The battle was easily won.
With us as the losers.
The Golden Fleece sailed in alone, and the Spanish flotilla simply waited for us. By the time we realized what that meant, it was too late.
Somehow, the entire outer hulls of the galleons blew up, revealing armored frigates bristling with cannons. They’d disguised themselves as merchants.
And we’d sailed right into their trap.
We were soon under fire, and Haruhi decided retreat was impossible, so she ordered us to close in on the enemy flagship. The NPC sailors’ flawless seamanship made that happen.
Once we were that close, the enemy ships couldn’t exactly keep firing.
Haruhi ordered the crew to board, and they leaped aboard the enemy ship with a roar. She tried to follow them, but Koizumi and I managed to restrain her, sticking to musket fire.
At first, our side had momentum, but the battle slowly turned against us.
The other two enemy ships moved in, pinning the Golden Fleece down—and then they rammed us. Spanish marines boarded us, sabers in hand.
We fought back hard and managed to half scupper one ship, so arguably we did well. But our valiant resistance proved futile, and NPCs we’d dined and berthed with were flung into the waters, or fell victim to the enemies’ blades and bullets. That stung. I hoped they’d find themselves playing bit parts in a more peaceful setting next time.
The enemy cannons downed the Golden Fleece’s mizzenmast, and that decided the battle. Flight was no longer an option.
But here Nagato sprang into action, raising her bow, and shooting fire arrows at the enemy sails. Didn’t matter when she’d acquired that thing; we managed to peel ourselves away from the Spaniards as they tried to douse the flames.
A miraculous gust of wind caught us, and our half-wrecked ship rode that gust like a speed skater racing toward the horizon.
That was a while ago.
Now we were adrift on the waters.
Including the shark hunt, this was our second time stranded at sea.
The really fatal blow from that fight was the damage to our rudder. Only the wind knew where we were bound, and said wind had died completely the moment we were out of harm’s way. Now we were just rocking on the waves.
The NPC sailors had vanished like so much smoke, and all the hustle and bustle of the mess hall was nowhere to be seen. Almost like a ghost ship.
Haruhi decided to take a nap on the poop deck. I didn’t see Asahina or Nagato around, but they were likely making tea or reading old books down in the mess.
That left Koizumi and me with the deck to ourselves. We decided to lie down, staring up at the sky.
After a while, I started to feel like I was forgetting something.
“What was it?”
I was pretty sure we’d been having a serious conversation before the battle with the fake Spanish merchants.
“I also sensed that,” Koizumi said. “I’m convinced we discussed something vital between boarding this ship and that last battle. I’m certain this is no trick of the mind, but cannot for the life of me remember what it involved.”
The mind does play these tricks on you. People’s names or words you know that you know just get stuck on the tip of your tongue. Foreign words you’ve definitely seen before—but you can’t seem to remember what they mean. The right word generally pops up later, when you least expect it.
“Whatever, we’ll remember it eventually.”
Putting it out of my mind, I rolled over—and found something stuffed in my pants pocket. I sat up and fished it out. A wadded-up piece of paper.
“What the…?”
I straightened it out. Writing, in English.
Koizumi sat up, leaning in.
“A page from the book Nagato was reading. Oh, it’s the Bible…If that’s King James, it hardly fits our current temporal location, but I believe that’s a passage from the Book of Job.”
It looked rather hastily torn out. Some Nagato-style sleight of hand had somehow placed this in my pocket. Looking closely, some of the letters were underlined. Perfectly straight lines, like she’d used a ruler—the only new ink on the page.
remember me
Even I could read that much. But what could it mean…?
“There’s little room for interpretation. Is she trying to remind us of something…?”
Not like we’d ever forget Nagato.
Koizumi’s head snapped up.
“No, hold that thought. I remember Nagato reading this book. Open on her knees beneath the mast.”
He tapped his brow with one finger.
“We were close by, fishing—”
I heard a whirring noise, like a video tape rewinding, then someone pressed the invisible stop button and playback resumed. White flag. Called Nagato. She’d closed her book and walked over toward us—this was in slo-mo.
“I remember now.”
My fist clenched the page of calligraphy.
“We were talking about what this world is and what’s happening to us. Only to be interrupted by the Spanish ships.”
Koizumi sighed.
“Yes, we’ve been quantized. It’s all coming back to me. We have to assume they are manipulating our memories, then.”
But they weren’t that good at it. I wasn’t sure if that was by design, but our minds were still our own.
If my mind was this clear, Nagato’s must be even more so. Haruhi and Asahina appeared to be fully absorbed by their roles and just having fun with it; the latter was one thing, but I was extremely reluctant to take these facts to Haruhi right now. Whoever was behind this might be hoping we’d do just that.
Best to keep an eye on things and continue the talk with Nagato and Koizumi.
“So where is Nagato?”
As we rose to our feet, we found the Golden Fleece about to plunge into a wall of fog. More of a smoke screen, really; like a white summer cloud on the surface of the ocean. Koizumi was right next to me, but I couldn’t even make out his face.
This again. It was just like a very obvious transition between the shark hunt and the arrival of this ship.
We were between worlds. What stage awaited us next? I tightened my grip on the scrap of paper, swearing not to forget myself again.
From the poop deck, I heard a door open and close.
Three figures appeared in the mist, a faint glow around them.
They pierced the white fog. Haruhi, with Asahina and Nagato on either side.
Their clothes alone proved we were switching worlds.
“Heads up, we’re almost at our destination,” Haruhi said, the moment we could make out her face. Her smile somehow even smugger than usual.
Was that a chiton? Those white tunics they’re always wearing in anything based on ancient Greece. The fabric was draped elegantly over them like a long dress. Didn’t seem like any of them were supposed to be your average village girls.
Not just Haruhi, either—Nagato and Asahina were also backlit, highlighted by a visible glow that picked out their silhouettes.
If they had wings and a halos, they’d unmistakably be angels, but it didn’t seem like we were going there. Which meant, uh. Only one thing.
These were goddesses. Not metaphorically. Literally.
Haruhi was sizing me up, Asahina was gaping at her own dated fashion and making little noises, Nagato was standing bolt upright and immobile—and I was seized with a wild impulse to genuflect.
I knew better, but my mind was forced to perceive them as goddesses descended from the heavens, their divinity so awesome it made me want to prostrate myself.
“Oh my,” Koizumi said, shaking his head. He was likely fighting the same impulse.
Asahina was particularly hard to look at. It felt like staring too long at her would make my eyes fall out. I shook off the reverential compulsion and turned to Nagato.
“…………”
Our eyes met. The diminutive goddess nodded once. Her eyes retained their usual calm.
Remember me. I chanted those words internally, like a mantra. I couldn’t let this freakish world’s machinations consume me. I still had a page of the Bible in one hand. I had my doubts about the claims of monotheism, but it did provide some measure of solace.
The mist clinging to our bodies was swept away by a gentle breeze, and our vision cleared.
The sky was too blue. The ocean spread out below. Tufts of clouds drifted by.
A bit of inertia. The ship was accelerating.
I looked up, and the masts and sails were no longer galleon style. From the ship’s sides, I heard the sound of long poles smacking the water.
Looking over the rail, I spotted so many oars I was disinclined to count. They were rowing us forward with well-trained movements.
“A trireme,” Koizumi stated.
So this was ancient Greece? Or Rome?
“Our clothes are more Roman.”
His own duds had given way to white cloth, like a toga. Like he’d stepped out of the crowd of former senators in the painting, The Death of Caesar. I was wearing much the same.
The Golden Fleece had been beautifully restored from a shattered galleon to a brand-new trireme and was moving full speed ahead toward land now visible on the horizon.
That hazy shadow was growing steadily distinct, and by the time we reached shore, we beheld the massive stone walls of a fortress town.
“Troy,” Nagato muttered.
Aha. Now we knew where we were, at least. And what the girls’ roles were. Still, that didn’t tell us what we had to do. Battling off a primal fear, I lent an ear to my unconscious. I heard no voice telling me I was Paris. That was a relief.
The original plotline had long since veered so far off track there was no correcting it. What happened to saving a kidnapped couple? Had that mission been retracted?
The beach didn’t seem to have any sort of wharfs on it.
The trireme simply rode up on the sand, then listed sideways.
Her arm aglow, Haruhi held it out to me.
I watched close, wondering where this was going.
“Don’t just stand there,” she said, clearly amused. “Escort me.”
I reflexively took her hand, and the port side transformed into some parquetry, forming a staircase to the beach below. I felt a bead of cold sweat run down my back. I didn’t think ancient ships that plied the Aegean Sea came with transformative functions, but arguably that was proof of divine providence in this world.
“Come on.”
I acted the part of a humble servant, leading Haruhi down the stairs, her hand on mine. Koizumi did the same for Asahina, and Nagato just stomped down the steps on her own. Our feet hit the white sands, but we were given no time to savor the feel of dry land.
Burly men in armor stood before us in two rows bristling with spears. Several hundred ancient warriors had formed an aisle for us to walk down.
Which side were they on? The Trojans? The Grecian alliance landing party?
In perfect sync, they raised their spears, crossing them above the aisle. The tips caught the sunlight, gleaming, and we marched through the shimmering air across the burning sands toward the fortress beyond.