Chiyo rose sharply and the approaching figure winced in surprise to see her. They stared at each other as the room darkened, equally baffled at the other's presence and neither willing to make the first move. Fortunately, Ayumu woke to end the standoff without even noticing it. "Oh, hiya, sis!" she called happily. "…but shouldn't you have green eyes?"

"Wh... what?" Chiyo turned to her friend just in time to be blinded as the bedside lamp flared to light. Blinking the spots from her vision, Chiyo beheld a girl that she'd surely never seen before and yet seemed oddly familiar. She was Xian, blue of skin with golden eyes that dominated her heart-shaped face, though they were shockingly dark by Planet X standards, almost brown. A ponytail the color of gritty snow swung about her elbows. She was built along similar lines to Yomi, though several centimeters shorter, wrapped in a dark gray coat and some kind of stole… no, that was a white dragony creature draped across her shoulders, snoozing contentedly.

It was a sign of the times that running up against a space alien wearing a dragon didn't particularly bother Chiyo. She'd actually met a few Xians in the States and they generally seemed to be a decent sort, if a little loopy by Earthman standards.

"No, no, this time I'm not delusional!" Ayumu protested. "She looks different now, but… go on, introduce yourself!"

Both visitors looked at her strangely, but when she motioned them towards each other, they relented. "Um… I'm Chiyo Mihama," she said finally, offering her hand. "Very pleased to meet you."

"Xandra of Planet X, likewise."

There was a brief pause while their hostess looked between them expectantly.

"Whoa, wait a sec! Chiyo Mihama?"

"Ms. Blueman? S-Sandra?"

"Holy crap, Chiyo-chan, you're a colossus! What happened to you?"

"Genes on my mother's side," Chiyo waved it off. "But you're an alien?"

"Nobody told you?"

"Nobody told me, neither." Ayumu crossed her arms. "I always figured, though, since you were such a flake."

Xandra giggled. "Of all the people to hear that from…"

"Yeah, comin' from me, it's not too credible, huh?"

"My word!" Chiyo had to sit down again. "Wow… I was wondering if I'd see you…"

"I never thought I'd find you here. What the heck are you doing back?"

"It's a surprise to me, too. Er, how'd you get in here?"

"The orderly seemed to be in kind of a daze. Oh… and I brought a release for Ayumu to get out of here, in case she's interested." This was dropped so casually that neither of them immediately realized what she'd said. "Sound good?"

"Ah, thank ya!" Ayumu agreed cheerfully. "That'd be gr—!" and then it really hit her and she choked. The look on her face, at least according to Xandra, was absolutely priceless. She felt rather like she'd come out completely unharmed after being struck by lightning while carrying a winning lottery ticket on her birthday. "Y-y-y-y-you're joking!"

"Nope," the Xian affirmed, relishing her stupefaction. "No joke."

"But—but I—it isn't-!" Ayumu then decided to be quiet until she could form a coherent sentence. It would probably be a while.

"Are you sure it's okay?" Chiyo asked worriedly.

"Don't worry, I have a certifiable-uh, certified psychologist backing me up on this, and she's an authority in, ah… other disciplines." Xandra beckoned a trifle impatiently. "But, uh, we're on a bit of a time budget here… I think someone we'd really rather not meet is looking for you, sister, and we should get out of here before they realize that the papers are forged."

"What? Now hold on just a moment!" Chiyo cried.

Xandra walked swiftly around the bed and pushed her away from Ayumu, then stood on her toes and spoke softly. "There's something wrong with her that they can't deal with. Even if this is your first visit, you must've noticed strange things going on around here. You're smart. Think back."

She complied, and had to admit that she had noticed a few oddities… but the one that stuck out for her was the orderly's shiftiness just before letting her in. If you were to, uh… encounter anything… What had he meant by that? Unless… she remembered the ragged wing and jasmine… she had encountered something. "No. No way."

"You're not the only one… I've done some consulting, and the psychiatrists I've talked to agree that whatever's going on is irregular, but they can't move against this place because it's run by the State. I found out that half of the social workers here had strange experiences with her before they started isolating her during her attacks."

"That's… that's horrible!"

"I won't pretend that sister won't have a hard time out there, but at least she'll have a chance." Sandra's eyes were wide and completely sincere. "It's either we get her out right now, or she's stuck here for the rest of her life… and that might not be too long."

Chiyo knew that she was being forced to make a decision that she would regret for a very long time, whichever way she went. Finally, she drew a deep sigh and cast the dice. "Let's go."

For her part, Ayumu had either completely missed the tension in the room or chosen to ignore it. She was buttoning up a dark brown duster and looping a lime green scarf around her neck. "Tomo-chan got this for me, but I only got to wear it once," she tugged on the scarf. "Huh. Makes me feel like a parakeet."

"You'll be using it a lot more now," Xandra replied kindly. "I imagine we'll have a devil of a time getting you to come indoors at all."

"Nah. Anywhere that isn't here…"

Chiyo noticed that her accent wasn't as pronounced as before and felt a little relieved, even though she knew that accents were a messy, unreliable thing to try and gauge somebody's emotions by. She followed behind the sisters, contemplating the fact that she was taking part in what was probably some kind of felony, seriously risking the well-being of a friend and consorting with a space alien at a time when this would be considered very unpatriotic. Why, then, did she feel this simmering, impish glee at flouting the rules, just as she had after sneaking through the police barricade in Sendai?

"Feels strange," Ayumu commented. "Knowin' I won't be comin' back. Hee! The docs sure won't miss me… I don't know what they were lookin' for, but they got it into their heads that I was a," she deepened her voice importantly, "Bloody-minded, uncooperative young woman. Well, I'll tell ya, they were pretty uncooperative themselves!" After having a good laugh at that, she grounded herself a little. "I sure hope Shinji an' Rin'll be okay."

"Did you make a lot of friends?" Xandra asked.

"A few…" Ayumu sighed. "But I didn't really fit in here, though, y'know? Everybody… they… well, it's sad. S'like nobody here fits in anywhere."

"I have some friends I think you'll like. Hey, remember Kazuki?"

At this point they'd reached the reception area, not twenty meters from freedom, and their only obstacle reared its balding head. "Excuse me?" the orderly called from his desk. "There seems to be a problem with the papers. The hospital you named doesn't have a Dr. Aida."

"Really?" Xandra asked guardedly. "It must be a typo or something."

Chiyo looked at the orderly as he and Xandra dickered over the papers and something snapped inside of her that she hadn't even realized was straining. He had just started to lean over to the intercom, saying, "We're going to have to keep Ms. Kasuga here until…" when Chiyo marched up to the desk, jerked the intercom out of his reach and grabbed a great handful of his collar. "Wha-?"

"You!"

"M-me?"

"It's unbelievable! You all knew that something beyond the pale was happening to this poor woman! You knew that something was really, truly, honestly manifesting around her and that she was scared to death of it! So what did you do? You locked her away and tried to ignore it! What, did you hope that the thing would eat her and she wouldn't be your problem anymore?"

"Be reasonable!" he pleaded, edging towards the intercom, "We were under orders to…" Before he reached it, Chiyo showed surprising strength in her spindly arm by shoving him back in his chair until it creaked under his weight.

"Does it look like I'm in the mood to be reasonable! Why in God's name did you even keep her? Haven't you ever heard of Becker's Labeling Theory! You're despicable! There are… there are hundreds of better ways you could have dealt with this! Why couldn't you just admit you didn't know what to do!"

"What can anybody do?" the orderly asked in a small voice.

"You could have at least tried to find out!" She followed this up with something in English that had her victim looking shocked and a bit scandalized. Afterwards, there were a few seconds where the only sound was his chair's ominous creaking before she let him go and stepped back, finishing in a much milder tone. "We're going to be taking Ms. Kasuga off of your hands now. Thanks for cooperating."

Light-headed, she turned away to see both of her companions and even the dragon staring as if they'd never seen her before. "Right, then," Xandra said uncomfortably. "Shall we on without apology?"

Eager though she was, Ayumu hesitated right at the threshold. The two years she'd spent here felt like a lifetime, but with just one more step… she reached out to take Chiyo's hand and, smiling tremulously, stepped out into the open night air for the first time since her unhappy arrival. As if the elements knew what this meant to her, a swift, gentle rain rushed over them, putting the perfect finishing touch on her freedom.

"Thanks, Xannie…" Ayumu sighed, tilting her head back and letting the raindrops kiss her face. "Thanks, Chiyo-chan. I'm happy as a scallop."

Chiyo squeezed her hand while Xandra answered, "Hey, no problem. And if you ever call me Xannie again, I'll piledriver you. Through a table. Covered with tacks."

"Thumbtacks or the kind with the little handles?"

"I dunno, which do you think would hurt more?"

"Well…"

Once they were gone, the orderly flipped open his cell phone and dialed quickly. "Yeah," he said to the person who picked up. "Yeah, they just left. … With Xandra of Planet X and Chiyo Mihama. … You're welcome. If it's not a 'need-to-know' kinda thing, can you tell me what you're going to do with that information?" The answer made him cringe.


Even at night, Tokyo bustled. The three moved through the shadows of a neon wonderland, the endless tide of their fellow pedestrians appearing as little more than half-lit silhouettes. Ayumu spent the first few minutes of their journey in sensory overload, stunned by the blazing sea of color overhead, by the smells and sounds and constant motion of the city's life.

Chiyo continued to hold her hand as they walked, murmuring encouragement every now and then as she faltered. This arrangement actually triggered a foggy, moth-eaten memory in the back of her head… it seemed to Ayumu that at one point their circumstances had been reversed, but for the life of her, she couldn't remember when or why.

"Okay, hold up," Xandra stopped in the benevolent gaze of a street light and consulted her map. A symptom of growing up in space was that she was a bit directionally challenged. "I'm not sure where we are, here."

Now that Chiyo had time to look, she noticed that it was unusually dark at the street level; the bands of neon stopped sharply a few meters above them and streetlights were widely spaced. Was this perhaps for the Gaijin's comfort? She had once been scared of the dark and sprinted from light to light… were she alone, she might've picked up the habit again.

"They're wraiths," Ayumu said, smiling at the people streaming by in the dim night. "Like this is the afterlife or somethin'. The River Styx."

"You seem to enjoy the idea," Chiyo commented.

"That we're all dead? Yeah, a little."

"Okay, right," Xandra started them the way they'd come. "It's this way."


The subway station had been even more alarmingly dark than the streets, but fortunately the train itself was as bright as ever. They selected a bench in one corner and there weren't enough commuters to crowd in around them. Finally, they were free to converse in relative private.

"I'm so sorry about that outburst," Chiyo said, contrite gaze on her sneakers. "I've never felt like that before… I mean, I just wanted to kill him." Ayumu, leaning against her arm and watching the tunnel lights whip by, didn't reply, but her figurative sister smirked. "Hey, I woulda helped you hide the body." The prodigy fixed her with a cold, steady eye and she quailed.

(Actually, Chiyo was exaggerating, but joking around about killing people made her uneasy, and it would be best to put a stop to it right now.)

"So… ha!" Xandra suddenly kicked her feet out and threw her head back, laughing. "Kaori's plan worked! Ha HA!"

"Oh!" Chiyo perked up at the familiar name. "Is that who we're going to see?"

"Yeppers."

"How is she? And say, how the heck are you? Sorry, I never asked."

"Ah, we're doin' okay. Well… it could be better for her, I guess. I wasn't lying when I said she's certified to be a psychologist, but she got shut out of starting a practice because she was a part of this protest movement. Political bullcrap."

"Oh…"

"But more recently, we got an apartment together a few months ago and started a business like Kazuki and Osamu did. We're running… get this… an occult book store."

"An occult book store? Wow… that isn't the sort of thing I imagined her doing."

"And what did you imagine her doing?" Xandra said in a suddenly snarky tone.

"Well, um…"

"There you go. What did you really know about her, back in the day, apart from her fixation on Sakaki?"

"Well…"

"Not a lot, I'd wager. I'll bet you're wondering if we're a couple, too!"

"But I…"

"You were too polite to ask, bless you, but… no, seriously, were you wondering?"

"A… a little?" Chiyo answered, a tad anxiously. "I didn't realize…"

"Am I to assume that you two area couple, then?" Xandra asked, indicating Ayumu's hand in hers. The Space Cadet (no, our Space Cadet) glanced over and stuck her tongue out, which was enough answer for both of them.

"That isn't quite fair."

"Isn't it? So imagine how she feels." Xandra stumbled over herself for a moment. "I mean, it's not like being a lesbian would be bad, but people keep giving her crap about it."

"I'm… I'm sorry." Chiyo said, not sure what she was apologizing for.

"Nah, I guess I was the one out of line," Xandra suddenly stopped, realizing that she didn't know either. "I shouldn't have snapped at you. But I get so annoyed at people for just assuming things about other people they don't know anything about! When I, er, came out as an Xian, about half of my friends at the time just decided to stop having anything to do with me. It stung a little, you know?"

"I can imagine."

"And do you know what? It's even worse for Kaori, if you can believe it… the whole Sakaki thing keeps coming back to haunt her whenever we meet someone from the old school. Everybody who noticed or even suspected her crush just instantly assumes that she's… well, gay, but also some kind of creepy stalkery person, like that's how they think you have to be if you're gay or something. The guys snicker an' leer and the girls start getting all nervous, like she's gonna pull down the neck of her shirt and start hitting on them right then and there." She pulled a face. "As if any of 'em would be prize catches anyway."

"How awful…" Chiyo said sympathetically. "I can see why you'd be a little touchy."

"I can't believe people can act like that, though, even if she were… well, I'm not sure where she's pointed, honestly. You know what? She actually might be a lesbian, I dunno – I just get mad when people make that her defining trait without even knowing. And either way, it's no reason to act like that, right?"

"It isn't, you're right. I like to think people are generally more accepting than that. She blinked. "Um, not to belittle her experience."

"You give people too much credit." Xandra smiled faintly. "Well… great. Now I've just totally flipped out at you. It's been a day for that, hasn't it?"

Chiyo spread her hands. "We're under a lot of stress."

"Yep. So… uh, what do you want to talk about now?"

"Why is it red?" Ayumu suddenly asked.

"Eh?" Both of her companions looked to her.

"It's the red line and the blue line," she continued, gesturing vaguely up towards the sign above the train's door. "But why red and blue? Why not purple and gold or black and gray or orange and yellow? Ooh… or hot pink and neon green?"

"I… don't know, Ms. Ayumu. They probably don't want one to be gold or silver because then people would think that there was something special about it. Red and blue easy to tell apart, too."

"Never considered that," Ayumu nodded. "You're still real smart, Chiyo-chan, thanks. I was worried that America'd turn you into a barbarian or somethin'."

Chiyo opened her mouth to say, "What, it hasn't?" but held off. Fortunately, she was saved from the necessity of responding by the advent of a strange, sweet smell. It was eerily similar to that of the manifestation, but slightly burnt.

"Oh, give me a break!" Xandra growled. "Even here?" The dragon whined his disgust as well.

"What is it?"

"Those idiots in the front," the alien leaned in close and pointed surreptitiously. "They're smoking Moth. They better hope there aren't any police on this line."

"Er…" Chiyo looked to the front and saw a pure white cloud forming around a group of four guys. "Do you mean Meth?"

"No, Moth. It's new. But listen, I think I'm allergic to it or something. Last time someone smoked it near me I couldn't breathe, and I got these freaky tremors…" She stood. "Here, can we go to the next car? Like, real quick?"

"Of course." But when Chiyo rose, she found her friend frozen to the seat, blinking in shock. Oh, no. The smell. Had it triggered another attack? "Ms. Ayumu, are you all right?"

Moth. Smoking… moth. The name of the drug, along with its aroma and its pronounced effect on Xan (which she was beginning to feel herself), triggered another dim, foggy memory from long ago, one that Ayumu had actually assumed was just a dream but now rushed back as clearly and vividly as if it were yesterday.

She remembered finding herself, bewildered and naked, sitting in a street in evacuated Sendai, in the midst of a sea of white powder. The remains of… Gathra? What on Earth was a Gathra? She remembered the warning, "Don't breathe this stuff in… it'll mess you up!" which had been issued by a twelve-centimeter woman. (Huh?)

But how had she ended up there, and what…? Oh, now revelation was following revelation and her heart pounded to punch a hole in her ribcage and she was starting to shake from the smoke… everything was fitting together, but Chiyo was standing there, getting increasingly worried as she failed to respond…

"Doin' great." She found her feet and made to follow Chiyo, starting to feel the tremors in earnest, as well as a horrible, squirming nausea as she realized what it was they were actually smoking. "Do'worry… guess I'm allergic, too." Actually, there were quite a few things that she would have preferred to say at that moment, but it was doubtful that she'd be able to convince her friends of her sanity by suddenly shrieking, "I'm inhaling the corpse of my only child!"

Link after link formed. It didn't come back neatly, it didn't come back completely, but she suddenly had the clearest idea of which of her dreams had really happened and what she had really just dreamed since she'd been forced to forget what it was that she'd remembered without knowing what it was.

Wait, what?

This was a teetering, uncertain step, but she had taken it. "I… remember what I remembered!" she announced as they sat down again. "You won't believe me, though."

"Try us," Xandra offered.

And so she did.