Zinnia the Earthbound

Life, Organisation Association

Aotsuki Tsukamoto opened his eyes. Apparently, after that misguided meeting with Saika Magoichi, he'd fallen asleep on the floor of the meeting room. It wasn't a great surprise. As his mastery over his body grew, he physically needed little sleep these days, but mental exhaustion was another matter entirely. It had been a strenuous few days. Of that, at least, there was no room for doubt.   But what had woken him up. Looking about the well-lit room, he realized with a start that his three Sheele were all missing. Aotsuki's heart jumped up into his throat. Unlike some sheele, their bond was so close that his soul companions literally could not survive away from his presence. The lamp in the room had burnt out, so the light Aotsuki was searching with... It was coming from something on a nearby shelf.

The sleep had all but fled from Aotsuki's eyes as he squinted to take a closer look. The glimmering object there on the shelf looked like some kind of glowing crystal shard. It was lighting the room all by itself, and making noise too. The thing seemed to grow as Aotsuki turned his attention on it. Soon, he heard noises as well. Laughter, chatter, and the rolling sound of waves.   Lurching up, he took a few steps forward. Aotsuki's first step landed on tatami, but his foot dug into soft, warm sand on the second. The sudden brightness, like noon on a sunny day, blinded him for a moment. Combined with the unexpected yield beneath his foot and Aotsuki was suddenly tumbling forward. He had an impression of a shining white coastline and three faces gazing at him in muted horror. The three sheele, who hadn't been so far off after all, surrounded an immaculate sand castle there on the beach. If he didn't do something, Aotsuki was about to slam into that same sand castle. Unmitigated disaster rushed up as he pitched forward.   Fate chose this moment to intervene. By all accounts, Aotsuki should have tumbled headfirst into the girls' exquisite project, but a particularly strong wave pushed him off trajectory at just the right moment. Catastrophe averted. Nobody yet seemed composed enough to speak, so a relieved silence fell over all four of them. This lasted but a moment before being broken by a shout from the nearby tree line. It was, inexplicably, Zinnia the Traveler, toting a brimming bucket of seashells in one tentacle.   Aotsuki had met the eccentric Zoog girl on his recent visit to Baharna. But that had been in the Dreamlands. Nothing here added up, unless...   A few words with Zinnia confirmed it. He'd somehow stumbled through a rift between Earth and the world behind the veil of sleep. As if to drive the point further home, a distant shipwreck caught Aotsuki's eye. Around the wreck, a few dark-featured Baharnan sailors watched him from the distance. Perhaps this was one of those things, the miniature rifts that the Date Clan had been dedicated to wiping out.   In the end, the reason didn't really matter. He was here now, so he could retrieve the stray pieces of his soul and return. Zinnia, it seemed, wanted to come with. It made a fair bit of sense. She was "The Traveler" after all. For all the places she'd visited in the Dreamlands, it seemed she'd never had the opportunity to visit Earth before. Aotsuki welcomed her back through the rip in space and, in short order, they were back in the familiar rooms of Ōtsu Castle.   Feeling a lot more sure of things now, Aotsuki and his sheele cast one last look at the sand castle through the gap before turning to their new companion. Zinnia didn't seem to...quite understand what it meant to be here in Japan. She wanted to set up a base camp; get ready to explore the surrounding uncharted lands. In the shifting landscape of the Dreamlands, perhaps this would have been the sane course, but everything in Japan had been more or less charted long ago.   Displaying his usual amount of patience, Aotsuki explained the situation to her. Fortunately, these new revelations didn't seem to blunt Zinnia's appetite for the novel. She was just as excited to visit some of the land's more interesting locales, as well as that "Tournament" that had come up in their discussion. It was around this point that both of them noticed the room dimming. The rift, and the light that came with it, had vanished. Functionally, at least for a time, Zinnia was stuck here.   As a gracious host should, Aotsuki offered her a room. She could always return through the portal in Ise Grand Shrine, after all. To say that Zinnia was grateful would have been an understatement. The betentacled zoog all but swore her allegiance to Aotsuki there and then. If there was any way she could help him, or this castle he apparently owned, she'd be ready.   That level of commitment might have been a bit quick, but Aotsuki was happy at least to set Zinnia up with the standard communications bundle. Judging from what he knew of both of them, Zinnia might very well get along well with Shigeaki Fujino as well. If such a relationship allowed the two to reach new heights, Aotsuki could ask for no more.