Washimiya was fading away, and in its place something else was forming. Stone cliffs, weatherbeaten and covered with moss, appeared around them. The air became colder and thinner, and also, Konata noted, cleaner. Who knows how far from civilization they were, anyway...The sky clouded over and it had begun to rain lightly. Although, she reminded herself, it had probably been raining here for a while before they arrived.

Something else seemed slightly off about this place, but she couldn't tell what it was. Not just any one thing, but everything looked a little different.

Konata looked over at Jason, who seemed used to such changes. How could you possibly be used to this kind of thing? He really was in some secret organization, then...

She then noticed that her hair had changed from its usual black to a shade of deep blue. Now that was something that defied all logic. She was about to ask about it when Jason spoke up.

"Baljhet Mountains."

"Huh?"

"That's where we are now. The year is 1479. We're somewhere in Europe, although it's different from the Europe in the world where you came from."

"So... what are we doing now?"

She heard a noise from behind her, and turned around. A rotting corpse began to pull itself up out of the ground, and it was staring right at her. She stepped back in shock.

"There's your answer," Jason remarked casually. "You'll take down a few of these guys, and we'll see how you are at combat." Fully unearthed, the thing began stepping towards them. Jason still took little notice. "Any preference on melee weapons? Swords, axes... maybe a lance, but that might be a bit unwieldy..."

It was walking towards them now. Konata had never seen an actual zombie before (of course she hadn't, she thought, those sort of things simply didn't exist in modern day Japan, did they) and was obviously distracted.

"Huh? A- a sword, I guess."

He suddenly held out a sword - about two and a half feet long, unadorned.

"Where the hell did you get - ?"

"Just take it. I think we've got maybe an hour to practice today, so let's not waste it, alright? Good."

Chapter 2

The Window Open Wide

There was a huge difference between equipping a sword in a video game and physically holding one in your hand.

Despite being a fairly basic sword, it was slightly heavier than she had expected. She looked at it, tried swinging it around a little... Two more zombies had pulled themselves up and were advancing slowly with the original one.

"Just relax," Jason told her. "I chose to come here because these things are easy to kill. Just get used to fighting."

So if this was anything like a video game, then these must just be the easy enemies that you see in the first level. Nothing to be afraid of... just a walking corpse. They were slow, and clumsy... and yet still more intimidating than they were on a screen. But she could do this.

Konata chose one of the zombies to attack. No lock-on system here, but it was the same general idea.

She tried imitating the moves that she had seen in anime and video games, and found that it worked quite well. She made a horizontal slash at the creature, which split in half. "Cleanly" would not be the right word. Some sort of greenish slime was leaking out of it. It wasn't even blood...

One of the other two zombies started lumbering towards her. When she saw it, she quickly jumped to the side, and it fell forward onto the ground. She stabbed it through the back.

As she was fighting, more zombies were appearing. This really was like a video game, and it was somehow familiar. Then she realized. Baljhet Mountains. She knew she had heard that before.

"Is this... Castlevania?" Konata asked.

"I... suppose you could say that, yes," Jason responded. "We're not concerned with Dracula for today, we're just using his minions for practice. I come to this universe all the time, it's great."

"Wait, we're in a video game then?"

"Not quite... It's a universe identical to the one in Castlevania, but not exactly inside of a video game."

"I don't get this. What are you saying?"

"Behind you," he remarked.

"Huh?" She turned around, in time to see yet another creature attempting to grab her. She swung half-blindly at it, and it fell to pieces on the ground with more of that weird green stuff oozing out of them.

"I realize you have a lot of questions, but let's wait until we get back," Jason said.

She did indeed have a lot of questions, like why her hair had turned blue... Everything else almost made sense, but that was a bit much.

For about another hour she fought a seemingly endless army of the undead, realizing that it was surprisingly easy. This was pretty awesome, she decided. Jason stood back and watched her the entire time, never once actually assisting her. He occasionally stepped to the side when a zombie set its sights on him, and it would stumble off, missing him completely. Finally he spoke up.

"Hey, looks like we're out of time for today. Want to head back?"

"Um... sure." She was almost out of breath.

She handed the sword back to him, the blade now covered in green slime and small chunks of who knows what. She watched as it flashed bright white and disappeared into thin air in his hand.

"Cool, how'd you do that?"

"Simple magic, I'll have to teach you sometime. It's best not to have to carry around weapons and supplies with you. Not to mention if your dad found them in your room or something," he added.

He used that device that wasn't really a cell phone again, the mountains faded away just like they had appeared and they arrived back in...

"Wait. What?" Konata said.

She thought he had said they were going to return to the real world, but everything looked... well, like an anime come to life. Jason was almost recognizable... His eyes were larger, they were the same shade of dark brown as his hair. Konata looked at her own hair, which was still blue. Maybe that was normal to the people here, wherever here was.

"We're back," Jason said. "Probably looks a little different, but you'll get used to it. Trust me."

Did he just say they were back? As in her own universe? Looking around, Konata could tell that this was in fact the same location in Washimiya that they had left from, but at the same time it was like being in a stylized drawing of it.

"What... happened?"

"It's a little hard to explain. I'll do the best I can," he started. "We were just in a universe that was like the one in the Castlevania games, which is regarded as 'fictional.' This is your universe, which matches the one in the Lucky Star anime and manga. The spell that Eclipse uses to travel between worlds is based on how 'fictional' universes are known to outside observers, and that causes a world like this to appear to anyone who's been outside like it does in the anime."

She had no idea what he had just said. "Sorry, I'm not quite understanding all of this... I live in an anime?"

Jason tried to think of a better way to explain. "In a way, yes. But it's still a real universe. I don't fully understand how the system works, but my job is just to use it. Eclipse hires other people to develop this technology. Some sort of combination of magic with computers..."

Konata looked all around her. Everything was different now... The sky, the buildings, not to mention herself and Jason. It was more than just a little disorienting.

Suddenly she realized what had been so strange about those mountains. It had been a bit of a subtle change, but everything had been in the 3-D graphic style of those Castlevania games. Of course. She hadn't noticed it just because she wasn't expecting something like that. It was close enough to real life for her to just barely notice the change.

"It may take some getting used to, but trust me, everything's fine -"

"This is awesome!" Konata exclaimed with a huge smile.

"Eh? Of... course it is." For most people, they needed some time to come to terms with something like this, but Jason remembered who this was. Konata would be excited about this, wouldn't she? She had always acted like she lived in an anime, even before she had known that she actually was.

"Just remember that nothing has changed for anyone else. You'll have to act like everything's the same. None of your friends can know about this," Jason explained.

Konata imagined trying to tell Kagami how their life, this whole world, was all a popular anime series in some alternate universe. That would be a laugh. Speaking of which, what would Kagami (and everyone else, for that matter) look like now? Suddenly Konata was looking forward to going to school tomorrow.

"Well, if you have any questions, we'll take the train back. I'll tell you whatever you want to know," Jason said.

As they started back towards the train station, Konata really noticed how disorienting it was to be in a three-dimensional world in a two-dimensional style. It almost made her dizzy. Not to mention she could barely recognize her surroundings anymore.

"Well, about my hair..."

"Oh, that. It looks blue now, doesn't it?"

"Can anyone else see it? I mean, it's awesome having blue hair and all, but I can't exactly go to school like this."

"Things have always looked this way for me. You get used to it. And as for everyone else, you'll look just the same as always to them."

A few people passed them as they walked. All of them had normal hair colors, typical brown or black, but at least nobody was staring at her. Good, that was one thing she wouldn't have to worry about.

In manga and anime, weren't there usually just a handful of characters with strange hair colors? Most of the time it was never acknowledged. Because of the style you never questioned it; it was something that was just there.

"You said that this is called Lucky Star, right? What's it about?" she asked. That was what really interested her. She had such a normal life, what was there to make a manga and an anime out of? There wasn't even any romance! Although there was Miyuki-chan... Who wouldn't want to read about someone so moe?

"Well, it's your life, so you would know that better than anyone, wouldn't you?" he said. "Pretty much just random scenes from your everyday life, in yonkoma format. The manga is serialized in a few magazines. Comptiq, Shonen Ace..."

"Wait, I read both of those. There's nothing like that in them."

"Not in the ones you read, of course, but in other universes..."

"How many other universes are there, anyway?"

"Who knows? Research on all these different places are another branch of Eclipse. Right now it's looking like an infinite amount," Jason said. "And just about any work of fiction you can think of actually exists in at least one of them. Not just anime and games, but books, movies, everything."

An infinite number of possible realities, opportunities to be a part of any story she had ever read or watched... Not to mention this whole Lucky Star thing. And not even two hours ago this day had been completely normal.

The train to Saitama arrived, and a small group of people boarded it with them. They took a seat towards the back and continued to talk quietly, the few other passengers taking little notice anyway.

"This is a lot of information to cover. You feel like you get it?" Jason asked.

Konata sat back in her seat and watched out the window at the entire world that had changed. There was an instinctive feeling that everyone must be staring at her, but they weren't… Like Jason had said, they were completely unaware of any of the changes. It was just her, then. She was feeling a little exhausted from the fighting, and still sorting out her thoughts about this whole Eclipse business. "I think so... So we can just go into whatever anime I want?"

"Not quite. I'll let you choose where we go for training, if you want, but it has to be somewhere that we can practice fighting on plenty of enemies without causing too much interference. Or getting killed."

"What?" Konata realized she should have known there was a risk of death. After all, this organization was out there fighting all sorts of evil forces. Still… it wasn't something that she had thought of immediately.

"This is a dangerous job. There's always that risk, so just remember to be careful," he said with little emotion. He was used to it, after all. "Anyway, you did pretty well today. I guess you can finally put all your athletic talent to good use."

He really seemed to know a lot about her. More than he had ever let on before, at least. Obviously that was all part of his job. Had it all come from the anime and manga, or were there people all over the place from different universes watching her?

The train pulled into the Saitama station just then, so she didn't have time to ask him about those.

"So... You're alright on your own? I know you're still getting used to this whole anime-style thing, but it's still the same neighborhood," he said.

"Yeah. Thanks," Konata replied as she left the train. It was the same place after all, wasn't it? "I'll see you tomorrow, then."

Tomorrow, at school… Konata couldn't even imagine how that was going to go.

She stepped off the train, feeling a bit more used to everything by now... She managed to find her way back to her own house. Not too hard, but considering the circumstances, it was something to be proud of.

"Hey, Dad, I'm home!" she called.

"Oh, hey, Konata," he said.

Konata went into the living room where his voice was coming from... and stopped. So her dad had blue hair now, too. Other than herself, he was the first person she had seen with any sort of unusual hair color. He was sitting down watching some police drama on TV. Remember not to stare, she reminded herself. Jason had told her to act like nothing's different...

"I tried to call your cell phone, but you didn't answer," Sojiro said. "Where were you, anyway?"

Konata's first thought was that her phone had been with her during that entire inter-universal incident, but then she remembered she had just left it in her room as always. There's one excuse that just made itself up.

"Y-Yeah, I think I forgot my phone again. I... stopped at Gamers after I went to visit Kagami," she said. Just an excuse to account for that hour spent in a completely different universe. In Europe, no less. In anime or manga where characters are leading secret lives, they always came up with good alibis to cover for them. Better start thinking of some. "Sorry if I'm a bit late."

"You forgot your phone again?"

"I'll remember it next time," she said as she went into her room. Actually, it would be best if she kept on leaving it here.

Konata turned her attention to her shelves of manga, the games stacked up next to the PlayStation, all of the merchandise displayed in various places... Jason had said she could choose where to train next. The options were literally limitless. Turning to look at her computer, she remembered that her online friends were probably waiting for her.

She logged on, noticing the graphics on the computer screen still looked the same. Honestly she hadn't been sure what to expect, but it made sense in a way. As much sense as anything could now, at least.

konakona: im back

gatongo: rofl wb

They were grinding in a fairly easy dungeon. Konata, easily the most addicted, was a good two levels above Yamanka, and three levels ahead of Gatongo.

She changed her character's hair color to blue. Just a style preference.

Hmm... Fighting these goblins in the game didn't look that hard, did it? She watched her onscreen avatar as she fought a few at a time and collected some gold. Yes, this wouldn't be too hard in real life. Although they would be faster than the zombies she had fought today, and they had weapons of their own, but the challenge made it even more appealing. And if she could learn some attack magic in addition to swordplay... She hadn't had much time to practice on the zombies, so she hoped for more time on the next occasion.

Konata realized that she was thinking more about real life than the game, which was uncommon, but... now which one was which?

Change is good, she decided. Very good.