Hi there,

Thank you for reading up to this point. If you haven't yet, I highly recommend reading the first few chapters of this story before this one.
I hope you enjoy it.

――――――

Chapter 7
― Crystal ―

― Crystal’s Dream ―
Crystal finds himself walking down a long corridor made of rainbow, with red, and black stars all around.

“What is this place?” Crystal looks back and forth between both ends of the long tunnel, and finds the tunnel start to collapse. He starts running towards one end, but the bridge collapses under him. No matter how fast Crystal runs, he eventually falls into the stars and darkness below him.

― ??? ―

Jacob breathes in deeply, causing erratic beeping from medical equipment and Jacob’s mother sits on a chair holding his hand, but seems to recognize the deep breath.

“Jacob, listen to me carefully. Where were you 5 minutes ago? Jacob honey! Tell me where you were!” Unfortunately, Jacob can’t say anything, as a ventilator is in his throat. Just before he loses consciousness, he’s able to utter a single word through the ventilator.

“Fu…So….Ba.” Several nurses rush into the room, as Jacob’s vision fades and for a brief moment, he sees two of his mother. One with silver hair, and another with black hair as they’re being pushed out of the room by the nurses, but his vision fades before he can make sense of anything.

― Guest Room ―

Crystal breathes deeply and bolts forward somewhat sparking, bordering on hyperventilation as he wakes up, and feels himself, peering across the room. He feels his arms and waist, as he recognizes that he’s back in the guest room with Kana next to him.

“Are you alright now?” Kana asks carefully, lightly gripping Crystal’s shoulder.

“I… I think so. What time is it?” Crystal feels his neck, and gives a raspy reply.

“It’s midnight…”

“Midnight? Did… Did you know I was going to have that dream?” Kana looks at Crystal concerned about this recent development, and that Crystal is back at all.

“I’m afraid that was not a dream. While I don’t know the details… that was you returning to your human body.” Crystal gulps heavily at the revelation of just how poor his health was.

“If that… I mean… If I was on Earth… why am I back here?”

“That, I don’t know. I can tell you though, that you are greatly cared for.”

“So… If I go back to my body on Earth. I’ll… be stuck in that body as opposed to the freedom here?”

“… yes, that’s right. The two options sound like a stark contrast.” Kana stares up at her ceiling, as if trying to make out fictitious shapes.

“If that wasn’t a dream… Is this world the dream?”

“Oh my god. That would make sense… I’m never tired here because I’m not moving. But… If that’s the case I’m… going to be stuck in that bed if I ever wake up!” Kana reaches her hands out to Crystal.

“Take hold of my hand.” Crystal looks at Kana’s hand, skeptical of what Kana was looking for her to do, until he finally takes her hand into his own.

“Do you feel that warmth? Could you read my notes earlier about my mom? Do you feel like you’re in a dream? How different does your Earth feel from this world?”

“Well…. I mean…. I feel your hand, it is warm. But this world feels only a little different from Earth.”

“But you feel it the air in this world. Describe to me where you were 5 minutes ago.” Crystal tries to remember as much as he can from the hospital.

“I was on this bed, and I woke up in a hospital. There were a lot of beeping machines.”

“And before that? When you went to sleep. Trace back as far as you can. Talk to me.”

“I was here,” Crystal says unsure where Kana's going with this.

“Ummm… I was brought here, we were down stairs, I was taken here by Ned, I was at his house, you knocked me out in the outskirts…. Before that, I was running away from some bandits with Ned, and uhhh… a Cadent? Somehow we teleported to the outskirts of the city, and he saved me from his cage.”

“Teleported? Cage?” Kana shakes her head dismissing that line of thought.

“What about before that? Do you remember?” Crystal stares at Kana confusedly, questioning the significance of this line of reasoning.

“Uhhh… I was in the ruins, and before that I was in the forest, running from some birds. Before that I met an old man who told me to go north. And before that I was in a cave where I woke up the first time here. Before that I was shot… why are you asking me to tell you all those things?”

“I asked you to tell me those things because if this was a dream, you would never remember that much detail. It’d be as simple as ‘I was just here.’”

“It wouldn’t be like ‘I woke up here’ or ‘I swam up from a lake.’ or even ‘I came to awareness.’ It would just be ‘I was just here.’”

“But your mind can conjure so much. If you believe truly, with all your heart that this is a dream, I won’t be able to dissuade you.”

“Why not?” Crystal asks in deep thought.

“If you believe this to be a dream, you can justify anything,” Kana says matter-of-factly, as Crystal somewhat disagrees.

“I guess that’s true…”

“My concern is that you’re back here at all.” The prophet puts her hand to her chin in contemplation while Crystal tries to understand whats happening.

“I don’t understand. What do you mean by that?”

“Well, if you woke up in your hospital bed. But you came back here, I wonder if something has pulled you back here? I wonder if you really do have something that you need to do here.”

“W-What do you mean?” Crystal asks quietly.

“Well Crystal, this world isn’t a dream. It’s a real location in space somewhere in relation to Earth. But where, I don’t know. I’m not even sure if Earth and Fusoba are in the same space time.”

“But I know that both are real. Think back Crystal, what did you see before waking up, but before being in your hospital bed.” Crystal folds his arms under his chest, in silent contemplation, trying to remember.

“I… was falling. No wait... I was walking.... Maybe both. I was on a rainbow bridge, with red and black stars in the darkness above me.”

“How did you know there was a black star at all?”

“I think.... Sometimes when I looked at the red stars, there were small black stars over the red ones. At least… I think so…” Crystal continues thinking, trying to remember anything else.

“Interesting…” The wizened prophet seemingly stares into space for a moment as her eyes glaze over momentarily before reverting her gaze to Crystal on the bed.

“In old history books, something similar was referred to as ‘The Spacial Realm’ and it was considered a form of travel between worlds.”

“Crystal, something dark is looking for you here. But what for, who, or even what it is, I don’t know. You must be very careful. You should eat your midnight snack, and go back to sleep. I’ll put up some electrical fences tonight.”

“Kana… I’m not… d-d-” Kana interrupts Crystal for a moment, as she attempts setting Crystal's mind at ease.

“No Crystal, you’re not dead, but it sounds like you are in a tenuous position.” Crystal wriggles in the bed nervously, not sure what to say, or think.

“I just… when I went back, it was so painful. I couldn’t move my arm, my chest was wheezing, even with a breathing helper thing.”

“You mean a ventilator?” The not-so elderly woman supplies.

“Yeah, that. I feel like I’m acting different too…”

“Crystal, when you have come to death’s door, even when you don’t cross to another world…. These kinds of things can have great consequences on your mind, and body,” Kana attempts to explain.

“Those consequences may still be to come, or they may have passed. Or both. It’s entirely possible that your acting differently is a direct result of your traumatic experiences leading you here.” Kana continues.

“I don’t understand…”

“Oh… perhaps you are still too young. Visions grant me a lot of knowledge, but not everything.”

“May I ask you what your name on Earth was?”

“My name was… Jacob…” Crystal says somewhat blankly. Almost as if the name was a distant memory.

“How old are you Crystal? Or Jacob, if you prefer.” Crystal’s eyes narrow in a glare, unable to tell if Kana is being sarcastic, but he has no reason to believe for certain that she means any harm, even momentarily.

“I’m 18, I was going to graduate high school pretty soon.”

“Still just a child. This experience never should have been forced on you.”

“I’m not a kid! I’m almost an adult.” The prophet laughs heartily at Crystal's outburst.

“Crystal, almost everyone is a child to me. Get some sleep,” Kana says playfully.

“Thank you Kana.” Crystal slowly eats his snack, seemingly made of oats and potato chips, finding the chips, despite his hesitation, to taste surprisingly good, and slowly drifts off to sleep.

― The Next Morning: Guest Room ―

Crystal wakes up slowly, as he realizes that this isn’t a dream, expecting that if he was dead, then everything would end at his acknowledgment of his death.

“Guess it’s not a dream.” Crystal gets out of his guest bed, and peers out the window, seeing a forest nearby on the edge of the city.

“I wonder if that’s the edge that we somehow teleported to…? How’d I do that anyway?” Crystal looks towards the sunrise without actually looking at it, realizing that even if he gets home, he may have to be hospitalized for life.

“What am I going to do? I don’t get any of this! I’m in another world, I’m a girl now, at least physically. Oh and let’s not forget that I’m an Elf or something too. Not only all those things, but I can’t even go outside the city without fear of being enslaved. This world sucks!” Crystal groans at his predicament, and after a few moments, Crystal hears a knock on the door to his guest room, causing him to stop his complaints, if momentarily. Initially, Crystal doesn’t say anything, expecting the visitor to just open the door, but to his surprise, the door is knocked on gently once more.

“Ummm… come in?” The door opens to reveal Ned, and Kana behind him standing at the door in a black flowing uniform similar to the hakama from the day before but with a purple triangle on his back.

“What is it Ned?” Crystal says angrily, but Kana stops the young Elf's frustrations.

“I just wanted to come over to the guest room and apologize.”

“What do you have to apologize for?” Kana says with a grin, knowing exactly what he has to apologize for.

“I’ve been mis-gendering you, and I’ve been a real jerk. I didn’t believe what you told me. But after last night and grandmother's insistence…”

“Well, it’s difficult to take you seriously with your claims of another world. So… I apologize. I thought you were just a crazy Elf with blue hair.”

“No, it’s cool, I just… It’s really hard to adapt to being here,” Crystal says, trying to be the bigger person, but Kana and Ned don't understand Crystal's phrasing.

“So, your Earth is that different?”

“It’s less that, and more that anything I do here, reminds me of my predicament, even breathing. Which for all I know, maybe Elves don’t have to do that anyway?” Crystal suggests to his foster family.

“No, Elves need to breathe. I think…” The familiar looking young man puts his hand to his chin thoughtfully in contemplation, much like how his grandmother would, followed by a shrug.

“So, what’s up?” Ned stares in confusion as he looks upwards in an attempt to answer Crystal’s question.

“Ummm…. The sky? The roof? The ceiling? I don’t know, what do you mean?” Ned continues looking confused until he finally realizes small contextual clues that Crystal had been inadvertently giving.

“A-Are you kidding?”

“OH! You mean 'What’s going on?' or 'What’s my reason for visiting?' that kind of thing right?” Crystal can’t tell if Ned is being serious with his question or if he’s playing around, like Noodle might, but Crystal nods nonetheless.

“Yeah, don’t… people say that here?” Crystal's jaw drops in shock.

“No, they don’t. We’re usually very polite saying things like “How are you?” or “Did you need some help?” or something like that. That’s neither here nor there. I wanted to see what you were going to do about your quest thing. Grandma told me about what happened after she thwapped me.”

“C-Can we not call it that? I agree with your grandma. It sounds wrong,” Crystal says in a bothered tone as he rubs his upper arms.

“Anyway, we should do some manly things today!” Crystal stares at Ned questioning his use of “Manly” as he considers the toxic representation that he’s more familiar with.

“W-What constitutes as ‘manly’ here?” Kana rolls her eyes, leaving the two alone.

“Well…” Ned starts to talk, but with each word, Crystal is reminded that this Ned is entirely different than Noodle.

“Universally, manliness constitutes acts of maturity, and sometimes great risk, but great rewards. Regardless of what it is we end up doing, it’ll be difficult beyond measure… It will be tragically difficult! It will be... A TRIAL OF MANLINESS!” Ned builds to a shout, in an attempt to be dramatic. Ned claps his hands in an attempt to drum up excitement, but he starts sweating to himself somewhat in nervousness.

“We can either… go clothes shopping for you, so you don’t have to steal my pants, or we could go into the forest and pick some mushrooms? Or, or! And hear me out, we could… play board games or computer games about living a mundane life going to a mystical place they call… school. Ned hisses playfully at his own references.

“Follow me yonder knave! For we shall journey into yonder schooool, in our search to save the princess from the dreaded dungeon we call… detention!” For a moment, Noodle seemed to overlap Ned, as Ned and Noodle seem to be entirely different, but very much the same. After this realization, Crystal starts laughing, clutching his stomach, kneeling down. A few minutes pass as Crystal finally regains his capacity to look at Ned without bursting out laughing.

“Well, now that we have THAT out of our systems, could you tell me what that was about?” Crystal sits on the guest bed, as he starts explaining.

“Yeah, yeah, sorry. So… there’s a guy in my world that I grew up knowing. His name is Ned Schafer too and he looks just like you.”

“He’s obsessed with something called Magi and Monsters, but he’s a good guy, that’s who I mistook you for initially.”

“Let me guess, this Noodle guy?”

“Yeah, that’s him. But here’s the thing; if he tried to do all this, then he’d be so overwhelmed.” Ned scrunches his nose, being bothered.

“He could never do what you do, be an archaeologist, plunge into tombs or ruins. He’d be shaking in his boots at the first spider.” Ned seems to be somewhat offended that any version of him would be that cowardly.

“But he really likes board games. Saving princesses from monsters and demons, calling me knave, it’s all there really. For a second, I thought you were him….”

“So, it was just really funny… sorry.” Crystal wipes a year from his eyes.

“Well, that’s OK. What’s important is getting you home. Do you have any special guy…or girl on Earth? Or is it a guy?” Crystal shakes his head, thinking about Julia.

“I mean, not really. There was this one girl, but I don’t really ‘feel’ anything for her other than that she’s really really cool and I want to be her friend.” Ned smirks at Crystal talking about the mystery girl.

“What’s special about her?” Crystal thinks about what made the girl special and comes to the conclusion that nothing really made her stand out specifically other than interest in Anima Power.

“Honestly, nothing about Julia made her stand out, but it was really more that she was so passionate about some games that we both enjoyed.”

“I know that a lot of guys would say… ‘Oh her chest is so…. Big?’ Or her hips, but I just… never saw any appeal in that kind of stuff.” Ned looks at Crystal with a sour expression.

“And you never looked at guys like that either?” Crystal shakes his head.

“Nah, never saw the appeal either way. People are just kinda there. Some are jerks, some aren’t, and sometimes there’s a really nice person that you can get along with.”

“So then, you don’t see anything you like about me? Other than I look like this conveniently named other Ned.” Ned raises and lowers his eyebrows rapidly several times.

“Yeah, pretty much.” Ned glares at the apparent girl before him, frustrated by the utter lack of tact and excessive honesty.

“Yeah, well, it’s not like you’re anything special to look at either… other than your weird hair…”

“Is that bad? I mean, I get that people like ‘details’ like those things but…” Crystal looks in the mirror, observing his face and relatively small, but feminine features, wondering if he’ll be forced to grow more and more feminine until there’s nothing left of his old self, even based on his personality.

“I really don’t see a problem with that. You know? I just… don’t see the appeal in those kinds of things. Do yo-” Ned walks out of the room groaning in frustration at Crystal’s clueless-ness, leaving him to wonder what he did wrong.

― Several Hours Later ―

Crystal walks outside for a few moments to the backyard, taking in the air, noticing a distinct taste of lemon in the air. He looks around, finding a small pool, and some lawn chairs with an outdoor table, eventually sitting down.

“Why… am I tasting Lemon?” Crystal peeks around, trying to find the source of the lemon taste in the air, but is unable to.

“That’s a good question, why are you tasting them?” Kana walks up to Crystal with a bodyguard behind him, somewhat frightening Crystal, causing him to jump.

“Oh, it’s just you Kana.”

“Just me? Getting a little too used to your situation aren’t you?”

“Oh hell no. This world sucks.” Crystal frowns, wanting to leave as soon as possible.

“The degree of how much this world sucks is not up to debate. But this is our world here. Sometimes, you just have to deal with your situation. Have you thought on your options?” Kana says somewhat perturbed.

“I’m sorry, I need more time. I mean, my options are either stay here in a completely foreign body, or go back to one that will need to be hospitalized for life.” Kana stares at Crystal with a half-lidded expression, while Crystal himself starts to rub his eyes, attributing his drowsiness to getting little sleep.

“You know, there is a possible third option. But while it’s not easy, it does goes in line with possibly going home. When you go home, you may be given an option of staying in that body by whatever brought you here, or even healing your body on your world.”

“But… I’d never be able to face my family like this…” Kana looks towards the sunrise in an attempt to give some ease to the nervous youth, and to avoid their confused glare.

“Sometimes things appear darker than they are. Hang in there.” Kana walks back inside, gesturing for the bodyguard to stay outside to assist her guest.
Crystal sits down on a nearby patio chair, trying to make sense of the situation as a gentle breeze sweeps the area. He with his head buried in his arms, as he hears some footsteps. He assumes that it’s the bodyguard, until she looks up seeing a nightmare unfold.

“Found ya!” The man who attempted to enslave Crystal is on the other end of the table with a metal glove. The man reaches forward, and knocks Crystal out with a punch from his gloved fist before he can shout for help.