Composed by deko
Translated by Yuki Neco
Eighteen months before, a cargo-passenger ship was departing Takeshiba Quay; on the deck of which Yoshiyuki was looking at the quay as if waiting for someone nervously. “She hasn’t come... Thank you, Rika. It’s the best way to turn down on me... I wonldn’t be able to bare to listen to the rejection in person,” he thought.
When he turned around to walk back to his cabin, he heard, “Wait up, Mr. Terada!”
Looking back at the quay one more time, he saw a girl running on the quay in a serious look. She was always so calm that she hardly runs, but Rika was running—half staggering—to keep the same distance from the ship.
“I won’t regret... I’ll be waiting for you forev- Aw!” she tripped and fell on the quay.
“Rika!”
The ship sounded a whistle as if stifling his call-out, but she could hear her name clearly called-out by him.
“This is the assignement that influences the rest of our lives. I’ll find a solution before I’m back. I promise!” Mr. Terada shouted.
“Yes!” Rika replied, shone by the sun setting in the west.
Back to the present time, there was a panic underground of Takeshiba Quay. “Keep away from me! I hate rats!” the Hope Card screamed with terror. Even though she had magical powers, she could do nothing especially when she got panicky. She ran and ran without thinking, causing rats’ world into a panic as well; all she was doing was to look for the way out.
“Aw!” Puddles of sewage and gas pipes kept her from running smoothly, while she kept bumping her head on pipes. She was not aware of the crowd of rats escaping with their lives at stake. Among the panicky crowd of rats escaping their ways, a mother rat couldn’t move partly because she was weak from giving birth, and because she was busy with breast-feeding her babies.
The runaway girl bumped into a pipe again and staggared.
“Mom!” a baby rat cried.
The Hope Card regained her consciousness on hearing the baby rat, she extended her arm to brace herself not to fall onto the mother and baby rats. Unfortunately, she grabbed the pipe of hot water.
“Awwwww!” She screamed, staggered backward and fell in the muddy puddle.
“Curse monster. You gotta pay for it,” a male rat cursed.
The rats that had escaped crowded around the puddle, as the girl floated covered with mud. She was crying. The crowd of rats were perplexed to see the crying human girl.
A strange creature clung on the King Penguin slide, which seemed like a blue baloon from a distance.
“Hey, who’s baloon is that?” a little boy shouted.
“I don’t know. Mine is a red one,” a girl said.
“Then it’s mine!” another boy chuckled, picked up a stone, and threw at it. The target dodged the stone.
“What are you doing. I’ll get it,” another boy threw a stone. The blue creature slowly moved aside, which had suckers—the space monster. “Dman it. Who do they think I am. When I destroy the planet, I’ll capture you guys as my slave,” the monster thought. At this moment, a stone hit it on the head, and tears dropped from its eyes.
Rats drove the Hope Card forward, with sharpened wooden stick on her back. “Aw! Don’t push me. I’m walking,” the Hope Card said in annoyed manner. Steam blocked the visibility as there was nothing to step on—she fell and rolled down on a steep slope in embarrassing attitude, until she fell into a pool of water with a splush.
“Hot... It’s water.”
Some rats were bathing themselves around her. Some other rats ran above her, climbing the pipes. A rusty pipe swang above her, sprinkled hot water.
“Hey! Oh, it’s warm!” The mud covering her was washed away, revealing her dress which was torn. The crowd of rats faced her in line, and bowed. She opened her bag to make sure her underware and another clothes were still clean, then she changed. On getting out of the bath, the rats took their pick from the garbage and started their meal.
“It’s good you’ve got something to eat,” she mumbled. She found a pack of noodle, but there were some butts of cigarette inside. How long had it passed since her last meal? The Hope Card could feel the agony of hungry like a human.
Sakura holding a vacuume cleaner was glazing out the window that was kept open. “She’s late. Where’s she hanging around?” she thought. A one-piece dress designed white and pink was hung on the hanger, which Sakura had chosen the night before from among the tons of designs Tomoyo had brought. At this time, she heard a visitor downstairs. When she went downstairs, the visitor and Touya were talking.
“All right. I’ll ask my father about the terrain map,” Touya said.
“Thank you,” the visitor was Professor Yoshida from the science museum, who looked up at Sakura and said, “Oh, your sister?”
“Yes. Uh, Sakura, say hello.”
Professor Yoshida looked restless or nervous, she thought.
“Ah, Takashi and Chiharu attending my astronomy class talked about you—very cute girl in their class that performed the lead role in the play in Nadeshiko festival,” Professor Yoshida smiled.
“The face is the only good thing about her,” Touya said plainly.
“What do you mean!?”
Yoshida smiled; it was a long time since he was away from warm family atmosphere. He narrowed his eyes as if he was exposed in bright light. “Kazumi...” he muttered a girl’s name in mind.
In the twilight, at the back of a retaurant one female rat was scanvenging for food in the garbage. Although various kinds of food was out there in the garbage cans, she had already made up her mind. “There it is!” She jumped onto sausages in a bag which were casually dumped in the garbage can. “Good! My baby loves them,” the female rat hold one of the sausages with joy. She was the mother rat underground of Takeshiba Quay. She sensed someone behind her and stood on guard.
“Yo, what the heck are you doing?”
A dozen of stray cats and house cats with bells on their collar were glared at her cruelly.
“Are you thief or something? Scavenging for food in our territory,” a Siamese cat leapt to attack her. The mother rat barely dodged the attck, and the cat crashed into the garbage can with her head first with a crashing sound. Other cats tried to jump at her as if they were toying with her. The mother rat desperately made a run holding the sausages on her back, but the load is too heavy to move swiftly.
“Look, I got it!” The female Siamese cat’s claw was stained by blood. The mother rat was thrown aside with her paw bleeding, however, she still held the sausages tightly. “I’m fed up with cat food and leftover hamburgs,” the cat roared with glittering eyes, “I’ll check how delicious you are!”
“You shouldn’t. You’d smell like sewage,” another cat warned.
“Yeah, you’re right. May as well leave the dumb rat be,” the female cat agreed.
At this time, a flock of crows attacked the cats. “It’s not fair to torture a single rat in a group!” the leader crow cawed.
“Shut up,” the cat roared at the crow.
“The eldest cat won’t forgive you,” the crow warned.
“What’re you saying? That dotard gives no fear for us. Come down here, and I’ll pluck every bit of your black feather.”
The cats prepared their claws for attack; on the other hand, the flock of crows got ready their beaks for cross attack flying in circle.
“You can go now, Madam Rat,” the leader crow said. No sooner had the rat rushed into the hole to the underground labyrinth than a fierce battle commenced. Nevertheless, such a battle was one of those skirmishes at the backstreet.
Meanwhile, the Hope Card crouched by the steaming spa, feeling so hungry that she wasn’t pleased with the comfortable underware Kaho had made for her. “I’m hungry... I didn’t know how painful being a human,” she muttered hearing her stomach growling. At that time, the mother rat came back, bringing the sausages on the back though she was covered with dirt.
“Sorry to’ve kept you waiting hungry. Eat these,” the rat gave the food, immediately as the hungry little girl bit one of the sausages, and bit off the wrapper with her little canine, and crammed the sausage into her mouth when she cried without knowing why. “Tastes good!”
Just some bites, she gasped to see the mother rat bleeding badly on the paw. She dropped her sausage with surprise, stepped to the rat, and held the kind-hearted rat tenderly.
“Just licking the wound, I’ll be OK,” the rat whispered, “You’re starving, aren’t you? Eat, eat.”
“You got hurt so bad... because of me!” the Hope Card cried, as she tore the bottom edge of her slip into a strip as a bandage. The rat got surprised by the girl’s unexpected decision, “You human are cold without clothes.”
“Who cares?”
She had torn most of her slip into strips, but she didn’t mind it. She wounded the made-up bandages around the bleeding paw.
“Thank you, little girl.”
“Call me Hope.”
The two lives residing on the planet, who supported each other’s lives, felt a firm bond of friendsip.
Sakura Card glowed suddenly on the Sakura’s desk as the Little Card slipped out in a quiet night. It was unusual that the Little Card got visialized on her own, but she stood with a puzzled look. She couldn’t do anything with the mistress of the Cards sleeping. She shook her head before transforming back into the card form.
The rising sun shone on Sasaki residence in the exclusive residential district in Tomoeda. In a room in the house, there were a desk, bed, and some pieces of modest furniture, where some stuffed animals were placed neatly. “He’ll be back today,” Rika stared at the letter on the desk as she felt heart racing hard by hand she pressed on the chest.
On the other hand, steam and dust lay along in the rats’ world underground. The light of the sunset was streaming in.
“Hope, can you take the babies to the bathtub?” the mother rat asked.
“Sure.” The Hope Card was busy taking care of the baby rats, like bathing them and amusing them. Nobody wouldn’t believe she had fear of rats some days before.
“Hope, it’s hot. Let me out,” a baby in the bathtub said.
“Just count ten, then I’ll get you,” she replied.
Rats essentially like water, and are well adapted to their surroundings. Paticularly, baby rats that were yet to know something to fear thought of the human girl as their friend. For the reason, the Hope Card showed her inborn kindness when she took care of the innocent babies. However, that girl still wanted to be back upground, the mother rat knew in mind.
“You know... Ms. Rat,” the Hope Card talked to the mother rat.
“Thank you today for taking care of the babies. What can I do for you?”
“Yeah, I want to get out on the groung,” she replied.
“Upground is a dangerous place. Metal boxes run at a fierce speed, and cats are after us,” a male rat warned.
“Cats?”
“They used to hunt us rats for the reward given by humans in the olden times. Now they hunt us for their own amusement,” a rat explained.
“What good would that do? They live much longer than us, what do they want from us?” the mother rat groaned.
Hearing them sigh, the Hope Card could understand that those rats worried about her.
“But you want to be back upground, right?” the mother rat asked.
“Then the children will show you the way out,” the old rat said, ”They know the shortcut. The hole you came through is dangerous. You just shrank today as short as all of us. You can be a game for the cats.”
“Yes,” the 8-inch-tall girl nodded.
Cold breeze blew from Tokyo Bay though Takeshiba Quay in the twilight, which gently rubbed against Rika Sasaki’s skirt. She could see the ferry boat that had just arrived being unloaded.
“I’m back,” the man tanned in an isolated island said, half blinded by the brightness of the girl standing in front of him. She seemed to him prettier than the last time he had seen her.
“I’m glad you’re back, Mr. Terada,” the girl said with teary eyes.
“Thank you for meeting me. It’s no good for a young woman to hang around after dark. I’ll take you home,” he said. Rika was disppointed because he plainly bahaved as if he had forgotten about her confession of her affection toward him. She stood still without a word. Yoshiyuki held her shoulders in response, since she looked like she lost spirit; she looked pale all in her face.
“Rika...”
She braced herself, and said as strongly as she could, “Assignment... How about your assignment?”
The autumn breeze was cold. But his decision was much colder, Yoshiyuki half regreted. Rika somehow knew her romance was coming to an end.
“It’s 6 years, since I was hired by Tomoeda Elementary School and first met you...,” Yoshiyuki began slowly, “Now I’m 28, and you 14.”
In his manner of speech, she felt as if he thought of her as the exclusively precious woman. She shivered listening to him.
“Rika Sasaki, you have a long life to live,” he sobbed as much that people around them could hear, however, they pretended that they were out of earshot.
“A woman lives 15 years longer than a man. If we lived together... and if we lived as long as the standard... you would have to live 30 years alone after I have died. Just simple math. I don’t want to leave you lonely for such a long time!!” he shouted his straight feelings. Awkward, but his deep affection toward her struck Rika’s mind as if echoing inside.
She pushed him a few feet away, shouting, “Your assignment... is rejected! All you do is worry about too far-away in the future. How come you can’t look at the positive side of the life tomorrow?!” Not to mention, she knew that he must have struggled in his thoughts to make such a dicision of distress.
“Rika!”
She pushed him away as if someone else inside her acted against her will, running away.
The little girl and the rats appeared in the shrub on the sidewalk in front of the Polica Station near Takeshiba Quay, when she was enclosed by a glow. A magic circle glowed under her feet, she grew back to the normal size.
“Hoe... I know. The Little Card was doing this,” she sighed. Despite of the astonishment of the child rats, the gigantic little girl was still kind to them. She tenderly held them in her hand, “Let’s go to the building over there.”
Two men were wathing all what was going on. The first one was a police officer in the Police Station. He had been waiting for the end of his shift; he thought the unusual glow was his imagination caused by the fatigue of working from the previous day. The second one was the homeless named Tatsuaki Yoshida living in a tent on the brick pavement of a park. Desprite his great age, he had a keen eyes to witness the reality. He turned to looked at a young man who had a quarrel a minute before with his precious girl younger than him. The young man found someting the girl had dropped, then he ran following her. It looked like the situation was turning to their favor.
“God bless you two,” Tasuaki drank a toast, rolling the sleeve of his worn-out working jacket.
The Hope Card and the child rats in the shrub were looking up at the gigantic seaside bridal center building. “It’s gigantic!” the Hope Card exclaimed. The buidling was tall enough to peek in the place high in the sky, but most of the windows were unlit.
“When I get the magic of flying, I’ll take you high in the sky,” she said to the rats, when she found the youngest one missing. She and the other rats were upset, but the missing rat was entering the building. “Hey, wait up!” the Hope Card followed him.
“Welcome, may I help... what?” The receptionist of the bridal center was astonished by the visitor coming out of the business hour; moreover because the visitor was just a little girl holding some rats in her arms.
“Should we call the police?” another receptionist asked.
“Hold on. Let’s see her...”
Strange, the undesirable visitor didn’t pay attention to the receptioninst’s counter, and ran to the exhibition booth at the back of the first floor where wedding dresses are exhibited.
“What’re we going to do?” the second receptionist asked.
“She can be one of our customers. Let her look around.”
The youngest rat was obediently caught by the gigantic little girl. Then they gasped to look at the surroundings—the dresses exhibited in the bright light.
“That’s pretty,” the Hope Card sighed. The beautiful dress weaved with delicate white silk was accented by some parts with lilac frills. The designer of the dress must have been presented a number of women the simple but the most gorgeous outfits. The Hope Card was feeling the impression she hardly believed was the reality. “I wonder... someday I’ll wear this dress,” she sighed.
“You will. I’ll help you wear this in the future,” the receptionist whispered, smiling gently to the little girl.
Rika Sasaki happened to witness the little girl running into the building—reminding her of Sakura Kinomoto back in their elementary school days. That surprise released her from the distress that Yoshiyuki didn’t confess his feelings honestly. However, this place also let out another desire she had been endured, “I want to wear a dress like this... but there’s no hope when I lost the one who stands beside me.”
The receptionist felt deeply sorry for the teenaged girl looking at tears running from her eyes. This girl must be struck by deep sorrow, the receptionist thought.
“Would you like to try this on, young lady? This wedding dress is enchanted,” the receptionist talked to Rika. Hearing her words, the Hope Card widened her eyes. The receptionist went on, “It’s true. This dress made whoever has worn it happy. Come this way, please.” Rika felt the warmness from the sympathy given by the grown-up woman, by which she couldn’t stop her tears.
A police officer talked to the homeless named Tatsuaki in the yard in the Harbar Park, “Hey, Tatsu, why don’t you go home, not hanging around here forever?”
Tatsuaki dressed in the worn-out working jacket, who looked happy with a bottle of shochu*, raked trashes out of the fountain, “Don’t be so upset. I want to clean this place in stead of the rent. Young kids nowadays are bad-mannered.”
NOTE: clear liquor distilled rice.
The annoyed police officer put the trashes into the trash bag. This strange group work was the bond of the conversation. “I know you’re a skillful engineer. What made you hang around...” the plice officer said.
“Shut up! Engineers nowadays are hopeless! In stead of going over to the field, they are typing computers in the office.”
“Yeah, I know. But the computer told me who you are and where you come from. Go home; your wife and kids are worrying about you.”
“I’m staying!” Tatsuaki refused as he noticed Yoshiyuki standing out of breath, “Hey, the young man I saw.”
Yoshiyuki had been looking for Rika, “Excuse me, didn’t you see a girl—a junior high school student?”
“Your daughter or something? Is she missing?” the police officer asked back. Tatsuaki laughted, not because it was funny, but he was kind of disgusted. “Young man, you remember what kind of clothes she was dressed in? You should at least remember that sort of thing when you ask someone for help.”
Yoshiyuki blushed because he was stupidly forgetting in the course of the search.
“Calm down. How is she related to you?” the officer said.
“Take a deep breath. Imagine as if you held her in your arms. She’ll appear in your mind,” Tatsuaki advised.
“She’s much younger than me. But she... loves me, shy, modest... but kind with gentle smile... with brown hair... and blue... yes... wearing a sky blue cardigan,” Yoshiyuki muttered.
“You’ll find her,” the officer and Tatsuaki pointed to the tall building. Yoshiyuki dashed straight away.
Lodging guests that had heard the fuss crowded around. Rika was guided in by the receptionist by hand, where manequins dressed in dresses seemed like maids. The dressor looked at her proudly. Now the wedding dress showed its greatest figure by adorning the girl in love, Rika Sasaki. “How do you like it?” the receptionist asked.
Rika widened her eyes to look in the mirror. “This is me...”
At this time, the receptionist hang up her cell phone, and whispered, “I said this dress is enchanted. The magic is already working. Look.”
Yoshiyuki Terada walked in, looking at nothing but the bride in front of him.
“Mr. Terada...”
“Rika... You are pretty.”
People around them held their breath. They could witness in a gentle mood that a man and a woman encountered and got along together.
“The charm you made for me. Let’s walk together under the protection of this charm,” Yoshiyuki and Rika held the red charm in their hands. The charm was made of a red coral Yoshiyuki picked up in the southern island and sent to Rika, which she carved with her pure sincerity to form a red dragon. “Yes, we will,” she replied with tears of happiness.
The lodging guests and the worker in the building applauded for celebration. They felt happy to see the wonderful couple in love had got together. The little princess Hope dreamed about it.
To be continued...
To Keisei Limited Express for Sakura:
I am thankful to your wonderful fanfiction that inspired me
of this episode. Your fic showed me the future episode,
by which I created an episode of shortly-before.