Dimensions Away (Published under Publishers America) Chapter 1:

Dimensions AWAY

By Bryant Ruano and Brian
Turczmanovicz

Written by Brian Turczmanovicz

Written & Edited by Bryant Ruano

Based on an original story by Bryant
Ruano, which was, in itself, based on the game series by Arc System Works

Author Brian Turczmanovicz 

Brian was born in Linden, New
Jersey. He wrote the book with Bryant Ruano after reading and talking about a
fantasy world in conversation. They wrote a rough draft for a story, which soon
became Dimensions Away, after Bryant discussed his drawing and editing
skills and Brian’s imagination. These skills blended together to make this
great novel.

Author Bryant Ruano

Bryant Ruano was born in Brooklyn,
NY, but currently resides in Edison, NJ. 
He is the author of the main inspiration of Dimensions Away, the Guilty
Gear 2 Overture Project, a fanfiction of sorts explaining what happened to
the veritable cast during the period the game the Project story was based on
took place.  He was approached by
co-author Brian Turczmanovicz with the idea for Dimensions Away sometime
after he read over the Overture Project. 
After the story got outlined, he decided to join in and work as
co-author and editor.

Table
of Contents

Dimensions AWAY............................................................................................................ 1

Chapter 1: Koishi’s Bizarre Adventure........................................................................................ 3

Chapter 2: The Land Of Sticks (And the Girls that Wield Them)............................................. 14

Chpter 3: The Fox’s Den............................................................................................................ 24

Chapter 4: Town of the Dead & the Days on Ogre Street......................................................... 42

Chapter 5: The Sky Palace.......................................................................................................... 65

Chapter 6: If I Were a Boy . . . .................................................................................................. 88

Chapter 7: Claw.......................................................................................................................... 97

Chapter 8: Titan’s Revenge...................................................................................................... 102

Chapter 9: Day of the Mercenary............................................................................................. 105

Chapter 10: The Final Fuses..................................................................................................... 115

Chapter 11: The Road to War.................................................................................................. 124

Chapter 12: The Battle on the Big Hill (Let’s Rock!).............................................................. 132

Chapter 13: A Hero’s Mind...................................................................................................... 143

Chapter 14: The Battle Ended Alongside the Hero................................................................. 146

Chapter 15: The Library of the Curtain Man (Never Fear the Reaper).................................... 154

Chapter 16: Back Home (It was here All Along!).................................................................... 159

Chapter
1:

-Koishi’s Bizarre Adventure-

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Across the
mountains of Japan lied the Village of Crystal, which was famous for three
things: the river crystals that formed in the winter, and the water which was
as clean as glass no matter what happened,  and the clan of Kakudo: A clan controlling the
Village of Crystal for the last 1,000 years, but dated back even farther.  The clan was as powerful as the Emperor of Sky,
the league of Samurai warriors whom, once maturing to the age of twenty,
automatically became part of the Emperor’s personal infantry.  The village has had much glory from previous
victories but there is a problem within the clan.  The leader of the clan is Kai, the oldest son
of the last clan leader.  Kai is an older
man now.

He is forty years
old and he is not enjoying one minute of it. 
The village had flowers blooming, and the mountains were beginning to
lose their snow, but that did not matter much at all to him.  Kai was brought up to believe that the power
of the clan was only measured by what their ruler does with it.  He believes that a ruler must be fierce and
powerful as the Emperor of Sky if he wanted to serve the Emperor happily.  The village he watched is a big one with
shacks on the hills of grass, with the docks and fishing boats docked along
river, with the many dirt trails leading and connecting house to house as one
whole.  Each trail ended up near the
clan’s household house.

The clan’s
tradition is that a male heir must take up the household when his father
reaches retiring age of fifty years, so that he may finally get a vacation for
the rest of his life for his deeds.  Kai,
though, was nothing like that; he slept only four hours a day and he trained he
trained almost all morning, and when he worked, he worked for almost days on
end, benefiting the clan and the village. 
Kai was a tall man with a blonde crew cut and a goatee.  He had many scars on his body from countless
battles.  He was the most powerful ruler
and he trained himself to go through constant punishment for the clan.  He woke up ready to fight to the death each
morning.

There was a problem
with this man though.  It was not his
hair, his posture, or his table manners; it is his heir to the clan.  Sadly, this man has only one daughter.  Her name was Koishi and she is the only
surviving heir to the clan.  She was
twelve and was very fearful, unlike her father. 
She was not killed because her mother had agreed to be banished from the
village forever.  Kai was on his sixth
wife now, but he has made all of his wives to look like his first one, so the
village assumes he is still with the first. 
This wife’s name was May, and unlike the last three wives, she is a
cunning woman, possibly more cunning than Kai.

This story starts
in the training dojo inside the clan’s dojo where all the young Soldiers
graduate and train to serve the emperor that is where Koishi and Kai are now
and where the story begins…

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“AGAIN!  DO IT RIGHT! 
DAMNED CHILD!” shouted Kai as he sat on the floor of the dojo training
his daughter.  Koishi ran as fast as she
could, trying to get to the dummy target. 
As she ran towards the straw dummy, she jumped in the air trying to
swing her leg around the dummy’s neck and break the neck with her foot.  As she stepped to jump her body hesitated and
she felt her hands sweat from fear.  This
clearly was something her father did not know could exist in his child.  “Come on Koishi do it right or you’ll do it
again ten more times!” said Kai.

Koishi jumped the
minute she jumped in the air she saw her black become almost free with the wind
blowing in it barely.  Her hair was
tightly tied in a ponytail so small that it was smaller than her littlest
finger.  She looked like a boy and that
was her father’s intention.  She was a
disappointment to her father.  These
training drills made him become her enemy. 
Koishi was a nervous child; she looked around the room instead of paying
attention to the target.

She was a curious
child.  She saw the bamboo walls and the
red painted bricks holding the statues, sages, and small plants.  In her distraction, Koishi saw her father
with his enraged attitude as he had his teeth tightly showing close together,
she saw he had his left fist in a ball ready to yell, as she would mess up.  As she looked at him, she remembered the
dummy and turned around, looking for it. 
She was trying to make her attack great for her father so that he would
not think of her as a bothersome little girl. 
However, the minute she turned around she landed into the dummy.  SMACK! 
Her body fell with the dummy.  The
straw fell and separated into strands all over the floor.  She landed on her black training outfit.  Her yellow belt tangled around her leg and
straw covered her face.

She sat up straw
lied on her face she was to afraid to move she noticed her father had gotten up
and walked over to her and she thought he was going to start his rants about
her shame to the clan but he did not.  He
came over their slowly.  “Father I am
alright I shall try…ten…no…twenty more times…” was all she could stutter,
trying to hide her fear.

Her father went
over and smacked her across the face and she fell to the floor.  She fell with a moan from the pain of hitting
ground again.  Kai yelled, “Daughter or
not, you will never run the clan!  I do
not know why I do not have a son but if I have none, then I shall make you into
one!  Get up; I barely used any strength.  You’re a weak and insignificant little pest.  Clean up this mess!”

“Yes father…,” said
Koishi nervously.

She hated the dojo
room where her father mocked her because of her gender and skill.  She felt like a puppet being controlled into
doing something she could not ever accomplish, all the while trying to break
free of the strings.  Although she obeyed
her father, she did not know what to do. 
She had no mother for guidance and Aunt May, her father’s supposed six
wife, did little for comfort.  Koishi
though scrambled and ran for a broom to clean up the straw.  She was a scared child since day one.  She was trained to be tough, something she
could not accomplish in her father’s eyes.

Just then, a
messenger came in the dojo.  “Excuse me, Kai
sensei, but I have a message from the emperor.”

Kai got up and
walked over to the messenger who bowed with respect to Kai, the clan leader.  “Well?” said Kai impatiently, being held at
suspense.

“Yes, well it says
‘Kai of the Kakudo clan, it is with my knowledge that enemies are coming up
from the mountains to discuss problems with territory.  This may lead to imminent war.  Please send your best to the palace for the
army to be rebuilt.  Sincerely, signed
with the emperor’s seal’” said the messenger boy.

“So” said Kai, “War
is coming from the mountains and the emperor is telling me to send my best men
to his palace when the invaders will attack my village first.  Is that what he is saying boy, to leave my
village defenseless?  That all I am
supposed to do is to stare at my enemy and expect him to step down?  What am I Chuck Norris?”

The messenger boy
wanted to curl up in a ball.  It would be
rude and a deep insult to speak of Kai’s business when it was none of his own.  “I am just the messenger sir…that’s it…”

Kai grabbed the
boy’s shirt by his collar.  He knocked of
the sun hat he wore and saw his black hair and youthful frail face.  Kai shook the boy as he yelled “So . . . I
either become a puppet, or divide the entire empire in civil war . . . I
dislike both options.”

Kai began to pace
for a bit.  He saw the messenger boy look
at his daughter Koshi.  She was sweeping
up straw and was trying to listen to the message her father had just received.  She panicked when she heard her father say
her name.  She stood still as a statue
when he turned around.

“The Heavens must
be lamenting the infidels’ evil deeds,” said Kai to the messenger.  Kai noticed that the messenger looked at his
daughter.  Kai now thought that he should
be punished for a crime.

“Sir, I did not
stare at your daughter sir…I swear to you…” said the messenger holding his head
and kneeling down.

Kai thought, “I
have a bad feeling about you…Thunder such as you does not erupt from nothing…On
that thought…”  he raised his hands ready
to strike the boy in the back of the head. 
Koishi darted in front of her father and held her arms out.  Kai was shocked to see his own daughter do
such a thing.  There was such disrespect
to a warrior of his class protecting his clan from this pervert.

“Father…he has done
nothing wrong…he had delivered his message to you and that was all…If he stared
at me, big deal.  Aren’t I not a boy in
your eyes?” said Koishi.  As she was
saying it, the messenger boy ran for his life.

“Insignificant
child how dare you disrespect me with that type of lip.  Be banished or shut up.  Pick one! 
I expect an answer by the evening’s training.  NOW LEAVE, PEST!”
said Kai as he closed the door to the dojo and Koshi fell backwards down the
stairs onto the grass.

She had gotten up
quite quick.  She began to cry as she had
realized at what she had done.  She
noticed that she had a cut across her cheek: it was bleeding from her father
hit her.  She realized she was not hit,
but cut by her father because of her failing in the training exercise.  She realized that she could have been killed
if the knife had gone two inches deeper in her cheek.  She rushed to the medical room of the clan’s
house.  Doctor Paradigm, the clan’s
apothecary and personal doctor for Kai, sat in his room.  It was a small room with a simple stone desk
on one edge and a little chair set up for patients to sit on.  Koishi came rushing in knocking over the
chair and three small vials of medicine. 
Koishi closed his eyes and the doctor sighed with disappointment.

“Oops…I am sorry
Doctor…I was cut by a branch and came to get a bandage.  Can you help me quick?”  Koishi tried to pick up the medicine
containers but some of the bottles were cracked from the fall.

“You are r-rather
rude for someone asking me of an f-f-favor,” said Dr. Paradigm, “why d-do you
come in h-h-here bursting in here like there?”

Doctor Scott G. Paradigm
was a relatively short man with a chubby body and all that was left of his hair
was a white mustache.  He wore a white
robe and had a tendency to stutter or mix up words at the end of sentences.  He was an odd man who secretly kept liquor in
his medicine bottles, which was against his practice of having in the clan
house.  It is a fact that the Doctor is a
recovering alcoholic.

“Sorry, I just need
this cut fixed up a bit,” Koishi stated.

“Sure no problem.  I will do some-ding for th-that” said Dr. Paradigm
as he went over and got a cotton ball from the closet.  He gently put some herb on her face trying to
kill any infection on the cut.  Koshi
tried not to cry but it stung.

“Koishi…” said the
doctor,  “No way could a branch have done
this.  D-did your father beat you again?  I-if so you co-co-could tell m-me.  I-I promise not to t-tale.  ”

Koishi was
embarrassed.  She did not want to tell
how her father was only two inches away from killing her.  The other option was that he would have done
that years ago, had her mother not exiled herself from the village for her
safety.

“He did . . . I . .
. I am afraid…” said Koishi.

“I see . . . and he
did this to you t-t-t-two, r-right?”

“Well I did fall
into a branch this morning.”

“I g-got what
y-y-you’re saying, but as long as we are n-nut certain of the c-c-cause, we
c-c-c-cannot jump to conclusions. 
Please, continue wi-with your day. 
Also go see your moth-there May in a b-bit.”

Koishi went away
after she was given the medicine.  The
doctor suddenly smiled as May entered the medical room.  May was the sixth wife of Kai.  If she did not produce a male heir by the end
of the year, she was to be killed like all the others.  She had been procrastinating away from Kai
for quite some time because she had no intentions of being killed.  She had her own plan to rule the
kingdom.  Moreover, the doctor was her
advantage for a scheme.

She was a tall
brunette woman with blonde highlights on her left side.  She received the highlights from an herbalist
down the South River.  She walked into the office.  “You’re a stupid pig, Scott, why didn’t you
give her the poison like I told you?  She
had a cut all you had to do was dab it on her cheek.”

Dr. Paradigm just
clutched his hands together, “She brok-ded the bottle of poison when she
entered the r-room.”

“Why do you talk
like that, you pig?” said May folding her arms disappointed.

“This is the way
you talk on easy g-gatherings street?”

May slapped him
across the face and then picked up a needle and began to threaten the doctor.  She had no clue what was in the needle but she
was sure it wasn’t good…

“I have a plan.  Kai, my dimwitted husband, has threatened me
to remove my highlights because they do not make me look like his first
pathetic wife.  Well, I have a plan if I
could get the emperor to see that Kai had hurt his daughter and the village, I
could get you in control of the village and the clan.  Of course the emperor would appoint you as
leader but I really would be in charge.”

“Me?” said Scott.

“Yes.  That means I would rule this village, as I
should since my father was wrongfully killed by Kai (That ****ing monster).  It’s perfect, all I need to do is get Koishi
to admit to the emperor that her father is cruel…It’s that simple.”

May stroked her
hair and then sat in the chair as the Doctor grabbed the needle away from her.  However, despite May’s cunning, the plan had
a flaw.

“Will Koishi speak
against her father May?  She wasn’t mad
when she got cut.  In m-my m-mined that
is d-d-dangerous” said Scott worryingly.

May went and
twirled around and grabbed Dr. Paradigm’s chin with her long fingers.  “Leave it up to me.  I’ll solve all our problems, no sweat.  When I am done talking to her, I’ll make her
so scared that she’ll follow in her mother’s footsteps and leave.  It’s a simple plan, really, but only a genius
could come up with that.”

May said that with
the highest confidence.  May was a
conniving rat in the clan.  Her father at
one time was a dreaded bandit threatened the village.  He was killed in battle by Kai.  She had secretly come to the village with her
own intentions of destroying the village.

“What about the end
of the year thing?  D-d-don’t you think
if his daughter goes missing, h-h-he’ll want to have a boy ri-right away, don’t
you th-thing?” said Scott questioning the plan again, which was unwise of him.

“Shut up,” said May
as she left the room.

May walked very
slowly to see Koishi.  The girl wasn’t
going anywhere yet.  So what was the
rush?  However, as May walked she felt a
sudden cold chill come down her neck, as she was being watched or something.  The hairs on the back of her neck stood up.  The room still had light in it.  But there was an unseen presence in the room.  Like the room was watching something.  Something was watching May walk to Koishi’s
room.  May walked a little faster; then,
she heard a tapping noise and she decided to walk a little faster.  “Is that you Scott?  ...Hello?”

She heard the
tapping again.  This startled her.  “Hello?” 
She announced.  “Anyone there?” No
one was there and she heard footsteps like a scraping of some kind.  “This isn’t funny!” shouted May as she ran
faster.  A shadow on the wall began to
follow her but she did not see it.  May
ran until she got to Koishi’s room.  She
darted inside fast without a care of Koishi. 
May thought if something was indeed following her Koishi would give her
time to run.

May entered the
room and closed the door with a thud.  The
shadow poked its head out of the wall and starred into the hallway.  Then it went back into the wall and
disappeared.  Koishi lifted her head up;
she was reading a scroll.  May felt
better after seeing that everything was fine. 
“Koishi, I heard you and Kai got into a little fight at the training
dojo…”

“Yeah, we did…”
uttered Koishi, trying to drop the subject…

“Do you want to
talk about it?” saying that killed May inside, as she wanted another way to get
Koishi out of the picture without letting the girl know about her agenda.

“No, not really
Aunt May…”  Koishi went back to reading.  She was reading a battle scroll trying to
learn the technique her father wanted her to learn by the evening.  She did pretty well memorizing the technique.

“Well I would
worry…about your father…” said May as thought of a plan.  May went over to Koishi and sat down next to
her.  Koishi ignored her.  May only comes to see Koishi when she needed
something for her to do like when is it Kai’s birthday, or what is the meal
they were having for the evening, or could she do one chore that she does not
want to do or else…

“Why is that, Aunt
May?  Are you going to threaten to get my
father mad at me or something…?  Because
I…think I got that done already.”

May thought inside
her head, “Smart mouth me, huh?”  May
went over, grabbed Koshi’s hand, and put it on her tummy.

“Yeah?” said Koishi,
“You have a stomachache or something?”

“No, Koishi, this
is worse for both of us.  I am pregnant
with a child” said May incredibly slyly.

Koishi’s mind
popped now that her worries had returned. 
He feared that the minute her father finds out a boy is on the way; Koishi
will be kicked out of the clan or become a servant of this baby, which would
bring misery because May would just dump the baby’s responsibility on Koishi.

“You’re joking
right?” asked Koishi raising an eyebrow suspiciously.

“No, feel my
stomach” May responded as Koishi touched May’s dress and felt her stomach then
she felt a slight vibration with her hand. 
Koishi did not know that May was once a belly dancer so she vibrated her
belly very slowly making it appear to be a child insider her at this moment.  The plan was working.  The effect was helped by the loose dress she
changed into after meeting with Scott.

“What do I do?  What will my father do?” worried Koishi.

“Well, I have not
told him yet but he probably wouldn’t kick you out of the clan.  He'll probably make you the boy’s nanny or
care giver.  Do you think your father
would trust me with that baby if I suddenly get hurt for…some…weird…reason…for
a year or…two” said May poking Koishi in the forehead as she was trying to
think of something. 

May was trying to
hint to Koishi that she was going to dump the baby if it was a boy on her.  This would be worse.  Koishi’s father would not only bother her in
training but with a baby.  Her father
would want protection 24/7 because it would be his only son…probably.  Koishi started freaked out she grabbed her
grayish-blue dress and held the sleeves crumpled in her hand.

“What do I do?  I don’t want to do that!” screamed Koishi…”What
DO I DO?  TELL ME!”  Koishi was now grabbing May’s leg.

May worried that Kai
may enter to investigate the whining and get May in trouble because Koishi
would immediately tell her father that she was crying for forgiveness of her
errors.

“Can you shut up?  You wouldn’t end up in stuff like this if
your mouth was quiet!” scolded May, laughing inside her head.  May had Koishi’s mouth in her hand.  All she had to do now was make the girl
disappear like her mother and then she would make her way up the ladder with
her plans.

“Listen Koishi,”
she said, “I am just saying if you were to disappear, then your father can’t
find you and then you could live the life you always wanted!”

Koishi was gullible
when it came to her father, but May was never this nice to her.  In Koishi’s mind, some sort of signal was
going off.

“How will I start a
new life?” said Koishi “I have no money.”

“Here,” said May
giving her a big sack of yen, “go out the farms in the village past the
fountain and work there until you’re old enough to marry or buy your own house.”

May didn’t care
about after.  Koishi was worth every bit
of her life savings…and Koishi took the money, put it in a potato sack, and put
it around her shoulder.

“Thanks.  I had you all wrong, May.  I always thought you hated me,” said Koishi.  She was still wondering about the signal, but
put it in the back of her mind the moment May gave her the hair.

May immediately
spoke up, “Koishi, I do…not want to see you suffer, no matter how much I don’t
show concern;  so let’s just leave saying
we respect one another a little.  Now
leave before evening; that’s when I’ll tell your father…so get what you need
and leave.”

May had left and Koishi
packed rapidly trying to bring a bag of rice and a small shovel so she could
work on a farm.  She put everything in
the potato sack so any people would just assume she had vegetables instead of
money and supplies.  Before Koishi left,
she untied her hair and let it hang down a bit so no one would recognize her.  Koishi had thought about seeing her father,
but after the attack earlier, she decided to leave as soon as possible.  Koishi leapt out of the window in her room
and slid down the cherry blossom tree.  She
ran through the small grass past the samurai and out the main gate by hopping
over the wall.

She stepped on the
dirt path and began to walk towards the farms. 
However, something caught her eye she saw this fountain near the town
square.  She was never allowed near the
town square because her father only went to the town to do business, never to
see the sights.  This fountain was a
white fountain in the day, but at night, it looked pale gray.  The moon shined on the fountain like a beam.  Koishi decided since she was on her own, she
could make her own decisions right now.  She
walked up to the fountain nervously because she did not know what was out here.  She could not swim, but that was not a threat
in this matter…

She reached into
the fountain water to see the water and saw her reflection clear as day.  She saw how pretty she looked and how her
hair actually made her look like a boy. 
She thought, “If my dad ever accomplished something, at least he made me
look enough like a boy.”

Then a figure
appeared in the fountain.  It was a
raven, dark as the night.  Koishi looked
behind her.  She never saw one before,
but when she turned her head, nothing was there.  At first, she thought it flew away but she
looked in the water and there it was.  She
saw again, but this time it wasn’t next to her like in the reflection.

She did something
stupid at that point.  Koishi reached out
her hand and tried to see if she might be hallucinating.  But once she tried to touch the water where
the raven was, it moved to the side.  Koishi
tried to touch it again but she fell in. 
She immediately felt a wall of water form around her.  She knew she was in trouble: she was going to
die or something even worse.  She flailed
her arms violently, trying to get out of the water.

She tried to kick
out, but her leg was stuck.  She wondered
if running away was the best option at this point.  But then she felt something pulled her
towards the water surface.  She began to
fight her way out to the air.  She felt
that she had thirty seconds of air left at best.  She saw the raven and then she tried to reach
for it and the raven then did something amazing.  Its wing stuck out and it pulled her towards
itself.  The raven had saved Koishi.

Koishi had read in
her studies that raven was a sign of death, so she thought she was
hallucinating, but the feeling of water entering her throat made her think
otherwise.  Koishi closed her eyes; she
couldn’t believe what was happening.  She
then felt a sudden rush of air and grabbed the wall of the fountain. 

Koishi then opened
her eyes and saw a field of light green grass and rice patties with tall women
with big sticks in their hands.  Then,
she fell off the fountain onto the ground where she fell asleep for some time
until something woke her up with poking.

“Hello …?  Are you alright . . . ?”  A voice was asking…

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