Chapter 45 - Another Dimension

Orihime paced back and forth as the other duo worked on Kazuya. She was upset, and understandably so. She didn't know for sure what they were doing to Kazuya, and she knew that they could not resurrect someone from the dead, but that is what they seemed to be doing.

Part of her felt angry at them for trying to sell her false hope that Kazuya might live again, even though he perished in her arms. She was ready to give each of them a piece of her mind if things didn't go as hoped (even though Genta wasn't necessarily the advocate for it), as it would have been better to have left Kazuya to rest in peace than try to do something as stupid as this.

Five minutes passed, and they were still hard at it, and Orihime was losing her mind. Shizu was aware of this but focused on the work at hand. She did not want to let Kazuya go without even trying to bring him back when there was a possibility to do so.

Genta partly understood this, as she knew Shizu to be the kind of person who hated it when a youth lost his life when on the same mission as her. Nothing would hurt her more than the same thing repeating itself today, especially when she believed there was a way to bring him back.

Another five minutes passed, yet there was nothing. All the wounds on Kazuya's body were now covered up, thanks to Genta's strong healing magic. From just looking at her, one could tell that she had given this everything she had, as she looked so exhausted that she couldn't maintain her kneeling posture properly.

"This is it, Genta," Shizu said to her as she brought both hands together, chanting a strange spell the young mage had never heard her utter before.

Then shone from his body a great light, followed by a slight windstorm that swept through the area, which then got compressed and funneled into Kazuya's body within seconds.

Orihime looked around, and everyone was silent, making the whole cave feel like a graveyard, except that they were all alive, except the one who was supposed to be dead, still lying and lifeless like he was when they found him. 

The only difference now was that, thanks to Genta's healing magic, he looked like he had just taken a bath but was still dead. She walked over to Shizu, ready to grab the old woman by the cloak and slam her against a nearby wall. How dare she try to do such nonsense? What was the point of trying such nonsense if it was such Ludacris to begin with? 

But right before she could do that, she heard the old woman utter three words that almost made no sense to her.

"Welcome back, Kazuya," she said with a faint smile. Then Orihime looked before her and noticed that Kazuya's chest was now moving in a fairly steady rhythm—he was breathing!

Orihime's eyes moistened as she looked at Shizu, who simply said with a smile, "You are welcome."

"How... how on earth did you?" she stuttered, lost for words.

"As I said, you are welcome," she replied. 

"What?" Orihime asked, wondering how Shizu was acting casually about what she had just done. If Orihime's senses served her well, it wouldn't be far-fetched to say that the old woman had just raised Kazuya from death. She looked at the old woman with a stare of respect and fear, not saying a word but taking a step back away from her, causing her to laugh. 

"Why are you looking at me like that?" asked the old woman. "It wasn't a miracle."

"What do you mean by that?" Orihime asked. "You just raised a man from the dead like it was a casual spell, and yet you are saying it is not a miracle."

"You don't know who your partner is, do you?" she asked Orihime. 

"What do you mean?" asked Orihime. "He is a regular person, isn't he?" "I mean, what do you mean by that?"

"Oh, so you don't know, huh?" reacted Shizu. "I assumed you did, but we agreed to keep it confidential between the two of you."

"Will you please give me some answers?" Orihime asked, almost frustrated. "Your answers get more confusing with each response!"

"I apologise," replied Shizu. "Long answer, short: Kazuya is not from this world."

Orihime arched a brow when she heard this, finding it hard to believe even though she had just witnessed Shizu do the impossible. 

"Oh, you mean he is not from this side of the world, right?" asked Orihime, as if realizing a hidden truth behind a metaphor. 

"You heard me correctly, young woman, but you misunderstood," she replied. "Kazuya is not from this world; that is, he is not from this realm."

Orihime frowned. "What are you trying to say?" she asked, realizing things were getting a lot weirder than she anticipated. 

"Kazuya is from another place, another realm, another dimension, a different fabric of reality far superior to ours," she said to Orihime, who was still looking dumbfounded. 

But she also heard the creature's gasp, which nobody apart from her was seeing... She briefly looked at Gaichu, which looked stunned to see that Shizu was staring directly at it, and from the way she did so, it was certain it had been spotted. 

However, she did not say a word to it but focused back on her conversation with Orihime. 

Gaichu paced back and forth after Shizu looked away, worrying about how the old woman was able to see it. It never thought that its perception by others apart from Kazuya was a possibility, as they were NPCs (non-playable characters) within the game with little relevance to the game's core mechanics and subject to it to the point that they would never become self-aware of their presence in an inferior world to another one. 

Gaichu feared she would reveal it to the digital public soon enough, as that would compromise the gameplay to a great extent, as certain key NPCs would become aware of this and compromise their anticipated behaviors due to their enlightenment from the knowledge of an outside world that was superior to theirs and probably deterministic of everything that happened within theirs. 

Shizu went on to explain further: "I didn't raise him from the dead," she said, "I simply channeled his consciousness back to his body."

"Isn't that the same as a resurrection?" Orihime asked. "I mean, what differentiates this resurrection from that of the Christian myth?"

"You don't understand, Orihime," Shizu replied. "Your friend's being is not fully subject to the natural laws of this world." In other words, his consciousness is neither emergent nor dependent on the state of his physical body and could be channeled back when taken away from where it once was, but the host could be channeled back into good shape. That is why I had Genta completely heal his body before summoning his consciousness back into it.

"So whenever he loses his consciousness because of a damaged body, it can be channeled back once his body is back in good condition?" asked Genta, who was catching on faster than the slightly confused Orihime.

"Excellent!" the master commended. "You have caught on quickly, little brat." I theorise that he could even do it himself, though that is highly unlikely."

Genta thought about it deeply and felt the need to have her on the Kazuya team, as she saw a piece of the puzzle in which she fitted quite nicely: she was a healer. (But she wasn't able to channel spirits of consciousness, so forget it.)

"That's impossible," Orihime replied, now understanding thanks to Genta's clarification. 

"Exactly, Orihime. "It is impossible - for us, that is," Shizu replied, "but like I said, he is from a different reality superior to ours in all physical dimensions, and because of that, his core being isn't subject to most of our natural processes."

"What do you mean by saying that he comes from a reality far superior to ours?" asked Orihime, getting more curious about it. 

"That is irrelevant," Shizu answered, "What matters now is that Kazuya is back with us."

Then she got up to face Orihime formally, saying, "I bet he is fully aware of the fact that he is from another plane of existence." But try not to talk about it with him; if you can't help it, don't dig too deep...

"I believe the facts of the other world are too risky for us to consume as knowledge, and even if they weren't, I doubt Kazuya wants anything to do with it, given the circumstances," she said to her. 

Orihime nodded in response, looking back at Kazuya. Then she also looked at Genta as well. "Now both of you," she said to them, "keep everything that happened here secret between the three of us." Do not let anyone know what happened here or what I said to you. If anyone asks what happened here, narrate a generic dungeon hunt to them, and then they will lose interest and not ask any more questions. "Am I clear?"

"Right!" they both replied.