DOPPELGANGER

Chinatsu wondered if he was the only one who felt awkward about his little outburst. After he had calmed down, nobody said anything about it. He had expected people to make a big deal out of it. They all walked along in silence as usual–it was important for them all to stay alert for any sudden danger.

But the whole thing just bothered him because it felt so out of character. He wasn’t the type to break down like that normally. Miyabi had mentioned before that he had been acting a little differently than usual. Now that he thought about it, she had also been acting a little differently than before…

Masha suddenly let out a squeal of delight that startled Chinatsu and raced ahead of the group.

“Look! Mushrooms!” she called. Masha pointed excitedly every which way.

The path they had been traveling down had been blanketed in overgrown ivy–some of it a lush green and some of it dry and brown. Up ahead was a broken, leaking wall fountain. Various kinds of mushrooms sprouted all over the ground, with some even clinging to the walls.

“The broken fountain must have created the ideal environment for these to grow,” Miyabi said, crouching down to look at a particularly large mushroom. It was the size of a soccer ball, white, and perfectly round.

“This one is a puff-ball mushroom,” Masha explained. She pulled out her knife and cleaved the mushroom down the middle, opening it up. “These have a toxic look-alike, but it’s easy to tell them apart because the toxic ones aren’t white on the inside. This one is edible.”

The mushroom looked like a fluffy loaf of bread on the inside. Masha packed up the two halves of the mushroom in her bag. She looked around for more mushrooms to pick.

Chinatsu wanted to help. After all, mushrooms were a staple in Japanese cuisine, so he felt like he might be able to identify them easily. He looked around and saw some brown ones growing low to the ground. Were they shiitake? Shiitake were brown!

Chinatsu reached for the mushrooms when Masha grabbed his wrist and stopped him.

“Don’t,” she said, smiling. Chinatsu felt vaguely threatened when her words didn’t match her body language like that.

“O-oh…why? I thought they might be edible.”

Masha let go of his wrist and pushed at the mushrooms with her fingers. She tilted the cap up on one of them, revealing the gills.

“I don’t know these ones,” she explained. “You should never pick unidentified mushrooms, let alone eat them.”

Chinatsu felt like he was being scolded by his mother. “I thought these were mushrooms I knew because they looked like them.”

“But you don’t know for sure, right? Most mushrooms have toxic look-alikes, so it’s also best not to pick them if you’re not familiar enough,” she lectured.

“I see…” Chinatsu looked around at the mushrooms. There were so many different varieties there, but a lot of them didn’t look particularly recognizable. Finally, he spotted something he did know–a red cap with white spots–and pointed it out to Masha. “I know this one is bad for you!”

“Why? Cuz it’ll send you on a trip?” Joel laughed, leaning over the two of them.

“Yeah, to heaven.”

Joel cringed, and Chinatsu thought he saw him discreetly toss something mushroom-like to the side before walking away.

“At any rate, I think the big puffball will be enough for all of us,” Masha said, tail wagging slightly.

Having gotten what they could use, the group moved onwards. As they rounded a corner, leaving the mushroom heaven behind, they encountered a different kind of dangerous plant-life.

Tendrils of thick, snake-like vines spread out across the ground and over the stone walls, intermixed with the thick growth of ivy. At the end of the path, a massive pitcher plant was nestled into the corner. Sticking out of it were the remnants of what was unmistakably samurai armor.

“Strange. It seems to have been dead for quite some time,” Peony said, holding up a vine and examining it. They were dry and brown like tree roots at this point.

As they approached the plant, Chinatsu got a closer look at it and noticed that the plant itself seemed dried out and brittle. He wondered if he could pull the armor out if he tugged at it a little.

He saw the rest of the group round another corner. Chinatsu really wanted that loot, though. He’d just grab the stuff and quickly catch up.

Chinatsu climbed up the vines and overextended himself, reaching for the armor. He grabbed the top of it before he lost his footing and fell, ripping the plant open. The armor, along with bones, clattered to the ground.

The katana was still at the waist! Chinatsu couldn’t believe how lucky he was!

Since the armor was empty, he slipped the whole thing over his head and adjusted the ties. He wasn’t going to have time to put on the rest of it, so he gathered it up in his arms to take with him. As he was about to leave the area, Chinatsu noticed the empty kabuto helmet on the ground and plopped it on his head.

He couldn’t wait to show the others what he found and ran as fast as he could to catch up. The path of the maze was zigzagging until he reached a point where stone walls turned into a hedge maze.

Chinatsu could hear the voices of the others inside the hedge maze. It sounded like they were just on the other side of the hedge. He could try to navigate the maze or…

He drew the katana from its sheath and admired it. The blade was in surprisingly good condition with no rust or chips. It felt like a waste to use it for hacking through a shrub like a machete, but a sharp katana could manage that much.

He hacked a hole in the hedge and popped through.

“Geeze, you couldn’t wait–”

Chinatsu found himself face-to-face with Miyabi. Original Miyabi. Girl Miyabi.

“...for me…?”

The group was led by Peony, followed by Miyabi in Chinatsu’s body, then Masha and Joel. Standing next to Joel was someone who looked exactly as Chinatsu did now–sans armor.

They say that if you see your doppelganger, you’re going to die.

“Look out!” Chinatsu shouted as his doppelganger’s hand formed a blade and stabbed Joel in the side.

“AHHGH” Joel collapsed to the ground, bleeding heavily.

The Doppelganger took off running into the hedgemaze. Miyabi and Masha ran after it.

“Wait!” Chinatsu called out as he ran after them. “We have to stay together or–”

“Or what?” Peony asked.

The Elf stood next to Masha and Miyabi in the tight passage of the hedgemaze. Peony had stayed behind to tend to Joel, right? There was no way they could have run past Chinatsu without him noticing.

“That’s not Peony! Peony was healing Joel!” Chinatsu said, pointing his new katana at the imposter.

“I finished with him. He’s resting now,” the imposter replied. They smiled with their mouth, but their eyes remained blank and expressionless.

“Joel!” Masha called out before dashing past Chinatsu in the direction he’d just come from.

“Masha! Wait!” Chinatsu shouted as she ran out of view.

“I’ll go with her!” the Peony imposter said, trotting after Masha.

Shit!

Chinatsu was alone with Miyabi now. He eyed her suspiciously–there could be more than one Doppelganger.

“When we were in elementary school, you peed your pants during a summer festival because you didn’t want to miss any of the fireworks,” she said, staring him in the eye.

Chinatsu felt like he could die on the spot. She was the real Miyabi, alright.

“You…you…” he stammered, trying to bring up one of her embarrassing secrets.

“Don’t worry, I can tell by your reaction that you’re the real one,” she chuckled.

They didn’t have time to consider their next move before they heard a woman’s scream in the distance. Masha!

“Stay close! It’s trying to separate us,” Chinatsu urged as the two of them ran towards the sound through the hedgemaze.

There was some shouting and rustling to their right. Branches bent and snapped as two Mashas came crashing through the hedges. They landed on the ground, grappling.

“I’m the real one!” shouted one of the Mashas, pulling the other’s tail.

“No! It’s me!” grunted the other, pulling hair.

“What do we do!? I can’t tell them apart,” Miyabi said, sword drawn.

“Masha! What’s your dream?” Chinatsu asked. Miyabi had found a clever way to suss out the imposter before, and even though he didn’t know Masha very well, he knew at least this much.

“Make friends!”

“Fall in love!”

The two Mashas stared at each other in shock before continuing their scuffle. Chinatsu was also frozen in shock–those were both the correct answers. How long had this Doppelganger been following them!?

Peony’s staff jingled. Through the hole in the hedge, Chinatsu could see Joel hobbling over, leaning on the staff for support. The small Elf did their best to hold him from the other side.

“Help me!” one of the Mashas called out.

“Don’t listen to her! Help me,” said the other, pinning her down.

“Which one is the imposter!?” Peony yelled.

“We don’t know! This thing has apparently been following us–it knows things about us,” Miyabi replied.

The two women scratched and bit each other as they rolled around. They both bled red blood. There had to be some kind of way to tell them apart.

Out of the corner of Chinatsu’s eye, at the base of a hedge, he spotted something small and golden growing from the ground. A cluster of mushrooms, trumpet-shaped with wavy caps.

He didn’t know what kind of mushrooms they were, but she might. Chinatsu picked one and held it out.

“The real Masha would know if this is edible!”

The Mashas stopped fighting and stared. The one on top stared at the mushroom intently, studying it. The one who was pinned down lit up.

She kicked the other Masha off herself and into the hedge. As that Masha tried to tackle her, she snatched the mushroom from Chinatsu and stuffed it into her mouth.

She smiled as she chewed and swallowed.

“That’s the imposter!” Chinatsu shouted, pointing at the one who did not eat the mushroom.

The Doppelganger became enraged and lunged at Chinatsu. It tackled him to the ground, knocking the helmet off his head. The Doppelganger formed its hand into a blade and thrust it at Chinatsu’s chest.

The armor blocked it.

Masha kicked the Doppelganger off Chinatsu, and he jumped to his feet. Before it could launch another attack, Chinatsu cut its head off with his katana at the same moment Miyabi cleaved it in half with her sword.

It reverted to its grotesque original form–a writhing mound of slimy flesh.

“I think I’m gonna puke,” Joel said, holding his hand over his mouth. The amorphous blob of Doppelganger seemed to dissolve and melt away before their eyes.

“I killed that,” Chinatsu said, pointing to it. “Everyone saw that I killed that, right?”

“We both killed it,” Miyabi said, putting the kabuto helmet back on Chinatsu’s head. “But you still did a pretty good job.”

Chinatsu’s heart swelled at the praise. He looked at the katana–finally feeling like he could help and protect the others.