A/N: I know that there are a lot of questions unanswered, but that's how I want it to be.
OC submissions are accepted.
Common Worlds: Ch. 7
Ginta: "When reading Common Worlds, don't sit too close to the computer!"
Yusuke: "…What?"
Ginta: "…nothing."
Kuwabara walked along the sidewalk with an uneasy look on his face. Each time a crisis occurs, his stomach knots and he becomes suspicious of his environment.
Damn! Anyone of these guys can be psychics! He looked left and right at the people around him. I hate it when stuff like this happens… why me? Why all the time me?
He stumbled over a rock, and found himself on the ground. "Shit!" A tabby cat was standing in front of his face. It looked like a stray with no collar, but it was surprisingly in shape.
Kuwabara's face immediately changed. "Aww… what are you doing here?" He looked at the cat's neck. "No collar, eh? Did someone throw you away? That's a shame, but I'm sure you'll enjoy your new company." He was about to pick up the cat when it ran away from him. "Hey! Where are you going?" Kuwabara ran after the cat.
He followed it all the way to the street corner two blocks away. "Stop running away! Let me help you!" All of a sudden, his face twitched. He wanted to buckle over and cry. His legs were no longer functional. A man in a white suit picked up the cat. He saw Kuwabara and immediately took a bow. His smiling face was easy to recognize.
"Hello, Kuwabara Kazuma. You stumbled into my territory once again."
Kuwabara immediately regained his posture. "You! You're that Fubuki guy!"
Fubuki coughed. " 'That Fubuki guy'? Really, I am offended."
Kuwabara gritted his teeth. "Last time I was caught off guard, but now I'm ready! Jigen-tou!" He drew his Rei-sword and charged.
A nearby family screamed at the fight scene. A child pointed at Kuwabara and laughed, as if he was watching anime on the television. "Mommy, that guy thinks he's holding a sword."
"Hey, don't fight now! We're out in the public!" said Fubuki. But Kuwabara's sword narrowly missed his neck. A sizzle was heard in the air as the Jigen-tou cut through space.
"Sigh… when will you learn, Kuwabara?" Fubuki grabbed the Jigen-tou. Instantly, it vaporized.
"That's impossible!" exclaimed Kuwabara. "Your hand shouldn't exist anymore!"
"Not so," said Fubuki. "Your Jigen-tou is held by strands of Reiki fibers. The pattern of the fibers acts like an algorithm, letting it do what it is made to do. I just broke the fibers before the effect occurs, that's all."
"Why you…" Kuwabara made another Jigen-tou. "Die!" He sliced at Fubuki once more. Again, he blocked it and dissolved it.
"Your will is not strong enough. These Reiki fibers are fragile. Could you be afraid of me?"
"Don't look down at me!" Kuwabara punched Fubuki in the gut. He coughed and spat out blood. "What do ya have to say now, punk?"
Fubuki stood up, his posture straight. His smile turned into a sinister gaze. "Now you have agitated me. It's a shame that I have to kill you in front of all of these people," he said. He leaped at Kuwabara with a fist.
Ahh! If he so much as grazes me, I'm finished! "Jigen-tou!" Kuwabara barely blocked Fubuki's punch. His sword shattered, but Fubuki's hand started bleeding, his knuckles torn.
"Why you little…" He propped his hand onto the wall of a nearby building. "Die!" The coffee shop started to crumble, but it did not fall down. "What? What's going on?" Fubuki looked at his bleeding hand. "I don't even have enough power to collapse a damn coffee shop…" He swung his arm at Kuwabara. Droplets of blood flew at him.
"What?" Kuwabara dodged the droplets of blood. He saw them hit the concrete, which slightly cracked. "No way! Even your blood?"
Fubuki sighed. "I spent too much Reiki breaking your swords. But know this, Kuwabara Kazuma: The laser will fire in two days. When it does, I expect you to not show up." He took out a cell phone and dialed a number.
"Huh?" asked Kuwabara. "Two days? What the hell are you saying!"
"Yuu, take me back." A door appeared under Fubuki's feet and opened, sending him away. The door immediately disappeared after.
Damn! He got away again.
Koenma showed up at Ginta's house once again. Koyuki was sleeping on the couch with many towels wrapped around her. Next to her was a cup of hot water.
Koenma sat across from Ginta. "I heard that she was kidnapped by psychics," he said. "Now you know how dangerous they are."
Ginta looked at him. "They're not that strong. I was just unfamiliar with their powers."
"That's the specialty of a psychic. You never know what their powers can be. It's their one advantage. By the way, how did you get out of there anyway?"
Ginta looked at the ceiling. "A guy helped me out," he said.
Koenma raised an eyebrow. "Someone helped you out?"
"Yeah. He didn't look very old. He had a black cloak on. Everything on him was black except for his skin and his sword."
Could it be? "Did he have an eye on his forehead?" asked Koenma.
Ginta looked at him. "Yeah! It was glowing, too. I didn't know that people like him existed."
That got Koenma's attention. "Do you know his name?"
"It was Hiei," he said.
Bingo. "Well done, Ginta. You are really lucky. You're the sixth human in the Human World to ever meet Hiei and remember him."
"Wait, he's not human?"
"Hiei is a demon from the Demon World. What he would want to do here is beyond me, however. Despite his appearance, he is much older than you, and has a cold personality. As an ally, he is very valuable."
Ginta thought for a moment. "That guy was pretty nice. It looked as if he just needed a few more friends, that's all."
"So far he has two friends," said Koenma, "and both of them are part of the crisis at hand. That's what I'm here for this time; I have a mission for you."
"A mission?"
"You can choose to not accept it. But we need the help of people like you. With the exception of your father, you are the only one on our side who has any knowledge about MÄR-Heaven."
"There's not much to know," said Ginta.
"In any case, will you assist us in our battle against Fubuki Miura?"
Ginta thought for a moment. He looked at Koyuki. "If it means that I have to protect both worlds, then yes."
Koenma took out a piece of paper from his pocket. "Very well. These are the directions to get into the Spirit World. At some point, I may call you over."
Suddenly, Koyuki woke up. "Ginta…? I dreamt about MÄR-Heaven again!"
"What?"
Koenma looked at her. "Good evening, ma'am. My name is Koenma. I think we met before?" Koenma raised his hand as a greeting.
"Yeah," said Koyuki. "Hey, is that a pacifier?"
Koenma frowned. "So?"
Koyuki laughed. "Are you cosplaying as a baby?"
"No."
"Anyways, I had a nightmare about MÄR-Heaven. I saw it through Snow's eyes."
Koenma looked confused. "MÄR-Heaven? Dream? What do you mean?"
"Koyuki's counterpart, Princess Snow of Lestava, shares her perspective with Koyuki sometimes," explained Ginta. "However, this hasn't happened for years."
Koenma thought for a moment. "Lestava is the largest city, right?" He remembered the name in the book.
"Yeah. So Koyuki, what did you see?"
"Alan warned Snow about something that Kaldea was building," she said. "A giant ÄRM. Apparently they're trying to open a portal to our world, and that thing will shoot a laser to do it."
Koenma shot up. "They're building a laser too! This is bad!"
"Why? Are we building a laser too?" asked Koyuki.
"Not us. Someone else. Now, if both lasers hit…" Koenma took out a sheet of paper and a pen, and he wrote down a bunch of seemingly-meaningless equations. "If two small lasers meet, you usually see a lot of energy sprouting out, right?"
"Right…"
"Now, imagine that with two lasers that can rip holes in the dimensional-boundary." Koenma flipped the paper and drew a picture. There were two circles and two lines coming out of them.
"Once the energy starts to collide," he pointed at the intersecting lines, "there will be a feedback reaction." He drew more lines coming out of the intersecting point. "An earlier case occurred at a much smaller scale between this world and the Demon World. They started to come together. Now, imagine, once again, that MÄR-Heaven and this world are affected. Both worlds will magnetize, merging random aspects. Soon, the massive energy flux will overload and everything, I mean everything, will fall apart!"
"So all we need to do is to stop one of them," said Ginta.
"Incorrect. If one of them opens the rift, there will be the same effect, only at a slower pace. The energy from the laser would feed the hole, making it bigger. The worst case scenerio is that both worlds might not bind together, but they will be jettisoned into oblivion through the hole! See, that's why there are methods devised for this kind of travel."
"Woah, woah," said Ginta. "This stuff has been done before?"
Koenma sighed. "I did some further research. Apparently, my predecessors were the ones who created the new boundary. The old one was merely a gate that enabled others to come to this world. Of course, humans were not developed yet in terms of intelligence, and the Human/Demon/Spirit Worlds did not split. Security gets tighter each century."
"How are we to inform the others in MÄR-Heaven about this?" asked Ginta.
"I'm sorry," said Koenma. "It's up to your friends on the other side now. All we can do is to stop Fubuki."
"Wait," said Koyuki. "Alviss learned of this development. Apparently he's not happy with it either. He mentioned to Alan that he will find Dorothy and let her know."
Alviss? Dorothy? Thought Koenma. What kind of world is this? It sounds like something out of a children's storybook.
"I'm sure that once Alviss is involved, things will be alright," said Ginta.
"Very well," said Koenma. "Then I leave you here for now."
Alviss quickly travelled to Dorothy's place. "Andarta! Take me to Dorothy in Kaldea!" His ring responded, and he immediately teleported to supposedly the sorcerers' city.
What he saw, however, was only disaster. And definitely not Kaldea. Everything around him was covered by a clear substance, even the corpses on the ground.
"Sorry, Kaldea is under lockdown," said a nearby female voice.
"Who are you? Show yourself!" Alviss shouted.
A woman dressed in a gray-blue outfit walked into the light. "My name is Crystal. And you, Alviss, are not permitted to enter Kaldea anymore." She revealed a bracelet. "Nature ÄRM! Glass Incarceration!" The bracelet glowed, and a watery fluid surrounded Alviss.
"13 Totem Poles!" Alviss summoned multiple giant totem poles from the ground to protect him from the fluid, but each pole was bypassed. The fluid became vine-like wrapped around Alviss' body. It hardened to resemble glass.
"If you try to break out, the glass will only reform and kill you," said Crystal. "Guardian ÄRM, Stained-Glass Tiger!" Fluid in the shape of a tiger appeared, with bright colors resembling the fur of a real tiger. The tiger growled. "She will keep watch of you while the masterpiece is complete."
