Transportation

I found myself waking up in the middle of the night, drooling on some old grimoire that contained edicts from King Aldric nearly half a century ago. My chest grew tight for some reason, and I was sweating despite the air being unnaturally cold.

“Almost exactly like the first time I got here,” I thought to myself as I buried my face in my hands.

It had been nearly three months since I found myself in this strange, oppressive world. It was a night like any other. I had just gotten back from a case so mundane that I couldn’t even recall it.

After entering my cramped apartment on the outskirts of Tokyo and making my way to the bed, I fell face down onto the pillows, still in my suit. The only article of clothing I had managed to remove was my shoes, which lay somewhere near the entrance.

After a few minutes of what I assumed to be sleep, I found myself floating in apparent nothingness. There was no light, yet no darkness either. All I could see were my own hands drifting across the void. I was enveloped not in cold or heat, but in complete nothingness, for what felt like an eternity.

Finally, a light came into view. It grew larger and larger as I desperately did everything in my power to reach it. Suddenly, I was faced with an eye that seemed as big as my entire body.

I pulled away, the sight sending chills down my spine as the figure of a woman came into view. Clad in what seemed to be nothing but light, she was large enough to lift my entire being onto her palm and bring me up to her face.

Her red eyes, milk-white skin, and hair all regarded me with the utmost fascination.

“Aizawa.” Her words reached my ears from the front, the back, the left, and the right, sending chills down my spine as I stumbled hopelessly in her hand.

“Be not afraid, Aizawa. I have been watching you, admiring you for a long time now.”

“W-who… who are you?” I finally asked, my voice barely above a whisper, quivering with each word.

“Just an observer,” she responded.

“Am I... am I dead?” I said, patting myself up and down.

She smiled at hearing my response. Even though it didn’t give me the answer I was hoping for, her warm smile eased the tightness in my chest and calmed my heart, which seemed to have risen to my throat.

“Aizawa, I am sending you somewhere you will be valued,” she spoke again, her eyes now glowing brightly. “Sending you to bring justice in an unjust world.”

“Wait, what? Where am I going?” I said, my voice a whisper compared to hers.

“All will be revealed soon.”

And just like that, I found myself waking up on an altar near the outskirts of Luxion, the stones decayed and the markings worn away by the passage of time.

Suddenly, a knock at the door interrupted my reminiscing, and I instructed the person outside to come in.

It was Amber, holding an old leather-bound book in her arms, yawning as she walked in.

“You owe me one,” she said, slamming the book down on my desk in front of me. “The lengths I had to go to get this…”

I still remember seeing her for the first time. After stumbling across the countryside for what felt like hours, my shoes drenched in mud and grime that had only just been polished the day before, I finally collapsed.

I woke to Amber’s face leaning over mine, her hand pressing a wet rag firmly against my forehead. Unlike her clothes now, she was dressed in nothing but rags, with a weighted chain around her neck.

“ASHVALE! YOU DARE BRING A MAN INTO YOUR QUARTERS?” were the words that the old geezer shouted the moment he discovered me lying on the hay in her room, whip in hand and all.

Honestly, I don’t know if it was instinct, but I jumped up and stood in front of her.

“Halt! I am a representative of the Imperial Palace, and your worker here has saved me,” I said, cringing at my own choice of words.

Maybe it was my clothing that made him freeze, his eyes flickering nervously.

“Don’t you know that using a whip on your workers is a federal offence?” I continued. “I could have your entire farm shut down and have you behind bars in an instant!”

“Y-yeah? Since when?” he muttered, tightening his grip on the whip and swallowing hard.

I instinctively reached into my breast pocket and produced my telephone bill, flashing it before his face.

“Since now.”

He fell to his knees and clasped his hands together, begging for forgiveness, swearing he hadn’t known it was a law.

“Ignorance of the law is no excuse!” I barked. “...But I’m willing to let you go if you have your worker here escort me to the nearest town.”

“Y-YES. TAKE HER, SIRE. JUST DON’T LET ME GO TO PRISON!” he cried out.

That was then. Now she stood beside me, tugging at my ear and asking if I was even listening to her.

“So, you have to go to the manor tomorrow, right?” she said.

“Yeah,” I sighed.

“And you still don’t know why?”

“Not a clue.”