The Dream Shifter

Chapter 29

"Hello? Good evening!" Ayumi greeted the door in her usual cheerful manner, but quickly changed it when she saw that it was only Yuki. "…It's you…" She moved out of the way allowing him into the house. "Come in." Tonight she was wearing a long simple, light green, a dress that tied itself in at the waist with her hair down.

The invitation had come from Ayumi, but Yuki still did not feel comfortable about going into another girl's house alone. He knew Ayumi and there would not be a problem (so he thought), but that was not going to ease his mind. "T-Thank you…" Yuki cautiously entered the house trying to ignore the thoughts of all of the rumors that he knew about the house. There were stories that the previous owners were connected to Yakuza or some street gangs. They always had trouble, but no one ever managed to see anything. Most people tried to avoid the house as though it was cursed (a monk hired by a neighbor had come to purify the ground five months ago, but met with failure). 'Do the ghosts of the Yakuza slain here really haunt the grounds?'

Yuki was starting to sweat thinking about unfortunately vivid images of what might have happened to people in the house. He could not stop picturing one wild scene after another of shoot outs and brawls with explosions. It was making his body shake twitching at each sound made like he was in a haunted house. Yuki turned around quickly hearing the door closing behind him, but found himself face to face with a g*n-wielding Yakuza ghost with his g*n aimed directly at him. "Ghost! …I-It-Its true…" He collapsed to the ground quickly afterward allowing the ghost to fade away as well.

Ayumi looked down at the dazed Yuki and sighed heavily unable to hold back from sweating in embarrassment. "This is going to be more challenging than I planned…" She walked over to him lifting him up off the ground taking him further into the house.

"…Ugh…" Yuki was slowly returning back to his senses and rose up from the floor that he was resting on. He looked around briefly not taking in the scene, but not remembering it as well. "W-What's going… the ghost! Where is it? I saw it!" The moments before falling asleep were coming back to him making his body shaking again and his hair vibrates in fear. He started looking around in his attempt to find the ghost, but it was not around nor was the house that he thought he had entered. "Huh?"

"There was no ghost, to begin with," Ayumi said resting in a wooden chair opposite of Yuki in the room. "You made the ghost with your mind. I told you before that have reckless uncontrollable power, this is proof of that fact."

"Again?" said Yuki with disappointment laced through a sigh upon his realization. 'Should have figured…' He stood up starting to look around the room that he was in finding it not to appear very much like the house that he remembered seeing before he fainted. All of the walls were covered in metal with strange patterns carved deeply into the surface forming intersecting circles and arcs. The floor seemed to be made from hardwood panels in direct contrast to the metal. The ceiling matched with the walls along with a massive array of intersecting and concentric circles and a strange language that looked like Latin (Greek!). All of the lights from the room came from the floor cut out of the wood with plastic covers. Yuki tried to judge the size feeling to be like a cube but knew it was not nearly as tall as it was long. The scale was thrown off by the carvings making it feel smaller than it truly was. All he could tell was that he was certain it was larger than the house making it impossible to fit inside. "Where am I?"

"A room below the house."

"You mean the basement."

"No, it is a room below the house. This is not a basement. We are below that."

"How is that possible?"

"I made this room for the purpose of training you."

Yuki was still having difficulty grasping the full impact of what that meant. 'How far underground are we?' He looked around the room again understanding the scale was probably necessary for what they would possibly be doing during training. "So you're using your Kasou-ryoku right now then?"

"No, this is not my field. This is a space I created with my…power." The word that Yuki had invented still grated against her making her unwilling to acknowledge it.

Yuki stared back at Ayumi not comprehending what that was supposed to mean. 'If she's not using her power, but she created it how does it exist?' He walked over to the wall reaching it a little sooner than he was expecting. The surface was smooth and polished to his hand as he rubbed the metal. "It's real, but you created it with your Kasou-ryoku. Does that mean you can make things permanent?"

"No, that is not possible. Everything we create is only an illusion made real. However, what we make can affect the world and alter it permanently. It is only through this method that we can make lasting change."

Yuki continued to stare at the wall feeling drawn in by it almost. He was amazed by the level of detail that went into her creation for being a simple wall. The carvings seemed to be nothing, but decoration to the metal. "So…you made something…that made this room for you?"

Ayumi walked over to Yuki closing the gap that was between them. She touched the wall as well running her fingers through the carved lines. "Approximately… I created machines to do the work. They made it while I moved in. This room is real and meant only for the purpose of teaching you how to control your powers."

The explanation still was not sitting with him completely as the illusionary concept of making something exist through indirect fake means seemed like a contradiction. "Sounds like a loophole to me."

"In away. Remember that as long as you find a way within the bounds of the power you can exceed those bounds."

"That's pretty cool. This Kasou-ryoku is pretty impressive."

"In the right hands, however, you have a long way to go."

Yuki turned quickly to look at Ayumi a little annoyed by her continual berating of his inabilities to use his power. She seemed to enjoy reminding him of that fact. He did not know how much longer he could take the picking at him.

Ayumi walked down the edge of the floor dragging her hand against the wall tracing the carvings with her fingers. She came to a stop near the corner turning her gaze down towards Yuki. The distance between them made the size of the room clear for the first time. "Such as the ghost you produced earlier. It's clear from that you have no control over your power allowing it to manifest at any time. It's important you learn to control your power to keep it a secret."

"That's why I'm here." Yuki walked away from the wall and towards Ayumi meeting face to face with her. "I'm not here because you told me to come. I'm here because I need to control this power inside me. I'm waking up to dreams made real and fantasies while I'm walking." He was holding his fist steady at his side recalling what had happened throughout the day to him. He was bringing to life dangerous things and it could be even worse next time. He could create a black hole that ate the entire Earth before he could stop it. The possibilities seemed endless making him wonder why something as serious had not happened before to others. Yuki did not know the limits of the power if there were even any.

The room was silent for a time left only with stares between the two. There was uncertainty, fear, and urgency in his eyes and cold, calculating and judging eyes from her. They were trying to read each other and one had a greater amount of success than the other. Ayumi stepped away from Yuki leaving her back to his eyes until she made it to the center of the room. "Over here." She turned around facing back to him motioning with her hand to come closer.

'Is she about to begin teaching me something finally?' Yuki tried to hold back his eagerness with caution as he walked towards Ayumi. The girl was his only chance at understanding what was happening to him and bringing it under control. He knew that he had little choice, but to deal with her verbal attacks on him (they were accurate as much as he didn't like admitting it). 'What she got planned in this underground room?'