TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT

(a multi-dimension anime crossover)

CHAPTER 2: UH... WHAT IS GOING ON?

by SHIN-CHAN

Touma and Arial were blankly looking at the building infront of them. A tall glass and steel office building, it stood in the exact place their school occupied the day before.

Highly confused, and a bit disoriented, Arial looked about. Everything else looked the same. What had happened to their school?

"Uh, Touma," Arial edged a bit closer to him. She was getting a bad sense of deja vu, this was so similar to what she had experienced on winter break. "Where is the school?"

Absently shaking his head, he calmly replied. "I have no idea. Either we took a wrong turn somewhere, or somehow the school moved."

'Yeah, suuure.' Arial thought to herself. 'The school just up and wandered off. Someone needs to start getting to bed earlier at night.' "Okay Touma, how did we get lost?"

Touma turned and gazed at Arial in puzzlement. "I haven't the slightest idea. Strange thing is, everything else here is just the way it is suppose to be."

"With the exception that our school is no longer here," Arial added sarcastically.

Once again, they stared at the office building infront of them. "I wonder," Touma mussed. "Should we try to ask for directions?"

Arial stretched her arms above her head, carrying her schoolbag with her. "Couldn't hurt any. I'd rather get marked for being late and having to spend time in detention than have an unexcused absence on my record."

Nodding, Touma turned to Arial. Something was different.

After a quick glance at her schoolbag, he smiled. "Ari, when did you start putting bunny patches on your schoolbag?"

"Never!" her dry voice replied as she wrinkled her nose in disgust. "That is way too cute, not my style at all."

His smile grew broader. "But Arial, you have a bunny on your schoolbag." And he laughed at her look of total amazement as she lowered her bag to look at it.

"Heeey, this isn't my bag!" she exclaimed after a quick examination. Her eyes grew wide as she realized what had happened. "We switched bags! This has to belong to that other girl."

"Really?"

"Yeah." Always curious, Arial opened the bag and pulled out a notebook. "Lets see who it was we ran into earlier." Setting the bag down on the ground, she opened the notebook. And winced. "Oh my. What horrendous handwriting. Lets see," she ran a finger across the back of the cover. "Usagi Tateno. Juu Ban Junior High School." Arial's puzzled eyes met Touma's. "Strange, I don't recall a school by that name in our district."

A bad feeling swept over Touma as he came to a not very pleasant realization of what had probably happened to them. "There isn't any. Arial," he said softly. He gave her a long look. She probably wasn't going to like this next part, all things considered. "What would you say to the idea that we are not in our own world?"

Rapidly Arial shook her head, her long hair flying wildly behind her. "No way! We didn't teleport anywhere, I would have felt it. And this world feels like..." Her voice faded off. She hadn't really notice it before, probably because she was to preoccupied with getting to school on time, but this...oh God! Touma was right! this wasn't their world! It -felt- different. The aura was all wrong.

Biting her lip, she looked up at Touma with highly distressed eyes. You're right," she said in a barely audible whisper. "This isn't our world at all. How did we get here?"

********

Shin was absently drumming his fingers as he frowned out of the window. They were running late, again.

His first hour class, History, was situated right over the main entrance to the school, and he had a perfect view of the gate from his window. A gate that Arial and Touma had yet to walk through.

The warning bell rang, and Shin continued to drum his fingers. They should be showing up any second now. Any second.

Ever since Touma moved in with his mother, after her return to Tokyo, he had barely been making it to school on time, even with Arial prodding him.

She had volunteered to wake Touma up for school every morning when they discovered that his mother could not be relied upon to wake him up. Goodness knows, given the opportunity, Touma would sleep the entire day away. Unfortunately, Arial hadn't been having any better luck getting him up. How had Seiji done it?

'Maybe,' Shin thought as the first hour bell rang, with still no sight of his fiancee or friend, 'a miracle has occurred, and they got to school early for a change.' Yeah right. And Arago's hobby was growing prize winning roses in his spare time.

"Mouri!" Shin spun around at his name. Mr Yokonami was frowning at him.

"Mouri, pay attention, class has started."

Shin slowly nodded, resisting the urge to turn back to the window. "Hai."

********

Seiji felt an icy shiver run down his spine. Something had just happened. What, he wasn't sure, but something had happened to someone he was close to. Not bad, he frowned and put a hand to his temple, he had been having terrible headaches all week, but... something.

The first hour bell rang. Time for class to begin.

"Seiji," a soft voice enquired from behind him, "are you okay?"

Seiji turned to the girl, Arisa, and smiled at her. "Oh, I'm just fine," and turned back to his book.

Arisa frowned at the back of Seiji's head pretty sure something was indeed wrong. For someone who was 'fine', he sure was pale.

********

"Stop!"

Three teenagers on their way to school paused and stared at the fourth member of their group.

A young man (who looked exactly like a girl with long pink hair) turned to the silver haired young man. "What is wrong, Shinobu-Sempai?"

Shinobu declined to answer, and a moment later they found out why. A young man around their age fell out of the sky and landed on his head infront of them. He had black hair and was wearing a blue kempo outfit.

"That did not hurt," the young man calmly stated.

Mitsuru and Kazuya looked up into the sky. "Now, where did he come from?" Mitsuru wondered.

"Ah, who are you?"

Kunou looked at the young man with the red hair who had just addressed him. "I am Kunou Tatewaki, the Blue Thunder of Furinkan High..." At that moment, Kunou's body belatedly realized that it had indeed been hurt. His eyes rolled back into his head and he fell over sideways.

The four teenagers blankly stared at the body infront of them. Shinobu and Mitsuru looked at each other for a moment, and shrugged. Together, they both started to walk forwards, stepping calmly over the prone body of Kunou.

"Mitsuru-Sempai!" Kazuya called out. "We can't just leave him here on the sidewalk like this. What if he is seriously hurt?"

Mitsuru sighed and turned back around. Bending over the body, he peeled back one eyelid. "He appears to be just unconscious." He turned to Kazuya. "What do you want us to do with him?"

"Uhhh," That was a good question. Kazuya hadn't thought ahead that far. What should they do with him?

"We should leave him where he is." Everyone turned and looked at Shinobu. "There isn't a Furinkan High School in our Tokyo. We shouldn't get involved with him." Shinobu smiled his way cute smile (Watch the anime, it is something else.) at them. "Don't worry, he will be fine."

Mitsuru stood up and nodded. If Shinobu said so... "Okay with me. What about you two?"

Shun readily fell into agreement with Shinobu and Mitsuru. "Okay."

The three young men turned and looked at Kazuya, who was looking at the young man. Shinobu-Sempai was probably right about getting involved he realized. From what little he had seen and heard, this Kunou person appeared to be not quite right in the head. There were enough loons running around Greenwood without bringing home strays.

He nodded and gave a resigned sigh, not liking this one bit. "Okay."

********

"Ryoko," a highly agitated voice hissed. "Let go!" Tenchi shook his arm rapidly, vainly trying to shake off Ryoko.

"Yes Ryoko, let Tench-Sama go. You are making a spectacle of yourself."

Ryoko clung harder and stuck her nose in the air. "At least I am not to stuffy to make a spectacle of myself." She froze, a ridiculous look on her face. That did not come out quite the way she had intended it to.

Ayeka giggled behind her hand.

"Sasami-chan! Ryo-ohki! Where are you?" Tenchi, Ryoko and Ayeka spun around. Mihoshi was looking around with a very worried expression on her face. Tears were welling up in her eyes and she was wringing her hands in distress. There was no sign of Princess Sasami or of Ryo-ohki.

"Ahhhh..." Mihoshi's eyes grew wide and panicky as she realized that everyone was now staring at her.

Ayeka's eyes narrowed and she started to approach the blond girl. "Mihoshi..." she growled, "where is my sister!"

'I...I...I..." she sniffled loudly, "I don't know!"

Turning a lovely shade of red, which clashed horribly with her purple hair, Ayeka started to scream at Mihoshi. "What do you mean, you don't know! She was right with you, you, you, you galactic bubble head!"

Ryoko leaned her head on Tenchi's shoulder and snickered to herself. Not only did Ayeka not know how to swear properly, she was causing quite a scene. All the pedestrians who had been quickly walking past them had stopped to watch the show.

Upon hearing Ryoko laugh at her, Ayeka's head spun around, sparks flashing dangerously in her eyes. "What are you laughing at?" she snarled. "In case you haven't notice, she lost Ryo-ohki as well."

Ryoko's eyes grew wide, then narrowed as she released Tenchi's arm and started to approach Mihoshi. "I'm sorry!" she wailed and began to cry, great rivers of tears streaming down her cheeks.

Tenchi hung his head, a giant sweatdrop appearing on his head. He knew he should have left them all at the Shrine.

"Uh, excuse me?"

Tenchi lifted his head. Ryoko and Ayeka spun around, and Mihoshi suddenly stopped crying. All four of them stared at the stranger.

The young man, he had to be about sixteen, gave everyone a puzzled look. "Is this Tokyo?"

Tenchi nodded.

"Do you know how to get to the Tendo Dojo?"

Tenchi shook his head.

The young man sighed and turned away from them. "Thank you." He walked away with Tenchi and Co., plus the gathered crowd, watched him walk away.

********

Usagi sat down and reached for her schoolbag. She was sure she lad left some of the cookies that Makato had made for the Senshi the night before in there. She reached in and pulled out an unfamiliar foil wrapped object. Curious, she opened it.

A muffin! A great big, warm, blueberry muffin topped with sugar crystals, just begging to be eaten.

"Ahhhh..." a silly grin appeared on her face and drool dripped down her chin as she gazed at the delectable muffin with shiny eyes.

Snapping her jaw closed, she glanced around her with narrowed eyes. She gave a sly look to the left, and then to the right. No one in class was watching her. In three huge bites, the muffin was gone.

"Usagi!" an impatient voice from the front of the class caused her to choke on the last of the muffin. "Do you have your homework?"

"Mh-hmmm," Usagi nodded red-faced, as she tried to swallow the last of the muffin. Choking it down, she took a huge breath of air and collapsed on her desk.

"Usagi!"

"Yes, yes!" Jerking up, she reached down and picked up her schoolbag. Opening it, she started to rummage through it, and pulled out an unfamiliar notebook.

"OH NO! I grabbed the wrong bag!" she wailed.

"Usagi! Quit crying in my class!"

"I'm sorry, Miss H." She blubbered. "but you see, on the way to school this morning I was running late and I ran into this really cute boy and a girl and I must have grabbed the wrong bag after we crashed into each other."

Miss H hung her head. "Usagi, even for you, that excuse is unbelievable. You don't have your homework done, do you?"

"But it is true!" Usagi wailed bounding to her feet. She thrusted the notebook to Miss H. "See, look. This isn't mine!"

Miss H took the notebook and flipped through it. "Hmmm, lets see. Chinese Literature, fifth hour, Arial Ryunosui. Very nice penmanship." She handed Usagi back the notebook. "You are right, this isn't yours."

Usagi was about to sigh in relief when Miss H continued. "Due to this incident, I will give you and extension. You will turn in your homework first thing Monday morning."

"Mm hmm," Usagi sadly nodded. Now she had to spend the weekend trying to find that girl to get her schoolbag back. It just figures that something like this would happen when she actually did do her homework.

'Life isn't fair!' she thought to herself. 'But, at least I had a nice muffin to munch on. Hey!' Usagi glanced down at the schoolbag. 'I wonder what she has in there for lunch?'

********

"Yusuke, Yusuke, wake up!"

Someone was repeatedly prodding him in the chest. "Leave me alone. I'm tryin' ta sleep," he muttered and rolled over.

"This is an emergency!" Someone smashed something hard over his head.

"Dammit!" Yusuke cracked open an eye as he placed a hand on the newly formed bump on his head. Someone was going to be sorry...

He blinked in surprise when he saw who it was. "Botan?! Why are you here?" Yusuke sat up and brought his other hand to the new bump on his head. His eyes focused on the oar she held in her hands. The oar she had just used to smack him. "And why," his scowled at her, "did you hit me?"

"You wouldn't wake up," she calmly stated, then clapped her hands together, the oar vanishing in thin air. "Koenma-Sama needs to see you immediately!"

"But I'm in school."

He flushed slightly as Botan raised an enquiring eyebrow. Here he was, sitting on the roof of the school, obviously sluffing first hour. Why, if she hadn't came and woken him up, he probably would have slept till lunch hour.

Yusuke gave her a sheepish look. Then he sighed. "Well, I'd better go see what Koenma wants." Yusuke stood up and gave Botan a rakish grin. Things had been boring lately. Getting into fights with his fellow classmates wasn't fun anymore. They were all pathetic. At least when he worked for Koenma, he got a chance to fight some really nasty characters, and he didn't need to hold back!

"Lets go!"

(to be continued...)