you come here and defile the God! They must be hinen! They were trying to steal our freshly planted rice! We'll wait here, and get you when you come out! Leave 'em be, they don't look like they'll cause any troubles *now*!" the villagers shouted, cajoling and arguing amongst themselves.
All four were heaving with deep gasps after their lifesaving sprint away from the peasants. Outside, the angry crowd was still venting its spleen on them.

* * * * * * * *

Time was stretching onward like a taunt rubberband. Urd wished that she could take an invisible razorblade and slash through the elastic band. There just wasn't any *snap* to this confinement. One thing that she really hated...beyond being confined in an unknown location...was being bored. She was worried that she might develop what the mortals termed "cabin fever".
She looked at Skuld, who wasn't doing much better. Skuld's long sheen of black hair was bobbed into two ponytails; she had the end of one ponytail in her mouth, licking it like she always did when she was all wound up with nowhere to go.
Belldandy was sleeping.
"Ahh, it's time that we wake our guests," a voice sounded in the room, coming from no particular direction. The lights quickly faded to a red and yellow strobe and a high-pitch klaxon started sounding off. The serenity of the white light was now replaced by a cacophony of sound and flashes of light.
"All, right! All right, we're awake already," Urd yelled into the air. The light returned to its normal off-white glow.
"Splendid! I wouldn't want the three of you resting all day when we have so much to talk about."
In spite of feeling a bit of disorientation after being jarred into wakefulness by the 'alarm' of lights and sounds, Belldandy thought that she recognized that voice from somewhere...it sounded very familiar.
"Where are we?" Skuld shouted impatiently.
"Ahh, the young one. Since you're not a child, I won't treat you like a child. You will be informed in due time...Skuld, Norn of the Future," the disembodied voice answered. Skuld shuddered as she heard her name and her Goddess designation.
"You can't keep us here like this. If Kami-sama finds out..."
"Ah, but He won't. We've focused great measures towards preventing that. We can't have Him noticing that you're missing. But then again...He should have noticed this long ago. Anyway, you must be hungry...and it would be improper to engage in any pleasantries while you all have appetites. Please direct your attention to the wall on your left," the voice instructed.
The three Goddesses looked and saw an opening appear in an otherwise seamless section of the wall. Three trays of food were there. The aroma of the food was overwhelmingly enticing. Belldandy looked suspiciously at the trays.
"Someone has gone to great lengths to find out about us..." she thought uncomfortably. One tray had several cups full of ice cream, another tray had three glasses of Oolong Tea, and the third tray had a bottle of sake with the label neatly removed.
The three Goddesses floated over and each took a tray.
"How do we know that these aren't poisoned or drugged?" Urd asked.
"Urd, Norn of the Past, why would you suspect us? After all, you three are the most valuable pieces of property on this planet. I wouldn't dream of harming you...until I find out all of your secrets. That wouldn't be very sensible, would it?" the voice replied politely.
Urd shuddered at the words and how casually the voice had delivered them. The cool threat of the voice reminded her of a hidden snake, fangs dripping with the poison of the unknown.
Skuld broke her wooden chopsticks and took a cautious bite of the fish on her tray.
"Japanese cuisine," she remarked aloud.
"Yes. I've allowed my people to provide you with suitable meals. You'll notice that your powerup substances are included as well. But be forewarned...they have been diluted so that you cannot reach full power and attempt an escape from here. As you have already noticed, the confinement shield around your habitat serves to prevent any power from Yggdrasil coming in. Therefore, you *must* resort to these sources of power. Otherwise..."
"We fade from existence," Belldandy finished.
"No...I won't allow that, Belldandy, Norn of the Present. If you refuse nourishment, we will simply force you to powerup. But let's not involve ourselves with any unpleasantness for the moment. Enjoy your meals, Goddesses!" the voice said with finality.
The last thing any of the three sisters wanted to do was eat. The brief dialogue with the voice was very unsettling. Belldandy in particular was disturbed. If the voice belonged to their captor, then whoever he was...knew about matters that shouldn't be known. About Yggdrasil, their powerup sources, their names, the fact that they were Norns.
Unless they were somewhere *else* than the Earthrealm. But every instinct Belldandy possessed informed her that she and her sisters were still on the Earthrealm. She wished she could extend her Goddess senses out past the 'shield' around them so she could hear the rhythm of the planet.
"What could possibly keep us from receiving power from Yggdrasil?" Urd asked, astonished at the implications of *that*. The only place in the known Multiverse that Yggdrasil's power emanations couldn't reach was Vanagdrasil...and this was hearsay, since no one had been there except the Lord. She munched on some radishes, filled with consternation.

* * * * * * * *

Megumi turned in the direction of the whooshing sound to see some kind of robot moving across the room. The machine was rolling around on a tripod of servos as it came by her bedside.
A strong metal 'hand' emerged from the side and grabbed a hypodermic with some kind of apparatus attached to it. Megumi panicked as the needle closed in on her neck. She violently tried to move, but the restraints held her fast. Another robotic hand reached out and grabbed her face by the jaw and held her head still for the injection. She felt the needle prick her, and then a slight metallic presence moving inside of her neck, and then the robot withdrew the needle.
Megumi was shocked at this callous violation of her person, her body. Her fear increased when Sayoko started screaming hysterically as the robot attempted to repeat the procedure with her. Sayoko struggled even more than she did; her level of fright surpassing Megumi's.
Sayoko was reacting with stark terror, her screams pitching shrilly around the room. Megumi realized that Sayoko was frightened to the extreme, far beyond what would be normal, even in this very abnormal and threatening situation. She wanted to shut her ears so she wouldn't have to hear; her sense of fright being fueled by Sayoko's shrieks of alarm.
"Sayoko, are you all right?" she shouted as the robot muffled Sayoko's terrified shouts. She could hear the patter of one of Sayoko's fists striking impotently against the metallic exterior of the robot. Somehow, Sayoko had broken free from one of the restraints! She could hear the clattering of Sayoko's bed as the N.I.T. senior shook it with the violent jarring spasms of her struggles against the restraints.
Finally, the robot finished injecting her. It grabbed her free hand and fastened her wrist down again with a strap. Withdrawing to the side of the room, the robot announced in a coldly metallic voice that they had been 'fed' and that they would be visited again in eight hours for another 'nutrition cycle'.
Megumi followed the complex mechanism with her eyes...hoping desperately that it would just go away. As it neared the wall, she gasped as an oval doorway seemed to *form in the wall* itself! A passage out the room! The robot rolled through the portal, and then the open doorway vanished. Simply faded from existence...disappearing into the solidity of the white wall.
It was there...and then it was gone!
Sayoko was still gasping and choking on her breath, hyperventilated with terror. She obviously didn't witness the fantastic incident with the doorway and the robot's departure. Megumi was really worried about her sempai, repeating her concerned question over and over. She was afraid that something inside of Sayoko had snapped...and would not recover! She sighed with relief as Sayoko seemed to settle back into some semblance of composure.
"Megumi...sorry about that," Sayoko finally replied. "I guess you know one of my worst weaknesses now...I'm deathly afraid of needles. When I was a little girl, I contracted rabies when I got bit by a marmot during an overseas trip with my parents. They rushed me to a hospital in Vladivostok, and I ended up getting the whole regimen of rabies shots. In a Russian hospital, of all places! It scared me to death...especially when my parents left me there all alone," she admitted, almost embarrassed to reveal this vulnerability.
"In hindsight, it was a good thing in one sense; when I was using drugs, they tried to get me to use IV drugs like morphine and heroin...and I just couldn't go for it. Obviously, you can see why!"
"Gods, Sayoko! That's nothing to be ashamed of! I can't believe that your parents would leave a little girl alone in a strange hospital! If that happened to me..." Megumi replied.
"Besides...I was scared to death anyway. Did that *thing* inject you in the neck too?"
"Yes. By the way, did you notice how *exact* those robots were?" Sayoko noted.
"What do you mean?"
"Have you taken a robotics course, Megumi?"
"Yeah. One in college prep school, and one in my sophomore year at N.I.T..." she answered...and then it rapidly dawned on Megumi what Sayoko was getting at. The robots had an exact sense of where to apply pressure and how much pressure to exert. Despite the sophistication of the robotics industry in the early years of the twenty-first century, there were *no* robots that possessed this kind of mechanical dexterity; adept enough to administer a precise medical procedure like the one she just witnessed. Lasik robots were one thing...but this robot was *multitasking*! It seemed to be operating with an apparent autonomy, as if it had an artificial intelligence.
"These robots...are incredibly sophisticated. Can you imagine? Just the computing power alone to manipulate their arms with such sensitivity is beyond anything I've ever read about in the tech manuals. Our best robotics technology is barely able to develop robots advanced enough to walk on uneven surfaces," Sayoko said with reluctant admiration.
"Sayoko, I don't know if you noticed because you were too panicked, but the robot that gave me that damned shot just now actually *restrained* me by holding my jaw so I couldn't move my head. Just enough to hold me still, but not enough to hurt," Megumi added, feeling insecure in her memories of the incident.
"Megumi, *how* could this robot know exactly where to inject us? That alone is impossible, according to everything I've studied about robotics! But it injected me with the confidence of a seasoned nurse. And I failed to identify any visible means of remote control, like a power cord or some kind of receiver! It was as if the robot was following a discrete set of instructions...without being guided in any manner! It was clearly following multiple instruction tasks with a remarkable degree of sentience! It *reacted* to my panic attack!" Sayoko observed, her voice wavering with unease.
"Me too! But it reacted differently to each of us. And what did it say? Something about us being 'fed'? Do you think that the injection was some kind of nutritional supplement?"
"Could be...I was feeling hungry earlier. Now I don't feel hungry at all. Just shocked out of my senses after being scared to death."
"Sayoko, I..I really don't like this! I have a very bad feeling that something is *really* wrong here."
"Tell me about it!! Confined to bed like mental patients, given injections by robots, and no human contact. Did you ever see THX-1138, Megumi?" Megumi thought about what Sayoko was implying, and remembered the movie. It was heavily rotated on cable around the time that the final Star Wars movie had come out years ago. A significant part of the movie took place in a white room not much different than the one they were in.
"I don't like what you're implying, Sayoko. I don't like what's going around in my head either. This place...is giving me the creeps, bigtime!"
"And then there's the wall..."

* * * * * * * *

"Man, that was *weird*! Those guys were nuts! They were trying to *kill* us!" Tomohisa said again after everyone had caught their breath. "I couldn't understand what they were saying, but it seemed that those dudes were royally pissed off at us!"
"I couldn't understand it either. They were speaking Japanese, but it was *off* somehow," Genji said. They were all leaning against the interior wall of the shrine, covered with sweat and mud.
"You know, I may be wrong...but I think those peasants were speaking to us in medieval Japanese," Cevn wondered aloud.
"What?" Keiiichi exclaimed, looking up at the ceiling beams in shock. "What are you saying...that we're in *ancient* Japan?"
"I don't know about that, Keiichi. I do know that there is such a thing as phonetic degradation over successive generations. In one of my grad courses on linguistics, the professor presented reams of evidence that indicated that certain phonetic structures in the kana had changed over the centuries. Either their language is stiltingly colloquial...or they're speaking in medieval Japanese."
"So that might explain a few things!" Keiichi noted. "I know we've only been here a short time, but it's already growing dark...and there's no lights. Shrines usually have some kind of exterior night lights. But there's no lights. No glow in the sky to indicate a city; you know, like light pollution at night."
"But this shrine is definitely off the beaten path! It might be too much of a hassle to string up lights around it," Genji offered.
"Guys...did any of you see any power lines? Telephone poles? Street lights? Lamp posts? *Anything* that seems to come from modern civilization?" Tomohisa asked, his voice heavy with incredulous worry.
Keiichi pondered this with a growing sense of discomfort. What if they were somehow transported back in time to an earlier era of Japan? What if...they were stranded? He remembered being lost in Tokyo his first year in junior high. How a sense of insignificance and disorientation gripped him as he traveled about the city, trying to find the train station. How small he felt in the pressing waves of humanity...how absolutely *lost* he felt then.
He was feeling lost again.
"OK. Assuming that they were speaking an old dialect of Japanese, is it possible that we didn't travel centuries back in time?" Genji stated, trying to assure himself by a show of confidence.
"Genji, most modern Japanese cannot even figure out what the dialogue in Noh plays is saying. You know this! It's quite possible that, since Noh has preserved archaic forms of speech...that a remote village could possibly have deliberately maintained archaic speech. But the chances of that happening about as great as us finding Shangri-La. Not even the most remotes parts of Hokkaido have been unexplored," Cevn offered.
"So...that means that we're really in the present? That we just got faked out?" Tomohisa asked hopefully.
"Not a chance," Keiichi said in a voice charcoaled heavy with the coals of a mortifying direness. "You guys are forgetting something *really major*! Since when can you remember it being this hot anywhere in Japan...in *December*?"
Tomohisa, Genji and Cevn stared at him with blank facefalls of expression, their widened eyes glimpsing the implications of Keiichi's statement.
"This...majorly...*sucks*!" Tomohisa muttered, unable to counter Keiichi's premise, or even explain why it was so hot.
"HHHHNNN!" the four heard as a shrine priest entered the small Taisha-style shrine housing the Kami. Raising his staff in a threatening gesture, he glared at the four men.
"Bow!" Genji whispered in an irritated voice when he noticed that nobody was doing anything. "C'mon...bow, you guys! He's the guji...the priest of this shrine. Otherwise, he'll think we're trying to rob the place and call the police," he quickly explained.
Quickly following Genji's lead, the group bowed in an attempt to project a humble affect.
"What are you doing in the God's shrine!" the priest confronted them in an angry voice, pounding his staff on the wooden floor in cadence with his words for emphasis.
"Please, don't call the police on us, your reverence! We are weary travelers. We were stranded by a storm, and then robbed of all our possessions by a gang of bandits. Then we were chased here by a bunch of people from a nearby village," Genji answered quickly, fabricating a series of lies with an expertise he didn't know he possessed. The priest eyed them suspiciously; it wasn't every day that four naked young men showed up in one of the shrines in his ku, or district.
"Where are you from? Your manner of speech is quite odd!" the priest demanded. The four men sighed with relief; at least their modern idiom was somewhat recognizable to this priest. Perhaps they *were* still in modern Japan!
"We're from Makuhari, near Chiba," Keiichi said, opting that the truth would soothe the priest's wary disposition.
"Chiba? Never heard of it. Makuhari, you say? Never heard of it."
"*Ehhh?*" the four exclaimed, glancing among themselves with uncertain expressions. The priest's answer certainly didn't bode well in the "we're still in modern Japan" train of hope.
"Chiba. You know. Big residential suburb, on the other side of the bay from Tokyo," Tomohisa clarified with a sense of foreboding, almost not wanting to explain because he was scared of what the elderly priest might say to this.
"Tokyo, you say? Where is that? Never heard of it."
Keiichi felt a sickening feeling in the pits of his stomach. His heart seemed to doublebeat in despair at the priest's words. If this priest didn't know about *Toyko*...
"Oh man...are we so ever *fucked*!" Tomohisa muttered aloud, speaking the thoughts on everyone's minds.
"What's that you say? What do you mean that you're 'fucked'? Is that a special kind of rite?" the priest asked.
Keiichi was upset with being suddenly separated from Bell-chan. Upset at being deposited in the mud without a stitch of clothing on his back or anywhere else, and then being chased by a mob of villagers who seemed to want to murder the four of them. Upset at having to seek refuge in a weathered Kami shrine for sanctuary. And the final upset… having his worst fears confirmed by the priest…the realization that they definitely weren't in Chiba any more. He was literally shivering with consternation, and when he heard the priest's response to Tomohisa, he was swept up in a crazy urge to break into gales of laughter. Nothing else seemed to make sense in this bizarre situation.
Besides, hearing those words come out of the mouth of a Shinto priest was pretty hilarious! He wasn't the only one holding it in...Genji, Tomohisa and Cevn were all muffling snickers.
"We're so..ha..haha..fucked, it's *beyond* ridiculous," Genji gasped out...and Keiichi couldn't hold it in any longer. The laughter tore itself out of him and his three fellow time-travelers, who were soon reduced to gales of rib-clenching boisterous laughing, while the priest regarded them with a grave countenance.
"And why would I summon this...'police'...you call them? What is a 'police' and why do they strike such fear in your hearts? Are they a gang of brigands, perhaps? Perhaps *you're* brigands! Maybe I should call upon the constables of our Lord to investigate you! But the daimyo's palace is at least a week away by horse! Traveling there would keep me from my rounds. A poor priest like myself could never afford a horse out of the meager almsmoney I collect for the shrines..." the Shinto priest pondered aloud, his tone of voice clearly revealing his disbelief. By this point, it had gotten so bad that none of the four could look at each other or the priest for fear of starting another laughing fit.
"How could you men be here seeking sanctuary from the God, and yet be so backwards and ignorant?" the priest concluded.
"Oh...shit!" Keiichi muttered as another imponderable crashed all around him, reeling him and the others into an ocean of crazed laughter.

* * * * * * * *

Megumi was losing track of time. The only means she had of estimating the duration of their confinement was by the number of visits...when their robotic nurses would come in and 'feed' them. Interesting enough, after Sayoko revealed that she was deathly afraid of needles, there were no further attempts at injections by the robotic 'nurses'. Instead, the robots would arrive with two large rubber syringes, which they would then use to orally administer some kind of sweet-tasting juice. Somehow, she didn't feel hungry...or dehydrated.
But she still felt wretched and helpless, having some weird liquid squirted into her mouth by a robot every eight hours.
She had gotten to know Sayoko real well in the past few 'days' of their confinement. They had been fed 14 times; if the robots were keeping to their 8-hour schedule, then it had been four days. With no one to talk to except Sayoko, Megumi found herself talking just to relieve the boredom. Even more important, conversing with Sayoko kept her out of the place that fear held in reserve in her heart. The fear that threatened to thaw the icehard optimism she was struggling to maintain.
During their conversations, Sayoko had revealed the thin traces of her fears, the breadth of the fabric of her hopes, and the little tragedies that populated the continuum of her life. Some of the little tragedies were embarrassing. Other tragedies were instructive in a humorous extent. Many of these tragedies served as punctuations in Sayoko's life; signaling the end of a personal era by starting her anew on a different path. An example of this was the time Sayoko had choked on a cucumber during a class trip to Hawaii and ended up being the butt of numerous sexual jokes by her classmates from the all-girl's Juliard's Academy. That incident was enough to cause her to run away from any every other private high school academy her parents placed her in. Eventually, they relented and enrolled Sayoko in a public school. This revelation answered a question that had been hovering at the back of Megumi's mind for years: why would a daughter of a billion-yen family like Sayoko's attend a public high school?
Megumi learned that Sayoko had originally wanted to be a doctor. But at some point in high school, Sayoko arrived at the conclusion that her career goal was an ostensibly an attempt to impress her parents; blindly hoping that, by becoming a renowned physician, she could bridge the emotional gap that years of parental inattention had created. In an angry reaction to this personal insight, Sayoko decided to jump into engineering to spite her parents. Engineering was a decidedly unfeminine career choice, a fact that Sayoko hoped to wield in an effort to hurt her parents. On the other hand, she *was* very interested in engineering.
But her parents were too unconcerned with Sayoko's own personal inclination to be displacated. They humored her by allowing her to take summer school courses in a variety of engineering topics, mostly in engineering math. While in high school, she found that she liked hanging out with the high school crowd that aspired to technical college. They were geeks, to be sure, but Sayoko admired their sense of organization and eccentric interests. Compared to most of them, she was years ahead on the social and sexual experience scale. Being around a group of awkward, sexually frustrated future engineers offered her a place to feel comfortable...and also to feel superior. Most of all, they were *smart*. This was when Megumi first met Sayoko; when she started high school, her high school was already abuzz with descriptions of the "Queen", as Sayoko was known by reputation.
Soon, Sayoko was smitten by the engineering 'bug', as the N.I.T. students called it. After graduating from high school, her parents disregarded her career aspirations and enrolled her in the elitist Harvard School of Medicine in America. While at Harvard, Sayoko refused to study, and partied instead. She was eventually expelled after two years of non-participation. That extra year in Harvard cost her parents a foundation, which was used to build a wing at the Harvard research hospital. Disgraced and all but disowned by her angered parents, the drug habit Sayoko picked up while in America worsened. For part of a year, she was absolutely miserable. Then, at 21, Sayoko signed up to N.I.T. She never once looked back with any regrets. Her freshman year at N.I.T. was fraught with struggles with her parents, who vigorously opposed her autonomy and her vocational aspirations. Her choices simply didn't meet her parent's high expectations. They tried to bribe Sayoko with a cushy Vice President position at one of their manufacturing subsidiaries, hoping that a "real world" engineering position would disenchant her with her silly whim. She refused her parents again, telling them that she wanted to be in engineering science, not manufacturing administration. Eventually, sometime in her sophomore year, her parents acquiesced to Sayoko's career plans...her restoration to their good graces was partially redeemed by her diligent academic performance at N.I.T. She was the top student of her class...Keiichi's class...until last year, when her drug habit devoured her.
Megumi had always felt ambivalent towards Sayoko. Because of the Mishima's enormous family wealth. Because of all the times Sayoko blatantly tried to pursue Keiichi despite the fact that she *knew* that he was already in love with Belldandy. Because of the fact that Sayoko had been Megumi's sempai all through high school...and then at the very college Megumi had enrolled in. And most recently, because she was Genji's older sister...which made Sayoko a potential rival with possible veto power to her relationship with him.
Keiichi's view of Sayoko had initially colored Megumi's attitude towards her. But later, once she became involved with Genji, Megumi's perception of Sayoko had softened a bit.
But now that Sayoko was the only vessel of humanity in her immediate existence, Megumi found that she could actually *relate* to Sayoko in a lot of areas. She felt her heart stirred to sadness by her sempai's recollection of years of growing up ignored by her parents. How sad her childhood must have been for her! As the hours passed, Sayoko was becoming less of an enigma...and more of a normal Japanese coed.
Megumi found herself confiding things to Sayoko that she hadn't ever admitted to anyone, except maybe Genji. Or Keiichi, Belldandy and Cevn. And much to her surprise, Sayoko didn't seem to judge her harshly for her mistakes. Megumi acknowledged that she had been interested in Genji for almost a year before actually telling him about how she felt. Sayoko giggled at this; her light-hearted reaction was the last thing Megumi expected. Then Megumi described how difficult it was for her, growing up with an older brother.
It was funny...Sayoko had Genji for a younger brother, Megumi had Keiichi for an older brother...yet both brothers were pests that *never* acted their age! They shared several raucous fits of laughter as they each described 'episodes' that demonstrated their brother's idiocy. Both girls realized that maintaining their sense of mirth was an integral linchpin in keeping them from going gong-blown stircrazy in this isolation ward.
"Eventually, something will happen," Megumi finally said with a sigh of frustration.
"Yeah...and I just hope it happens *soon*!" Sayoko added.

* * * * * * * *

The room changed colors as the wakeup routine started once more. Urd was already irritated by the fact that she was being forcibly awakened. Like any good nightowl, she liked her mornings best served with a generous sleep-in. But the manner in which she was awakened...was totally ruinous to her peace of mind.
"Jarred awake is more like it," Urd thought as the intermittent strobing lights died down. As usual, the wall opened up with three trays of food for the sisters. Their food was maddeningly the same each morning.
"Institutional food again," Belldandy commented with a frown. It tasted a lot like the cafeteria food at N.I.T., as best she could recall from the few times she had eaten there. *That* experience had been enough to convince her of the important role she would need to play in her beloved's life simply by preparing his lunch bentos. So she had prepared hundreds of meals for Keiichi...each bento lunch an expression of love. This food was utterly loveless and mostly tasteless...but it did have a powerup substance that the three Goddesses needed in order to maintain their corporeal integrity.
"I hope that you each are finding your meals to your satisfaction," the disembodied voice aired once again. Urd was angry at the irony of it all; the voice seemed to expect gratitude for providing them with this...crap...that it was euphemistically terming "meals".
"As usual, the food sucks, the service's lousy and your voice is irritating," Urd replied.
"I see. Perhaps we should withhold your meals and just give you your powerups in pill form instead. Might that would be more to your likening?" the voice replied tauntingly.
"Why you...mmph!" Urd started to say as Belldandy muffled her words with a hand over her mouth, shaking her head "no" vigorously. Skuld looked at Urd with a threatening glance.
"Urd, don't you *dare* cause us to lose our meals," Skuld said angrily.
"Ahhh...division amongst the ranks. This is good; an encouraging development. Such dissension among yourselves will make each of you weaker, eventually. More susceptible to my entreaties. More willing to reveal your secrets. We will talk...again," the voice said. Once more, Skuld was amazed at how the voice was audible when there were no speakers or other sound reproduction units in sight.
"This is getting on my nerves," Urd said with no economy of irritation.
"Nnn!" Skuld agreed with a nod of her head. She was disturbed by the implications in that horrible voice. It was regrettable that there were no moving parts in their room; otherwise she could jury-rig some kind of mecha to get them away from here.
From that horrible voice.
"<Urd, Skuld...we must be careful. Whoever it is that has imprisoned us...is relying on the fact that we will eventually be unable to cooperate amongst ourselves to find a way out of here,>" Belldandy warned her sisters. In her heart, Belldandy felt a chill, as the voice's words were already beginning to manifest as truths.
They *were* unable to escape. They *were* starting to have sibling squabbles. They *were* beginning to feel at the mercy of whatever was confining them to *here*. And she...was feeling her grasp of reality slowly eroding. The very fact that she was interpreting events in accordance with the observations of their anonymous captors was proof of this!
"And I can't stand another moment without Keiichi!" she thought with anguish. It was almost as if her boyfriend, her sisters, and the others in the bath were all petals on a flower...petals that had been plucked and left to float to the ground in different places.

* * * * * * * *

The priest told us that his religious name was Reiami, and that he was born in Nara about fifty years ago. Originally a Buddhist, he had changed his convictions after being struck by lightning in a storm while traveling between Kyoto and Ako. He had prayed to the yamakami mountain gods to spare his life: if he survived the lightning storm, then he would dedicate his life to Shinto. His story reminded me of one of the anecdotes about a similar vow made by the young Martin Luther. But Reiami showed us the scar on the back of his head, and we realized that he had literally been struck by lightning.
Reiami was kind enough to procure some clothes for us...a spare set of clothhewn shirts and trousers, hempen jackets, umbrella-shaped straw hats, and red cotton loincloths to "keep the oni-devils away". Genji's story about us being robbed by brigands was convincing enough to raise his sympathy, I happily noted. I was utterly relieved that I didn't have to walk around naked any more.
The villagers did come back to harass us several times, but they evidently held Reiami in high respect, abandoning their efforts to "catch" our group whenever he would step out of the shrine and chastise them. Eventually, he got it through their heads that we were wayward travelers who were under the protection of the God; viz., we were under his protection.
Reiami was very intrigued by me. Obviously, he had never seen a Caucasian before. My light brown hair and blue eyes astonished him. He asked me repeatedly about my birthplace, my parentage, what my home village was like. Picking up on his tale of the lightning storm, I ended up inventing a story about being shipwrecked, and that I lost most of my memory during the storm that capsized our ship when I hit my head on a rock.
He was also mystified as to why we all had "boy's hairstyles"; meaning that we didn't shave our foreheads. Over meals, we asked him a series of questions about where we were, who the daimyo was, who was reigning in Kyoto, and various questions about the religious and political tenor of the times. Our usual fare was a rough meal of cooked millet and some turnips. Then Reiami said that he couldn't remain with us any longer. He had to tour the other shrines to make sure that they were in proper upkeep. He blessed us and departed the next morning, reminding us that we had to quit the shrine in short order before any curious villagers discovered our presence.
"I got bad news guys," I broached my conclusions after Reiami had left. "If what Reiami said is true, then we're 30 years or so into the Ashikaga Shogunate."
"*Ashikaga*?" Keiichi said with a mixture of amazement and discouragement.
"Yes. Or more specifically, the Nambokusho...the Period of North and South. He did mention that Chokei was the ruling Emperor, and this was the Kentoku Nengo, which would place us somewhere between 1370 and 1372," I replied.
"How do you know that?" Tomohisa asked me incredulously.
"I memorized most of the lineage of Emperors and reign era names in grad school," I replied. Tomohisa looked at me and shook his head in humored disbelief, noting that I just gained a level in the 'geek-o-meter' in his mind.
"Then if we've somehow been transported back in time to the dates you mentioned, then we're right in the middle of a civil war. I remember studying about the Ashikaga Shogunate...all sorts of internecine warfare and puppet emperors." Genji added.
"Yeah, totally so!" I agreed. I couldn't help but compliment Genji on his historical knowledge. For an engineering student, he had a pretty broad background in other subjects, like humanities.
"Right now, there is a 13 year-old shogun, and the division between the Southern and Northern Dynasties is crumbling." Genji noted.
"Waitaminute. You're saying that we're stranded here in the 1370s, wherever here is?" Tomohisa whined.
"Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. Not that I like our present circumstances at all, mind you, but that's what we're up against...at least until we get a divine rescue from a Goddess or two," I answered. I realized that until this happened, we would be little more than mud people, leading a life of illusion.
"That's what's been bothering me!" Keiichi said, pounding his fist in his hand for emphasis. "How could we get separated from Belldandy? Surely she wouldn't have allowed this to happen to us...unless she herself was overpowered in some way! God, you guys have no idea how much I miss her!!!" Keiichi added.
"*I* do! I miss Megumi terribly!" Genji said sadly. My thoughts were drawn to absent Urd...I shared in their heartaches.
"What if Bell-chan doesn't know where and when we are? We could be stranded here for the rest of our lives in 14th century Japan!" Keiichi shouted out his fears. Which were fears we all shared.
"Look...we might as well head to the prefecture capital where the daimyo is. Under the circumstances, I think this would be our best bet. Think of it this way: you and Genji are engineers; I'm somewhat knowledgeable in Japanese literary arts; and Tomohisa has the chance to invent baseball a few centuries earlier than expected," I suggested, pointedly including Tomohisa so he wouldn't feel left out in the list of skills we could offer. "Surely, between the three of us, we could invent something that could make us a living...perhaps get us noticed by the daimyo or a wealthy merchant."
"Cevn, this is *feudal* Japan. They are as likely to kill us after taking our idea as they are likely to pay us for them. And what about you?" Keiichi asked.
"What about me?" I asked defensively, my frustrations bettering my ability to remain calmly detached.
"Well...I don't know how to put this without being direct, but you're probably the most gaijin person in this group. Not only gaijin as in 'foreigner', but gaijin as in Caucasian. Remember how Priest Reiami reacted when he first saw you? He was definitely put off by your racial features...and he was a man of the cloth! Imagine what your typical 14th century Japanese townspeople are going to think? Or the nobility, for that matter?" Genji explained, trying to be inoffensive as possible in his explanation.
I reflected on the verity of Genji's observation and then remembered the travelogues of Isabella Bird in the 19th century. About how the Chinese peasants nearly killed her because she was a "white demon who devoured children and poisoned ..croplands with her evil aura." Even in Japan, she was attacked more than once by xenophobic Japanese. Her travel diaries were filled with episodes of overt prejudice she faced almost everywhere she went in Asia, simply because of the fact that she was a Caucasian woman traveling in stretches of country were the populace had never seen anyone of her sort before. I nodded my head slowly as the thrust of Genji's point settled in. One of those "it sucks to me" moments, for sure.
Suddenly, I was very afraid. I was no longer in the cosmopolitan 21st century, where mass media had broken down many cultural prejudices. I was in a land where conformity was highly prized...and rebellion was put down, hard. Where non-Japanese were outcast or even killed. And *that* was in the 16th century! This was a full two centuries earlier.
"So what do you suggest?" I asked, surprised at the shaky uncertainty evident in my voice.
"Hmm. I think that we should follow your advice and try to go to a major city," Keiichi proposed. "And as for you, Cevn, I think that you should become a deaf-mute. If you don't say anything, maybe we could pass you off as some kind of oddity. Like, you know, in circuses?"
I almost blanched as I realized what Keiichi was saying. Feeling insulted at first, I calmed myself down...and realized that his suggestion was the most sensible one to deal with my presence in our traveling party. Tomohisa joked that he was worried that I could keep my mouth shut.
"Yes, I..I think that for now, I need to keep silent. Genji, you can tell them that I'm a foreign merchant who was exiled, or something. But what about you guys? You certainly don't look like samurai!" I noted.
Keiichi looked at Genji thoughtfully.
"Well...maybe we should!"

* * * * * * * *

On the seventh day, the robots came in with trays of food and undid their restraints. Leaving two pairs of pajamas, hospital gowns and robes, the robots exited their room. The contour of the doorway remained in sight, instead of disappearing into the fabric of the wall. From everywhere, a seemingly prerecorded message for Megumi and Sayoko filled the air.
"Sayoko Mishima and Megumi Morisato. After ensuring via DNA and molecular analysis that you are indeed who we suspect you to be, it has been determined that it is no long necessary to keep you in restraints. However, this does not mean that you have been freed from your confinement. Once you leave this room via the doorway on your left, walk down to the end of the hall way and pass through the exit. There, you will find your accommodations for the duration of your stay here. There is a bath, kitchen, study, gymnasium and other facilities where you can make yourself home. You will be allowed the use of an entire floorunit of this complex. Please be advised that any attempt to harm yourselves or each other will result in instant neurorepressive restraints. Any attempts to breach your area of confinement will be prevented, and punitive measures applied. We hope that you will consider yourselves our honored guests."
After the message repeated itself twice more, Sayoko sat up in her bed and looked at Megumi with a questioning expression.
"You know...there's something oddly familiar about that voice. I just can't place it. But...I could swear that voice sounds an awful lot like my cousin's," Sayoko wondered aloud.
"Ehhh? No way! But that voice is crawling around in the back of my mind, too. But my memory just won't grasp it. 'Honored guests', my ass!"
"Megumi, isn't it great to be able to finally stretch your legs out? This is so much better than being strapped in a bed!" Sayoko said as she buttoned up her hospital gown.
Megumi started to examine her gown and robe.
"I already looked, Megumi. There's no label or manufacturer's tag on any of them. Whoever it is...wants to keep anonymous. Wants to keep us in the dark about where we're at."
Megumi swung her legs over the bed, and then stood up. The floor was hard, yet it pulsed with a warmth to match its soft glow.
Sayoko did a few practice sidekicks and then jumped up and did a dropkick. She followed this up with a flurry of punches in the air.
"Sayoko, what *are* you doing? It looks like karate."
"It *is* karate. Any good daughter of a corporate president has to know self-defense. And if you ever hurt my brother..." she said as she executed a quick series of kata moves. Sayoko looked to see the brief expression of trepidation on Megumi's face, and then started to laugh.
"Heeheehee! Hey, I'm only kidding, Megumi! Besides...I think you and Genji are great together. I know that he really adores you. Funny thing is, after being cooped up with you these past few days, I can honestly admit that there's not a whole lot of difference between you and me," Sayoko noted. With Sayoko's threat turning into a joke, then turning into a confession of sorts, Megumi felt her heart warmed by her words.
"You know, Sayoko, I've never admitted this to anyone before. What I'm going to tell you now must never be repeated. In the past three or so years that Belldandy and her sisters have been here, I've really been jealous. I never had a sister. Keiichi is a wonderful guy and a great brother most of the time. But it's not the same! Belldandy, Urd, Skuld...they're all really nice, but they're *different*. They're different because they're *Goddesses*. I might as well tell you the truth now, because you may never get a chance to hear it. And after we've been so honest with each other since we came here, I wouldn't feel right concealing it from you."
"You mean that they act like prissy, pampered, all-knowing, too-cute Goddesses. I totally agree with you, Megumi. In fact I think that Belldandy..."
"No! That's not what I mean, Sayoko! They're *real* Goddesses!!! Like...Kannon and Benten, or the Greek goddesses like Diana and Aphrodite. With divine powers and magic and wisdom..."
"Don't even try to tell me that Urd is wise. And what about Skuld?" Sayoko broke in, still thinking Megumi was joking.
"Sayoko...listen! Belldandy is a *Goddess*! She came here in our midst because my brother made a wish. Keiichi wished for her to be with him...so she ended up having to grant his wish...and be with him wherever he went. Then she fell in love with him, and later he fell in love with her...or maybe it was the other way around. In any case..." Megumi bit her lip to stop, as she saw Sayoko hanging her head sadly.
"Sorry, Sayoko. I forgot about how you feel about..."
"Keiichi. It's all right, Megumi. I've gotten over the worst of *that* since I got clean off drugs. It still hurts, just like any potential romance or unrequited love-admiration that never ends up happening...but I'm okay. Really!" she said, waving her hand up and down to emphasize her words. Then Sayoko remembered something Cevn said to her, the day she got back from treatment. Something about greater powers that were at work to bring Keiichi and Belldandy together. No wonder he had vigorously advised her to release her animosity towards Belldandy, without regrets!
Belldandy...was a *Goddess*?
"I..I don't know what to say, Megumi. You mean that those three sisters are from another planet, or something?"
"Sorta. They all have some incredible powers. You've probably noticed that I've gotten much more beautiful since I came here?" Sayoko nodded her head. Megumi was always cute, in an almost tomboyish way...but now, she was gorgeously radiating beauty.
"Belldandy cast a spell on me to make me more beautiful. But it kinda backfired, so now I have to take these pills that I no longer have, which..."
Sayoko listened in fascination as Megumi divulged three year's worth of secrets. Why Keiichi was invincible as a racer. Why Bell and Keiichi could never be separated. Why Sayoko's plots to steal Keiichi away from Belldandy always failed. How she knew that Sayoko had accidentally been infected with a "Goddess Anti-Belief Virus" when some monster-thing called an anki latched onto her a couple years back.
Sayoko shook her head in disbelief more than a few times while Megumi explained the numerous "miracles" that seemed to surround Keiichi and Belldandy. But eventually, Megumi's explanations started making sense. She had fired her mind off in so many directions trying to explain to herself how so many enigmatic occurrences were constantly happening whenever Belldandy or her sisters were involved. Years worth of conjectures. She had concluded that Belldandy was a witch, a spy, some kind of Lara Croft heiress, a magician, a genius scientist, just plain lucky, a bodhisattva...but never a Goddess based on a Norse myth! Each new theory about Belldandy's nature was analyzed and subsequently discarded as *more* weirdness would occur.
Now, she finally knew the truth! Sayoko *knew* that Megumi wouldn't create an elaborate fiction about Goddesses, especially to the degree of accuracy that she had just narrated. It was almost ridiculous, in the sense that life is stranger than fiction.
She smiled a sad, resigned smile when Megumi finished. Megumi could see that she was still upset and a little confused. Walking over to her, Megumi gave her a comforting hug.
"Sayoko, I don't understand entirely what you're feeling, but I want you to know that I'm here for you. I may be the *only* other person here...but I am here if you want to talk." Sayoko sobbed a few tears, touched at the kindness of Megumi's words.
"Megumi, you know what you said about not having a sister...I've felt it too."
The two women walked out of their room into a long hallway. The designs in the hallway appeared to be molded metal, shaped into some kind of avant-garde mishmash of functional art. They walked up and down the hall twice, feeling apprehensive about opening any of the doors. Finally, Sayoko decided that they needed to check out one of the rooms.
"Where are the doors? Where's the doorknobs?" she asked. Megumi pointed to one of the green panels seamlessly embedded in the wall. Sayoko reached for it with her fingertips. The green turned to red as her hand approached it and a door *formed* out of wall.
They walked into a room with a set of living room furniture, a stereo with mini-CDs and several other familiar trappings. One side of the room had a curtain drawn shut.
Sayoko paused, commenting to Megumi about how nice it was to actually be in a room with something in it. They walked around the room, testing the couches to see if they were comfortable. Sayoko looked at the cart of audiophile CDs; they were mostly charttoppers of the 90's and the 21s, as the music of the first decade 21st century was called. Bland, but it was better than nothing.
"I'm going to open these curtains," Megumi to her as she stepped past Sayoko and reached behind the curtains, touching a green panel. The curtains whooshed open under their own power. Sayoko watched as Megumi seemed to be illuminated by light coming in from the open window. Megumi staggered back a couple steps, and then turned to face her.
She had a facefallen expression of awe.
Sayoko stepped closer to look through the window...then her heart skipped a beat.
"OH...MY...GOD!" she gasped, then her breath was sucked away by the twilight vista that greeted her eyes.

* * * * * * * *

Belldandy had made a reasonable request, which was granted. After being subjected to a silence that caused her mind to roar with thoughts to displace the nullness of their environs, she had asked that they be provided with music in their room. Almost instantly, soft classical music seemed to emanate from the walls.
"I hope they don't play any disco or heavy metal," Urd said as the music started up. Much to her discomfort, the invisible voice confirmed that there would be no music that would cause her to dance uncontrollably. What fretted Urd's nerves raw was the fact that their captors seemed to know so much about the three Goddesses.
"You know so much about us...why the hell don't you show *yourselves* sometime!" Urd screamed, unable to take any more of this mystery game. It reminded her of the X-Files, Lost and X21C, American TV series that were darkly themed around the inexplicable and paranormal. Belldandy and Skuld both darted her condemning looks.
"Well, I can't help it that I feel this way! I'm cooped up here, being lectured by a voice that has no face. This sake tastes terrible, the food is rotten, and the lights are too bright. There's nothing to do...which normally drives *you* crazy," she said, whirling to point at Skuld.
"This has been too uncomfortable...too long! Would it be too much to ask that the person who has been talking to us to please reveal themselves?" Belldandy requested.
"Your wish will be granted. After all, with all the wishes *you* granted as part of the Goddess Relief Office, Belldandy, it would be remiss for me to not grant a wish as simple as this. I will reveal myself at the next cycle, Urd. And Skuld...be prepared for a big surprise that I think will impress you."
Skuld stuck her tongue out; hoping that whoever was watching would get the full benefit of her displeasure.
"Speaking for all of us, I don't think anything but freedom from this holding cell will suffice to impress us," Urd said.
But only a silence answered her.

* * * * * * * *

The longer they traveled along the road, the more Genji was convinced that they *had* somehow traveled back in time. Each village they passed through was almost the same, save that each villa had its own specialized cottage industry. One village excelled in lacquerware, while the next town on the road specialized in kimono dyeing.
For some reason, Genji felt more comfortable each day they were traveling. He was picking up the local dialects faster than anyone but Cevn, who couldn't speak except when they were alone. One of the worst things about the trip was how they had to earn money. They spent two days in the blazing hot sun slogging human excrement and urine into a rice paddy, and then transplanted the rice shoots from the nursery-bed to the main paddy. For two days of long hours of work, they each received 3 crudely shaped copper coins.
He looked at Keiichi and laughed inside at his samurai-style haircut. Keiichi looked like a TV actor trying to portray a historical drama samurai. However, they were far removed from samurai. Samurai had armor, katanas, a poetic knowledge and an intimate awareness of Bushido. Between the four of them, they had no sword, no armor, two poets, and a gaijin who was the only person in their group who was literate in classical Japanese. It was too weird, having to rely on Cevn to translate the loose squiggles that passed for kana and kanji in this era.
"What are you laughing at?" Keiichi said, passing his hand over his half-bald head. He scowled as Genji's laughter deepened to guffaws.
"Soooo, you think *this* is funny? You should see yours! I would love to have a mirror right now, so you can see how stupid you look, Genji!" he said gruffly.
"Hey guys, cut it out!" Tomohisa shouted.
"Just because you two are exempt because one of you is a foreigner and the other is a *boy*, doesn't mean that you have to act like nothing's happened to Keiichi and I," Genji yelled back to Tomohisa, prickling with jealousy. Tomohisa steamed under the insult of being called a "boy".
"Chill out, you guys!" Cevn said, breaking his silence. Something about being chastised by their N.I.T. sensei made Keiichi and Genji think twice about continuing their argument.
"Man...I feel so tired. This is a freakin' nightmare. Everything I know...everything I'm good at...is meaningless here," Keiichi said, airing out his frustrations.
Genji listened as the other three discussed their situation. It *was* pretty unenviable, even by 14th century standards. They were reduced to the coarsest types of manual labor to earn a living. Slinging manure and compost. Everybody's feet were sore from having to walk on foot for several days before they could afford straw sandals. Reiami didn't have any sandals to spare because they were expensive. Cevn mentioned his concerns that they would get infections in their feet from the combination of open sores and stomping manure.
"No one could even begin to imagine what it's like to have every convenience of modern life stripped away. No toilets, no TV, no computers, no washing machines," Keiichi said glumly as he listed missing comforts. This cued Genji on, and he added several items to the list. Soon, everybody was chiming in, turning their despair into a sort of game. The hot afternoon walk was filled with laughter and groans of discontent as the four men tried to see how long they could continue to list the miracles of modern life that were absent in their current situation.
"At least this is making the time pass quickly," Cevn observed to himself as the others were traveling in some very creative mental pastures while compiling their list. Now they were listing TV shows, most of which Cevn had never heard of before. The sound of approaching clops broke the 'contest', indicating that someone was closing in rapidly on horseback.
"Bow down before the Lord! Bow down!" a well-armored samurai yelled. Genji noted that he was in full samurai regalia...which must have weighed 30Kg. They all assumed groveling positions as a man-carried palanquin passed by.
"The daimyo, Mori Yoshiyuke!" the vanguard mounted samurai announced as the official parade passed by. Curious, Tomohisa glanced up to look at the passersby.
"There! That one's looking up! Arrest him!" Suddenly, Tomohisa's face went white as several spearmen marched over and grabbed him, roughly hauling him to his feet. Spurring him forward with prods of the spears and rough kicks to his back, they presented him to the head samurai...forcing him to kneel in front.
Keiichi was just about ready to freak out. His cousin had made the mistake of looking up...and now they were going to kill him! Genji and Cevn grabbed him by the arms, desperately whispering to him to let things be...and they may have a chance of leaving this encounter alive with Tomohisa unharmed. Keiichi settled down, only for a moment. Finally, the tense situation got the best of him.
"Leave him alone!" Keiichi yelled angrily, unable to contain himself any longer. He stood up and shouted at the lead samurai, who looked at him with an expression of frank astonishment. Soon, he too was escorted to the front of the procession and made to kneel down. After a brief argument amongst the troops, Genji and Cevn were also brought forward by spearpoint and made to kneel.
The four young men were in a panic as the samurai yelled amongst themselves, debating whether to jail them or kill them.
"Desist!!!" a loud voice shouted above the din. Whiskersnap fast, all the samurai and retainers were kneeling on the ground in a formal position, one palm on the ground with their heads bowed. Except for the lead samurai, who sat with his legs tucked underneath him.
A man dressed in an elaborate robe alighted from the carriage and walked over. Keiichi could only see him from the knees down...but his bearing was as impressive as his outer garments.
"Report!"
"This boy looked up as your Lordship's train passed by. I brought him here, and then another of their number stood up and insolently shouted at me to release him. When I noticed the second insolent in their group...then I had the remaining two brought over."
"You did well to spare them. Which one spoke up?" Keiichi felt his heart haltingly jam up his throat as a sword point flicked under his chin, forcing him to look up.
"I'm dead," he thought grimly.
"It is amazing, isn't it my Lord!"
"Yes. Quite remarkable. No wonder he had the courage to confront you. Release them, with no punishment, after my attendants have passed ahead."
Keiichi counted his blessings as the procession continued. Finally as the palanquin passed over the small rise in the road, the spears withdrew and the small guard of soldiers dashed back to a position surrounding the daimyo's carriage.
"What just happened?" Genji asked, still looking down at the ground with a fearful expression.
"I don't know how to explain it. After they took Tomohisa and the rest of us, the head daimyo guy wanted to see my face. When I looked up, it was almost as if I was looking at *me*."
"What do you mean?" Tomohisa asked, still shaky after his near-death encounter with irate samurai.
"He looked almost exactly like me...if I were another 15 years older and lived in feudal Japan," Keiichi explained.
"My Lord," Genji said, mock bowing to Keiichi, causing everyone's nerves to spill out with raucous laughter.

* * * * * * * *

Skuld couldn't wait. As the wall slid open to expose her breakfast, she grabbed the tray and started eating hungrily.
"This is the day that our captor has agreed to reveal himself to us," she thought with a mixture of anxiety and curiosity. "I finally get to see the mastermind behind our imprisonment!"
Her initial fears that their kidnapping had been orchestrated by Mara had left her several days ago. The voice in the room that seemed to come from all around them...was consistently male. It was the same voice every time, Skuld noted.
"When you finish with your breakfast, I will reveal myself to you as I promised," the voice assured them. For some reason, all three Goddesses ate more quickly, fueled by their desire to see whom they were up against. Belldandy was the slowest eater, so she was the last to finish...Urd and Skuld staring at her impatiently as she finished her tea and toast.
"Okay, so we're all done with our morning meal. Now show us who you are!" Urd said in a demanding voice.
"I was going to reveal myself in time, regardless of your attempts to try and convince to show you who I am. Don't be overconfident in yourself, Eldest Norn."
A horizontal slit appeared stretching almost the length of the chamber, then widened as two panels slid apart. The first thing the Goddesses could see was a room with walls filled with banks of lights...the profiles of a few dozen people dark against the lights. The sliding panels disappeared into alcoves, and Urd looked at what seemed to be a sophisticated control room. It reminded her uncannily of her workplace in Yggdrasil, only not quite as high-tech. A spotlight suddenly flashed on in the middle of the room, illuminating a slight late-middle aged man.
"YOU?!!!" all three Goddesses exclaimed as one.

* * * * * * * *