Adam reflected on the events of the past few days. So much had happened, it felt more like three months since he had first touched down in Korea. But only days later, he had been flown to Japan, and now he was standing in front of a random house, in the city of…

“Where are we again?” Adam remarked to Caleb, who was about to ring the doorbell.

Caleb rolled his eyes as he pushed on the button, “We’re in the city Nara. It was on the sign right after we got off the plane. Are you blind, or…” he glared pointedly at Adam, “you forgot to put in your translator, didn’t you?”

Adam blushed as he stumbled to pull a small earbud, as well as a set of contacts out of his pocket. Caleb sighed.

“How can we expect to get any information from these people, if half of the interviewers is useless during the meeting?” Caleb smirked.

The two waited a few more minutes, to no avail. Then they heard a voice behind them.

“Oh, are you two looking for the Chiba girl?”

They turned to see an older man behind them. He gestured to the house.

“She hasn’t stepped a foot outside of her house for a while now. Ever since her teacher was taken in an incident, the poor thing hasn’t come out other than to receive food, or packages. She does receive quite a few packages these days. Are you two here to check up on her?”

“No we-,” Adam began before an elbow from Caleb shut him up.

“Yep. I am a friend of hers from school, and me and my older… cousin are here to check up on her!”

Caleb then tugged him down.

“While being investigators of the Isekai initiative holds some prestige, it’s not as if we have any proof! Do you want us to be taken to jail for harassing a random girl!?”

Adam frowns.

“Why don’t we have some sort of badge or something for that?”

Caleb held up his hand to smack Adam, but then stopped, and frowned.

“I… I don’t actually don’t have a good reason to give you.”

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Just as Caleb seemed on the verge of a mental breakdown, the door opened behind them, and the voice of a young girl rang out.

“You guys can come in.”

Caleb stepped in quickly, while Adam cautiously made his way inside, bowing in farewell to the man who had spoken to them. As the door closed, the two found themselves standing in front of a girl who was most likely in her teens. However, Adam had difficulty estimating her age due to how she was completely bundled up in what seemed to be a quilt, or blanket.

Caleb pulled up his phone.

“Are you Miss Chiba?”

The girl’s hand emerged from the blanket and she held it out.

“Saki Chiba at your service.”

Adam reached out to take her hand(bumping into Caleb on the way), but as skin touched skin, the sounds of the world around Adam faded. The world around him crawled to a halt, and Adam once again saw himself, as if watching himself in the third person. Suddenly panicked, he twisted his view left and right, searching for the oncoming threat to no avail.

“So then what do I do?” He wondered aloud.

“Well, if I can’t see it coming, the best thing I can do is try to logic my way into finding where it’s coming from. I was the best in the academy I graduated from.” he replied to himself.

“That’s… uncharacteristically straightforward and calm, me.” he remarked.

Then after a brief pause “oh my god, I’m going insane, aren’t I.” he broke down.

With his mind made up, he once again looked around and observed his surroundings. The three of them were surrounded with walls, with very few windows at eye, or even head level. There was one behind them next to the door, about the height of the door, and pretty narrow, and one above a sink, in a room behind the girl, barely in view. While the window by the door was mostly opaque, the other was thankfully unshuttered, and was filled with clouds, and blinding light.

“So it’s lightning!” Adam thought for a moment in celebration, before panicking, “what the heck do I do about lightning?”

After moments of panic, he spoke, almost as if a separate person to himself.

“It’s lightning, so you can try to ground yourself, right?”

With not a moment to lose(though there was a small voice in the back of his sort of wondering about the knowledge he just expelled), he began to will himself to grab onto the girl, and turn toward Caleb, grabbing the two of them, and pulling them down. Not a second too late either, as within milliseconds, thunder, so loud that Adam couldn’t hear anything else rang out, and, even though he wasn’t looking, a bright light illuminated everything around him, so hot that he could feel it burn the clothes on his back.

And yet, just as quickly as it struck, it was gone, leaving behind nothing, but some burnt clothes, the corpse of a fly, and an overwhelming smell, a smell, oddly similar to artificial plums.

As Adam sat up, and patted out the flames on his leg, he came to realize the girl, still on the ground(Caleb had gotten up, and while pale with shock, was berating him for the amount of force he had used), was shivering.

“She’s still in shock” he thought “I mean she almost died, so that makes sense.”

But, as Adam gently lay his hand on her head, he was met with a sharp spike of pain as the girl pushedhis hand aside, and looked at him, with eyes so filled with wrath, sorrow, and envy, that Adam reflexively drew back, letting her head hit the floor.

“What, what was that?”