Episode Two: The Dangers of a Y Chromosome
The first thing that stuck out was that the back of his head hurt. Then he realized that his entire body was sore, and he lay on the ground eagle-spread. His muscles ached, but Nazo still felt so warm and comfortable. A breeze brought in the faint smell of the ocean and he felt sand underneath his body. The sun bathed down on him, and his damp hair had already dried. For once, it was not raining. Idly he wondered if he were dreaming or not and turned over on his side and let out a loud snore. If he were, this snore would wake up Nari and she'd whack him until he woke up.
"Well, well, what do we have here?"
That didn't sound like Nari's voice. Probably a dream then.
"Seems like a man and a woman from the looks of it, although we don't know for sure that they aren't both men."
Huh? Nari was definitely a girl, he thought drowsily to himself. If she wasn't, then, well. He'd been fooled for a good sixteen years. Nazo let himself continue to drift in that dreamlike state. As he lay there, the voices continued to poke at him and question his being. He yawned and draped his arm on his forehead, frowning as he did that. Great. He finally got to rest for a bit only to be continually bothered by all this nonsensical incessant chatter.
"Oy! This here is a fine specimen! I haven't seen someone like him before!"
"Should we treat him?"
"What about the girl next to him?"
"We can ignore the girl; perhaps she can be taken in as one of us later. Preferably after she runs the gauntlet though and has her sex checked. That will let us know for sure."
"Hey! What's that squirrel doing here?"
Nazo stirred and shifted back to his original position. A soft, cold hand was running along his cheek. "What the hell?" he murmured groggily as he forced his heavy eyelids open for a few seconds and saw a glimmering orb right in his line of sight. It seemed like he really was in a dream right now, but always women had never approached him in those dreams; it had always been him doing a lame attempt on hitting on a hot girl. Perhaps the women he heard were in reality men with just extremely high voices. "Who the heck are you? Stop jabbing me, will you?"
"What strange clothes he has," the feminine voice murmured.
"What is that transparent metal on his eyes?" someone else asked.
"Doesn't matter what it is," another voice said as the owner poked him in the ribs. "He must still have his eyes gouged out, same as the other men who find their way to this island."
At the words "gouged out," Nazo snapped awake. He abruptly sat up and looked around him. A crowd of fierce-looking women had formed a half-circle while he slept, and they drew their weapons (an assortment that would have made any samurai proud) when they saw him up, pointing them down at him. Their outfits reminded him of Street Fighter, and all of them had their hair looped up on top of their heads twice or in buns. This was a dream, right? It had to be a dream because only a dream would transport him from modern Japan to some kind of beach paradise, only this wasn't a paradise because these women looked like they wanted to kill him. He spotted Nari was lying near to him, and an immense feeling of relief traversed through his body. His sister was safe. He knew it was selfish of him, but he wanted someone familiar with him in this strange new world he had apparently landed himself in.
A black-haired woman stepped forward and unsheathed her knife. "Now stay still, you handsome thing. It won't hurt for long.."
Nazo started backing away as fast as he could, edging carefully toward his sister at the same time. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the edge of a forest. If he could just grab Nari quickly and run into the trees, there was a chance they could escape. "What the hell do you plan on doing with that knife?" he asked.
She smiled, and Nazo immediately disliked the hungering way she was smiling at him. "You're a man," she said with a satisfied air. "And all men who arrive on this island must suffer the same treatment."
"Y'mean.." Nazo said, not quite believing what he was hearing.
"N-Nazo?" Nari suddenly asked. "Where are we?"
"All I know is we're getting out of here!" Nazo quickly made up his mind and seized his sister's hand. He started to run when he was stopped however by a spear to the back of his neck.
"What do you think you're doing?" the first woman asked. "You just arrived. Don't leave so soon. Stay for a while." She snapped her fingers, and one of the women stepped forward and wrestled Nari from Nazo. She cried sharply before a hand was clamped over her mouth.
Desperately Nazo made a grab for her, and the tip of the spear pierced the first layer of skin. He felt a trickle start to go down his neck. "I think I'll pass on your offer," he said with a grimace. "I'm sure there are plenty of other men who might be interested. Masochistic ones, at least."
"No, I think you're the one we want." She snapped her fingers again, and two more women left the circle and clamped their hands down on his wrists. His arms were pulled behind his back, restraining him successfully. They jerked him around so he was back to facing the group. Nazo tried to fight free, but the spear made another jab at him, this time at his shoulder. He bit down on his lip to prevent himself from crying out. "Now stay still," the woman said with a snicker. "We wouldn't want to have to do this twice now, would we?"
"I don't even-"
An explosion rocked the ground, and a cloud of smoke swirled around them. The women coughed and he heard shouts of warning about a bandit. Nazo felt the grips on him loosen, and he yanked himself free, stumbling as he did so. "Nari!" he screamed. "Nari! Where are y-" Someone snatched him from the side, cutting him off. The scene flashed away, and once again, he saw blackness.
x
When he opened his stinging eyes, the sun almost blinded him. He shielded his eyes with his arm and realized that once again, he was lying down. As his sight adjusted, he realized that he was lying on the forest floor, which was blanketed with pine needles. Nazo sat up and gasped as he caught his breath. His lower lip was still tingling. Cautiously his hand touched the back of his neck. It came away bloody. He checked behind his shoulder. Sore. The jab hadn't quite managed to pierce through his clothing. Barely! He had just barely managed to escape with his life! And why? All because he had the Y-chromosome!
"Shit, that was crazy," he swore and shook his head. Where the heck had he landed? And why was he here? The last he remembered, he had been at the café, ready to grab Nari's cappuccino. How had he gone from the café to a wacky place like this? Was it the book Nari had been looking at? But how was that possible? There was nothing in the world that could take them into a book! Nazo shook his head again. None of this made sense. That meant it was all a dream. But how? But the women had acted awfully strange for a dream. Regular dreams didn't cause pain, did they, and here he was with a pounding head and stinging neck. Worse, if this wasn't a dream, how was he going to get back? He still had bills to pay, his job to go back to!
Hell, he'd handle things one at a time. If he worried about everything at once, he'd get nothing done. First things first though. The women who had attacked Nari and him. Nazo rubbed his forehead. "What was up with all those women?" he asked out loud. "What do they have against men?!"
"Quite a lot," someone said from behind him, interrupting his thoughts.
Nazo whirled around so quickly he barely managed to catch himself from faceplanting in the dirt.
It was a girl. Simply a girl. She was fiddling with something around her neck, and her back was to him. As she turned around to face him, her dark blue eyes met his own and she smiled. Nazo instinctively tensed and he inched away. Great. Had he just jumped from the frying pan into boiling water? However, the manner she carried herself, the way she was smiling at him, was nothing like the women from earlier and he wondered if they could even be part of the same group. From what he could see, the girl's hair reached down to just above the middle of her back. They were actually tied into two ponytails with large blue beads as makeshift hairties. Her hair was all white, with the exception of turquoise tinges in her bangs (which were brushed to the side) and two locks framing her face. The locks each had two miniature versions of the blue beads in them. A brilliant blue robe trailed down to her knees, and she wore white pants underneath.
With as much dignity as possible for someone who had no idea what he was doing and had nearly eaten a mouthful of pine needles and dirt, he demanded, "Who the heck are you?"
"My name is Haien," the girl said and grinned. "I help strange men who arrive on this island escape to safety."
"Escape? Why do we need to escape?" Nazo drew in a deep breath to steady himself. He needed to keep his ability to reason here. "We're men! What's wrong with being male?"
She chuckled. "Did you hit your head or something? Didn't you know? This is Nyosei, the place where no man is safe."
"Nyosei?" he asked.
"Yeah," she said. "Women rule this place. They're the warriors here, and the men are their sex slaves. They're sometimes turned into other useful things, but let's not go there right now."
Nazo winced. That was a harsh way to put it. Direct though. "Kind of like with the Amazons?"
Haien tipped her head to one side. "Amazons?"
"Never mind," he said hastily. He wished he'd never mentioned the damn word. She was staring at him curiously and he turned his head to avoid her gaze. Seriously, he felt like he had stepped back into an old Chinese comic.
He froze. Wait. Where was his sister?
Frantically he wracked his mind, trying to recall the events that had transpired. Then he remembered that damned book. Something about a girl receiving fantastic power and the story itself being an incantation. The pounding in his head stopped. Did that mean his sister?
"Where are you from?" Haien asked inquisitively. "Can you get back there on your own? I mean, unless you really do want to become a sex slave or something."
"Tokyo," Nazo muttered distractedly. His hand slid from his neck. What was going on? The sense of foreboding returned, stronger than ever.
"Tokyo? You sure?"
Nazo looked up. "I've lived there for twenty years; I'm pretty sure that's where I'm from."
"No need to take offense," Haien muttered. "I've just never heard of that place."
"Where's the girl who was with me?" Nazo asked.
Haien frowned. "There.. was no girl with you. I didn't see one."
"What?"
She bit her lip. "All I saw was the women about to maim you, so I threw a bomb, grabbed you, and teleported you here. There really was no one else."
Nazo stared at her, unable to take in what she had just said. The image of the book in his hand and how he had felt back then flashed into his mind. The frightening sensation began to drown out all other thoughts. "You're kidding! You mean my sister is still in that hellish place? They're going to kill her!"
"She should be safe," Haien cut in. "Your sister's a girl, so all they'll do is make her run the gauntlet."
"Gauntlet?!"
She flinched from the strength of his words and for a moment, he felt terrible. He slapped his forehead. "I'm sorry," he said, his tone softer. "I'm just. I don't know."
"Don't worry," she assured him. "I'll go back and fetch her. What does she look like?"
"I'm coming with you," Nazo said grimly. "I don't trust her with anyone but me."
She paused. "Are you sure? It's not safe for you if you get caught."
"I'm sure," he said firmly.
"I see," was all she said, which he took as affirmation that she'd let him come along with her.
"How are you going to find her?" Nazo wanted to know.
"Don't worry," she assured him. "I'll go back and fetch her. Hopefully they'll still be there."
A flash of just what might be going on if they were indeed still there chilled him. "I'm coming with you," he said.
She paused. "Are you sure? It's not safe for you if you get caught."
"I'm sure," he said firmly.
"I see," was all she said, which he took as affirmation that she'd let him come along with her. She started to move away and he followed right after her.
"How are we going to get her in time?" Nazo wanted to know. "And even get her away?"
She smiled devilishly. "Teleport. That's how I got you out of there. Visualize a place, and I can teleport myself and anyone else I touch with me. Not everyone likes it, since it can make your stomach lurch, but hey. It can be pretty handy. Still want to come?"
She was like a sci-fi character. Her odd-looking hair, her Chinese-esque clothes, even this so-called teleportation power of hers. He had never heard of anyone with special powers. All right, there had been that blind guy who had taught himself how to echolocate, but teleportation? How did he know his arms weren't going to get separated from his body? Where did his body parts go when he was teleported? Did they fly out and rearrange themselves in the new location? What if something didn't rearrange itself correctly, like his- he flushed. Maybe best not to think about that. Still, she had rescued him, and that had to mean something. He nodded.
"Let's go then," Haien said and took Nazo's hand. He refrained from flinching, although he was acutely aware that this was the first time he was holding a girl's hand. Embarrassed, he turned away just in time to see her lips move silently, and then he was jerked through an abyss of light.
Next Episode: Explanation: It's definitely time for Nari and Nazo to understand just what kind of a mess they have gotten themselves into..
A/N: So. Despite the.. concept of the story, I am not making this into a crack fic. I am legitimately trying to make this into a serious fanfic. And no, the story won't take place solely in Nyosei.
Hope you enjoyed this chapter~ and a review is always much appreciated, even if it is short. x3