Chapter Three: Answering the Call

Magic Rangers. Or was it ‘MahouRangers’ instead? What an odd concept.

Ren still wasn’t sure he hadn’t been witness to some mass hallucination. He biked home in silence, his route taking him to the very edge of Tenshigurobu’s urban borders. Beyond that stood a handful of rural farms with old shrines peppered throughout.

By all modern Japanese municipality designations, Tenshigurobu was a small town. Still, it was densely packed near the city center, with a few relatively tall office buildings. There was a modest harbor, although it did not receive much traffic. Mountains rose to the east, framing the town perfectly along a narrow strip of land along the coast, leaving only two roads and a train route in and out. It was just a small town, one where nothing ever happened. It certainly wasn’t the nexus of some supernatural interdimensional invasion. This was the west coast, facing the Sea of Japan. Weird happenings of world-changing consequence were supposed to happen in Tokyo, maybe Kyoto, if you’re lucky.

A modest family home sat at the far edge of the small town's dense, narrow alleyways. Ren let himself in, noting that his parents were not present. Hadn’t they gone on a business trip? Maybe they were overseas? Wait, no, nobody ever had a reason to do an overseas trip from Tenshigurobu. Ren was pretty sure they were just in Tokyo. The student shook his head, clearing his thoughts.

That spectral castellan rambled on about all sorts of things. History dispersion, something about changing fates and worldlines? Ren didn’t want to think about it. Their… mentor? Mascot? Whatever that castellan was, it spoke with the assumption that the go-home club knew what a Lifestream Regulator, a MahouRanger, and the ‘Umbral Court of the Schattenritter’ were. This was the first day any of them had ever heard of a single one of these concepts, though the magical armor didn’t seem to be aware nor care.

How am I supposed to find this thing? He thought. It looks the same as any old yen coin.

The home was small, as were all single-family homes in the region. There was only a small yard out back. It was never meant to be some long-running ancestral home. The houses on either side had already been left behind and remained unsold.

Ren looked through the various rooms. How did Sakura’s Power Coin get into the schoolhouse, anyway? Where would Ren’s be? As he prepped a rice cooker for supper, Ren couldn’t start thinking about what that castellan exposited:

“The Umbral Court is but one aspect of the Shadow Confederacy!” The spectral armor seemed to enjoy talking about this subject.

“The who of the what?” Ren had asked, once the others largely gave up trying to get anything out of him. “Is this some kind of foreign conglomerate?”

“Interdimensional fiends. The Umbral Court specifically wishes to unwind history and progress to return your world to shadow. If they had their way, all population centers of note would be swept away. There would be no settlements other than temporary dwellings, with your counterparts in this worldline living in caves.”

“Uh-huh,” Ren had shrugged.

Listening to the Castellan speak for too long made him dizzy. Sleepy, dilapidated Tenshigurobu was the only reality Ren knew. Even thinking about the town as a sprawling megalopolis even half the size of Tokyo seemed a bridge to far, even as he was consorting with a possessed suit of samurai armor.

“Agents of the confederation are everywhere.” The castellan nodded as if Ren knew what any of this was. “Why, the hypno-slugs of the Parasite League, another wing of the Confederation, were deployed in Seattle some decades past. It took many brave Rangers over fifty-four missions to achieve victory on that far-off battlefield, let me tell you.”

“S-Seattle? So you do this in other countries?” Ren asked with a skeptical eyebrow raised.

How many others had been gifted these Power Tokens? It made Ren’s head spin just thinking about it.

“Aye, aye.” The suit of armor paused. “Other castellans. Their forms may differ based on cultural context.”

Well, that explains why the castellan looks like a suit of walking samurai armor, Ren decided.

“The Schattenritter will take the form of creatures you may be familiar with,” said the castellan. “Higher-level lieutenants may have unique designs, and their foot soldiers are mass-produced. But there will be monsters. Creatures summoned from your mythology.”

“So we’re fighting yokai?” Yuto had looked spooked. The prospect of being able to fight back against ghosts and monsters restored some confidence to the young man.

“Don’t call them that,” Miyu had held her arms in her hands, defensive. “Don’t use the ‘Y’ word! It sounds… weird.”

Back in his lonely home, with the sun having long since set, Ren finished up his rice. He cleaned up his bowl and the rice cooker.

The coin could be around the school. He should have checked before heading home. He had no real special interests that would draw any such ‘power coin’ to his location—then again, he couldn’t think of a reason why Sakura’s coin would wind up in the old schoolhouse science lab.

Maybe his coin was on that island Ren’s family wound up stuck on during high tide back in late elementary school. That was definitely a location tied inexorably to Ren’s formative years. How would he ever get back there to check?

Well, not making progress with this, Ren decided. He took a long, cleansing bath and then went to bed. He had the house to himself, after all.

It was only after the light was out that he noticed the crimson glow from the backyard. Ren threw open a window.

The glow was coming from a mound in the yard. It was right under his nose!

Of course!

Ren fetched some shoes and found a diminutive gardening shovel. He ran into the walled-off backyard and got to digging.

It was Maru, Ren’s childhood pet dog. They’d cremated him as was tradition. But they’d buried a small container of ashes there to serve as a more permanent gravesite. A young Ren had insisted.

Now, Ren dug. He upturned the mound, sensing a warm glow from beneath the earth. There, next to the funeral urn, was a round coin with a dull crimson sheen.

The word was simple enough. He was said to know it intrinsically. Henshin—transform. He resisted the urge to blurt it out then and there. All that pomp and transformation glow would wake the neighbors!

Ren smiled. He made a point of burying Maru’s urn again; best not to disturb the dead.

“I guess it wasn’t an elaborate dream after all.”