Crossover Fan Fiction ❯ Valley Quest ❯ Valley Quest: 5 ( Chapter 5 )

“Hey, did you know we have a certified public accountant now?” asked Chise one morning. She was refilling the real estate flyers she printed for newcomers looking to buy a house. Many people ended up at my coffee shop now I had a mayor’s sign under the Germania Café sign. Newcomers would often look confused at the lack of officials, you’d expect to see, but this isn’t the prefectural office. Just the mayor’s and my coffee shop.

“We do?” I asked. This was a surprise.

“Yeah, they just moved in. Um.. She’s really short. But I saw her ID she’s an adult, just really short. Her husband is normal size, but uhmmm.. he really likes Barry Manilow and alto sax instrumental music. He and his wife are a nice if a little odd couple,” she finally said after thinking a bit longer.

“Nice but odd. Not aliens or espers or time travelers? No war veterans from a nearby universe?” I clarified. Chise shook her head no to all of those.

“Oh, but don’t make fun of her English accent. It’s something she tends to get really worked up about. And don’t call her ‘little girl’. She’s actually attacked people over that one. Takes it really personal,” Chise said. Most people still thought she was in high school. Or even middle school, not a 40 year old housewife real estate agent.

“Huh. Well, I guess they’re as welcome here as anyone else. I hope our population doesn’t scare them,” I said.  

Sometime later that week a herd of man-hungry women, including a middle aged teacher, arrived in town showing the pictures of the young couple. One of them claimed to be the younger sister of the groom, and had ID which proved it. Another claimed to be their sempai, the student council president, and a buxom woman who clanked when she walked said she was the student council VP. They were looking for “our Tsuda”, whatever that meant. After they left town again, I managed to meet the wife, a tiny little woman the size I’d been in my prior life. I mentioned the huntresses.

“Ah. Them. Yes, they were our sempais, but they never quite understood how Tsuda and I were dating and serious about it. Our parents gave us permission to marry once we graduated high school and we wanted some privacy without Tsuda getting arrested for holding my hand in public. People just can’t believe I’m as old as he is. It’s been like this for years. Hopefully folks around here won’t bat an eye once they get used to us.”

“You might want to go on the Akari show and do a quick interview.”

“You mean Kogami Akari? The idol? She’s here?” asked the CPA-loli.

“Yeah, she moved in a month ago. She’s the radio DJ in the mornings and has an afternoon chat show for local issues and news on our new TV station. We like to stay low key but it’s hard sometimes, with all the foreign interest,” I admitted.

“Foreign?” she asked, clearly confused.

“Oh, with the gate and UFOs and stuff. Some of those people settled here,” I said in lieu of a very poor explanation.

“Well, everyone has hobbies, after all. Just so long as all the people treat each other as people, we’ll get along fine,” she said, smiling to me as the Miko and her Bear drifted sedately by on their SuperCub on their way home from school.

“Right. Right,” I said, watching them vanish out of sight.

“Oh, I should give you this. My husband runs the local investment firm. You should talk and setup a referral agreement,” I suggested. People who invested needed a CPA to do their taxes and avoid giving too much to the vultures of Japan. We never saw any infrastructure projects up here. We didn’t have many votes. The upside was we got less of the corruption and government scam artists seeking kickbacks and cutting off services until they got their bribes, like the rest of Japan. Lain-san was having an interesting effect. We now had cellphone signal, not just wifi, and her omnipresence on all the phones and webcams was a curious side effect. Apparently she’d managed to speak to the carrot farmer after our chat with Princess Sasami (and wasn’t I pleased to have guessed she was a princess correctly) and gotten a hotline to their manor house up the side-valley, another at the shrine, and a third line to someone named Washu, who was Sasami’s older sister? It was confusing. There was something about a doll, too, and some spaceship landing system to clear the airspace over the shrine and lake as a no-go flight zone. That was easy enough, since we only had one pilot in town with an actual plane anyway. I rarely flew, and didn’t need a plane. Chise was a plane when she wanted to be. And Sagara found leaping into the air to be tiring and hard on his mecha, so avoided that much of the time. His pregnant wife, Tessa, was frequently escorted by his other wife Chidori while tending the fields or shopping in town. Speaking of, they both arrived.

“I understand you have European style coffee here?” asked the silver-haired woman.

“Yes, I roast the beans daily, myself. If served the same day it isn’t bitter and does not require sugar to be sweet. Would you like a cup?” I offered.

“Yes please. I have a craving. Chidori, would you like to try it?” asked Tessa.

“Say, are you Hikkigaya Komachi, the magical girl from the Ginza gate incident?” asked the dark haired girl, eyes coming into focus on me. Tessa’s lips moved in sync while she said this.

“Yes. That’s me.”

“Ah, then you are Sousuke’s auntie. That makes you family,” said Tessa, this time with Chidori moving her lips with the words coming from the other woman’s mouth.

“Umm. Are you two telepathic?” I asked, turning on my magical sight and spotted the resonance. How interesting. And a tie at another dimensional level to the Washu woman. Magical sight was really interesting and offered all kinds of insight into the nature of the universe itself.

“One of us. One of us. One of us,” they chanted together, deadpan. Children of the Corn. Of course. Sousuke must have introduced them to that classic horror movie. Then they laughed. I laughed. The chair laughed. Wait, what? The chair stopped laughing and returned to being a chair.

“So, two cups of coffee?” I asked again. They said yes. I brewed and served and we sat at one of my tables together.

“I haven’t had much time with him since he came to town. I haven’t met his Dad yet, though they’re going to be moving to town soon. I got an application for asylum by his parents. There was time travel and an alternate universe involved.”

“So you’re Sousuke’s aunt, but don’t know your own brother?”

“Ah, well, there’s currently two of my brother. One is the one I grew up with in Chiba, and he’s serving in the Gate region with the JSDF and foreign affairs. The other one got time travelled to Afghanistan, apparently, and fought in that war before meeting his wife and ended up with a small business in Thailand, married, had sousuke, and he got time travelled to another universe to fight in Afghanistan himself, which I can see you know about already. And then you portalled here to his father’s original universe where things were nice and peaceful until the Gate opened in Ginza. Well, mostly peaceful. Now things are pretty chaotic, but we like things peaceful.”

“Sousuke said his parents married in Thailand and he had four brothers and three sisters, at least that was the case before he went to where we met anyway. He’s kinda anxious about them too,” said Chidori.

“Well, he can ask them when they arrive. I’m not sure when they’re coming here, and their political status as international criminals might cause them trouble if they enter Japan in a conventional way,” I had to admit. This left open the possibility of unconventional entrance and using the legal example of the Catian embassy in Okinawa, we’d gotten ourselves an embassy through Lain’s efforts and another for the Masaki-Jurai clan up the road.

“Yes. Well, true enough.” She turned her head to observe the highly gravid sister-wife Tessa and took her hand as she swayed.

“Time to go to the clinic, I think,” said Tessa quietly. The two women tottered gently out my door and walked slowly down the street to the clinic. It was not far. An ambulance would take too long to matter. Somewhat later I spotted Sousuke sprint out of the rice paddies and into the clinic, still carrying his fishing pole and creel and waders flapping across the pavement and through the swinging doors. Looks like it was time for a new resident.

Re-L Mayer showed up. She was carrying an envelope and a pen.

“I found out that not only was I a manufactured person, I was fashioned after an American rock star named Amy Lee. Well, I’m not overweight and aging badly. I was made perfect, and semi-immortal to keep Vincent company forever, but still I’m a copy of her.”

“She any good? The music I mean?”

“Top 40 in America in the 90’s. Pretty popular, famous looks, but their sound kind of petered out of the public consciousness after that first album,” she admitted, waving a printout on the band with the picture of the singer in her hey-day. Yeah, obvious copy, with improvements.

“You’re better looking. Can you sing?” I asked her.

“Not really. I can’t cook either. It wasn’t really what I was wanted for, when they made me. Hey, have you seen a little girl android? She’s about this tall and calls herself Pino,” she said, holding out her hand about hip high.

“She’s a child, but infected by something we called the Cogito virus, which makes expert system software self aware. And religious. It’s one of the first signs, actually. Any who have it gain a soul, faith, and drop to their knees in prayer.”

“That’s ominous. I have an uncomfortable relationship with a certain Being X who claimed to be God and punished me for 16 years fighting his war for the crime of calling it Satan. I have met nicer gods since then, and kinder gods, and gods that don’t demand I devote myself with worship to them or their warmongering plots.”

“So I was thinking I’d call myself Ami Rinn Law. After I get this cleared we’re getting married at the chapel, officially.”

“It’s a good name. Congratulations on getting engaged. The legal benefits solve many problems. Did you have to badger him much to get him to ask?” I said.

“Only a little. I just gave him a look and pointed at the ad for the chapel and he figured it out quickly.”

“He probably likes that about you. Tell me when and I’ll be there,” I offered. She did. I wrote the time on my calendar, a few days away.

She left with her form ready, headed for the bus stop and a long trip to the prefectural office to file her name change form and to get new IDs made under the Political Refugee status.

I was finishing the afternoon books when a woman with white hair and a nasty scar on the right side of her face stepped into my shop. She was followed by my brother from another world. He was older, a good 20 years older than me. He smiled when he saw me.

“Komachi!” he said and started crying, rushed me and picked me up. I let him. The way universal theory works is the universe split during a critical moment in his life, around the time he climbed to the roof after that irritating twit of a bimbo Sagami, who mismanaged the school festival and shoved all that work onto my brother and my assistant. He ended up elsewhere, and went through a lot of garbage. He also, I realized, stank of cheap tobacco. Reeked of it.

“Niisan, you smell like a taxicab on Friday night.”

“Komachi, I’ve missed your insults.” My baby cried. I extracted myself from Hachiman and lifted up Yuki.

“This is Yuki. I married Bug, as you insist on calling him. My Taishi is down the street right now. The other you,” and he gasped at this,” is across the Gate. He’s married to Yuigahama.”

“Other me?” he asked. “You portaled getting here. Might not have noticed it. This place is a nexus, sort of a solid spot across multiple parallel earths with different histories but close enough that this place is the same. It’s a kind of magic. I saw your daughters in law earlier. If you go to the clinic down the street you can meet your grandson or granddaughter. They’re being born. I guess I should close up shop. We can all go.” I put Yuki back in his carrier and lifted him up. We closed the shop behind us, and Hachiman and his wife looked around like they were expecting snipers.

“Don’t worry. We haven’t had any trouble with snipers in a few months, not since Lain got here.”

“You’re the mayor?” asked Hachiman, lighting up two cigarettes. He passed one to his wife. They had a car following us down the street, and a younger version of themselves inside, and a bunch of kids of various ages with their looks.

“My. It seems I have quite a few nieces and nephews to greet. Sousuke is married. It’s a little unconventional, but there’s good reason behind their situation,” I said. We entered the clinic after a scary looking mountain of a Russian pushed open the doors and then signaled back out that it was clear. I still know Russian, so I understood.

We entered and a few minutes later a solemn herd of kids did too. Hachiman stood at the desk, speaking to a nurse of some kind. There was a usual scream and then a baby crying in the back room. It wasn’t a big clinic.

The two entered the operating theater and I heard the surprise and greeting. I peeked in. My brother and his son were hugging, and then the stoic Russian lady was holding Sousuke and crying over him. The kids gradually approached and greeted their long missing brother. They then peered at the newborn baby held by a flushed and exhausted Tessa, and a likewise groggy Chidori, out on a nearby stretcher. She looked just as tired, oddly enough. Telepathy has some downsides, apparently.

I found a chair and observed the whole place till one of the kids came over to talk to me.

“Obachan?” asked the kid. She meant auntie.

“Yes, I’m auntie Komachi,” I said, noting their tall ahoge. Familial. Only Sousuke seemed to lack it, and I suspect he cut his off for tactical reasons. In the aerial mage squadron it didn’t matter, and I just wore my hair as long as I liked. Here in Japan I went shorter because of the heat and the lack of A/C. Swamp coolers don’t work either, because it’s Japan and it’s too sweaty for those.

Family gave a lot of peace. The scarred sister in law carefully sat beside me.

“So, you’re the neechan my Yuri always goes on about.”

“Yuri?” I asked.

“It was the name he first gave me in Afghanistan, when he saved me from a sniper,” she said, accent somewhat thick. Language would be a difficulty here, but maybe not?

“We have discovered that our universe is a great deal more complicated than first believed,” I answered in Russian, or Russe when I spoke it on the battlefield. “Most people are reincarnated, some of them from other people rather than trees or animals. I am not sure why that is, but I’ve encountered at least one of the beings who claim to be responsible for this. It was not pleasant. It forced me back into World War One Germany, a sort of Germany a bit different from this world, and I was forced to fight. I retained my abilities from that war. I am a veteran of campaigns, like you. I might even be able to do something for your scars, if you wish.”

“Nyet. I earned these scars. My Yuri loves me regardless. And our children. I never expected to have children when I awoke in the hospital in Afghanistan. I was hideous, but Yuri just smiled and kissed me, and so it was,” she replied in a more poetic mood.

“I’ve been living with the local Hachiman until he left for service in the state military reserves. He is an intelligence officer. You have read about the Ginza Incident?”

“You were there. I saw the videos. It made Yuri very excited because he recognized you,” she said, eyeing my reaction to this news.

“Before the gate opened I couldn’t do those things from my former life, not much anyway. I healed his leg, but it took most of what I could do, and hours. Now with all the gates, and the power that leaks out of them, I have more options. You have many guards,” I said, pointing my chin at the men by the doors. They were Russians, pretending not to listen to us speak.

“My comrades in war in Afghanistan. We are survivors. We saw the war end and went home to shame and disgrace, having been defeated, and then the wall fell and the USSR broke up, was no more. Years before you were born into this life. Ancient history?”

“In a sense. I read a lot of history. Most veterans do. We want to know where things went wrong. Who was to blame for it all. We ask ourselves if all the lives lost meant anything,” I answered.

“It does not. Even my Yuri understands this. There is no meaning in war. Only your own survival, and your comrades if you are very lucky, or plan better than others. Yuri was both. I think we might have died if not for him and his plans. He understood this Fourth Generation Warfare like an expert. Assymmetric warfare, with civilians used as shields. Where the battlefield is a village and the guerillas attack and fade again. The Soviet Doctrine could not cope. Stalin was still in charge decades after his death, and his policies killed many young soldiers. Yuri saved us, opened our eyes with that damnable squint and his ugly sneer and harsh words,” she said.

“There are many veterans from many wars living here. Even your son has fought and been scarred by war.”

“His eyes never stop moving,” she noted. “I am very relieved to see him alive after all this time.”

“He’s been through a lot. The Earth he ended up in was at war, a divided China, resurgent Soviet Union which never died out, and walking tanks which could singly massacre an entire village if the pilot wished so. And frequently did, even if it was a war crime. You’ll have to ask him for details. I don’t know very much,” I admitted. It was another world, after all. And soldiers only talk when they’re ready.

“Yes. That is so. Is life so good here that the wars you fought have left you?” she asked me.

“I had a normal childhood here. I had a lifetime of loving family to help me grow up properly. I had my doting brother. It makes a big difference compared to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in a body scarred by battles. In my last life I didn’t even reach full development from all the battle stress. And I died before I could find love. Your soldiers will be able to relax here, once they convince themselves of it. Very few bad things happen here. Even the spies are polite. We know who they are, and don’t let them in unless we want to. Would you allow me to call my brother and introduce him to himself?”

“I suppose that would be best. All things in their time,” she agreed. “If this place is as peaceful as you say, some of my men may wish to emigrate with their families. We shall see.”

“We really need to construct a Veterans Hall, and a Veterans Hospital. The local clinic is good, but they aren’t exactly built around removing shrapnel or reconstructive surgery. For more serious cases, they can beg an audience with Washu.”

“Washu? Who is that?” asked Sofiya.

“A goddess of science. She lives nearby. The blue pigtailed girl at my shop is her sister.”

“Does that mean she is a goddess too?” she asked.

“Yes, though she prefers to think of herself as a housewife. The family has been here over a thousand years. They’re kind of a big deal. Don’t be shocked by odd noises, booms, or alarms sometimes. That’s just them. It’s not a war, and nobody will be shooting.”

“I… see. You did say it was peaceful.”

“Mostly peaceful, yes. Chise runs the local real estate company. Try not to buy more land than you need because we sell to couples, not companies. We also have very gentle terms for new businesses. We don’t allow extortion or usury or drug dealing. Many of the businesses you ran in Thailand are not welcome here, please understand. Don’t threaten anyone, even with weapons. Many of the couples here come from harder battlefields than we did, and quite a few are stronger than even me. That blue haired housewife has a space battleship which would destroy Tokyo in one shot, but spends her time preparing meals for her husband and his wives. There are several other women in town like her. Best behavior,” I ordered. She considered this and nodded.

“Good. This weather is too hot for armor, anyway.” She gave some orders and some of the men left the operating room. Others came in wearing bright Hawaiian shirts with handguns under their belts instead of the big Kalashnikov rifles they’d barely concealed under long coats before. They looked relieved.

“I am pleased my boy has settled down. So why two wives? Is one the legal one and the other his mistress?” she asked, a valid question when one had spent their career in a lawless city like Roanapur.

“Both legal. There’s some rare technology in the world where they lived, and both women have one of its side effects. It makes them synchronize like twins. It is usually fatal after some time, causing a sort of paralysis associated with two minds trying to operate two bodies with a single consciousness. There are probably laws being broken here, but he can’t be with one without the other feeling everything, and so they have to remain like this, a triple rather than a couple. Their high school, Sousuke and Chidori went to the same high school for two years, got blown up several times, and was attacked by terrorists at least twice than I know of. I suspect several members of Tessa’s crew will be retiring here. They’ve had a hard time. The technology these two can access is disruptive, though useful. We constructed a power plant design based on something Chidori was able to provide plans for and it’s now our main power plant. We still need the rest of the infrastructure, but we’re getting there. Their technology wasn’t supposed to be used for war, but that world twisted everything to that end.”

“Interesting,” murmured Sofiya.  

“Yes, it is. And not to be abused or we’ll end up like that place and ruin a nice place to live. Nobody wants that.”

Hachiman drifted over and sat down beside his wife.

“So, Komachi and my Sofiya speak Russian together. Should I be nervous?” he asked.

“I’m explaining the local situation here. Best behavior. Try not to insult anyone on purpose. Or by accident,” I warned.

“How does it feel to be a grandpa?” I asked him. He was 20 years older than me thanks to his time travel. There was grey in his hair. He clasped hands with Sofiya.

“Its like being a father. I am glad to have found my boy. We missed him. The children needed us, so we had to stay strong, but we hoped and prayed he was alright, wherever he was. I was relieved none of our other children were taken. We trained them, of course, but only Sousuke really got it. Only he was properly motivated to learn.”

“Did you read my novels?” I asked him.

“Your autobiography?” he teased. “Yes. For an alternate world, it not a bad isekai story structure, even changing from Truk-Kun to Train-Kun at the start. Was Being X really that evil?” he asked. “He made a good villain, and wasn’t giggling. I hate giggling villains. Those are so lazy. Like the author wasn’t even trying.”

“The mad doctor who built the Type 95 was a giggling villain. So were some of the enemy mages,” I pointed out, not disagreeing with his assessment. That world was hell on the battlefields. The cafes were good, though.

“I should mention that Haruno is in town, spying for the Diet, for her father. She’s registered as a foreign agent and everybody knows, but she’s had a thing for your local self and might swoon if she meets you. Don’t kill her, okay?” I warned. “Yukino is my best friend, and she would not like her sister harmed, even if she is annoying and clingy.”

I considered another item. “Yukino married Totsuka. They have a child together. And your alternate married Yuigahama. They have two kids. And Yoshiteru got buff, joined the JSDF, and married Kawasaki Saki, so she’s also my sister in law.”

“Tubby got buff? Tubby married Kuroi Pantsu? This world is weird,” he complained. He carefully did not mention Totsuka or Yukino or Yui. His feelings for those three were complicated back in high school.

“And Yuki’s dad is Taishi, Saki’s brother. You never quite approved of him. Don’t call him Bug, okay? He’s a good husband to me,” I warned him. Sofiya laughed behind her hand at my brother’s expression of shock.

“What? You married Mushi Kawasaki?”

“I’m a grown woman, niisan. And you weren’t exactly here for all the romance that developed between us. Talk to other you about it. He’ll get here on his next rota out. You can make your peace with Yui too.”

“But Yui was so nice,” he said with a certain revulsion. “And she can’t cook!” he complained.

“A househusband has no right to complain about the lack of cooking ability in his career-woman wife,” I chided him. He stared at his Sofiya, who had a soft look in her eyes.

“Yes, this is true. I had need of a manservant,” she purred. They kissed. Yeah, I suppose he’d gotten his dream after all. Their youngest made ew sounds at her parents kissing in front of them. The elder ones blushed.

I stepped out of the clinic to the night sky, two motherships in the sky. One rising, another descending on their polar orbits across the sky. Ami Rinn walked down the street, preferring night to daylight. The frozen wasteland Earth she’d been created on had no sunlight, and even treatments by Washu to prevent her cells from being destroyed by blue light in the sun, a cruelty her world had imposed on her species out of spite and central planning, still preferred the night. She’d never seen the stars before arriving here, and was fascinated. She still wore all the blue eyeshadow, but the black leather bodysuit had been replaced by a far more breathable silk. Vincent emerged from behind her and took her hand. They were an odd couple, a remnant of a dying world. If anyone deserved to live here they did. The girl had become friendly with Chise over the last two days, having similar experiences. Who knew that someone else would get Chise so well?

I wished the couple well and drifted back to my shop and the door upstairs. A warm light greeted me and my husband welcomed me and Yuki home.