MaruMonzterz - 2. Damage Control is Optional

Thursday, 2^nd January 2014.

Rumiko jumped out of bed early in the morning. Usually she was the kind of person who would rather hide under the duvet until the need to assault the fridge became too much to bear, so this odd behaviour caught her parents completely unprepared. Suzume and Takao were being lazy in bed themselves when a hurricane in the form of their daughter hit their bedroom in full force.

“Mum, dad, I had breakfast and I told my friends I’m going to meet them at the park, so I’ll be going and see you later!” and she ran out with the same drive and explosive energy she had come in. It took the parents a few seconds to process what had just happened, which was also the time Rumiko needed to run to the front door and bang it shut behind her.

Despite her enthusiastic run (which was admittedly slower than other people’s because of her lack of physical training), when Rumiko arrived at the meeting point, Apapa was already there. Kagome Takahashi and a boy Rumiko vaguely remembered hanging around the previous day were there too. The boy had very long hair, almost to his waist, and wore a blue shirt with happy cartoony fish jumping around.

“Good morning, Higurashi-san! I’m glad you decided to come after all!” Apapa greeted her warmly. “For now it’ll be just the four of us, the others are a bit busy. I think you remember Kagome Takahashi from yesterday, and this is Yuusuke Togashi.”

“Nice to meet you,” Rumiko bowed politely, and so did the other two.

“It’s our pleasure, Higurashi-san,” Togashi said, smiling friendly. Rumiko decided she liked him already.

“Are you ready to learn how to play?” Takahashi asked. Rumiko nodded animatedly, so the group approached the improvised arena. “Yuusuke and I will fight first, and you can watch.” Rumiko nodded again, stepping closer to Takahashi as she prepared her MaruBall. Not for the first time Rumiko noticed that this group of friends called each other by their first names, even though she had seen plenty of fights and rivalries in the short time she had been with them. It was intriguing and interesting, and left her wondering if she would ever have such a tight group of friends too. Maybe Apapa and the others would become those friends.

“I will explain to you what they are doing and how they are doing it,” Apapa interrupted Rumiko’s musings. The fighters had taken their positions in the arena: one on each side, to the right of their launch triangle. Apapa advised Rumiko to stand behind Takahashi so that she could get a better look.

“Here, this is the Spirit Medallion,” Takahashi said, handing her the hexagonal coin.

“It’s heavier than I thought”. The Spirit Medallion was almost as big as her palm and about a centimetre (0.4 inches) thick. It had a rustic drawing of Takahashi’s yellow goat on both sides. The image was not very detailed and it was full of pointy edges, like someone had tried to draw the armoured goat without using curved lines. Rumiko examined the medallion carefully before handing it back to its owner. Takahashi then passed her the yellow MaruBall. “Ok, at least this one is lighter than I thought.”

“The MaruBalls are made of Marunium. It’s a material that is very light and easy to manipulate, and goes from gooey-flabby to plastic-solid when it bangs against something flat. That’s why once you throw it into the arena it changes shape and becomes a MaruMonzter.” Apapa was obviously not telling the whole story about how the MaruMonzterz worked, but she had an inkling that Rumiko would not be able to absorb any more details. She was right.

“Do you want to throw it in the arena for me?” Takahashi asked, inserting the Spirit Medallion in her MaruBall while Rumiko was still holding it.

“Can I? For real?” Rumiko’s smile took on epic proportions. She could not believe her newly-found friends were being so nice to her. She was so overwhelmed by their niceness that she did not even think of being scared of other MaruMonzterz, or with the possibility of failing in her task, or of screwing it up so badly she would never again be allowed next to a MaruBall. In fact, all Rumiko felt then was an electric sparkle of excitement running through her body, propelling her to launching position. Togashi, her would-be opponent, smiled at her, throwing his blue MaruBall in the launch triangle. He signed that Rumiko should do the same.

Rumiko usually sucked at basketball, darts, archery, or anything that required shooting at a target. Her history indicated she would have difficulty hitting the launch triangle too, even if she was standing right beside it. But then, Rumiko had just found the one thing that could make her Main Character material, so she was destined to perform very well in this particular task. Her body had a moment of temporary amnesia, in which it forgot it was supposed to fail at even the most basic task involving motor coordination, and the yellow MaruBall hit the target full on.

“I did it! I did it!” Rumiko jumped in excitement as the MaruBall became flat as a pancake upon impact, only to emerge seconds later in the shape of a yellow goat in armour.

“Stay close, Higurashi-san, so you can see what I’m doing,” Takahashi called. Rumiko stood beside her, watching closely as she pressed buttons on her MaruMind. Takahashi was about five centimetres (two inches) taller than Rumiko, they had a similar face and even similar hair style, but Takahashi was about half a year older, and thus had a lot more experience and self-assurance than this story’s Main Character. That extra half year she had lived was full of character-building adventures that could just as well fill another book of its own. Takahashi and her friends had already been the stars of their own story, and thus their mission now consisted of ‘passing the baton’ to the next generation.

But of course, Rumiko knew nothing about it. And by the time her own story started for real and she got more friends, she would have forgotten about the six children who first showed MaruMonzterz to her. It would be for the best, though. Otherwise, even someone of Rumiko’s intellect would be able to pinpoint suspicious similarities between Apapa’s group and the people Rumiko was going meet over the next chapters.

Completely unaware of Takahashi’s true intentions, Rumiko observed with interest as her new friend pressed combinations of buttons that resulted in kicks, bites, jumps, and even gratuitous screeching noises. They were mildly irritating, but that seemed to be their purpose.

“Yuusuke and I have agreed to do things slowly so you can follow,” Takahashi explained. Togashi’s MaruMonzterz was a manatee who, in the absence of water, hovered a few feet from the ground. Like the goat, it was wearing armour, though it seemed a little less aggressive than its opponent. Takahashi explained some of the button sequences and let Rumiko try them out. “You are quite good at this!”

“Thank you. You really mean it?” Rumiko was right in being suspicious; this was the first time she was told she was something other than a walking public hazard.

“I do. Just keep pressing the buttons and we’ll destroy Yuusuke in no time!” Takahashi winked at Rumiko. She was somewhat overestimating the Main Character’s current ability, but since her role in the story was to make Rumiko’s hidden power shine, she had to sugar-coat the truth a little. At the moment Rumiko was having more luck than skill, hitting buttons randomly to achieve some impressive effects, but Takahashi was a firm believer that luck was a pretty useful skill to have. She knew by experience.

After about five minutes into the fight, Rumiko was feeling comfortable enough with the MaruMind to try memorising some of the random sequences she was pressing. The MaruMind had three buttons on the left side, and three on the right. Between them was the screen, and under the screen there was one elongated button, similar to a spacebar on a keyboard. The buttons to the left were coloured red, yellow, and blue. The ones on the right were orange, green, and purple. The spacebar was dull grey. So far Rumiko had been pressing all of the six main buttons, but she barely took notice of the boring grey bar.

The first sequence Rumiko actually learned was that hitting orange twice, then red resulted in the irritating screech noises. Her discovery made her so happy that she repeated it over and over again until her three friends cried for the safety of their ears. After that, Rumiko realised that blue, green, and yellow resulted in multiple bites, and that purple, orange, yellow and red made the goat follow its opponent and kick it in the butt every ten seconds.

“I didn’t know you had an attack like that!” Togashi exclaimed, looking at Takahashi with an amused face.

“It’s a new one. It’ll carry on for two minutes, and while it’s going on you can’t attack me.” Takahashi grinned. Rumiko tried to look at her and Togashi, but the armoured goat kicking butts was too amusing and distracting.

“It’s not causing much damage, though,” Togashi countered, looking at his screen.

“I know. I created this attack for my own personal amusement, not to win the fight.” Togashi grinned too, and Takahashi focused her attention on Rumiko once again. “Now press red twice, then yellow, orange, and yellow twice again.” Rumiko did as she was told, and as soon as she was done pressing the buttons, the goat spun upside down and delivered a series of spinning kicks on the manatee’s face. Togashi surrendered. “That is my new technique to win fights.” Takahashi announced, smiling innocently, like she had not just ordered Rumiko to severely disfigure a poor armoured manatee.

“The fight ends when your opponent surrenders or when the MaruMonzter is too damaged to carry on fighting.” Apapa explained to Rumiko while Takahashi and Togashi gathered their MaruMonzterz. “If you try to fight beyond what your MaruMonzter can take, the MaruMind stops working and you have no other option but to give up. Though usually, if you take the fight this far, your MaruMonzter will have received so much damage that it’ll take a while for it to work again, so we always try to stop before that happens.”

“But the MaruMonzterz get rebuilt after the fight, don’t they? How can they still be damaged afterwards?” Rumiko asked, watching as the goat and the manatee dissolved into a puddle of goo and promptly reformed into MaruBalls.

“The MaruMonzter gets physically back together, that’s true, but the Spirit Medallion needs to heal too. That’s where all the data from your MaruMonzter is stored, and when it’s too damaged, it needs a cool down period for internal repairs.”

“Ok…” Rumiko did not sound very reassured by the explanation, but Apapa caught on to that.

“Don’t let your MaruMonzter take critical damage no matter what. That’s all that matters.” Apapa insisted with certain urgency. Even though Rumiko was still not entirely sure how MaruMonzterz could be damaged for real, she nodded and tried to remember the lesson. Apapa made it sound like it was important, and Rumiko trusted her judgement.

(...)

For the rest of the day, except for strategic stops for lunch and snacks, Rumiko tried all of her friend’s MaruMonzterz. The other half of Apapa’s friends joined them in the afternoon, and Rumiko was invited to confront Ichigo Tokita, the big, scary guy, using the blue manatee.

“I don’t know if I’m ready…” Rumiko tried to say, but her new friends insisted. Lizard Boy, whose real name was Keitaroh Akamatsu (though Rumiko would never remember that), was the most keen in having her face Tokita.

“You can do it, Higurashi! Ichigo is not really that strong!” he beamed, pushing Rumiko towards the launch area.

“But he mutilated your lizard yesterday!” Rumiko shouted with some desperation. Lizard Boy frowned.

“That was nothing! I let him win!” he answered with the kind of tone used by spoiled little kids who do not want to admit they were humiliatingly defeated in a game. The rest of Lizard Boy’s friends snickered, but decided not to comment.

“It is important to get used to facing opponents who seem stronger than you,” Tokita explained. His tone was considerably gentler than Rumiko expected. “You look like you can be intimidated easily, so many of your opponents will try to scare you before the fight starts.”

“But how can I not be scared?” Rumiko asked. Despite Tokita’s tone, Rumiko was still intimidated by his size and posture. The young teen looked strong enough to cause serious harm to fully-grown adults, never mind a kid of Rumiko’s size.

“By remembering that most of the people who try to scare you are hoping that they will win by putting so much fear in you that you won’t be able to fight. Trust on your own skill, and focus on what is happening at the arena.” Tokita prepared to launch his MaruMonzter, but instead of staying to the right of the launch triangle, he stood to the left, facing Rumiko head on.

“Are you trying to scare me?” Rumiko asked, already scared. Tokita was very intimidating when the only things separating them were a few lines on the ground.

“No, I’m standing here because I’m left-handed, and so it is easier for me to launch my MaruMonzter from this side,” Tokita dead-panned. “But it is still a good lesson for you. Sometimes your opponents will be closer to you than you are comfortable with. Fight me now, and the next time you are faced with an intimidating left-handed opponent, you will be less scared.”

“I don’t want to face any more intimidating left-handed opponents! You’re scary enough!” Rumiko was beginning to reconsider her plan to fight Tokita. She felt a strong urge to challenge Togashi and the manatee she was currently holding instead. Togashi was much nicer to her, and did not look like he would rip her to shreds as soon as she lost.

“All the more reason to carry on with this fight,” Tokita retorted, like he could read her thoughts. “Here you are among friends, and we are doing it for fun. This is the safest place for you to face your fear. It will only get worse out there in the real world.”

“And we’ll help you! You’re not alone, Higurashi-san!” Takahashi added, standing with Togashi behind Rumiko, ready to step in to her aid.

“Yeah, destroy him, Higurashi-san!” Lizard Boy shouted. A special kind of revenge-fuelled fire burned in his eyes.

“You can do this,” Tokita nodded to her, and Rumiko shakily nodded back. She fumbled with the Spirit Medallion until she managed to put it in the right place, and almost missed her launch. Still, at least she was fighting.

“Keep pressing the blue button,” Togashi told her. Rumiko had learned the hard way that each MaruMind had its own combinations for techniques, all customised by the MaruMind’s owner to fit their fighting style. Now Rumiko did not hesitate to do as she was told, and so she pressed the blue button as fast as she could.

Togashi’s manatee immediately answered by spraying holographic fake (yet very realistic-looking) water on Tokita’s horse. It did not cause much damage, but prevented the horse from attacking. Despite his situation, Tokita smiled slightly. “You know, if I was fighting you right now, Yuusuke, I would not let it go so easily.” Tokita did not try to escape the water. Each hit took five points of damage to his MaruMonzter. Little by little, the horse’s HP bar receded until there was barely anything left. “On the other hand, it would not be fair to Higurashi-san to just let it be…”

The horse finally moved. It jumped over the manatee and hit it from behind with its hooves. The manatee took twenty points of damage and Rumiko panicked. She reverted to pressing random sequences in the MaruMind, but nothing was really effective. Meanwhile, the horse kept hitting the manatee. Now it was the water animal that was dangerously low on HP.

Then, completely by accident in her panicked state, Rumiko pressed the boring grey spacebar at the bottom of the MaruMind. Judging by the surprised faces of her friends, this was not something they planned for. Tokita immediately assumed a threatening stance, and Togashi ran to grab the MaruMind off Rumiko’s hand.

“What is going on?” Rumiko asked, surprised by the sudden change in the atmosphere. “What did I do?”

“Nothing. Yet.” Togashi grumbled. He was looking intently at the arena and pressing buttons in the MaruMind with amazing agility. Only then Rumiko realised that the manatee was emanating a blue-ish glow and had increased to twice its size. Tokita’s horse was also glowing, and was as tall as its master. When the beasts clashed, the ground shook.

“Oh, no! What did I do? What did I do?” Rumiko ran to Apapa, nearly crying in despair. The glowing horse attacked the manatee and Togashi screamed, like he had been the one hit.

“Meet the True Spirits, Higurashi-san,” Togashi said, though he kept his eyes on the arena, where his manatee was orchestrating revenge. “You called mine when you pressed the grey button. Now Ichigo’s only chance to win is to call for his.”

“I’m scared.” Rumiko hid behind Apapa and Takahashi, glancing at the fight from a gap between the girls’ shoulders.

“It’s ok, they know what they’re doing.” Apapa tried to comfort her friend, but Rumiko was not so easily convinced. “They won’t hurt you.”

“I’m still scared.”

“Then watch and see for yourself.” Takahashi grinned. Despite her fear, Rumiko did as she was told (though she held on to the girls’ arms until they began to turn blue), and what she saw was so impressive she almost forgot about her fear.

If, on its own, the MaruMonzterz’ movement was already realistic and graceful, with the True Spirit and the added glowing effect they moved swiftly like the wind, and so fast it was hard to follow. Rumiko expected Togashi and Tokita to be pressing buttons at light speed to accomplish such an effect, but the boys were barely holding their MaruMinds. Their eyes were fixed in the arena. The next thing Rumiko noticed was that the attacks themselves had become more realistic. Before, when the manatee attacked with water, it had been nothing more than a holographic illusion with a very realistic feel to it. Now, however, the manatee was somehow able to produce real water. The ground under the beast soon became wet, and so did the horse. Some of the water splashed all the way to Tokita, soaking his hair and coat, but he did not seem to care much.

“How do they do that?” Rumiko asked.

“The True Spirits are really special. That’s why we didn’t want to mention them to you before you actually played,” Apapa answered. Rumiko felt brave enough to stand by her friend’s side to hear more. “Very few people really know how they work and what causes them to exist, but everyone can see that they make MaruMonzterz much more powerful than before.”

“But… how?” Rumiko asked again, just as the horse hit the manatee’s face with its hooves. Togashi lost his balance and almost fell backwards, but recovered just in time.

“That’s not important right now!” Tokita barked before Apapa had the chance to say anything. “It’s something you won’t fully understand unless you have a True Spirit yourself.”

“Then how do I get one?”

“They’re very rare, and usually they find you before you find them,” Tokita answered again. It was probably not his intention, but there was an undeniable creepiness in his tone.

“Ok, fine, I don’t want one!” Rumiko shouted, running back to her hiding place between Apapa and Takahashi. “And I’m still scared!”

“Higurashi-san, please calm down,” Apapa pleaded. “The True Spirits won’t hurt you. They’re only there to make you stronger in a fight. You have nothing to fear.”

“I don’t?”

“No, you don’t.” It was Togashi who answered. He was still with his back to Rumiko and the other girls, but his voice sounded calm, gentle, and soothing, the same kind of tone Rumiko’s mother used to calm her down. How Togashi knew this was anyone’s guess. “I lost, Ichigo. This fight is over.” Togashi put down his MaruMind, and the manatee dissolved in a puddle of goo. Tokita nodded, and his horse did the same. Soon, all that remained from the fight were two cute MaruBalls waiting to be picked up in the middle of the improvised (and wet) arena.

“I think Higurashi-san has played enough for the day,” Tokita announced, joining the girls after picking up his MaruBall. “It’s getting late. Maybe we should go home now and meet again tomorrow.”

“As you wish…” Apapa shrugged, and the group of friends got ready to leave. They walked Rumiko home and promised to do something special the next day to compensate for getting her so scared. Rumiko liked the idea, so she said her goodbyes in high spirits.

At least until she looked closely at Togashi and realised that he had a horse-shoe-shaped bruise on his cheek. Rumiko’s heart skipped a beat, and she had trouble falling asleep that night.

(...)

Friday, 3^rd January 2014

The first thing Rumiko noticed when she arrived at the improvised MaruMonzterz arena was that only two of her six new friends were there. The second thing she realised was that her two friends had evil grins plastered on their faces as they greeted her. The third thing she realised was that she was, once again, scared and wanting to hide under her covers.

“Good morning, Higurashi-san!” Lizard Boy beamed, seemingly unaware that his creepy smile was making Rumiko’s hands shake. “Did you sleep well? You look a little tired.”

“I… I think I did…” in fact, Rumiko had stayed awake most of the night, because every time she fell asleep she started dreaming of monstrous horses trying to get their hooves printed on her buttocks. As hilarious as it would have sounded for people like Lizard Boy, for Rumiko it was downright terrifying.

“You definitely don’t look like it, though,” the smallest member of Apapa’s group said. Rumiko was not entirely sure she remembered his name, or even if it had ever been mentioned in her story so far. All the little boy did was out-smart Lizard Boy and be really mean about it afterwards. Rumiko did not like him much, so she tried to stay away as much as possible. Unfortunately, though, Lizard Boy and Little Kid seemed to be her only companions for the time being. “Are you sure you slept enough?”

“Ah, well, I…”

“It doesn’t really matter,” Little Kid cut her off before Rumiko could try to come up with an answer. “We have very important business to take care of now. Follow us, please!”

“Where to? And shouldn’t we wait for the others?” The boys’ strange attitude was not helping Rumiko feel any better. So far, she only got more and more scared at Little Boy’s every word.

“They’re a little busy today,” Lizard Boy answered in a tone that made it clear he did not like whatever was making the others busy. “They asked us to take care of you for the time being, but they should be around by the time we’re done with our own business.”

“What kind of business are you talking about?” Rumiko was getting so scared her voice went up a few octaves. It did not help that Lizard Boy was trying to make his voice sound deeper and mysterious, or that Little Kid was trying his best to look intimidating despite his relative lack of height.

“Oh, relax, you’ll love it!” Little Kid grinned and let out his most potent evil laughter. If Rumiko was not so scared, she would start to wonder if they were doing all this on purpose. “My best friend and I were asked to take you on this Top Secret mission because, quite frankly, we’re the best for the job.”

“He’s your best friend?” Rumiko asked, pointing to Lizard Boy. The idea that two children who spent their day arguing against each other could be best friends baffled her enough to tone down her fear in favour of curiosity.

“Yes, why? You have a problem with that?” Little Kid asked, making a surprisingly intimidating face. Rumiko apologised profusely.

“Anyway, as we were saying…” Lizard Boy carried on when Rumiko’s repeated bowings and ‘I’m sorry’s got too boring. “Don’t you wanna know what kind of mission we’re supposed to take you on?”

“I guess I should…?” Rumiko looked at the boys for reassurance. They grinned, which did not help much.

“We’re taking you to get your own MaruMonzter! Isn’t it cool?” Lizard Boy beamed, tapping his best friend on the back. Little Kid almost fell forward with the force of impact, but tried to pretend nothing happened.

“My own MaruMonzter? But aren’t all the shops closed?” Rumiko asked. The day before, while she had been trying out her friends’ MaruMonzterz, she had wondered what it would be like to have her own to play with. When the True Spirits appeared and her dreams were invaded by butt-obsessed horses, though, she began to have second thoughts. But even if she decided she really wanted her own MaruMonzter, no shops would be open until her birthday in two days’ time, so there was nothing she could do.

Or was there?

“Not all shops are closed, at least not for someone as special as you!” Little Kid answered. He and Lizard Boy left the makeshift arena, urging Rumiko to follow them in their quick pace. They suddenly entered a narrow side-street that Rumiko never realised existed. There was no space for cars, just a cobbled pathway for pedestrians. Everything was surrounded by trees and leaves, to the point that it was impossible to hear the cars passing on the main road. The street got narrower the more they walked, until there was barely any space for two of them to walk side by side. At this point, Rumiko realised that the street itself was shaped by trees placed so close together they seemed to form a wall.

“I’ve never been here. Where are we?” Rumiko asked Little Kid. The smaller boy walked ahead, acting as a guide, while Lizard Boy walked behind Rumiko. In Rumiko’s paranoid mind, she was beginning to wonder if they were walking in such a line so she could not escape.

“We’re on our way to my mother’s shop. She doesn’t like the big city, you see, so she bought this huge land area and surrounded it with trees to make her think she’s back in her village again.” Little Kid answered without turning to face Rumiko. “We were the very first shop to sell MaruMonzterz in Japan, but now that the game is getting famous, lots of other shops are selling them too, and we almost never get customers. I don’t think she minds it too much, though.”

“She’s a weirdo!” Lizard Boy said. “Though she knows everything about MaruMonzterz, so she’s still pretty cool!”

“You’re weird too,” Little Kid argued. They would probably have started a verbal fight if they had not just arrived at their destination. The shop was a small house with a rusty gate and wild garden, the kind that had been allowed to grow free of human interference for at least a decade. All the front windows were closed with shutters, but Little Kid guided his friends through a side door into the main shop area.

To Rumiko’s surprise, the shop’s interior was nothing like its abandoned front suggested. Showbiz-style lights made the place so bright Rumiko’s eyes hurt. The place was surrounded by stainless-steel high shelves packed with MaruMonzterz equipment. The floor was also apparently made of steel, and when Rumiko looked down she could see her own reflection on it. Overall, the shop seemed to her like a mixture of sterilised hospital, warehouse deposit, and toy paradise.

“Hello, children! How can I help?” A voice called from further inside the shop.

“Mum, it’s me! I brought a friend!” Little Kid answered. He indicated Rumiko should follow him and proceeded to walk towards the voice. Rumiko was not sure it was a good idea, but she had no other option. As she walked, she saw shelf after shelf of plain MaruBalls, without any face or tufts of hair on them. They came in all sorts of colours, including ‘rainbow’.

“Excellent!” Little Kid’s mum finally became visible when she rolled her wheelchair from behind the counter. The first thing Rumiko noticed about her was that she wore round glasses that made her eyes seem twice as big. Her hair was short and pulled upwards with lots of hair gel. To complete the looks of a mad scientist, she wore a white doctor’s gown with the shop’s logo stamped on the left chest, and plain blue shirt and trousers. “Ah, so you’re Roku-chan’s new friend! It’s nice to finally meet you!” The woman approached Rumiko, looking her up and down as if to check she was up to her son’s standard. “You want a MaruMonzter too? Have you thought about which type you want? Which animal? Which cute face? I can help you choose, you know…”

Rumiko gulped. The woman in front of her was even more intimidating than the boys. “I don’t really know. They took me here and…”

“Ah, well, then, let’s figure you out.” The woman pointed to a chair and indicated Rumiko should take a seat. Then she took a pack of cards from her gown pocket, pulled out the first seven cards, and gave them to Rumiko. “When’s your birthday?”

“Fifth of January,” Rumiko answered, not sure what it had to do with getting a MaruMonzter, but too intimidated to not do as she was told.

“Ok, then these are out.” The woman pulled three cards out of Rumiko’s hand without needing to look at them.

“Your favourite season of the year?”

“Summer.” It was the season of holidays. There was no question about it being the best season ever.

“Then this one is out too.” The woman took another card out of Rumiko’s hand. There were only three left. “Now look at the cards in your hand and tell me which one you like the most.” One of the cards pictured a pile of rocks, one had a drawing of a green tree, and the other showed a bridge.

“I like the tree,” Rumiko answered. The rocks looked boring, and the bridge was old and ugly. The tree, on the other hand, was stunningly beautiful.

“Ok, then it’s also out.” The woman took the tree card out of Rumiko’s hand. The girl tried to protest, but the woman shut her up with one meaningful look of her scarily engorged eyes. “Now comes the hardest part. Turn the last two cards upside down, shuffle them and pull one out, but don’t look at it.” Rumiko did as ordered, though she almost let the cards fly out of her hand when she tried to shuffle them. “Excellent. Now show me your chosen card.”

The woman looked at Rumiko’s card and her jaw instantly dropped. She indicated that her son and Lizard Boy should look at it too, and the boys grinned. Alarmed, Rumiko tried to ask what was going on, but she was interrupted before she could get too far by Little Kid.

“Higurashi, we now know what type of MaruMonzter you should have. You can now choose what animal you want.”

“It is remarkable indeed that someone like you would end up with such a type…” Little Kid’s mother commented absently-minded as she once again went behind the counter looking for something. Her wheelchair moved so silently on the metal floor that Rumiko did not realise she was gone until she heard her speaking again.

“Why? What type did I choose?” Rumiko asked. She looked at the card still in her hand, the one showing the bridge.

“You are most compatible with an Earth MaruMonzter.” The woman answered. “MaruMonzterz come in seven types: Earth, Water, Air, Fire, Ice, Runner, and Climber. You are born in January, so your Western Zodiac is Capricorn, which is from the Earth. That means Water, Air, and Fire are out. Ice does not fit you well, and the Climber would hinder your progress. Then, on the final test of instinctive affinity, you chose Earth over Runner.”

Rumiko still could not make much sense of the woman’s explanation, but she decided it was better not to argue. Little Kid’s mum was still too intimidating for her, and the more time she spent at the shop, the more she felt like it was all a dream and she was about to wake up.

“You see, all people who bought their MaruMonzterz from me got an adequate match service, just as it was meant to be. Those modern shops, though, they couldn’t care less if their customers are getting something that is a good fit for them.” The woman was fumbling with something under the counter’s surface. Rumiko could hear the sound of small metallic objects being shoved aside and carefully discarded. After a while, the fumbling became more intense, making it sound like the small metallic objects were just being thrown around without a care in the world. Finally, the woman’s head appeared above the counter and she called for her son. “Roku-chan, where are the Earth Spirit Medallions?”

“They were all there last time I checked,” the boy answered. Intrigued, he joined his mother in looking for the missing medallions. “Did you sell them to anyone?”

“No, I didn’t. We haven’t had costumers since you brought your friends here. Unless…” The woman wheeled closer to Rumiko again. She stared intently at the Main Character, like she had just made the discovery of the century. “Unless…” Rumiko shrank on her chair, intimidated by the woman’s intense gaze. She silently told herself that this was all a dream and she was about to wake up. She really wanted to believe this was all a dream. She really wanted to wake up. “Yes, it could be.” The woman finally broke eye contact. She mumbled something about ‘main character’ and ‘privilege’ that Rumiko did not quite understand before turning to her son. “Roku-chan, bring the Runner types.”

“Runner types? But you saw Higurashi-san’s card!” The small boy protested. “Higurashi-san needs an Earth type, and…”

“Bring the Runners, my dear.” The woman smiled sweetly to her son. He immediately forgot about his attempt at resistance and handed Rumiko two Spirit Medallions. “Now, my dear child, each type of MaruMonzter comes with two standard varieties of animal, plus sometimes a regional choice. For the runners, we have the option of a dog and a bunny. Which one do you want?”

“Bunny! Bunny!” Rumiko nearly shouted. Bunnies had been the first option that crossed her mind when she thought of having her own MaruMonzter. Maybe the shopkeeper’s strange methods were not so completely random after all.

“Excellent. You can have your bunny. Now let’s choose a MaruBall for you.” The woman spread her arms, indicating that Rumiko was free to look around the shop for something she liked. Because the blank MaruBalls occupied most of the shop’s space, it took Rumiko some time to walk through the shelves and make a decision. The red MaruMonzterz reminded her of Lizard Boy, so she stayed clear of them. Black MaruBalls scared her too. Yellow ones reminded her of Takahashi. As she glanced upon the dozens of identical yellow balls waiting to be picked, Rumiko realised she would not mind being like Takahashi. The older girl was fun, strong, and very self-assured. Maybe it would not be a bad idea to try imitating her a little bit.

Once Rumiko had chosen her MaruBall, the woman took her to a more secluded area where she could choose the face and hair that would go with it. Rumiko went for a huge smile with closed eyes, and curly silver tufts of hair that felt very soft to the touch.

“Now, now, the hair comes in three ‘flavours’”, the woman explained. “There is ‘fluffy’, ‘very fluffy’, and ‘cotton candy’. You just got yourself some cotton candy, but please remember it’s not edible.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of eating it!” Rumiko let out a forced laughter. She had just been wondering if the hair tuft did taste like cotton candy.

“Then that’s it! You’ve got yourself your first MaruMonzter! Congratulations!” The woman beamed. As she spoke, she fixed the MaruBall’s new face in place without any glue, and proceeded to find a MaruMind that matched Rumiko’s choice of colours.

“How much does it cost?” Rumiko hoped the money she got on her otoshidama would be enough to pay for her new toy, otherwise she would be in trouble.

“Oh, you can just have it. I don’t see people here often, apart from my kid and his friends, so when someone does comes along, all I want is for them to have a good time!”

“But then how do you keep your business going?” even for Rumiko it was pretty obvious that a shop that gave its products away could not function on the long run.

“Oh, I don’t need costumers, really. I’m happy with the way things are. Right, Roku-chan?”

“Yeah, yeah…” Little Kid rolled his eyes. He was probably not as happy as he claimed.

“Besides, if the costumers dry out around here, we can always relocate. Who knows when more children like you will need an emergency supply of MaruBalls or MaruMinds?” The woman stared at Rumiko for a very long time, until her eyes began to fill with water. “I know when my usefulness is about to fade, but I don’t fear it. I’ll just keep living in my little shop surrounded by nature, aiding those who need me.”

Something about the woman’s tone sent a shiver down Rumiko’s spine. She looked towards the door, longing to get out of the shop before things got even weirder, but the woman spoke to her again.

“And what is your name, my dear? Isn’t it strange that we spent so much time together, and yet we are still strangers?”

“I guess…” Rumiko felt a drop of sweat sliding down her face. It was indeed strange that she never felt the need to ask the woman’s name until she pointed it out. “My name is Rumiko Higurashi.”

“Oh, I see. Well, Rumiko-chan, my name is Yukina Tomino. Please remember my name, and if you ever need anything to help your friends, think of me. I’m here to help.” The woman took Rumiko’s hands in hers and smiled warmly. Her eyes filled with water again. “Now go, child, go have your adventures.” Yukina Tomino wheeled herself back to the counter, while Little Kid guided Rumiko out of the shop.

While they had been inside, the ground and the trees were dyed white by a heavy snowfall. Snow was no longer falling, but it had accumulated until it reached the children’s ankles. Little Kid and Lizard Boy walked Rumiko through the snowy forest, the never-ending maze of trees now turned completely white. The boys walked in silence, a fact that Rumiko would have found strange if she had not been distracted by the snow and its serene beauty.

As soon as Rumiko stepped out of the narrow side-street and into the main road, though, the snow vanished. The world in front of her looked like it had not seen fresh snowfall in ages. As she turned to her friends to ask what was going on, she realised they were no longer there either. Even the side-street had vanished, leaving Rumiko staring at a blank wall covered in moss.

Maybe everything had been a dream. Maybe Rumiko had gotten lost on her way to the arena and her mind created illusions to help her cope with the fear. Maybe she was still on her way to meet Apapa and her friends, and none of it had actually happened.

But if it was all a dream, why was she carrying a yellow MaruBall with a cute smiley face, a bunny Spirit Medallion, and her very own MaruMind?