dREAMSEEd

Volume 1: Alice Through The Looking Glass

“StrengthFuryMadness”

Tomoko made her way up the debris-strewn corridor as fast as she could. The lengthy skirt of her dress threatened to trip her up if she were not careful of how she moved in it. Twice, her healed boots had nearly thrown her face-first to the deck because she had not been paying attention to where she was stepping. Her large-lensed glasses thumped slightly against the bridge of her small nose as each hurried step she took toward Kitada forced them to jump up and down. Small droplets of sweat beaded her forehead and the breath escaping from her mouth was sounded raspy in her ears. From behind, Arisu’s shouts for her to ‘stop’ and to ‘come back’ echoed through the devastated car. Her cheeks reddened slightly as a feeling of warmth rushed through her. As improper as the short-haired girl’s displays of emotion and incredibly flagrant use of her given name were, they still touched her deeply.

In front of her, Tomoko could see that Kitada lay sprawled across the deck, motionless. All around the ebon-haired teen, both jagged slabs of torn metal and shattered ice chunks of assorted sizes were scattered wherever she looked. The entire area looked like a warzone. It vaguely brought back memories of the televised images she had seen when she was younger; showing the brutal aftermath of the Numbers’ Rebellion, which happened in Chiba about seven years ago. It was stated by their leader in a recorded video transmission, which aired after the attack, that what they had done was a direct result of the Christmas Day Massacre. A blatant show of force meant to tell the world that the Transhumans held no fear of humans. Even up to the present day, the city of Chiba was nothing more than a shadow of its former self. Over half of the metropolis was nothing more than a burnt out husk of ruined buildings and scorched earth. Tomoko had only been eight then but the images of the destruction reaped by the group of Transhuman terrorists had been forever burned into her mind. As well as what she had lost to it.

Finally arriving next to Kitada’s fallen form, Tomoko quickly knelt beside the girl. Reaching down, she gently took hold of her shoulders and slowly rolled her over. Tomoko’s breath caught. There were numerous cuts and scrapes all over Kitada’s face; blood from a rather nasty gash across her forehead practically covering that side of it. Eyes moving down from her head, Tomoko looked over the rest of the teenager’s body. It was in no better shape. There was a deep laceration in her shoulder and at least two pieces of twisted metal embedded in her left arm and right thigh. Tomoko could feel her hands beginning to tremble. Was she too late? Was the girl…was she already…dead? A surprised cough and sudden gasp made her jump. Tomoko’s light-brown eyes grew wide behind her glasses as Kitada’s fluttered open slowly.

“Oh th-thank goodness,” Tomoko began as a relieved smile curved her lips. “I-I thought th-that…that you h-had not sur –”

“Get away from her, girl.”

Tomoko’s heartbeat quickened almost immediately when she heard that voice. Reluctantly looking way from the injured teen, her head slowly turned to face the man responsible. Large framed and stout, he was tall with close-cropped dark hair that was beginning to gray. His face was clean-shaven and hard, nearly black eyes as cold as a snake’s and piercing as daggers. He was garbed much like the Rorschach that Tomoko had seen on the news reports and media specials; dressed in a loose-fitting, black bodysuit and soft jika-tabi. It was a small wonder why most people in Japan considered the group to be modern-day ‘ninja’. That faint red glow of power from before was still surrounding his body. The metal nearest to him seemed to warp and bend as he walked past. Each step that the Rorschach took toward herself and Kitada only forced that much more fear and uncertainty into her heart.

“Didn’t you hear me,” he question brusquely, never once pausing in his steps. “Move away from her. I won’t tell you again. The next time, I’ll let my actions speak for me.”

Tomoko closed her eyes and took a deep, calming breath. She had to focus. She could not let fear guide her actions. Or anger. Especially anger. She could not give in to that! She had to show resolve; show strength. If she did not, Kitada would die.

“Y-you…you R-Rorschach are…are a-all the s-same,” she stammered out, reopening her eyes and looking up at the approaching man. They were much more confident and calmer than her voice. “Y-you force your…y-your warped p-perceptions of…of…j-justice on all th-those a…around you. You h-have no…no care of h-how the lives that you…that you take a-affect the ones who…who are left behind! Y-you…you are no better th-than…than the Numbers!”

At those words, the man did stop. A scowl furrowed his dark eyebrows. “You’re comparing me to those…those terrorists?!”

Rising and moving to take a protective position in front of the fallen Kitada, Tomoko faced down the Rorschach man with composed eyes. H-Have to be calm.

“I…I merely sp-speak what I believe to b-be the truth.”

With a smile, the Rorschach resumed his steady stride towards the two girls, saying, “Then maybe I’ll beat that truth out of you before I kill that murdering bitch you’re trying to protect.”

Taking another deep breath, Tomoko smoothly raised a hand up to her oversized glasses. Using a forefinger to push them further up onto the bridge of her slender nose, she raised her other arm and pointed it at the approaching man; palm outward.

“Y-You can try,” was all she said in return. The composed words, like the expression on her face, carried more than just a hint of certainty.

+O+

Behind Tomoko, a pair of distant, dark brown eyes grew wider at each and every word that she had heard come from Tomoko’s lips. From her place further down the corridor, Arisu felt her mouth preparing to open, intent on releasing another scream at a girl who had apparently lost all leave of her senses. What in the world was the girl thinking? How could she even hope to rescue Kitada from that Rorschach?! Her mind was alight with panicked thoughts. What does she think she’s doing, egging that Rorschach on like that? Has she lost her mind?! I’ve got to do something! I have to stop Tomoko! If I don’t, she’ll get herself killed!

It was bad enough that the girl had run off and left Arisu there to worry over and babysit Kanna, but now she seemed to be actively trying to provoke the Rorschach into a fight. A Rorschach! Arisu felt herself shudder mildly and it wasn’t because of the lingering cold of Kitada’s shattered ice wall.

Unlike the undisciplined thugs that made up the Scythes or the fanatical terrorists who comprised the Numbers, the Rorschach managed to hover in that morally ambiguous ‘gray area’. They didn’t hide behind any kind of false bravado or use fear tactics and senseless murder of thousands of innocents to validate their actions. No, they were driven by a single tenet, a single belief that directed how they moved. “The guilty MUST be punished.” It was in the name of justice that they acted; a warped, perverted sense of misplaced duty to dispense what they viewed to be ‘righteous judgment’. To the Rorschach, justice and death were the same thing. There was no middle ground and absolutely no room for mercy or compassion.

And that, more than anything else, was the main reason why Arisu feared for the girl’s safety.

“TOMOKO,” Arisu hollered again, now up on her hands and knees. “TOMOKO! STOP PUSHING HIM!! HE’S A RORSCHACH!! HE’LL KILL YOU!!! PLEASE…STOP AND COME BACK BEFORE IT’S TOO LA –”

Unexpectedly, a purplish glow of energy sprung up around her frail-seeming body. And just like it had with Kitada, it erupted into a brilliant bonfire of swirling energy. That feeling of being crushed and smothered returned quickly to Arisu. Beside her, she heard a small grunt coming from Kanna. It pretty much confirmed that what she felt wasn’t just a figment of her imagination. Her eyebrows very nearly crawled halfway up her forehead.

Wh-what…?!

“Yoroi!!!” the wiry girl yelled, leaving both Arisu and Kanna wide-eyed and astonished. Even with the intervening distance, Arisu could tell that the Rorschach man seemed somewhat taken aback by the blaze of power suddenly twisting and contorting around Tomoko. His expression would have made Arisu smile if she wasn’t so shaken and stunned herself.

T-Tomo, she thought blankly. How…? Why…?

Within the corona of amethyst fire, the bespeckled girl quickly raised the arm she had been directing toward the thickly built man in front of her. Without warning, the purplish energy swirled and flared outward even more before it expanded, dimmed and broke apart into countless dazzling embers. They danced around Tomoko like thousands of purple-hued fireflies fluttering on the wind.

From her position on the floor next to an equally astounded Kanna, Arisu stared at the girl’s back like she had never seen her before. All that time she had been trying to protect Shiza Tomoko, thinking that the frail-seeming girl was nothing more than some overly smart, booknerd. All that time, she had thought her meek and in need of saving. All that time…she had been wrong. The purple-hued light glittered mesmerizingly in Arisu’s vacant eyes. Her lips quivered out whispered words in a dull, empty voice.

“T-Tomo-chan, a-are…are you a… C-can you…can you u-use the…the s-same power as that…that girl too…? L-like…me…?” Weakly, Arisu pulled an arm from the ground. Turning it over as she did, her expressionless eyes fell on the small, crescent moon-shaped mark on the bottom of her wrist. She then returned her vacant gaze to the lean girl wreathed in angry, lavender dots of light. “Just…j-just what in the hell are we?!”

In front of Arisu’s dazed, dark-brown eyes, the fiery motes of energy that had been suspended listlessly around Tomoko were beginning to crystallize. With no hesitation shown, the slender girl with twin braided ponytails brought her arm down just as quickly as she had raised it. Forefinger the only thing extended, Tomoko pointed it again in the direction of the Rorschach man. Immediately, the crystallized embers of shimmering brilliance flew from around her slim form; drawn to an area a few feet between both her and the man bent on killing Kitada. The glassy particles collected first against the ruined floor of the passenger car and then swiftly built up from there. To Arisu, they seemed to be amassing themselves together much faster than they did with Kitada when she had formed her katana.

Within the span of mere moments, the empty space that had existed between Tomoko and the Rorschach was occupied. The stunned expression slipped away from Arisu’s face like a festival day kitsune mask that had not been tied on properly. Beside her, Kanna gasped in what sounded to her ears like awe overlain with a hint of fear. Not that she could blame the girl. Afterall, it wasn’t everyday that you saw a fully crystallized, seven foot tall suit of samurai armor materialized out of nowhere!

Arisu watched wordlessly as Tomoko assumed an unfamiliar stance; sliding her booted right foot back in a vague arc to an angled position behind her while evenly distributing her weight amongst both legs. As she bent her knees slightly, the long skirt of her dress tightening, Tomoko pulled the arm she had been pointing toward the Rorschach back and cocked it at her side. At the same time, she raised her left into a similar position that her right arm had been in before drawing it back – stretched out before her, pointing toward the crystalline back of the tall armor standing between her and the black-garbed man. The palm of that hand was facing outward with her forefinger, index finger and thumb extended.

It was at that moment that Arisu realized something. She was trembling. But it wasn’t because of what had happened. It wasn’t because of the disaster the happiest day of her life had become. It wasn’t even because of the gut-tearing fear that was screaming at her mind; telling her to get up, grab Kanna and run as fast and as hard as she could. No, it wasn’t anything like that. She was trembling for one reason and one reason only.

Shiza Tomoko…and that monstrosity of crystal that she had brought into the world.

+O+

Tightening her body, Tomoko stared down the Rorschach. In front of her, Yoroi glittered sparsely in the weak light of the setting sun shining dully through the passenger car’s large corridor windows. Her face was a bastion of calm and concentration. It was the exact opposite of what she was feeling inside. Euphoria and doubt. Uncertainty was flooding into her mind like water from a ruptured dam. Could she beat him? How strong was he? What should her first attack be? Those and other questions assaulted her mind so fast that they were beginning to make her head spin. Arisu’s earlier screaming had not helped to alleviate any of her insecurities. And the elation that the Quintessence boiling through her body brought was only adding to her problems. I…I have to remain calm.

Hesitantly taking another deep, reassuring breath, she abruptly pushed all those questions and other indecisive thoughts away and did what she could to ignore the ecstasy brought about by the power flooding through her. Such distractions would only get her hurt or worse. After she had managed to compose herself accordingly, Tomoko rigidly settled into her stance. Focusing her attention completely on the Rorschach, the willowy girl quickly addressed the red-glowing man facing down against her materialized translucent samurai armor.

“I w-will ask you this…this one time. Leave. Please. I…I have no wish t-to harm you.”

The weathered lips of the Rorschach pulled into a tight smile. “That’s too bad because I have no intention of leaving and every intention of killing that brat behind you. So, I guess that means you’re just going to have to harm me. Doesn’t it, girl?”

“I…I warned you.”

Those words not even yet clear of her lips; Tomoko’s arms were suddenly a blur of motion. In smooth, crisp movements, she rotated her outstretched left arm and bent it upward – palm opposite her concentrating face and extended fingers pointed toward the ceiling. At the same moment, she thrust her right arm out with her hand open and outstretched. The pale, purplish glow from before sprung up around her as she suddenly shouted, “GO!”

Without warning, the crystal samurai armor came to life. It rushed forward, movements incredibly fluid and graceful. Behind it, Tomoko quickly flicked up the ring and pinky finger on her left hand. The glassy armor swiftly launched into a ferociously sudden punch that seemed squarely aimed at the Rorschach’s head.

To his credit, he kept his composure. Crimson glow around him intensifying, the Rorschach man stepped back as the blow from Yoroi raced toward him. Abruptly, the metal deck beneath his feet groaned loudly and a split second afterward the flooring directly in front of him stretched oddly and then heaved upward. The crystalline fist of Yoroi smashed hard into his hastily erected barricade of solid metal; impact denting it outward by almost a foot. But the metal had not stopped the blow completely. It was still bending forward, inching closer and closer to where the Rorschach stood. The composed look on his face evaporated.

Back behind her crystal armor, Tomoko clenched her open right hand tightly. Even as its left fist was being slowed by the sheet of metal that had unexpectedly appeared in defense of the Rorschach man, Yoroi continued to move forward a number of steps and then exploded into a stiff front kick with its right leg. Because the black-garbed man had only raised enough of the deck to defend against the punch, it left plenty of open space for another attack to slip through. The kick connected solidly in the man’s exposed hip, momentum of the blow throwing him off his feet and sending him crashing to the floor face-first.

Stunned by not only his head slamming against the cold, metal deck but the speed and impact of the kick, the Rorschach looked up with a dazed, angry expression. Saying nothing, he clenched his teeth and ignored the throbbing pain radiating from his hip. The glow surrounding his body suddenly erupted into a literal bonfire of released energy. Narrowing his dark eyes toward the pellucid armor, the Rorschach raised his arms from the deck and then slammed his hands back down; palms open, fingers outstretched. The entire length of the passenger car began to shudder violently.

“G…Good, but not good enough, girl.”

As Tomoko struggled to maintain her stance and balance, the metal of the deck all around Yoroi rippled and wavered like a light wind blowing over water. By the time she realized what was happening, it was too late to do anything about it. She could suddenly hear her heart pounding loud in her ears. That uncertainty from before had returned. As if it had been liquefied, the metal of the floor rose up with mercury-like fluidity and surrounded the crystal samurai armor on all sides. Before she could even think about pulling Yoroi out of harm’s way, it was swallowed up whole by the softened floor of the passenger car. Behind her oversized lenses, Tomoko’s eyes widened fearfully. It was her turn to lose composure.

Bloodied and bruised face baring a grimaced smirk, the Rorschach slowly began to push himself from the deck. The roiling scarlet flames of power surrounding him that climbed high enough to lick against the ceiling of the car were not lessening by a hair. The left side of his forehead was a dark purple – nearly black – and puckered up from his reddened skin. A light line of blood traced a crooked path down his chin from the split flesh of his lip. Another rivulet of crimson slowly flowed from his nostrils. The emotion generating that twisted smirk was not being born from any sense of hidden merriment. It sent an uncomfortable chill running up her spine. What was she going to do now?

“So,” he gloated, rising to his feet and resuming a slow but confident stride toward the seven foot tall lump of hardened metal resting between him and Tomoko. “Is that your best shot, girl? Is that all those bastards at OrCHARD taught you? If so, that’s really a shame. You’ve got a lot of potential. But in the end, that’s all it is. Just potential. I told you before that I was going to kill the Kiome girl. I also told you that I was going to beat that idiot truth that you hold so dear out of you. I’m a man of my word. When I’m done with you, you’re going to wish that I’d been one of the Numbers.”

Now standing beside the encapsulated form of Yoroi, the Rorschach man placed an open hand against the cold metal surface of the entombed armor. His smirk became a wide-lipped smile. Tomoko could feel her body begin to tremble.

“Don’t worry, girl,” he blustered, noticing her slip in composure. “I’m not going to kill you. You’ve done nothing to get our attention like that bitch behind you. But I don’t think your mother is going to appreciate the beating I’m about to give you. Maybe if she had raised you to know the real meaning of justice, maybe if she had taught you to respect what we do; you wouldn’t be here right now.” The man allowed himself a dark smile before continuing. “If you need someone to blame for this; blame her for being a piss-poor mother.”

Since he had first encased Yoroi in a coffin of metal, Tomoko’s heart had been beating faster and faster behind her ribcage. The calm that she had forced down on herself had vanished. Not too long afterward, a deep, penetrating fear replaced it. Each and every subsequent step that the man took toward her had nearly made her take the same amount of steps back. Her resolve to aid the collapse teenager behind her had been the only thing rooting her feet in place. If not for that, she knew that she would have run away from the cruel man before her. So, remain she did. But even her resolve could not keep her body from shaking in terror.

However, that had changed.

In almost an instant, the situation had altered itself; and Tomoko’s emotions with it. The one thing that she had not wanted to happen was happening. She had no control over it. Not when the man’s words had cut her so deeply; slashing wickedly at a place of cherished memory so dear to her that she no longer cared about keeping herself calm. All the warnings that she had heard from her father about the ease of abusing the power she carried were quickly forgotten.

Tomoko could feel her heart beating faster. But this time, she knew it did so for an entirely different reason than before. The fear that she had been feeling had disappeared like a pin-pricked bubble; replaced with a growing heat stoked by a remembered smile of kindness and love. If her resolve had been sturdy before, it was now ironclad. Her body still trembled, but it was no longer doing so from fright of the man in front of her. No, Tomoko was shaking from anger.

“You ha…have no…no right,” she began in a voice shaky with emotion and rising fury. “Y-you have no r-right to say…to say such things a-about her! Y-YOU…WHO DID NOT EVEN KNOW HER!!!”

Those last words screamed out with more rage than emotion, Tomoko balled her fist and threw her arms out to her sides furiously. The purple field of luminous light surrounding her – her reiki – literally exploded into a hellish firestorm of unleashed energy. The force from it was so powerful that Kitada’s barely conscious form was thrown back haphazardly. She landed a few feet behind Tomoko in a limp heap, sliding loosely along the debris-strewn deck for a second or two before coming to a sluggish halt. Like a puppet with its strings cut, Kitada lay lifelessly against the floor only a short distance from the immobile bodies of Arisu and Kanna. The conflagration of ferocity that burned dangerously around the enraged girl made certain that they remained in their places flat against the passenger car’s deck. Whether they wanted to or not.

Heedless of the harm that her rage was causing to those she was trying to help, Tomoko narrowed her light-brown eyes treacherously at the Rorschach man rooted in that spot by the metal coffin containing Yoroi. The crimson bonfire that had been surrounding him was gone; completely smothered out and drowned by Tomoko’s eruption of anger-spawned might. His eyes were wide with disbelief. There might have even been a trace of fear in them, but she did not care. She would not care. He had no right! None whatsoever to say such things about her mother! NONE! To demean the woman who had been such an example of gentleness and warmth to her, to make light of her skills as a kind and loving parent; she would not stand for it! She would never forgive the man cowering before her for such an ignoble transgression! He would pay for his rude tongue!

Grinding her teeth down against one another furiously, Tomoko brought her arms together in front of her and then just as quickly pulled them apart. The sound of something hard and glassy slamming against metal reverberated through the corridor. The Rorschach man’s head jerked down in surprise. His dark eyes widened at the two large bulges that had suddenly appeared on both sides of the crystalline armor’s capsule-like prison. Doing what he could to recapture some of his lost poise, the man backed away steadily from the coffin of steel. As he did, the sides of the metal casket bulged outward again, that odd noise echoing loudly throughout the car. Across the space separating herself and the Rorschach, Tomoko glowered at him with utter disgust.

No, she spat out venomously in her mind. You…you will not escape! You will not run away! I will make you suffer for daring to profane my mother and her memory!

Anger pulsing through her like electricity through a live wire, she forced even more power into her reiki. The lavender inferno blazing around her blasted viciously outward again, very nearly swallowing up all of the remainder of the area surrounding her. Within the nightmarish, lilac beauty of the rage-wrought firestorm, Tomoko pulled her arms together a final time and then yanked them apart. There was a cacophonous sound of tearing metal radiating all throughout the passenger car’s ruined interior as the crystal arms of Yoroi ripped out of its one-time prison. Tomoko’s expression suddenly grew darker.

Without pause, she extended the first two fingers on both hands, which she then bent at the wrist. Sweeping them upward to where all four digits were pointed at the ceiling, Tomoko watched with a satisfied smirk as the translucent arms of Yoroi began to tear away the rest of its tomb. The shrieking of metal being torn apart piece by piece reverberated painfully through the train car, forcing those who could manage it to cover their ears. Maneuvering her right arm down to her side slowly, Tomoko sadistically jabbed her left one forward with both fingers protruding outward; pointing incriminatingly at the too-stunned-for-words Rorschach man. There was a final shriek of tearing metal as Yoroi tore completely free of its former prison and advanced rapidly on the powerless man.

Within her cocoon of lavender flames, Tomoko reveled in the twisted feelings of elation and euphoria that were rolling through her in waves as the pellucid armor roughly grabbed up the struggling man by the throat and slammed him hard into an adjacent wall. Meticulously, she began to crook the two fingers on her left hand; hooking them inward. The large hand of the crystalline samurai armor, enclosed around the Rorschach’s neck, constricted. Tomoko could see his eyes beginning to bulge even as his hands wrapped futilely around Yoroi’s thick wrist.

A crude smile slid oily across her pale lips. The intoxicating feeling of power raging both within and outside her body was only heightening the sickening joy that was slowly poisoning her mind. Somewhere down deep, she knew what she was experiencing was wrong. She knew that she should have released her power and allowed her reiki to dissipate after the atsuryoku it had produced muted out the Rorschach’s own. She knew well of the dangers that could come from forcing that much Quintessence into her reiki; of succumbing to the euphoric lust it created. Her father had told her as much during her training. But the power she called upon had not lessened. That, she had also learned from her father – when the surge of Quintessence reached a certain point, it would gradually begin to weaken and fade. However, that was not happening. It continued to flow through her, filling her with life and wonder while adding fuel to the angry fires that the man’s harsh, careless words had created. And she drank it all in, bathing in the exaltation it was granting her. Yet, she knew it was wrong.

“Wh-Why…are…are y-you hes…hesi… Why…are…y-you…hesitating…girl…?”

Tomoko’s fiery, light-brown eyes fell upon the source of the raspy words breaking through her weak inner struggle. Though ragged and filled with a need for much more air than he was receiving, the Rorschach’s broken sentence rung clear as a bell in her mind. Why was she hesitating? He deserved to have more than just the breath squeezed from his windpipes. He had insulted her mother; sullied her cherished memories of a kind and forgiving woman who had died much too soon to be fair. The Rorschach deserved what she was doing to him! He deserved the pain she was inflicting! He deserved much worse than her mind could conjure up! But if that was true…why was she hesitating?

“I… Wh-why…?” she questioned quietly to herself in a confused tone. What was she doing? “I…I cannot… I-I cannot do th-this… I-It is wron –”

Tomoko never had the chance to finish her sentence. Without warning, she felt the flood of Quintessence that had been coming from her body to feed the lilac bonfire around her suddenly just stop. Not even a second later, the flaring energy around her began to wane and die out. Abruptly, Tomoko felt naked and empty. She also felt somewhat lifeless. Exhaustion ruthlessly rushed in to fill the void left in the wake of her vacating power. She felt her legs buckle once, and then twice, before her body began an uncontrolled descent to the ruined deck beneath her. She quickly caught herself by extending out her arms and catching the hard surface flat-handed after falling down to her knees. It was the only thing that kept her from ending up on the metal floor face first.

As she gulped down deep breaths of air in a vain attempt to ease the sudden fatigue, Tomoko’s mind searched for an answer – any answer! – to what had just happened. W-Was that… Was th-that another at-atsuryoku? But… Wh-Who else…could be th-that…that p-powerful…?

A bawdy, familiarly accented voice seemed to answer her unspoken question, at least indirectly.

“Sorry ‘bout that. Figured I’d stop you before you did somethin’ you’d regret. Afterall, don’t really need another target for these Rorschach types, y’know? Got enough to look after with Kitada-han always drawin’ their attention. Don’t really need another student to keep an eye on. Get me?”

Tomoko slowly pulled her eyes from the cold metal beneath her weary body and raised them to where the voice was coming from. As she did, she noticed that Yoroi was now nothing more than a multitude of scattering specks of purple-hued light; dispersed and fading from sight as they drifted lazily in the air. The Rorschach man was down on his knees, one hand flat against the deck and the other lightly grasping the front of his throat as he took heavy, labored breaths. She could feel the anger well up inside of her again, but this time she pressed it down. Afterall, there was nothing more that she could do about him now.

Just past him, standing next to the other Rorschach that Kiome Kitada had apparently killed, was the source of those strong yet casual words. W-Was it…her, she question gently in her mind. The woman Tomoko was looking at was much older – about her late thirties, she assumed – with long, raven hair that stampeded down her back like a pack of wild horses and steely, nearly black eyes that seemed almost…predatory. She was wearing a pair of simple, gray slacks, white, open-toed pumps and a sleeveless, pale blue blouse bearing a tight, button-down collar that was done up to her neck. Her face was smooth save for a few wrinkles of an encroaching age here and there, with light traces of gray teasing her temples. But what stood out most to Tomoko was the powerful air of authority that radiated from her, despite the laid back nature of her earlier words. Around her statuesque body, the fading signs of her reiki were quickly vanishing from view.

I-It was h-her! The a-atsuryoku that…that sh-she generated… E-even Father’s w-was…was n-not as…as…intense! In…Incredible…!

The tanned-skin woman looked up from the younger Rorschach’s dead body indifferently and returned her dark eyes to Tomoko.

“So,” she said with a wry grin emerging on her face. Oddly enough, the expression looked normal regardless of the authority she exuded. “You got a name or am I gonna have to call you ‘Glasses’ for the rest of the trip to OrCHARD?”

Tomoko found herself swallowing hard. “Sh-Shiza…Shiza T-Tomoko.”

“Ajutoki. Nami. Pleasure.” The woman gazed around the devastated passenger car for a moment, then drooped her shoulders and sighed loudly. “So Shiza-chan, you mind explainin’ to me just what the hell happened here?”

Tomoko barely kept her mouth from falling down to the deck of the passenger car as her light-brown eyes gaped at the woman from behind the lenses of her glasses.

Sh-She…she w-wants me t-to ex…explain a-all of th-this…?!

© 2006 Terryll Preston