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Nakamura Kano blinked as she turned the worn locket in her hands. Maybe it wasn’t the wisest idea to examine it while in the middle of a packed train. So far though, this world seemed to have all sorts of things that were out of place, so what was one more person analyzing what could just be an old relic?
The child that gave it to her, who introduced himself as Damian, said that it was a transformation device.
“That will help unseal your power. Once you open it and recite any incantation from your soul, then your powers and the needed prowess and your armour will come with it.”
Kano took a deep breath, trying to suppress the bubbling confusion and excitement threatening to crash through. “So like… a transformation item for a superhero? Do you normally have those in this world?”
Damian gave a small smile. “Yes.”
Anxiety while dreaming what should be the ultimate dream right now shouldn’t be a thing Kano had to deal with. Glancing around the sea of people in fantasy novel-esque attire, Kano briefly caught sight of one woman’s-
No way. That couldn't be right. That woman had what looked like a Toraiger key charm, something that had zero chances of making sense for someone to have in a fantasy world at all.
So that's that. She was dreaming where she was fully conscious of being in a dream, meaning that if she could relax a bit, she can have fun playing out this scenario.
All she had to do was track down a monster and/or another other destined hero.
Not too long ago, she was in the middle of rewatching some episodes of Jushawon after a particularly frustrating day. Work never ceased to be an endless game of playing the part of a “normal” office worker minus an actually worthwhile secret alter ego.
So once she returned home, she started rewatching her favourite episodes of Jushowan to feel something other than trapped. Then right before Kano was about to call it for the night, she switched over to one of her favourite Emerjason episodes for an extra splash of nostalgia.
She only made it halfway through before dozing off and entering this real feeling dream. There’s no way it was though! She was going through the motions of a protagonist getting their powers in the first episode.
The train screeched to a halt in front of the station and the woman with the Toraiger keychain got up.
Above the chatter of the passengers, the delicate chime of that charm echoed through her mind. It was as if it were the only sound in a silent void, something that no matter how much she wanted to ignore got her to listen.
Like the train’s whistle signaling to depart, Kano shot up and let her feet go on autopilot by following this woman out of the train and into the winding streets of this town.
Near the end of a crumbling tunnel, Kano froze in place. Her heart raced as she wanted to scream in elation and fear of what she was about to do next. If she didn’t keep going, she’d lose track of the Toraiger woman, but in another probable dream logic-driven move, she stood still and stared into the carving of a mane or a flame on the compact.
An apparition of Damian flickered in front of her just as an explosion went off outside the tunnel.
“What are you waiting for,” Damian asked. “Time won’t stop for you, hero.”
Murmurs in another unfamiliar yet somehow decipherable language echoed far away.
Kano gave a mock salute and the best smile she could muster, which only barely pierced Damian’s too-worn-for-a-kid analytical stare.
She then raised her arm as far up as she could and opened the locket. Though instead of simply shouting ‘Change!’, Kano shouted the Jushawon transformation phrase
In a flash of light that pierce through the darkness of this overgrown tunnel, a new hero took her first determined strides forward. Shishi Leo and Emerjason ran alongside her and exchanged approving, mentorlike nods as they made their way toward the light at the end together.
-
As the dust from one of the monsters exploding settled, Yoshida Hisami saw a flash of red from the corner. The figure, whose armour reflected some of the design motifs of Shishi Leo mixed with shining knightly metal, charged forward. Without so much as a glance, they reached the other monster, a tall, hulking ogre, and jumped up into the air before landing a fiery slash of a sword to their head, cursing them to stumble onto the stage behind them.
Some of it caved in, but as she’d come to learn over the course of her time here, any collateral can be fixed with magic fairly quickly. If she really wanted to, Yoshida could be as flashy as Toraiger. Back when she thought this was a dream, she even tried. As she took on more and more monsters and the reality of it all being real set in, however, her methods changed.
The person under that armour seemed to have a similar outlook. Or maybe they were just flashy. Heroes from here had the capacity to be like that, though that came with some sort of naivety too.
Hisami jumped back into the fray to land a follow-up attack, and though her and this new hero had never properly interacted before, they got into a rhythm of what quicly became an unbalanced 2V1 situation. Soon enough, the monster exploded into a cloud of ash, knocking the new hero into a crator from an earlier explosion. When Hisami jumped down to check on them, both of their armours deactivated.
So amidst the flames that were dying down by the second, the two of them looked at each other for the first time.
The woman in front of her looked like an office worker, one of the many that she used to see while commuting on the train back home. She seemed a lot more at ease as she smiled up at Hisami. It made for quite the contrast against all this fantastical destruction surrounding her, enough to where it might make for another good photo.
“I’m Yoshida," Hisami said as she reached out to her.
“Nakamura.”
Nakamura took it and steadily got back onto her feet. She then took her hand as the already present smile grew larger. “Thank you! You know, we were almost like Shishi Leo and Toraiger besides the extra elemental spells. It was so cool!"
“You might say it’s fate,” Hisami said.
“Yeah,” Nakamura said. “To have a dream where I got to meet someone as pretty as you and be tokusatsu heroes together made my day a lot better!"
Hisami, despite being very ready to end the blissful ignorance of what may be in store for her, felt a slight pang as she said, “I appreciate the compliment, but this is very real.”
Nakamura closed her eyes and used her free hand to pinch herself on the arm. Flinching, her face went blank as she let go of Hisami's hand and stumbled back. She then looked back at the street ahead conveniently while a blush began spreading across her face. “I'm so sorry for being this forward! Seriously, I, uh... don't normally act like that at all."
“That’s alright. It took me a while to realize this wasn't just me dreaming about my childhood dream too."
“A-anyway, um… you’re sort of right on the fate part. I saw your Toraiger key charm earlier and-”
“I saw your Shishi Leo one too.”
“Yeah and when I did, I had a feeling like this was one of the heroes I’m supposed to find for this prophecy? Did you know about that?”
Hisami nodded. “I did, but so far I haven’t had much luck in finding anyone since I got here a few months ago.”
“A few… months?”
Hisami nodded again. “This does mean we’re closer to reaching the goal at least.”
Nakamura took a deep breath. “Yeah but… a few months is so long to just disappear from your normal life.”
“True, though I wouldn’t say being here is that bad either." Hisami smiled. "The biggest loss is that I haven’t seen what's been going on lately in Jushowan. Being a hero here is one thing, but that'll never replace seeing Toraiger every week.”
Someone cleared their throat. ‘Congratulations on finding each other at last.”
An apparition of Damian standing atop a barrel, arms crossed.
“Now that two of the Earthly Soul Heroes have been gathered, we might have a chance against the Eye of the Storm,” said Damien.
“Why us, exactly?” Nakamura asked.
“I don’t have an answer,” said Damien.
“What do you mean you don’t really have an answer? We’ve been whisked away to this world to save it from this “Eye of the Storm” but wouldn’t it make more sense to get heroes from this world instead of us? I can't speak for Yoshida but I don't get what you or whatever power saw in some office worker from another world who didn't even know magic was a real thing people could do until five minutes ago. It's definitely cool to know, but just... why?"
Hisami had nearly eight months to ponder this question, and the best answer she currently had that seemed to be confirmed by seeing Nakamura in action was that they were passionate tokusatsu fans. Even then, that's still an odd criteria to go off of for potential saviours of a whole world.
Damian shrugged.
“I think what she’s trying to say is that there’s a much less roundabout way this could’ve been handled,” Hisami said.
Damien tilted his head. “This is the only way it could have been done. Three other heroes remain, so focus on trying to find them."
"Do you have a lead on that?" Nakamura asked.
"east," Damian said before disappearing.
Nakamura fiddled with the compact as she muttered something to herself. After a bit, she then said, "I guess we should try figuring out what that means."
"I saw an inn while trying to track down the monster. Let's head there first."
-
Kano woke up just as the roosters began cawing outside. She kept her eyes closed, hoping that this, being embraced by Hisami, and embracing her too would net her an extra hour of sleep. Though as the sleepy small town began waking up around them, maybe being awake for this wasn't so bad either.
A few months in and it still felt so weird to know that this wasn’t some new toku she got way too emotionally invested in. This was her and Hisami’s life now. Fighting monsters, saving lives, and sharing an unbreakable bond tighter than the comfortable spot they were in right now.
Part of her felt selfish for wanting to stay in this moment forever. That might be her only motivation for wanting to stick around in here too. Wouldn’t that be messed up and wrong though? Shouldn’t she have an aching desire to return to Earth, to return to her painfully mundane life as a closeted toku fan and lesbian? Here she could simply be, and her powers even grew the more she let herself simply be. It was to the point where her and Hisami got a power up form after confessing their feelings, something that while cheesy also felt powerfully beautiful when countering an attack from a mage powered by stormy insecurities. Thankfully they were able to save her before she succumbed to that and made a new friend/apparently third destined hero.
Then a scream cut through the warmth, sending an all too familiar shiver down her spine.
Hisami yawned as she got up, picked up what they tentatively agreed to call an "Earth Changer" (until they figured out a better name) off the nightstand, and went to look out the window.
Dawn’s light highlighted her silhouette that was further framed by the dark flowy curtains on either side of the window. It came together to give an aura of brooding mystery and as if the second she turned around she’d-
“Kano,” Hisami said, turning to face her with a small smile, “let’s say good morning to this monster, shall we?”
The blanket slid off Kano’s shoulders as she stood up and took the red compact. “Okay, so we’re just dropping in and attacking?”
“That’s the second step,” Hisami said as she opened the window.
Kano took a few short steps to stand next to her. “So was transforming and jumping out the window Step 1?"
Hisami laughed. “It’s actually this.”
She took Kano’s free hand in her own and leaned in to kiss her cheek. Through a smile, Kano did the same back before the two transformed and hopped out the window hand in hand.