The plaza outside the train station was sparse of any passersby, while the surrounding arcades lined with stores bustled with life; soothing music played in the background and came to him with the distant chatter; and behind his back, faint rumble of cars arose beyond a short flight of stairs where three boulevards intersected to form a busy thoroughfare.

The day was cool, pleasant, and the sky mild and scenic. Everything seemed suffused with an incorporeal aura of a dream; and up there, in the sky, proof dangled right before his very eyes.

A celestial body blazing in all its brilliance—at first he thought it was the sun; but the undeniable fact that it was imprisoned inside seven concentric rings of radiant runes brooked none of his askance as to where he might be.

Briefly blind from squinting at it again, Satou rubbed his teary eyes, and said, looking up: “I’m in another world aren’t I?” The statue in the middle of the plaza did not reply: memorial of some royal personage from yore who proudly looked past him with his deep-set furrowed eyes.

Elbows resting on his thighs, Satou looked down at his still slightly trembling hands, and again felt that jarring dissonance that these lithe fingers were really not his. He felt conflicted, perturbed, just to see it, precisely because for the life of him he could not call these his own; yet nothing felt more real, intimate, and corporeal to him than this body he was now in.

An hour had passed by since he had been sat here, parsing out his thought; and an hour more since he had seen himself in front of a mirror. He recalled that face—that tousled jet-black hair, hazel eyes, lips parted to see him—and again he felt his heart skip a beat.

“What a beauty,” he murmured, and blushed red when he realized just who he had repeated. He laughed, embarrassed; he could not help himself but laugh, embarrassed; and he found that his own gaily laughter did not fail to enchant him.

What a beauty indeed…

Never in his life had he felt this giddy, yet so utterly confounded at the same time. Vertigo—that sinking feeling which he so dreaded coursed through his entire body, his heart raced, but he did not shun it. How could he, when the discomfort which had first brought him here now imbued this precious moment of his with a glint of indelible beauty.

“Another world…” What an incredibly jarring thing to say out loud. “I’m in another world…” It sounded unbelievable, but here he was. His wish had been fulfilled. Against his own expectations, his wish had been fulfilled; and he felt light, unbearably light, as though the heavy burden he’d carried all his life, now he carried it no more.

Dry tears stuck to his cheeks flowed again, and Satou wiped it off with the heel of his palm.

Suddenly, as if remembering where he was—in the middle of a public square—he looked around him a little startled as well as embarrassed, and sighed in relief when he saw no one stare.

His body loosened, go less taut, and he began to feel a cold dampness underneath his shirtsleeve: sweat, he realized, his own; and also realized only now just how long he had been sat here under the sun for. He looked around for somewhere else to sit, preferably somewhere with a shade, but found none where he could have some privacy at the same time.

Then he looked down beside him.

Leaned beside him by his thigh was the leather satchel he’d carried all along. He had yet to open it, see what was in it; so he reached for it now, fumbled as he undid its buckle with one hand—which split open with a clink—reached his hand in…

…and pulled out a letter.

Jesse.S.Pierce

I’ve decided to remove a section from 1.2. It was good in its own right but not only was it irrelevant, but worse: a misrepresentation. Satou was never meant be someone analytical (far from it). I’ll leave the excerpt here just in case, since I know some of you all might be curious; and besides, for some it might be enriching to the story.

Spoiler

Yet all said and done, not all of it was so idyllic.

Having found himself in what he could only presume to be another world, and having been given no introductions or even a primer from some Goddess or a Creator, his understanding as to what had happened to him or how was severely limited. In fact, it was zero. Where am I, how am I here, why am I here, along with the countless corollary implications just these three questions alone brought about—the mysteries that pertained to his past, his reincarnation, or the wider world at large: these were matters that escaped him entirely.

As much as he would’ve liked to uncover it, he had no means to unravel it; and an hour of parsing out his thoughts, sat here, under a tall post that fluttered flags of a nation foreign to him, had given him more than plenty of time to reflect and understand just how deep this quandary of his ran that any thoughts of revelry he might’ve had were whisked away, muted, at the same time, by his ever-growing list of worries that left him beset with a rueful smile.

“And yet,” He had to add—despite it all, all that has happened, or ever will—nothing could’ve taken this smirk off his face.

At the end of the day, whatever trials awaited him, what mattered most was that he was here—here, in another world. In another world! And he was the happiest soul alive for it.

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