Two Times, One Sword (Closed)

"Ah welcome back to the land of the living warrior." it wasn't Jiro's voice he heard. A slender man in black silk cloths stood over him "Now lay back down." he smiled. Before Yori could protest the man gripped his forearms and pressed on two specific spots. Yori's arms went limp and the man put him back to bed. The man was older, gray hairs peaked from the messy black toughs on his head. "I am Kawazoe Taro, the town doctor. Please forgive my attire Jrio brought us here at a rather late hour." Kawazoe chuckled.

"My sword.." Yori said wearily.

"In due time, you are still healing the extent of your injuries were quite fatal. Much of your armor had to be pried off, then forged back on. Your body will feel very tight for the next couple of days. I have to say warrior your body is unlike anything I've ever seen, I thought you a monster at first." he frowned.

"Kawazoe is the fool awake yet!" a gruff voice yelled from outside the room. The door to the room flung open and revealed a large muscular man with white hair and a pipe in his mouth.

"Yes but not for long." Kawazoe said reluctantly

The large man knelt down and grabbed Yori by the back of his neck, his eyes fierce "You stupid fool taking Gin on by yourself! What exactly were you trying to prove?" he bellowed at Yori, his breath smelling of tobacco.

"Saruwatari please you'll tear his stitches." Kawazoe sighed.

Saruwatari tossed Yori back to his bed and stomped out of the room.

Yori's vision began to blur. "Sleep warrior, you can address everyone in the morning." Kawazoe said with a smile. Sleep took Yori quickly.

A sunbeam found its way on to Yori's face as if saying "It's time to get up." The morning was surprisingly peaceful. Yori slowly rose from his bed, a white pain shot through body. The doctor was right everything was tight, but something else was strange. The warrior looked over his body and noticed that chunks of his enhancements were patched with steel, most notably a third of his chest plate.

"Forgive us as we had to improvise, your technology is to advanced for us." Jrio stood in the doorway his arms crossed. "How are you feeling?" Jrio approached.
 
Last night was a blur to Yori, except for his vivid dream with the goddess of the sun. The new sunlight hitting his face felt soothing to him, though a new anxious state overtook him as he struggled to open his eyes. The dream sunlight only prepared him partially for the real thing.

"Technology can be replaced; a life cannot. There is no need to be sorry for saving my life."

The stated maxim was not normally adopted by people in his life, where an objective value for a human life could be calculated just like any other commodity, mostly from the cost of the implants a person had. This quick fix, while decreasing his 'market price' didn't affect Yori's self worth. It would have been if he was still the property of PaxCorp. He sat up quicker than he should have, releasing a sharp pain in his chest, but he struggled to ignore it.

"Time is of the essence, Jiro." Yori said suddenly. "I was told --" Yori dryly smirked. "I know now that I'm from the future. If only you knew how much the world has changed, so much that I've never seen the sun like this until today, or tasted water so sweet when I landed in the middle of that lake... In any case, I must travel back to my own time, and the only way to do that is to retrieve the Goddess Stone."

"Saruwatori may be right about me, calling a stupid fool who is out of his element to take on Gin, but KAMI-5 help me if I left another honorable man to die. I don't know what I'm going to do, but I must fight Gin again, and win. People where I came from claimed that time travel was impossible, because of all the emerging paradoxes. Now all of reality is in the hands of a madman, and it's all my fault."
 
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"To be honest with you Yori even if you weren't there Gin still would have stolen the stone." Jrio's head hung low. "Do not misunderstand me your help put a damper on his plans, you were an unexpected variable in his plan, but it just wasn't enough." he sighed. "There just aren't enough members of my family left to fend him off." he paused. "Enough feeling sorry of ourselves, down to business." Jrio rolled out a map. "Gin was last spotted just outside of Hiroshima, it will take us a week to get there. We will take what supplies and money we need and leave tomorrow." Jrio explained.

"No we have to-" Yori protested.

"You can't even hold a sword in your condition. We leave tomorrow." Jiro said firmly. "For now you are welcome to acclimate to your surroundings. I brought you some new clothes." the swordsman moved to the doors on the other side of the room and opened them wide. The warm scent of summer rushed into the room. Jiro turned back "First floor is the common area, kitchen, dinning room, meditation room. Second floor, where we are now, are the sleep quarters. The third through sixth floors are off limits to you, do your best to head this warning." he explained. Something about Yori caught Jrio's eye "Your right hand let me see it." he asked, his eyes narrowed. Confused Yori offered his hand to his host, then noticed a black sun symbol on the back of his hand. "So you have been chosen by the Sun Goddess, well you should be both honored and very afraid." Jrio's face turned grim. "If you don't finish the task she gave you then the flames of the Sun will take you and you will be hers forever. So rest up my friend as we do not want to disappoint Amaterasu." he patted Yori on the back. "When you feel up to it meet me outside near the lake. We need to talk." he left the room without another word.
 
Yori laid back on the bed for a while, taking time to enjoy the sunlight, crisp air, and scent as it filtered into his room through the window, though he was still anxious to leave. Amaterasu's mark made Yori uneasy, because Gin was unlike any other enemy he had to face before and the implicit threat associated with failure. It also wasn't right to coerce someone to fight, though it still beat being brainwashed from vat-birth to fight for PaxCorp. Of course, Jiro was right when it came to his condition right now. He felt the weakness in raising his right arm just to look at the sun mark.

The name 'Hiroshima' meant nothing to Yori, besides some very obscure reference to Japanese history. It might've helped if Yori took the time while he was off-duty to go to a museum or something. Also, in his time, there were very few buildings that were 10 levels high or less. Part of Yori's conditioning made him curious as to what could possibly be on the higher floors, but it faded quickly because it was either forbidden for good reason or it was something trivial or uninteresting to a man from the future. Besides, his life was saved by the people in this building.

He looked at the mark on his hand and started to think about augmentations. The cost was being taken by the Sun, but was there any benefit? He shrugged; maybe Jiro had something to add if he asked this. In the future, there were your tattoos, and cosmetic reptile eye surgery, but this was implanted by a goddess. This mark could be anything below the surface; his sensors that remained couldn't pick up on anything unusual at the moment. About fifteen minutes later, Yori got up and changed into his new clothes, though he ripped off the K-5 Police patch from the tatters of his old clothes also adjacent by the bed. It was his badge of identity in this unknown land.

His plan was to go outside, but his stomach growled, so he tried to first find the kitchen instead.
 
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Yuri could only make it so far out of his room before he heard a voice. "Warrior... Warrior..." it was coming from the stairwell just outside of his room. "Who is there?" Yuri called out. The swordsman walked up to the stairs and looked up to the inky voice they led to. "Warrior..." a seductive feminine voice called to him. "Who are you?" Yuri set his foot on the first step and instantly felt a heavy pressure swallow him. "Wh what is this? My body... it feels so heavy." he struggled to stay standing.

"FOOL!" A hand reached out and pulled him from the stairs. "What do you think you're doing!" a hard slap landed across his face, leaving him in a daze. It took a second for him to regain his focus, but even then he wasn't sure of what he was looking at.

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"Sorry but who are you?" he asked. This woman was dressed ridiculously, sure these clothes served no purpose.

"I am the house priestess Yoko Maki, and you're not allowed up there." her voice sounded younger. "There is food ready for downstairs, so please leave the spirits alone and go eat." she was practically pushing Yuri down the stairs. "Master Jiro wants to speak with you as soon as you are done." the girl only seemed to be fifteen at most.​
 
Yori supposed that since a Sun Goddess exists, that spirits existing wasn't that far-fetched. Taking that first step upward had been a mistake, but thanks to Yoko, he had been spared by what Yori could only guess. If this were still his time, he would suppose it was some sort of gravitational field generator to prevent others from getting to the higher levels. He even forgave the slap from the young girl who wore such strange clothes, but perhaps to her, he looked as equally strange with external metal parts and the patch badge of his old life in his hand.

Being pushed down the stairs by Yoko, he remembered that food in this age would also be quite different from what it would be in his time; when Yoko said that the 'food was ready', this statement would have been trivial in his time for the simple fact that no foods were prepared by human beings anymore. It was all manufactured by machines in edible flat crackers, with all the nutrients a man could need. If anyone in this household discovered he wasn't used to eating such things, well, it was up to them how they could possibly respond. He was finally in the room he presumed to be the place of eating, scanning around for what could be eaten.
 
There was a plate of Beef Teriyaki laid before the swordsman, still steaming. "I hope you future men can still eat like normal human beings!" Yoko called from upstairs. The food smelled quite good it was even paired with tea and some white rice. Yoko peeked from the stairwell into the dinning room where she saw the man just kind of looking at the food "It's not going to bite just eat it." she watched him like a hawk to see his reaction to her cooking.
 
Yori stared at the plate of beef teriyaki as though it was an undiscovered specimen waiting to be analyzed, and then looked at the wooden sticks beside. Yoko's comments about future men and the assurance that it wasn't alive led Yori to act the best he could given the circumstances. He sat down and folded his hands together. "Itadakimasu." He then tried in vain to use the wooden chopsticks, not quite able to pick up the pieces with grace, but with determined brute force until it reached his mouth.

Then came his confusion. At first he thought it was because the scalding heat of the meat against his tongue and the top of his mouth, but the more he chewed it, the more he realized the true cause. Flavor; for the first time in his life he knew what flavor really meant. It was spicy, setting his heart aflame and welling up his eyes. The compulsion to eat more was so new to Yori that the barrier he once had with chopsticks seemed to fade away in favor of an instinctual drive to enjoy more of what was on his plate. With machine efficiency finally doing its work, Yori had finished what was before him in under two minutes; the sides of his mouth still had sauce, which he cleaned with his tongue.
 
Yoko watched as downed the meal "Wow whats with this guy? It's like he never had a real meal before..." she smiled to cover up how unnerved she was. "Well I'm glad you like it Yuri, more will be ready in a few hours." she started to make her way back to the next floor. "You should go out an experience what else our world has to offer. The master has just gone into to town so he won't be back for awhile, if you like I can guide you around the grounds. I'm sure you have questions." she called down to him. "Give me a moment and I'll meet you at the lake." she called.
 
"I'll see you there." Yori replied. It was surprising Jiro had left so early to town, when Yori was told to meet him at the lake. Maybe he simply took too long for Jiro to wait up.

Yori quickly made his way out and allowed himself to breath in the outside air. He knew he was spoiled in comparison to his own time; in some areas the air was so thick with smog that you had to put on a gas mask or risk carbon dioxide poisoning. He found the lake quickly, for it was quite large and right by the Ieyoshi manor. He propped himself down and stared at the clear, sparkling water that reflected the sun's gentle rays. It was hard to imagine that just yesterday he had plunged head first into it, not knowing what it was at first. Everything about this place seemed so perfect, but it was not home. While he enjoyed the view immensely, knowing that anyone in his time couldn't even dream of a place like this, he still felt troubled because everything he felt pointed to the fact that he didn't belong in this paradise.

Time was weird, though. That was his only saving grace. The people that he knew had to be saved in his time, didn't exist in this time, so they didn't have to be protected by a man of the law at this point. If it weren't for the threat of Gin and Amaratsu's blessing/curse, this would have been the best vacation ever. He closed his eyes again, taking it in, enjoying what he could before Jiro came back.
 
Not to long after Yoko caught up with Yuri "So what do you think?" she said with a smile, "A change from what you are used to?" she stood next to him. "The lake is quite beautiful this time of the year." she took a deep breath in and let the smell of summer take her. She kick off her shoes and dipped her feet off the dock and into the lake. "So Yuri what would you like to know?" she looked up to him.
 
Yori smiled back; it was certainly a change from what he was used to. Maybe Yoko would have liked to see the sights the future had to offer, with all the florescent colored lighting; a cityscape so vast to be essentially infinite. Yori had plenty of questions, so it was difficult to decide which ones he would ask first. Yoko said she was a house priestess, but Yori had no reference to his own time on what that meant.

"What are spirits?"

Yori's eyes and expression indicated that this expression was indeed genuine; this question was rooted directly to the fact that spiritualism essentially had been eradicated from culture, save the deifying an entire city as the protector god against terrible monsoons and other freakish weather events.
 
"What are... spirits?" she looked at him a bit dumb founded. "D do they not exist in your time?" the mere thought sent a chill down her spine. "Well there are two type of spirits: those linked to the elements, and human souls. Elemental spirits are what master Jiro uses in order to use his elemental attacks and defenses. They are the very energy of the Earth itself, and learning to use them is very hard." she explained. "Human spirits are more complex but I'll try to keep it simple for you. When humans pass on from this world to the next their souls are what pass through the barriers between worlds. Our bodies are what get left behind... they serve as a kind of reminder to the ones we love that we had some kind of impact on this world." he looked out across the water. "However, some human souls remain tethered to this world in the form of ghosts and the like. This is most likely due to the fact that they probably have something they still need to do here in this world. It's my job to make sure that see to that business and be on their way. Really I guess spirits are the forces that drive both us and the world around us." she paused for a moment. "It probably all sounds rather silly to you though."
 
Yori tried to understand what Yoko was saying. It sounded almost like memories that refused to fade away. PaxCorp had ideas on what legacy meant, but it was always in the collective sense, not the individual sense. Deifying the city KAMI-5 involved the understanding that it was a single super entity made up of countless lives. Some lights did brighten at the notion of driving forces.

"I don't think it's silly at all, though it's strange to a foreigner like me. Is Amaratsu a spirit, then? Someone who is tethered to this world because she is still needed? That was the other question burning in my mind. This mark," Yori promptly presented the sun mark. "what more can you tell me about it? Jiro has told me that it seals me under Amaratsu's service and that if I should fail, then I will be consumed by fire."
 
Yoko smiled beneath her vale "Amaterasu is no spirit, she is the one who gives life to everything. She is the goddess of the sun." she pointed to the reflection of the sun in the water. "Gods are different from spirits in that with out them our world would crumble. Amaterasu was the first god who created the frame work of our world, then she made the other gods each lording over an element or emotion... it's really quite interesting." she paused for a moment. "If you have the sun in your time then the Sun Goddess still exists."

Yoko took his hand and touched the mark "The master is right, but the ancient scrolls tell instances where Amaterasu has given her hero the power of fire, so that they may purge evil from this world, you're lucky." she let go of his hand. "But it would seem that you are incapable of feeling spirit energy, I don't blame you it's hard for commoners to feel such things." she sneered. "As for failing her I'm not sure what I can tell you. The scrolls do say that a fallen hero is consumed but the Goddess's anger, but after that I'm not sure." she shrugged.

"Master Jrio is returning home so I'll give you one more question to ask." she looked up at him. "Why don't you try sitting down and relaxing for once? You don't have to be on guard all the time you know." she sighed.
 
The Sun Goddess might still exist in his time, but she was fading beneath the dark foggy skies of industrialization, starting to turn red from the forces of nuclear fusion into the next stage of a star's development. He might not understand what spirits are, but could she understand that each star was a Sun of its own, and not a small light on a blanket firmament? Yori appreciated, however, the knowledge he wasn't before privy to. Knowledge must be the most valuable commodity in any timescape.

So my suspicions might be true; this marking could indeed potentially be an augment. I just hope I can find a way to activate it if need be.

"One more question, hmmm. What is," He sat down again, taking a new posture that was even more visibly relaxed. He thought he looked relaxed before, though it was hard to get used to such beautiful weather conditions and a moment of peace. He smiled, when finding a question that made sense just for this blissfully normal moment. "What is your favorite animal?"
 
Yoko let out a light chuckle "It's good to know that your people still have a sense of humor. It's the Red Fox and yours?"

"Mine? Well it's-" Yori started to answer.

"Yori, who are you talking?" Jiro stood behind the sitting man.

"Ah Jiro, I was talking with Miss Yoko-."

Jiro shook his head "Yori no one is here but you and I, and I've just returned not a moment ago." he gave Yori a perplexed look.

This didn't make any sense. Had he been seeing things? "There isn't a priestess her by the name of Yoko?"

Jiro's eyes went wide, then came a look of wild anger, then a calm. "Yori... Yoko's been dead for two years now, Gin killed her during his last attempt at the stone.... She was my sister." he said in a low tone. Only a heavy cold wind broke the silence between the two. "Come you must tell me about your time, I'm interested to know what lays beyond tomorrow." he gave a hallow smile.

Something caught Yori's eye, something that was just behind Jrio... it was Yoko standing in the distance smiling just like her brother. She mouthed the words "I'll be watching" to Yori.
 
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Yori looked back at Yoko from the distance beyond Jiro's shoulder with a bittersweet smile, though the rest of his face betrayed that the news of her murder by the hands of Gin dismayed him greatly. She told him what her favorite animal was, and though Yori didn't know what a red fox was, he didn't regret asking a question that made her feel that she wasn't an information terminal, but an actual person with personality and feelings. Animals in his time were only those that could breed rapidly and in abundance, or specifically bred, like dogs. His favorite animal was the dog; while this Doberman was his most favorite breed, he had a soft spot for all dogs. He then turned his attention to Jiro, and now anxiety and confusion came back to his face again.

"She saved me from a bad spot when something called to me from up the stairs. I was stuck under tremendous gravitational force; she pulled me out and gave me a good slap. It felt real; it was real. She told me she was the house priestess and urged me to leave the 'spirits' alone. After I ate, we both went to the lake. I asked what spirits were, since I never came across the concept before, and she explained to the best of her ability. The irony isn't lost on me, asking a human spirit what spirits are."

Yori rubbed his temple to ease the pressure of one of his blood veins trying to put his brain into overdrive. "She said that I was incapable of feeling spirit energy though, and that I wouldn't be able to use this mark. I don't understand."
 
Jrio shook his head "Well she's obviously wrong if you can see her, though you might only posses the slightest ability when it comes to feeling energy." he gave a slight smile. "Yoko always did like messing around with people. It's funny I've never seen her, but she appeared to you." he sighed. "She might have taken a liking to you Yori. If you spoke with her, and had a real conversation, she might have taken on the role of your guardian spirit." he looked out across the lake into the treeline just after it.

A confused look ran across Yori's face.

"Ah, forgive me I still forget that you are not from our time." he sat down on the dock. "Guardian spirits can protect you from ills of the specter plain, though here specters are sparse." he scratched his head. "Uh... oh I know. Have you ever just woken up only to find small cuts or scrapes on your body? Well sometimes those are due to what we call specters, lost spirits taken over by ill will. They can range of just mischievous to murderous. A guardian fights off the specters. I know this all sounds rather preposterous to a man such as you, but that is how its always worked. he closed his eyes and two just sat for a second. "My sister was a very well trained fighter, so I'm sure she will keep you safe." he smiled again.

Another pause between the two as the wind swept through the grassy hill side.

"As for the mark I'm sure it will reveal itself in time, the goddess put it there for a reason." he nodded. "Oh and the food was something I made. Thought you would be hungry when you got up. It was my mothers recipe." he gave a sigh at the end. "So whats it like in your time Yori? Do you have a family?" Jiro quickly switched the subject.
 
Yori sometimes did find small scrapes and cuts on his body when he woke up, but this was after he had given up sleeping in a hyperstasis sleeping chamber. For his time, it was almost assuredly bed bugs, which had evolved over time and thrived in a world where the air was polluted, dense with the damp, acidic fog that enveloped the entire planet in the future. Yoko had protected him before from the Presence Upstairs that was taken by ill will, so he appreciated the help already.

"I was grown in a vat." Yori answered bluntly, before pausing. "My apologies. It's also hard for me to explain it more aptly than that. You deserve to know the truth of me, no matter how curt or strange, so we can work together effectively. Imagine a tree seed surrounded by water in a glass cylinder. At each stage, imagine there is also a pruning process, wherein bad branches are cut so that better ones can grow. From there, the tree would grow into other set containers; as it grows, it would grow into it, having the shape of each container forced upon it. It is the way roots would abide by the shape of a ceramic pot." Yori pinched his cheek. "What was needed for life was taken from 'mother' and 'father' for what considered to be optimal flesh. That flesh grew into the metal parts, shaped into it, to be refitted over time, but easier to maintain. Each part of me was by design."

"There are still family units in my time, but true genetically related ones are rare. The one closest to be my father would be a corporation owner, what you would consider to be a shogun, a warlord that has dominion over a section of my city; my brothers and sisters, loosely speaking, are other vat-grown soldiers or androids under the same corporation. Hmm, androids, they are like Gin's metal constructs, but can ..."

The distinct sound of shearing echoed in the samurais' immediate surroundings; from above, a large tear appeared in the firmament, as though the atmosphere was a literal fabric that was cut. Emerging from that rip in space was what appeared to be a flying demon.

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"So PaxCorp lied about disabling their tracking systems." Yori cursed. "That must also mean they still have a prefix code I haven't discovered how to disable yet. Jiro, I need you to hide and keep your distance, now. A future person would not like it if they knew that I have interacted with people from the past. Please understand, she's one of my sisters, an android."
 
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