I sighed, staring up at the barren, starless sky once more.

"You too, huh?" Karasuba said.

"We won, didn't we?" I asked.

"We did," she said.

"Did the right thing, set your people free, did our best to make the world better?" I continued.

"That we did," Karasuba said, nodding.

"And yet," I continued.

"And yet."

I sighed, and sat down on the edge of the roof, elbows resting on my knees.

"I could be prolonging my stay," I said. "Take my loved ones into the Warehouse, where time passes slower, and enjoy my remaining time with them. But..."

"But," Karasuba said, "you don't want to stay."

"I do not," I said. "I guess I'm not alone in feeling like this new, better world doesn't have room for me."

"The world never wanted me," Karasuba said. "Now, though, I just feel bad about sticking around to spite it."

"You and Yume didn't work out, huh?" I asked.

"Yeah, and you're breaking up with all of your big titty bimbos too, aren't you?" Karasuba snapped. Clearly, I'd touched a nerve.

She heaved a sigh, and the silence hung in the air.

"You're not taking anyone else with you," Karasuba said, finally.

"None of them wanted to come," I said. "They all had things keeping them here, or just... weren't compatible, long-term." I shrugged. "Can't say I blame 'em. A year ago, I was antsy to get past this world and get to the good stuff, but... well, now that we've put so much work into making it nice, part of me kinda wants to stay."

"Not enough to stay, though," Karasuba surmised.

"No," I said, shaking my head. "I... get the feeling I know what this is about."

"Don't suppose you'd mind taking a hitchhiker, would you?" Karasuba asked. "I'm not sucking your dick for it, though, just so we're clear."

"Eh," I shrugged. "There's room in the Warehouse. If you wanna come with..." I shrugged. "Welcome aboard."

----------------------------------------

"You've gotta be fucking shitting me," I said.

"Dead serious," Adrianne said, nodding.

It was three days before I left, and I was squaring away a few last things.

"Hiroto committed suicide," I said, "by jumping in front of a truck."

"He left a note," Adrianne said, glancing down at her clipboard. "'See you in the next world.'"

"Even in death, he watches too much anime," I murmured. "Well... I was going to remand him to Miya's custody, but... I guess funeral arrangements are more in order, aren't they?"

"If you want a grave for people to desecrate, it'll be an empty one," Adrianne said. "In Warehouse time, he's been dead for about eighty years."

"It's the thought that counts."

----------------------------------------

The day I left was a quiet day, without any real fanfare. I simply... left a note, walked into the Warehouse, and closed the door behind me.

Karasuba was already here, in her own apartment; I didn't know much more than that, and didn't care to check. We were on speaking terms, and we didn't dislike each other, but... well, we weren't really friends, either.

Chiho and Uzume, now they were my friends, but... well, unfortunately, they had other friends, and as much as they liked me, it wasn't quite 'leave my home behind for you' levels of liking me.

I was sprawled out on a couch in my own house, where I'd originally formed the Warehouse around me, watching How It's Made and eating potato chips, all by myself.

And then, suddenly, I wasn't.

"Hello, Jump-chan," I said. "It's been a while."

"You pathetic fuck," Jump-chan said. "You had easily-taken hot bitches flying at you, vagina-first, and you still walked out of Sekirei, fucking Sekirei, without so much as a single fucking waifu?!" She fumed and paced.

"When you give someone an opportunity just to see what they'll do with it," I said, "sometimes you have to be prepared for them to use it in a way you didn't expect."

"Yeah, and when you give someone a chance to impress you, sometimes you're disappointed," Jump-chan said testily. "Fucking christ, I can't keep watching this shit..." She blinked. "Wait, what the fuck did you do to your Warehouse? And to yourself?! What the he-" She paused. "Huh. Hrm."

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

She tapped her chin, her tantrum now on pause.

"So," Jump-chan said, "you've turned your Warehouse and your Body Mod into a galactic empire of hot fuckable bitches who'll do whatever you tell 'em to."

"You approve, then?" I said.

"It's something I didn't expect," Jump-chan admitted. "I mean, it's no harem, but..."

"Then I'm going to be staying out of here, next Jump," I said. "You're free to watch them fuck each other in my absence, but something tells me that's not the same for you."

"You suck," Jump-chan said. "Fine. Fine! Whatever. Have fun jumping into boring shit like Battletech and Warhammer, if you don't wanna play in the sandbox of harem anime I made for you. Just don't expect me to be around to care if you get yourself killed."

"Fine by me," I said. "Oh hey, paperclips."

Jump-chan disappeared, and I kept watching until the end of the episode. After that, though...

...Well, I got up, went out, and found Karasuba.

"Hey," I said, bumping into her at the convenience store. "We've got a month to decide what fictional setting we wanna go to next. I've got an idea, but since you just joined, I figured I might let you pick this one."

"Alright," Karasuba said, picking up a bottle of Mountain Dew. "I'll think about it."

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"Star Wars, huh?" I asked.

"I've got fond memories of watching it," Karasuba said. "With..." She coughed. "...Doesn't matter. Anyway... I do like the world's aesthetic. How it feels like it'd be to live there. And, well, the fact that the main people who matter are psychics with badass swords..." She shrugged.

"Alright, well," I said, pulling up the Jump Drive. "There're options, for a Star Wars Jump. Do you feel strongly about being in the events of any of the movies, or..."

"Eh," Karasuba said, shrugging. "I've already seen those stories. I wanna see some new ones. What else you got?"

"Well, you're in luck," I said. "There's a really well-made Jump Document- and I'm not just saying that because the author is a personal friend of mine, we're friends because she's a good author- for a period of the Star Wars setting I'm particularly fond of: The Old Republic. There's a galactic war going on between the Republic and the recently-reformed Sith Empire- although, at the time we'd be going in, the war would be in a cold phase, with a temporary peace treaty giving both sides time to lick their wounds."

"Sith Empire, eh?" Karasuba mused. "So, I could rock a red lightsaber without being the only Sith around?"

"You could indeed," I said, nodding. "I was thinking of rolling Sith too, actually."

"Oh?" Karasuba asked. "You strike me as a pretty goody-two-shoes sort."

"I'm also a prideful asshole who would really like it if, after the last ten months of stressful politicking, I got plopped down in the midst of a whole bunch of evil assholes I could just beat up and kick around without feeling bad about it," I said. "Besides, I wanna roll some kinda Force user, and if I go Jedi, then Yoda's going to tell me he isn't mad, just disappointed, every time I jerk off."

"Well, fair enough," Karasuba said, shrugging. "The Old Republic it is. Let's fucking go."

"Well, first," I said, "We have to actually, like, read the Jump Doc, and pick out all the Perks and Items and Drawbacks we want. Oh, I think there might be ship customization, too? It's pretty straightforward, really-"

"Can I just tell you what I generally want, and make you do my character sheet?" Karasuba asked.

"...Well, alright," I said, shrugging. "You wanna be a big, badass Sith who can choke people over the phone and throw down in a fight, right?"

"Exactly," Karasuba said, nodding.

"I'll see what I can do," I said. "There're a few things I'll need your input on, but... well, I'll get back to you on those."

"Cool, well." Karasuba stood up and turned for the door. "I'll leave you to it."

----------------------------------------

"Alright, well," I said, the next day. "I made our builds... pretty much identical. You're missing one perk, which makes you good at fighting with a lightsaber, but..." I glanced at the nodachi she always carried with her. "Well, you didn't need a perk to be good at killing people with a sword, did you?"

"I did not, no," Karasuba said.

"Now, for drawbacks, there's some stuff that might be a sticking point," I said. "Let's start with the most agreeable ones. This one makes you start out early, when you're being trained as a Sith, so you don't have all your perks and items right away. Basically, we get to stay in Star Wars longer, and experience more of it, by including the part where we Git Gud."

"That's fine," Karasuba said. "What next?"

"Well, when we go into a Jump," I continued, "we usually have what's called an Import Identity- a person that we basically are, to smooth over the wrinkles we'd otherwise get from the simple fact that people don't usually just spontaneously hop across dimensional barriers. This drawback means that the identity and memories that come with it are a lot stronger, and our existing, personal memories are a lot weaker- essentially, for the duration of this Jump, we would become new people, who remember being us."

"Hrm..." Karasuba mulled that over. "Huh. It's more immersive, that's for sure. Do we get to pick our Import Identities?"

"We can influence it, but..." I looked down at our sheets. "Well, we're going to be the sorts of people who get into the Sith Academy no matter what, so that puts some limits on our range."

"Fair enough," Karasuba said, shrugging. "Fuck it, I won't say no to a break from myself. It is just going to be a break, right? This turns off after we're done?"

"Yeah, exactly," I said, nodding. "Also on the subject of immersion... we forget everything we know about the Star Wars franchise, and only know what we discover in-character."

"That's fine."

"And the biggest drawback, which I'm really sore about, but I need the points..." I sighed. "We'll be cut off from our Warehouse, its time dilation, and everything else in it for the entire Jump. Which stings, because I got some real good mileage out of it, but..." I shrugged.

"I won't miss it," Karasuba said dryly. "Is that all? Are we ready to go?"

"Yeah," I said, nodding. "We're ready to go."