Another day closed on the world, and I happily strolled through the forest. It had been several weeks since Kiko and Sakura left, and the others still were moping around. I didn’t blame them; I missed those two as well. I was at least happy to see that Kiko got Azul removed before leaving; where the pesky fool went after was anyone’s guess; I would have liked to trap him in a jar or something. It was also good that Sakura had grown some confidence; I doubt she would have been able to jump in the world lake with Kiko the first day she was with us. Oh, yes, I did sneakily follow after; curiosity kills the cat, but not… well, you get where I’m going with this.

After Kiko fell into the monster world, we needed a couple of days before my power recharged enough to fetch her. Of course, we trusted that she would be able to survive on her own for a while, so we took the time to regroup after the battle.

Casey and Lerato guarded the formerly damed world after the mother of hunger broke it, just in case anything might pop out, while Pythagoras and Mark scouted for anything dropped in the fighting. I had the happy job of helping the crying Sakura recover from her shock. Let me tell you, getting eaten and pulled through a sea of death does not sound fun. It took her at least a day before she was coherent enough to talk. Fortunately, she wasn’t as weak as one might expect by appearances. Soon she was saying she needed to return home and help fix her world. It seems after the hungers appeared, everything, excuse my language, went to hell; she barely escaped with the help of some odd Oni mask-wearing guy. I have no clue what an Oni is, though; another good excuse to visit, I guess!

Anyway, long story short, she started a group that struggled to survive while an evil ninja clan tried to take over in the chaos. Eventually, she got eaten and ended up here. Whatever Kiko got up to in the monster world was still a mystery, though. She returned without that dragon and planned to go back to her world. She must have met some big shot or something that took all my thunder! I was hoping to have her stay around. I guess it was for the best, though.

Admittedly, I have sneaked a peak into their world from time to time. Both are doing well! Kiko is fighting hard but trying her best to not kill again. I think she used up all the weapons we gave her before leaving within the first couple of days. Amazingly, she didn’t kill a single person with Mark’s grenade, intentionally, of course. Lerato would be sad to hear she threw his weight like a rock to knock a guy off a horse, so I won’t tell him that.

We will have to make sure to visit once it looks like things have settled down there. By the looks of it, that might be years, so maybe we will hop in one day and offer some backup. Oh, but I can see Kiko being mad about that. Then again, I’m not too worried about making her angry.

I stopped and chuckled about what my pink friend might say when I showed up. After a moment of being amused, I looked around.

The world between worlds had brought me to a world lake next to the myst wall. Pretty standard for it to do so. What was not customary was a person sitting on the shore. She was green—a great color if you ask me—all over. Her skin was a soft, light green, and long, coarse hair running from her head had a darker shade. Her clothes were, disappointingly, orange and white. She looked around with wide eyes at the scene. A first-timer by the looks of it. We really were getting a lot of people moving through worlds lately—hopefully, nothing big was on the way. I think that the last disaster was enough excitement for a while.

The girl jumped as I strolled up to her and smiled.

“Welcome,” I said, “to the world between worlds!”