Minato struggled to shout out a few words. Something along the lines of "what the hell are you doing!" or "STOP!" would have helped. Unfortunately, his face was still buried between that huge chest. Furthermore, all he could do at the moment was to put his arms around the woman and hang on for dear life. The force of the wind and the g-forces he was feeling was something definitely impossible to produce without the help of any mechanical gadget. Whoever this person was... 'Could she really be the goddess Musubi?', a stunned Minato wondered in his thoughts.
It was a good thing that it was dark. Musubi had no difficulty from hiding herself and the faithful person she was carrying. Yes he was faithful. After all, he visited her cathedral every day. Not that she was a divine being deserving worship; but still, it was very... heart-warming for someone to have so much faith in you even though he didn't have proof of your existence. This boy was what Miya was looking for. She wanted proof of a human's ability to have deeply positive emotions. Musubi just hoped that he could pass the test on the island. She didn't exactly know what Miya would do if he failed. But Miya has never killed anyone, so... she had hopes that she would get to know this boy she was carrying. But anyway, she hoped that he was not tired of the trip because the teleportation sequence was very hard on the body. Truth to tell, she could have asked to be teleported back to the ship in the boy's house, but teleportation not only ripped the physical things, it ripped everything; including reality. So instead of using teleportation in a densely packed area, she had to travel where there was virtually no person who could be harmed by the backlash of the sequence. Even if the reality rip heals itself within minutes, the backlash itself was dangerous.
'Finally', Minato thought to himself, 'we stopped'. But just as he was about to struggle out of the woman's grasp, he suddenly felt pins and needles sticking into him all over his body. Coupled with that was a sensation of vertigo. Then he passed out.
Scene change : The Peanut Gallery
"So that's him?", a slightly disappointed Matsu commented as she and almost everyone else peered at their respective view screens focused on the boy lying unconscious outside of the ship.
"Yes!", Musubi enthused, then frowned. "But, I couldn't understand what he was saying. I think their language has changed."
"That could happen", Miya stated calmly. "Matsu, get a good compilation of their local modern language literature and have a translator fixed up within the hour. Also find out who he is", she ordered.
"You certainly don't expect much", Matsu grumbled.
"Don't worry! I'll help!", Yume said enthusiastically. "The sooner we can talk to them, the sooner we can find love!"
"Musubi will help too!", Musubi yelled with sparkling eyes.
Tsukiumi snorted. "He looks like the weakest monkey of all."
Scene change : Outside the ship
Minato groaned as he regained consciousness. He would have jolted awake if it weren't for the lingering weakness in his body. "What happened?", he groaned out weakly from his prone position, although he spluttered and spat after his mouth encountered loose soil. Blinking his eyes open, he predictably asked himself, "Where am I?". Then he groaned again as he turned to lie on his back and rested.
Peanut Gallery
"He looks like a lazy bum. A weak, lazy bum", Homura commented.
"Well, that may be true. You see, he's been two years out of school now. They have a term for that. A ronin", Matsu interjected.
"Ronin?", Miya asked with raised eyebrows. "Wasn't that the term for failed or master-less samurai?"
"Well, it seems that they use it for something else now", Matsu explained. "Ah... yes here. His name is Sahashi Minato. Sahashi is his surname. Its in their culture to use the surname first. Anyway, he is Sahashi Minato. He was a top student in high school. For further studies, he chose to enter Tokyo University or Todai, the number one university in his country. He failed the exams twice already. Since he didn't choose to enter another school, he's been out of school for two years".
"Well,I could understand that he was confident of being able to enter, being a top high school student. But he failed. I wonder why?", Uzume commented.
Matsu shrugged. "Who knows. Now to continue. His mother is Sahashi Takami, a former student of Tokyo University, a degree holder of pharmacy and a professor in that same college. She resigned her position. Immediately after a year, Sahashi Minato was born. After a few months, Sahashi Takami sought out a job and ended up being a heavy equipment operator for construction", Matsu paused. "In my analysis, that is a very radical change of lifestyle. But I suppose giving birth to a child for the first time will force that change. Also, her resignation at the university and the coincidental birth of Minato a year later might suggest that what forced her to change was something that occurred before she actually resigned and... there's more even interesting stuff here. When Sahashi Takami was a student, she and two more of her school mates received a grant from Tokyo University. The grant was part of a thesis that three students were working on. They hired a boat to come here to us. The two other people are Minaka Hiroto and Asama Takehito. All three of them had been top students in Todai and are heavily connected to it", Matsu finished explaining.
"I see. Very interesting", Miya commented. "Let's get back to..."
"Wait!" Matsu interrupted. "Its in Sahashi Minato's birth certificate. It says the mother is not married but the father is Minaka Hiroto."
"Ah... everything becomes clear", said Kazehana as she nodded her head.
"And he has a sister too. Her name is Yukari. Father is listed as the same person", Matsu continued.
"Are they living together?", Homura asked.
"No. They have different addresses. Minaka is in Tokyo while Takami is not", answered Matsu.
"How tragic", commented Kazehana with a sad face.
"Oh look!", Musubi exclaimed. "He's getting up."
Outside the ship
Minato stood up weakly, stumbling about to regain his balance. When he figured he was ok, he looked around him. What he saw in the faint light of the moon confused him. There was a big hunk of shining metal which stretched from end to end. The darkness prevented him from seeing how long or how high it was. But it was strange because structures using unpainted metal as an exterior were very much unheard of. 'Well, I suppose some perspective will give me a better idea of what this thing is', Minato thought to himself as he turned away from the structure and walked for a few minutes.
Peanut Gallery
"Where is he going?", Kazehana asked curiously. "Isn't he interested in the ship at all? I mean, he's not even going around the ship, but he's actually walking away from it?"
"Maybe he's looking for a road?", Matsu hypothesized.
"Tch, he's not only the weakest, but he's also the dumbest monkey of all", Tsukiumi said disdainfully.
"He's not!", Musubi defended the boy vehemently. "He's a person who has a lot of faith and trust in him. He's faithful to me even though he doesn't know I exist. That's why I chose him."
Karasuba chuckled derisively.
Outside the ship
As Minato walked on, he observed the ground and thought it strange. There wasn't a piece of land in Tokyo that was left unchanged like this. The ground was dusty and flat with only a few rocks scattered here and there to break the monotony of flatness. He wondered where he was. Well, if not too much time had passed, then he definitely was still in Tokyo. But this ground was unfamiliar. What was even stranger was what happened earlier. No matter how he thought of it, there was just no explanation for Musubi, or a being with her likeness, to interact with him. He wasn't worthy of the gods' notice after all. So what happened?
Figuring he'd gone out far enough, Minato stopped and turned back to look again. What he saw was a huge silhouette of a not so tall elongated structure with several jutting protrusions on one end and what were obviously round, cylindrical objects on the other end. In spite of its monolithic size, the structure was surprisingly compact and had an aerodynamically streamlined shell. 'Just what am I seeing?', he thought to himself as he looked on in awe at what was before him. 'Now I need to get a closer look', he thought, as he walked back to where he came from.
Peanut Gallery
"He's walking back. Now what?", a confused Uzume commented.
"I think he did that so he could look at the ship from afar", Matsu interjected. "Since he was too near to look at the whole, he had to move at a distance."
"See! He's not dumb!", Musubi shouted gleefully.
Tsukiumi snorted.
Outside the ship
'Alright', Minato thought to himself. 'I saw what I saw. It was streamlined. Not just streamlined, but aerodynamically streamlined. And its huge too. So what could it be?'
After a few minutes, Minato reached the sides of the hunk of streamlined metal. He reached out to touch it and found it to be smooth as ivory. "Impossible", he muttered. Metal could be smoothed out, sure, but not to this extent. He began walking towards the side where he saw cylindrical shapes. As he moved along, he continued looking at the surface of metal. He couldn't find a seam. He'd already walked 50 feet and there was no evidence of even a single seam. "Impossible", he muttered again. From what he saw, the thing curved at the top and the bottom. Well, he could clearly see that it was curving inward towards... whatever it was. But there was no space under it. It was resting on the ground.
As he gradually neared the end, the undersides of the metal structure started to taper upwards. Underneath it, where Minato expected to see soil, was a bed of shining crystal. "Huh?", a confused Minato scratched his head. Kneeling down on one leg, Minato touched the crystals and found nothing extraordinary about them. Well... to him, it looked like ordinary crystal. He wasn't a mineralogist. But what was crystal doing here?
Minato walked away from the crystal and went on to the end where he could finally view the cylinders. He would figure out the crystal when he had more clues. From the curvature of the cylinders he could see, they were so huge that the whole apartment complex where he lived could fit in one of them. He couldn't touch them because they were too high. But, he saw that there were three of them in the bottom row and another row of three on top; which he could barely see through the darkness and the gaps between the bottom cylinders.
Minato finally let his head drop. He had to think about this whole thing. He would walk around this object to see if he could find more clues. At the same time he was thinking fast. A person who looked like a goddess brought him here. When he walked away, there was nothing but flat land. Furthermore, around the flat land, he could make out the rim of a cliff rising above. Astonishingly, that cliff seemed to surround the whole area of the flat land. At least, that was what he thought he could see because the moon clearly defined the edges of the cliff. What was it? A dried up lake? Or maybe if he allowed himself to think of it, it was a crater and this thing at the center was an alien ship? But no, he would look for natural solutions first before he acknowledged the extraterrestrial. But whatever this thing was, he definitely wasn't in Tokyo.
Peanut Gallery
"Well, it seems that he's doing the sensible thing now, studying our ship instead of walking away like that earlier", a derisive Karasuba murmured to no one in particular.
"It may look like that, but he seems to be doing it methodically", Matsu intervened. "He hasn't jumped or skipped anything. He's taking in what he sees as he sees them."
Musubi giggled happily at hearing Matsu's analysis of Minato, which made him look brilliant.
"He's still a weak monkey", Tsukiumi snorted derisively, again.
Outside the ship
'Well', thought Minato, 'there's only one way to confirm what this is'. He had finished walking the other side and found nothing either. Now he was thinking that he needed to look at it from above. He needed to climb those cliffs. The shining metal will reflect the moon's light and make it shine and he will get to see everything. Once again, Minato walked away from the ship. This time, he didn't stop but kept going.
Peanut Gallery
Tsukiumi snorted. "What a weak dummy! He's turned his back on us."
"I don't exactly know why, but I don't think he's turning his back", Matsu countered. "He's very methodical. Its not in his character to turn back until he's solved a puzzle. But... what is he... Maybe he wants to take a look at the environment, trying to pick up clues."
"Well, whatever. I'm going to sleep. Wake me up when he figures it out in another 500 years", said Karasuba as she smiled sardonically.
Most of the others followed Karasuba and went to their respective rooms. Those who remained behind in the peanut gallery... I mean, the ship's command center, were Musubi, who was interested in Minato, Yume, who hoped that Minato would figure it out for Mususbi's sake, Tsukiumi, who couldn't wait to see Minato phail, Kazehana, who was secretly interested with Minato, Matsu, who had secretive perverted thoughts about Minato (she was imagining them having rough sex outside), Uzume, because she didn't want to sleep yet, Homura, because he had a role to play and couldn't leave until the boy figured it out and Miya who was sitting so serenely you'd think she wasn't thinking about anything at all. Which she wasn't.
"Look! He's climbing up the crater. Why is he doing that?", a confused Musubi wandered out loud.
"Its like I said. Maybe he wants to take a really good look at everything at once", Matsu reminded her.
Outside the ship
Minato was huffing and puffing from exhaustion. He sported a few scrapes and bruises as well from the long arduous climb in the darkness. It took him a few hours, but now he was finally on top. He lay down on the ground for a few minutes to recover.
Peanut Gallery
"Any human could have climbed that cliff without difficulty. He's just weak", Tsukiumi declared.
"It doesn't matter", Musubi said, sick and tired of hearing Tsukiumi and everyone else perform oral defamation on her most faithful subject. "I'm strong enough to protect him", she declared nonchalantly.
"Huh? Musubi? Have you chosen your mate already?", a confused Uzume asked the now blushing Musubi.
"I-it doesn't matter", an embarrassed Musubi muttered mulishly. "I-Its not that I've picked him. He picked me instead of all of you. And I-I... I just... I just like that, I guess", Musubi ended lamely.
"Well, I won't go so far as to pick your mates for you", a suddenly serious Miya warned, "but I will stop you from joining yourselves with weaklings like him. Even if he proves to be emotionally strong, his physical abilities are too weak for a human."
Musubi looked at Miya in dismay. Not that she wanted that Minato boy to be her mate, but because... well, because... what was she feeling?
Outside the ship
As soon as Minato was able to catch his breath, he got back up and focused his eyesight to where the thing was. He was right, the moonlight illuminated the metal surface. It was shining. It was huge. It was a craft. Since it wasn't anywhere near water, he figured that it wasn't a submarine. Those cylindrical shapes now looked like thrusters of some sort. It was indeed a ship. But was it extraterrestrial? Maybe, just maybe it was. What made it even more convincing was the position of the ship. It was dead center within that crater.
Well, now his curiosity has been aroused... Musubi, or someone like her, brought him here... Why? Well... that was something that couldn't be answered without proof. He'd try to find an entrance to that ship later. He needed to figure out where he was first; fast. He was itching to get his hands on that ship again.
Peanut Gallery
"Where is he going now?", Miya wandered aloud.
"Maybe he's going to swim back home", Tsukiumi repled sarcastically.
"Miya... I'm so sleepy", complained Homura. "Can't we postpone this for another day? It doesn't look like he'll get to come in here anyway."
"Unless he actually leaves this island, we wait. Besides, aren't you interested in playing the evil god and making a mere mortal tremble to his bones in fear? We even made a costume for you. Nufufufu."
Outside the ship
Minato shivered as a cold wind blew.
Continued next chapter.
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