Chapter 1: 1.1 In Which the Dark Lord Technically Doesn't Push a Girl in Front of a Train

“Ugh, I wish the train would come. One of these smelly otaku is going to grope me, I just know it. You wouldn't believe what I'm seeing, Keiko! One of them is carrying a body pillow! Yes, with an anime character on it. I know! This is why I hate coming to Akihabara.”

 

If the girl wasn’t so annoying, the spectacle she was making of herself, talking on her phone at the top of her lungs, might have made me nostalgic for California, where that kind of behavior is tolerated. You don’t make a scene on a train platform in Japan.

“Oh my god, one of them is staring at my ass,” the annoying girl notified Keiko in a stage whisper that projected beautifully across the platform. “I swear, if he comes any closer I'll scream.”

Look, I don’t particularly like otaku either, but that was a little rich. Not only was nobody here carrying a body pillow (I’ve worked in Akihabara for two years and never once seen somebody do that, and I have seen some shit), none were coming within groping distance of the obnoxious gyaru. Despite the rush hour press, she had a zone of personal space like a shark parting a school of fish, that’s how much her behavior was annoying everyone. She was a walking caricature, from the school uniform tucked and pinned into a stripper outfit to the platinum-bleached hair and over-the-top makeup. It was as if she'd tried for the “Hollywood actress” look, widely overshot and landed halfway to “French street clown.” Do you know how irritating you have to be, as a hot girl, to turn off a whole platform full of sweaty virgins?

“Wait, don't go, Keiko!” the gyaru whined. “I'm all alone here and—oh, fine, I understand. Bye. Bitch,” she added in a tone just slightly lower after ending the call. The motion of tucking her phone into her tiny purse caused her to turn slightly to her left, which brought the nearest cluster of fellow travelers—including me—into her view. Most of the normal people who had the misfortune to get stuck in this crowd were politely pretending the rude idiot didn't exist, as normal people do. I was the only one staring right at her.

“What are you looking at?” she snapped, glaring back at me.

“I’d need a team of anthropologists to answer that question.”

She looked shocked, and someone nearby muffled a laugh, though of course most were continuing to politely ignore the spectacle. You’re also not supposed to snap back at rude people in Japan. Man, I couldn’t wait to make the move to San Diego. One more year of saving…

“Fucking otaku,” the girl sneered, roughly shoving the phone the rest of the way into her purse and turning away with her nose stuck in the air in the same violent motion.

 

That, despite my determination not to give the bitch the satisfaction, brought a scowl to my own face. I can put up with a lot, but lumping me in with those losers was going too far. At that moment the voice over the PA system announced the imminent arrival of the train, though, and I bit my tongue. No point in getting into it now. She wasn't worth the trouble, anyway.

Immediately to my right, a guy stepped forward and bent over, catching my notice. He was clearly one of the special-edition hunters, carrying a shopping bag with a square bulge the exact size of the stupid game I'd been handing out all day, and wearing a t-shirt bedecked with one of the characters from it. Chubby fellow, not quite to the point of being obese, unkempt hair in need of a trim. And, to judge by its greasy sheen, a wash. How the hell does a Japanese person manage to go out in public with dirty hair? We bathe more often than people in some countries eat. I was regrettably forced to agree with the dumb gyaru in principle: fucking otaku.

“Excuse me,” the chubby boy said to her, straightening up. “You—”

“Ugh,” she growled, stepping in the other direction without looking at him. “Don't talk to me, creep.”

He actually reached toward her. “I'm sorry, but—”

“Get away,” she squawked. “Don't fucking touch me, pervert! I'll scream!”

She had sidestepped all the way to the other side of the bubble cleared by her own sheer obnoxiousness and could go no further without plowing into a mixed crowd of salarymen and scruffy nerds, all the while avoiding eye contact with Fat Boy. Thus, she'd managed not to see the object he was trying to hold out: her own phone, which she must have dropped when trying to put it away and snarl at me at the same time.

The otaku froze in panic, all his stunted social impulses put into conflict. He stood there, holding out her phone, failing to catch her eye, and now afraid to speak to her again. I couldn't help feeling bad for the guy, if somewhat contemptuous. Why go to the trouble for the sake of such a worthless excuse for a human? I'd have just given it to the next station employee, if not tossed it in the trash. Well, there were only seconds before the train arrived, so unless he screwed up his courage and she suddenly developed some common sense, they were both out of luck.

I couldn't say what moved me, except that after a long day at work I was even more tired of everybody's shit than usual. Before I even thought about it, I found myself stepping forward and plucking the phone from his hand. The tubby guy was too surprised to resist, instead turning to gape at me as I held up the phone.

“Look at that,” I said loudly, “she didn't even lock it. Hey, how much you wanna bet she's got nudes on here?”

He stammered helplessly, but the gyaru turned to look. The expression on her face was the most satisfying thing I'd seen all day.

“My phone,” she shrieked, her voice rapidly climbing as she pointed dramatically at me. “He stole my phone!”

“No, you stupid bitch,” I retorted, raising my own voice. I'm not much for yelling, especially in public, but with everyone turning to stare at this spectacle I wanted to make it clear what had really happened. “You dropped your phone. This guy was trying to return it to you while you were cursing at him for it. If you don't have the basic sense to look after your things, at least try not to be an asshole to people who are just trying to be nice to you. I don't even know why anyone would bother.”

I tossed the phone to her before she could begin shouting again, already turning away to face the platform. That meant I only caught the amusing spectacle of her fumbling to catch it out of the corner of my eye, but so be it. I was completely done with this idiot and her nonsense.

The next second, though, gasps and a couple of shouts from the onlookers made me turn back, just in time to see her stumble forward toward the edge of the platform. The phone bounced from her hands, arcing out over the tracks, and the fool lunged after it, realizing her mistake too late. She was already screaming and pinwheeling her arms as she lurched into space.

And that, of course, was the moment the train arrived. Slowing as it prepared to stop, but we were close to the end of the platform in the direction it was coming from. It wasn't going to be slow enough.

It was strange, how time seemed to slow down when you were staring at an onrushing tragedy. Even as my own pulse spiked in my throat, it seemed as if the girl was soaring out over the tracks in front of the train's lights in increasingly slow motion. It couldn't possibly have taken more than a second to hit her, but I had plenty of time for my whole chest to tighten and to think about how the effect was just like a movie, how I'd read that the human brain did this when it was in extreme danger, and how as much as I had despised the stupid girl I hadn't wanted to kill her. In that frozen moment all I could feel was crushing guilt.

Then the moment passed, and she didn't die, and I was left very confused. More relieved than I wanted to admit, but mostly confused.

I stared at the girl for a few more seconds before I was really willing to believe what I was seeing: she hung there, mid-fall, suspended in the air off the edge of the platform, right in front of the train. As if she was frozen in time.

 

In fact, so was the train. So was everything. The station had gone dead silent, I realized, which was chilling. Nothing in the vicinity of Tokyo is ever silent. People thronged the platform like statues, those close enough to see in various poses of reaction as they'd been caught in the process of seeing the girl fall, while others farther back could have been a painting of any crowd of Akihabara travelers waiting for a train.

Suddenly, I was alone in a frozen world.

“Huh.”

Almost alone. I whirled at the voice, and found the fat guy from before still moving. Actually, he was in the process of testing our new situation by poking a salaryman in the shoulder. It apparently wasn't hard to move the frozen people, to judge by how far he was able to tip the guy.

“Force equals mass times acceleration,” I said, and he jumped violently. Apparently he hadn't noticed I was still alive, either. “We're moving incredibly fast relative to anybody else here. That's probably gonna leave a hell of a bruise.”

“Oh,” he said nervously, and very gently tried to move the salaryman back into position, doubtless making it worse. “Sorry.”

I sighed, turning in a full circle to take in the uncanny sight. “What the hell is going on here?”

“Everyone's frozen in time,” my chubby fellow survivor said.

 

“Bullshit. That doesn't make any sense.”

“Well, look around you!”

“Light has to move in order for us to see, idiot. If everything except us was frozen, light wouldn't travel and we'd be blind. Also, just moving through the air would be like getting sandblasted from the friction.”

“Oh,” he said again, peering closely at me. “Are...you a physicist?”

“No, I'm a musician,” I said, annoyed and well aware that my store clerk uniform told a different story. But whatever, that was just a job I had, not who I was. “But I paid attention in school instead of daydreaming about anime tits. I don't know what this is, all I know is it doesn't make sense. Are we the only ones?”

“Good question,” he agreed, then raised his voice. “HELLO! Can anyone else hear me?”

Silence.

“Anyone?” he repeated.

“I guess that answers that,” I grunted. “I wonder why the effect skipped the two of us.”

“Maybe there's something special about us!”

I could see the dawning hope shining in his eyes, as if this was one of his video games and we were the chosen ones. A scenario like that had to be the lifelong dream of an otaku. Best to crush that before he started acting really weird.

“There is nothing special about anyone,” I snapped. “The universe is random unfeeling chaos, and humans are just a particularly aggressive species of upright monkey. Don't go looking for purpose in this. The question now is, what are we doing to do?”

 

We looked at each other, and then away at the immobilized world all around us. I turned in a complete circle, just to make sure I hadn't missed anything. Nope: creepy frozen train station.

Fat Boy cleared his throat. “Well, uh. I'm Shinonome Yoshi.”

I don't care. I didn't say that, though; if he was the only other person awake in... How far did this extend? The station? Akihabara? Tokyo? The world? I obviously needed to know what to call my new companion, even if he was just a hopeless otaku.

“Omura Seiji,” I introduced myself curtly.

“It's nice to—”

“We'd better go look around, see how far this extends,” I said, turning back toward the station's entrance.

 

 

“Wait!”

I turned and gave him an impatient look. He was pointing back at the edge of the platform, where the dumb girl was still suspended hanging in the air in front of the train.

“Omura-san, aren't you forgetting something? We need to save her before we do anything else!”

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Oh. Actually, I had forgotten, to my extreme embarrassment. I hate being embarrassed. My instinct is always to cover it up with cockiness.

“Why?” I asked, looking past him at the hanging gyaru with a smirk.

His expression was satisfyingly shocked. “Why— She could die! What if time starts up and she's still hanging there? This is a chance to save her!”

“Oh, please, were you listening to that bitch? Why is the world better off with her in it?”

The poor guy stared at me in outraged horror. After a moment he started stammering incredulously.

“Relax, Yoshi, I'm kidding,” I finally said. I patted him on the shoulder as I stepped past. “I guess you're right, it's no good leaving her there when it costs nothing to rescue her. I'd feel bad if time started up again and she got splattered. Hm... This might be tricky.”

She was just past the edge of the platform, frozen in the act of leaping forward; the only part of her still within easy reach was one foot, which was down nearly at platform level. Even that we would have to really stretch to grasp. I knelt at the edge and started to reach toward her leg, but had a thought and withdrew my hand.

“When you touched that guy, did anything happen?” I asked, looking up at Yoshi, who had come to stand next to me. “I mean, did it feel different from normal?”

“Actually, yeah.” He frowned, thinking. “It was weird. It felt almost like he was...stuck in jelly.”

“Jelly.”

“Or glue, or... Like there was some force holding him in place. It wasn't too powerful, I could push him through it, but he definitely had more inertia than normal.”

“Makes sense,” I agreed, standing up. “It'd take something like that to keep her from falling... Well, that's no good. If she's gonna be hard to move, we just don't have much leverage with the only part of her we can reach. We'd need to touch her near the top.”

He sighed, studying the girl. The way her body was angled, she was well out of reach from the knees up, with her arms stretched forward trying to catch her phone. I couldn't help but wonder whether this was worth the hassle. This was not someone who was any use to society, after all. I snuck a glance at Yoshi's determined expression and said nothing, though. Tubby nerd though he was, there was no telling how long I'd be stuck with nobody else for company.

Besides, I suppose you can’t just let someone die, no matter how worthless they are.

“I think I can reach her hair,” he said, “if I stand at the very edge of the platform and lean out. If you'll stand back and hold my other hand for balance, I should be able to pull her in.”

“You wanna yank a girl by her hair? Ouch.”

“Well, do you have a better idea?”

“I guess 'let her fall' isn't what you want to hear.” He gave me another look, and I grinned back. “Didn't think so. Well, if you think I'm gonna carry your weight...”

I trailed off, reconsidering. The prospect of being the anchor for both his fat ass and the girl was not appealing. I had started to suggest I should be the one to reach for the girl, since he was obviously better suited to be a living counterweight, but I suddenly realized we still had no idea what had caused time to stop, or how long it might last. If it suddenly started up again, I did not want to be the one stretching out in front of the oncoming train.

“No, I guess I don't have a better idea,” I said instead. “Well, let's get this over with.”

He stepped up to the edge of the platform, a look of such ostentatious determination on his face that I had to roll my eyes. Bracing himself right on the brink, he held out one hand back toward me. “Ready?”

I grimaced, but set my own stance and reached out to take his hand, then grimaced again, harder. His palms were damp. I had to get a two-handed grip on his wrist to be reasonably certain he wasn’t going to slip right out of my grasp.

Then he began to lean forward over the tracks, reaching out toward the stupid girl we were for some reason going to all this trouble for, and immediately almost dragged us both over the edge. Gritting my teeth, I leaned backward as far as I could manage while still holding onto his arm, and even so the weight pulled me forward. My shoes slipped on the platform’s surface, yielding one centimeter at a time as he strained to reach. Yoshi’s fingers brushed an outstretched lock of her frozen, bleach-blonde hair, and my own foot came to rest against his.

That was it, nowhere else to slide. If this didn’t work in the next few seconds, we were both going over the edge.

 

“Lucky for me you’re so trim and petite,” I grated against the strain, “otherwise this would be really hard.”

“Got her!” he gasped, finally getting a fistful of hair. Yoshi heaved his entire weight backward, with the most immediate result that I went sprawling onto the concrete, losing my grip on his hand. I was forced to execute a desperate crab scuttle backward before having the chance to get my feet under me as he immediately began to topple, the girl’s weight adding to his momentum and overcoming his balance. Yoshi staggered and for a second I felt the very real fear that I was about to be crushed under a pile of dumbasses.

He caught his balance, though, to my relief. I scrambled back upright while Yoshi carefully steadied the frozen girl. That proved difficult as she was stuck in a leaping pose which wasn’t well suited to standing up. As I brushed off my clothes, he finally settled for lowering her to lie awkwardly on the platform. The position looked uncomfortable, even if it beat the alternative of falling on her face once time started up again.

Yoshi apparently agreed, as he continued to fuss over her for a minute, his hands hovering as if he wanted to try moving her limbs into a better pose but was afraid to.

“Well, cop a feel if you’re going to,” I said. “Otherwise, we should probably get moving.”

“I would never do something like that!” he exclaimed, glaring up at me in a picture of reproach.

“Of course you wouldn’t,” I replied. Yeah, I know my otaku; he’d never do something like that—while anybody was watching. “Now come on. Unless we figure out what’s going on—”

Suddenly, the light in the station changed. Nobody else started moving again; in fact, the other people around us began to seem as if they were fading from view as gloomy shadows rose in the corners, while a bright light shone down upon the two of us as if from some massive spotlight hidden behind the ceiling.

“Oh, what the hell now?” I demanded.

   

Yoshi and I turned in a circle, back to back,to seek the source of whatever fresh nonsense was unfolding. For a few moments, there was nothing, and we made a complete revolution before coming to a stop, shifting position to look questioningly at each other. By the look on his face, he had no better ideas than I did. No surprise there.

Both of us jumped when the powerful tone of a bell resonated through the silent station, lingering musically on the air for long seconds afterward. It rang a second time, and this time we managed not to make fools of ourselves, though this time it was accompanied by the appearance of two more spotlights, shining onto points on the concrete floor a few meters in front of us.

The bell rang a third time, and something burst down from above through the spotlights with the force of an explosion—not a physical one, but bringing an intensity of light that forced Yoshi and I to cover our eyes and look away. It lasted only for an instant, though. Hesitantly, afraid of what I was going to see, I lowered my hand from my face and looked up again.

Two goddesses had arrived in Akihabara station.

As ridiculous as the idea was, I could think of no other way to describe them. One was a very pale blonde with white highlights, the other had hair of purple streaked with blue; the first wore an ornate gown of white and crimson with golden trim, while the second wore a much skimpier (if just as elaborate) garment that matched her hair while showing off a lot of pale skin. They both had distinctly European features, but even so, my first thought was that they looked like anime cosplayers. That’s not an uncommon sight around Akihabara; even foreigners do it.

Except these two were floating more than a meter off the ground. And glowing. In fact, both the mysterious, sourceless spotlights and the station’s own lighting seemed to have shut off, leaving them the only source of illumination.

“G-goddesses?” Yoshi stammered. See, it wasn’t just me.

The blonde one floated forward, and while I couldn’t actually hear a choir of angels singing, it really seemed there ought to be. Leaning forward in midair, she extended one hand down toward Yoshi. On her face was the purest expression of kindness and gentleness I had ever seen. It immediately made me think she had to be up to no good. Nobody who’s actually benevolent makes a spectacle of it.

“Shinonome Yoshi,” the golden goddess said in a breathy soprano, “you are pure of heart, brave in the face of struggle, and most importantly, willing to help others, even when it avails you nothing. Long have I searched for one such as you.”

“Are you kidding me?” I heard myself ask out loud.

“What I ask of you is no small thing,” she continued with solemn tenderness, ignoring me. “You will face untold hardship, and the fates of many will hang upon your courage. If you—”

 

“Yes!” he blurted, gazing up at her in outright worship. His rapturous expression made me want to throw up. How many hours must this kid have wasted, daydreaming about this exact situation, while knowing that in a rational world no such thing could ever possibly happen?

“Be warned, and do not take this lightly,” the goddess told him ever so gently. “Another world cries out for your help, a realm of unending struggle which will test you to your limits.”

“I’ll do it!”

“But if you endure, through that very hardship, you will learn to unlock the potential you have long sensed within yourself. What say you, Shinonome Yoshi? Will you take up the mantle of a hero?”

“Yes,” he cried desperately. “Please give me this chance! I won’t disappoint you!”

“Seriously?” I asked, looking back and forth between them. Neither acknowledged me.

 

“Then take my hand, young hero,” she said in her soft, gentle tone, extending her hand further. Slowly and reverently, Yoshi reached out to grab her delicate fingers in his big, sweaty mitt.

She lifted him right off the ground as if his flabby bulk weighed nothing, and the pair of them levitated slowly upward in their own column of light, toward the ceiling of the station.

“She is obviously conning you!” I exclaimed. “Please tell me you can’t possibly be this naive!”

But then, with a final blinding flash, they were gone.

“Idiot,” I said, starting up at the spot from which they’d disappeared. “Well, he’s dead.”

That was when the other goddess shifted around right in front of me, and I winced, mentally cursing myself for forgetting she was there. While the blonde goddess had floated elegantly, this one swam through the air like a fish, deliberately showing off the long lines of her body and letting the train of her dress drift along behind her as if it too were suspended in water.

She was smiling down at me, and unlike the other goddess, her smile was in no way gentle or kind.

“Omura Seiji,” she said with an avid grin, “you really are a contemptible piece of shit.”

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