Passengers poured out of the plane into the Tokyo Narita Airport, each glad for a change of scenery after the long ride. Though most of the crowd had dispersed, four still stood by the gate, talking.
"You are sure this is the right place, O'Neill?" questioned a tall, dark-skinned man wearing an Atlanta Braves baseball cap. "It appears to be nothing more than a small island."
Another man, also wearing a cap but with gray temples showing beneath it, pointed behind the first toward one of the many banks of glass enclosing the airport. "Other window, T."
As this exchange unfolded, the other two grinned slightly before a bespectacled man with relatively long hair asked, "What's wrong, Sam?"
She frowned, frantically digging through her carry-on. "I can't find it."
"What?" O'Neill asked, picking up on his subordinate's desperation.
"Found it!" She smiled, straightening up and popping something into her mouth. "Now we can go."
"What is it?" he repeated, falling into step beside her as they began to head to the baggage claim. Sam full-out grinned now. She opened her hand to reveal a brown and white wrapper. "Chocolate?" O'Neill exclaimed, surprised. "You held us up for chocolate?"
She nodded. "A girl's best friend; yes, sir!"
He shook his head in mock exasperation. "And here I thought diamonds were a girl's best friend."
"Diamonds don't have caffeine."
"I thought I was the only one of us addicted to caffeine," the spectacled man said.
"You are, Daniel," Sam replied. "I'm not addicted to it."
"You sure this is the place?" O'Neill inquired, gazing at the long flight of concrete stairs leading to a shrine.
Daniel nodded. "This is where the Japanese government reported the strangest occurances."
"We're off to see the wizard, then."
As the group climbed toward the shrine, Daniel noted a sign at the top. "Hey, Jack?"
"What?" O'Neill replied.
"We should leave our stuff by these steps."
"Why?" he asked, becoming annoyed, because he sensed the culture and ethics side of his friend emerging. Besides, he didn't particularly feel like leaving his clothes and weapons unattended.
"We're going to be walking on what these people consider sacred ground. I don't think we should be carrying our… stuff," he explained.
"I will stay behind with our belongings, O'Neill," the dark-skinned man promised.
Jack sighed. "Fine." As he climbed the last step, he dropped his duffel to the right of the path. The others followed suit, and Jack, Sam, and Daniel wandered into the Japanese shrine.
For a few moments nothing happened while the three studied their surroundings. Then something red and white darted out from a building to their left and entered the right side of the house in front of them via a second-story sliding door.
Jack reflexively tried to raise a P-90 he didn't have. "What was that?"
Daniel shrugged and said, "I've never seen anything like that."
Sam shook her head. "It's not often any of us can say that."
Jack nodded and tried to use a radio he didn't have on a vest he'd left at the base to communicate with the man they'd left by their bags. He turned toward the other two. "Next time, forget subtlety; we're bringing full gear and maybe, maybe a hat for Teal'c." The other two smiled and nodded. "Okay, be on your guard."
Just then, the blur dashed back from the house, headed towards the small building, but half-way there, a single Japanese word rang through the air: "Osuwari!" The blur made a ninety degree turn for the ground and ran right into it. A black-haired teenager took a single step from the point of impact and began screaming at what was still there: a person dressed in red with long, white hair and white… cat ears?"Daniel?" Jack prompted as if his friend should know better than to leave them in the dark. "What's she saying?"
He winced at a particularly loud part. "For the most part, you don't want to know. She's insulting him. 'You impatient, stubborn idiot…' " He frowned. " 'No more Ramen noodles for you'? For once, I don't think I'm translating right."
"Maybe you heard her wrong," Sam suggested, sounding a bit more dazed than usual, perhaps due to the long plane trip.
The girl went back into her house, so Daniel hurried over to the figure on the ground and tried to help him up.
"I'll get up on my own," he snarled, his voice muffled by the ground.
"I just want to help you," Daniel insisted.
"You can't help. Go away." He tried to push himself up but couldn't. Seeing this, Daniel tried to pull one of the man's shoulders to at least turn him onto his back, but he found that the stranger's body seemed to have a new bond with the pavement. "You can't help," he repeated, louder this time.
Daniel squatted beside him. "What happened?"
"None of your business!"
At that point, the girl from before hurried out of her house and approached, appearing a bit worried. "We've got to go." She pulled the strange man to his feet. Then the two hurried into the smaller building.
Jack followed, his teammates after him. As he reached the door, he barely glimpsed the last of the girl's hair disappearing into a wooden structure in the center of the room. Unfazed by this oddity (a normal day in his work held no less), he swung down into the structure, where he found a hard, life-less bottom.
Though she didn't see the girl enter the well, Sam did watch her CO do so and followed without thinking.