Hello everyone!
Sorry for not uploading chapters, but I haven't been feeling completely well this week.
My goal is to upload one chapter from Monday to Friday, meaning 5 chapters a week. If I don't upload for one, two, or three days, I'll try to upload the missing chapters all at once to make up for it, but I will always try to publish 5 chapters a week.
I will also be posting advanced chapters on Patreon. I'll start with 5 advanced chapters, but 7 new chapters will be uploaded weekly. So, if you can't wait, I invite you to support me on Patreon.
Also, please let me know what you think of the fic; I enjoy reading your comments.
That's all for this note. I'll let you enjoy the fic.
Mike
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Chapter 14: Echoes of a Distant Home
The artificial sun of the pocket dimension had begun its slow, programmed descent, painting the nebula sky with intense shades of orange and violet that no natural sun could replicate. It was Urahara Kisuke's favorite hour. The air cooled slightly, the aroma of afternoon tea seemed more intense, and the universe, from the safety of his porch, seemed a little calmer, a little more prone to revealing its secrets.
He ruled the porch from his usual spot, his back resting against a wooden pillar and a steaming cup of tea in one hand. In his lap, Krypto slept placidly, his white head resting on Kisuke's knees, his body rising and falling with a deep, regular breath. Occasionally, he let out a small doggish sigh, his paw twitching in his sleep, chasing, no doubt, cosmic squirrels through asteroid fields. Kisuke stroked his head absentmindedly, the soft fur an anchor of simple and pleasant reality in his mostly conceptual existence.
Beside him, sitting cross legged with her back straight, was Kara. A dark crystal data tablet floated in front of her, displaying geological diagrams and thermodynamic equations. She was absorbed, reviewing the notes from her first field assignment, a small and frustrating frown of concentration forming between her eyebrows.
Urahara watched her from the corner of his eye while pretending to look at the sunset. In recent weeks, he had been witness to a fascinating metamorphosis. The fury and pain were still there, of course; they were the fundamental embers that had forged her character. But they no longer burned without control. They were contained, tempered by a new and voracious curiosity. She was learning to channel her immense energy not only into her fists, but into the questions. She was learning to ask "why". It was, in his opinion, fascinating progress. The system was not just stabilizing; it was evolving.
They had fallen into a strange and comfortable routine. Mornings were dedicated to theoretical lessons that left Kara with conceptual headaches. Afternoons were reserved for practical study or, as now, for long periods of peaceful silence, each lost in his or her own work. The shop at the end of reality had become, improbably, a home. A very, very strange home.
Urahara took a sip of tea, the bitter and earthy taste a familiar constant across the millennia. He felt, he realized with a pang of amusement, strangely domestic. He, who had observed the fall of empires and had conversed with death, now found a serene satisfaction in the simple presence of a studious Kryptonian and a dog sleeping in his lap. The most chaotic variable he had introduced into his life had become the most predictably peaceful.
It was that peace, that comfortable and silent routine, that made the interruption so notable.
It was a soft and melodic beep that broke the calm, a sound as alien to the silent majesty of the pocket dimension as a drop of ink in a glass of pure water. The sound came from a small Kryptonian communicator that Kara wore on her wrist, a gift from her cousin who insisted she wear it always.
Urahara observed, without moving a muscle, how Kara's concentration broke. She let out a long sigh, an exhalation that was a perfect mix of affection and a slight resignation. He did not need to ask who it was. Her reaction was a more eloquent datum than any caller ID.
"It's probably Clark," she said, confirming his silent hypothesis. Her voice was soft, tinged with the warmth of a familiar memory. "He has been trying to contact me all week."
Kara hesitated for a moment, her fingers floating over the device. Urahara observed this small doubt with clinical interest. It was the hesitation of someone who finds herself on the threshold between two worlds, unsure of which one she belongs to at that moment. Finally, with a silent resolution, she activated the communicator.
A small holographic image, pale blue and flickering, came to life in the air above her wrist. It showed the faces of a man with kind features and a square jaw, and a woman with a sharp and intelligent gaze peering over his shoulder. Kal-El and Lois Lane. The pillars of her life on Earth.
Urahara remained like a statue in the background, a silent observer. He took a sip of his tea, his gray eyes, full of an unfathomable amusement, looking over the rim of the cup. He was not part of this conversation. He was the audience.
"Kara! Finally!" said Clark's voice, laden with a relief so palpable that it could almost be felt through the hologram. "We were so worried. Are you okay? Where have you been?"
"I'm fine, Clark. Really," Kara responded. Urahara noted the way she forced a reassuring smile, a microgesture that betrayed the effort. "I've just... been busy. Traveling."
"Traveling? For months?" intervened Lois, her reporter's instinct overcoming any family formality. Her voice was sharp, precise, seeking facts, not comfort. "Your cousin has been about to comb the entire galaxy looking for you. You had us with our hearts in our throats. Are you in trouble?"
Kara shook her head, her smile becoming a little more tense. "No. I'm not in trouble. I'm safe. I am... I am staying with a friend for the moment."
Urahara felt a slight pang of amusement at the word "friend". It was such a charmingly human simplification for a relation that defied any simple categorization. He continued stroking Krypto, who did not even flinch, his face a mask of serene indifference. He was observing Kara edit reality in real time, and he found it fascinating
"A friend," repeated Clark, his protective tone so evident that Urahara could almost feel it through the communicator. "Kara, what friend? We don't know anyone you could be with in the Omega Cluster."
Kara hesitated for an instant, and her eyes briefly met Urahara's. He remained motionless, a passive observer in someone else's family drama. His expression was neutral, but with a slight, almost imperceptible nod, he gave her permission to continue. It was not his story to tell, nor to hide.
"His name is Kisuke," she said finally, the hesitation in her voice being replaced by a strange certainty. "Urahara Kisuke. And we are not in the Omega Cluster. We are... somewhere else."
There was a charged pause on the other end of the line. Urahara could imagine the confused glances being exchanged on the distant and quiet farm on Earth. The name would mean nothing to them. It would just be a strange sound, an unknown and, therefore, suspicious variable in their cousin's life.
"Kisuke?" repeated Lois, her voice full of the suspicion of a journalist who smells an incomplete story. "Is he trustworthy? Can we talk to him?"
A nervous chuckle escaped Kara's lips. "He's... complicated. And no, you can't talk to him right now. He's... meditating."
Urahara raised an eyebrow, very amused by the excuse. He took another sip of tea, the epitome of meditative calm.
"Kara, I don't like this," said Clark, his worry returning with full force. "Who is he? How did you meet him?"
Kara sighed, running a hand through her blonde hair. Urahara observed with purely academic fascination how she struggled to package the incomprehensible truth of her existence into a description that her family could accept without panicking. It was an exercise in translation in its purest form.
"He's... weird," she began, and Urahara smiled to himself. 'It was, without a doubt, the most precise description given of him in centuries'. "He's a bit obsessed with candy and tea, and he wears a ridiculous hat." She paused, and her expression softened. "But... overall, he's a good person. He has helped me a lot. He has helped us." She looked significantly at Krypto, who slept placidly in Kisuke's lap, living proof of her words.
"What have you two been doing?" asked Lois, her tone changing from suspicion to curiosity. The journalist had won. The door was open.
And then, Kara began to tell them. Or, rather, to translate.
Urahara listened, completely captivated. Not by the events, which he already knew, but by the art of the narrative he was witnessing. He watched with almost clinical precision how she struggled to build a bridge between two irreconcilable realities. She was not simply editing the facts to make them more digestible; she was filtering them through her own unwavering moral compass.
She told them she was "assisting" Kisuke in his "research work". She told them how they were "consultants" who solved strange problems across the galaxy. The case with the Infernal Notaries, which he would have described with cold contractual logic, in Kara's version became a "misunderstanding with some very serious, pale skinned bureaucrats about a very bad man who had broken his promises". The recovery of the Creation Song transformed into a "case of stolen intellectual property from some very musical crystal beings that we helped".
Urahara was not just listening. He was marveling.
'Fascinating,' he thought, as he stroked Krypto's ear. 'She is not adopting my perspective at all. What a relief. It would have been so boring if she did.'
He observed how Kara gestured, how her confidence grew, not because she was manipulating the narrative, but because she had found a way to tell a version of the truth that did not betray her own principles. She was protecting her family, not just from the mind bending truth, but from the cold, gray moral ambiguity in which she now lived.
'She can't help it,' he realized with a surge of intellectual delight. 'Even when she describes demons, she can't help but classify them on a scale of good and evil. For her, the universe is not a system of rules. It is a drama full of characters, and her instinct is always to find the hero and the villain. She is not learning to be like me. She is learning to be a wiser version of herself. What an unexpected plot twist.'
'Any other being with her power would have tried to explain the literal truth, causing panic and confusion. But she... she chooses kindness over precision. She chooses to protect her family's feelings over the need to be understood. It is a choice so illogical, so inefficient... and so absolutely beautiful.'
'She will never see the universe as a library of stories to be read,' he concluded in his mind, and the thought brought him a rare pang of something that felt very much like respect. 'She will always see it as a place full of people who need help. And that... that is the quality that makes her story so damn good. It is what makes her, and not me, the protagonist.'
The call continued for a few more minutes, an exchange of promises that she would visit them soon, that she would take care of herself, that she wouldn't get into more problems than necessary.
Finally, with a last, warm "We love you, Kara," Clark Kent ended the transmission.
The blue hologram flickered for an instant, dissolved into motes of light, and disappeared, leaving a void in the evening air.
A deep silence fell over the porch again, denser and heavier than before. The imaginary crackle of the Kents' fireplace and the murmur of family conversation seemed to persist like a ghostly echo before fading completely, leaving only the silent hum of the cosmos.
Kara stared at the dark communicator on her wrist, her face a landscape of complex emotions.
Urahara observed how the mask of confidence and nonchalance she had maintained for her family faded, revealing a deep melancholy.
The conversation had anchored her to her past again, reminding her of the life and family that, although still within her reach, now felt separated from her by something more than simple distance. They were in another story, in another book.
"They're good people," she finally said quietly, the words directed more at the air than at him. "They try to do the right thing."
Urahara finished his tea before answering. "They are," he agreed, his voice calm and devoid of judgment. "They are the protagonists of a very good story. A clear story, with defined heroes and villains. It's admirable."
Krypto stirred in his lap, letting out a soft bark in his sleep before settling down again.
The artificial sun finally set behind the nebula horizon, plunging the garden into a twilight lit by the glow of alien stars.
The call was over.
The echo of her former home had faded.
And again, it was just the two of them, in their strange little shop at the end of reality.
'Curious,' Urahara thought, observing Kara's profile silhouetted against the starry sky. 'I had predicted this call would be a disruptive variable. An emotional complication that could destabilize her progress. But, as often happens, reality has written a much more interesting chapter.'
It had not destabilized her; it had forced her to evolve.
It had forced her to take control of her own narrative.
He was no longer just her protector or his mentor.
He was becoming, he realized with a pang of something he couldn't identify—perhaps irony, perhaps affection—her new anchor.
The bridge between the girl she was and the woman she was becoming.
He looked at Kara, who was now watching the unknown stars with a thoughtful expression.
The story of the lost girl from Krypton was over.
The story of Ruthye's avenger had concluded.
And now, a new story, one that did not yet have a title, was beginning to be written.
And he, for the first time in two millennia of only reading, found himself holding the pen.
A small, genuine smile formed on his face in the twilight.
'This,' he thought, 'is going to be much more interesting than simply observing.'