The three of them returned from their day off within minutes of each other, and all three came back carrying something.
Mary arrived first, a small basket balanced primly on one arm, filled with preserves and a wedge of hard cheese her mother had practically forced on her at the door, muttering something about a daughter who vanished for hours needing a proper meal wherever she’d gotten to.
Ai followed not long after with a paper bag of sweets from a shop near the guesthouse, the kind of small indulgence she’d never once let herself buy for purely selfish reasons until today.
Tsukasa came last, and predictably came with the most — a crate of ingredients he’d personally selected from his own private stores, the sort of thing that would have made any ordinary chef wince at the expense and made Tsukasa merely nod, satisfied, at having done things properly.
Ari looked at the three of them standing in the entrance hall, arms full of local specialties from three entirely different worlds, and felt something warm settle in her chest that she chose not to examine too closely.
“Good timing,” she said instead, pushing herself up off the sofa with the particular effort of someone who genuinely resented standing.
“Get that put away.
The first five guests are on their way.” That got their attention properly.
Mary’s basket nearly slipped from her arm.
“All five, City Lord?
At once?” “All five,” Ari confirmed.
“Different worlds, different everything, probably showing up more or less together, since they all got their invitations around the same time.” She waved a hand toward the door.
“Stay in position once you’re set.
Ai, Mary — you’re at the Exchange Center.
That’s where most of them will end up first, so it needs to look like it’s actually open for business.” The two women exchanged a glance, some silent understanding passing between them, and headed off to change and settle in, the sweets and preserves abandoned in favor of the far more pressing matter of not embarrassing themselves in front of Void City’s very first customers.
Ari turned to Tsukasa last, who was still holding his crate with the calm patience of a man who suspected he was about to be given real work.
“I want a booth,” she said.
“Small one, right outside the Exchange Center.
Something for guests to grab food from without having to go all the way into the kitchen.” Tsukasa considered this for exactly as long as it took to picture the layout in his head.
“A reasonable request.
What would you like served?” “Whatever you think will impress people from a dozen different worlds without taking all week to prepare.” She paused, and something faintly mischievous crossed her expression.
“And charge them for it.
Void Points.
Don’t give anything away for free.” His eyebrows rose, just slightly.
“Even a simple tasting?” “Especially a simple tasting.” Ari settled back against the doorframe, entirely unbothered by whatever image of herself that decision might paint.
“They’re guests, not charity cases.
If they want to eat, they can trade for it like everyone else.
That’s the whole point of the Exchange Center existing in the first place.” Tsukasa studied her for a moment longer, and then allowed himself the ghost of a smile, the kind he rarely showed anyone.
“Understood, City Lord.
I’ll have something ready before they arrive.” He left to build his booth with the same quiet efficiency he brought to everything, and Ari, having successfully delegated every part of the coming afternoon that might have required effort from her personally, wandered back to the window overlooking the gate to watch for the first arrivals.
• • The five of them did not arrive together, exactly, though they arrived close enough in time that the gate saw all of them within the same short stretch of afternoon.
Each one found the bridge in their own way — some stumbling onto it in confusion, some stepping onto it with careful deliberate caution, one striding across it as though he’d been walking bridges into other dimensions his whole life.
But the moment any of them set foot on that smooth, star-lit surface, the same wave of information settled into their minds, unbidden and undeniable, in words that felt less spoken than simply known.
[Welcome to Void City.] [Here, you may find everything you could want.
Health.
Beauty.
Power.
Immortality.] [Please observe the following rules during your stay.] [First: no fighting.] [Second: any form of intimidation or violence toward another will be immediately restricted.
This applies without exception.
Even the most powerful among you will find yourselves reduced to the weight of an ant beneath this city’s pressure.] [Third: violators will be expelled from Void City, permanently, without recourse.] [Fourth: the City Lord favors beautiful people.] That last line, more than any of the others, tended to produce the widest range of reactions.
Sheldon Cooper, three steps onto the bridge, went rigid with the particular offense of a man who had just been issued a rule he considered scientifically unfalsifiable.
“That is not a rule,” he announced to no one, “that’s a personal preference dressed up as policy, and frankly it undermines the credibility of everything stated before it.
Rule one, fine, verifiable behavioral constraint.
Rule four is just — favoritism.” He paused.
“Extremely rude favoritism, considering I wasn’t consulted on the criteria.” Harry Potter read the same words with a small, disbelieving huff of a laugh, the kind of laugh that came from someone whose life had, up until fairly recently, contained absolutely nothing this strange.
“Health, beauty, power, and immortality,” he murmured to himself, glancing down at the star-flecked bridge beneath his trainers like it might crack open and swallow him.
“Right.
Course it does.” He kept walking anyway, because ten years with the Dursleys had taught him that standing still and questioning things rarely improved a situation.
Sakamoto received the same message with his usual, unshakeable composure, and responded to the warning about violence and expulsion with nothing more than a single unbothered nod, as though the city had simply confirmed something he already intended to do anyway.
When he reached the fourth rule, the faintest, most private curve touched the corner of his mouth — not vanity, exactly, more the quiet satisfaction of a man who had never once in his life worried about being on the wrong side of that particular policy.
Cinderella read the words slowly, turning them over with the same careful disbelief she gave most good things that happened to her, half-expecting them to be snatched away the moment she let herself hope.
“Everything I could want,” she repeated softly, testing the phrase like it might not hold her weight.
When the fourth rule settled into her mind, she only smiled faintly and shook her head, too used to being told what she was worth by other people’s standards to let one more voice, however strange its source, change how she felt about herself.
Naruto, six years old and already far more used to being watched with suspicion than with kindness, read the same wave of information with wary disbelief written plainly across his face.
Health.
Beauty.
Power.
Immortality.
He’d learned not to trust things that sounded too good, because in his experience the village only ever offered him the opposite.
But when the second rule settled into his mind — the promise that no one here could hurt him, that even the strongest would be brought down to nothing if they tried — something in his chest loosened just slightly, in a way he wasn’t quite ready to admit out loud.
“…Nobody can mess with me here?” he muttered to himself, small fists curling at his sides, testing the words like he expected them to be a trick.
When no trick came, no glare, no hand yanking a child away from him, he squared his shoulders and kept walking, chin lifted just a little higher than before.
“Fine by me.
Dattebayo!” Whatever their reaction, all five of them crossed the rest of the bridge with the same rules settled somewhere in the backs of their minds, the same quiet warning humming beneath everything else they were about to see, and stepped through the gates of Void City for the very first time.
Ahead of them waited a city that promised nearly everything.
And two very composed young women, standing ready at the doors of the Exchange Center, doing their absolute best not to look as nervous as they felt.