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could not make out what it was, but then there were many more of them, the small specks of light spread out against the wide black like grains of sand. Together the light gathered into a faint, background glow.
    Like stars.

    Vertigo overcame her. She sat down. She knew what it was. She'd seen pictures of stars and nebulae and galaxies. Reaching out below her was the universe. Her thoughts suddenly overwhelmed her. She could no longer turn her face from the truth in front of her: I don't know this place. This was not the world she knew, not the ocean she knew. She was in a different world altogether.
    Oh God.
    "It can't be true," she said aloud.
    Where was she? Was this place safe? Dangerous? Where would she go? What would she do? Why did this have to happen to me?
    "Jouyuu-san." She closed her eyes, raised her voice. "Jouyuu! Please answer me!"
    She heard only the roar of the ocean in her ears. Not a whisper from the being that possessed her.
    "What am I supposed to do? Isn't somebody going to help me?"
    One full night had already passed. Her mother must be worried sick about her. Her father would be furious.
    "I want to go home."
    Tears tumbled down her cheeks. She choked back a sob. "I want to go home," she said again. She couldn't hold it back. She hugged her knees, buried her face in her arms and wept.

    Youko finally lifted her head. She'd cried so hard and so long that she felt slightly feverish. Crying her eyes out had made her feel better, but only a little. She slowly opened her eyes. The ocean stretched out before her like the universe.
    "How very strange--"
    She felt as if she was gazing down on a sky shot through with stars, a starry night arraigned against the serene blackness, the galaxies turning slowly in the water.
    "So strange and yet so beautiful--"
    In time Youko calmed down and managed to collect her wits about her. Absentmindedly she gazed down at the stars in the water.

Chapter 10
    S he sat there staring out at the sea until the sun had risen high in the sky. What kind of world was this? Where was she?
    They had passed through the halo of the moon to get here. That alone was hard enough to believe. In any case, to capture a moonbeam like that, it seemed equally unlikely that you could do the same thing with the light of the setting sun.
    Then there was Keiki and all those strange creatures. None of them were from any species on Earth. They must come from this world. That's the only thing that made sense to her.
    What was he thinking, bringing her here? He said it was dangerous, he said he would protect her. Yet here she was. What were they up to? Why did those monsters attack her? It was like out of a nightmare, the same dream she'd been having for the past month.
    From the beginning, from the moment she met him, none of it had made sense. She knew this much: she was lost. He had shown up out of nowhere, had dragged her off to this strange world without a second thought about the circumstances of her life. It wasn't because he hated her, she was sure. But if they had never met she wouldn't be stuck here, she wouldn't have had to kill all those creatures.
    So it wasn't that she missed him. There simply wasn't anybody else she could trust and he hadn't returned to retrieve her. Perhaps something had happened during the battle with the monsters that kept him from coming back for her. Whatever the reason, it only made things worse for her now.
    Why must I keep dwelling on it?
    Because it wasn't her fault. It was Keiki's fault. It was his fault the monsters came after her. The enemy is at the gates, the voice in the vice-principal's office had said. But that didn't mean they were her enemies. She had no reason to make them her enemies.
    And that business about calling her his lord. She'd been thinking about that as well. Because she was his lord, his enemies had gone after her, not him. She'd had to use the sword to defend herself, and she'd ended up here.
    Nobody had made her lord of anything.
    He'd made