She ... no, they opened their eyes.

The blinking light on their left wrist read 12:01 am.

One psychic presence took quick stock of their surroundings and saw a room that looked for all the world to be a strangely typical, if feminine room, with a pretty nice four poster bed, dressers, a jewelry case, and a vanity with a mirror - exactly what they were looking for. Not a slime. Not a mimic. This body was human - lighter than they were used to, but still human. Oh, thank goodness. Also, oh wow. I'm cute now, like they were before the huge metabolism hit of middle age.

The other presence ... squealed in delight. In the same mind. And then it all hit again that they had become, well, a plural they, and that both of them remembered a whole lot very quickly.

That Alegria "Joy", had died and come back, just not with a huge flash of light or trumpets or anything remotely similar to the Jesus sense ... and for all they knew, no one else in the world even knew. That they were now in Yoshiko's body, and Yoshiko is right there in the same mind, cheering as if she'd won the lottery.

Oh wow. Yoshiko. Written with the kanji for ... joy. Okay, universe, pretty funny.

The other thing that the merged Joy realized, almost immediately, was a menu. Like some kind of role-playing game, and apparently they had those in this Ascended World?

♡ Hi, Joy, and wow, you think in the old Hanabusa-no-kuni speech, that is absolutely WILD, I am so glad I learned that, I'm Yoshiko, I guess we're sharing the same body now, I mean, it's my body, but I hope it's okay, wowowowow you must've been from WAY before the world Ascended then! ♡

Thinking in heart emojis. What the hell isekai had Joy found themself- oh, crap, Yoshiko can read minds. Wait, Hanabusa-no-kuni. What the what ... wait. That's the characters for ... eikoku. ENGLISH.

That is such a weird reading. So it was 907 years past Ascension ... which meant nothing to Joy, of course, and Yoshiko being a Manamono (oh, a scholar) didn't help with explaining when Ascension was but, presumably this meant they were on Earth?

Tsuchitama-no-hoshi. We've always called it that.

Oh. That's quaint ... tsuchi ... tama. Those were kunyomi for the chikyuu in the Japanese that Joy had learned and studied in college.

Whoa, that's a really archaic form of the Yamato speech you're thinking in. Like there's Aya-no-kuni speech in there. And you're a linguist ... aaahhhh I can tell you're the best reborn soul EVERRRRRR!

Joy knew then that this is definitely some variant form or maybe even future Earth or something like that, because Yoshiko acted to Joy's perceptions like some sort of particularly upbeat Japanese schoolgirl and, well, frankly, looked like one in the mirror. Uwu.

Don't say that, I'm twenty! And what the heck does, oh, haha, your memories are leaking into my conscience and that's funny. Though ... oh my GOSH you've been WHERE? And ... oh ...

They felt heat rising in their cheeks as Yoshiko accessed some of Joy's memories of things Yoshiko hadn't experienced yet. And Yoshiko, who Joy had already pegged as something of a motormouth, seemed ... a bit stunned.

Hey, boundaries please? You don't seem offended though, that's a good sign.

Oh no, I wouldn't be offended, it's just that love is really beautiful, and I'm glad you got someone like that, cause I want a love like that too someday, and she would TOTALLY have been my type too so ... I think we need to learn to set our identities distinct somehow, oh my gosh I hope I didn't overstep too much sorrryyyyy-

No, hon, it's okay. You're a good human ... bean. I think the word we can use is compartmentalize.

Hey, how about if I do us a favor - we should get some sleep, but first, I want you to see something, because I think you need to see this with our eyes, and not just my memories, especially if we're going to be ... compartmentalizing.

Sure!

The composite of Joy and Yoshiko ... which they decided mutually in that moment would go by Joy because it set them apart from everyone using the Yamato speech, turned and walked over to the window, and opened the blinds.

Yoshiko's bedroom was bathed in pale moonlight, and Joy saw a few things immediately that caught their attention. They were out in the country somewhere, on the second story of a house. The moonlight landscape though -- farmlands on rolling hills, with vast crop fields punctuated by giant oak trees. The crescent moon looked familiar, but then pale wan lights seemed to sparkle on the dark side of the moon itself. Lights moved through the sky ... some kind of transport craft? Oh wow, planes are a thing here, of course. But the similarities to Joy's earth ran smack into the several lumbering forms of something car-sized lying in the farmyard, with armored plating, like some sort of enormous armadillo-ankylosaur. Wait. A glyptodont?

And Joy saw a very helpful little popup in their field of vision, like suddenly the world had gained a tooltip, or something from that old show where they popped in trivia bits on top of music videos. It helpfully labeled the beast as a washikemono, redundantly in what Joy knew as katakana and romaji. It was the tiny italic script beneath, in why Yoshiko helpfully explained was a variant of the ancient hara-no-hito speech but was quite evidently to Joy's eyes Latin, that was the surprise.

[Glyptotherium texanum]

Yeah that's a Mikata-no-kuni washikemono, I tamed it so Mom and Dad wouldn't have to rely on the mana-tractors so much.

Wait. Mikata-no-kuni? No. Way.

Oh, we have nagatsuno-ushi too! See, look over there!

Out in the moonlit pasture, beyond the sleeping glyptodont, Joy indeed could see them. Longhorn cattle. Oh yeah. Hook em. Joy knew exactly where they were. They probably even knew the town.

But Yoshiko seemed a bit confused by her next thought.

Joy, what does "weeb Texas" mean?

The next morning Yoshiko debated on whether or not to tell her parents about her new joint ability as Joy but their insistence on getting her to the local shrine for New Year's made that a moot point as they all equipped their best kimono using what Joy surmised was some kind of minor item teleportation tech (magic!) and then took a quick jaunt down the road.

Joy wordlessly gazed at the orange-red fields of sorghum, interspersed with verdant fields heavy with sweet corn, whose harvest-ready look just clashed with the roadside spring flowers, because shouldn't harvest be in autumn? The brisk walking pace precluded identifying everything, but Joy knew there were bluebonnets, the harbinger of early spring, but strangely interspersed with fall clematis and high summer firewheels. And the birds - horned larks picking at the roadsides, barn swallows wheeling about in the sky, but also the old-sam-peabody-peabody-peabody of a White-throated Sparrow echoing from a hedge as if in full winter.

Not to mention the sheer profusion of mammals that swept through the fields undeterred. Joy had been surprised by the glyptodonts last night, but that was no housecat on their porch but a massive sabertooth napping in the morning sun! But also weird exotics like araragi-kamoshika (eland) and mizujika (sambar) ambled fearlessly through the fields unafraid of the kimono-clad folk. And even stranger stuff, like a small herd of tawny four-horned antelope that ran across the road long enough for them to pop up on Joy's "radar" as a yotsu-tsuno-kamoshika (Stockoceros onusragus), being chased down by a momentarily startled honest to goodness tiger cub, which ran up to Yoshiko's mom for a quick chin scratch, as it apparently belonged to their neighbors.

Not quite the Texas thst Joy remembered then!

On the north edge of town proper, there stood an artificial mound with a few oaks and pines. The bamboo thickets on its flanks wouldn't have looked out of place in Japan, or, indeed, in the Austin of Joy's memory - fishtail bamboo had been an invasive species in their Texas so it made sense in this one. But Joy knew there had been no Shinto shrines in Texas, and, well, Mikata-no-kuni had them down to the neighborhood and family level. The flowering sakura trees dusting the steps with loose petals were definitely NOT to Texas standard, but there were also flowering ikiobana (redbud) and even lush blue-purple flashes of kurukazu (mountain-laurel) with its strong grape-soda scent.

The stone stairs up the hill seemed to stretch far longer than they appeared. Shrine steps always had, but this seemed much more pronounced than even the real mountainside shrines of Joy's memory. Surely, this hlll wasn't more than twenty feet tall, yet if this body weren't so young and surprisingly athletic, Joy would've been winded. Then they saw the bamboo shimmer as they approached the torii (which to Joy's amusement actually doubled nicely as a Texas ranch gate).

Oh, duh. Magic. Some form of dimensional magic, even.

And they stepped through the threshold, and suddenly it was incredibly clear, that "weeb Texas" was just the start of it.

The shrine, which Joy quickly surmised from the kanji and the myriad red fox statues around was Tanezane-Inari-jinja - Tanezane's shrine to the fox god Inari! - was packed for New Year's. Joy hadn't even seen much foot traffic, but there were so many people inside, but the people were all different from what she expected.

No one looked old or infirm, but in the prime of health. And ... the ears. And antlers. And horns. Wait, the faces were all very human, but the ears and tails and occasional patches of body fur clearly weren't. A country girl with dark skin and blackbuck horns and ears, trading gossip with a gaggle of girls with horns - literal cowgirls - and some guys in what seemed to be some weird hybrid of kimono and overalls? jawing away in the corner, the antlers and ears of white-tailed deer protruding from their heads and inadvertently telegraphing their stares at the rather cute tiger-furred miko walking past, before one of them got gently nudged by another miko with armadillo scales. It wasn't just beastfolk, either, as Joy could see folks with long ears, yes, elves. Green-skinned girls picking out ema ... goblins? All in New Year's finery.

And Yoshiko, of course, knew them all by name. Of course they all had Japanese names, but again, without any onyomi pronunciations - all kun'yomi or nanori readings! Joy wondered if she could get a tooltip but then Yoshiko's inner voice chimed in.

By the way, it's really bad form to Inspect people you meet so I have that turned off by default. Please don't try, I'm weird enough as it is.

Oh, of course.

They got in line for the traditional greeting (clap, clap, bow, clap, clap - Joy found this part refreshingly nostalgic) and then went over to a small area where the local vendors were selling a shocking-to-Joy variety street foods, some remembered and expected from Japan, but then what must have been pigs-in-a-blanket, and wait, are those kolaches?!?, a whole cart for different sausages, that smelled incredibly familiar to Joy, and then, miracle of miracles ...

BREAKFAST TACOS!

Joy squeed.

Um, what do we do for money?

What do you mean OH you're pre-Ascension and you must be operating on that weird old capitalistic system. You need scarcity for that to work, and since there's no scarcity, all you have to do is ask.

Wait, what?

I guess it lets people do what they want, all they need is the skill, and with so many billions of people on the planet, there's no shortage of hands, though I'd rather let the beasts handle the real grunt work myself.

Earth, without ... scarcity? How does that even...

Meh, it's an Ascension thing, I never asked but apparently the world really sucked to live on before magic and now we're free to be who we want to be. Well, except the Antis, but only scholars like me even know about them, and they got exiled centuries ago.

How is there even enough space for billions of people and all this land though-

Joy barely had time to get out the question before she knew the answer. Duh. Dimensional magic. Physical space wasn't even a limitation any more.

I peeked through your memories, and I think the world you're looking for is "rad".

It is. Also, compartmentalization, hon.

Whoops, sowwy!

And then all thoughts were whisked away by the prospect of sausage breakfast tacos, and as Joy looked at the sign, in their mind, the weird Yamato-no-kuni speech melted away and was replaced by the English she knew, as if Yoshiko was now translating for Joy in real time.

And the sign that heretofore read Torugoto-ie no Takasane-machi no kawata melted away in reformed in their eyes as the now all too familiar name of Meier's Elgin Sausage. "A proud survivor of the Ascension!"

Elgin, Texas, and its hilariously lame motto of "Perfectly situated" was their starter zone and somehow Joy's favorite Texas sausage place had survived a millennium. Impossible.

Joy had to suppress a giggle fit entirely unsuited to the barely middle-aged person she had been, because, in life, she had lived just twenty minutes down the road.

Oh please don't tell me you want to stay here now! Yoshiko sounded a bit panicked now.

No no no no, I just know where I am now. I fully intend on us taking a field trip. All the field trips. But this sausage is amazing and just as good as I remember it from before Ascension!

Except the curly-haired and pleasantly plump woman who handed them the sausage and greeted them with what now sounded like the thickest dang Texas drawl imaginable was wearing Japanese festival clothes and had doe ears.

While selling venison sausage.

Best not to think about that too hard, but people are people, and beasts are beasts.

Um, okay!

When faced with absurd situations, Joy's dad Marcelo had always given one piece of advice, one he himself had taken to heart when Joy had come out, and fell in love with a girl they met online, and found out to his happiness that Kylie wasn't one of Joy's seemingly endless line of intense but short-lived interests but became the great constant in their old life.

"Just roll with it."

Joy had lost that along the way somewhere, but the wisdom and compassion and kindness and even mischief in his words now rang true now that her dad was beyond their reach.

It was not the time to dwell or worry.

In this world, Joy for the first time, again, truly felt she could live up to her name. And in that moment, Joy and Yoshiko understood - it was time to go see what this world could offer.

They were, indeed perfectly situated for the first step of their journey.