A Teacher and A Cause

A week had passed and the group had begun to gather for another meeting. Yuki had brought specialty drinks and snacks for this meeting and was fast organizing everything. All of the members arrived early with the prospect of Ichiro's story looming. Takamasa and Konomi sat together with her resting her head on Takamasa's shoulder. The silence between them spoke volumes. There was still much for the couple to work out emotionally, but there was, at least, some semblance of an understanding.

Asuka and Shingo were leaning in close to each other whispering about something that made Asuka smirk.

"I really think that we might have gone a bit too hard on the train situation." Shingo whispered as Asuka listened and nodded in response. "Maybe life here is so different compared to before. We used to be inundated with things we had to do. We were constantly under threat. Maybe our minds are just too bored so we're just looking for problems that we can contribute to in some way."

Even Inori, sitting on the edge of the front table, and Haruki, standing next to her, were chatting about plans for after the meeting.

"Ichiro has been coming over every other night or so. I even got him his own key." Inori informed Haruki within Yuki's earshot. "You're welcome to join us, but that also means we'll need to go somewhere else for privacy."

Yuki pulled her mid length hair away from her ear trying to listen in better, though not as incognito as she would have hoped.

"Oh yea?" Haruki inquired. "Why does he come over?"

"Hmmm." Inori pondered, thinking back to the times he's visited. "I taught him how to use a stove and refrigerator and all sorts of every day things."

"Oh, I never really thought about any of that basic stuff." Haruki responded. "Sure I showed him a slew of other everyday things, but I always miss a few. OH! I need to tell you about what happened at the pond."

Yuki's eyes widened. Sounds from the hall reverberated into the room. Footsteps drew closer. Mixed emotions coursed through the group. Some looked forward to learning more of their new comrade while others were trepidatious of what reliving previous experiences might do. Takamasa knew all too well of the effects of digging up the past.

The door to the room opened revealing Ichiro looking thrilled. His visible excitement elevated the mood to almost giddy.

"Hello everyone!" Ichiro said with a happiness that was unusual for him.

"Hey Ichiro!" Yuki said trying to match his tone while the rest waved or nodded.

"Today is a big day for me." Ichiro said. "I get to tell you all about the greatest woman I ever knew."

"Woman?" Haruki questioned.

"Lenora?" Inori speculated.

"Yes, Lenora" Ichiro answered.

"Who's Lenora" Shingo asked as Ichiro walked toward the podium.

"Ichiro mentioned her a couple times during our dinners together." Inori chimed in.

"She was the only reason I made it through my world." Ichiro continued.

"I guess we should go ahead and start then since everyone seems so eager." Yuki said from the side as she gestured Inori and Haruki toward open seats. The couple took the hint and sat alongside the others.

Once everyone was settled, they all gave Ichiro their full attention.

"From what I've learned of your worlds, you arrived and were told what you were supposed to do." Ichiro started.

The group muttered in agreement.

"I didn't have that." Ichiro continued. "My oldest memories of my world were of battle. I don't quite remember why or how, but I was in the military of one of the bigger nations. There was a war between them and another nation and I was near the front lines. At the time, we were separated by a valley and neither army was willing to enter it. We must have sat in those trees for weeks."

"Why wouldn't anyone go in the valley?" Yuki questioned.

"The whole area was gifted to a retired adventurer. She was probably in her seventies at that point. Eventually, the armies decided they'd send representatives down to negotiate passage through the valley. I was chosen by my army and so I ventured down to this little log cabin. That's where I met this grizzled old lady. She was hunched over sitting on her porch. Her laundry hung on a line next to her little house. She had a small garden. By all accounts, she seemed decrepit."

"They were afraid of an infirm elderly retired adventurer?" Haruki asked.

"She was a legendary adventurer who was virtually a complete unknown to the armies." Ichiro boasted "Imagine being told myths that were so fantastic, they would be hard to fathom. Tales of power so unbelievable, that they could hardly be attributed to someone who wasn't a monster. Now imagine someone points and says 'That person over there did all those things.' Some people believed it, others didn't."

"The old adventurer was Lenora?" Asuka asked startling all of the others that she spoke.

"Yes, she was the lady I would ultimately call my master and my friend." Ichiro confirmed.

"What happened next?" Shingo asked.

"The other army's representative and I were chatting with her. She offered me some tea. I wasn't anyone important, just a foot soldier and someone who she owed nothing to. Still, she offered me tea. The other guy was one of the higher ups in their army. He was demanding Lenora let his army pass and said they would go through anyway. She didn't like that. I'd never seen anyone move so quickly or with such power. The pole for her clothesline turned out to be the handle for a gigantic her gigantic hammer. With one smooth, swift motion, she had moved thirty feet, pulled the hammer out of the ground, returned to where she was, and hit the man once. That's all it took."

After a moment of shock, Inori asked, "Was she a hero like we were?"

"No." Ichiro responded. "She spent years as an adventurer so she was experienced and battle hardened and brilliant, all of her strength and agility and wit she acquired on her own through the most monumental efforts."

"What happened with the armies?" Shingo questioned.

"Well, both armies were watching when that happened and they both understood that entering her valley was out of the question." Ichiro continued. "Lenora convinced me, rather easily, to leave the military. She often told me that she liked me for some reason but she could never explain why, but since she did like me she decided not to kill me but rather train me the way she trained. For several hundred days, I never left the valley. She taught me how to be strong and fast and she taught me how to fight. She even took me to have my own hammer made. Of my more than a million days and nights in that world, I only got a few thousand with her."

"A few thousand days, that's around ten years, give or take a couple." Konomi worked out. "What happened to Lenora?"

"She finally lost the fight against time." Ichiro answered solemnly. "The only enemy that she didn't want to lose to was ultimately the only enemy she couldn't beat."

"You also said a million days?" Haruki asked.

"That's right." Ichiro answered.

"That's almost three thousand years by our standards." Haruki continued. "Were the days short or did you live a long time or what?" Haruki tried to find an explanation for it all.

"It seemed like the days were a good bit longer than the days in this world." Ichiro explained. "I have no real explanation as to why I lived so long. It seemed like everyone else had different lifespans depending on race."

"What kinds of races were there?" Konomi asked.

"Oh, all kinds." Ichiro went to answer. "Elves lived the longest at almost one hundred thousand days. Dwarves about half that. Humans around thirty thousand days. Demi-humans varied depending on species. The monster races were similar to the demi-humans."

"So you're saying, you're the only one who lived that long?" Inori asked.

"Yea," Ichiro began to explain. "Living that long afforded me a lot of my own power and influence. I think, because of everything I did and everything I accomplished over my time there, Lenora's name will ripple through the annuls of time and she'll never be forgotten.

"What did you do an accomplish?" Yuki asked seeing it all as an opportunity to learn more about a guy she has a crush on.

"I spent a long time as an adventurer." Ichiro started. "Over that time period, the world became a much more tame place so there was less need for an adventurer. The kingdoms tried to use me politically or to bolster their military, but I never signed on to any of that. That is something else Lenora taught me. If I start picking sides, then the other side might get disgruntled. However, even in the more tame world, I managed to travel around and continue some light adventuring."

"So if everyone of you were pulled into your worlds to complete some task then it's safe to assume Ichiro had a task as well, he just didn't know what it was." Haruki postulated.

"That would make sense." Inori responded.

"So then once he completed his task, he would come back here correct?" Haruki dug deeper.

"Well yea, that's how it works." Shingo replied.

"So, Ichiro, what's the last thing you were doing in your world because that would have been your task." Haruki posed the question to Ichiro while all the other members of the support group looked on with frightful attention.

"Oh? Ichiro uttered. "It wasn't anything special. There was this woman who was in charge of one of the cities. She was refusing to let me in the city and was arguing with me. Truthfully, I think she was one of those people who either didn't care about the adventurers or didn't believe in us. I remember when I first came to here, I thought she had done something to me."

"Well, no matter how important of an argument it was, I doubt that was the massive task you were sent for." Yuki said. "That just makes everything even more confusing."

"It took most of my time there, but I'd say I finally became as strong as Lenora was." Ichiro lamented. "Since I've been back I've been training again and trying to get back to where I was, but I think my new family here is worth investing my time and effort in."

"Did you ever group with anyone else?" Inori wondered.

"Sure I did." Ichiro answered. "At first, I grouped with many people: all of Lenora's old comrades, other adventurers, random notable people that I happened to meet along the way. After a while though, once you outlive so many friends and colleagues, you learn to stop making connections."

Ichiro's expression began to sour for a moment before it perked back up.

"But, life goes on and it's nice to part of an adventuring party again." Ichiro bolstered his friends with excitement. "It feels different here than it did in my world. I feel like there isn't really a need for an adventuring party yet, but I also feel like something is off."

Haruki paid close attention and wondered, "What do you mean something is off?"

"I'm not sure yet." Ichiro answered. "It feels like something is just out of view, barely hidden in a fog. I feel like there's something just over the horizon that I can't make out."

The group looked at each other with little understanding of what he was talking about.

"I think I know what you mean." Haruki stated.

The group snapped their heads toward him in amazement.

"Wait, you mean there actually is something?" Yuki asked her brother.

"Naturally." Haruki responded. "In the past month, there have been several incidents that the police have kept from the public."

"Several..." Shingo uttered.

"Incidents..." Asuka followed.

Haruki nodded before continuing, "What I'm going to tell you doesn't leave this group. Agreed?" He paused, allowing each of the members to show some form of agreement before he continued. "You all know of the train. Security footage showed a single person on the train go black-eyed before cutting out. After that, the train was found destroyed as if an explosion had gone off inside of it."

"We investigated that on our own." Shingo contributed.

"There was another incident in a sushi restaurant." Haruki continued. "Curious about that, there was no security footage of the event at all. It was as if all the cameras turned off exactly three minutes before and stayed off until three minutes after."

"What happened at that incident?" Takamasa questioned.

"Twelve customers and four employees all went black-eyed at the same time. There were no survivors."

"WHAT?" Takamasa exclaimed as shock poured through the group. "We've never been able to tell what causes people to be taken to the other worlds. You're telling me suddenly sixteen people in the same place all get taken by random chance?"

"We've never been able to find a common link between any of the people taken and that incident is different in that they were all together." Haruki explained. "Even then, that's the only link connecting them all together. The police are investigating but have yet to find any information about the incident."

"You said there were several incidents." Konomi said, directing the conversation back.

"Yes, two more." Haruki answered. "One, similar to the sushi restaurant, happened in a school."

"Oh no." Yuki grieved.

"Luckily, only three employees turned black-eyed." Haruki relieved his sister of her worry. "No children were in the building at the time as it was after school had ended for the day. The final incident was stranger. A few days ago a television station's broadcast was stopped for a short time. When others investigated, they found six black-eyed people frozen in place having destroyed a large part of the equipment."

"So, they turned after they destroyed it?" Asuka questioned.

"That's the problem we're encountering in our investigation." Haruki responded. "If they did turn after, why them and why would they destroy the equipment? All accounts say they had worked at the station for years and showed no sign of dissatisfaction with their jobs. If they turned before destroying the equipment, then we are facing an unprecedented problem in which there's more to the situation than anyone understands."

"It's unfathomable that they would turn and then be able to continue on." Inori contributed. "Our understanding is that they go black-eyed because they failed in their isekai."

"We've never been able to be sure of that Inori." Yuki responded.

"It has to be something with the Isekai." Inori chided. "We succeeded our tasks and came back and now all of us have red-eyes. We can only assume that our spirits were taken there and made it back here. If they die while there, there's no spirit to return back here. It just makes sense."

"Even so, we're simply fumbling around with too many unknowns." Takamasa chimed in. "That's just a theory and we have no proof that's what actually happens."

"It's not even like we could test any of it either." Shingo contributed.

"Regardless, It seems as if Ichiro has a sense for things." Haruki said. "There very well may be something big 'just over the horizon' as he said." Gesturing to Ichiro, Haruki continued. "I can't quite imagine what you all have been through, but I can't help but think it was for reason."

"A reason?" Inori blurted. "Someone or something had a reason for us to suffer like we all did?"

"I really feel that way Inori." Haruki said consolingly. "Going with the idea that you're right and your spirits were brought to another world and you had to strive to survive and make it back, then in this room is a gathering of the most powerful, heroic, wonderful people that the world has ever produced."

Inori, embarrassed for being upset mere moments before, cried, "Oh, Haruki." and hugged him tight.

"If we did go through all of that for a reason," Takamasa adding his unequivocal thoughts to the conversation, "I feel as if it was all for nothing as we have the knowledge and experiences, but no power anymore. Without our power, we would merely be posturing."

"No," Ichiro interrupted the flow of the conversation. "To think that our amassed knowledge and experiences is posturing is wrong. Because of everything we know, we can contribute to the world."

Takamasa, with his endless logic, contributed, "It's not worth considering right now because we can't be sure of anything yet. It feels horrible, but the only thing we can do is continue on as we are now and wait."