Please note that the following chapter contains nudity, but no sex. I think I'm still on the right side of the Teen rating, but if there's any complaints, please let me know.

Also, I updated the story summary now that there's something more to talk about, hopefully it will attract a few more readers.

CHAPTER THREE: SHOCK

By the time the two of them were ready for bed, though, Miku wondered if she was in over her head.

The last few hours had done nothing for Miku's sense of cleanliness, so she was grateful for the opportunity to take a bath, but propriety demanded that she give her houseguest the first use. Given that the woman didn't seem unduly dirty herself, she assumed that Luka knew something of bathing... but after showing her the inside of the steam-filled bathroom, and giving her a brief pantomime for what to do, Miku found the foreign woman looking at her with a curious expression... and no sign of any comprehension.

"Um..." Miku closed her eyes and pressed her knuckles to her forehead, frowning as she considered how to explain things better. After a moment, though, she heard a gentle shuffling and the rasp of cloth against skin, and realized that Luka had started disrobing. While Miku was still in the changing room with her! "Oh! I'm sorry, I'll-"

She made the mistake of opening her eyes then, and froze in dumbfounded shock. Apparently Luka hadn't been wearing anything under her outfit, for she already stood there in the nude, holding her ruined dress in both hands with an expression of distaste. Miku could only stare, red-faced, as Luka lightly stepped over to the clothes hamper and delicately deposited the dress therein; now that there was nothing to impede her view, the girl couldn't help but stare at the woman's shapely figure. She didn't move until Luka stepped back past her with a quiet smile.

Miku let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding... then yelped when she felt long fingers plucking at her nightgown, trying to pull it up over her head. "Wha?! Luka, what are you-" She turned to look at the pink-haired woman somewhat indignantly, but stopped at the expression of confusion on Luka's face... almost immediately followed by one of shame, with downcast eyes and folded hands.

"Ignosce insolentiae, regia," said Luka in a soft, hurt tone.

Miku felt like she'd just kicked a puppy, and reached out to touch the woman's bare shoulder reassuringly. "No, it's okay, Luka! You... you thought we were going to bathe together, right? I thought you might be uncomfortable with that, but if not..." To back up her statement, Miku slipped out of her nightgown; she felt quite nervous once she was down to her underwear, and quickly squirmed out of them to move past Luka, slipping inside the bathing room. "It's okay, come on in."

With that miscommunication was cleared up, things went quite a bit better. Luka seemed to be quite comfortable with communal bathing - more so than Miku, who had to avert her eyes frequently when she caught herself staring at the taller woman again. The pink-haired foreigner seemed very curious about the workings of the shower head, and was quite pleased by the scented shampoos and soaps.

Between being distracted by Luka and having almost twice as much hair to wash, Miku was moving much more slowly. She had only just finished rinsing out her hair with a deep sigh when she felt soft, warm hands on her back. Careful not to jump with startlement this time, she glanced back to see Luka washing her back with no sign of embarassment. Miku bit her lower lip, torn between stopping her and just enjoying the sensation; she eventually settled on the latter, relaxing into the soapy lather.

Scrubbing turned to a gentle massage, and the girl hummed in pleasure. "Mmm... don't stop, Luka..." Miku felt her body slowly turn to jelly under practiced hands, and it took some effort to turn when she felt the woman hesitate after a few minutes. Her heart skipped a beat when she realized that Luka was quite close to her, less than a foot away. The blush on Miku's face probably matched the faint pink on Luka's...

"A-ah... that's enough. Thank you..." Miku smiled as brightly as she could manage, still feeling a bit nervous. Luka appeared to understand her intent, though, and nodded with a gentle expression, helping to rinse the girl's body with warm water.

Miku wrung out her hair then, piling it on top of her head as best as she could before turning back to Luka... who was already fully rinsed and testing the heat of the bath. Incongruously, Miku felt a little bit put out. "Don't you want me to wash your back for you, Luka-chan?" At the blank expression she got in return, Miku pantomimed washing her own back, then pointed at Luka with an enthusiastic look.

To her surprise, Luka flushed red and gestured to herself, incredulously. Miku made motions of encouragement, which Luka obeyed, albeit slowly. It made little sense to Miku for the woman to act this way; she was clearly familiar with communal bathing and even helping others to wash, so why did this fluster her so much? She had to learn Luka's language, or vice versa, as soon as possible... it was positively maddening not being able to communicate with her.

Miku lathered up her hands and prepared to apply them gently to Luka's back when she paused, noticing something amiss. "Luka... what happened to your wounds? They're..." She touched one of the purple bruises on Luka's back, which was all that remained of those horrible scratches; any blood had already been washed off, but she'd seen the gouges from the rooftop on Luka's back before heading down to grab her mother for help. After a moment, Miku realized that Luka was looking at her quizzically; with a nervous laugh, Miku placed her hands gingerly on the woman's back. "Never mind! I must've been mistaken. I'm washing your back now, okay?"

Not wanting to be outdone by Luka's incredible skill, Miku did her best, soaping up the woman's back liberally, then scrubbing gently, not wanting to aggravate the bruises that were left. She couldn't find much of Luka's back that was safe, but her shoulders, at least, weren't injured... so she focused her attention there, rubbing and massaging cheerfully. "How's that? Does it feel good?" Miku sensed that even if she didn't know the words, Luka would understand the sentiment... but after a few moments with no response, she paused, leaning over Luka's shoulder. "I'm not hurting you, am I?"

The woman half-turned her head, meeting Miku's eyes with an embarrassed expression. Her cheeks were flushed red, and though her smile seemed a bit weary, the pink-haired foreigner shook her head gently. "Okay... just... signal me somehow if you want me to stop, okay?" Miku kept on with her ministrations, not sure how she felt about the look that Luka had given her. After half a minute, she finally placed the emotion; melancholy. As though Luka was both happy and sad at the same time... but why?

Soon after, Luka reached up with one hand to pat Miku's hand, and she stopped with a sound of acquiescence. The rest of the bath was spent largely in silence... and Miku found herself troubled that that sadness never quite left Luka's face, not even when they settled down to sleep...

"Attention!"

Colonel Sakamoto Miu waved off the formalities with a weary wave of her hand. "Carry on," she muttered, loud enough to be heard... and loud enough for her discontent to be evident to her staff. She strode across the office floor in quick strides, making directly for her office; her adjutant opened the door for her, and she nodded curtly, stepping past in a deft movement. Without hesitation, she removed her coat and held it out to one side; deft hands plucked it from her grasp, and she retreated to the relative serenity of her desk with as much dignity as she could muster.

A heavy sigh escaped her lips as she sunk into the leather upholstery of her chair, making her adjutant pause as the door finished swinging shut. Hanging Miu's coat on the rack by the door, the short-haired young woman made her next destination a cabinet on the opposite end of the room. After a minute or so of tinkering, she closed the cabinet again, placing a small tumbler of scotch on the colonel's desk blotter.

Miu downed half the glass in one swallow, grimacing for a moment before growling out her agitation. "Damned pompous jackass! If it weren't for his connections, I'd cheerfully throw Yuzuki in prison and throw away the key."

"I take it Yuzuki-san was less than helpful again, Colonel?" The blonde at Miu's side smiled faintly, prompting the monochromatic woman to chuckle softly.

"Actually, he was very accommodating. Almost too helpful. So it stands to reason that whatever he's hiding this time, he's taking extra pains to keep it under wraps." Miu rubbed at her left temple as she sipped her drink, feeling her nerves smoothing out with the alcohol. "How is your sister's investigation faring, Anon?"

Hibiki Anon frowned slightly at that, shaking her head. "No luck, I'm afraid. Haneda picked up nothing of interest; Kanon's already headed back here. If you don't mind my asking, Colonel, what exactly are we looking for?"

Miu rubbed her temples again, wincing. "That's part of my headache. According to Yuzuki, we're looking for two females - a woman with long pink hair, and a high school student with even longer teal hair." She glanced back at her adjutant, who bore a confused expression on her face. "I don't get it either... but according to him? The woman is a weapon of some sort. Nothing like this was ever mentioned in his earlier reports, but after the damage I've seen tonight, I can't simply dismiss it out of hand." The colorless woman was interrupted by a sharp knock at her door. "Come in!"

Swiftly the door opened and shut once more, admitting the twin of the adjutant, who stood sharply at attention and saluted her superior officer. "Lieutenant Hibiki Kanon, reporting in, Colonel."

Miu waved it off easily, taking another drink and draining the glass. "At ease, Kanon. I have something new for you to do, but not until you've both been debriefed."

Anon stopped in mid-wave, having given her twin sister a silent greeting. "Wait... me too?"

Kanon groaned at her sister's lack of protocol, but Miu only laughed at the short-haired blonde's response. "Yes. Let me start from the top." The colonel then relayed the details of her conversation with Yuzuki Kamui, along with her personal observations of the scene. "Kanon, I want you to meet up with Yuzuki and the other two archaeologists with him. Debrief them thoroughly, but especially the Spaniards. I have a feeling that if Yuzuki is hiding something, they may have picked up on it. Be sure to get descriptions of the two women, then get in touch with the local police and media outlets; give both descriptions to the police, but limit what you give to the media to just the older woman. Have them describe her as a 'person of interest' who the police are looking to get in contact with."

The pony-tailed blonde nodded in response, finishing her note taking with the click of a pen. Miu turned to the other sister. "Anon, I need you to put your research skills to work. Dig up everything you can find about Yuzuki's past projects - academic, sponsored, everything. See if you can find some common threads; find out everything you can about it."

"Yes, Colonel." Anon frowned with worry, cocking her head to one side. "Sir? Do you really think we're dealing with an ancient weapon of some sort?"

Miu went to take another drink, noting that her glass was empty. With a sigh, she held it out to Anon, who took it delicately and set it back on the sideboard. "I honestly don't know, Anon... but after seeing what happened at Shinonome tonight, I don't want to take any chances." She glanced back up at her adjutant for a moment, eyes shadowed. "The scariest part isn't the damage that was done, but the implication that whatever caused it is acting on its own, and may well be hostile towards us. I don't like our odds of beating an unknown like that."

The two sisters glanced at each other with muted alarm; though they hadn't served the Colonel for that long, they both knew her to be intimidating, courageous, and ruthless in the pursuit of her duty. For her to speak of being afraid of this supposed weapon... After a pause, Kanon cleared her throat delicately. "Pardon my asking, Colonel, but what will you be doing next?"

"I'm going to bed," Miu answered tiredly, to the obvious relief of her underlings. "The last thing you two need is me helping you right now, when I'm in a foul mood. Report back to me by 1600h tomorrow."

Late Friday morning, Miku awoke to the sound of her phone vibrating like mad. With a grumble, she reached for the device perched on her nightstand, peering at the display through bleary eyes. It took her a moment to realize that she wasn't seeing things, and it really was half past nine on a school day. She would have panicked if a small corner of her brain hadn't recalled that the school was shut down today... though for a moment, she couldn't remember WHY. It would come to her, though.

Also, she found a dozen text messages from Gumi, along with two missed calls. Groggily she scrolled through the messages, perplexed by the rapid increase in panic through her messages. "What the heck? Why is she so freaked-"

At that point, something - or rather some-ONE - in the bed with her shifted, making Miku freeze in alarm. Looking to her left, she saw Luka snoozing away with her back to the wall, facing Miku. She was struck by the sudden thought that, with all of her troubles having fled with sleep, Luka looked angelically gorgeous...

"Right." With all the events of the previous night rushing back to her (along with the realization that it wasn't just a dream), Miku ignored her burning cheeks and rapidly tapped out a reply to Gumi. 'I'm OK, will explain but call me later, not now', she typed, pushing the Send button and setting the phone aside. After stealing another look at the beautiful woman sleeping next to her, Miku inched carefully out of bed, shoving her feet into her slippers and stealing away into the front room in her pyjamas to take a look at the morning news.

It wasn't good, not one bit. Not only was her flash-frozen school the favourite topic of conversation on nearly every channel with a talk show, but it seemed as though the police were on the lookout for 'a woman with long pink hair', and were even offering a reward for information. The student groaned as she heard this, rubbing her face anxiously; as long as Luka stayed indoors (and away from the windows), she'd probably be okay, but it felt cruel to Miku to do that to her when she'd been cooped up in that ruin for who-knew-HOW-many years.

"Good morning, Miku-chan," her mother mumbled, punctuating her statement with a broad yawn as she slumped into the kitchen; Miku returned the greeting distractedly as Prima filled a kettle with water and set it on the stove to boil. "How's our wanted houseguest doing?"

"Sleeping like a baby... and I know what you're going to say, Mom. I still don't want to give her up to the police. They're probably working with that purple-haired jerk."

Prima waved off the statement negligently. "Don't worry, I'm not going to make you. I don't know what she's going to do, though... that hair of hers is pretty distinctive."

Miku frowned thoughtfully for a moment before shrugging. "I'll ask Gumi; she's better at makeovers than I am. Maybe hair dye; her hair is light enough that a dark colour could work, and with any luck, Luka's hair will be less resistant to colouring than ours."

Prima smiled apologetically, patting her daughter's clasped hands. "I did warn you about that, the one time you tried to dye it black."

"I know..." Miku groaned again, this time with faded embarrassment. In her first year, ashamed of all the negative attention she was getting from her classmates and teachers due to her natural turquoise hair, she'd desperately tried to dye it jet black. It seemed to work fine... up until an afternoon rainstorm that she was caught in washed half of the dye out, ruining her uniform and humiliating her in front of her gym class. It worked out in the end, though, thanks to Gumi; she had followed the distraught Miku into the equipment shed and not only helped to rinse the rest of the unset dye out of her hair, but reassured her that some people, at least, liked her unusual hair colour.

That wasn't the last of it, though. The very next day, Gumi showed up in class with her natural brown hair dyed the same vibrant shade of green as her eyes, and proclaimed solidarity with her 'best friend Miku', challenging anyone who wanted to bother Miku about her hair into needing to deal with her as well. Soon enough, Miku and Gumi became best friends for real... and some months later, even closer than that.

The memories caught Miku off-guard for a moment, bringing a fond smile to her face. While it didn't quite work out in the end - they just felt more comfortable together as friends rather than as lovers - they still remained very close. There was no one Miku trusted more.

More importantly, it was through that experimental relationship that each of them learned something about themselves. Gumi, who had crushed on both guys and girls before, confirmed that she was bisexual and not just attracted to girls aesthetically; Miku, on the other hand - who before then had simply assumed she was supposed to be interested in boys because that was the normal thing for girls - discovered a much stronger attraction to women. She hadn't been joking with her mother the previous night; since dating Gumi, she couldn't look at a male romantically any longer. Girls and women were far, far more appealing to her.

Her mother's voice jostled her out of her reverie, along with the arrival of a shy pink-haired woman. "Good morning, Luka-chan. How are you feeling?"

Luka - who was wearing Miku's housecoat since none of her nightclothes would have fit the taller, bustier woman - could only smile wearily and shrug her shoulders. Prima looked embarrassed for a moment as she poured three cups of tea; Miku must have been distracted for quite a while. "Oh, right. You can't speak Japanese..."

"I hope to fix that today, at least a little," said Miku, reaching for one of the cups needfully. She took a quick sip to jump-start her brain, then reached for the other cup to offer to Luka... but paused when she saw that the woman's attention wasn't on either her or her mother, but on the babbling, rapidly-shifting images on the television screen.

It was almost comical in a way; Luka's expression was alternating between shock and amazement at the scintillating colours on the screen. After approaching the television to get a better look, she looked towards Miku and pointed, cocking her head quizzically. That, at least, was obvious.

"That's a television. It's like... uh..." Miku tried to figure out how to explain television without a common frame of reference, and resorted to an inadequate metaphor. She picked up a nearby book - one of her mother's romance novels, she noticed - and gestured to it, then to her eyes and ears, then the television set. "It's like a book you can see and hear. I know that's not really accurate, but that's the best I can do for now."

Luka looked back towads the television, shaking her head. "Mirabilis," she said in a soft whisper, and Miku couldn't help but grin at the woman's awed expression

"Isn't it? Oh!" With a snap of her fingers, Miku turned back to her mother. "Mom, do you still have those picture books Aoki and I read when we were really little?"

Prima considered the question for a moment, sipping at her tea. "I think so. I always meant to donate them to a charity or daycare after you two outgrew them, but I never quite had the time to look for one. They're probably down in basement storage, though."

"That's fine, I can find them," Miku replied, nodding gratefully. "I'll have to start there... Luka's an adult and she seems pretty smart, but I have to help her to understand what it is I want to do before I give her the more complicated stuff. Once she realizes what I'm teaching her... well, hopefully she's good at learning languages."

"Hmm." Prima nodded lightly, and rummaged in a drawer for a moment, coming up with a key on a novelty fob. "Here's the key to the storage closet, then. You go ahead, I'll keep an eye on Luka for you."

"Thanks, Mom... hey, where's Aoki? Already at school?"

Miku's mother rolled her eyes. "Yes, and sullen as everything. 'Miku-nee doesn't have to go to school, why should I?' She was going to skip morning classes until I shooed her out."

Miku couldn't keep the triumphant look out of her eyes as she patted her mother stoically on her shoulder. "You did good, Mom. I'll be right back, okay?"

"... avis."

"Bird."

"... buh-reed?"

"Close! Not so drawn out, though. Like this." Miku pinched her lips together, to show how they moved when she sounded out the syllables. "Bir-d. Now you try."

Luka's brow knitted with concentration, and after a moment, she made a second attempt. "Bur-dah."

"Good! Alright, now this one is..."

"Tigris."

"Close. That's a cat. Ca-t."

"... ka... ka-tah."

Miku smiled hopefully. Luka did easily determine what Miku had intended to do with the colourful cardboard books, and seemed as eager to learn as Miku was to teach. The chief problem seemed to be with pronounciation; whatever language it was that Luka spoke, the phonemes were so radically different from those of Japanese that Luka had great difficulty matching Miku's pronounciation on the first try. Once she had it down, though, her recall was impeccable. Vocabulary first... then she'd try stringing words together into sentences. Grammar was going to be interesting to teach...

Turning the page, Luka cocked her head in puzzlement at the creature depicted there; she pointed to it, showing it to Miku, who peered at the book for a moment before looking back at Luka with an equally confused expression... albeit for different reasons.

"That's a cow. C-o-w. You haven't seen one before? I was sure they'd domesticated them that far back... um... okay, hold on a second." Miku cleared her throat, then made a low-pitched, lowing sound as close to a cow as she was familiar with. "Moo~"

Luka's response was one of surprise, followed by poorly-stifled laughter; Miku joined her moments later, hardly embarrassed at all. In fact, she was just happy to be able to make the pink-haired woman laugh. "I was worried you'd never laugh, Luka... your voice is wonderful."

The tall foreign woman rubbed tears from her eyes and smiled brightly at Miku. "Taurus!" she said triumphantly, then tilted her head and pointed at her temples. It took Miku a moment to figure out what she was referring to.

"The horns? Oh. Not all breeds of cows have horns, but I guess you aren't familiar with the ones that don't." She started to puzzle out how to explain that to Luka when a light knock came at her door, and her mother poked her head in.

Prima smiled brightly at the two girls. "You two sound like you're having fun. Mind if I interrupt you for lunch?"

"Not at all! All this talking about cows is making me hungry anyway. Come on, Luka. Lunch time." She mimed eating something, and Luka quickly got the hint, getting up from the bed where the two had been seated.

Miku hadn't expected anything fancy for lunch, so it was with some surprise that she arrived to find a trio of bowls set out on the table. "Mom! You didn't have to go to all this trouble! And tekkadon? Isn't that awful fancy for lunch?"

Prima simply chuckled as she sat down, gesturing for her daughter and their house-guest to do the same. "Fancy, perhaps, but simple enough to make. Besides, after breakfast, we need to make certain that Luka-chan can adapt to Japanese eating customs as well. It will help her to blend in better."

Miku couldn't argue the point; she'd made it back from the downstairs storage room with a load of books to find her mother struggling to explain how to eat omurice to the puzzled pinkette. Miku solved the problem by demonstrating with the spoon and her own plate, and Luka was able to follow her example quite readily... but it was just one more thing that marked Luka as not only a foreigner, but woefully out of her element. What was it she'd read the other night? The ancient Romans, who were arguably the civilization most like the supposedly mythological Atlanteans, had spoons and knives, but no forks; they tended to eat with their hands. That wouldn't work very well with piping-hot omelette... and on seeing that her mother had set out chopsticks for lunch, she knew it wouldn't do well at all for slippery marinated tuna.

"Luka," said Miku to get the woman's attention; as soon as she had it, she held up her thumb and forefinger, pinching them together repeatedly. Then, picking up her chopsticks, she performed the same action with the lacquered 'fingers' she held. Luka nodded in understanding... though actually succeeding at using the chopsticks was significantly more difficult. By the time an amused Prima was half done her meal, Miku had only barely started on hers, and Luka had yet to successfully bring a piece of meat to her mouth.

Shaking her head hard enough that her pigtails shook, Miku let out a light sigh as Luka fumbled for the seventh time. The pinkette wore a frustrated expression, and looked imploringly at Miku, holding her hands apart. "Me remanse virim, regia," Luka whimpered in a voice on the verge of breaking, and the teal-haired student could no more ignore that tone that tugged at her heartstrings than she could a crying kitten.

"Shh, it's okay, Luka... chopsticks are hard to get the hang of. So... here." Miku slid her chair around the table, sitting next to Luka, and deftly picked up one of the red chunks of tuna from Luka's bowl. She held it up in front of Luka's face with a smile. "Say 'ah~'!"

Prima had to stifle a fit of giggles at the mortified expression on Luka's face; to the older woman's credit, though, she opened her mouth and accepted the morsel with as much dignity as she could muster. Chewing thoughtfully, her expression went through several shifts - first to surprise, then delight, and finally to bliss, as she let out a tiny moan of pleasure... one which flatly shocked Miku into dropping the second piece of tuna she'd fished out of the bowl. "You like that?" Miku blurted out, her cheeks turning pink at her irreverent thoughts on how lewd Luka's voice had sounded just then.

"Mm! Quae haec est?" The pink-haired woman gestured to the marinated tuna with sparkling eyes and a wide smile.

"Ah... tuna! Tu-na. Well, the dish is called tekkadon, but-"

"Tuna!" Luka cried out gaily at the name, and struggled to grab another piece on her own. It seemed that her eagerness to taste the salty-sweet meat again gave her plenty of motivation... and though she still had several fumbles and even resorted to spearing the meat with her chopsticks on occasion (to Miku's embarrassment, and Prima's amusement), she rapidly reduced the quantity of tuna in the bowl.

"Well, at least we don't have to wonder what her favourite food is going to be." Miku started in on the rice at the bottom of the bowl with a happy smile; Luka's face was alight with pleasure, and between that and her earlier laughter, Miku was starting to feel good about the woman's chances. Certainly it would take her some time to adapt... but Miku would be able to help her quite a bit, it seemed.

Phew. This chapter took forever. My birthday would seem to be the PERFECT day to post this, right? Once again, thanks to everyone for your kind and supportive words, and thank you for sticking with this story in spite of the lengthy wait between chapters. Specific questions are addressed below:

[Passerby-A]: I concede, I was hoping to be able to put out more frequent updates, but the reality is that I rarely have means, motivation, and opportunity to write all at the same time. Witness this update, six months later with an even smaller word count! Though considering that my original plan for this chapter was to cover three days, not just one, this may be better in the long run.

As for Kamui's use of daimone, note that he only used the word in Atlantean. The classical definition of daimone, from Greek mythology, is one of lesser deities or guiding spirits - mostly benign, rarely malevolent. It was only in later days that the word took on its more menacing traits. Keep this in mind throughout the story.

[chaosrin]: I've tried to show some of Luka's upbringing by way of her familiarity - or lack thereof - with certain things, but so far the differences shown are subtle. This is partly for good reasons that won't be clear until later, and partly because Luka can't communicate her own expectations yet!

Also, I'm making it a point to showcase not merely international Vocaloids, but much more obscure ones as well. I think every single named character so far is a Vocaloid... and as far as I've planned, that will continue. If there's anyone who you folks don't recognize, though, please let me know!

(Incidentally, Vocaloids aren't the only reference I've made in the series. The school itself is a rather big reference to one of the inspirations for this story, but I'll leave that up to you guys to figure out.)

[Scarlet Curls]: I would never hold up my writing technique as something worth imitating, but in general my chapters don't undergo large-scale rewrites. Rather, since I frequently take long breaks between writing sessions, I re-read everything I wrote previously to determine where I left off... and in the process, find places where I can tune things.

Some other thoughts on this chapter:

* The chapter title is derived from 'culture shock', which Luka is definitely suffering from.

* It's surprisingly difficult to write about someone teaching a language that the text isn't actually written in. Most of the Japanese words that Miku was trying to teach in this scene (tori, neko, meushi, and toro) have more syllables than their English equivalents (bird, cat, cow, and tuna), thus the awkward spacing. I hope I got the point across all the same.

* Tekkadon (tuna bowl) is a type of donburi (rice bowl) which features chunks of raw tuna marinated in soy sauce, mirin, and sake, served atop warm white rice, and sprinkled with chopped scallions, shredded nori (dried seaweed), and roasted sesame seeds.

Finally, our Atlantean-to-English glossary for this chapter:

Ignosce insolentiae - Forgive my impertinence

Mirabilis - Miraculous or amazing

Avis - Bird

Tigris - Tiger

Taurus - Bull

Me remanse virim - I am helpless

Quae haec est? - What is this?