Change 123: Dream Sequence

Chapter 1: Level 0: Consciousness

Me (Teruharu Kousukegawa), and my girlfriend (Motoko Gettou) were having a date on a Wednesday, seeing a movie. The reason this day was different from any other, was because of a call from my friend Kannami.

"So, Motoko, what did you think of the movie?" I asked.

"It was nice. Awfully confusing though. I hate how they made it so you don't know if he ever really woke up or not."

"Yeah. I think though that I'd like to think that the ending was in real life, not a dream.

"How many dreams-within-a-dreams did you think there were?" Motoko asked.

"Six maybe? I bet Fujiko probably understood it."

"Yeah." Motoko said, with a bit of melancholy in her voice.

"Um, so anyway, I guess we should head to the bathroom now." I said. Worst. Save. Ever.

"No, I didn't drink much during the movie." Motoko said.

I was in the middle of trying to think of a different way to move the conversation, when my cell phone rang in my pocket.

"Hello?"

"Kousukegawa?" I heard Kannami's voice say. "Are any of the Gettou sisters with you?"

"Um, yeah, Motoko is with me right now, why do you ask."

"I think I've found a new way to deal with Motoko's D.I.D." He said.

"Does it involve more mercenaries?" I asked dubiously.

"No, no more of that. I've actually looked into this avenue of research as a means to avoid that kind of solution."

"I see."

"I've got what you need at the school, I want you both to come here, and see it."

"Do we have to see it now?" I asked. "If it's at the school, we can see it tomorrow."

"Hmm, fair enough." And with that Kannami hung up.

"What was that Kousukegawa?"

"Oh, Kannami wants us to see something at the school, some sort of new treatment." I said. "But I figured it was rather late."

Anyway, after that, we just chatted mindlessly until we reached Motoko's place. I thought we were leaning in to kiss, but I think Motoko chickened, out, and quickly ran inside.

For those who don't know, Motoko has a mental problem. She has Dissassociative Identity Disorder, or D.I.D., commonly known as Split Personality Sydrome.

When she was young, Motoko's mother died, and she was adopted by three fathers, each trained in a specific form of fighting. While Motoko assures me that each of her fathers love her, they each decided to train her in their respecitive fields of martial arts, pushing her to her limit time and again, and to cope with the stress, she developed three personalities, who are called the HiFuMi.

The Motoko I know is a shy, glasses wearing bookworm, who is hardly noticed in class. I admit I often failed to notice her myself, but she's a kind person, who's honestly, captured my heart.

However her other personalities are all starkly different.

Hibiki, the first of her personalities, is an aggressive, and brash tomboy, with little in the way of manners, or decency, who used to look for fights constantly. Her father trained her in traditional martial arts, stuff like Karate, and Tai Kwon Do. I've seen her take on local gangs and thugs armed to the teeth, and beat them all without a scratch.

Fujiko is the next personality, she is a calm, and elegant woman, always acting the part of a lady. She can be a bit cold at times, but I think she's just not too sure how to express her feelings. Her father trained her in the use of weapons, everything from knives and swords, to pistols and assault rifles

Mikiri is the last personality, and she acts to all the world an innocent, naive, but enthusiastic child. A child with a magnificant rack that is. She was trained in ways to detain and subdue enemies, she even managed to take out the head of the wrestling team at school.

I accidently found out about Motoko's D.I.D. when a thug cornered her in an alley, I rushed in to help, only to find the thug already unconscious. She told me about the HiFuMi, and begged me not to tell anyone, and I kind, sorta, maybe, blackmailed her into a date.

Anyway, I also brought her to my friend, Kannami, who just so happens to be a certified genius to help her. Two years later, we've made some progress, and Motoko and I have become Boyfriend-Girlfriend, though we haven't kissed or anything, much to my lament.

Motoko's relationship with her other personalities has also gotten better. At first they only appeared when Motoko blacked out, which is a little more often for her than other people. Motoko was actually scared of them, because she would mostly black out when someone was harrassing her, and she would wake up to see them pummeled by the HiFuMi. However, one of Kannami's first treatment methods were for us to have the HiFuMi live out normal lives, simple stuff, like reading a book, going to a park, eating ice-cream. In addition to keeping a shared diary to communicate with the HiFuMi, she's grown close to them, even if she's technically never met them. We all tend to think of them as a family. Also, as a bonus for me, since I'm usually the ones the HiFuMi are hanging out with, I've grown close to Motoko's other personalities, and vice versa, resulting in Motoko kinda becoming a one women harem for me, something that the few people who know her secret have teased us on.

Oh, and there's also an incident like a year ago, that involved Kannami hiring some mercenaries and assassins to beat the crap out of us. It was his way of trying to help with Motoko's problem, and while we've forgiven him for it, we really haven't. It turns out that, however, that Kannami had a theory. Because Motoko didn't get mad, which she never does, there was another personality of Motoko's that got mad for her. And he was, unfortunately, right. This last personality, which we call 'Zero' is as strong as the rest of the HiFuMi, if not stronger, but is nothing but a force of destruction. The Mercenaries managed to bring her out by knocking out all of the HiFuMi, and she almost killed all of them, and broke my arm.

The point of this, is that we've determined that Zero is the biggest threat to Motoko's mental health, which is why I'm willing to give anything a shot if it can help Motoko. But I draw the line at bringing in Mercenaries.

The day after was uneventful. I asked Kannami what he wanted us to see, but he remained tight-lipped until the end of the day, 'You'll see' was all he would say.

When school finally ended, he brought me and Motoko down to the school's basement, and wouldn't answer any of our questions. Finally, he took a key out of his pocket, and unlocked one of the doors.

"Now, Gentleman and Ladies, you will see what you've been waiting all day for." Kannami said, before opening the door, and revealing the room to us.

"What is it?" I asked. The room looked to be some old chemistry lab maybe, but half the room was dominated by some giant machine.

"It may be the answer to our problem." Kannami said. "Alright, I suppose it is time to end the theatrics. This machine is a prototype. It's designed to peer into someone's dreams."

"Someone's dreams?" I asked.

"Yes, exactly, with this machine, I hope to get a better understanding of Motoko's mind."

"How does it work?" Motoko asked.

"The science would likely bore you. Suffice to say, it accomplishes what it needs to do."

"I thought this kind of stuff was science fiction." I said.

"For the most part it is." Kannami said. "This machine has pioneered several different technologies. However all of them are diffucult to manufacture and produce, and despite what one might think, it has only proven useful as more than a curiosity in a hand full of places."

"And how did you get it?" I asked.

"I called in a few favors." He said mysteriously.

"Um, how is this supposed to help with... my problem?" Motoko asked.

"Well, I was about to get to that." Kannami said. "Now, we've all agreed, 'Zero' is the greatest danger to Motoko's mental health."

Motoko and I nodded slowly.

"I think the last thing we need is a repeat of her last appearance."

Motoko and I nodded, more slowly than last time.

"I was wondering how to approach the situation. In the meantime we've simply have Kousukegawa help you're other personalities experience normal everyday events, but then I happened upon this machine. With it, we could take a close look at your mind, from there, I hope to get a better idea of how to approach the 'Zero' problem."

"So you just want to get an x-ray of Motoko's mind?"

Kannami let loose a small chuckle. "Something like that."

"Well, what do I have to do?"

"Well, we're not going to be doing anything today. The process I feel will take a good while, I'll give you to until tomorrow to get you're stories straight, but tomorrow, you and Kousukegawa will simply sit down in the chairs their, and we'll just attach some wires on your bodies."

"Me and Kousukegawa?" Motoko asked.

"Ah yes, among all the other wonders this machine has, this particular is the only machine in the world that allows someone to enter the dream of another." Kannami said.

"D-does Kousukegawa have to enter my dream?" Motoko asked.

"Oh, is there anything you don't want to have you're boyfriend see?" Kannami teased. Motoko blushed furiously so I had a feeling the answer was yes.

"If you don't feel comfortable with it Motoko, I won't do it." I said.

"Oh, but I really do need you to be a part of this Kousukegawa." Kannami said. "It's one thing to take a look at Motoko's mind, by I also need to see the minds of HiFuMi."

"Couldn't we just go one by one?" Motoko asked. "I go once, then once for each of the HiFuMi?"

"That would be difficult and time consuming. Not to mention I would see each of them as a single case, and not how each of your minds connect to eachother."

"I-In that case, if it's absolutely necessary, I'll do it." Motoko said, blushing slightly.

"Good." Kannami said. "Well, if you have no further questions, I suggest we head home for the day, and prepare for tommorrow."

After that things proceeded as normal, well as normal as it gets for us. Me and Motoko had our suspicions about this machine, but Kannami assured us that it was perfectly safe, well tested, with only an odd nightmare, here and there.

I simply told my mother that I'd be hanging out over at Kannami's place for friday night, mother didn't seem to care much for me, though my cousin, Ginga, was harder to placate.

Motoko, living alone, didn't really have to tell her fathers anything, but using the diary she uses to communicate with the rest of HiFuMi to make sure they were all on board with the plan. After some deliberation they were, and so we found ourselves on Friday night in the schools basement about to be hooked up to some machine.

Authors Note:

Change 123 is a story that I loved. Certainly it was very unique. I mean what's cooler than a shy girl with glasses being able to blink and turn into a ass-kicking machine with a power-rangers loving sidekick/boyfriend.

So, I'm pretty dissapointed at how few stories there are for this. This was an idea I had in my head, but not one I was going to post, but I would keep coming back to this, and adding more to it. I thought about it, and said to myself 'I can do it.' And here we are. Anyway, this will likely be a short story, probably under ten chapters, I'm unsure if it will be finished soon though, as I'm trying to focus on my other stories.

The part in the middle that summarizes the manga is meant mostly to well, summarize the manga, since I'm assuming that since there are so few stories for this category few people have read the manga, and there may be a few people who visit this category for curiosity.

Lastly, the similarities between this story, and the movie, Inception are quite clear, however that movie did not directly inspire this story. I cannot remember if I thought up this story before or after I saw the movie, but I know the similarities are there.

Anyway, if you do read this story, at least do me the simple service of reviewing and telling me you read this story, thank you.

Also, I've already written the second chapter for this.

-Sincerely SAmaster01