Chapter Ten: Moonless Midnight Masquerade At the Umbral Court

A moonless sky rose over a dead universe. Stars still remained in the pitch-black sky, though their sources had long since burnt out and the speed of light had yet to catch up. The great and impenetrable Umbral Castle loomed over a landscape utterly devoid of life beyond the cellular level.

Done up in a western style, a lone balcony stood atop the fortress's great ramparts and towers. With no gate or windows to speak of, this overlook was the only weak point in the entire fortress. A woman in regal Heisei-era robes gazed out over the domain of the Schattenritter, always attended to by battle-thralls of various conquered territories. She spun silken-fine, moondust-white hair around a slender finger. 

Loyal retainers appeared only as shades moving about, their physical forms having long since been abandoned as the worldlines converged towards oblivion.

“Your excellency,” said a shade who still took the time to bow before the mistress of the castle.

The figure in the robes gave no response, merely glancing at her nails, then tut-tutting one of the battle-thralls until they took the hint and began manicuring her immaculately-sharp nails.

The shade that was her loyal retainer bowed further still. “Oh, your great and powerful majesty. Oh, ye old one, predestined last biological life form at the end of all entropy. The glorious, inimitable beauty of her exalted and divine goddess-empress, the indomitable Kagehime Varjokuningatar.”

The divine goddess-empress, inimitable beauty Kagehime Varjokuningatar deemed this retainer worthy of only the quickest of glances at this sworn retainer. 

“You may report in, dear Balthazar.”

The ghostly retainer’s features grew more defined. His lips were more readily visible as he spoke.

“My exalted and peerless Umbral mistress. One of the world-lines has arrested its march towards nonexistence.”

The Kagehime sighed. Setbacks were common across numerous worldlines.

“Whatever is the cause?”

The retainer audibly gulped. “Local resistance, my glorious Umbral magistrate.”

The Kagehime frowned. She summoned forth a handheld fan, then held it aloft. Her nearest battle-thrall reached for the fan in an immediate panic and began to unfurl it in a hurried process that took several minutes. When it was fully undone, the fan was far too large for any one person to wield. Three battle-thralls stood up and fanned the Kagehime down while the remaining five continued to attend to her majesty.

“Pray continue,” began the princess. “Ordinary denizens of the realm are not supposed to notice their worlds reverting to their pristine ideal. Why, it’s been years since we’ve met with indigenous resistance.”

“That is true, your worshipfulness,” said the retainer. “The local denizens have been conscripted into the Lifestream Regulators.”

“Ah. Them again.” The Kagehime’s lips warped into a thin, flat line. She tugged on a knot of chains keeping the battle-thralls all in a line, affixed to shackles on their ankles.

“So I trust the last totem we arranged for that world was…” the Kagehime’s voice trailed off expectantly.

“Destroyed, your ladyship.” The retainer nodded.

“Pity. And I quite liked that one,” said the void princess.

“Your Umbralness, what should we do about the Timeline Regulators?”

The faintest of breezes came in from the balcony. It was rare to even get sustained wind in a world cleansed down to the Kagehime’s standards.

“Take these, Balthazar.” The noblewoman handed the reins of two battle-thralls over to the spectral attendant. “Have our forces divide and conquer. Waylay them while they’re out and about around town, yes?”

The attendant nodded. “Your will shall be done, my liegefulness.”

Balthazar’s hands grew less transparent, corporeal enough to grab the reigns. With one last bow, he led his two charges off the Kagehime’s balcony and into the dark halls of the Umbral Castle.

The pair of battle-thralls maintained a graven look upon their faces as they were led off. Of the six that remained, the crew on the fan continued to wave it with renewed vigor, while the remaining three assumed supplicated positions and awaited more orders from the multiversal monarch.

Reducing an inhabited timestream down to lifelessness took eons. Still, a delay at this early juncture had a tendency to compound matters. Alas, the Kagehime was ever-patient. Undying and immortal, she had overseen countless world-lines unraveling, civilizations withering away, species rewinding out of existence.

It was only a matter of time before this far-off ‘Earth’ world joined the Umbral Court, its surface maintained in the same lifeless stasis as what appeared outside these castle walls.

--

Ren and three members of his homeroom class walked through the old, frayed doors into the old schoolhouse. As expected, the Showa-era building endured. The Kermes Ranger and his uninitiated schoolmates were not whisked away to a Temporal Fortress beyond space and time. His peers did not panic.

The class would be less likely to panic in a group. Ren presumed he’d be able to talk them down if a spectral ghost samurai robot did appear to greet them. But his first theory was correct, the fortress would not appear if unauthorized civilians were present.

“C’mon, let’s go clean the old rec room,” Ren said, acting casual.

Janitorial duty was their alibi. The crew swept half the first floor, during which Ren was separated from the group by doors several times. He was not whisked away.

So long as someone is present anywhere in the old school house, the Castellan won’t coopt the space, Ren realized. That could prove useful, or it could lock them out of the Temporal Fortress at the most inopportune moment. They’d have to cross that bridge when they came to it—an idiom Becca-san used a great deal that surprisingly translated well between Japanese and English.

The group worked through their chores well into the afternoon. Then, the first floor done, the homeroom class prepared to leave. Ren was kept behind to put up the cleaning supplies. By the time he caught up, the door was sliding closed.

“Wait. Wait!” Ren said, arm out in a desperate bid to block the door from closing.

The moment the rim of the door hit the wall, however, the termite-riddled walls fell away. Gunmetal grey of the Temporal Fortress established itself, and Ren was instantly warped into this strange other dimension.

“Welcome back, Kermes Ranger!” the tell-tale sound of the castellan walking down the halls

We’re going to need some emergency way of disabling this transportation system, Ren realized. What if the five rangers were all sent into the old schoolhouse for cleaning duty at the same time? It could cause some problems.