Disclaimer: I own Alana, and my odd ideas about a "Rift." As far as I know I own Silver Falls. The song "Hikari no Naka e" is a real Japanese song composed by Yoko Kanno and sung by Maaya Sakamoto. Everything else is TV Tokyo's.

Rating: PG, for some mature themes and minor swearing

Other: I use everyone's Japanese names, because it fit the story and sometimes I get tired of writing Meowth's accent. (hehe) For those of you who don't know...

Musashi - Jessie
Kojiro - James
Nyasu - Meowth
Sakaki - Giovanni

I also use some Japanese words here and there, but it's nothing you need to know, and I'll post a little glossary at the end of each chapter for the curious.

The Rift

Track One: Ano Kirei na Hi ni...
-On That Beautiful Day...-

Musashi sat back on her sleeping bag, looking out through the window of the small cabin she and her partners currently shared. The sun was peeking through the bare boughs of the winter trees, making the spindly branches seem almost majestic; small tufts of clouds, cotton balls on the breeze, flitted across the sky; while several Onisuzume – Spearows – floated lazily through the air, on the lookout for an easy meal.

The Rocket member watched the serene beauty of the Johto Region through half-closed lids and decided she wanted to take a blow-torch to the entire thing. The sun was right in her eyes, the tree branches were scratching the top of the cabin, and Onisuzume had never been very friendly towards her. "It really would be a beautiful day," she muttered to herself, "if only I wasn't in such a bad mood."

She and Kojiro had gotten into one of their infamous fights. It wasn't anything unusual, really, but their bickering that day had been particularly heated.

"We need to get a move on and find that Jari-boy and his friends," Musashi had remarked, opening up her bag to pack her things back in.

"Why?" Kojiro wondered drearily, arms folded across the window ledge as he stared out at the clear spring sky. "We'll only get ourselves beaten up and 'blasted off' again." He'd sighed. "Sometimes I think we were destined to be failures."

"Oh, shut up," Musashi snapped. She didn't like thinking about their list of unsuccessful missions, and when Kojiro said that sort of thing they came to mind all too clearly. "That's half our problem: as long as we think pessimistically we'll never do anything right. You have to say to yourself, 'Today is the day we catch Pikachu and get our raise.'"

Most of the time their spats would end there, but today Kojiro turned to stare at her, something between confusion and frustration etched across his face. "How long have we been thinking that way, Musashi? Three years? Four? All we've got to show for it are a lot of old injuries and some nice new ones to match them."

"What did I just say?" Musashi whirled on her friend, bracing herself for a fight. "Persistence pays, and if we keep at it we're bound to do something right."

Kojiro snorted. "Your delusions of grandeur are nice, but they don't keep clothes on our back or food in our stomachs."

"You're one to talk! Who's the one who always thinks up the plans while her partners are busy daydreaming about things we could be having?"

"I do just as much work as you do - if not more - and you know it!"

"All you ever do is lose our money on rip-off 'bargains' and collect your stupid bottle caps!"

"I've only done that twice! You're the one who's constantly wasting our paychecks on spur-of-the-moment shopping sprees and machines that don't even work! And I only collect caps as a hobby, for some fun! Don't I deserve a little happiness in this otherwise stupid and meaningless job?"

"This job is not stupid or meaningless!" Musashi argued, face flushing at his jab against her beloved gang. "My mother devoted herself to Rocket Dan! Are you calling her life stupid and meaningless?"

"Maybe I am. I'm sick of this stupid gang!"

"Yeah? Well I'm sick of you!"

Kojiro's face softened for a moment into a look of hurt, but then the sorrow passed and his eyes narrowed defiantly. "Fine. Have fun getting blasted off without me, then."

And with that he had turned on his heel and slammed the door to their bedroom, leaving Musashi alone.

Now, thinking back to that bitter argument, she turned her eyes upward to the ceiling of the one-bedroom cabin and sighed. "Maybe I shouldn't have said that... but he had no right to insult my mother, either! I'm glad I hurt his feelings, yeah, and I hope he's out there crying about it, too. He deserved it, after all." Even as she said it she knew she didn't mean it, but it made her nagging conscience feel better.

Closing her eyes to the sunlight drifting through the window and rolling over onto her stomach, Musashi soon dozed fitfully, trying to ignore the guilt that gnawed away at her stomach.

xxx

She awoke a couple hours later, groggily pushing herself into a sitting position and shading her eyes from the sunlight, which now poured directly into her window. Musashi stood and stretched, feeling much better after her nap.

"Kojiro?" she called, opening the door to the bedroom. "You ready to get started? I'm not mad anymore."

Nyasu was the only one to greet her, though, glancing up from a newspaper splayed out across the kitchen table. Seeing things like that, sometimes Musashi thought he was more human than she was. "Kojiro isn't here. He went to the mall about ten minutes ago."

"What for? Our supplies are as stocked as we can get them on our current budget."

The cat shrugged. "When I asked him he said, 'To waste our money on some worthless rip-off bargains.' What d'you think he meant by that?"

Musashi sighed. "Only ten minutes ago?" He nodded and she rubbed at her temples. "Guess he's still mad at me, then. We had a fight earlier. Did he take the jeep?"

"Nyah, he took the motorbike."

Musashi went to the back room to throw on something other than her Rocket Dan uniform – no reason to get arrested, after all. "Then I'd better go find him. We need to get going, and if he really does spend the rest of our money we'll be in a lot of trouble."

"Yana kanjii," Nyasu muttered at the thought. "Well, good luck. I'll hold down the fort."

"Sure," she agreed with a backwards wave of her hand. "See you in a few."

Musashi grabbed the keys and her wallet, hopped into the jeep, and set off down the dirt road that led from their cabin to the highway. 'That motorcycle we picked up is a real piece of junk, it won't be able to go nearly as fast as a car,' she mused to herself. 'And the mall is about twenty minutes away from our hideout... maybe I'll catch him before he even gets in! That'd make my job a lot easier.'

She pulled off the dirt road about five minutes later, taking a side street up to the sweeping entrance ramp until finally she pulled into the traffic of the main road to the city. She hadn't gone very far before blinking police lights, traffic jams, and a roadblock pulled her to an undignified halt. "Hey! What's the holdup?"

Impatient as ever, the Rocket pulled her jeep over to the side and jumped out. She weaved her way through the backed-up traffic and towards the roadblock, eyes widening as the scene came into focus. It looked like there'd been an accident with an awful lot of vehicles: a truck sat, tipped over on the side of the road, while cars, crushed to the point that they didn't even look like cars, lay scattered down the sloping hill and on the road itself. Her eyes whipped over the accident, horrified at the thought that Kojiro might have gotten caught up in this.

Ignoring the blockade and picking her way through the ambulances and police cars, Musashi found a police officer barking out orders to a few other officers at the scene. Ever the skilled liar, she came to attention in front of him. "Sir! What happened here?"

The man turned on her, a haggard look in his eye that said he didn't have time for questions. "The hell're you? The ambulances finally get here?" He looked her up and down and shook his head. "No, never mind. I don't have time to deal with civil–"

"I'm an officer, sir," Musashi said smoothly. "Off-duty. I saw the blockade and came to see if I could help. What's going on?"

She'd gambled on him being too over-worked to ask for identification. Her bet paid off as he turned back to the scene and sighed. "Some idiot slammed into that truck. The truck went out of control – the driver'd just gotten his license, plus the roads are slick this time of year – and crashed into a couple of other cars. A damned domino effect. What a mess. We just got here ourselves."

"What're we looking at, vehicle-wise?"

"Hm," he paused to tic them off on his fingers. "The truck, four, no, five cars... oh, yeah, and some poor guy on a motorcycle – whoa, you okay? Something wrong?"

"Where's Ko - I mean, the person on the motorcycle?" Musashi demanded.

The officer pointed down the hill. "He got flung pretty far off the road - down there, behind the truck. Why? Sound like someone you know?"

"No," she murmured. "I just, uh, know some first-aid, and I figured he'd be the one who'd need it the most, so…"

Still muttering excuses, she whirled and headed for the slope, hopping the barrier and picking her way down the hill. She could hear the officer calling out to her, but he had too much to do to chase after her, and a moment later his calls trailed away. If he remembered her when the paramedics arrived, she might be in trouble, but she had time for now, at least.

Musashi made her way between other vehicles, ignoring calls from police officers and the just-arriving medics. She kept her eyes on the ground and away from the cars, afraid of something she might see. Skirting a little blue sports car by a good ten feet - she could see some people inside, and they didn't look good - Musashi finally spotted a hunk of metal and twisted rubber, smaller than the rest, smoking on its side almost at the bottom of the scanned the area for her partner, wondering if he'd been thrown off as far as the forest...

There! Her sharp eyes caught a flash of hair peeking up from a nearby ditch, almost hidden by vegetation and rocks. Scrambling down the hill and ignoring the cuts and bruises inflicted on both hands and knees, Musashi slid to a stop next to her partner.

She heaved out a deep sigh, relieved to see his chest rising and falling steadily, though his breathing came out ragged, as if something was caught in his throat. As her eyes roved over his battered body, she winced, biting back a cry of concern at the long gash ripping across his forehead, staining his hair a deep red. She ripped off part of her shirt and gingerly dabbed at the blood, not wanting to hurt him.

"I can't believe they didn't even try to patch him up a little," she hissed to herself, still taking in his broken appearance. One arm lay draped across his midriff, hand pressed tightly to his stomach. Musashi could see blood seeping around the edges but didn't dare lift up his shirt to find out how bad it was. Trailing at last to his lower body, she had to fight back a gag. Were legs allowed to bend in that direction?

"H-hey, Koji? Kojiro?"

One green eye opened halfway, and a thick, confused murmur broke from the young man's throat. "Musa?"

"Hey, how are you? You gonna be good, right? Hang on for a second, I'll go get one of those medics and we'll get you to the hospital. Nice idea, ne, ne?" She realized she was babbling like a little kid, but couldn't seem to stop. "Geez, I wonder why no one's come yet?"

Musashi pressed her hands to the ground, ready to push herself into a standing position, but Kojiro reached out with his free arm and grabbed at her sleeve, catching her with what must have been his last reserves of strength. "They won't come."

"Eh?" she whirled back to face him, eyes wide and frantic. "Of course they'll come, Kojiro! I'll just go remind them that you're here, and—"

"No. You don't… you don't understand," he explained, pausing every so often to rasp in a wet-sounding breath of air. "Someone… came around to everyone, you know, to see who was alive and…. who wasn't… and since there's so many… so many people, they have to get the ones who have a chance… first, then they come back… for the dead or… dying… after that."

"Yeah, okay, but, but why haven't they gotten to you yet?"

"He gave me something for the pain, and…"

She talked over him, forcing anger so she wouldn't have to feel something much worse. "Probably 'cause you're behind the truck, they forgot about you, right? The nerve, well, I'll go find someone and—"

"…then he just said he was sorry and walked away."

Musashi sat down hard beside him, feeling something cold drop into her stomach. "He… he what?"

"It's a bad idea... getting into a wreck while riding… something like that." He waved a tired hand in the direction of the motorcycle. "Skidding into the truck… wasn't fatal… even taking a roll down this hill… wouldn't have killed me... it was when I got flung off and… hit that rock," he gestured towards a jagged piece of stone jutting up from the ground just a few feet away, "that I really… messed myself up."

"But they can fix it, right?"

"I think it's… whatever happened to my stomach… that got me," Kojiro said. "Even if they'd gotten me to a hospital… the moment it happened..."

He choked on his words for a moment, struggled to find his breath, then finally turned his head to the side and coughed raggedly. In a daze, Musashi reached down with her stained scrap of shirt to wipe the blood from his mouth. His lower lip trembled as she did. "He just walked away, Musa…"

"Well, I won't," she snapped. "I'll fix you myself if I have to. What can we...?" she trailed off, remembering the bag that she'd brought from the cabin, still looped across her shoulders. Musashi slung it off and dug around until she produced a bottle of water. "Want some?"

He nodded and Musashi reached behind him with one hand, gently propping his head up in her lap while she held the bottle to his lips. Kojiro managed to choke down a few small swallows, then looked up to her, smiling weakly. "Thanks, Musa. I'm glad you're here. I couldn't have stood it… being alone, when I—"

"Yeah, right, no problem," she interrupted, blinking her eyes hurriedly. "Does it… does it really hurt?"

"A little, but… it's not as bad as it was, at first. Whatever he gave me helped."

"Are you all right?"

For a second she saw true terror in his pale face. "I'm a little scared," he admitted.

Musashi nodded. "Is there anything I can do? To – to help, or something?"

His reply came out in a frightened, weak whisper. "Do you think you could just hold my hand?"

Musashi's fingers curled around his own, giving them a quick, reassuring squeeze. He closed his eyes tightly, fighting for another deep, bubbling breath, then opened them again, though he couldn't meet her gaze this time.

"I lied," he said after a moment, and Musashi felt her insides twist into a knot at the quavering sound on the edge of his voice, and the faint line of tears rimming his eyes. "I'm really scared. I want to be tough but I can't when I'm this terrified."

"I know," she said, forcing strength into a voice that wanted to break. "I'm here though, so you don't have to be tough. I'll be the strong one, Koji-chan."

He smiled a little. "You haven't called me that since… we were kids." Kojiro's half-closed eyes turned upwards, watching the wisps of clouds dart in and out of the tree branches. "You know… it really is a beautiful day."

Musashi followed his gaze into the sky, nodding in silent agreement. Thinking back to their fight from earlier, she felt a sudden, almost overwhelming urge to blurt out an apology, to try and make things better in these last, awful moments. She tried to get the words out, but every attempt got caught in her throat, so that she knew she couldn't possibly speak without crying.

And if she started crying, then Kojiro was going to lose it. She had to be the tough one, which meant no tears – and without tears there could be no words, no apologies or final farewells, not even an "It'll be all right." So there was nothing.

Musashi blinked and came back to reality with a jerk as she felt the fingers grasped in hers suddenly weaken their hold. "Kojiro?" she called, glancing back down into her friend's clouded, half-open eyes and squeezing at his limp hand. "Koji—" She stopped short, the words stuck in her throat as she realized that his skin had grown too pale, his body too limp beneath her.

"No."

She dropped her hands from his and grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him in a panic and shouting out his name again and again, voice growing more frightened and desperate with each call. But no matter what she said or did he offered her no answer, no smile, not even a twitch of understanding.

And then, finally, with their foreheads pressed together, hers drenched with sweat and his with blood, she stared into those clouded, half-open eyes, and realized with a sharp twist of her stomach that he wasn't looking at her. He wasn't looking at anything.

Musashi pushed herself away from the body, clapping a hand to her mouth as she felt her insides heave upwards. She fought to keep herself from retching, instead pounding a hand into the ground and swearing between heaving, panicked breaths. Her eyes filled with tears and she stopped suddenly, fists clenching at her sides.

'No,' some stubborn part of her remembered. 'You can't cry. You've got to be the strong one, Musashi.'

She blinked hurriedly. That was right. She couldn't break down. She'd promised Kojiro. She glanced back towards him, hands gentle as she reached forward to slowly close his dead eyes to the brilliant blue sky, to the bright sun, and to the tight-lipped, trembling young woman bent over him, dry-eyed until the very end.

xxx

"Are you sure you want to do this, Musashi?" Nyasu asked for the twelfth time.

A week had passed since the small funeral of their partner and friend. Musashi and Nyasu sat at a table in the local library, a 3-D globe of the earth on the computer screen before them.

Musashi didn't even glance at her companion. "I'm sure."

"Positive? 'Cause if you don't really want to then we don't have to..."

"Just hit the button, Nyasu," she interrupted, though not in her usual snappish way. Her tired eyes met his for a moment, and the cat knew her mind had been made up. There was no use trying to argue with Musashi, especially at a time like this.

Nyasu clicked the mouse once and the globe began spinning on the screen. "Now," he said more to himself than his friend, clicking randomly at a spot. The globe stopped immediately, highlighting the spot he had clicked with a bright red dot. "Looks like it landed somewhere overseas. In America."

"America?" Musashi repeated, turning to look over his shoulder at the screen.

"Hai," he agreed, zooming in on the exact spot. "Stroke of luck, really. English is the only other language I know well enough to get around..." He read the name of the town closest to where the highlight was. "Silver Falls, Colorado." He clicked for a description. "A small mountain town with a rich historical past and many turn-of-the-century homes." Nyasu managed a chuckle. "No waterfalls, though."

Musashi nodded. "Then that's that."

"Are you sure you want to do this...?"

She stood, heading for the exit. "Come on, Nyasu. The hardest part comes next."

"Yana kanjii," he muttered, exiting the program and padding after his friend.

xxx

Sakaki looked down at the papers Musashi had pushed in front of him. "What's this?"

"My resignation, Boss."

He raised an eyebrow. "Resignation?"

She nodded, keeping her eyes on the floor. "Yes, Boss. I'm sorry, but Nyasu and I are quitting the team."

"This is sudden."

"So was Kojiro's death," Musashi said quietly.

Sakaki scowled, but nodded in understanding. "I thought that might be it. There's nothing worse than seeing a Team member... well..." He coughed, unsure how to continue, so instead just said, "Do you know what you'll be doing, now?"

"Not exactly, Boss. Not at all, actually," she admitted. "I suppose once we get to our destination I'll find a job."

"Where will you go?"

"Silver Falls, Colorado, in America. Nyasu... we sort of let chance decide," Musashi explained.

Sakaki's eyes widened. "If it's a matter of finding work in the area, then I'm not opposed to—"

She shook her head quickly. "Thank you for your kindness, Boss, but it's nothing like that. I just... I need some time to myself, to... to start over. And to do that, I need to go someplace where my record isn't going to haunt me. Someplace where nobody's even heard of Rocket Dan."

'Or Kojiro,' Sakaki finished silently to himself. "I hate to see you go," he said, though they all knew it was a lie, "but if that's your choice then there's nothing left to say." He coughed awkwardly. "Do you need anything? Is there something I can do to help? As members of my organization, it's only fair that I ask, of course."

Nyasu at last spoke up. "Actually, Boss Rocket, I was wondering if... well..." he rubbed his paws together timidly. "Silver Falls is a long distance, and traveling isn't cheap... I'd hate to ask too much of you, sir, but if we could get one last paycheck, perhaps, or... er…"

Sakaki grunted unhappily. "Money, is it?" They nodded miserably. "A donation to a team that's never put a yen in my pocket?" They nodded again, even more miserably than before. Sakaki scowled and opened his mouth for a strong reply, but stopped at the last moment. He knew the past week had been hard on them, and this decision to leave home would be even harder. And even if they had been essentially incompetent, they hadn't exactly hurt the organization, either. No. They didn't deserve to have another door slammed in their faces. "Very well. How much do you need?"

Musashi jerked up like she'd been prodded with a hot poker. "Eh?"

"How much do you need?" he repeated. "I'd say airfare plus a bus, and your first month's rent…" He flipped open his checkbook and scribbled out an appropriate sum, flashing it at the two Rockets. "Will that suffice?"

Her eyes widened, and for the first time since Kojiro's death she actually looked hopeful again. "That would be amazing! Thank you so much! But why—?"

"I'm not heartless, you know," he snapped, ripping out the check and shoving it into her hands. "And it isn't as if I can't earn this kind of money back again in another day."

"Of course, Boss. I really can't thank you enough."

He waved her away, watching as both she and Nyasu bowed low before turning to exit the room. At the last moment he frowned and called after her, "Oh, and Musashi?"

She glanced back at him. "Boss?"

He hesitated; it'd been a while since he'd felt sympathy. "I'm sorry for your loss. Kojiro was a good man. Too good for this organization, frankly. It's a shame the world had to lose him."

"Not so much the world as I," she whispered. "Thank you again, Boss. I won't forget this. If I can ever pay you back..."

He cut her off with another sharp scowl. "You just happened to come in on a particularly good day. Best of luck, Musashi."

She bowed again and hurried out of the door, closing it with a soft click behind her. Nyasu sighed. "That's it, then."

Musashi looked around at the inner courtyard of the Rocket Dan Boss' home – the headquarters she'd known for so long... but no, she thought with a shake of her head. It was just a building. Just another cold, meaningless building. It meant nothing without a partner, without Kojiro. Her eyes stung suddenly with tears.

Nyasu pressed a paw to her leg. "Musashi..."

She squared her shoulders. She had to be strong. She'd promised him. "Come on, Nyasu. We have a flight to book."

xxx

Where am I? I can't see anything. It's so dark, are my eyes even open? Yes, they must be; there's a pinion of light in the distance, but it's so small it could be my imagination. It doesn't seem like a dream. Where am I? Could it be the hospital, did they manage to save me? No, that can't be it. There's no pain. That's a plus, anyway. It hurt so bad, not that I could tell Musashi that and let her worry... Musashi! Where's Musashi? Am I sleeping while she's so concerned about me? Can I wake up? Is it a dream? Where is she? Where am I?

Don't you know?

Huh? Know what? Who're you? Where are you? And where am I?

You don't know, then? Strange, can't you remember?

I remember a crash. I remember pain, unbearable pain. And fear. And I remember Musashi, and her warm hand. It gave me courage. I remember a haze. Then numbness. Now this... blackness. Where am I?

You are in the place that is no place at all. A land where time stands still, the day never comes, yet no stars or moon shine. You are in the world between worlds, the Bridge between lands. In short, you are in what is called The Rift.

The Rift? What's that? And what are you?

The Rift is the place between Life and Death. I am its Keeper, the Overseer of this blank space

Why can't I see you? It's pretty unsettling, talking to a voice without an owner. Oh, there you are. Funny, but you look like a human. I suppose I always thought Divine Beings would seem different

I have no real shape. I merely took this form because I knew it would be most comforting for you. Now, do you understand what is going on? No, I can see by your face that you do not. Questions?

How... how did I get here? I almost don't want to know, but...

You died.

I died! Are you sure? M-maybe I'm just in a coma or something?

There are only two ways to pass into the Rift. One is through one of the few, shall we say, 'glitches' that can be found in certain places around the world. The other is death. You entered through a path very different from the glitch roads. One must assume you are dead.

Dead? No! I can't be dead! I don't want to be dead! I'm way too young! And – and Musashi didn't want me to die! If I'm dead, she'll... I don't want to hurt Musashi!

Why are you crying? Your troubles are over. There's no pain once you pass through the Gates. If you only follow that point of light, you'll find that there's nothing to cry about. Sorrow couldn't possibly be felt. Why aren't you happy? Don't you want eternity?

No! I don't want eternal anything! All I want is to be back with Musashi!

To be with this Musashi... would that make you happy? Would it stop you from sobbing like that?

Yes! As long as I'm with her I can never be really miserable. If I could just be with her, hold her hand, make a joke... that's all I'd ever need in life.

Or death?

Or death.

...Very well, then. If that's the way you feel.

Huh? What do you mean?

I am the Keeper of the Rift, but I have other duties. It's my job to see that those who make it to the Gates are given what would truly make them happy. If being with Musashi is all you want, then it can be granted.

How? Can you take me back to earth? Can I actually be with Musashi? It isn't too late?

It's never too late, given the right technique.

Technique? What if they've already cremated me? How do you do it?

I have my ways. Rest for now. Before long you'll be back with this woman you hold so dear.

Rest? Funny, but I don't feel in the least bit tired. Does a soul get tired? What? Where are you going? The darkness is getting blacker... don't leave! It's so lonely, so quiet here... the silence is almost unbearable. Hm? I feel like I'm fading out... Hey! What's this? Even the darkness seems to be getting fuzzy. It's like... I'm falling asleep, or... Oh, Musashi... I hope he's right, and you'll be there when I wake up again...

Japanese Glossary:
Jari-boy: "Brat-boy," the term that Musashi and Kojiro use to refer to Satoshi/Ash. The English dub uses "twerp."
Yani kanjii: literally "bad feeling;" it's what the trio shouts when they get "blasted off again."