Chapter Text

Session 1, Part 1
Story of Several Sensei

I am afraid to admit it, but I suppose you could say this time…

It was all my fault.

Our decisions and everything they caused.

I suppose… You could think a little worse of me because of them.

It can not be much worse than how I think of myself, anyway.

Over and over again, it repeats.

The beats remain the same, but each time, as they are retold over and over, the specifics keep changing. 

This repetition does not mean these events never mattered at all.

Even without the same memories or the same experiences, those choices we made always reached those same goals each time.

Case in point...

- The Tabletop -

The last thing Sensei and her companion, Shiroko, had expected to see as they stepped through the front door of the building was polished, flawless white concrete, bright lights overhead, and the smell of detergent.

Despite the exterior of the house looking as ramshackle and run-down as any other of the ruins in the Abydos desert, the interior looked as bright and clean as a room in Millennium.

Before she could investigate any further...

“AH?! S-Shiroko?!”

The sudden cry caused Sensei to jolt back, almost tripping backwards on the wolf girl standing behind her. Shiroko swiftly raised her assault rifle, tearing a grenade from her waist with the pin ready to be removed.

Rustle.

It was the sound of at least three other weapons pointing at her. The girl with blue streaks in her white hair held an assault rifle, the grizzled sky-blue-haired man with a small mustache had a bullpup rifle, and the tall woman maintained an older-looking battle rifle.

For the longest time, the standoff was held. Nobody wanted to make the first move.

Then—

“Y-Yume?!” the taller Shiroko in black suddenly exclaimed, spotting the aqua-green haired girl in the corner of the room. Yume gripped the Iron Horus tightly.

“Shiroko! And… a second, bigger Shiroko…?” Yume said, letting out a breath, "Well, at least one familiar face is here…”

“Didn’t she… die?” Shiroko asked, turning to her taller duplicate.

“It was a whole thing… Hoshino… We need to contact her as soon as possible!” 

Pulling out the Shittim Chest, the larger Shiroko’s heart sank instantly; the screen was dark and non-responsive.

“Don’t bother; all of us tried already,” the grizzled man explained, “All our Shittim Chests have gone dark. Can’t get any signal to the outside from here, either, be it cellular or radio.”

“Wait, your Shittim Chests?” the smaller Shiroko asked.

Everyone, except for the white-haired girl, exchanged glances, before bringing out identical tablets. The larger Shiroko’s eyes went wide upon witnessing the sight.

All but two in the room had a Shittim Chest. 

“But— How— Sensei?!” Shiroko’s eyes went wide, flicking all around the room.

"Upon examination, it seems we all have been appointed as the Advisor to Schale, the Sensei of Kivotos," the taller blonde woman explained, "Except for Ms. Nagayo. She appears to be the one exception."

“Yeah… I’ve got nothing. I received a note from one of our scouts to investigate a building in Trinity.” ‘Ms. Nagayo’ turned around with a frown, glaring at a digital display mounted atop a coatrack with a suit dangling off it. “Next thing I knew, I was here, with this guy standing over me.”

When the coatrack moved its arm up to wave, it became obvious that it was no coat rack at all. It—or rather, they—were a robot. The display for a face akin to a robotic Kivotos citizen lit up with text. “( 0 - 0 ),” it read.

“Is that a robot?”

“Yes. I am a robot. It is nice to meet you,” an electronic voice from the machine said. “To explain why I am here, I inadvertently entered this place after receiving a request from an anonymous student to participate in a Tabletop RPG session in Millennium.”

“And let me guess…”

The display switched to a “( T - T )” —annoyance—as gloved hands held up yet another Shittim Chest. “It was rather shocking when Mr. Ao raised a rifle at me as I noticed he had no halo. It was rather scary—the gun—but I mean no offense by this statement.”

“Um… none taken.” The man with the bullpup lowered it, adjusting his suit, “I arrived here under roughly the same conditions as everyone else; except in my case, I was heading to SRT for a routine inspection; I had received a report that required me to head there and… well, next thing I know I was here with this lady setting up this game thing.”

All eyes fell on the remaining woman in the room: a tall blonde in a smart uniform, a metal headband on her head.

“...I was told to head to one of the lower levels of Schale and bring this tabletop game with me,” she quietly admitted. “It was… a bit of a surprise, admittedly. I suppose my eagerness to replay this again may have gotten the better of me.”

“How about you... Yume?”

“I was checking out Room 4B in the Abydos School Building because Rabu called me in…”

“So to conclude: all of us were heading into completely different rooms, in completely different locations for totally different reasons. Then we ended up here...”

Hazuki shrugged. “That’s about the size of it.”

“There’s only one explanation I can think of that neatly resolves all of this,” the larger Shiroko said, “... Expired energy drinks.”

“What?! I’m reasonably certain I’m real!” Yume exclaimed.

“That’s exactly what an expired energy drink induced hallucination would say.”

Yume stared incredulously.

One slap later, the larger Shiroko was quick to change her hypothesis, “Alright. So it’s not our beverage choices that led us here.”

“You know, I think a more likely explanation is we’ve been taken from our home universes,” ‘Nagayo’ finally offered. “Before your arrival, I went through this whole song and dance with Ao and Nelson here.”

"The Abydos that I am familiar with had no commando programs of note, despite their best efforts to emulate them,” Nelson commented, absently playing with her hair.

“And I think I would remember if parts of the Abydos desert suddenly became covered in a magical glacier,” Ao added.

“I am not familiar with those concepts, either. My recollection of Kivotos is far different.” The robot shook their head, the display swapped to a “( e - e ).”

“Um… Also, if what Hazuki told me when I came in is correct, I’m apparently normally meant to stay dead in almost every other version of Kivotos.” Yume let out an awkward laugh. “...Certainly not become Sensei.”

The white-haired girl next to her looked sad for a moment, shifting slightly closer to her.

“Yeah, you kinda are meant to be… That, and the fact that Shiroko Terror here is also a Sensei, not to mention happily working alongside base form Shiroko, is more than enough for me to conclude there are some differences between our respective versions of Kivotos,” Hazuki held out her hands. “...Oh, by the way, I’m also from my world’s Arius Squad, and I know for a fact that we’ve royally mixed stuff up timeline wise, too. Well, we’re currently under a different name, but I’ll refer to myself as Arius for simplicity’s sake for the time being.”

“Shiroko… Terror…? Um… Look, just call me Kuroko. Shiroko and I picked that name out a while ago to tell us apart.” Kuroko asked, before tilting her head. “Also, Arius? Weren’t you guys trying to kill me?

“Again, the version of Arius in your universe is completely unrelated to the one in mine, so I can’t really comment on that.” Hazuki explained. “Um, I’m really sorry on their behalf, I guess? But, again, those aren’t mine.”

“If you’re a part of Arius… Then you must know of The Instructor, right?” Ao questioned.

“Don’t think we’ve ever had an ‘Instructor,’ so probably not.”

“Hmrgh…”

Nelson hummed. "In conclusion, we each hail from a Kivotos which can be said to share similar broad strokes, but differ in the details."

Ao’s eyes lit up. He pounded a fist into his palm. “Then you could say… this is quite the Crisis on Infinite Earths.”

“Precisely!” Hazuki nodded, her own face brightening. “This better not be the Flashpoint to give birth to a New 52 of problems!”

Nelson and a few others stared, confused. "I... apologize, but I am uncertain as to the comedy of those statements."

“I don’t- were those meant to be jokes?” Kuroko asked Yume, who shrugged.

“I do not understand either,” the mechanical Sensei said, their face displaying a confused “( e - e ).” They raised a finger. “But I believe that was humorous.”

“Speaking of which, do you also have a name?” Shiroko asked, tilting her head, “Seems like everyone else dropped their names except for you.”

“I have always gone by the designation ‘Sensei.’ However, it would be confusing to refer to me without a moniker for the time being.”

“How about Robo-Sensei, in that case?”

The robot lowered their head slightly before nodding. “That functions well. I will adopt that name for identification purposes. You may call me Robo or any iteration of it.”

“Alrighty! Let’s get out of here, then. I’m sure we’re all rather busy individuals.” Ao shook his head, turning around to scan the walls of the room. “Luckily, it looks like we’ve been equipped with our personal effects since entering this place, so we should be able to-”

A loud click. Then, a buzz followed suit. It was from the TV attached to the wall. No one paid it any mind until now as it appeared dead, but evidently they were wrong.

Five copies of Arona flashed up on a large screen mounted on one wall, all sharing the same classroom.

“Sensei!”

“Arona?!” everyone except Hazuki exclaimed in unison.

“Wait, why can I hear you?!” the Student asked after a few moments.

“Sensei… Um, Senseis! Please calm down! You’re not in any danger!” one Arona explained, holding up her hands, “It must have been a shock to suddenly be all put into the same room, and I’m really sorry it happened!”

“Yeah, no kidding… You seem to know more about this situation than most of us here, so are you responsible?” Ao asked.

“Well… To tell the truth…” one Arona began, “We’re just as confused! Sorry.” 

All of them quickly bowed.

“But when we were uploaded to this terminal upon your entering the room, we received the same information; this room is a space between worlds, and time in each of your worlds has temporarily stopped.” another copy of the AI spoke.

“You are free to enter or exit as you please and will be safely returned to your own worlds upon doing so, but this place’s true purpose is…” Arona dramatically paused.

“To facilitate a Tabletop RPG game between all of you specifically!” all the Aronas brightly said.

…

“What?” everyone sounded at once.

“Nelson-Sensei, you brought the game with you, right? The one you were excited to play?” the Arona working under Nelson asked, oddly speaking into some kind of ship’s radio.

"I did as you instructed, but I must admit that I did not expect to play in this type of situation."

“Well, now’s as good a time as any to try it out!”

Another Arona chimed in. “We also got our own game here, by the way, so we’ll be doing that at the same time.”

“Y-You know, this is kinda reckless, isn’t it?! Taking us out of our worlds… and just dropping us in this same room with little explanation! How do we even get out?!” Yume exclaimed.

“The only door is in your mind. You may leave at any time,” Nelson’s Arona crackled.

“That doesn’t explain anything! What, are we meant to just imagine an exit and—”

A door appeared in front of Kuroko. She curiously turned the handle and peered out. 

The heat of the Abydos desert awaited her.

Silently, she closed the door once more. “So... we aren’t trapped, and time’s been safely stopped in our worlds while we’re here...”

“Wonderful. I’ll be going, then—” Ao promptly turned about.

“Wait, if we’re not trapped…” Hazuki closed her own exit door, “I don’t see any reason for us not to take some time off and play that TTRPG for a while.”

“Is that so?” Nelson tilted her head, a bright smile on her face.

“I know I got stuff back out there to do… But… if time has truly stopped, then it shouldn’t be a problem.” Kuroko shrugged, pulling up one of the chairs to the table, before realizing something was under her chair, “Oh, neat. They even have energy drinks.”

“You two are putting off your responsibilities. Even if this place is outside of time itself, putting our feet up and resting when there is work that remains to be done is no way for a student—or a Sensei—to conduct themselves.” Ao shook his head as he opened his own exit door, revealing the darkness of SRT’s hangar, “And I don’t do tabletops, you know?”

“Wait, Kuroko’s on to something; there are refreshments under everyone’s chairs,” Shiroko popped out from under the table, an energy drink bottle gripped in one hand. “...But why is there a thermos and so many jars of coffee under that chair?”

Ao twitched.

Against the man’s better judgement, he closed the exit door and silently reached under the chair closest to him, picking up the steel thermos flask nestled between the jars. He glanced around awkwardly before unscrewing the lid to take a whiff.

“Oh.” His eyes widened, as if he had discovered paradise itself, “It’s Pure Abydossian… You made… a convincing argument, o’ inexplicable interdimensional games room.”

“Oya, what’s the brew like, Ao-sensei?” Yume chuckled, then froze.

The expression on his face, a strange mix of pure bliss and seriousness, said everything needed.

Ao silently took a seat, taking a large swig from the thermos, before peering inside, “My god… It even refills by itself… This is a very convincing argument.”

“Even Robo-Sensei is staying…”

“( 0 v 0 ).” The machine took a seat where nothing was underneath. They leaned forward on the table, eyes watching everyone. “Unlike the other Senseis present, I cannot experience a traditional ‘fun’ from this activity, but I am not bothered by this fact. However, I am confident the Kivotos I reside in will remain stable, assuming the various Aronas are correct in their assertion of ‘stopped time’ so long as we play.”

They planted their gloved hands on the table, but it was more of a thud given their metal hands underneath. “However, I believe there is merit to participating as my Arona is participating with everyone else’s. And, according to my database, while tabletop games require a large amount of creativity, calculation is also involved. In other words, I am suited to provide assistance on the latter.”

"Thank you, the aid is much appreciated. Welcome aboard, then." Nelson bowed. She took a seat at the head of the table. "Given that I have played this before, I believe I would be most suited to take up the role of 'Dungeon Master', as it were. It would simplify things quite well if the one telling the story is already familiar with it."

“I wouldn’t think someone like you would be interested in such a thing,” Ao laughed.

"While storytelling and songs have long been a part of the traditions of the service, a formalized game is a fascinating creation. I am quite curious as to how it would have been received back in the day."

“Hm, something’s been itching at the back of my mind for a while.” Ao hummed, taking another sip of his coffee, “Your uniform… You’re part of the Navy, aren’t you?”

Nelson nodded. "Before I accepted the role of Sensei, I served in His Majesty's Royal Navy. I take it you have served as well?”

“Abydos Special Forces. I don’t think I’ve heard of any king with a navy like that in recent times.”

“His Majesty’s… Wait, You mean the Royal British Navy?!” Hazuki exclaimed.

Nelson’s eyes lit up, "Yes, I served twenty years with His Majesty's Royal Navy. I see you are acquainted with it."

“You must’ve come from the real—I mean, a world similar to the one I was from... Well, before I ended up in Kivotos, of course.” Hazuki rubbed her chin, “...Although, I doubt you were from the world I was from. I mean, no self-respecting British Navy sailor would wear a uniform like yours! And I’m positive nobody back where I came from had glowing blue eyes or whatever’s up with your arm.”

All eyes fell on Nelson’s arm, where white cracks spiderwebbed across what little of her skin was exposed. Quietly, the sailor moved her arm beneath the desk.

"I was afforded leeway with my uniform, but the arm is wholly mine. A happenstance of my circumstances, as you may."

“Hey, you and me both. Actually, on that note, quick show of hands if you’re a full, unmodified human in this room.” Hazuki called out, “Ignoring halos.”

Ao raised his hand. Yume followed suit, but hers slightly held up, wiggling it.

“Does it count if I died then came back?” Yume asked.

“Sure, why not.” Ao shrugged.

“One and a half…” Nelson let out a nervous laugh, “I see. It seems that our employer must have a preference for those such as us.”

“I have completed my character sheet.” Robo-Sensei placed down a mechanical pencil, the paper held proudly, “I have followed the instructions as provided on said sheet to determine the initial values for the various attributes of the character I will ‘roleplay.’”

“Ah, right! Let us begin then, shall we?” the sailor lifted the blinder, pulling out the guidebook, “While you get along with that, if I may, shall I begin the preamble prior to our voyage?”

“Seems as good a time as any to switch formats.” Shiroko hummed.

“Formats? What do you—”

Nelson: ...Mean?

Shiroko: Just like that.

Hazuki: Hmm, I like it. Makes it a lil tidier.

Nelson: (Glances around) I see no difference.

Robo: (Raises a hand) Nor do I. I do not understand what you are referring to.

Kuroko: Nn. But the readers do. Shiroko, tape please?

Shiroko: On it. (Tapes up cracks in the fourth wall) 

Hazuki: Gimme some too, I’ll help. (rips out a length of tape)

Nelson: …Curious. Well, in any case, allow me to set the scene.

Once Upon a Time…

There was a lovely princess.

But she had an enchantment upon her of a most fearful sort-

Hazuki: Oh my fucking god. It’s Shrek.

Session 1, Part 1 Complete!

Starring:

Ao Sensei
Hinata Ao
A Father’s Love
(UCCmaster, Zodai)

Nelson Sensei
HMS Nelson
From Sea To Sky
(Numbers75)

Yume Sensei
Yume Kuchinashi
Aqua Dream Archive
(hunter10bt)

Robo Sensei
‘Robo’ Sensei
Compassionate Code
(WakuEggroll)

Hazuki
Hazuki Nagayo
All is Vain, Yet We are Free
(Magami_Aya)

Levi Sensei
Levi Jordan
Soldier Boy and Angel Girls
(Dalubhasa41st)

Kuroko Sensei
Shiroko ‘Kuroko’ Sunaookami & Shiroko Sunaookami
BEWARE OF DOG
(Kyosuke Asatte)

In...

ARCHIVE ALL STARS
Dream Voyage Operation

‘We are never getting a sequel.’