"Huh?"Once more Zhao Wei woke up to an unfamiliar ceiling with no idea how he got there.
Wondering, if maybe he"d done this a little too frequently in recent days.
Far too many to be considered healthy anyway. In fact it felt like there was something wrong with his breathing.
And there was this strange weight bearing down on his chest, courtesy of a head of black hair. The filtered glow from the sun bounced off a few strands that strayed away from the rest, the flimsy pieces defying gravity on their lonesome.
The heave of his chest had apparently alerted this creature, who shifted subtly. He could feel the slight pressure as heavy eyes were rubbing on top of him.
He held his breath, afraid that the person might hear his heart beat a little louder.
*Grumble*
The head laying on his chest lifted itself up as he himself tried to sit up. A clean hand coming up to brush the messy follicles away to repeal a j.a.panese face.
"You"re early." Moto-tsune said, looking at Zhao Wei who was nearly crying tears of blood.
"Dammit! how dare you try to confuse the feelings of an innocent youth!" Zhao Wei screamed, sending a palm flying towards Moto-Tsune.
"Is that any way to treat a person who is watching over you?" He replied as he deftly dodged it.
"Watching over... I"m sorry but I don"t swing that way, thank you very much for your feeling..." Zhao Wei bowed his head apologetically.
"This #..." Moto-tsune felt headache coming on.
"Look w.a.n.g Zhao Hui as much as I "enjoy" spending time like this, we don"t have a lot of it on hand." He spoke seriously. "Now please follow me and exit this way."
"..."
"What?" Moto-tsune questioned when Zhao Wei gave him a dazed look.
"Where are we?" He opened his mouth and suddenly asked. His breath was still off.
"In one of the rooms inside t.i.thor." Moto-tsune answered immediately. "Seriously we have to get going."
"How"d I get here?" Zhao Wei asked again, ignoring the words of Moto-tsune.
Moto-tsune sighed as he suddenly pulled a chair and sat down, "You don"t remember?"
"..N-no..." He answered unsteadily, feeling his chest strain a little more.
"What"s the last thing you do."
"I remember..."
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"What do we do now?" Zhao Wei looked away from the field of Wrap Traps and turned to Moto-tsune.
"What do you mean?" He questioned. "It"s over."
"The "fighting" sure..." The j.a.panese man answered, "but this whole thing is far from over."
And Zhao Wei knew he was right. Fighting was just numbers and lives, it was messy but it was by far the most simple part of the war equation.
The politics, the factions, the leaders, the emotions... appeasing both sides was going to be far more convoluted.
"If you wouldn"t mind listening to the ramblings of this old timer, I wouldn"t mind pitching in an idea or two."
"Gah!" Moto-tsune jumped up as Jeff apeared behind him, almost pulling his gun out and shooting on the spot.
"Jeff, you"ve gotta stop making that a habit."
"An old guy like me doesn"t have a lot of ways to entertain himself." Jeff replied, "I can"t exactly enjo cooking in my retirement as much with these." He said, holding his stumps up.
"He"s one of yours?" The j.a.panese asked.
"You should be quicker on the uptake with a younger brain like yours." The Dracarian answered.
"Are you from the old world too?"
"Does it matter?" Jeff answered, raising his brow to the new Comer.
"There"s people from our world who have a tail?" Zhao Wei" curiosity peaked.
Moto-tsune frowned slightly as he considered his answer.
"Hey, we have all the time in the world later to catch up," Jeff interrupted, "For now, if you don"t wanna hear this, I can go back and take a nap."
"Alright alright what do you have in mind?"
"Well why don"t ya just control them both?" Jeff answered them plainly.
"I really don"t want to do that."
"More on that note, he can"t." Moto-tsune added, "I don"t know about their situation, but this side is part of Central"s manpower, if he takes command away then Central will take some measures against you."
"I don"t mean that he has to be their leader, I mean that he can just be the line that they can"t cross." Jeff explained. "And it doesn"t need to be you either, in fact it"s better if it isn"t you."
"I don"t understand."
"Yeah me neither."
*Sigh* "Look at what you"ve done boy, you think it makes sense that a human is capable of this?" Jeff pointed at the vast area covered from end to end with feelers. "What about you, anybody from your place ever do this?"
"Umm..." If they could, he wasn"t at a high enough position to even get close to their action, nor would he ever want to.
The stronger one was, the more they were dispatched to Centrals toughest missions.
He"d almost lost his life several times in a small side area like this (Courtesy of Zhao Wei), he probably wouldn"t last a second in one of those.
"So we lie," Jeff continued, seeing Moto-tsune wasn"t going to answer any time soon. "Tell them a deity got mad and stopped them, and the next time anything big like this happens again, it won"t be so kind as to just stop them..."
"That is insane," Grendolyn finally caught up to the group. "But actually a very viable solution."
The two from the modern world looked at her questioningly.
"Often times especially in back-water places, people tend to explain away things they don"t understand with stories of mysterious beings." She explained. "You guys never had those in your world?"
It"s not like they didn"t, in fact their world has attributed a lot of things to the mystical.
Even to the point of sacrificing a lot of people to the notion of the unknown just a few decades ago.
Even logical laws formed by governments often times fell short to a few short words from a "holy, book".
Somehow "this is illegal" wasn"t as convincing an argument as "the omnipotent being you don"t know much about but pray to says this isn"t good."
Though they agreed, it felt like it was an affirmation on one of the saddest commentary on the human mindset.
"Okay then let"s go with that. But how do we start?" Zhao Wei asked.
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"I remember everything until there... then blank." Zhao Wei said.
"Ok then let me fill you in... after that.."
"Before anything..." Zhao Wei interrupted.
"Hmm?.." "Moto-tsune" turned around.
"Who are you?" Zhao Wei asked.