Aika stood in the hallway dripping wet as Anna and Hank approached, both of them wearing clothes they'd borrowed from Sehrish. Aika wore two towels -- one around her body and one around her hair, wrapped up like a turban. She massaged an arm with her other hand, acting as if it hurt. Hank was sure he knew the reason why. His butt also hurt from when she tackled him in her glade.

Anna kept her eyes cast down, bowing and showing respect. "Sensai," she said and nothing more.

Aika wasn't interested in Anna. "You now know my true nature," she said to Hank. "I must let you further in."

As usual, she made little sense. "O-kay," Hank said, drawing out the word.

Aika stepped up closer, leaving soggy footprints behind. "You are way too big to ever fit all inside me. Oof," she said with a grin as Hank snuffled a laugh. "What?" she asked, laughing back, both serious and confused.

"Nothing, Sensai. You're just bizarre."

Anna nudged Hank to gain his attention, imploring him with her eyes to show Aika respect. "Sensai," Anna said to her. "You called for me too?"

"Your day is done. It's past normal business hours and time for you to go."

Anna swallowed hard. "But… Sensai. Hank brought me here. I don't have a car."

"Hmm. There are other ways."

"But…"

Teek peeked out from eavesdropping on the conversation from the kitchen. "I could take you home!"

Anna seemed ready to cry. "But…"

Aika sensed Anna's dismay, but Teek was the one who took action. She was soon at Anna's side, looking up at her as she stared down hard at her feet.

Hank fairly began crying himself. "Why do you do this to me?" he asked Aika. "Please don't make her cry."

Anna wiped away a hot tear. "I'm not crying, sōshoku-kei. It's just… I still have no place to go."

Teek took Anna's elbow. "You can go with me," she said.

"No!" Anna said, "I actually right now have no home! My apartment… something terrible happened there."

"There will be more," Aika said, repeating words she'd spoken before.

Anna continued. "And I can't go home to my family. Sue Marie's working tonight, and my Fuji's laid up at a friend's house. So I have nowhere to go!"

"Sue Marie?" Teek labored to recall. "She works at a bar?"

Anna nodded. "She's a Tropical Bikini Girl. She works almost every night."

Teek perked up the instant she heard the word 'bikini.' "Oh! Let's go!" she said.

"Ah… aren't you underage?" Hank asked Anna.

"Tut tut. Squirrel Girl will get me in."

"That's kinda against the law."

"Not if I don't drink."

"She could get in trouble."

Anna snarled. "Listen, I know how to get in and out of trouble without your help, thank you very much. If worse comes to worst, I'll put on a bikini and be a dancer. Bikini Girls can be nineteen, you know."

That really got Teek's attention. She could no longer stand still. "Let's go, let's go, let's go!" she said, dragging Anna away by an arm.

Now alone with Hank, Aika led him through her bedroom to an attached master bath. It was functional and not much else. There was a toilet and stand-up shower behind a glass door. A wooden door beside a changing bench opened into what once had been a linen closet. Now it led to a room that had been the apartment's third bedroom. Like what Rio had done at her place, Aika had turned the room into a Japanese bath.

The tub was white and nearly square, with round corners and an ornate gold rim. Big enough to hold twelve, it took up most of the room. A thick tiled surface ran around its exposed edge, veined in gray and black, looking sturdy enough to sit on. The tub was filled to overflowing with warm water and mountains of bubbles. A mirror along the wall on one side had suds climbing up it like ivy, as jacuzzi jets frothed them further.

"Get in," Aika said, her back to Hank as she removed her towel.

Hank's throat closed while averting his gaze, figuring her to be naked. "Aika, thanks, but no. I just cleaned up from our last time together, and…"

Hank stopped speaking and stared at Aika. She wore a muted one piece silver bathing suit, accented with razor blue highlights. It was athletic in design, covering the front of her body completely but open far down her back. She stepped into the bath and turned towards Hank.

"Get in," she said again.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"I'm sorry, I seriously doubt it."

Aika sat and disappeared in the bubbles. "You don't often follow orders," the bubbles said.

Hank sat on the tiled ledge with his feet on the floor, to better hear Aika over the roar of the jacuzzi. "Well, it's not that I don't follow orders. It's that you don't treat your guests very well."

The bubbles laughed, so quiet compared to the jets. "You think you're here for fun? That this is a social call?"

Hank didn't know what to think. Aika was too weird.

"You'll not be the same after this," she said. "I'll teach you how to spit. I'll show you how dreams fill the world. So many people laugh and cry. They love and hate each other each day, and at night put themselves on display." The bubbles parted to show Aika's eyes. "You make people laugh and cry. They live their lives because of you, and dream your dreams without knowing they do it."

"Why would I make people cry?"

"You think people don't cry for you?"

"I think people don't know my name."

"They know you without your name. You think people don't care about you, yet you care about them a great deal. You think about others more than you do yourself, by a factor of…" Aika proved herself to be bad at math. "…a lot," she said, unable to come up with a proper term.

That's true.

"Hank-sama, people cry at night for the love of a Dot. Especially now. Bad things are happening everywhere."

Hank blinked. "Anna says I'm not a Dot."

"What does Rio say? And her husband?"

"Milton?"

"Hai. What does Milton say?"

"Um… well, Milton is kinda missing right now, and he's also not her husband."

"He's not?" Aika acted surprised. "Huh."

"I thought his disappearance was why I'm here. That and the PEP Center attacks."

"There'll be more. Bad things are happening."

Hank became upset. "You say that all the time. How about doing something about it?"

The bubbles parted. A head appeared, then a hand. Aika turned off the water jets, making the room silent.

"I am. I'm training you."

"For what?"

Aika shook her head slowly from side to side. Blue indigo locks trailed behind her like snakes. "If you don't know, then I can't say."

"Everyone I meet talks to me the same way. 'Do this! Don't do that!' It'd be helpful if I knew why."

"You know."

"No I don't! I don't know why!"

Aika rose up from the water and threw herself at Hank, arcing like a dolphin. He reached out to counter her latest attack, thwarting her but losing his balance. With no handhold in sight, his feet shot out in front of him and his arm shot out behind, submerging itself past his elbow in the tub.

Hank cursed. "Geez, Aika-cho! What the hell?"

She squealed, splashing about. "Come be with me and I'll show you!"

The long sleeved shirt Hank had borrowed from Sehrish, having been worn for less than thirty minutes, was now soaked to its shoulder. Worse than that, the tub was deep. There was no way for Hank to right himself without falling in.

"Quit doing crap to me!"

Aika rose up to her knees, showing great concern. She assessed the chaos she'd caused.

"We got the floor wet," she observed.

"Oh. Well, that is terrible."

Aika's body dripped globs of bubbles as she scurried to Hank on her knees. Her mat of hair got suds on his face as she grabbed his submerged elbow. With a mighty shove, she got him back to a seated position on the ledge of the tub. Once seated, Hank stood up, and streams of water ran down his leg from his sopped shirt sleeve.

"Great," he said. "Another set of clothes you've wrecked."

"Get naked!" Aika said, flying up and backwards in her tub.

The antic sent more water Hank's way. It also revealed something interesting.

"Where's your swimsuit?" he asked.

The bubbles seemed confused. "I dunno. Somewhere. Why do you think I turned off the jets?"

He replied sarcastically. "Because you're naked of course."

"You should be naked too. It makes things easier."

Now somewhat agreeing, Hank sighed as loud as he could. He shed his wet shirt and sweatpants, still wearing the borrowed briefs, which were dry. "I'm not much for clothes anyway," he admitted, placing a thick folded towel on the ledge, to sit on and keep his butt dry. "But don't touch me again. Understand?"

Aika sounded sad. "Oh. Okay. I'm sorry."

Hank smiled. Despite her being older than him, she was a kid at heart.

She cheered. "Now you look like me!"

"We are not alike."

"You're naked."

"I'm wearing briefs."

"Ah well. Close enough."

"Not even."

"You're wrong. I will show you."

Hank stood up. "I said don't touch me."

The bubbles scarcely moved. "Are you perhaps like Rio? She has killed many, you know."

I don't believe you.

"She'll kill thousands, many more if need be, all dying in your name."

Hank felt close to tears. Somehow, in his heart, he believed Aika's words.

He beseeched his sensai. "Don't let people die because of me."

"They'll not die because of you. They will die for you."

"Then help me stop it. Please!"

"How many have you killed?"

"What? Me? None!"

"So you are not like Rio. Perhaps Anna. Are you her?"

Hank blinked to calm his mind. "I don't know. I guess. I think maybe. Yes."

The bubbles went silent.

"Aika?"

"Well, yes. You are like Anna. But she's still not you."

"How so?"

"You will save us. She will not."

"I'm sick of hearing that. What am I saving, exactly? I can scarcely save myself. I don't have a place of my own to live in anymore, or even a job."

Aika appeared. She organized her bubbles, stacking them thoughtfully while speaking. "Sometimes people suffer. Even very good people." she looked at Hank over the top of her bubble mountain. "But everyone needs to die."

"Stop saying that."

"People hurt. And so we die. You decide who cries and dies."

"Stop saying that!"

"I'm here to help, Hank-sama. Everybody is. We want to be in your dreams."

"Yeah? Well, the last dream I remember having was during my second PEP Test, and the people in it weren't happy."

Hank peered at the waterbug stacking bubbles. She seemed to be ignoring him as she crawled in circles on her hands and knees around her display, chasing the bubbles that fell from her creation with her face. Her long hair splayed out behind her, playing peek-a-boo with her butt.

For what seemed like the thousandth time, he marveled at how cute she was. "Am I in your dreams?" he asked with hopeful curiosity.

Aika giggled as she bit at her bubbles. "You are, but I don't know why."

"What?"

She giggled again. "You could never all fit in me." She painted Hank's body with her eyes. "You are way too big."

Hank smiled. "Yeah. I'm getting that a lot lately."

"No no no!" Aika said as she laughed. "Your dreams are so big! You're a big vessel to contain."

"A vessel?"

Aika closed her eyes and put her head back, to float with her butt bumping along the bottom. Her soft breasts trailed after her face, almost with a mind of their own.

"I want to swim in your dreams," she said, as if to herself. "I visit you there all the time. They're warm and very still, and the sky is free of clouds."

Aika flipped onto all fours at some distance away from Hank, her butt sticking out from the bubbles. Her pose and expression were like those she used while wearing her Neko cat costume.

Hank reared back. "Don't pounce on me."

"Grr," Aika said. She then hissed, but not at Hank.

Carolus had entered the room. "Nyah!" the cat answered back.

Aika turned on her cat more forcefully. "Grr! Hiss!"

Carolus sat on her big butt and licked a paw.

"Grr!" Aika said again, splashing a bit of water.

"Nyah!" Carolus replied, retreating to remain dry.

Hank laughed. "You really are too much!"