This story has a rating of T.
It may not be appropriate for very young readers.
Open Office 2.0 has been used for its composition.

Disclaimer – Lord Of King (Astyanax) is the property of (the defunct) Jaleco Entertainment. The story itself is the property of the Samuraiter and may not be posted on any web site but his private web page and FFN without his permission. This fanfic has not been posted for gain or profit in any way, shape, or form. It will be updated in the middle of each month.

I Abibde / Samuraiter Presents
A Sankakukei Studio Production
Of A Giftfic For Heavenly Pearl
Formatted For FFN

Fantastic Caper!
A Lord Of King Gaiden

VIII

I was standing at the bow of the ship of smoke as Pfit prattled on and on about how she once had the privilege of meeting a squid with three eyes, not caring that I might not be listening to her. It was not that she was boring. I thought that she was very interesting, in fact, but my mind was flying ahead of us, skimming the blue, white-topped waves of the new ocean beneath our feet. How it was that we did not lose our breath in descending through the clouds from what must have been space itself was a mystery to me.

Day had become night as we made the approach, the Sun of the new Earth receding behind us. Astyanax was trying to count the different continents, and Sho was tending to his horse. The air in which our ship had been magically enshrouded started to become the air of the planet, and I was filled by the smell of it, the taste of it. At first, it made me think of the sea and its brine, but there was a strangeness to it, like a bad aftertaste.

Seeing that I was slightly disturbed, Astyanax asked, putting one arm around me and giving my shoulder a squeeze, “What is it, Cutie? You don't look like everything's all right.” His voice made Pfit cease her chatter, and it allowed me to concentrate on my surroundings as the bottom of our ship touched the water and left spray in its wake, gradually slowing to a speed that was more appropriate to the ocean than it was to the gulf between realities.

It took me a little while to determine what was amiss, but, as soon as I glanced at the sky, I realized what it was, and I said, “The Moon's not in the right spot. I don't see it at all.” I did not know whether or not my fey blood gave me a sense of the tides and how they were supposed to be acting, but I had a very real impression that the Moon was the source of my discomfort. Unblinking, I scanned the skies for anything that might ease my imagination.

“Look, there,” Sho noted, pointing at the horizon with one white-gloved finger, “that looks like the Moon, but ... that is not the Moon that I know.” Our ship was still moving more quickly than any real boat, and we all watched as a reddish glow slowly emerged where the sea met the sky, followed by a massive sphere of brownish rock, easily ten times the size of the Moon that Astyanax and I had spent our evenings watching.

The air became hot, and I saw that the water around our ship was bubbling, almost as if it was ready to boil. The smell of rot and decay assaulted my nose, and I spotted what must have been thousands of dead fish – all kinds of fish, many of them as fantastic as anything from myth – floating on the waves, accompanied by enough flotsam and jetsam to build a whole city. The wreckage parted before us, but I was already feeling sick to my stomach, and I could not tear my eyes away from the Moon.

I could see its surface very clearly, cracked and crumpled like a dead leaf, magma oozing from the wounds like bright blood as geysers of ash and heated gas erupted from their depths, seeming like hairs on a balding head of great size. What made it ominous was the fact that the whole Moon was slowly expanding and contracting in the way that a living thing inhales and exhales, each cycle seeming to aggravate the injuries on its exterior.

“There,” Sho said, “look at the underside. I have never seen anything like it.” I followed his finger to the bottom of the Moon, and what I saw there was as alien to me as cars had been on my first trip to the Earth where Astyanax had lived. The Moon had a rudimentary face consisting of two eyes and one mouth, all formed by deep, scar-like rifts in its surface. The eyes, staring down into the ocean, were the source of the red light that had come to fill the sky, while the mouth, long ribbons of magma hanging from it like drool, was difficult to discern under the black clouds of smoke it emitted.

Astyanax observed, analyzing the situation with the speed for which I had come to love him, “It's about the same size as our Moon, I think, but it's very close to the surface, and it was on the side of this planet facing away from us. That's why we didn't see it from orbit. It's incredible, but I don't think we'll be needing to get close to it.” To Sho, he said, searching the deck of our ship for anything resembling a wheel, “Can we change course?”

“No, Astyanax-san,” Sho replied, “not without losing track of the one we seek. That much, I know for certain. I do not think that the ship will lead us directly into danger, though. Nonetheless, we must be prepared.” He donned his helmet and nocked one of his arrows of light to his bow, gesturing to his horse to stay by his side as he kept watch for anything that looked out of place, the altered Moon looming large over his head.

Pfit contributed, “It looks like a big coral, but mean.” I waited for her to tell a story about meeting a big coral that had been kind to her, but she was silent, possibly as disturbed by the ghastly sight as I was. The quiet lasted for only a few minutes, though, as there was a commotion off the bow of our ship, which slowed obligingly as we all ran to the port side to see what it was that was making such a racket of splashing and yelling in the water to our left.

The source of the noise was a man clad from head to toe in metallic armor. As far as I could tell, he had been using a device on his back to fly just above the ocean at considerable speed, but he had slowed to examine our ship, and, as a result, the device had failed, and the weight of his armor was making it very difficult for him to swim. Sho managed to spin a rope out of the substance of one of our sails through means beyond my understanding, and he used it to rescue our unexpected visitor from the fetid water.

The man was speaking Japanese, but his accent was completely different from that of both Astyanax and Sho, and I had to concentrate to understand him when he shouted, “What's this, now? The sky turns black, the sea turns red, all life comes to a stop for half the people on the planet, and I'm seeing ghosts! Now, I know that I've lost my mind! Whoever you are, I surrender! The bureau chief doesn't pay me enough money –” He continued in a similar vein until he ran out of breath, at which point he started coughing.

Astyanax said, clapping him on the back to help him sort out his breathing, “There's no need to worry, sir. We're not here to cause trouble. Why don't you take a seat, calm yourself, and tell us what's going on here?” I supposed that it had not occurred to him to explain that we were all from different Earths, but, then, when there is a killer Moon in the sky, I guess that everything else in life suddenly becomes a little more believable.

As soon as the man could speak again, he explained, in a rush of words, “You're Japanese! Good, good. You'll understand what I'm saying, then. All right, here's the situation: The evacuation failed. Alpha Division tried to stall the bastard by landing on it and planting the H-bomb, but it didn't care, it just shrugged them off like fleas. The bomb's still up there, I think, but nobody can get to it. Oh, Kami-sama, the bastard took out Yokohama, and we couldn't save anybody. I can't believe that my Betas aren't worth –” He might have said a little more, but, overcome, he burst into tears.

At the end of it, he wailed, the tears making streaks on a face so covered by ash and soot that I could barely recognize him as a human being, “It's over! America's gone, China's gone, and everybody else is trying to flee while they put up Japan as a sacrifice! Where are they going to go? It doesn't matter. The bastard'll find them, and it'll lay waste to everything around them. That's what it does. That's all it does. Alpha could've made a difference. We could have made a difference.” He put his head in his hands, shaking ash free from his hair as the Moon kept coming closer and closer.

“What's your name, sir?” Astyanax asked. He had a look on his face that I had not seen too often, but it was never the start of anything good. The last time he had that look, he had suggested marriage to me. He must have remembered that, because he glanced out of the corner of his eye to see if I approved, perhaps, of the bad idea I knew he was about to have.

The man answered, blinking his dark eyes to clear away bleariness, “Captain Kensuke, Beta Division, Kanto Bureau of Public Safety, Self-Defense Force. Good to meet you. I'd ask you to tell me your names, but this isn't a time where those really matter, is it? Right now, I'm just glad that I'm sitting on something that isn't about to melt or explode.” He may have been young, middle-aged, or old, but I could not tell. His voice was too hoarse.

Astyanax replied, looking up at the menace in the sky, “Good to meet you, too, Kensuke. I don't know how this'll sound to you, but I think we can help you. All you have to tell me is where that warhead is, and we'll see if we can do what Alpha couldn't.” Yes, he had that look on his face, and, in spite of my better judgment, I nodded my head, but ... how could I not? It was not his way – not our way – to leave anybody to suffer when we could help.

Picking up on where we might be going, Sho supplied, “If the rabbit in the Moon has become a demon, then it must be cleansed and purged. We shall go forth, then.” That he agreed to the plan without having any doubts or knowing what it was must have been proof of how inwardly brave he was, since Pfit and I were both speechless ... and, to be honest, a little scared.

To Be Continued