Crossover Fan Fiction / Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction / Tenchi Muyo Fan Fiction ❯ Reason And Accountability ❯ Chisato Wick ( Chapter 31 )

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

THIRTY

 

“Hikigaya Hachiman. I have a job for you,” intoned a woman’s voice. She was cold as a tomb, and I don’t mean the kind you read in the moonlight. I turned my head, noting I was in my own original body, but I wasn’t in any part of Chiba, much less my home. There was something very different. For one thing, I was in a coffee shop with really pretty stained glass windows, a high ceiling, and overall way classier than I was used to seeing. I knew it was a coffee shop because the smell permeated everything.

The footstep from the direction of the voice alerted me so I turned to regard the woman. She was pale, gaijin, black makeup and clothes, attractive but expressionless, and wearing one of those Egyptian symbols on a necklace around her neck. Wait… I read this comic. That’s… wow. I bowed, formally.

“Lady Death, what do you ask of me?” I requested, throat suddenly dry with fear. Usually you meet her ONLY once. At the end. She comes for everyone.

“I have few favorites, but two of them are in need. One of them is here. The other in New York. I will arrange transport to the other. The first has a failing artificial heart. You are uniquely qualified to regrow her a new heart and dissolve the old one without harming her. She is in the decaying tower, but will be arriving here in three minutes, eleven seconds. Once you complete her repairs, you are to bring her to New York City with you. Go to the Flatiron building, the Continental Hotel. Present a gold coin to the desk and ask to speak to the manager. He will direct you to John Wick, as he is known there. Here is the coin required,” she said and plopped down a seriously large gold coin, around two inches across and weighing more than a troy ounce, if I had to guess. This is around 300,000 yen worth of gold.

“You’ll need this coin to get into the hotel, so don’t waste it. John will need healing. He often does. And a finger, which should be easy for you to regrow for him. And a lot of bones healed. John is a favorite of mine. He brings me many disciples.” She licked her lips. “Don’t fail me, Hachiman.” And she stepped back and vanished into the shadows.

The café door slammed open. A large black man in a Kimono soaked in blood was carrying in a pale girl in a school uniform. Her uniform was dark with blood and she hung limply, still, looking nearly dead. She was followed by another girl in a school uniform and carrying a handgun.

“Put her on the table. We’ve got to operate!” demanded the man, sounding hopeless. “There must be a way we can restart her heart.” I cast Heal Other at the girl and gained Diagnostics of the girl. Around sixteen, light blonde hair, pale Caucasian skin, Japanese features mixed with European ones, cheekbones suggesting Belarussian. I found she was full of stabs and bullet wounds, several broken ribs, toes, a finger, torqued right elbow, neck injury, burst spleen, burst appendix (more serious), and finally where her heart should be was a big mechanical block that was defib… no. It is mechanical. Fibrillation goes for muscles. The pumps moving her blood were barely working.

“What’s her blood type?” I asked. The girl with the gun jerked in surprise, and the man looked stunned that neither had noticed me until now.

“A positive,” said the black man.

“Are either of you A positive?” I asked them. They shook their heads. “Well, this is the hard way then. We’ll be using mine. This is gonna be pretty gross, but do NOT interrupt me.” I kept up the spell and used a kitchen knife I snatched from the counter to cut a slit in a wrist on each of us, then used the heal spell to bind them together and dilating them to carry my blood into her and vice versa. I used the spell to start dissolving the artificial heart, ejecting waste matter and exotic metals out of her skin so they wouldn’t poison us to death or set us on fire.

“Scoop that away. Don’t get it on your hands, and don’t put it in the drains. It will catch fire. Damned lithium. When will people learn to stop using it?” I muttered bitterly. They used saucers and coffee mugs to contain the bits coming out. There was a cavity in her chest, and I’d temporarily rerouted her blood to me, but her lungs were still working and there was oxygenated blood going to her brain. She wouldn’t die as long as I finish before I run out of mana. So far, so good. I started growing her a new heart, using her own stem cells and her own DNA. It starts… small. And once to a critical mass it starts to beat and won’t stop until its owner is dead. I added mass to her heart, growing it by cells and feeding it material. When it was critically large enough I reconnected the arteries and veins correctly, noting the deformed valves, which I fixed, and opened up the stops so it would work. She took a deep shuddering breath and her chest rose up and down. Her color improved. I used the spell on various parts of her body, fixing the broken bones, organ damage, brain damage from anoxia, the spleen I strengthened, and finally I separated our arms and healed up the wounds.

“That was amazing. So who are you?” asked the girl, pointing the pistol at my nose. It smelled of gunpowder, I guess. I’m Japanese. I don’t encounter many actual guns in Japan.

“No one of consequence?” I tried.

“Princess Bride? Try again,” demanded the girl.

“A rodent of unusual size?” I suggested. She snorted at this.

“I don’t believe in them. It’s probably a myth,” she countered.

The big black man was checking over the girl, looking like he wanted to hug her but not daring to. I finished up her broken toes and that elbow and the ribs and finally those cracked fingers.

“If I heal you are you still going to shoot me? Those bruises look painful. And some bullet grazes? Any penetrate?” I asked her.

“I was wearing the tactical uniform. Lots of bruises, but no holes,” she admitted. I cast Heal Other on her and healed the bruises and the other superficial damage. She sighed in relief.

“Okay, so that just happened. What did you actually do with that weird arm thing?” she asked me.

“Listen to her heartbeat,” I suggested. The black man leaned down and froze then his eyes went wide.

“How? How is this possible?” he demanded.

“Had to remove the artificial heart, then grew her another one. You wouldn’t believe me how,” I answered.

“Try!” demanded the girl, waving the pistol again.

“Some stuff happened so now I’m a wizard,” I answered.

“More detail?” she said, blinking. I made electricity shoot between my hands. Then I made a ball of light float into the air, then a ball of flame above my other hand.

“And I can even chill drinks!” I explained happily, gesturing with a “Taadaa!”

“You don’t look over thirty,” sneered the girl.

“There may have been a truck involved. I will neither confirm nor deny...,” I explained trailing off. She frowned, then opted to safe and then holster her weapon. I breathed a sigh of relief.

“So you seem very well armed for a school girl. Care to explain?” I asked her.

“It’s a disguise,” she answered. “We just came from a battle. A terrorist obsessed with open societies and exposing star chamber assassins… well, when I explain it like that it makes us sound like the bad guys, doesn’t it?” she said out loud. I nodded agreement.

“Yes, it does. And even so, this place smells like a coffee shop and has very nice décor. It feels kind of Frank Lloyd Wright to me,” I said.

“You’re well read,” said the black mean, catching up to the conversation.

“Soubu High School, Chiba City. Third in my year, literature major,” I explained. “I’m also a published novelist, and there will be a really popular anime made from my books in a couple years. And two sequels.”

“You still haven’t said your name,” reminded the girl.

“Oh, well my pen name will be,” and I told her.

“Why does that sound familiar?” she said, confused now. The black man pointed to the book shelf where a series of novels were filed. Looks like I ended up writing 12?

The girl on the table was resting uncomfortably so she moved, groaning.

“Can we maybe get some sweets into her, and some water. She lost a lot of blood, and I gave her half of mine. I’m thirsty too.”

“Oh, sweets and coffee? You’ve come to the right place,” admitted the man, finally looking calm enough to rejoin us. “So weird she’s got a heartbeat after all this time.”

He went behind the bar and started preparing some coffee and opened up a fridge to extract a tray of chocolate brownies and plated two. I ate one right away. That helped. I went to the nearly white-haired girl I’d saved and helped her sit up. She was very weak so I kept my arms around her. She stinks of blood and viscera and bits of building, metal shards, and probably a terrorist’s vital organs, or parts of them anyway. Nobody talks about the cleanup after a fight, but its terrible smelling. Not like pork at all. More like monkey.

“Wakey wakey,” I chastised. She murmured. I lifted the glass to her mouth. Not much bigger than my sister but heavier, with more muscles. Sort of like Nora, actually. Another world away. “Hey, what’s your name?” I asked her.

“Chisato,” she replied. “Whoa. I was dead!”

“Apparently not anymore. You have a patron that asked you be saved,” I answered.

“Really? What’s that?” she asked, feeling her own chest. She paused, confused. “Wow. I have a heartbeat. How?”

“Grew you one,” I answered. “Drink some water.” She drank a big gulp, then another.

“My mechanical heart was broken. How long did that take? Where’s my phone?” she asked. Typical teenage girl. Zero to cellphone in 41 seconds.

“Maybe we should talk about addiction now?” I answered.

“What? Did you dose me with rape drugs?” she frowned. It was cute.

“I know that social media seems okay the first few times you text someone, but studies show that cellphones are harmful to the mental states of young women and can lead to long term emotional damage and doctors recommend that social media apps be curtailed for women who feel compelled to abuse them,” I began the spiel. I’d tried this on my sister, which didn’t work. I’d tried it on Yuigahama in the alternate world, which made her smack me on the head, and on Yukino, who agreed with me completely. The look Chisato was giving me now wasn’t encouraging. She looked around, saw the other girl, and looked relieved again.

Coffee was provided. I sipped. It was fresh roasted, with a hint of bitter. Probably this morning’s grind. I ate a second brownie and fed half of it to Chisato before she could change subjects on me, while I held her upright. She didn’t seem to mind.

“Why do I feel like I should thank you?” she asked, licking away sticky icing and swallowing a big gulp of coffee.

“I shared my blood with you.”

“Like a donation at the blood bank?” she asked.

“No, literally. I grew the veins together on your arm and mine and gave you blood so you wouldn’t die while I grew you a new heart. It was around ten minutes. This is practically a marriage in quite a few African and Islander cultures. Do you like floral curtains? How about the flatware? Sorry. I’ve got a big dose of estrogen in me from you, and you are probably feeling really strong and confident right? That’s my testosterone. People never tell you, but sex does that too. It’s part of the reason couples keep doing it, actually. We absorb each other’s sex hormones.”

“We did what?” she yelped, covering her crotch.

“Not that. I haven’t even seen your panties yet. No, we shared blood so I could grow you a heart. When I say have a heart, I can mean that literally,” I blathered. “I think I need another brownie. And a nap. And probably a great big hamburger. I need a lot of iron and some water.” The man refilled our glasses. We each drank one. And he appeared from the back with a couple multivitamin pills. I swallowed one, and so did the girl, still held in my arms.

“So I notice you haven’t complained that I’m holding you,” I mentioned.

“I almost died,” I she said. The other girl was staring at the two of us from one of the couches, sipping a sweet coffee and picking off bits of what is probably someone’s burnt and exploded flesh. I realized the girl I’m holding is still covered in stink, blood, and smelling pretty bad from what is probably exploded terrorist.

“Bath time!” I announced, helping the girl up. The other one trudged after. The big black guy stood behind the bar, staring at me.

“So… a wizard huh?” he said, uncertain.

“Yeah. Wild, right?” I replied.

“Right. And you’re a high school student, from Chiba. And someone told you to be here and heal my Chisato, just now,” he said, looking very doubtful.

“If you feel like you’ve hit your head, at least be glad we don’t have Kaiju and cross-shaped explosions,” I suggested. He pondered that.

“Evangelion?” he asked.

“Been there.”

“Misato Katsuragi almost made me straight,” he admitted. “They call me Sensei, but my actual name is Mika.”

“I fixed up Misato. She looks twenty now. No more sag. She could pose for one of those special magazines,” I explained. His eyes glazed in imagination. “No more scars either. And she can have children.”

I heard some yelps from the bath, but left them to their business. I noted that the girl in the blue uniform had very short fingernails, as did Chisato. And you know what that means… She had clean fingernails. She worked in the food industry and complied with food safety standards. What did you think I meant?

The dark haired girl appeared drying herself, partially nude. Testing me, I suppose. Women do that, even the young ones. “I’m Takina. Thanks for saving Chisato. And healing my bruises. It was a bad fight. A lot of people died today,” she said. I nodded to her.

“You’re welcome. Chisato needs a nap, then she and I need to go to New York City, to the Continental hotel,” I explained. Sensei froze and turned to look at me.

“What did you say?” he asked.

“I was told we need to look for someone there at the Continental Hotel in New York. A man named John Wick,” I explained.

“No. Not him. He’ll never forgive me,” he cursed.

“Eh? What do you mean?” I asked him.

“Seventeen years ago, an assassin came to Tokyo and took out the Shigen Gumi’s boss, and most of his family at their manor in Tokyo. They called him Baba Yaga, the Russian bogeyman. The hit man that kills hit men and bosses. Ruthless and determined. I was young, I showed him around, got him a girl at a festival. She was young, drunk, they had a few hours in a love hotel. Some weeks later I get contacted by a guy, says his girl is knocked up, and the father might be important so she’s been talked into keeping it. I think the Goujo Gumi wanted to get some leverage. So this Wick guy comes back to Japan on another job, offs the Goujo Gumi and detonates the upper floor of their office building, takes the girl and hands her off to me. Gives me a fortune to do it. So I take the money. The lady has the kid, looks after it a while, then runs away. She’s found in the bay, her hair shaved off, crabs been working on her. The baby is this sweet little thing so I raise her. She’s Chisato. She’s Baba Yaga’s love child.”

“Well, interesting. But I don’t understand why my patron said she’s a favorite.”

“She has a talent, almost like it’s inborn. She’s great with a gun. Never misses. And she can dodge bullets when she can see who is shooting at her. Ducks right before they fire. It’s really uncanny. Makes her a great assassin. But she hates killing and wants to run this coffee shop.”

“Huh. Wow. That’s different. An international assassin’s love child? Sounds like a bad novel produced by a French action film company that used to make that Highlander TV show, and the Fifth Element.”

“That’s oddly specific, young man,” pointed out Sensei. I shrugged.

“Could be worse. We could be living in a Japan where everybody speaks French for no good reason,” I pointed out.

“That’s worse?” he asked me.

“Indeed. It has Jean Reno as a police officer, and his daughter is almost 20, and about to inherit a pile of stolen millions from a Yakuza family while her mother died under suspicious circumstances while working undercover.”

“And they speak French?” he confirmed. I nodded. “That’s really weird.”

“I’m getting pretty tired,” I yawned. “Usually when I fall asleep I end up somewhere else, in another body. Often in another parallel world.”

“Are you tired all the time then?” he asked me.

“Nah, I usually wake after a good night’s sleep. Sleep deprivation is a killer. If you go four or five days you’ll die.” He shuddered, raised his coffee like a blessing, and finished it.

“I should switch to sake,” he admitted.

“I’m under age, but help yourself. Just show me to a place I can sleep. I think I’ll still be here tomorrow,” I suggested.

“We had a tenant leave recently. Haven’t had a chance to air out her futon. If you don’t mind smelling her perfume, it is right over here,” he said, opening a cupboard in the hall. I dragged it out of the tiny space and found a room big enough for my body to lie down. That was a lot of mana. I laid down, fully clothed, and slept.

 

THIRTY-ONE

 

I awoke to the sound of cutlery and dishware moving around. And the smell of roasting coffee. It seems I am still here.

There was a dinging bell over the door and a voice called out: “Are you open?” They were greeted with the traditional welcome. I heard the sound of coffee poured, payment taken, people seating and chatting.

I stretched and sat up. My uniform is wrinkled, and there are gross bits of stuff that came off of the girl’s uniform now in the bedding. The owner of this futon will be pissed off if it isn’t aired out properly, and beaten clean. I need to get clean. If I try and board an airliner coated in gunfight and explosives I’ll be arrested as a terrorist by airport security. I opened doors, eventually finding the furo and undressed, bathed, and returned to examine my clothes. I note there is a washing machine. I use it. It doesn’t take long. There’s also an evaporative dryer. I use that, taking the opportunity to shave the few hairs off my cheeks and chin. I suspect that while this is Japan, it’s probably the future. At least a bit. Or maybe slightly off. There’s noise in the dryer and I realize I hadn’t removed the gold coin from my pocket. I stop the dryer and remove it, looking at it while the dryer restarts. The indicator of the dryer shows water content is dropping fast and my clothes will be dry soon. I stop it and remove them, lowering an ironing board and using the available iron to get them tidy. In tidy clothes I look less like a Yakuza and more like a slightly scroungy student. I dress and straighten up my tie. Presentable, even with the white piping. You’d never guess I was a wizard.

I approached the front of the shop and found my patient and her very dear and intimate friend in traditional shop clothes from a century ago, serving coffee and sweets to a dozen guests. I grinned. It was the kind of place that Yuigahama would love to work if she could find the grace to do it. The girls were effortless, and there was a small blonde glaring at me with a huge suitcase in front of her. She wasn’t even 150 centimeters tall. I grinned, to be contrary and took a guess.

“Thanks for the use of your futon. It’s going to need to be aired out and cleaned.”

“Great. I’ll have it burned. I had to get one delivered because there was nowhere to sleep. It isn’t here yet. There’s been some chaos in the city overnight,” she intoned quietly. She glanced to Chisato.

“Sensei says that’s your doing?” she asked me. I nodded.

“Never seen a talent like that. Never heard of a talent like that. And you don’t wear the owl pin,” she added.

“I’m no Heaven Canceller, if that’s what you mean,” I suggested. She frowned thinking. Then remembered and frowned harder.

“That setting was dumb. All the villains giggled. How did that ever get popular?” she asked.

“The girls were cute and the hero was oblivious. It was Ranma ½ for a fresh audience,” I suggested. “Also, there’s some implied romance outcomes which are obvious to the audience, but not to the heroes.”

“Like what?” she asked, interested.

“Well, the spiky haired hero can cancel any skill, and the electrical heroine shoots lightning when she’s excited. Now imagine she’s in a frisky mood and she kills her partner by accident. Say this happens a few times. Now imagine she meets a guy who can disable this thing so she can actually do the thing she’s been interrupted from doing all this time, and how crazy that makes her realizing subconsciously that he’s the one guy who can get her off and not die. She has no other choices. It’s him or nobody. And he’s crazy popular with the ladies.”

“So when I met him I cured most of his brain damage and fixed up a children’s hospital long term care ward, preventing a nuclear meltdown and destruction of a billion yen elevated freeway. Healing can be a very disruptive act.” The girl considered this, then shrugged.

“Okay, so you can have the futon. I still think you’ll want to clean it,” the tiny blonde decided. 

“Yeah, that’s fair. Your preferred perfumes are a bit overpowering.”

She grunted, returning to her seat. I noticed a discreet laptop was facing her, and she sipped her coffee, scrolling what is probably news.

“A wave of gun violence has wracked New York City in recent days, with the murder rate spiking,” reported the tv news announcer.

The number of customers leaving the shop and the number coming in began to slack off eventually. Chisato finally finished cleaning up the shop and wiping down the tables. She looked very happy. It is hard to imagine her a gunfighter who Death liked, but there you go.

She went to the back of the shop and was gone for around an hour. I sipped coffee and ate a ham croissant prepared by Sensei, who was idly checking inventory and making orders by phone. Chisato returned wearing her uniform, cleaned and repaired. So did Takina. Both girls had book bags that looked heavy with weaponry and probably armor.

So Death, about that transportation? I asked myself, thinking loudly. A portal appeared in the hallway behind the girls. It was swirling, like they do, and I could see the entrance of a building with stone steps and brass railings. Noise and fumes and the sound of gasoline engines emerged. The girls spun, Takina quick drawing her weapon.

“So we’re going to New York City to meet your father, Chisato. I just got the story last night. I have never been to New York City, but I think my English will do. We seem to have a portal to our destination there. So, shall we go?” I asked. I stepped past the girls and into the portal. I felt my Ocato’s activate Stoneskin and a bullet bounced off. They don’t have much mass and the spell stops them pretty well. I climbed the steps and turned to regard the portal. The girls followed, brandishing their weapons. The front doors were missing, and there was glass all over the floor. I waited for the girls and followed behind, glass crunching under my street shoes. No chance I’m taking mine off here. The girls found men with brooms eyeing them carefully.

“Gentleman, ladies. There is no business to be conducted here,” ordered the very tall and dark African with a slight English oxford accent, standing behind a desk.

“Holster the guns,” I translated. The girls did so.

We approached the desk walking past the workers cleaning up what had probably been a huge gunfight. There was a man spraying down some floor and walls where blood had spattered. It stank, but it looked like something that had been done more than once. I stepped up to the counter and laid down the gold coin.

“I’d like to speak to the manager,” I said in English. The concierge stared at me coldly, then at the token, then back to me. His eyebrow rose.

“There’s been a change of management. Are you sure?” he asked me.

“I have instructions. This is regarding John Wick,” I answered. Both eyebrows rose.

“If you are sure. Your body guards, too?” he confirmed.

“If he’s here then yes.”

“Very well,” answered the man, Charon. Apropos for a false name for the underworld. “May I have your name?”

“Roberts would be appropriate for me, but he’ll be interested in Chisato,” I said.

He picked up a phone and dialed. He gave the message. His eyebrows rose again. He hung up the phone, and placed a placard on the counter. It read: the concierge will return shortly.

We followed him down a hallway and into a vault, whose door was open. There were guns on the walls. Well, this IS America. This is probably what every American basement looks like, right? Chisato entered the room behind me and stared at the wounded man there, who put down his drink. He was bearded, bleeding, and needed my assistance. I cast Heal Other and began expelling bullets and closing cut arteries and bruises. He needed his blood. His spleen was intact, oddly. His ribs had been broken many times, including in the last week. That probably hurt. I healed them next and reopened a section of collapsed lung. His color improved. There was perforated intestines, in several places, and liver damage from absorbed lead, probably bullet fragments. I expelled that.

“What are you doing?” John finally said, noticing he was feeling stronger.

“You have a patron. She asked me to heal you,” I answered in English. He grimaced, lifting up the piece of lead wire erupting from his skin. That was the liver piece. It came loose.

“That’s disgusting,” he finally said. Chisato approached and stood just out of reach. I finished the biggest healing issues and worked on the scars. He had a lot. Also tattoos, which I left. Those were probably important.

“Why is she here? Why are you here?” he asked me, then his daughter.

“Apparently she inherited your ability. She wanted to retire and run a coffee shop, but some terrorists kept dragging her back into combat. See the news in Tokyo?” I asked him.

“I’ve been busy here. The last two weeks have been brutal,” Wick said.

“Considering all your wounds that is probably true,” I answered.

“So, you are my father?” asked Chisato.

“Yes. I wanted you safe from this world. I had to kill a hundred Yakuza to make sure of it.”

“A hundred? Are there even that many?” Chisato asked seriously.

“Not anymore,” John answered.

“Out of personal curiosity, are you planning to purge the rest of the goons or is this just to get breathing room and restore fear in your name? You don’t have to answer,” I added at his look.

“What is the nature of my patron?” he asked in response.

“Ever seen Deadpool? Or read the comic, more importantly? Or maybe Sandman?” I asked. He looked confused.

“My youth was spent on training, not comic books,” John Wick answered. I was fixing the breaks in his fingers. Each of the bones had been broken multiple times. His healing was nearly as good as Deadpool, to be honest, just the kind that’s slow enough not to gain attention, but still effective over time.

“Well, let’s just say that the Hot Goth Girl with the Ankh necklace is accurate, and the Norse version is probably the most descriptive and historical origin.”

“You are talking about Death? As a person? Or a goddess?” he queried in serious disbelief.

“Anthropomorphic personification. And eternal incarnation. Something like that. She seems to have some admiration for your grasp of her purpose and you’ve brought many evil souls to her for processing. Death is just the beginning,” I quoted.

“That was a dumb movie. I remember watching it as a kid.”

“Yeah, but it was a fun movie. Like Raiders of the Lost Ark,” I pointed out, finishing his other hand. I looked at his feet. They were showing all kinds of damage, including punctures and broken bones.

“Please don’t get upset, but I need to take off your shoes. There will be no foot massage.”

“Thank God. That would get weird.”

“Daddy?” Chisato finally interrupted our banter. Her very human heart continued to beat healthily. It might affect her bullet dodging slightly, but I suspect not very much. “Where have you been?”

“Eh… I was married for a few years, but my wife got cancer and recently died. I got a dog and was looking after it and then some Russian mafia punks killed my dog and stole my car, so I had to get even and remind them why my retirement was important.”

“And brought 299 people to Death in the process,” I muttered under my breath. It was a popular bit of movie trivia in my original world.

“Hey, they had it coming,” John interrupted me. I got his shoes off and then socks. The puncture wounds and infections would make walking incredibly painful, and kicking people with glass in your feet isn’t great either. I started extracting shards and healing punctures and infections as I went. This was slow going, but there’s 29 muscles and a number of small bones, all of which need to work properly to walk. Severed tendons, damaged tendon sheaths, various ruptured blood vessels and scar tissue. All of it needed healing so I used my spells and the more advanced skills I’d learned from using Heal Other so much. Hard to believe I’d once been a lazy Japanese teenage boy in Chiba who enjoyed playing my Vita-Chan handheld and ignoring annoying text messages from Christmas Cake sensei. Someone, please take her!

“I feel much better now. And I’d like some dinner,” John finally said on standing up and feeling no pain for the first time in two weeks. Charon, please prepare something for my daughter and I in the main dining room. It is time I’m seen.”

“Chisato? I shall leave you here, if that is okay,” I offered. She looked at me, gave me a quick soundless hug, and waved goodbye.

“Uh… thank you, whoever you are,” John said to me, half confused and half grateful in that special Keanu Reeves way.

“You’re welcome? I guess.” I shook his hand and he slipped me two large gold coins. What I do with those in all the other universes I kept visiting I will never know, so I pocketed them, turned to the left and stepped forward into the Portal that was suddenly there.