When Topher awoke, the room was empty except for a slowly-cooling plate of breakfast meats and a short note. It read:

"Master Copperfield, Zanasha has gone to the Adventurer's Guild for the day. I will accompany you on your errands when you are ready. -- Vanna"

Topher squinted at the note blearily as he stuffed a piece of bacon into his mouth and hunted about for his glasses. Try as he might, he could not see the letters on the note as anything other than primly-printed characters of the English alphabet, even though he rationally knew they had to be either Japanese characters (ideograms? ideographs?) or whatever weird moon letters the locals used. Didn't I used to have problems reading signs early on? He racked his brain, but couldn't remember, which he supposed shouldn't surprise him; the entire reason they were here was because his memory was totally fucked, after all. Finally locating his glasses, he started to put them on, then recoiled at the state of disrepair they were in; before, he'd been able to ignore it, but they clashed with his new appearance much more than he'd realized. Shit. I probably need to fix these.

With a sigh, he conjured his Ledger and spent a half-hour painstakingly documenting each and every imperfection, calculating the reverse vector for whatever force and force type that had caused the damage, and engineering a complementary vector to reverse it; about halfway through, he realized that he was being an idiot and could just divide any given vector by the absolute value of an exponential transform equal to the number of dimensions it occupied, which made him curious whether there was a general solution. By the time he realized he'd gone down a rabbit hole, the pile of bacon and sausage on his plate was stone cold, and he realized that Hana -- Vanna, idiot -- was probably going to be very irritated with him. He jotted down a note to investigate it later, crunched through the remainder of his calculations, and finally arrived at a lengthy stack of arguments to Mending's base runeset; placing his glasses carefully before him and hoping he wasn't about to ruin his only way to see stuff, he chanted "Oiz Moxix Viak Teijuc, Thuum Xat Zu Xegar, Ghan Vord Ish Voro Byshk Ijto, Rxs Rosh Mij, Veb Voro Eht!" He almost ran out of breath towards the end, but it worked; his glasses twinkled slightly, flowed and shimmered a bit, and then returned to normal with all the chips and cracks and scuffs magically removed. He smirked, put them on, and set about dressing.

When he finally knocked on Vanna's door, she answered immediately; he got the impression she'd been sitting around for a long time. "Hey." He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Sorry it took me so long. I was fixing my glasses; the spell got complicated."

Her imperious face betrayed no emotion; "It is of no moment, Master Copperfield. Are you prepared to depart?"

"Yeah." He stepped back to let her out; the two of them headed down the stairs to the inn's common room, then out the front door into the streets. The instant that Topher emerged into the light, he felt all his nerves draw as tight as a bowstring; something was on edge within him merely from the familiar sights and sounds. Doing his best to ignore it, he strode forward much more boldly than he felt, and started making his way to the castle so that he could sight around for landmarks. It took the better part of the morning, but he eventually succeeded; it was just before noon when he found the location where Ichirou -- Cailu, anyway -- had been arrested. His hands clutched his fake staff in a deathgrip. "Okay. From here, things might get weird. How do we do this?"

"I don't know why you think I have expertise in this," returned Vanna sourly. "I'll catch you if you fall or pass out; beyond that, I have no skill to aid you. If you are unsure..."

"No. I guess we're both doing our best." Topher sighed, squaring his shoulders, and turned in the direction he remembered; and, two turns and a back street later, he was there.

The instant he entered the empty lot, a chill wind blew through his bones; he could see, instantly, that this was going to suck really badly. The lot and the loft were exactly as he'd left them; even the broken board Makoto had been using for practice was still exactly where it had landed.

His vision began to narrow as he stared at it, dumbstruck; bits and moments of the past were struggling up from underneath the dirt where they'd been buried. I-I'm not joking around, you know! I'll mess you up! He staggered and clutched his staff with both hands. "This is it. This is where I said my last words to Makoto." You wanna fight, kid, you better be ready to do whatever it takes to win.

Things began to go poorly.

Topher's guts were on fire, twisting and gurgling; he wasn't sure whether he was going to throw up or shit himself. He frowned. This shouldn't be so hard. What the fuck is wrong with me?

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Where'd you learn to fight like that, Bailey-sensei?"

Topher squeezed his eyes shut. I've never been in a fight. Not a real one.

Haven't you?

Something foul, something black and disgusting, rose up in Topher's throat; his teeth gritted themselves against his will as his mouth twisted into that hideous smile once more. In a real fight, you always cheat. Because the cheaters win. He shook his head, breathing hard. No.

Gotta protect myself.

Leaning on the staff to keep himself upright, he gagged out the words for his soul-protecting Mage Shield spell; the globe of ash formed around him, then shrank to a skin-tight fitting and became translucent, then invisible. He wrapped his arms around the staff, praying it wouldn't break under his weight. Hold on. Gotta hold on.

It took several minutes, but the feeling subsided; logically, he knew that the Shield wasn't actually doing anything, but it made him feel safer and stronger, and that eventually forced down whatever awful feeling was eating at him long enough for him to start paying attention to his surroundings once more. The loft was still empty and untouched; but now he could see scuff marks in the dirt that tickled his subconscious, forcing more useful and less gut-wrenching memories to the surface. Exercise. She was raising her stats, to unlock the Monk Class. He raised his gaze to the loft's windows, remembering the last time he'd come here. "Kyaaa!"

Oh, right. He smiled a little, his fluffy new beard curling up at the corners of his mouth. Maybe all those times weren't so bad.

"You woulda made a good Monk."

The red-hot jolt of rage that shot through him was totally unexpected, and his hand clenched with killing intent. The fake staff, already strained well beyond what dead wood could be expected to handle, cracked and snapped with a loud report. His senses flashed. Danger.

With a movement he didn't know he had in him, he spun, twirling the broken half of his staff in his hand; something old and raw in his muscles screamed at him to use it to beat, to stab. But the only figure behind him was Vanna, her Chaos Blade out of its sheath and twinkling in her hand. It was still a dagger, but no longer the plain, workmanlike dagger that Hana typically used; instead it was something jagged and sinister, an assassins' blade forged to savage blood vessels and puncture organs. Topher blinked. "The fuck?"

Surprised, he looked into her eyes, unsure of what he would see; but what he saw there was startling. He expected cool disdain, or maybe alarm; but instead he glimpsed a savage joy, a relief, as though she were barely holding herself back. He recoiled, feeling threatened; his fingers twitched in a way that made him worry that they were going to strangle someone. "What? What is it?"

The young woman regarded him for a moment, then shrugged and sheathed her weapon. "You seemed on alert. I thought perhaps we might be in danger."

"Yeah, no." Topher crossed his arms. "You weren't looking for threats; you were looking at me." An ugly thought trickled through his mind: Job came to me through a courier; 'Kill Topher Bailey the Human', along with a big ol' sack of platinum. He cast aside the broken staff, feeling more anger rise up through him. "What the fuck's going on?"

Vanna crossed her own arms, scowling, and looked away. "It's nothing. I was being foolish."

"I don't think so." Topher took a step forward, then another. "How the hell are we going to trust each other if this kind of shit's happening?"

"'Trust each other?'" The young woman's gaze flashed up to meet Topher's own. "You're the one acting like you're going to become irrational at any moment. I'm... I'm just..." She ran down and looked away again.

"Hey." Topher's anger began to drain out of him; whatever this was, it wasn't a calculated assassin's ploy. "Seriously. What's going on?"

The other woman stamped her foot, irritation sparking through her. "Do I have to spell it out for you? I'm afraid, all right?" She clutched herself, the vulnerable posture at odds with her rugged adventurer's garb. "I'm nobody. I don't have any combat Skills. You're a mage, you could..." She shivered. "I can't protect myself against you. If things get bad."

Topher's mouth fell open. "Jesus. You can't actually think I'd hurt you, do you?" But, deep inside, he shuddered; he knew it was possible, if he lost control badly enough. I hit you as lightly as I could, kid. He took a step back. "Maybe this isn't safe. You could go back to the inn..."

Vanna snorted, a half-laugh, half-sob. "That's not the only way you could hurt me." She shook her head. "This is foolish. We should... I'm sorry. I'm supposed to be supporting you, not drawing my weapon on you."

Topher's face twisted in confusion, but he nodded. Probably best just to drop it. He turned back to the loft, ignoring the itching feeling between his shoulderblades. "Let's go inside."

The door, as he'd expected, was unlocked; the loft was empty and uninhabited, with a few odds and ends he didn't recognize but a large number of things he did. A fallen fork, made of strange yellowing wood, triggered something in his memory; he squatted down, examining it.

I was just singing while tidying up a little...

That's right. Noboru's Chant of Vigor Skill. A tiny piece clicked into place; he wasn't sure what significance it had, yet, but he knew it was important. "Got something." He straightened up, realizing that his back didn't hurt anymore. When did that stop? He looked around the loft, remembering. Everybody loves rice. He smiled. There's a reason these boring things were invented, I think. "It's not as bad as I thought. More good memories than otherwise."

Behind him, he heard Vanna let out a small sigh of relief. "I suppose it could be worse." She shifted, some of her gear clinking softly. "Where shall we go next?"

Topher sighed. "Oguro's shop. And then... the place everything went to shit."