“So, this is the place. Perfect.” Kae Yuui dumped his bags on the floor and dropped down next to them, staring around hopelessly. He was a 19 year old boy, with brown tousled-looking hair and gray eyes; quite good looking, actually. He had moved to Tokyo from Kyoto, into this crappy apartment that felt like it was about two inches big. He watched a cockroach crawl out from a hole in the wall and shuddered; this place really was disgusting! Kae sighed and stood up; “Might as well figure out if this place has anything in it that isn’t ghetto quality…” He walked into the bedroom. He looked at the sad, flat-looking beige mattress. He frowned and touched it. It felt like rock. He sighed angrily and carefully lay down on it and closed his eyes. A recent memory floated into his mind…

“I’ve told you before Kae, you have to get a job, a house, learn to support yourself! I’m not always going to be here!” His mom yelled at him as the movers continued loading all his stuff into the truck outside. “But mom, I don’t even know what the place looks like! How could you just ship me off like this, without even asking me?” She shook her head. “I tried asking, Kae. But you never do anything. I had to take action. I’m sorry. It’s for your own good”...

Kae frowned and shook his head hard, attempting to clear the picture from his mind. He sat up and looked around the house some more. He wandered into the bathroom, opened some drawers, etc. Nothing interesting. He walked into the boring kitchen, which was part of the living room, which was also the front room. He decided that he was definitely claustrophobic,  and that he was going to hate this place no matter what. He yanked open a cupboard; nothing. He yanked open another cupboard; nothing. Wait, scratch that, there was a spider. Whoopee. He squashed it and turned to the drawers just in front of the sink; the ones that are just for show, and never open. Whenever he went into a new place he checked to see if they would open… he doubted it. Why would it work here, if no where else? He shrugged, “What the heck.” He mumbled, stretching out his arm and pulling on the drawer.

To his surprise; It opened! Inside was a blueish-green liquidy sort of stuff- it looked kind of like a bubble. It was stretched through the whole drawer, and by peering closer, Kae could see images moving on the other side of it. He was about to touch it, but suddenly… KABAAM! A flash a brilliant green light, and he was on the floor blinking. After the lights in his eyes had gone out, he looked around; nothing was different, except… he looked up, and saw a 15 or 16 year old girl, with reddish auburn hair and silvery light blue eyes. She smiled. “Hi! I’m sorry to inform you that you’ve seen to much. I’m afraid I’ll have to kill you now. Bubbye!” She put two fingers on either side of her head and closed her eyes.

As soon as she started to radiate some sort of power, causing the air around her to ripple unnaturally, Kae got scared. He jumped up, opened his mouth. Nothing came out. He tried again. “S-seen to much? Of what? Who are you? What did I do!?” The girl stopped radiating, and removed her fingers from her temples. She opened her eyes, tilted her head, and looked at Kae thoughtfully, considering. “Weeell… I suppose, since I’m going to kill you anyway, I may as well explain.” She sat down and made herself comfortable. She beckoned to Kae, and indicated he sit down next to her. Reluctantly, he obeyed.

“Let’s see, where should I begin… well, let’s start with me. My name is Karma, and I’m 16 years old. I am the official protector of Kenkon, and--” “Whoa whoa whoa.” Kae interrupted. “What’s ‘kenkon?’” Karma’s eyes lit up in remembrance. “Ah yes, your type doesn’t know about our type, do you? Let me explain. Kenkon is a world that was created by all the good ideas people had that never made it out into your world. In other words, either your people rejected their idea, or they died before they could tell anyone, etc. Well, those ideas appear here as soon as they are forgotten. See, we catch them in our idea catcher. It's kinda like a giant butterfly net. Heh.”

Kae’s mind was reeling. Was this some stupid prank? Or was this chick for real? Karma continued. “We then put the idea’s in people’s heads (they have to pay for them of course) and we put them into action! So you see, we could also be kind of a lost time, or something; because everything we use for ideas was lost by you!” She laughed; By this time Kae had calmed down enough to laugh with her, if a bit nervously, and notice that she was extremely pretty. If she hadn’t been planning on killing him, and if she wasn’t a psycho chick from another dimension...

Karma stopped laughing. “You see, the only bad things about Kenkon, is that since it is a land of borrowed ideas, it is also a land of borrowed space. You see that blueish stuff?” She gestured toward the still glowing drawer. Kae nodded. “It’s a world rip. It allows entrance to our world. And if someone entered with bad thoughts or ideas, they would be to powerful for us to handle. That’s because if the person with the idea is still alive, the idea is far more strong. But as long as your kind stay out, and keep having good ideas, we will continue to prosper.” Karma finished her story, and looked at Kae suggestively.

He shook himself and told his tale. “My name is Kae Yuui, and my mom just kicked me out of the house so I could get a job and support myself.” He said angrily, glaring at the ground. Karma looked concerned. “She shipped my off to this rotten hell-hole, filled with cockroaches…” He looked questioningly at Karma. “Come to think of it, why would one of your ‘world rips’ be in a place like this?” Karma looked thoughtful for a moment. “I don’t know exactly. I never really asked.” Kae nodded. “Fair enough. Anyway. I moved here from Kyoto, and I’m supposed to find a job somewhere.” Kae seemed to be finished, so Karma nodded. She took a deep breath and stood up.

“Well, it was really nice meeting you, Kae!” She put her fingers on her head again. Kae scrambled up. “W-wait… what are you going to do to me, exactly?” Karma opened her eyes, fingers remaining. “I’m going to make your heart stop. Don’t worry, it’s painless. You won’t feel a thing.” She closed her eyes again, started radiating again… her eyes opened, but they were now red and pupil-less. She seemed about to explode, when…

“WAIT!! I-I’ll… I’ll help you!” In an instant Karma was back to normal. She opened her once again blue eyes and looked at him quizzically. “What do you mean, help?” “Well… my life sucks, and your world sounds really cool, and balanced, and everything… can I help protect it?” Karma looked at him for a moment. She raised her arms. Kae closed his eyes, expecting to be dead any moment…

But he heard clapping! He opened his eyes, and Karma was standing in front of him, clapping! He stared at her like a dead fish, thoroughly dumbfounded. Karma laughed at his expression.

“I’m so happy! You passed the test!” She said, as soon as she finished laughing. Kae looked even more clueless. Karma explained. “See, I kinda left out something. I started to say that I am the protector of Kenkon. Well, that isn’t completely true. I’m actually one of the protectors of Kenkon. See, there are eight of us…” She suddenly stopped. Kae looked at her closely. She seemed about to cry. Strange. “Or, seven, as it were… my companion, Akarui, passed away recently…” Karma’s bangs covered her eyes. “I’m… sorry, Karma.” Kae said quietly.

Karma looked up and smiled sadly. “It’s okay. It was his time to go.” Kae noted the the tone of fakeness in her naturally cheerful voice. “Anyway, since I need a new companion… well, first let me explain why there needs to be eight of us. See, there are sixteen world rips. Way to many for one or two people to handle. So we have four groups of two. One group to monitor the south, one to monitor the east, one to monitor the west, and I monitor the north. That’s where you come in. Since I am by myself now, I was told to seek out a new companion by any means possible, and to choose someone I thought could fulfill the job. I decided to pick someone who found a world rip, and who asked to help out instead of dying. And guess what? That’s you!”

Kae stared. “M-me? You’re really gonna let me help?” Karma nodded. “But it isn’t all fun and games, you know. You’ll have to take the advanced course; you’ll learn as much as you can in two weeks, and learn the rest on-the-job. Another hard part is the actual killing; it’s a lot harder than it seems.” She looked a bit depressed. Kae nodded. “I understand. But I want to help you. You seem like… like you could use it right now.” Karma looked at him and smiled a true smile. “Really?” “Really.” Kae said.

Karma grinned. “Well, then here’s the first step.” She said, suddenly businesslike. “I have to teach you how to get to Kenkon.” She grinned at the look on Kae’s face. “Don’t worry; it’s very easy. All you have to do is think of one particular thought or word with all your willpower, and touch the world rip. You will be dragged through, and land at the nearest landing port. As it were, the nearest landing port is the north port.” Kae was a bit confused, but he decided to give it a shot and see what happened. “Let’s do it.” He said firmly, walking back to world rip.

Karma walked over next to him. They both stretched their arms over rip… they concentrated… and at the same moment, they stuck their hands into the rip. Nothing happened. “Karma, wha… Whoa!!” He was suddenly sucked headfirst, along with Karma, straight into the glowing rip.