"Did you find something?", asked Yomi with uncontrolled excitement.
"Maybe.", she responded without looking up. "I'm combining parts of different formulae to try and make something that will keep the opening stable."
"Wow...", droned Yomi as her mind was off silently cursing and thanking the gods for making Chiyo so mind-numbingly intelligent.
"...Ya see that tree Tomo?", Osaka said, pointing to the images flashing through the distortion.
"Yea, what about it?", Tomo asked, leaning dangerously close to the warp.
"I named it Shiro.", Osaka said, her eyes falling out of focus.
"It's ready!", Chiyo shouted, holding the paper on high.
"What's ready?", Tomo asked.
"This formula will stabilize the opening, so that we can get to Sakaki, Kaorin and Kagura.", Chiyo explained. "Hopefully.", she added as an afterthought.
"Sounds fun.", Osaka said.
"Ok! Here we go.", Chiyo said as she inserted the paper into the distortion.
Inside, the paper quickly dissapated and the girls waited.
"Man, that sucked.", Tomo said after a few seconds.
Chiyo began to weep in grief which caused Yomi to pat the girl on the back for comfort.
"Well, I tried...", Chiyo sniffled before Tomo began to speak.
"Hey! Look there!", she yelled, pointing at the warp.
Looking closer, each girl noticed that the two reoccuring images, a verdant plain and what seemed to be a tundra, were beginning to intermingle. The two images bled into one another before the entire column flashed a bright white and stabilized in that manner.
"What the hell!?", Tomo exclaimed.
"I...I hope this is what was supposed to happen.", Yomi said.
"I don't know...", Chiyo whimpered as she gazed upon the whirling white column that now took up nearly half the floorspace of her room.
"I really don't know..."
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Dinner had been brought to Sakaki about an hour ago. Even though it looked appetizing she hadn't touched the meal due to the fact that she didn't want to eat anything in a place as strange as this. Instead, after looking at the broiled fish and what seemed to be potatoes she placed it on the ornate nightstand and wandered to the window.
From that vantage point she could see that the palace was set up as a panopticon. The courtyard contained an elabourate marble fountain in a complex geometric pattern. Even the cobblestones looked to be made of some expensive stone. The square palace itself was illuminated with a form of artificial illumination. Whether it was electricity or not, Sakaki could not tell. Even in her room the illumination seemed to come from an unseen source.
As beautiful as it all was, she knew she could not stay. She was sure her friends were having a fit of worry over her. Escpecially poor little Chiyo, who had always been like the little sister she always wanted but never had. This thought caused a mist to cross Sakaki's eyes. She had to leave immediately, but how?
She heard the door click open behind her and when she turned she saw the two men who had escorted her earlier enter.
"Hello.", she said with a smile.
They did not respond. They simply drew their short swords and set upon her.
Reacting with her athletic ability, she dodged the first thrusts and raced to the other side of the room. The first man came at her, swinging at her midsection. Sakaki rolled past the blow and recovered her feet, but was struck by what felt like many volts of electical current. She saw the men react in a similar manner, so she knew she was not alone in the feeling.
A moment later, the massive form of a conifer tree burst through the floor, impaling the first man atop its thick branches. Sakaki dodged out the door as the ground shook again and a sharp rock burst into the other soldier. As she ran through the palace, it was in total chaos. Expensively garbed people surried about, crying and screaming. Sakaki was also on the verge of tears as she searched for the exit. The ground constantly rumbled and she watched as trees, rocks and hills erupted from the ground seemingly from nowhere. She dodged bloodied bodies and objects that flew up from the ground. She watched many of the people running in a certain direction, so she was enticed to follow. Following the group, she ran through hallways of once-gorgeous statues, many of them little more than rubble. Double doors stood up ahead of her, she saw the vast night as the first people passed through them. Sakaki lingered at the entrance, fighting the need to exit, in order to make sure all that had followed the group had gotten out safely. Upon seeing a small boy exit, she quickly darted out the door
and into complete emptiness.
Darkness all around her, and behind her, nothing more than line after line of symbols and numbers. Emblazoned upon the blackness in neon green, formulae stretched as far as her vision could see, yet in front of her there was nothing at all.
Nothing until two forms burst from the darkness.
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The bearded men had just finished supper. Kaorin and Kagura, bound with their hands behind their backs, dreaded the upcoming moments. The large man with the red beard spoke first.
"I like the tall one. Erik can have the little one first.", he grinned.
"That doesn't bother me. She's pretty cute.", Erik said, kissing Kaorin coarsely. Kaorin turned her head away from the hairy man, his breath reeked of alcohol and that made Kaorin want to vomit.
Kagura was kicking the other man away from her as he tried to obscenely touch her breasts. The other men of the group simply cheered them on as they sat in a drunken stupor.
Kaorin tried to crawl away, but without the use of her ahnds it was far too difficult to escape the man who was slowly molesting her body. She cried as she kicked back at him.
Then an electric feeling passed through her. A slight pain that left behind a cold feeling. At first she thought the unthinkable had happened, but that thought was quickly dispelled as the first bits of ground began to roil and shift, forming hills that were not there moments ago.
The men fell back as the hills grew, Kagura and Kaorin wre propelled down the other side by the unstoppable force of gravity. Along the way, the friction caused Kagura's ties to become undone. At the bottom, amongst what seemed to be towers pushing through the loam and out of the mountains themselves Kagura picked up Kaorin and ran. She ran like never before. She ran away from the men, sweating profusely and covered in dirt that rained from the newly formed towers. As she entered the forest, she looked back to see the men thrown into the air by an ornate building that pushed its way out of the ground as if the earth itself was giving birth.
Even in a situation as dire as this, Kaorin still blushed being this close to Kagura's...'signature parts'.
Light shone through the forest up ahead and Kagura pushed herself along the undulating ground and towards the light.
That light lead into darkness.
A darkness so vast it was incomprehensible.
But behind them was a vast display of figures and formulae as if the figures were pressed upon the inky blackness itself.
Kaorin let out a yelp that alerted Kagura to another presence before them.
"Sakaki-san!!!", Kaorin erupted into joyous, crying laughter.
Sakaki reached them within moments and the three shared a short-lived reunion within the darkness.
"Where the hell are we?", Kagura asked.
"I don't know.", Sakaki answered.
"Where were you Sakaki-san? I was so worried you were hurt!", Kaorin yelped.
"I was..."
She was interrupted by a vast blast of light that caught the attentions of all.
A doorway in the darkness opened. On the other side, they could see a room. Chiyo-chan's room.
They each seemed posessed, Sakaki simply gave a confirming look to Kagura before she and Kagura, still carrying Kaorin, dashed through the gateway.
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They crashed through on the other side to the pure joy of all their friends who were present.
"Oh my! Everyone is ok!", Chiyo screeched, weeping in joy now instead of grief.
Sakaki had just finished freeing Kaorin from the ropes binding her hands when the shining white portal caved in upon itself.
It was gone, totally disappeared.
"Wow, Chiyo-chan. You broke the universe.", Tomo commented moments before a quake shook the entire island of Honshu.
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As a crack opened below him Emperor Desmildan wept openly into the sky.
"Our Saviour! Where did you go!?"
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Yay! Now that everyone is safely back to where they should be, what more terrors may befall them? The consequences of opening the portal of course! Stay tuned!
Kaorin: You just can't stop harassing us, can you?
Jay: It's my job though. I have to make my writing exciting.
Kaorin: You can make it exciting by making me and Sakaki-san...(blushes and runs off)
Jay: (takes notes) Make you and Sakaki-san fight to the death...got it.