Crossover Fan Fiction / Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction / Tenchi Muyo Fan Fiction ❯ Reason And Accountability ❯ Enohana Bathhouse ( Chapter 29 )

I woke to a weird noise. The ceiling was a blue plastic tarp covering over a hole which covered broken wood and what looked like roof tiles? I looked around, seeing a girl sleeping on a thin futon beside a men’s watch. I felt like I was looking at myself from the outside, if that makes sense. She is Mayuko. I looked down and realized I was on a closet shelf. Like something put away. Okay, the metaphors were heavy here. I smelled rice and noted that a huge opened sack of rice sat below me. It must have been 40 kg of rice.

The weird noise continued. It was kind of a swimming radio sound and a sense of apology. I hopped down and worked around my other self to look out the window. There in the distance beyond the sky, in a very real sense, was a gigantic shadow blocking out the stars. It was the mothership.

Our alien species was of two parts. The antenna aliens, which included me despite having no antenna, responsible for ship maintenance, and the sex bots, who’d crashed in their own escape module into Tokyo Bay, wrecking one of the major bridges. They weren’t great pilots. There’s also combat robots, but they mostly existed in the simulation used by the command crew, which was a recreation of a rural Japanese town. Errors in the code caused the ejection of the various crew modules, including her own into Enohana, now called Enohana Crater.

My host’s name is Niea Under Seven. A very odd name, but she is an alien. She has another half, living here, and that wasn’t some kind of lesbian code. Niea is literally the inner child of Chigasaki Mayuko, for several reasons having to do with her being in Enohana Bathhouse at the time of the crash and surviving. There was some particular psychic energies involved that most people forgot about, but the result was Niea and Mayuko lived together in the room. Niea manifested in this alien humanoid body. She was obsessed with Flying Saucers, many of which worked briefly before exploding, and attempts to scavenge and recycle things from the crash site. Mayuko put up with it, even though Niea ate her food and blew up her roof. It would be nice to get that fixed properly. And maybe earn some rent money so they wouldn’t starve together.

There was no particular need for healing that I could sense. I’d gotten to the point that I only went places where I was needed. I don’t feel crucial here. Maybe Mayuko needed to have a conversation with a grown up?

So I woke her up.

“Ugh. Niea… what is it?” she complained, yawning terribly. I’d thought a little about stuff and remembered some things that Niea saw but didn’t know what to do about them.

“Is being Mrs Someya really such a bad thing?” I finally said to her. She blinked slowly, not parsing the words. She was really slow to wake up. I poured her a cup of hot tea. She sat up and sipped this a few minutes.

“Niea, make sense! I was trying to sleep. Now I’m awake. Its early. What are you saying?” Mayuko complained.

“I am the physical manifestation of your inner child. I am here specifically because you have suppressed this part of you so hard I have become a literal separate person. What is so great about university that working three jobs to pay rent and make tuition at cram school is worthwhile?” I asked her. She blinked, eyes widening at my accusation.

“But, but I have to go to college!” she insisted.

“Your family ran this bathhouse. That was good enough for them. Do you think your dead father wanted you to suffer just to go to college in a crashed economy during a massive depression?” I confronted her. “Kotomi-san has tried several times to make the bathhouse profitable. None of these plans has worked, despite her Masters in Business Administration. She is at the top of her game in business, and cannot fix the economy or run a business into the black. Think about that. If college was the answer, people with degrees would always succeed. They wouldn’t just struggle and suffer like everyone else,” I pointed out to her.

“Niea, why are you making sense?” Mayuko complained.

“Niea is sleeping. I’m a visiting ghost,” I casually explained.

“Right. A ghost,” Mayuko answered slowly, doubt strong in her voice.

“Maybe you’re just having a really vivid dream?” I suggested.

“I burned by lip on the tea, so no,” she denied.

“Well, Niea is still your inner child, like it or not. And Genzo is bringing you all this rice to keep you alive because he wants you alive. He has a crush on you since he was a kid. Keeping you alive is a lot of work, and a long journey from your home carrying a huge heavy bag of rice. Think about what you mean to him, and what this means. He wants you alive. Stop being an idiot,” I told her, shaking my finger. She blushed eventually, looking between the sack and me and back.

“What, marry me?” she squeaked.

“People say that male protagonists are oblivious. You take the cake, Mayu,” I chortled.

“Give up on college. Accept his marriage proposal, move back home, be a farmer’s wife and have a bunch of little Genzos. Don’t waste your precious youth in this broken down town with no future. Unless you wanted to marry Shuhei instead,” I teased. His daughter Chie had pushed that idea pretty hard since hiring Mayuko, and they really couldn’t afford to pay her. Mayu shook her head no.

“What brought this on?” Mayuko finally asked.

“Look out the window. See anything?” I asked her. I knew already.

“The mothership… where’s the mothership?” she asked me.

“It said it was sorry, but it was time to go.”

“How do you know, Niea?” she asked me.

“Every wondered why I could build UFOs out of junk?” I asked her.

“They always explode, so not really,” she admitted. I gritted my teeth.

“I was maintenance. Ship maintenance, not just cleaning crew or hair cuts or waitress. My antenna isn’t external, and the ship broadcasts command news to crew like me on a different wavelength, one the others aren’t receiving anymore. They haven’t a clue, but the ones like me? We know. The ship is going out of system and will leave in a matter of months.”

“Where is it going?” Mayuko asked.

“It doesn’t matter. It won’t be back. We’re on our own, now.”

“That’s… that’s sad. Are you okay, Niea?” she asked me.

“Not really. She’s catatonic. That’s why I’m here,” I answered her.

“The ghost. Right,” said Mayuko, voice laden with doubt.

“Would Niea make you a cup of tea?” I asked her. She considered and shook her head no. “She’ll be back after I sleep, probably out of it for a while. Take her with you to Genzo. She’s part of you anyway. She’ll turn up if you try and leave her behind.”

“And just be a farmers wife? What about my dreams?” she complained.

“You’re already a good storyteller. Schools always need those. Write a book or something.”