I couldn't believe it…

My breathing all but stopped as I took in the sight before me. I was actually in Japan… the honest to goodness city that had created some of the best innovations that I'd ever heard of, the city that had vending machines for everything and anything. But their greatest of all inventions in my humble opinion… manga. I could read those things by the dozens.

In fact, I had.

I could just imagine, thousands upon thousands of manga to read. Finally I could put my second language skills to use.

It was like a dream…

That was when the dream was shattered as I was abruptly knocked around by the crowd of people trying to get to their flight on time.

Not to be deterred, I stood my ground… and by that I mean meekly apologizing and trying and failing to move out of the way of incoming traffic.

I leaned against a wall that the human tide had conveniently crashed me into. Japan is truly a wonderful and beautiful place I found myself thinking, notwithstanding the fact that the airport was currently the grand total I had seen of the country that wasn't high above the clouds.

I burrowed myself into the wall, content to watch the crowd of people rushing before me until I could find a lull that would allow me to navigate my way through it.

After a while I looked at my watch worriedly, was that time right? I didn't remember setting it back to match the change in time, and even if it wasn't, I had managed to convince myself I was more than a little late. After all, it wasn't as if airplanes were known for their impeccable timing…

There must have been a clock with the current time hanging around but if there was I was either on the right side or it was strategically placed where someone of my height was unable to. I had a phone but it was buried somewhere in the recesses of my overflowing purse. 'Sticking it to the man' by stuffing as much crap as I could into my carry-on was, in retrospect, good for the wallet but terrible for organization.

I sighed in mild irritation, this situation seemed to be heading south already.

I slapped my cheeks lightly and my eyes shone with determination, I would not let this affect my views on the wonderful place that was Japan!

Of course it was then that I was body slammed into the floor.

~(^-^)~

"Oh come on! Don't be like that Rue-chan, you know I just get over excited sometimes!"

I gave my over-excitable friend a dry look as I gingerly held my swelling cheek but said nothing. Instead I found myself picking at the leather seats of the car idly. Somewhere in my mind I realized I was pouting though at this point I didn't care.

After a couple of minutes of uncomfortable silence she probably realized that I didn't feel like talking, so she settled herself back into her seat. She faced the window to make it seem that she was watching the cars drive by, but her poor illusion was broken by the stares she frequently she gave me.

Our driver gave an uncomfortable cough, "So Erica, how was your flight? I trust that weather was good at the States?" he looked at me with the empathy of one who was at the end of one of his daughter's "excited-tackles" for years.

I sighed, not being in the practice of being rude to my elders I managed to get out a somewhat cheerful "it was fine" before wincing and grabbing my cheek. I didn't miss the look of guilt given to me by the daughter in question. It wasn't entirely her fault, I relented, and after all I was well aware of her method of affection… just not about how potent it could be if it was left for six years to grow unattended. I probably shouldn't but, I was starting to feel bad about being miffed with her. It wasn't like she was necessarily aiming her hand at my face. And when you think about it she was just trying to give me a hug, it was just when she saw me she literally leaped before she looked properly. It was this trait that had resulted in more than one incident of body slamming a complete stranger. That girl just didn't learn…

And she did seem to be torn up about it…

I bumped my shoulder against hers, "Hey, it's fine, it's just a bump. No big deal." I mumbled to her. She gave me a shaky smile and bumped my shoulder back, though she didn't seem to take much comfort at my words, still giving my swollen cheek a guilty look.

Her father smiled at us from his rearview mirror, I smiled back.

"Here…" Momo murmured as she put something cold in my hand. I looked at it and gave her a dubious look. "I-it's for your…" she stuttered and gestured wildly to her cheek.

I scoffed a little at her antics I had grown accustomed to, but nonetheless complied and put the cherry popsicle to my face gingerly. "So how goes it Mr. G?" I asked cheerily, now in a better mood after the hot pain had passed a bit.

He seemed quite pleased that I asked, "It's been a while since I've been called that" he chuckled good naturedly, "and very well, I'm actually developing-"

"This super awesome virtual reality game!" Momo cut in, her enthusiasm about to burst out of every pore in her body.

I raised my eyebrows, "Wow, that's actually really amazing. So, how soon can I punch a virtual referee in the face and not get jailed for it?"

He chuckled as he made a turn, probably remembering the time I had actually gotten in trouble by doing just that. "Not for a while yet, I'm afraid. Though you should strive not to do that in even a game."

"But that defeats the purpose of virtual reality!" I mock-whined.

"Come on Rue-chan, you'll have all year to play with the prototype after Tou-chan is finished with it. Remember that we have to go to school next week so we only have that time to enjoy the sights!" Momo said, even more excited than before from the way she vibrated in her seat.

"I don't think I'll ever get used to starting school in April…" I said off-handedly.

"I don't think I'll ever get used to school in general…" Momo said piteously at the mention of school. We both nodded to each other in agreement.

I could tell that Mr. G wanted to laugh a bit at our misfortune, but he apparently decided against it. "Well if you two are done wallowing in your mutual dislike of school, we're here." He said, parking the expensive car.

Now, here's some background on my friends the Gardeners. They were rich, not obnoxiously so but their bank accounts had plenty of extra padding in them. So even if I hadn't seen them in six years, I could definitely tell from their car that their money hadn't diminished in the time I hadn't seen them. It was safe bet to figure that they had about the same amount as I'd last seen them with.

Needless to say, that wasn't the case. What I hadn't known, not one to keep track of either the business world or the scientific, was that a couple of years ago Mr. G had finally gotten the nerve up to start up his own business which, had recently gotten big. Fast. In only a year his company took the world by storm with his top-of-the-line inventions and innovations.

He was, in short, a genius.

He had not only helped the medical world with new discoveries for the treatments of diseases but also dabbled in technology. Though now, it seemed, he had been getting into more than dabbling.

"T-that's not a house! That's a skyscraper!" I stuttered out, gaping in amazement at the freaking huge mansion before me.

I closed my mouth abruptly when I realized that I was the only one in the car. Both Momo and her father were already outside, waiting for me with good humored grins.

Blushing and grabbing my bag from next to me, I speedily got out after them.

"The rest of your luggage should be coming tomorrow." Mr. G said when I reached them, taking his house keys out of his pocket and unlocking the door.

"That's okay," I grinned shaking my bag, making it give out a rattling noise with all of my things that I stuffed in it. "I have a set of pajamas and some extra clothes for tomorrow."

"What!" Momo said grabbing my arm. "You realize now that we have to go shopping tomorrow."

"Yet you say that with such a big smile on your face…" I said as she dragged me inside the 'house'.

"Well, yeah!" she said as if that much was obvious. "I have to show you all the cool shops that are around here. I know this great shop that has a whole bunch of first edition manga on display that I know you'll love!"

Despite myself I felt a grin that was just as big as her's grow on my face at the thought.

"Now now you two. No use in rushing into things her first day here, Winnie-chan. Let's get her settled in first." Mr. G said, ignoring the face that Momo made when her first name was spoken. Although her mother was Japanese, her father was born American and insisted that she be named after his grandmother whom he loved dearly.

It seemed that he was still completely oblivious at her distaste of her name, preferring to go by her second name given to her by her mother. Even when she was in elementary school in the US she hated going by it, even going so far as to fight with other children who dared to refer to her as such.

I suppose she was called 'Winnie the Punch' in scared whispers around the playground for a reason. With the sheer amount of times she was called to the principal's office for that very reason through the years, she had definitely earned it.

Her grip on my arm was bothering me a little though.

I looked at the harmless looking girl that was attached to the harmless looking arm that was holding the sleeve of my shirt a little critically. She definitely had a better grip on it than it seemed and I wasn't going to contest its presence on my arm if I could help it.

Even if it was stretching my shirt a bit.

~(^-^)~

"This is a really cool house Momo." I said with admiration, gawking at their gigantic library that surrounded me.

"Right?" she said, balancing precariously on the top of a bookshelf and trying to beat her 'record time' in literally walking on top the entire library. "Tou-chan made all the designs for the secret doors himself. The design of the house itself was my mom's idea." As she said all of this she quickly stepped off of one bookshelf and onto the next.

"Granted," she piped up after a particularly daring jump from one end to the next, "the original house size scale was much smaller than this."

"I can imagine." I stated thinking back to all I could remember of Momo's mother. She was a nice lady whose memory I could recall with ease. She had struck me as one of those women who disliked grandiose things that had to do with everything but knowledge. I'd like to imagine that of all the rooms in the house the library was the only room that was to scale from her original design.

Suddenly a thought occurred to me, "Why is your house so much bigger than the original design?" Mr. G didn't strike me as the sort who liked big things either.

"I told you," she said simply, catching herself when she almost tipped over from a board that was slightly bent, most likely stemming from children walking on it hundreds of times, "Tou-chan was really set on having secret passage ways all over the house, but he didn't want to change Momma's designs so he just made the house itself bigger in the plans to get it all to fit."

Abruptly she jumped off the bookshelf and asked "Time."

As the timekeeper I dutifully said "13 minutes 23 seconds."

"Woo hoo! Beat my last time by five seconds!" she shouted, jumping up and down in glee. As she started dancing I thought of the secret passage ways she had mentioned. I've always wanted to explore those since I was a kid.

"Hey Momo can we maybe go check out those secret passage ways?" I said excitedly, jumping from foot to foot with pent up energy.

Startle out of her victory dance she looked at me, "Yeah Rue-chan I don't see why not." Smiling she grabbed my arm and scooted me to a nondescript corner in the library. She let go of me then gave the wall a critical look.

"Is there a secret passage way through there or something?" I asked after a minute of her running her hands on it and every so often giving it a heavy sniff.

"Nope." She revealed, still looking at the wall. Before I could mumble something about her hobbies she gave a triumphant shout and pulled on something that had suddenly popped up out of nowhere.

"Let's go!" she shouted giving my arm a tug and headed straight into a trap door that had suddenly materialized out of nowhere in front of me. I only had time to wonder why I hadn't noticed the door seam when there had been no attempt to hide it, not even a rug in sight, when I registered that I was being led into a darker than dark passageway.

"Tou-chan is really into video games with dungeons in them so a lot of the passages lead into rooms that were modeled off of some of the games he played. Anyway I think that that's the best feature of the secret passage ways, that way if we ever get around to having an arch nemesis we can send them to the dungeons! I'm pretty sure that we even have some trap doors around the house somewhere…"

As she started to describe some of the more intricate features of the 'dungeon rooms' I couldn't help but think that despite all his accomplishments over the years her dad seemed to have a lot of free time.

It was somewhere along the line of gently making my way through the way too realistic bone displays and attempting to avoid the grimy walls that I noticed Momo wasn't in front of me anymore.

Panicking, I swirled around, this time not missing the apparently Styrofoam bones which gave out a crunch under my shoe. I winced at the sound but nonetheless scanned the room for Momo. With a sigh of relief I saw that she was only a little ways behind me, giving a peculiar look at the ceiling.

"Something wrong?" I asked as I made my way over to her.

Startled, as if she had forgotten I was there for a second, she let out an oath.

I raised my eyebrows at her as she let out a long breath. "It's nothing," she finally said once she decided that she had gotten enough oxygen to converse, she hesitated, "it's just that…" at this she looked back at the ceiling with another hard look.

Noticing that something was amiss I looked in the direction she did with a scrutinizing glance. Frankly, I was stumped.

"I don't see anything there." I admitted after a while, wondering if there was a point I was supposed to be getting and half expecting her to say it was some sort of interesting bug before prancing on ahead of me.

"That's the thing," she said, this time looking more worried, "there's supposed to be a camera there. You know, for security or if someone just gets lost…" she trailed off, looking paler and paler as time passed.

"Are you sure? Wouldn't there be a blinking light or something? I doubt someone would just grab the camera since it must be mounted by the wall…"

Realization dawned on me, her father wouldn't just turn off security measures that were there to protect his daughter. Before I could panic, I tried to console myself, Surely there could be another explanation? What if the cameras were hidden behind black glass like in banks? That wouldn't explain why Momo was freaking out though…

I looked at Momo from the corner of my eye. She was hyperventilating, was this really such an anomaly to be taken so seriously? I shook off my thoughts, for now Momo was doing enough panicking for the both of us, I had to get a grip.

Okay, I let's start with what I know. We are currently in a dungeon. The security cameras should definitely be working right now. Okay more positive thoughts. First things first, we need to move, if there is anything even slightly wrong then standing around to wait for it to come to us with no weapons of any kind was certainly not the answer. So what was? Smaller, I told myself, baby steps. Momo was the only one who could get us out of here. And she was panicking.

"Let's go find your dad," I told her, hoping that my ignorance of the situation could somehow become my courage. Think, I told myself, searching desperately for the words that would make everything, if not great, then better.

"he'll know what to do." I finished lamely.

Miraculously that seemed to be enough to bring her out of her daze of panic. She physically shook herself, then nodded to me resolutely. She took in the room, taking in her bearing before turning to me, "This way." She said and sprinted toward a doorway.

Caught off guard, I stumbled a little as I ran after her.

~(^-^)~

"There should be a hidden door that goes into the living room where my dad usually hangs out." Momo huffed, catching her breath as she leaned against one of the walls that looked to block-y to be based off of any game dedicated to realism.

I was sad to say that I wasn't much better off. While swearing that I was allergic to exercise to the gym coach seemed like a good idea before, it certainly wasn't doing me any favors now. "Are you sure he'll be there?" I couldn't stop myself from asking, too out of breath to make the question any less blunt.

She bit her lip, "I really hope so." She abruptly turned her head to the side and slide slightly on the wall, as if the weight of the world were slowly attempting to crush her.

With a concerned look aimed at her, I stood up and lent her a hand. "Of course he'll be." I reassured as best I could, desperately trying to believe in my own words.

She squeezed the hand that was helping her up and after a moment uttered, "Let's go, we're almost there."

She let go of my hand and walked quickly down the hall. I followed her.

She led me through many more halls that had twists and turns before stopping abruptly in front of the door at the end of a hallway. I stopped with her this time, like a deer in a headlight, too stupefied or just too plain stupid to move.

Because when we reached this hall we had heard shouting. And when we reached the doorway we heard something else.

A gunshot.

And then Momo collapsed in a crumpled heap, blood already staining most of her shirt.

I stood there like a dumb beast, too shocked to do anything but stare at Momo as she bled bloodohmygodit'stoored on the floor.

Move, I told myself brokenly, help do something that isn't nothing.

And, slowly, I did.

I reached her and only had enough time to examine the blood that was pooling around her form slightly before the secret door slammed open.