Chapter 3: Through the looking glass.

Picking up right where we left off.

Oh who am I kidding, no I wouldn't have.

The two stare down each other. The girl speaks first. 'You've already lost.'

"Are you challenging me in the king's tournament?"

"So you're as smart as Stephani here, good for you. That's exactly what I am doing here. In accordance with the laws you can pick any game you like. You'll never be able to defeat us." Sora eggs her on.

"What do you mean us?" The girl asks.

"Yeah, what do you mean us?" I followed up.

He pats Shiro's head causing me to sigh in relief. "My sister here and I count as one player. Do you agree to that?"

The girl smiles. "It doesn't matter how many of you there are there's no way you can defeat me.

but you'll have to wait till tomorrow, the coronation ceremony was about to begin but we'll have to sent them home for today."

"Then go ahead and pick your game and your rules and we can begin. But-" I notice the girls expression change.

'what's wrong with her?' I get closer to Sora and see the most terrifying expression on Sora's face that I'd ever seen.

"- There will be no backing out if you get scared, you can even cheat all you want. It'll make it all the better when bring you crashing down to earth."

Sora walks passed the girl with Shiro in tow. "Tatsuya, let's go have a look around. I want to get to the library as soon as possible. Bring the princess as well."

I can't help but be astounded. Sora in such a short amount of time has become so reliable that I can't possibly be any help to him anymore. "Oh, right." I go back and get Steph off the ground. "Come on Steph, we better go."

"Are-" I hear the girl say something.

"What?"

She turn to Sora. "Are you suggesting that I have been cheating?"

Sora stops and looks over his shoulder. "Tatsuya."

"Hmm?" I can't figure him out anymore.

"Quit daydreaming, let's go." He continues on, ignoring the girl.

"Oh, got it." I help Steph walk and when we catch up to Sora I finally decide to speak up. "Sora, I had no idea you could make that kind of face."

"Tatsuya…" Sora stops me.

"What?"

He glances looks at me with a smile. "Do you trust in me and my abilities?"

I am perplexed by his attitude. "That's an odd question for a time like this…"

"Humor me."

I close my eyes and lower my head. "Quite the loaded question, but I think you already know the answer full well… 'My King'."

Sora sighs in relief. "Good because when Shiro and I win we're going to need you to keep us in line. You know people better and can speak to them much easier that I. Will you be our right hand?"

I hit him in the arm.

Sora rubs his arm. "Ow. What was that for?"

I sling my arm around his neck putting him in a head lock. "For asking a question with an obvious answer. You know I can't leave you two alone."

"Hey hey, don't do that." Sora slips out of the headlock fixing his bedhead.

Shiro giggles entertained by our interactions.

"Hey." Steph finally comes back to earth and gets our attention.

I turn back to her. "What is it miss Stephani?"

"I don't understand something that Mister Sora said. What did he mean that 'this is part of the game'? I don't see what he means." Stephani asks flat out. As I thought about it what she said made sense, I didn't know what he meant by that either.

Sora sighs. "You're such a Steph."

"What?" I just didn't catch what he said.

"Such a Steph." Shiro follows up.

"Di- did you just use my name as a derogatory term?" Stephani seemed to catch on completely.

I scowl. "Sora…"

Sora holds up his hands in defense. "It's her own fault for not paying attention." He looks at Steph. "The game started the minute we came into contact with the one named Kurumi. Any wrong moves and she would have not accepted the challenge. The fact that she clearly cheated to us when she played you, and likely all her other opponents, she must have a reason to want the throne so badly. To confirm our theory I want to view your library, with the challenge presented you are still the crown princess and have full access to the royal library. So could we get there as quickly as possible?"

'Wow, he's thought that far ahead? I wonder how much further ahead than that he's thought through.' I think to myself. "Sora…" I pause for a moment. "When the hell did you become so reliable?"

"Who said I became this way?" He smirks. "I just never had a good place to shine back in our world."

"Right… that's the reason." I tease.

"Other wor-"

"Stephani, if you please can you lead us to the library?" I ask her.

She lights when I call her. "Of course." She proceeds to lead us to the library. "Here is the royal library. Is there a kind of book you are looking for in particular?"

"History and all of it." Sora quickly tells her.

"Oh that's simple enough this entire wall is all the history that we have." She motions to the back wall.

Shiro grabs one and quickly starts looking through it. I decide to look over her shouldr to see what it says only to realize that it was in writing that I had never seen before. "What in the hell?"

Just as quickly as I realized I couldn't read it at all, Shiro closes that book. "Learned it."

"What? That fast?" I'm stunned by just how quickly she picked it up.

She turns to me and tells me. "It's easy when the spoken language is no different, you just have to figure out what symbol corresponds with our alphabet. Tatsu-nii is just slow."

I rub the top of her head, and shows a face of 'I did good.'. "We all can't have super computers for brains ya know Shiro. I'm proud of you. Aren't you proud Sora?" I turn to see that Sora had also learn the written language and had started reading.

"Step up your game Tatsuya. Shiro only beat me by about 30 seconds. But yeah, I'm proud of her, of course I'd be proud of my partner."

I sigh. "These siblings…"

"Are you telling me that you came in here unable to read but in moments you learned the language of Imanity?" Stephani realized what just occured.

I shrug. "It looks that way… for them at the least."

"Hey, Steph." Sora calls out.

"What, what is it now?" She's clearly annoyed by him calling her "Steph"

"Would it be possible to get some snacks in here."

"Tea as well." Shiro adds.

"Why should I get you anything?" She frustratedly asks.

"Actually Miss Stephani, I'm fairly hungry as well, but since I don't have the ability to read the language I'd like to try some cooking from the castle. I'll even help in the preparation." I offer.

She turns red, imagining something that I hope is wholesome. "Y-y-you don't have to do that Tatsuya. You can just relax here." Again she tries to harm herself but stops short.

"I insist, it'll give me something to do while those two study up on history. Besides it'll be a good way to talk and get to know each other better." I rub may nose trying to hide my own blush.

She nods slightly red as a tomato. "The kitchen is this way." She leads me out of the room.

Just before I leave Sora and my eyes meet and I mouth. 'Be nice.' To him, before following Steph the kitchen.

-15 minutes later-

The kitchen is massive, it's how I imagined one that would be in one of those large and fancy restaurants. Ingredients that I have never seen before. Though I guess that being in a new world allots for such exotic ingredients. "This kitchen is amazing Stephani. You'll have to show me some of your favorite kinds of food. I'll even make you some of mine." She starts frantically making something. Making the staff just stand back not sure what to do.

"Oh stop, this is nothing much. I can't really cook that much." She already starts cutting cookie dough. Only to stop before the second cut. "No! I can't do this. I challenge you for my heart's freedom."

I stare at her a moment and sigh. "I was afraid you'd do something like this. I'm not very good at games so I'll have to decline you're challenge, not to mention you haven't offered anything as collateral."

"We can have a cook off and I'll offer…" She pauses. "… I'll offer my body."

I clap loud to get her attention. "I refuse. I told you that I don't want short cut, I'll make it so you fall for me on your own so that the game condition is not the reason anymore. I only let this happen because I didn't want it be be Sora that you were forced to love. SO I cannot accept a condition like that even if I don't have a hope in winning."

"Then what? What do you want so that we can have a match?" Stephani seems desperate.

I think about it for a moment then I come up with something snapping my fingers and softly hitting my fist into my palm. "Ah I got it."

"You do? What is it?" Stephani has an eager smile.

"I want two things. First: I want you to tell me stories about this world. Second: I want you to teach me how to read the language of Imanity. Does that sound agreeable?"

She nods. "Yes, I can agree to that… This World? You and Sora keep say things like 'other world' and 'this world', what do you mean?" She asks.

"Oh, that's um, how do I say this? We came from a world parallel to this one, one with only humans and no magic… or dragons. We were brought here by this kids calling himself Tet or something. I wasn't even supposed to be with them in the first place, I just happened to be in Sora and Shiro's room when they were summoned. So I guess I'm something of an unwanted tag along."

"T-T-Tet?" Stephani yells in astonishment. "You were brought here by the one true god Tet?"

"Yea I guess I was." I rub my head bashful.

"So you've met Tet?"

"Little guy, wears a stupid hat, scarf, short hair and multi-colored eyes?"

"That's how the paintings depict him."

"Then yes. I've met him." I chuckle.

"How can you be nonchalant about meeting God?" Stephani shouts.

I shrug. "We didn't really have the best interaction. He clearly didn't want me to be here."

"Then why didn't he sent you back?"

I look out the window. "I don't really know? Maybe he couldn't. Maybe he couldn't be bothered. Maybe he just thought it would be more fun for him this way. Or maybe it was because I wanted to stay by Sora and Shiro's side to keep them safe. Who's to say for sure, except for him." I wash my hands. "So Steph, what's the restriction on the dish?"

"Oh, right. I completely forgot." She ponders for a moment. "How about it just be something that can be made in under 45 minutes."

"Ok." I turn to the kitchen staff. "Can I ask you guys to give me some ingredients?"

"Of course sir. A friend of the princess is always welcome to use the facility." The head chef agrees gives me everything I asked for, everything except for chicken as those don't exist here. She gave me something I never expected, dragon meat. Surprisingly it has the same texture as kobe beef so preparing it was no issue. In the 45 minutes I was allowed I made dragon katsu curry over rice. It felt weird though, all the cooks were watching me intently, I soon found out that the way I was cooking didn't exist in the world… I think I just invented stir-fry and curry here.

-45 minutes later-

Stephani sits on the floor in defeat. The kitchen staff had unanimously chosen my dish as the better of the two. A bit unfair as I made something that didn't exist in the world yet. But when I tried Stephani's it was delicious she had baked cookies, the ones that were going to be made for Sora and Shiro.

"I can't believe I lost, I was always so proud of my ability to bake." She sobs.

"Please don't cry, I'm sorry. I didn't think that this kind of cooking didn't exist here." I sigh placing my hand on her shoulder and smile when she looks up at me. "At least there's no grey area in these conditions though. I look forward to my lessons with you."

She blushes and hides her face in her knees. "That's not fair."

"Hey I played fair and square unlike- oh man I forgot about those two." I quickly dish up two servings of my curry and rush it back to the library. "Sora. Shiro. Look at this. You'll never guess what kind of meat they had in the kitchen." I try to act like it didn't take over an hour to the food they asked for.

They glare at me from behind a massive pile of books. "That's what kept you? Come on Tatsuya, where's you pride as a man. I purposely asked her for food knowing you'd go with her. Did you even try to make a move on her?" Sora asks. "Oh and I found out something that may interest you."

"I'm not depraved like you are. What is this thing that you're talking about?" I humor his claim putting the curry down only for Shiro to swipe them both quickly and run them over to their table. "Ok what i- hey!"

Sora had thrown a book my way as I was putting the food down, by luck I managed to catch it before it smacked me upside the head, looking at it I still can't read a lick of it. "Let's try that again. What is it?"

Sora and Shiro eat the curry and sigh in satisfaction before Sora begins again. "It's an old fighting and combat manual with an emphasis in-"

"Swordsmanship." I finish his sentence. Looking further into the book seeing diagrams and drawings of swordsmen.

"Exactly. It'll be good insight to find out how the old Imanity fought and survived in the wars of old. You know more about combat than I do so I think that's better suited for you to check out.

"Wars of old you say?"

Sora proceeded to tell me about the history of the world and I requested that he leave some less crucial things out, so that Steph would have something to tell me when the time came.

"Wow, so that kid that brought us here is only the one true god because he stayed out of conflict?"

"Correct and he left the 16 intelligent races the ten laws, race pieces and effectively left." Sora continued.

"Well did you learn anything for the game tomorrow?" I inquired.

"Nope… That was never actually my goal. We'll beat her even with the help of the elves backing her."

"Elves? How do you know it's the elves?" I am stunned by the jump he made.

"It's pretty simple really. There's only two countries that border Imanity: The elves to the east and the warbeasts to the west. The warbeasts have about as much magical prowess as humans so they can manipulate anything to the extent that the elves can."

"And how is knowing that going to beat them? Apparently you have to prove without a doubt that they are cheating." I respond to his claim Hair on the back of my neck stands up for some reason.

-Fi watches us with magic-

"We're not going to catch them or report them. We have a secret weapon that they can't defeat." Sora and Shiro high five. "Also we already know the game, while you were gone the girl came by to tell us herself, as well as try to convince us to withdraw. Meaning…"

"She doesn't think she can beat you two…" I look up feeling as though I was being watched.

Sora winks then also looks up with a smile.

-With Fi-

She closes her eyes. "That was odd."

Kurumi was with her. "What was?"

Fi turns to her. "For a moment it almost looked as though he knew I was watching them."

"Who the one who challenged me?"

Fi shakes her head. "No, the other man. I believe he is called Tatsuya."

That's it for this chapter. Next time we have Sora vs Kurumi. I'm not giving Tatsuya magic, I'm only giving him the ability to sense it as he is one of the only humans to have martial art training he has slightly heightened senses. I juggled with the idea of Stephani winning the match but opted against it. I'll let you all specualte just what the secret weapon that Sora has up his sleeve is. And as always leave a comment if you liked it, leave a comment if you didn't like it. And I'll see you all next time on "The Tag Along" Chapter 4 Old habits die hard.