Highlands
Random sounds and distorted images flickered on the screen, but once he had selected the right channel, the picture steadied. Singing filled the room: some new pop idol. A Tokyo station was showing the same programme right about now. He changed channels.
A hundred-watt bulb lit a spacious living room. Papered walls, carpet, four-person sofa, television, dinette set: everything was new, everything was functionally arranged around him as Sora sat down cross-legged right in front of the screen, watching the details of the images flicker and fade, flutter and wow, as he reached out again and turned the channel on the old set, a TV as old as his dad, he imagined.
There was a balcony on one edge of the living room and small Japanese-style rooms on the first and second floor. Before the lace curtains, his father opened the sliding glass door to allow the night air in, looking out for a moment into the darkness outside, the roof of the next cabin directly in front of him, and in its shadow the darkness was even deeper.
He turned away, retracing his steps across the small room and settling down in the armchair, the weight of Dogouken Gekido resting against the chair, and Sora pretended not to be following his movements out of the corner of his eye.
He knew they had come all the way down here for a reason, and he knew it was something to do with saving the world, something that had to do with his father's low whispers to Mei before they left, the 72 swordsmen from the dreamlands—Buer and Baal, Asmodeus and Amdusias, all those guys with weird names who had come to reclaim some bad guy Sora had never heard of before.
Before him, the television flickered, blue light, more talking, more idols, grey uniforms and complicated dances. He tried to suppress a yawn and failed. It was late after all, and they had arrived in Hakone an hour or so after intended due to the traffic. He stared at the images of the screen in front of him and tried not to think about how important whatever reason they were here was. At any other time, Sora was certain he would have been sent off to stay with Grandma and Grandpa; the fact that they had raced all the way down here was a sign, he was sure.
Abruptly, the screen went black as ink. A chill wind blew in from outside, stronger than before.
"They're here," his father said, his expression stern.
"Stay inside," Oogami said, standing at the doorway, one hand poised over the handle, one upon the hilt of his sacred blade.
Sora looked up at him concern, that same worry he remembered on his wife's face all those years ago. No time to think about that, he told himself.
"I mean it," he said, as if to drive the point home, turning and pulling the door of the cabin open so as to silence any further conversation. Sora simply nodded, too stunned by this sudden change to reply.
The night air and the darkness greeted him as he closed the door behind him, descending the wooden steps, trudging along the gravel path. He should have been able to hear the cheerful voices of people from the log cabins, that's what he expected, yet despite this, the night was eerily silent, still, calm—the calm before the storm, he thought.
He passed six of the ten cabins built among the trees scattered over the gentle slope. Everything else was immersed in the darkness of the forest beyond the pale of the street lamps, unrelieved by any light coming from inside the cabins. Yet standing at the edge of the parking lot, looking down over the valley, he could discern two figures, one human, one decidedly not, the two of them seeming to stand on the border between the darkness and the lighted area.
He sniffed, mustering his wits, drawing his courage. He had told Yusuke he would be fine doing this alone, that there was other stuff that the older man needed to attend to, and part of it was concern, part of it was pride, but the events of the past year had shaken his confidence, and he found himself wishing his friends were with him—the young novelist, the hot-headed brat, the ever-patient technician, the loyal guardsman of the tremulous waters, the introspective son of his old friend. Even the Sword of Light personified, Yuki, even Mei, in her new role as the guardian of the Northern Base, he would have welcomed them all.
But they're not here, he told himself, and that old blade they had retrieved from the Southern Base was an unknown quantity, something he struggled to put his faith in, regardless of what Yusuke said, at least until Tetsuo and Mei had properly looked at it.
"Hey, kid," he called out as he approached, more to distract himself from his own thoughts than anything else.
The two figures turned to look at him, the boy with his perpetually blank expression, the hem of his trailing purple coat grazing his ankles, and, next to him, a slender grey figure hosting a swollen television for a head with a black screen, a video deck in the lower half of its face forming a grotesque mouth.
He thought he saw a pinpoint of light begin to flicker on the screen, until, at last it gradually expanded, twitching from either side of the frame until finally coming to rest on the left-hand side. Then it blossomed, becoming a frayed bundle of lights, crawling around like worms.
From his belt, he pulled free his transformation book, Genbu Shinwa.
"Let's get this over with."
On the screen, the lights slowly formed themselves into words, not the kind of captions one normally saw on film, though, but poorly-written, as if scrawled by a white brush on jet-black paper:
'Watch until the end.'
"I don't like it," she said, her tone sharp, her brow drawn in a frown.
"What do you suggest, then?" Amamiya Yusuke asked, his patience clearly at an end. "We just ask them nicely to go back to wherever they came from?"
Setsuna shot him a withering look.
"Of course not."
She turned back to the fleeing crowd, the advancing machine-soldiers in their uniforms of silver and grey, the other presence she had glimpsed previously when Porcupine World had been summoned, more powerful, more mechanical, a body cast in gold and bronze armour, bristling with weaponry, the very head a cannon of sorts.
"But if we keep attracting attention to ourselves we risk endangering your friend on that fool errand you sent him on."
Amamiya hefted up the huge sword he now carried, its blade matte black, its hilt featuring a noticeable depression for the use of one of the same books that the younger man used to call forth his armour. She held her Lip Rod in the closed fist of her right hand, hiding it from view, unwilling to let him know how much she wanted to do something about the procession of invaders also.
"You want to wait for those four little girls to rescue you again like last time, then?"
Setsuna's face flushed with something between anger and embarrassment. She remembered the children dressed in their teddy bear skins, fearless against Porcupine World where she had hesitated.
"Of course not," she said again, turning back to the crowd. "But this is clearly an attempt to flush us out, clearly an attempt to—"
She stopped abruptly, her heart leaping into her throat. There, amidst the crowd, she saw her, her blonde hair trailing, her face contorted in panic, unknowing of her own majesty, unaware of her own past, the princess of the Moon Kingdom.
She swallowed hard, bringing up her right hand, swinging the Lip Rod in her grasp.
"Let's go," she said, her voice wavering.
Behind her, Amamiya opened his mouth to question her sudden change of heart, but it was too late, her hand was the air, the moonlight was glistening upon the star atop her Lip Rod—and in her heart, there was panic, fear, the sudden realisation of what was at stake, of the danger that her inactivity might place those she cared about in.
"Pluto Planet Power!" she cried out. "Make Up!"
Dogouken Gekido smashed against the creature's forearm and was rebounded. He felt his teeth rattle in his jaw as he staggered back, the great, monstrous TV-headed creature advancing, a flurry of punches smashing into his breastplate, adding insult to injury.
"It's no good," the boy said in a bored voice, not bothering to look up as he casually eased a file against the dark painted nails of his left hand. "VCR World here is entrenched in fiction, born from the phantastic, a product of dreaming. Whatever strength you think you have, VCR World can match you."
The image on the creature's television-face changed, the words dripping away, replaced by a fresh warning:
'You will be eaten by the lost.'
He swung his massive sword out once more, and again was pushed back, the gravel flying up from his boots as he took heavy steps back. This was no good, he told himself, he needed to try something else. Hastily, he reached for his belt, tearing free the immaculate white and pink Wonder Ride Book Tetsuo had handed him previously.
Light radiated from the book, pouring up his sword-arm, transforming the dull, grey plate armour into snow white and shimmering pink.
'Wonder Rider! Kanon Specter!'
The words on the screen of the television grew larger, chasing the black from view, a flat change from black to milk-white, a patchy, unnatural colour. Soon it began to resemble a series of canvas marks, one after another, squirming, worrying signifiers of a greater purpose—the throb of life.
From behind him, a coat swept down out of nowhere and wrapped itself about his form.
There was no time to pull the hood back, instead he was suddenly on the defensive once more as the VCR creature ducked swiftly under his defences, raising its right fist up in a brutal uppercut that he only just managed to avoid by leaning back at the waist and turning.
Something red burst onto the monochrome screen. At the same time, he heard the ground rumble from an indefinable direction.
The boy sighed, and looked up.
"You're wasting your time, if you want to know about the broadcast, why don't you just ask me nicely?"
He flashed a cold smile, and there was no feeling in it whatsoever, nothing warm.
Oogami's leg shot forth behind that of his enemy, turning, catching it off guard and knocking it off balance. It stumbled, and in an arc of pink light and glitter, he spun the massive weight of the sword in one hand and drove down, the blade driven violently into the chest of the robot.
The image on the screen exploded in a violent succession of colours, the red retreating from the screen, a mountain vista with a gentle peak rising up amidst a clear blue sky, the ground covered with rugged blackish-brown lava.
The boy sighed, tossing the nail file aside, the sound of metal clattering against the gravel in the dark.
"You still don't get it, do you?" he smirked.
Momentarily, the screen was swathed in darkness, the blue sky was instantaneously painted black, and then, a few seconds later, a scarlet liquid spurted out from the centre of the screen, flowing downwards, a second explosion.
Smiling, Stacey stepped over the body of his fallen minion, reaching out and placing his hand palm down upon the scarred breastplate of Oogami's armour.
"The signal you intercepted, the signal you raced all the way down here to stop?" He let out a small laugh. "It wasn't one of ours, we just picked it up, same as you."
The images on the television screen were now concrete where they had previously been abstract—and then there was a sudden shift, die tumbling about the bottom of a lead bowl, rolling soundlessly into a single red dot and five black ones arranged on white faces, before the images flickered into a new scene, an old woman, her hands on her knees, staring straight ahead, whispering words he could not hear.
"This world isn't real," the boy stepped past him, pausing to lean in close to Oogami's head and whisper the words. He gestured with a hand at the parking lot, the ten cabins, the forest, the dark. "All of this is just data."
The face of a new-born baby filled the screen, and, from somewhere, he could hear its first cry, though the sound did not seem to emanate from the shape of the fallen, writhing machine impaled by the glittering edge of Dogouken Gekido.
A cascade of images flowed onto the screen, a crowd of myriad faces filled with anger, shouting denials, before the angle recoiled, revealing the image of a television within the screen of the television, old fashioned rabbit-eared antenna rising up from a wooden cabinet.
Abruptly, it cut to the face of a single man, ugly and contorted, labouring in maddening efforts, his eyes bloodshot, neck muscles bulging, drool seeping from his open mouth. Then there was another sickening shift of angle, a fall, the moon at the end of a dark tunnel, and then something fell, a clump of dirt, the man's face momentarily eclipsing the moon, peering down.
"Your life is fiction, Oogami Ryo," the boy said, the delight clear in his voice. "This struggle to keep dreams separate from reality, to stop anyone from uniting the book of creation? Useless. You were never real in the first place."
Words faded into view, more sophisticated than the first effort at writing, white letters drifting and fading:
'Those who have viewed these images are fated to die at this exact hour one week from now. If you do not wish to die, you must follow these instructions exactly—'
The solemnity of the images shattered, a jagged cut, a spasm of static as the broadcast had been recorded over, fireworks, bright colours, a commercial for some product or other, mosquito-repelling coils maybe.
"You've been had," Stacey smiled, standing behind him, turning slowly to regard him as he stood over the fallen figure of VCR World. "Here, I'll prove it to you."
Oogami felt muscles tense in his arms, a mounting feeling of rage and frustration. Stacey took another step back towards him, and with a cry of anger, the older man tore the sword up through the body of the impaled machine-soldier, tearing it open.
The jewel of her staff caught the light, the dark grey hem of her skirt fluttering as she turned, bringing up the weapon and blocking a blow from the lance of the senior machine, his own golden weapon tipped with the likeness of a rocket.
"Oh," he proclaimed, voice resounding beneath the grill of his teeth, "you're new. I've been looking for a strong opponent!"
"I'm not interested in competing with you," Setsuna said firmly, the Lip Rod transformed now into its awakened form, the Garnet Rod, planet power filling her slender frame, her sense of duty inflamed by the arrogance of this machine.
The robot laughed heartily.
"Mobile Commander Barashitara, at your service!" he announced, his voice gruff and full of amusement. "I can't tell you how long I've waited for a good fight!"
She pushed with the Garnet Rod, and, realising she was getting nowhere, pirouetted away, grunting in frustration but aware that teamwork was vital if they were to stand any chance of keeping these invaders occupied, distracting them from the fleeing crowd.
Reading her actions, Amamiya stepped in to fill the gap she left instantly, the dark blade hammering against Barashitara's staff, both hands wrapped about the hilt.
"The lady made herself clear, pal, we're not here to play-fight, we're here to put a stop to whatever you're planning."
The machine chuckled with mirth, but when he spoke, his voice was deadly serious, low and threatening.
"Yes, you're a fellow soldier, I see. I imagine you've known some loss in your time."
Amamiya's expression changed, his face that of a man suddenly confronting memory unbidden.
"That's none of your business," he said, leaning into the weight of the massive Zweihänder.
Barashitara bellowed with laughter and pushed back.
"I like you two humans," he cried, "perhaps if you were real, I'd make you my personal aides after all this is over."
The words stung Setsuna, a chill running down her spine. What did he mean by that? No time to think, she chided herself.
"Out of the way!" she ordered Amamiya.
Obligingly, he jumped back, and she turned in a circle, the wind rising up about her, the orb of her rod burning with white hot intensity as she pivoted, inclining the staff towards the Tojito commander.
"Dead Scream!"
The pavement before her was shredded, torn open like a wound, dirt spraying as the rising winds and the burning light travelled forward.
With a grunt, Barashitara slammed his feet down firmly on the ground, bending his knees, bracing for impact, swinging his golden staff—and catching the evidence of her fury.
Her heart stopped in her chest.
"Look out!" she heard a voice call from behind her, a voice that did not belong to Amamiya.
She turned halfway and fear froze her, as she caught sight of the young princess, her hair dishevelled, her eyes full of worry, the only one of the crowd who had not fled. A smile touched her lips despite the circumstance. So like her, she thought, always so concerned for others, even when her own life was in danger.
Barashitara grunted with effort, turning with the momentum of the energy, twisting in a circle and driving it back with the force of its own momentum. She turned her head, and it felt as if the world had slowed. This was it, she realised, this was the moment in which she died anew, her mission to save the princess, to prevent the past from collapsing now abruptly over.
The light burnt so bright that she could not look directly at it. She had never known how bright it was, she thought, blinking slowly in the moments left to her. She steeled herself, prepared for death, tried to make sure that her own body would block the princess, that she would absorb the force of it, that only she would fall.
Abruptly, a figure darted in front of her, a short cape fluttering, the swing of a bat, a large head covered in stitches. The bat hit the ball of the light and sent it bouncing back, smashing into Barashitara's face, the glass in nearby buildings shattering, the ground trembling as the machine commander was driven backwards, the energy ball tearing across the ground at such speeds that it carried him over the horizon in moments.
"Strike three!" the figure before her announced smugly as he lowered his bat. "You're out."
The body of the machine sparked and shuddered amidst the gravel of the parking lot. Slowly, the white coat fluttering in the wind, Oogami Ryo turned to face the boy, smiling smugly at him, one hand upon his hip.
"What do you mean?" he demanded.
Stacey rolled his eyes, pushing air out through his lips in a sigh, the pretence of exasperation.
"Here, I'll show you."
Casually, as if he was in no danger, as if they were not enemies, as if Oogami had not defeated one of his henchmen, he strode past the swordsman and bent down over the broken machine, pressing eject on its ruined face, waiting a moment for the mechanism to spit out a video tape and then seizing hold of it, rising up and waving it at Oogami.
"See this?" he asked.
"I see it," Oogami said, deadly serious.
The boy smirked.
"What is it?"
"A tape," the older man answered without thinking.
Stacey brought up a single eyebrow in an expression of doubt.
"Is it?"
He tossed it in the air towards Oogami, and instinctively, he reached out and snatched. The moment he felt it land in his hand, its form changed, pale light shimmering across its surface, the black plastic of the video tape giving way to the form of a pale blue Wonder Ride Book, its design reminiscent of its previous guise, a single word upon its cover: Loop.
He lifted his head, glaring at Stacey behind his mask.
The boy shrugged.
"See, data. Change a line of code and suddenly a video tape is a magic book. Easy."
"Why are you doing this?" Oogami asked, struggling to keep his voice from trembling with anger and confusion.
Again, Stacey shrugged.
"Because I feel sorry for you. Your world's an illusion, a facsimile, a simulation. You were never real."
He looked down again at the book, reading the single word of its title once more.
"If we're not real, how are you here?"
"Because we can travel to different dimensions." He laughed, soullessly, joylessly. "We just never realised until now that this one was make-believe, stored inside a massive computer in the desert of some other Earth, some place we've yet to reach."
The boy turned away, looking out into the darkness, Oogami and the fallen VCR World behind him.
"I don't know. Maybe this is their defence, maybe they hoped we wouldn't notice, that we'd get caught up trying to keep everything here in line, and we wouldn't catch up with them. Who knows? Maybe Ijirude will find out when we get to them."
"I don't believe you," he said quietly.
Stacey laughed.
"You will." He turned, looking over his shoulder. "This world is sick, the computer that runs it has a virus. You know that broadcast you were so convinced was a signal we were sending? It's a curse. Now you've got it too, just like us. Now it's all a matter of time before we die."
Oogami swallowed.
"I don't believe you," he said again.
Again, Stacey turned away.
"Fine. Don't. But you will. Seven days, including today. That's all you've got. Unless you can find some way to break the curse."
The wind seemed cold, he thought, even wrapped in his sacred armour.
"How long have you got?"
Stacey was silent.
"This is my last night." He laughed once more. "I guess it should be interesting to see what happens next. Death is the last great adventure, so they say."
Behind the mask, Oogami opened his mouth to say something.
"Save it," Stacey said sharply, cutting him off. "The last thing I need is an imaginary friend."
He snatched at his coat, pulled it about him, and the material become smoke, wrapping him up, engulfing him, and, at last, devouring him, carrying him away to wherever he originated.
Logging off, Oogami thought coldly. He turned his gaze to look at the ruined robot at his feet. Already, it seemed to show signs of decay; to lack resolution.
Amamiya was at her side, supporting her, making sure she didn't fall, as the young girl rushed over to her, her school uniform besmirched with dirt. She was so young, Setsuna thought, so impossibly young; was this really the girl who would grow to become Neo-Queene Serenity?
In the distance, she saw the four children, girls younger than the princess, their teddy bear cosplay, their all too real weaponry. Their presence was a question that needed answering, as was the presence of the figure that had stepped in to save them, the heavy baseball bat, his head an engorged, scuffed white ball decorated with stitches and faintly human eyes.
"You can't be here," she said, reaching out and taking the young girl by the shoulders.
"Who are you?" the future queene asked. "Are you okay?"
"You can't be here," Setsuna said again, trying to keep her voice even, to keep her voice calm.
"I-I want to help," the girl stammered, tears in her eyes.
Setsuna smiled quietly.
"You already have."
The 14-year-old future queene of the Moon Kingdom frowned.
"I don't understand," she murmured.
The smile on Setsuna's lips wavered.
"Go home. Forget about this." She hesitated. "But know… that you have friends watching over you."
She could feel tears in her eyes, and was suddenly grateful for Amamiya's hand on her shoulder, the tug on her arm, leading her away.
Tsukino Usagi looked at her in confusion.
"Will you be okay?"
"Kid, she'll be fine," the figure with the baseball bat announced swinging his bat around and indicating Amamiya. "She's got doofuses like this watching her back. These are the good guys, they're looking out so youse don't have to, best to stay away from alls this."
"Who are you people?" Usagi asked in awe.
"Friends," said one of the young children as they passed her.
"Soldiers," said another.
"Scouts," said the third.
"Sailors," said the last, smirking as she hefted up the massive rifle on her shoulder.
"Really, who are you?" Usagi asked again.
Yet already they were leaving, walking along the trench of broken pavement that the ball of light had made, seemingly asking of each other as many questions as she herself had asked of them.
Standing alone, watching them go, Usagi became faintly aware of the sound of sirens and helicopters in the distance.
Wearily, he made his way back up the path, his huge sword slung over his shoulder, the new Ride Book clutched in his hand, his eyes drawn towards its glistening presence every now and again. It wasn't real, he told himself. The things that boy had said, they weren't real, they couldn't be real, it was just another ruse, another gimmick, a different kind of invasion, a colonisation of ideas designed to demoralise.
The book in his hand was clearly a fake, a fabrication, he'd know that as soon as he loaded it into the hilt of Dogouken Gekido. Yet if that was so, why then did he hesitate?
'And do you know what they called you? Do you know how the people of that time referred to you as?'
Shindai Reika's words echoed in his mind.
"Dad."
He didn't hear the voice of his son at first.
"Dad," Sora said with insistance.
He lifted his head, and found the boy standing on the steps of the cabin, the door open behind him, the glow of static on the television set seen through the open doorway. Sora's face was pale, frightened, and he felt something pull at him inside, some dread, some fear, something that he dared not imagine.
'It's a curse,' Stacey had said. 'Now you've got it too, just like us. Now it's all a matter of time before we die.'
In that moment, he thought suddenly how much Sora looked like his mother.
"Dad," the boy whispered, his voice shaken, "I saw something weird on the TV."