0.08: An experienced ally

Tedashii and Brianna were on the run due to being chased by the juggernauts.

"I THOUGHT YOU SAID YOU KNEW WHAT TO DO WITH THEM?!" Tedashii asked.

"THE QUEEN SAID SO, I SHOWED THEM MY PASS, BUT THEY ARE STILL CHASING YOU!"

Brianna fell as she got tripped by a branch. "AH!!"

Tedashii turned around and saw that she was not far from them.

"Dammit!! BRIANNA, GET DOWN!"

She covered her head down with her arms. Tedashii turned around and built up his spiritas.

HAKURAA!!

A wind-charged fist was fired at the juggernauts.

"BLUE ROSE FIST!!!!!!"

CRASH!!

The juggernauts were fired at the trees and destroyed. Tedashii took a breath, then turned back to Brianna. She was still shivering out of fear and didn't know the problem was already resolved.

"Brianna?" Tedashii called her, but no answer. "Brianna? BRIANNA!!"

"AAAAHHH!!! DON'T TOUCH ME!!!…?"

Tedashii was looking at her in shock.

"W-What happened? How did you beat them?"

Tedashii began to smile and rub his finger under his nose.

"Well, ha-ha-ha! That was way too easy. All I did was throw one punch then...-whoa!"

Tedashii stopped talking when he noticed Brianna's eyes glowing. She stood up and followed his steps right before he hit his move. She punched around in the air just like he did, then turned back to him.

"You're an angel, Ronin?" She asked.

"What??" He was lost.

She then took a knife from her heel and aimed it at his throat.

THUD!!

He fell to the ground as she mounted him.

"You are NOT Fugin! Who are you?!"

Tedashii lifted her in the air and then rolled out of the way. He got up and took his stance.

"Alright, well, I guess the cover is blown." He said.

"Just as I thought. You were posing as him the whole time; your prowess gave it away. That is a Wind prowess from an Aoi."

"I don't know what you are getting at, but yes. I'm not Fugin. But you have a prowess too, meaning you are also from the real world."

Brianna then put her blade down. "Yes, I'm also here for a spot in one of the major guilds."

Tedashii smiled, and he ran to hug her. She tried to stab him, but he quickly slapped the blade out of her hand. "AWESOME! THAT MEANS WE BOTH HAVE THE SAME AMBITIONS!!" He said, then put her down.

"Wait, so you are not one of the villains?" She asked.

"Villains? Wait, THERE ARE VILLAINS TOO?!" He asked out of anger.

Brianna was surprised that he did not know.

"Hold on. If you are from the real world, how didn't you-"

She was interrupted by two men who came out of a bush.

"OH!! ITS RED HEAD AGAIN!! GOOD TO SEE YOU ARE ALRIGHT!!" The man said.

Brianna was scared and hid behind Tedashii.

"Oh… It's you guys. Yeah, sorry for the bad introduction." Tedashii said.

"You…know them?" Brianna asked.

Tedashii slowly looked back at her and kept his eyes WIDE open, indicating that…he didn't.

"Were you guys also sent away from the Rooftops?" The other man asked.

They both nodded their heads to gain their trust.

"Oh, well, that means you must know the girl that came before you guys."

Tedashii smiled. "Yes, we do! Where is she?!" They both asked.

But then, both the men began to laugh. And that made Tedashii uncomfortable.

"Oh ho ho ho! It's not 'Where' she is, but rather 'What' we did with her." The men kept laughing.

Tedashii ran to one of them and held him up by his shirt.

"WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER??!!" He said with rage flowing all over.

"Oh~? You want to know?" The man said.

"Well, you see. Two other men saw her unconscious one day. She was defenseless. Heh heh heh, and the moment they brought her to the restaurant, we all gathered there."

Tedashii pulled one of his hands back for a punch.

"WHAT…DID YOU GUYS…DO TO HER?" He asked.

"You wanna know what we did to her?!"

Tedashii began to build up spiritas.

"You wanna know what MORE THAN 150 MEN DID TO ONE TEENAGER??!!"

Tedashii's eyes glowed Blue.

"THE MOMENT THE FIRST MAN TOUCHED HER.."

He went for the kill.

"We ended up making her the queen of Punk Knock!"

He stopped.

"...What?"

Both the men laughed heavily.

"YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN THE LOOK ON YA FACE!! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!"

Brianna also began to giggle, but Tedashii shut her up with his grin.

"HEY! How do I know you guys aren't lying?!"

Both men stopped laughing.

"Are you kidding? That first man laid a finger on her...never saw him since! She's too strong for us to rebuke, so she rules over us now."

"My word, where'z ya humor?! If ya don't believe us, see for yarself! Ya, boomer?!"

Tedashii felt insulted; it was written all over his face. So they followed the two men to the restaurant.

"I'm not a boomer. What does that even mean?!" Tedashii said to himself.

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"ROUND IS ON ME!!!!"

YEAH!!!

Tedashii, Brianna, and the two men arrived at the restaurant. Everyone stopped what they were doing, and then the place went quiet. Brianna hid behind Tedashii as they got the stinky eye from all angles.

"Are you Fugin of the royal family?" One of the biggest guys in the bar said. He was at least the size of Tedashii if he lived in a gym his whole life.

"No… I'm Tedashii…Katsuno Te-"

YEEEAAAHHHHHH!!!!

The bar was swarming with cheer when he said his surname. The biggest guy picked Tedashii with two fingers and held him up for everyone to see.

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!! THE KING OF PUNK KNOCK! THE HUSBAND OF-"

"WHERE IS THAT SON OF A BITCH??!!!"

Yuri came storming, thinking they were talking about Sanji, but then saw Tedashii, who had fainted out of fear in the hands of the giant.

"Col-born, will you please DROP MY BROTHER DOWN FROM THERE!" She demanded.

And he dropped him slowly. She poured a cup of water on his face, returning him to his senses.

COUGH COUGH!!

He opened his eyes and was so happy to see Yuri again. "Did you miss me already?" 

***

The bar was under a celebration. The chefs grilled all the meat in stock and opened their finest beers. Brianna was already drunk and making jokes with Col-born. "Noooooo Col-Born! I'm not a GIANT TOO!!"

Everyone in the bar laughed except for Tedashii and Yuri.

"My God! Who is she, Tedashii? At this rate, I'll stab my eardrums out." Yuri said.

"Don't you remember her? She was my maiden back in…you know, there." Tedashii said, overshadowing the castle's name so as not to get a hostile reception again.

"Oh. No, never paid attention to any of them."

Tedashii just kept eating and then looked around the bar. "Yuri, did you notice any villains among the people here?"

She pointed at the old man at the table close to the exit.

"He violates our bathrooms! Would it kill him to flush when he is finished?" She whispered in his ears.

Tedashii then took her outside to talk. All the men in the bar went silent before they left.

"Pretty pants, come outside as well!" Yuri said. "And for everyone in the bar…keep the party going!"

And just as Yuri told them, all the men kept enjoying themselves. Brianna then went out with them and stopped pretending to be drunk.

"Alright, you two. What's going on up there?" Yuri asked.

And so Tedashii told her everything that Brianna told him.

"…So, bad guys also lived the dreams. But how are they back?"

"I'm sure that the world's most trusted Ronin, broadcasting a recruiting program on live TV…I don't think that viewed it; just the good guys viewed it." Brianna said. "But in some cases, it's bad guys from the dream world's past host."

"So exactly, how many villains were sent to each dream?" Tedashii asked.

"JUST ONE PER DREAM!"

They all turned back and saw the old man from before. "Each dream has only one villain; that was their plan to have a bunch of them in each dream."

"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!" They all asked, and then he began to laugh.

Tedashii came closer to him. He walked around the man and then went back to Yuri and Brianna.

"So, you're also from the real world?" Tedashii asked.

"Yes, as you may have noticed, I also have a forfeit button. But don't you kids worry. I am not the bad guy."

Tedashii, Yuri, and Brianna all surrounded him.

"What? You don't trust me?!"

"How can we prove that you are not lying to us?!" Brianna asked.

The older man then took a bottle of sake from his pocket and began drinking it.

GULP! GULP! GULP! Ahhhh!

He wiped what was left on his lips, then sat down. "Isn't it obvious? The villain's main objective is to infiltrate the dream from its source point. Meaning that they are on the rooftops as we speak. ME? I'm here to relive my good old times in Punk Knock.

"Wait…but that's impossible. Every dreamworld was supposed to be fictional." Brianna said.

"That is true. I was just as surprised as you were when I arrived here. All dreams were, in fact, in new-made worlds, but I'm afraid this one existed."

Tedashii and Yuri were shocked.

"So…what you are saying is…we are altering someone's memories?" Yuri asked.

"No, that wouldn't be possible. You were sent here because the villain was living during this timeline, and all of you had a link to this place."

They all looked at each other, then lowered their guard. So they sat down with the old man at the benches outside.

"So, Gramps, what's your name?" Tedashii asked.

He began to frown.

"GRAMPS?! DO I LOOK THAT OLD TO YOU?!!"

"WELL YOU DON'T LOOK ANY YOUNGER!!" Tedashii was ready to have another staring contest, but Yuri quickly hit him and had his head in a chokehold.

"Sorry for his disrespectfulness. He isn't in his element…But seriously, Gramps, what is your name?

"(Wasn't she supposed to be the good-doer? My word, this will be a long dream.) My name is Mister Haruki Miyamoto. Please to meet you all!" The old man said.

"I am Tedashii Katsuno. And this is my sis, Yuri, and my friend Brianna."

"That's great to hear...-So, how did you guys get here?"

"Well, we came by with other friends because we are all striving to be guild members," Yuri said.

"I was supposed to come with my sister, but she didn't want to be in the same dream as me. So I meditated on my own." Brianna said.

"That was very reckless, Brianna. What would you have done if you didn't enter a safe environment?" Haruki asked.

"I want to prove to her that I can make it in a guild without her help so that I would have definitively stayed. But what about you, Mister?"

Haruki laughed awkwardly, then started to rub the back of his head.

"Well, funny story! I was in a feud with my downstairs landlord. I was late with my rent…for the eighth month. So while he made his way up my room to murder me, I switched my TV on, hoping there was anything good."

Haruki then held his face in his hand. "I heard him knocking at the door, but that made me want to increase the volume. Then I saw the live broadcast of Gaiyato, and I took it! HAHAHAHAHA!!"

Tedashii and the others looked at him out of disappointment. They all had a valid reason to have come here, yet his motive was to escape reality.

"So…what happened when you were teleporting here?" Yuri asked."

"Oh, I heard my door open, and he walked in with two big guys. They probably broke my body at this point, but time will tell AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"

Haruki kept on laughing. "Anyways, which one of you is the lead, Ronin?"

They all blinked out of confusion. Haruki was confused.

"Wait, I seem to be mistaken. Aren't any of you guys a Fushigiri?" He asked.

But they all looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders. Haruki took a stance before them. He began to take a deep breath, then opened a map.

"…"

Tedashii and Brianna came closer to look at the map.

"What are you looking for, Mr Haruki?" Brianna asked.

He scrolled his finger around the location of the rooftops, and then two red markings appeared.

"!!!" He was shocked.

Yuri also came to look at the map.

"Are you guys paying attention?" Haruki asked.

They all looked at the red marks.

"Two? But there are two of what?" Yuri asked.

"This was the map I used to locate the villain's location. But now it turns out there are two of them!" Haruki said,

"Two villains?! But you said that there was one in each dream!" Brianna shouted out of panic.

"There is only one. But the second one…is also from the real world…hold on." Haruki then placed his palm on the map. As he quickly swung his palm around it, more markings appeared.

"Whoa. Four blue dots at Punk Knock and four more at Rooftops. What does this indicate?" Tedashii asked.

"This is the total amount of people from the real world. So, there were eight participants, but one became red. Means that the second villain must be..."

"Sanji! It can only be him." Yuri said.

"WAIT, THE KING IS ALSO A POSER?!" Brianna asked.

"Now is not the time to unmask people for no reason," Tedashii said with a guilty face.

Haruki closed the map and then walked to Tedashii.

"Listen, kid. It looks like your friend has fallen into the wrong crowd. This is what we are going to do. Brianna will go and contact the others who are blue and tell them to come here. But you will need to defeat your friend."

Tedashii looked at Haruki with sadness.

"But…Sanji is my friend…"

"I know it might be hard, but if you don't stop him…he will regain the memory of the real Cheyzar. And if he does that, all hope is lost."

Tedashii went to the window and saw some men having fun with their friends. Yuri then came to him.

"Tedashii, I lost to him, which should tell you he is someone else now. If you don't do anything now, we… I will lose Sanji forever!"

Tedashii wiped the tears off her face, then took Yuri by the hand.

"Don't worry, Yuri. I'll bring Sanji back, EVEN IF IT MEANS DRAGGING HIM FROM HIS HEAD!".