Chapter 9:

Kaorin's Dream

***

And before awakening, Kaorin had a dream. 

(Dreams can be pretty strange, nonliteral, prophetic, and arbitary, so please bear with your dear author as she tries to describe.)

Kaorin was standing in front of the ruins of a wedding chapel, a place that she had been to many times in her dreams, but never ruined, always whole. A hallowed place. Like the night after she got to dance with Sakaki for the one and only time, fields of endless lilies, the sky wreathed in rainbow clouds. She remembered that dream and the dreams that would come after it...

Sometimes she'd just be standing there smiling, you know?... brief dreams, turbulent awakenings, always the smile and nothing more. Sometimes Kaorin would find her a princess, suspended in a prism of crystal, like lightly frosted glass; she'd spend the entirety of the dream trying in vain to get her out of her white-cast crystal prison. Sometimes Kaorin would find Sakaki waiting for her at the altar, in wedding gown or groom's tuxedo, in shiromuku and wataboshi or in black montsuki haori hakama. It never mattered what she wore. Just that she was there, even if only a dream, even if only a phantasm.

And of course, like with Sakaki's dream, the dream was a little different this time. And she knew that when she pushed over those heavy, grinding oaken doors, this time there would be no Sakaki on the other side, no rainbow clouds and no promise that some miracle would happen before high school ends. She knew, for the alabaster was stained with the rot of age. And a tired ochre sky of nothing but murky clouds, no stars to comfort, no lurid eye of the sun to scrutinize, no true night or mystery of darkness. The chapel was rotted, cracked and coated in mildew, but somehow it still stood. And somehow, the bells still pealed. In fact, they were pealing to Kaorin's ears right now, and had been for some minutes. This is the sound of the pealing of the bells.

"I wanna be your princess~
I wanna be your princess~
Tell me my prince~
What can I do, for you?
(Can I do for you?)"

I wanna be your princess. I wanna be your princess. Tell me my prince, what can I do for you? Every time from the pealing of the bells, again and again like an obsession, a sacred phrase where repetition boils the semantics of the words into a phonetic soup, where the sound and the feeling precede all meaning. Namu amida butsu. Namu amida butsu. Tell me, my prince, what can I do for you?

It was maddening. It was so sweet as to be unbearable. It was a beckoning. It was beckoning her into the decaying chapel, as if to say that there were still some treasures, some mystery, some sunlight left in this tired, wilted world that her trepidatious dream-spirit had yet to recognize. Push open the doors. Push back the hands of time. 

Kaorin pushed.

A weak light still lit the remaining stained-glass pieces in the walls of the fading chapel. There was an altar, and no Sakaki. There was a crystal prison, but no Sakaki. No Sakaki, but someone in there, a woman in a princess-wedding dress and bridal veil all the same. Puzzled by this unexpected development, Kaorin pressed her face to the crystal, but it was so frosty, on the opaque side of translucent, and her breath was fogging it up. Who was this girl, with such perfect posture, so earnestly and desperately clutching a bouquet of forget-me-nots? What happened here...?

I wanna be your princess...
I wanna be your princess...

Her dream-spirit grasped for a feeling beyond sight. Who was this woman? She and Kaorin had never been consciously close, but they were always orbiting near each other somehow... like every time Kaorin got close to Sakaki, this girl was always near her too, a gently tilting moon cyclically encircling a blossoming world. Kaorin remembered this girl, she was *so* sure, it was right on the tip of her tongue... remembered that she'd come along with Sakaki and her on one of the precious, vital few astronomy club trips, remembered her vacation house, remembered her in Okinawa. She remembered this like... impossibly precious feeling around her, delicate but with an incredible presence and gravity. She remembered distinctly the feeling of that girl and her calm, concerned, lucid eyes looking up at her from a foot or so below... But not a foot or so below anymore, she was only a few inches shorter than Kaorin now, and she... who *was* she...?

She knew her, *liked* her even, but... But who was she really? Who had she really been, besides a friend on vacations and festival days, besides a fey occasional presence at Sakaki's side?

Tell me, my prince...
What can I do for you?

Kaorin tapped lightly on the crystal's exterior. Just a thick, hollow thudding was her answer, and the thing was of course not about to budge at her half-handed bludgeoning. She had one of those thoughts that you have in a dream where your dream-spirit just sort of takes it for granted that some absurd fact exists and has always existed and is so obvious as to not even merit comment: "my magic won't work here either!" And so her magic wouldn't work there either, would it? It doesn't work if you won't believe.

Then Kaorin saw something.

A glimmer of light in the bright part of the crystal. The gleam of cat eyes and an absurd smile.

Slowly she turned...

turned, turned...

and apprehended the visage of the mad feline spirit that had appeared to her during the 'freakout' portion of her mushroom stargazing night not even a few days ago.

She opened her mouth to scream, but no voice came out, only weak rasping.

The cat spirit's face did not move. Its smile did not break. There was an endless silence before he held up his spindly stylized anime noodle hand in a 'hold the fucking phone' gesture.

"DO NOT BE AFRAID. I AM NOT THE SCARY ONE."

Kaorin was... well, we can't blame her for being a little incredulous, can we? "I-I-If you say so..."

"I SAY SO. YOU MAY RELAX. I AM NOT THE SCARY ONE." His stylized face, his big eyes with slitted pupils, were unmoving as he lowered his noodle arm. His face betrayed no aggression. Maybe he was serious.

"Whew. Okay. Uh. Good. Ummm... Okay, if you AREN'T the scary one, then are you the, uhhh... the nice one?" Kaorin ventured. "Can you tell me what to do about this twintail lady? She's trapped and I don't really know what she looks like and I'm worried cause it doesn't look like she has a lot of room to move around in there and..."

"I AM PRETTY NICE. I WILL TELL YOU ABOUT THE TWINTAIL LADY. DO NOT BE AFRAID. SHE IS NOT TRAPPED BUT MERELY SLEEPING. SHE IS ASLEEP BECAUSE SHE HAS NOT BEEN NOTICED." The feline spirit nodded at the end of this sentence, as if the meaning was self-evident.

It was not so self-evident for Kaorin. "Really now? Because I can tell you right now that the FIRST thing I noticed when I walked in here was--"

The feline spirit waved his noodle-arm dismissively at this. "DO NOT DISSEMBLE, GIRL! YOU KNOW. AS WELL AS I DO. THAT THERE IS BEING NOTICED. AND THEN THERE IS *BEING. NOTICED.*"

Kaorin had to admit this was true. There was being noticed, and then there was... being *noticed.* "Okay, okay, I get it, it's just--well, that doesn't help me free her and--Wait, wait a minute. I've come here before and Sakaki was in this very spot, sleeping in crystal... Do you... Um... Could you... Could you maybe tell me where Sakaki is??"

The cat creature stared at her for a full minute. She was paralyzed by the intensity of his stare, and could not bring herself to speak and break the overbearing silence. Then, when Kaorin thought that she truly could not tolerate a second more, it finally broke the pressurized tension-bubble of the silence by speaking. "I AM CHIYO'S FATHER."

Kaorin's face showed instant, exasperated incredulity. "What?! Chi--How does that have anything to do with what I asked?!"

The feline spirit raised both arms in a gesture of diplomatic conciliation. "OH. SORRY. I THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING TO ASK A DIFFERENT QUESTION."
"THE GIRL YOU ARE LOOKING FOR IS HERE."
"AND THE GIRL YOU ARE LOOKING FOR IS FAR AWAY."
"EACH GIRL IS NOT SO MUCH CONFINED. AS SHE IS SLEEPING."
"AS IT IS, SO IT WAS. NOT TRAPPED. MERELY SLEEPING. SAKAKI TOO. IS ASLEEP, BECAUSE SHE HAS NOT. BEEN NOTICED."

Kaorin's incredulity turns into hyperdefensive annoyance. "That's--okay, frankly I find the idea that the girl who has been my bitter, jilted obsession of about two decades has never been noticed to be rather--"

The feline spirit pushes its arm forward a few times in the air in a tut-tut sort of gesture. "OH SURE. YOU NOTICED HER. BUT DID YOU." 
"*NOTICE. HER.*"
"DO YOU REALLY. UNDERSTAND. DID YOU EVER. REALLY. UNDERSTAND."

"That's so--That--Okay, listen up: I NEVER GOT THE CHANCE, you infuriating little stylized enigmatic furball!!" Kaorin practically hissed out these phrases. "I don't--didn't only love her for her *image*, didn't only love her because I wanted a cool girl, I'm not some fucking idiotic stereotype, I just NEVER got the chance, and if I had gotten the chance to learn her layers I would have only loved her more for--"

The feline spirit nodded affirmatively. "IT IS SURELY SO. BUT WHY DO YOU SAY:"
"'*NEVER*'?"
"HAVE YOU EVER HEARD IT SAID,"
"THAT IT IS NEVER, NEVER TOO LATE?"
"YOU HAVEN'T NOTICED HER."
"NOR THIS PRINCESS HERE."
"AND YOU MIGHT NOT FOR A WHILE."
"BUT I HAVE A FEELING."
"THAT WHEN YOU DO."
"THE PRINCESS-BINDING CURSES."
"WILL ALL BE BROKEN."
"LET THEM REST UNTIL IT IS TIME."
"LET THEM ABIDE UNTIL IT IS TIME."
"FOCUS ON YOUR. MAIN QUEST FOR A WHILE."
"TAKE THE HOLY SWORD AND BANISH THE DREGS OF THE DREAD FATHER."
"SAVE THE PRINCESSES. SAVE THE WORLD." The feline spirit punctuated each of these phrase by raising a noodle-arm in the air, as if to hold them aloft and indicate their conceptual connectedness.

Kaorin had cast aside her defensive hackle-raising by this point, and regretted her aggression. Whatever this bizarre dream-hallucination was, it clearly was listening to her and was trying to teach her things. "Save the princesses? But I'm supposed to be the princesses--" And of course, Kaorin was. Was, of course, in a full-length princess dress and princess crown. "I have no holy sword, and I'm just a princess too. Princesses don't--Princesses can't--The whole archetype is based around--"

"CAN'T THEY? CAN'T PRINCESSES SAVE PRINCESSES? HAVEN'T YOU EVER SEEN THAT MOVIE," Chiyo's dad's eyes sparkled, gleamed, "'PRINCESS ARETE'?"

"I mean--yeah, I guess I see what you--Wait, did she have a sword in that movie?? Or did she have another princess, for that matter? I guess she had that village lady who cared about her and helped her see things right... Oh, whatever, who cares, I just..." Kaorin trailed off, as she had been doing quite frequently in this conversation, trailed off long enough to glance back at the forlorn figure of the obscured twintail princess sleeping in her crystal prison. Thought of Sakaki in a prison just the same. Felt an itching that you get when something's so wrong that it makes you so far beyond angry that you become...

Become tempered. Steady. Determined.

Determined.

I wanna be your princess.
I wanna be your princess.
Tell me, my prince,
What can I do for you?

"I have to at least try. I'm ready, Chiyo's Father. Will you give me the sword?" Kaorin held her hands out to accept the sword. The village lady had given Princess Arete a clue that had helped her escape her mental confinement. Princesses can wave swords. Princesses can save princesses.

"YES."
"HERE IT IS."
"THE HOLY SWORD:"
"'TOMATO'"
Kaorin saw the thing about to be placed in her hands, which was a tomato, and snapped into instant-irate tsukkomi mode. "Stop screwing around! This is LITERALLY JUST A TOMATO!!! You are holding up a literal fucking tomato at me, right now!"

And indeed, Chiyo's Father held Tomato upon his raised and outstretched noodle hand.
"AM I? AM I REALLY?"

"O, oh... Sorry..." Kaorin took another look and rethought the whole situation. Of course it was a sword. Obviously it was a sword. How could it not be a sword? "I guess it really is a sword, isn't it...?"

"YES. A SWORD. TOMATO THE SWORD. A SWORD OF TOMATO, AS SCARLET AS THE PATHS IT CARVES. CADMIUM LIKE THE RIVERS ETCHED IN THE FLESH OF THE WICKED. RED LIKE TOMATO. NOW GO. TAKE THE SWORD AND ITS SCABBARD. KEEP IT CLOSE TO YOUR HEART. WIELD IT HOW YOU THINK IS RIGHT."
"How I think is right..."

How do you wield a sword, Kaorin thought? Answers sprung up verdantly inside her dreaming heart. She spoke to herself and was spoken to through herself from an elseplace. Kaorin placed her hand at her side and unsheathed her tomato.

How do I wield a sword, Kaorin? Well, to wield a tomato we really need to start from the beginning, right? Then the question isn't "how do I wield a sword", but, "why has my heart grown too brittle to wield a tomato?" Why have I grown so brittle? When did I become this stiff, shelled person? When did I enter the cloister? Why did I take the tiny little shed instead of living in the warm house with my nice girl dairy farmer friends? Why did I get scared of being poor the instant I found out that the heifer was in danger of dying? Why am I only jovial and free when I'm high and alone beneath the stars, or in my bedroom alone voraciously pouring over lesbian art? Why am I so tired and sad and lonely after I cum? Why did I forget that my tomato is a sword? Why did I forget that my sword is a tomato? Is that actually me? This wasn't always me, right? Wasn't I bright and optimistic for a brief shining era, wasn't there magic in my eyes long ago, and a crimson gleam in the cleave of my tomato? Wasn't I brimming with anime power? Wasn't I filled with hope every day I went to school?

Kaorin turned around and she was no longer in the chapel. She was no longer in a place intelligible. She was knee-deep in a vile, fulminating chaos, even the ruins of the chapel all gone, abandoned to the nightmare. Where am I? Why is it all like this? Is this forever? Where did my happiness go? Why did I forget how to wield a tomato? 

The chaos took shape, of course. Of course it took shape, of course. Pleading, bargaining. No. Not this time. Please. I need to stop seeing him or thinking about him. This should have been over a long time ago. He isn't even the only. He isn't even the only.

And as soon as she'd finished thinking these thoughts, he was already here. His false wooden face and ventriloquist-dummy jaw. The seams at his joints, his cheap, flimsy suits, the strings that moved him, pulled by unseen hands from the utter void. He tried to speak, but no words came out, or perhaps Kaorin simply could not comprehend their true form. The words didn't even matter. The words had never mattered. He was just a puppet, a dummy, after all, so how could his words matter? No. What mattered was what was written all over his face. His depraved, slack-jawed leer, always pointing in her direction, stupid evil jaw flapping around. What mattered was his intentions, his intentions, the putrid aura of his intentions. He would. He would. He seriously would have, thought Kaorin in raw, unhealed terror.

But then she remembered that she had already drawn her tomato. 

The holy sword Tomato drew in red energy. Holding it in her hands invigorated Kaorin's spirit. She felt her every self cheering herself on, she felt every one of her beingnesses in perfect unity as she clasped the mystic blade and pointed it at her tragicomic malefactor. Then she drew it to her side. Her arms vibrated with living, thriving kinetic potential. She felt the cleave. Then she cleaved. One clean, sweeping stroke of beheading, a heavy red gleaming blur, a tomato.

The sword was steadfast in her trembling hands, but she felt no sense of victory. 

The puppet known as Kimura fell apart in a pile of threads and sawdust. He had always been less than real, hadn't he? A front for something more grotesque. A rancid, goopy organism squelched out of the ruined puppet, an amorphous thing with a vague face, which rapidly spread from its epicenter to consume all good things. She thwacked with her sword in an attempt to damage it, but there was no geometry to cleave against.

The puppet was dead. The disease yet lived, and was everywhere.

Kaorin awoke, pale and sick. She remembered every detail, but understood so little, and had so little time to consider it before it was buried beneath an avalanche of panic; for she had awakened next to motherfucking Sakaki.