A message left behind

[Amaterasu]

It had been quite some work for Amaterasu to find the right way to go, but with the sign-up locations provided on the Dante's Abyss website that she could open on her Mobile Dataverse Device and some help from a handful of Stormtroopers she had found the Endless Dunes portal in the Nexus after exiting the Frozen Fields, and from there had found her way to the Town with no name, where the signups had been held. And with a horse summoned to get around the Nexus and Endless Dunes faster, she hadn't needed much time either.

Of course, things turned out quite different than what the kami of the sun had hoped for. She hadn't realized that the broadcasts were so long past and that the participants had long since left the staging area and were outside the reach of outsiders. Syntech had packed everything up days ago and there was not a single employee left behind. She found herself with no way of getting to Arturia. That is until someone in town had told her that people last year had reappeared in the Nexus, and Amaterasu had headed there in a beeline. Now she was at the Fountain of Infinity on the back of her horse, or rather close enough that she could see if anyone was nearby, and was thinking as she overlooked the place.


So... Arturia must return here. If she dies she'll come back, if she survives she will reappear here at the end of the Dante's Abyss event. One way or another she will come back, there's no way around it. But what if she had already died and returned? Something inside Amaterasu made her doubt that, Arturia was a powerful warrior and wouldn't go down so easily. But then again, who was to say that she'd made it? From what she'd seen in the interviews there was a great number of powerful Primes who'd signed up. And where would Arturia have gone if she had returned? Would she be looking for her? In Coruscant, maybe? Yes, that made the most sense... it was there that Amaterasu had been taken to by the Stormtroopers and she hadn't gotten in touch with Arturia since. It was possible that she had gone to look for her, see if she was still arrested or something. But what if she wasn't? What if she was still in Dante's Abyss? If she stayed here and Arturia was elsewhere they would both be looking for one another until one of them got tired of it. And if she went to Coruscant she risked that Arturia returned here to the Nexus and vanished off to wherever else... but what could she do? She had no way of contacting her, no way to leave a message...

A message. Exactly! She remembered her powers... in this world she was able to summon living beings. She could... right, she could leave someone here, a messenger to wait for Arturia while she herself went to Coruscant! What an idea. But it had to be someone that Arturia would know was coming from her... someone with a clear sign. One of the Celestial Brush kami maybe? No, they wouldn't be able to speak with Arturia, none spoke japanese. They were animal kami after all. So... a human. She dismounted and left her horse to graze around the Fountain, then crossed her legs beneath herself, placed her hands on her knees, breathed in deep and sunk into meditation as she let it back out along with the muscle tension of riding.

A human... yes, she knew who would be a good fit. Kushi, the woman of Kamiki village that grew rice and brewed sake. Her looks were dead giveaways to her nationality and she knew Amaterasu's real name. And she was trustworthy. Amaterasu's breath turned shallow as she pictured Kushi before her mental eye, wearing the casual qipao dress like she did when not working, and of course the three bales of rice on her head which she never took off whether or not she was on duty. From those bales of rice to the wooden sandals, from head to toe, Amaterasu pictured Kushi, as well as several boxes of dried supplies, a little hut with everything one needed to live, and a few other commodities that Kushi would be able to go on for a while. Finally she pictured a scroll to write on, as she needed something to message Arturia with, and a picture of her on a second scroll to show to Kushi.

When she opened her eyes again, everything was there as she had pictured it. Kushi was inside the hut, the boxes were stacked high next to it, a little smoke came from the chimney as the fire lit up in the hearth, a very idyllic sight. She breathed deeper to get her slowed bodily functions going again then stood on her feet and picked up the scroll. Kushi heard the rustling and looked up, then smiled brightly and came out the door to greet Amaterasu with a hug. "It's been a while, wolfy-chan. I'm happy to see you back though!"

"As am I, Kushi-san!" replied Amaterasu as she returned the hug. "Listen, I have a favor to ask."

"Oh? What could that be?"

"A friend of mine may come through here, I need you to give her a message I will write. She's easy to recognize... hold on. Here." She handed Kushi the scroll with Arturia's picture drawn on it, depicting her in her combat armor. "She's called Saber. She may come alone, or as part of a larger group... bound to appear around here, near that fountain. Oh, and she's from the west. Don't be surprised if her looks aren't japanese. Be sure to look for her... yellow-ish hair and the blue eyes, I don't think anyone else from the group has that."

"I see... well, I will be sure to pass the message when she arrives. Do you have it ready?"

"I have yet to write it. I'll do that in a minute... but there's more, listen. I've left you food and water here so you don't starve, which should last you a few months. I'll be back in two or three months at the most however, and pick you up. If you pass the message go to the Frozen Fields - it's that portal over there - and make sure to wear the warm clothes that I've put into that box for you. Ask around for a dwarven settlement named Dwarfholm and do what you can to get there, it's where I will be waiting at, or coming to. Be sure to bring some provisions as it's going to be a long journey. The dwarves love a good drink though so they will happily accept a brewer as skilled as you into their city."


"Right. I hope to meet you again soon then, wolfy-chan. It's good to have you back!"

"I'm glad as well, Kushi-san. You were my first friend among humans, you know... you have a special place in my heart."

Again they exchanged hugs, then Amaterasu backed away and produced the scroll to write. She had thought to bring some sand from the Endless Dunes to throw on the ink after writing, and she always had her own brush with herself. As she didn't worry about Kushi reading her message she didn't feel any need to summon a tube to slide the scroll into, so all that was left to do was to write.

The kami wrote down two kanji signs before remembering that Arturia could probably not read those. So she needed to use the western language... and speaking of which, what information did she even need to give to Arturia so that she would know how to contact her? She had no idea, and neither would Kushi. She should have asked that in the Endless Dunes maybe. Oh, this wasn't good. She'd just have to wing it then...

After finishing the first sentence in kanji and rewriting it in the phoenician alphabet so that Arturia could read it, she got to the real thing. The kanji could just act as a proof that it really was her, Amaterasu, who'd written the message. She wrote a brief greeting to Arturia, and told her that they needed to get in touch. She also explained that she had gotten a Communicator and wasn't certain about what information Arturia would need to contact her, so she was sorry for writing down too much. Then she finished her letter with information on where to find her in the event that the information she provided wasn't sufficient, giving rough directions to Dwarfholm in the Frozen Fields and telling her that Kushi would be going there too. And of course telling Arturia that she hoped to see her again soon, best regards, Ama Shiranui.

To avoid missing the important part, she just wrote down everything that she believed was important about the Communicator device. She started with the obvious: the exterior. Everything she deemed important from the Communicator's case's color to the little numbers below the row of black bars on the back side, which she couldn't make sense of, was written down.

After accidentally dropping the Communicator once back in the Frozen Fields she had also discovered that the back of the case could be removed, and had found all sorts of possibly important info on there. So she wrote down what she found on that rectangular thing that she didn't dare remove from the case, something that any modern Prime would have told her was the battery: the name of the issuing company, the serial number, "MADE IN CORUSCANT", technical details such as voltage and safety instructions and more numbers beneath a series of bars. There was also a sticky piece of paper on the inside of the case hull which appeared to have been written by hand, possibly by the troll leader whose Communicator this had been, so she copied that too. As Arturia would later find out this was actually the number she needed, as the troll had made a note of it in case that he ever needed to give it out but the battery was dead.

That was the exterior taken care of... she stuck the case hull back on and touched a button on the Communicator to unlock the screen. She'd found a series of interesting data somewhere in... ah, there it was! The Communicator's technical information. Everything from the available storage space to Processor type and speed, Model ID, display resolution and a lot more info, a fair part of which was redundant. She scribbled down a few more details from the system center that weren't in the technical information section as one could never be certain. She had to roll the scroll out several times to have enough space to write everything down, but luckily she'd counted on that and thus summoned a rather large piece.

With her work finished - and she felt rather proud of it, really - she threw sand over the parchment and waited for it to dry, then rolled it up and approached Kushi who was just storing the supplies inside her hut. "Here's the message, thank you again for taking care of it!"

"Of course, wolfy-chan. We'll meet again soon!"

"We will. See you soon, Kushi-san." One final hug was exchanged, then Amaterasu climbed back into the saddle and took off towards the Coruscant portal. I'll find you, Arturia. Sooner or later!