I left my room prepared to face a possible dimensional catastrophe.
Or, at least, as prepared as someone could be when twenty minutes earlier she'd been naked, sweaty, and saying the Demon Queen's name into a pillow.
I carried my staff in one hand, the summons tucked safely inside my bag, and six potions distributed around my belt. I had no idea whether six potions was a lot for dealing with a dimensional rift.
Probably nobody did.
There really should have been a manual.
WHAT TO DO WHEN REALITY STARTS BREAKING: A BEGINNER'S GUIDE
Step one: don't touch it.
Step two: if someone already touched it, insult them.
Step three: potions.
It seemed like a pretty solid guide to me.
To my surprise, the city continued functioning as if nothing were wrong. Merchants opened their stalls, adventurers ate breakfast, one man passionately argued over the price of onions, and a child chased a dog that had stolen a piece of bread.
Meanwhile, somewhere nearby, reality itself had a crack in it.
"How considerate," I muttered. "At least it waited until after sunrise."
I kept walking until I passed one of the large notice boards in the commercial district.
A huge poster took up almost half of it.
REGIONAL RUNIC DUELS TOURNAMENT
TODAY!
I stopped.
Ah.
The tournament.
I immediately remembered the little flyer I'd seen at the castle.
And a certain demon secretary who had tried to hide it with roughly the same amount of subtlety as someone throwing a blanket over a corpse.
RED HORN.
I smiled.
So it was today.
Which meant Hellista was probably—
"What a shitty morning."
I recognized the voice.
I turned.
Blazer stood a few yards away, looking like he was attending his own funeral.
His sword was strapped to his back, he wore light combat gear, and a blue band bearing the tournament emblem was wrapped around one arm. In one hand, he held the black summons.
In the other, his participant pass.
I looked at him.
Then at the pass.
Then back at him.
"Oh."
"Don't say anything."
"What time was your first match?"
Blazer closed his eyes.
"Forty minutes from now."
"Oof."
"Three weeks of training."
"Oof."
"And registration isn't refundable."
I put a hand over my chest.
"Monsters."
"Thank you. Finally, someone understands the real tragedy here."
We started walking toward Central Hall together.
"You do know there's a dimensional rift growing somewhere, right?"
"Yes."
"Possibly connected to Earth."
"Also yes."
"And you're still thinking about the tournament."
Blazer glanced sideways at me.
"Someone interrupted something important for you this morning, didn't they?"
My grip tightened around my staff.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
A smile crept across his face.
"Morgause?"
I immediately pointed my staff at him.
"Do not finish that sentence."
Blazer raised both hands.
"Understood."
We kept walking.
A few seconds passed.
"So it was Morgause."
"I hate you."
He laughed.
"And you make fun of me for caring about the tournament."
"My tragedy was romantic."
"I don't want to know."
"Liar."
Blazer waved the summons.
"If this meeting takes too long, I officially miss the first round."
"Maybe the rift will get resolved quickly."
"It's growing."
"It can grow quickly and get resolved quickly."
"That makes no sense."
"I'm trying to be positive."
"Your optimism has gotten you killed several times."
"And I always come back. Statistically, that means it works."
Blazer stared at me for several seconds.
"I hate it when you say something so stupid I need too much time to explain why it's wrong."
"Victory through intellectual exhaustion."
I was about to explain the rules of my new competitive discipline when an angry voice exploded behind us.
"BLAZER!"
Blazer stopped dead.
The expression of a man whose tournament had just been ruined was replaced by something far more interesting.
Guilt.
"What did you do?"
"Nothing."
"Too fast."
"BLAZER!"
I looked behind us.
A short-haired figure was running straight toward him.
Blazer closed his eyes.
"Ah, shit."
"You know him?"
"Unfortunately."
I smiled.
My morning was suddenly improving.
At first, I thought it was a guy.
He was tall. Very tall. Easily around six feet, enough to stand above a good portion of the crowd. He had short, messy dark-brown hair, durable pants, heavy boots, and a shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows. His version of the official blue messenger uniform seemed to have been altered according to one very simple philosophy: if a piece of clothing could get in the way while running, it had no business being there.
He had an athletic build, firm shoulders, long legs, and a confident posture. He ran with enough determination that chasing runaway heroes probably wasn't the hardest exercise of his week.
He was also staring at Blazer like he was calculating exactly which part of his body to hit first.
"I TOLD YOU TO WAIT!"
Blazer raised both hands.
"I waited."
"I LOOKED AWAY FOR FIVE SECONDS!"
"They were a very productive five seconds."
"WHEN I TURNED BACK, YOU WERE GONE!"
"Which proves how productive they were."
The messenger finally reached us and stopped abruptly.
I looked at Blazer.
Then at the newcomer.
"I like your messenger," I said. "What's his name?"
The person in front of me slowly turned their head.
"His?"
"Yeah."
Their expression went completely blank.
"I'm a girl."
Silence.
Beside me, Blazer started smiling.
I looked at her again.
Tall.
Very tall.
Short hair.
Pants.
Boots.
Firm shoulders.
Long legs.
Carefree posture.
Way of speaking.
Ah.
A tomboy.
There was the Earth word my brain had been looking for.
First a femboy.
Now a tomboy.
My morning was starting to feel like a test specifically designed to destroy my ability to identify people on sight.
"Oh."
The girl raised an eyebrow.
"'Oh' what?"
"Nothing."
"You thought I was a man."
"Not necessarily."
"You literally called me 'he.'"
"That's circumstantial evidence."
Blazer laughed.
I ignored him.
She crossed her arms.
"You thought I was a man."
I sighed.
"In my defense, this morning I met a man who looked like a woman. Now I've met a woman I thought was a man. My identification system is going through a crisis and needs time to recalibrate."
The girl blinked.
Then she looked at Blazer.
"What kind of people do you know?"
Blazer pointed at me.
"That's exactly my problem."
"Traitor."
The girl gave a small laugh and ran a hand through her short hair.
Yes.
Definitely a tomboy.
And pretty cute, now that I knew what I was looking at.
"Tess Arden. First-class messenger."
She held out her hand.
I shook it.
"Nellie."
"Yeah, I know who you are."
Then she slowly turned toward Blazer.
Her smile vanished.
"And now that introductions are over..."
Blazer took half a step back.
"Tess."
"I told you to wait."
"We already talked about that."
"You talked. I wasn't finished."
Oh.
I crossed my arms.
This looked promising.
"I've been looking for you for twenty minutes."
"And you found me."
"THAT'S NOT THE POINT!"
"Technically, that means you did an excellent job."
Tess punched him in the shoulder.
Not particularly gently.
Blazer had to catch himself.
"Three more words and I tell the Hall I found you unconscious in a sewer."
Blazer looked at me.
"Do you see what I have to deal with?"
"I'm on her side."
"You've known her for one minute."
"A very convincing minute."
Tess pointed ahead.
"Central Hall. Now."
Blazer started walking.
Tess immediately moved beside him.
I followed.
We'd barely gone a few yards before Blazer started drifting toward a food stall.
Tess grabbed the back of his shoulder guard and pulled him back onto course.
"I was just going to buy something."
"No."
"You don't even know what I wanted."
"No."
"You're incredibly bossy."
"And you're incredibly easy to lose."
I snickered.
Blazer looked at me.
"You're enjoying this way too much."
"Very much."
By the time we finally reached Central Hall, the jokes lost some of their momentum.
Soldiers guarded the entrances. Mages moved in and out carrying measuring crystals, rune-covered tablets, and boxes full of instruments I didn't recognize. Temporary symbols covered several of the outer walls, and two entire groups of guards blocked the main entrance.
Tess changed immediately.
The playful expression disappeared, and her posture turned professional.
"This way."
She led us toward a side entrance and showed her identification before the guard could even ask.
"Staff Heroine. Sword Hero. Both summoned."
The guard checked our seals.
"Go ahead."
Tess motioned for us to follow.
"Meeting room three."
Blazer raised an eyebrow.
"See? I didn't need an escort."
Tess kept walking.
"Window."
"That is being used against me far too much."
"Not enough."
We crossed several corridors until we reached an antechamber in front of a pair of enormous double doors.
The other three heroes were already there.
Monkar sat with his arms crossed, his enormous shield resting against the wall.
Elizabeth paced near a window, clearly incapable of staying still.
Sogard leaned against a column, watching everything with his usual calm.
Each of them had a messenger nearby.
And beside a table covered in documents stood William.
He saw me.
His eyes lit up for a fraction of a second before he remembered he was working.
He straightened.
I raised a hand.
William gave me a small wave in return.
Tess followed my gaze.
"You know her?"
I slowly turned toward her.
"Who?"
"The blonde girl."
Ah.
I felt a smile forming.
"Go introduce yourself."
Tess narrowed her eyes.
"Why are you making that face?"
"What face?"
"That one."
"I'm not making any face."
Blazer leaned slightly toward us.
"She's making a face."
"Nobody asked you."
Tess watched us suspiciously.
Then she shrugged and walked toward William.
I followed.
At a respectable distance.
For strictly scientific reasons.
William was organizing several sheets of paper when Tess reached the table and rested one hand on it.
"Hi."
William looked up.
He froze for a fraction of a second.
"H-hi."
Tess smiled.
"Are you a messenger too?"
William lowered his eyes.
Color began creeping into his cheeks.
"Y-yeah. And, um... I'm a guy."
Tess stopped smiling.
Her face went completely still.
She stared at him.
Then looked him up and down again.
"No."
William blinked.
"Yes."
"That's not true."
"It is."
"Stop joking."
"I'm not joking."
Tess stepped closer and studied him intently.
William grew even redder.
"I don't believe you."
"B-but it's true."
Tess's smile slowly returned.
A dangerous smile.
"Well," she said. "There's only one way to find out."
Before William even had time to ask what the hell she meant, Tess slid one hand beneath his clothes, directly between his legs.
William went completely rigid.
"W-wha?!"
Tess froze too.
She blinked once.
Then again.
All that confidence vanished from her face.
"...Huh."
William was red all the way to his ears.
"I-I told you I was a boy..."
Tess looked down.
Then back at him.
And seemed to understand all at once exactly what she'd just done.
She yanked her hand away immediately.
"Shit! Sorry!"
For the first time since I'd met her, that tall, shameless tomboy who'd seemed physically incapable of embarrassment looked like she wanted the floor to swallow her.
William kept his head down.
"I-it's okay..."
"No, it's not. I thought you were joking and..."
Tess ran a hand through her hair.
"Gods, that was stupid."
William started gathering his papers.
One sheet slipped to the floor.
He bent down too quickly and smacked his knee against the table.
"Ow!"
Tess instinctively stepped forward to help.
William saw the approaching hand.
Tess realized it too.
Both of them froze.
Tess slowly pulled her hand back.
"Yeah. Better not."
"Y-yeah."
William picked up the paper and started toward the double doors.
His first few steps were noticeably less coordinated than usual.
Tess watched him until he was far enough away.
Then she glanced to one side.
Then the other.
Nobody seemed to be paying attention.
She looked down at the hand she'd used only seconds earlier.
Hesitated.
Slowly brought it to her nose.
Inhaled.
She stayed perfectly still for a moment.
Then slowly ran her tongue along one of her fingers.
She stopped.
Her face turned red again.
Very red.
She immediately lowered her hand and looked around a second time, making sure nobody had seen.
I remained silent.
There were moments when even I knew it was better not to say anything.
That didn't mean I was ever going to forget it.
Ever.
The double doors opened shortly afterward.
An official appeared.
"The five heroes and their assigned messengers may enter."
We went inside.
The room was circular, filled with magical maps, measuring crystals, and enough incomprehensible diagrams to convince me that nobody in there knew how to explain anything using normal words.
At the center floated a glowing representation of the five summoning circles.
Monkar, Elizabeth, and Sogard took their seats.
Blazer sat beside me.
The messengers remained behind us.
William chose a spot reasonably far away from Tess.
Tess pretended not to notice.
She was terrible at it.
A man in his early fifties entered soon after. He had gray hair combed back, a dark robe embroidered with silver designs, and a small magical lens positioned in front of his left eye.
He placed several documents on the table.
"I'm Caelum Veyr, director of the Department of Dimensional Studies."
Blazer raised a hand.
"Before we start, how long is this going to take?"
Caelum looked at him.
"Do you have a commitment more important than an interdimensional anomaly?"
"A tournament."
"No."
"Had to try."
Caelum gestured, and the five glowing circles brightened.
"Early this morning, the transfer matrices used to summon you reactivated simultaneously without external intervention."
I narrowed my eyes.
William leaned forward slightly from behind me.
"The circles turned on by themselves," he whispered.
"Thanks."
Caelum looked at us.
"Do I need to simplify my explanation?"
"No. William already has that job."
William straightened slightly.
He looked surprisingly proud of his new responsibility.
Caelum decided to ignore us.
"Until now, we believed your five summonings were independent phenomena. We were wrong. They all used the same magical structure, and all remain linked to the same plane of origin."
Earth.
The room grew quieter.
Five lines appeared over the projection.
All of them led to the same point.
"Under normal circumstances, those connections should have vanished once each summoning was complete," Caelum continued. "They didn't."
The image changed.
Now a black line hung between the circles.
The rift.
"This appeared during the night. It's growing, and it responds to all five of your dimensional signatures."
Elizabeth leaned forward.
"Is it a portal?"
"No."
Blazer spoke immediately.
"Could it become one?"
Caelum took a moment to answer.
"We don't know."
Blazer's expression changed.
"Then there's a chance we could go back."
Silence.
That word landed much harder than I expected.
Go back.
Caelum didn't try to soften it.
"There is a possibility. Nothing more."
Nobody spoke for several seconds.
Then Caelum changed the image again. Five small lights appeared, one over each circle.
"There's another problem. The rift doesn't seem to respond only to your magic. Your signatures are reacting to individual characteristics."
Monkar frowned.
"What characteristics?"
"We're still determining that. Memories. Places. People. Emotional bonds."
That got my attention.
"What do you need from us?"
"Information about your lives before you were summoned."
That answer seemed to affect the other four more than everything he'd said before it.
"Where you lived. Who you lived with. Which people mattered to you. What you were doing before you arrived here. Any memory that could help us identify what the rift is searching for."
I looked at Blazer.
And suddenly I realized something strange.
I knew how he fought.
I knew what games he liked.
I knew he was in love with a coffee-addicted demon secretary.
But I knew almost nothing about who he'd been on Earth.
I looked at Monkar.
Elizabeth.
Sogard.
It was the same with them.
We'd talked about our old world plenty of times.
Video games.
Food.
Technology.
But almost never about ourselves.
It was like a rule none of us had ever written, yet all of us had somehow agreed to follow.
Caelum looked at us one by one.
"So we'll start there."
He paused.
"I want each of you to tell me who you were before you came to this world."
Nobody answered.
Not even me.
And that probably said more than any answer could have.
Out of all the monsters, demons, and absurd things we'd faced since arriving here...
apparently the next thing we'd have to face was our own past.