I slept restlessly...

At last, I dreamt as I felt my body become very heavy. Then I imagined I was shrugging it off like some wet clothes and my spirit stood up. No, not stood, hovered was more correct. I was looking down at myself and my sister, asleep there in the night when suddenly there was a flash of light and we disappeared. I worried only for a moment before it became dark again, our bodies appeared, then a moment later bright as day and we were gone again.

The light started flashing faster and faster, and I looked outside to see it wasn't just a light, but it was the sun itself streaking up and around the sky as if each day was only a moment longer, and it was speeding up. Soon my house was gone and the manor and everything was just barren rock as the sun just flashed so fast each day and night were getting hard to distinguish, over and over. Then a new building rose, and people were blurs moving about for only a brief glimpse.

A long thin lighthouse rose up over where the temple ruins had once been and that was the only structure around for some time until a large building rose where the manor had once been. It was easily twice as long and two stories tall with a giant clock on the front. It was quickly joined by another even larger one with a hundred windows on the eastern cliff behind where my house had been. Suddenly a sea of people appeared, swarming all around me, back and forth between the two buildings, but moving too fast to see them as anything more than blurs. Then a large pit was dug out and instantly turned white then blue with water as kids splashed and played all around in a huge man-made pond.

It was all moving too quickly to be sure, but they all seemed to be girls, but then time stopped or more correctly slowed down back to normal speed. A boat came up to a dock that had been built out of the steep bluff to the south and I saw a man that looked just like me, maybe a little older since he was taller. He stepped out and I excitedly called, "Kenji!". Suddenly he seems confused as if he heard me, and tripped over his own feet and fell flat on his face flinging some baggage into the misty waters. I ran over to help him, but my hands passed right through him.

I reeled back in horror to look at my hand only to see they looked normal, and suddenly time speed up again and the man that looked like me was gone. Also gone were the hordes of people. All the buildings started growing vines and soon were being pulled into the ground. Nothing happens for some time then as everything just withered and decayed. The buildings all crumbled and collapsed, and then something appeared in the sky, covering the whole island. A light bathed me and suddenly the sun stopped flashing as well and it just stayed nighttime.

For a moment I thought that time had stopped again, but the stars around me were moving the wrong way. They are all moving north, and the ocean was gone now too, all replaced with stars as the horizon and the sea, all down past the edge of the cliff was just nothingness. Above, still stationary was the big thing emitting some kind of strange light, but it made no sense at all to me.

Then one of the stars to the south started growing brighter. As they grew I saw it was two stars just very close together, one a giant blue-white one and the other is a tiny white dwarf almost obscured by its larger brother. The big one grew to twice the size of the sun rapidly, and I worried for a moment that I was going to collide with it, but then everything stopped and soon vanished completely as a giant thing above me grew out walls to enclose the whole island inside and people in funny white suits with bubbles over their heads began zipping around me as if they could fly.

This dream was too strange for me and I wanted to just close my eyes, but I couldn't since I was still asleep. I tried to pinch myself, but didn't feel anything. Then suddenly a giant mass of what looked like giant purple worms grew and consumed the ground all around me. I didn't think it would do anything to me, but then one tentacle faced me and I heard, <I remember this...>

I suddenly heard a scream and my eyes bolted open. It wasn't yet morning, but there was a flashing yellow light all around me. Kouki was screaming and shaking me, but I was still half in my dream and didn't understand why she was so scared. Then the smell of smoke trickled my lungs and I finally broke free from my deep slumber and I saw our house was on fire.

Once I was up, Kouki took my hand and we rushed outside. Looking back we saw that it wasn't just our house, but half the manor was in flames. I rushed over to the barrel of water we had for just such emergencies, filled a bucket, and began to splash water around, but strangely the wind seemed to blow out half the fire quickly as if it just lost the will to burn.

Once it was out on our home I turned to Kouki and urgently said, "Go fetch Natsumi, I'm going to see about the Takahashi's!" She nodded and took off at a run past the manor as I went around its back with my pale toward the koi pond. The fire was fairly contained in just one section and again, the fire just seemed to die off as I battled it. It didn't make sense, but maybe it had been raining in the night that had helped wet the wood. I didn't think so, but nothing else made any sense.

As it was almost out Setsuko and Azami came out from the gardens where they had fled. They must have been woken up and escaped safely, but there was no sign of their **** Chizu. "Where is Chizu?" I demanded, but neither answered so I went running inside the still-smoking building.

Azami shouted something to try and stop me, but I ignored her. I wasn't sure where she slept, but I knew she didn't have a room proper as far as I could tell. There was a basement and the flame damage seemed to have come from down there. I explored deeper, careful on the sooty stone steps found a half-melted candle that I lit on a smoldering plank. I hadn't been in here in ages, and it looked much different now.

In my youth, my grandfather had once used it as a wine cellar until dad drank up all the collection of wines before selling the house to the Takahashi family. Now it was open and filled with some odd wooden chairs, stools, and planks, most with leather straps or chain manacles. One wall had a variety of various tools, most of which didn't look like they served any purpose. Most were long tonfas of various shapes and thicknesses, but there were whips and straps, and then it came to me. This was a sex dungeon filled with perverse implements of **** and defilement.

Suddenly I heard someone coughing and my eye caught on a small cage hidden under a blanket. "Chizu, is that you?" I asked and suddenly I saw the strange little purple-haired girl, crouched and naked inside. The smoke had mostly passed, but she'd been trapped inside while the fire had been burning. I looked around and quickly found a large key that looked the right size hanging on the wall and opened the lock and let the poor girl out.

She was still coughing quite a bit, and unable to speak, but at least I could help her nakedness. I grabbed the blanket that had been over the cage and draped it over her tiny body. If the circumstances had been any less serious I would have taken a moment to ogle at her pert budding tits and her exotic purple hair also growing with just a few wisps between her legs, but now I was more worried about her life so just picked her up and headed back for the stairs.

"Matsumoto!" I heard Natsumi yelling as she was now inside the house as well.

"Here!" I yelled back as we meet at the top of the stairs.

She immediately saw that I was carrying the frail girl and insisted, "Here, let me." She was much stronger than me and easily took up Chizu in her arms. I followed her after her as she quickly exited the manor house to get her some fresh air.

When we were at the pond Azami was yelling something at my sister while Setsuko just sobbed off on her own. "Shut up!" Natsumi yelled at Azami as she placed the weak little **** on the grass. "Are you okay?" she asked her and I got the impression she really meant it. It was a strange turnaround from the way she normally treated the girl who was a native of the barbarian clan that had killed her husband. I guess she was more bark than bite when it really came down to it. It was refreshing to know she was still a human being, even if she struggled to hide it most of the time.

Chizu cleared her throat and weekly gasped, "Chizu alive."

"Good," Natsumi declared then stood up and looked at Azami, the only other real adult present. "What happened?" Everyone started talking at once, but Natsumi was in no mood to put up with this as it was so early in the morning. "I'm going to take Chizu and look after her at the dojo to make sure she's going to be okay, but the fire appears to be out so I suggest we all get some sleep. It's going to be a long day tomorrow." Then she picked back up the tiny foreign girl again and headed out of the gardens.

As Kouki and I turned to leave Azami stopped us, "Matsumoto, wait." I was expecting her to start yelling and screaming, but then I was truly surprised. "Thank you for acting so quickly to put out the fire." Then before I could respond to the shock of hearing Azami compliment me she keeps going. "There is a bit of damage and I'd like it fixed as soon as possible. If you get right on it tomorrow, I'll pay you double."

"Um, yeah… Yes, of course, ma'am!" I stammered. That was it. She nodded and ushered her still sobbing daughter back inside and I walked with Kouki back to our singed home.

"Wow! Have you ever seen Azami so nice before?" my sister asked, and while I was thinking the same thing I had no answer. Kouki soon went back to bed, but I was restless and couldn't sleep. After all that I was already planning on where I was going to start my work in a few hours. There seemed to be at least one hole in the roof, but it might be better to make sure that whatever started the fire was fixed to prevent another.