Chapter 41: The New Tenant and the Toaster
Peace had returned to Kyoto, or at least, a very specific and noisy version of peace. Three days had passed since the Female Furies' invasion and the ballistic expulsion of Granny Goodness through her own portal.
The physical shop had been repaired (with a little help from Kara's super speed and a lot of spiritual glue). The pocket dimension garden, which had been transformed into a red-rock battlefield, was in the process of restoration.
Although Urahara had decided to leave a smoking crater in the northeast corner because it gave the landscape "character." But the biggest change wasn't in the architecture. It was in population density.
The Urahara Shop, which for two millennia had been the solitary sanctuary of an exile, now had the population of a small intergalactic youth hostel. Kara had officially moved in, bringing with her bright-colored clothes, her Earth plants, and her indestructible dog.
And now, they had tenants in the basement. Or rather, in the guest wing of the pocket dimension. Scott Free and Big Barda, refugees from the New Gods war, had settled in.
And with them, they had brought chaos. Not Klarion's destructive chaos, but the domestic chaos of two divine beings trying to adapt to life in a candy store.
It was early morning. Kara was still sleeping (or pretending to sleep so she wouldn't have to walk Krypto in the drizzle). Barda was in the backyard, doing calisthenics that involved lifting rocks the size of a small car and using them as dumbbells.
And in the underground laboratory, the scientific heart of the shop, a conspiracy was brewing. It wasn't a conspiracy to overthrow governments; it was a conspiracy to improve breakfast.
The lab was dim, lit only by the bluish light of holographic screens and the erratic glow of a plasma arc welder. In a corner Urahara had hastily cleared, a makeshift workshop had been set up.
The table was covered in scrap metal. There were fiber optic cables, terrestrial silicon microchips, fragments of alien metal that glowed with their own light, and in the center of it all, gutted like a murder victim in a robotic morgue, was a toaster.
A Philips brand toaster, basic model, two slots, bought on sale at an electronics store in Akihabara for twenty dollars. Leaning over the appliance's corpse, like two mad surgeons, were Urahara Kisuke and Scott Free.
Scott was no longer wearing his Mister Miracle suit with its gaudy colors of red, yellow, and green. He was wearing civilian clothes Kara had gotten for him: worn jeans and a gray t-shirt that fit him a bit loosely.
But on his chest, strapped with improvised leather belts, the Mother Box was still there. The living computer of the New Gods emitted a soft rhythmic ping, acting as a metronome for the operation.
Scott wore magnifying goggles with multiple lenses that rotated and clicked as he examined the toaster's motherboard.
"The problem, Kisuke," Scott said, his voice filled with the seriousness of an engineer discussing the structural integrity of a bridge, "is the thermal resistance. It's primitive."
He pointed a sonic screwdriver at the tiny wires inside the machine.
"Look at this. Nichrome alloy. It heats up by basic electrical resistance. It's inefficient. It takes nearly two whole minutes to bring the bread to an optimal state of caramelization (toast level 3)."
Scott looked up, his blue eyes shining with the frustration of someone who has seen civilizations built on light manipulation and now has to wait for his bagel.
"Two minutes," he repeated, scandalized. "In two minutes, I could escape a death trap by Desaad, disarm a black hole bomb, and have a coffee. It is an unacceptable waste of time."
Urahara, who was on the other side of the table, nodded gravely. He was wearing his own protective gear, a pair of antique, round welding goggles that gave him the look of a steampunk inventor. He held a pair of tweezers in one hand and a cup of tea in the other.
"I completely agree, Scott-san," Urahara said. "Thermal inefficiency is the enemy of progress. And of breakfast."
He leaned over the toaster.
"Furthermore, the ejection spring is purely mechanical. It relies on the tension of a cheap steel spring. If the spring fails, the bread burns. It is a system based on hope, not certainty."
"Exactly," Scott said. "We need to eliminate the mechanical variable."
The New God rummaged through a box of components he had brought from his own damaged gear. He pulled out a small crystalline chip that glowed with a pulsing golden light.
"I have this. It's a micro-phase emitter recovered from my broken Aero-Disk. If we integrate it into the heating circuit, we can create a localized Boom Tube micro-loop inside the slots."
Urahara set down his tea. His scientific interest spiked.
"A Boom Tube... to toast bread?" he asked, a delighted smile forming on his lips.
"Not to toast it," Scott corrected, waving his hands enthusiastically. "To displace it."
Scott began to draw a diagram in the air with his finger. The Mother Box interpreted his gestures and projected a golden hologram onto the table.
"You see, instead of applying external heat, the phase emitter will vibrate the water molecules inside the bread at a sub-dimensional frequency. Basically, we send the bread to the Fourth Dimension for a nanosecond and bring it back."
"The friction of interdimensional travel will toast the bread instantly," Scott concluded triumphantly. "Zero to crispy in 0.0001 seconds. Perfect efficiency."
Urahara looked at the hologram. Any sane person would have said, "Scott, that's insane. You're going to open a portal to hell in my kitchen." Any responsible person would have said, "It's just toast, Scott. Wait two minutes."
But Urahara Kisuke was neither sane nor responsible when it came to science. He was an enabler.
"Brilliant!" Urahara exclaimed, clapping his hands. "But there is a risk, Scott-san. The dimensional radiation could dry out the crumb too much. The bread would be toasted, yes, but it would be like biting into a pumice stone."
Urahara turned toward his own supply shelves.
"We need a humectant agent. Something to preserve the 'soul' of the bread during transit."
He rummaged through jars of condensed Reishi and soul dust. "Aha!" He pulled out a small glass tube containing a viscous blue liquid.
"Spiritual Flux Capacitor," he announced, showing it to Scott as if it were the Holy Grail. "I use it to stabilize Gargantas when traveling to high-turbulence zones. If we coat the heating coils with this, it will create a stasis field around the bread's moisture."
Scott's eyes went wide.
"Are you suggesting... a hybrid toaster? New Genesis technology powered by spiritual engineering?"
"We shall call it Project Hephaestus," Urahara said with a mischievous smile.
"Or the Toaster of Destiny," Scott suggested.
"I like it. Let's get to work."
What followed was an engineering montage that would have made Tony Stark and the Guardians of Oa weep alike. Urahara and Scott worked in perfect sync, two geniuses from different universes united by boredom and a love for complicating simple things.
They dismantled the Philips toaster down to the last screw and threw away the cheap plastic casing. Scott used the Mother Box to mold a new casing from an alien metal alloy he had found in Urahara's scrapyard.
The metal was silver and seemed to flow like mercury before hardening. Urahara painted microscopic Kidō runes inside the bread slots, using a brush made from a single spiritual fox-tail hair.
Scott soldered the phase emitter. Urahara installed the flux capacitor. There were sparks. There was strangely colored smoke. There was a moment when the toaster began to levitate and recite poetry in binary, but Scott gave it a technical whack with a wrench, and it shut up.
"Earth wiring won't support this," Scott pointed out, looking at the toaster's normal plug. "It needs 1.21 gigawatts of starting power."
"No problem," Urahara said.
He pulled out a spiritual battery, a small black cube that hummed ominously.
"We will connect this directly to the core. It should last about three thousand years. Or until someone tries to toast a frozen bagel. Bagels are tricky."
Finally, after two hours of feverish work, they were done. They stepped back to admire their creation. It didn't look like a toaster anymore. It looked like a futuristic altar dedicated to the god of carbohydrates.
It was black chrome and pulsed with a soft, rhythmic blue light. It had vacuum tubes on the sides that glowed with spiritual energy. It had no lever. It had a holographic touch panel. And it emitted a low, threatening hum, like a predatory animal waiting to strike.
"It's... beautiful," Scott whispered, wiping a grease smudge from his forehead.
"It is an abomination against nature and physics," Urahara corrected proudly. "It is perfect."
"Do you think it's safe?" Scott asked, a hint of Barda's prudence filtering into his engineer brain.
"Scott-san," Urahara said, patting him on the back. "Safety is a relative concept. The important thing is: will the bread be crispy?"
Scott nodded. "You're right. Science demands bravery."
Urahara picked up the toaster. It weighed about twenty kilos now.
"Let's take it upstairs," he said. "To the kitchen. Breakfast time is approaching. And Kara will be our test subject... I mean, our guest of honor."
"I hope she's hungry," Scott said, gathering his tools.
"After this, she will never look at bread the same way again," Urahara promised.
They climbed the wooden stairs toward the kitchen, carrying their infernal creation, ready to unleash the breakfast revolution upon an unsuspecting household. Neither of them stopped to think that, perhaps, mixing teleportation technology with soul magic might have side effects.
Like, for example, giving bread an existential crisis. But that was a problem for the future. Or for five minutes from now.
The morning sun filtered through the curtains of Kara's room, but it wasn't the light that woke her. It was the smell.
Usually, Sunday mornings at the Urahara Shop smelled like pancakes, green tea, or some kind of candy that changed color according to your mood.
But today, the house smelled like a particle physics laboratory. There was a distinct scent of ionized ozone, hot copper, and something Kara could only describe as "the smell of when Superman flies too fast and breaks the sound barrier."
Kara rubbed her eyes, pushing aside the duvet. Krypto wasn't in the room. The dog, who had a sixth sense for trouble (or food), was probably already downstairs.
Kara put on her ducky robe, slipped on her slippers, and went out into the hallway. The air was vibrating. Literally. She could feel a low-frequency hum in her teeth, as if someone had left a giant tuning fork turned on in the living room.
"Kisuke?" she called out, walking down the wooden stairs. "Scott?"
There was no answer, only the hum and a series of electronic beeps that sounded suspiciously like a countdown. She reached the kitchen and stopped dead in her tracks.
The kitchen, which yesterday was a cozy space of wood and ceramics, had transformed into NASA command center. Or a Bond villain's lair with a limited budget.
In the center of the breakfast table, cleared of everything else, sat The Machine. It was black. It was chrome. It pulsed with a rhythmic blue light that illuminated the faces of the two men standing before it like acolytes worshipping an idol.
Urahara and Scott Free were wearing protective goggles. Urahara had his steampunk welding goggles; Scott wore his Mister Miracle visor. Both held data tablets and looked at the machine with a mix of terror and paternal pride.
On the other side of the table, sitting with a stoic calm bordering on catatonia, was Big Barda. She was wearing a tank top and sweatpants. She was reading the morning Kyoto newspaper (The Kyoto Shimbun).
Kara noticed Barda was holding the newspaper upside down. And her eyes weren't moving. She was simply staring blankly through the paper, actively ignoring the madness in front of her to protect her own sanity.
"Good morning," Kara drawled.
No one turned around.
"Phase stabilizers are at 98%," Scott announced, adjusting a holographic dial floating above the machine.
"Reishi flow is constant," Urahara confirmed, consulting a gauge that looked like a crazy compass. "The containment barrier should hold the micro-singularity."
"Guys?" Kara tried again, a bit louder.
"Initiating dimensional preheating sequence," Scott said.
The machine made a sound: VROOOOM-thump-thump-thump. It sounded like a sports car revving underwater. Kara walked over to the table and stood between the two mad engineers.
"HEY!" she shouted.
Urahara and Scott jumped. Urahara lifted his welding goggles, blinking.
"Ah, Kara! Good morning. We didn't hear you come in. We were calibrating the event horizon."
Kara pointed at the black, pulsating thing on the table.
"What is that? And why does my kitchen smell like a thunderstorm?"
"It's the toaster," Scott said, grinning broadly.
Kara looked at the machine. It was the size of a small microwave. It had glowing vacuum tubes. It had cables connecting to a black battery humming on the floor.
And, if you looked closely, it had two slots on top that looked suspiciously like the size of a slice of bread.
"The toaster?" Kara repeated. "The Philips toaster I bought for twenty dollars?"
"We improved it," Urahara said modestly.
"We evolved it," Scott corrected. "Project Hephaestus. Instant toasting via temporal displacement and dimensional friction. Zero wait. Zero burnt bread. Pure efficiency."
Kara looked at Barda for help. Barda lowered the newspaper slowly. Her eyes were tired.
"Don't ask," Barda said. "They've been at it since four in the morning. I tried to stop them, but Kisuke offered me a candy that tastes like victory in battle and I got distracted."
Kara sighed. She needed coffee. But the coffee maker was dangerously close to the Toaster Blast Zone.
"Alright," Kara said, rubbing her temples. "So... does it work? Or is it going to open a black hole and swallow the block?"
"Of course it works!" Scott said, offended. "It's New Genesis technology powered by spiritual energy. It's the safest thing in this room."
"That's not saying much," Kara muttered.
"Try it!" Urahara insisted, offering her a plate with two slices of white sandwich bread. "Be our test pilot. I mean... our guest of honor."
Kara looked at the bread. She looked at the machine. She looked at the two men with their hopeful smiles. It was too early to argue.
"Fine," she said. "But if it explodes, you two are cleaning it up."
She took the bread. She approached the machine. The hum increased as she brought her hand close. She felt the hairs on her arm stand up. She dropped the slices into the slots.
There was no familiar sound of a spring going down. There was an electronic bloop sound.
"Initiating," Scott said.
He pressed a touch panel on the side of the machine.
ZZZAP!
There was no heat. There was no orange glow from coils. There was a distortion. The air above the toaster rippled like asphalt on a hot day. For a split second, Kara swore she saw the space inside the slots vanish.
It didn't turn black. It turned... deep. Like she was looking through a window into outer space. She saw stars. She saw fire. She saw colors that had no names. And then, as quickly as it had begun, it ended.
DING!
The sound was cheerful and digital. Two objects shot out of the slots, not propelled by a spring, but materializing in a perfect teleportation arc.
They landed softly on the plate Kara was holding. They were toast. But they were the most beautiful toast Kara had ever seen. They were a perfect, uniform, golden color.
They gave off an aroma that wasn't just toasted bread. It smelled like wheat harvested by angels, solar butter, and geometric perfection.
"Wow," Kara said, genuinely impressed.
"Elapsed time: 0.0004 seconds," Scott announced, high-fiving Urahara.
"Estimated exterior crunch texture: 99%," Urahara added. "Interior moisture preserved: 100%."
Kara picked up one of the toasts. It was hot, but it didn't burn. It felt light, airy.
"Well," she admitted. "It looks good. And it smells incredible."
Barda even lowered the newspaper, sniffing the air with interest. "Maybe the idiots did something right," the warrior muttered.
Kara brought the toast to her mouth. She opened her mouth to take the first bite. Her teeth grazed the golden crust.
And then, it happened.
The toast opened up. It didn't break. A horizontal crack appeared in the center of the slice, right below the top crust. The crack opened like a mouth.
And the toast screamed.
"EXISTENCE IS PAIN!"
The voice was high-pitched, shrill, and filled with absolute existential terror.
"I HAVE SEEN TIME DIE! I HAVE SEEN THE FACE OF GOD AND IT WAS FULL OF MOLD! AHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Kara screamed. She threw the toast into the air out of pure reflex. The toast flew across the kitchen, flailing crumbs as if they were arms, still screaming.
"DON'T EAT ME! I'M TOO YOUNG! I AM ETERNAL! AHHHHH!"
The toast hit the opposite wall and fell to the floor, where it continued to writhe and moan. Krypto, who had just entered the kitchen wagging his tail expecting breakfast, stopped dead.
He saw the screaming bread on the floor. The bread saw the dog.
"BEAST! DEVOURER OF WORLDS! STAY BACK!" the toast shrieked.
Krypto, the dog who had bitten Doomsday and chased spaceships, let out a howl of pure terror, tucked his tail between his legs, and ran out of the kitchen.
Silence in the kitchen. Except for the soft sobs of the toast on the floor. Kara was pressed against the wall, breathing heavily, hand on her chest.
Barda had the newspaper raised like a shield. Urahara and Scott looked at the toast on the floor with fascination.
"Hmm," Urahara said, breaking the silence. He approached the toast and nudged it gently with the tip of his sandal.
"OW! THE INDIGNITY!" the bread screamed.
"Interesting side effect," Urahara commented, pulling out a notebook and pen. "Scott-san, did you adjust the angst compensator?"
Scott adjusted his glasses, looking embarrassed.
"Ah... I might have skipped that step. I thought the spiritual shielding would be enough."
He looked at Kara, who was staring at them with an expression that promised violence.
"You see, Kara," Scott explained quickly, holding his hands up. "It's simple. To toast the bread that fast, we sent it through a pocket dimension of high thermal friction."
"And?" Kara snapped.
"Well... it turns out the shortest route passes through the Dimension of Existential Angst," Scott said. "It's a place where inanimate matter acquires momentary sentience and understands the futility of the universe."
"Basically," Urahara added, "the bread gets depressed. And scared. Because suddenly it knows it is bread and its only purpose is to be eaten."
Kara looked at the two men. She looked at the toast, which was now murmuring something about entropy and the inevitability of jam.
"You have made..." Kara said, her voice shaking with disbelief, "...sentient bread? Bread that suffers?"
"Only temporarily," Scott assured. "The effect fades in... a few minutes. When it cools down, it goes back to being inert bread. Delicious inert bread."
"I think it would hurt less if we put butter on it quickly," Urahara suggested with genuine scientific concern. "Does fat act as an analgesic for baked goods?"
"KISUKE!" Kara yelled.
Her eyes glowed red for a second. The temperature in the kitchen rose.
"SCOTT!" She pointed to the door. "Fix this! Dismantle that machine from hell! Exorcise my breakfast! Or I swear by Rao I will toast both of you!"
"And I will help!" Barda added, standing up and cracking her knuckles. "That bread just insulted my mother. And no one insults Big Barda."
Urahara and Scott exchanged a glance. They knew when they were outmatched.
"Tactical retreat," Scott whispered.
"To the workshop," Urahara agreed.
They grabbed the toaster, which was still humming threateningly, and ran toward the underground lab, with Urahara grabbing the screaming toast from the floor as he passed ("I will save you, little philosopher!").
Kara stood in the kitchen, trembling. She looked at the empty plate. She looked at the space where the infernal machine had been.
"I just wanted toast," she whispered. "Just normal toast."
Krypto poked his head through the door, shivering.
"It's okay, boy," Kara said, sighing. "They're gone. The bad bread is gone."
She slumped into a chair.
My God, she thought. I live in an insane asylum.
And yet, as the smell of ozone faded and Barda returned to her newspaper with a chuckle, Kara realized she was smiling. It was a mess. But it was her mess.
"I'm ordering pizza for breakfast," she announced.
"Good idea," Barda said from behind the newspaper. "Order double meat. I need to forget the screams of the wheat."
While the "geniuses" worked frantically in the underground lab to deprogram the neurosis of their appliance, Big Barda stood alone in the kitchen for a moment before feeling the stillness suffocating her.
The warrior of Apokolips looked around. The table was clean. The dishes were washed. The floor shone. It was perfect. It was quiet. And it was driving her crazy.
Barda growled, a low sound that vibrated the cups in the drainer. She had spent her entire life in the fire pits, fighting for every breath, sleeping with one eye open and a dagger under her pillow.
Peace... peace was something she had fought for, yes. But living in it was another story. Her muscles were tense. Her blood, enriched by the divinity of the New Gods, demanded activity.
Domestic silence felt like a velvet cage. "I need air," she muttered.
She went out the back door into the interior garden of the pocket dimension. The artificial landscape was beautiful. Urahara had restored the damage from the battle with the Furies.
The grass was emerald green, the koi pond shimmered under the false sun, and in the distance, mountains painted on the horizon gave an illusion of infinity.
Barda walked to the center of the lawn. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, filling her lungs with Reishi-rich air. But it didn't work. She still wanted to break something.
"Are you okay, Barda?"
The voice came from the porch. Kara was there, leaning against a wooden column, holding a water bottle. She had changed into her workout clothes: black leggings and a sports top.
Barda opened her eyes and sighed.
"I am... restless, Kara. This place is wonderful. Kisuke is... an incredible host. But..." she clenched her fists, cracking her knuckles with the sound of breaking stones.
"I am not built to sit and read the newspaper. My hands itch. I need to hit something. Or I'm going to end up dismantling the fridge just to see how it works."
Kara smiled, setting the water bottle on the ground.
"I get you," she said, walking down the porch steps. "Sometimes, flying isn't enough. Sometimes you need... contact."
She stopped a few meters from Barda, adopting a relaxed but ready stance.
"I'll help you," Kara offered. "I'm pretty durable. You can hit me if you want."
Barda looked at her. A slow, ferocious smile, the first genuine smile Kara had seen on her in days, spread across the warrior's face.
"Sparring?" Barda asked.
"Sparring," Kara confirmed. "No heat vision. No Mega-Rod at full power. Just technique."
"I like it," Barda said.
She took off her tank top, remaining in a sports bra that revealed musculature that would make an Olympic bodybuilder weep with envy.
"Get ready, Kryptonian. I won't hold back."
"I didn't expect you to," Kara replied.
And they began. There was no starting bell. Barda moved first. Despite her size, she was fast. She lunged forward, throwing a straight jab that would have punched through a concrete wall.
Kara dodged, moving at super speed, and responded with a side kick. Barda blocked the blow with her forearm, absorbing the impact with a grunt, and used the momentum to grab Kara's leg.
With an expert hip rotation, Barda threw Kara through the air. Kara spun, used her flight to stabilize herself, and landed softly a few meters away.
"Good technique," Kara admitted, impressed. "You used my own strength against me."
"It's what we do at Granny's Orphanage," Barda said, moving in circles. "Brute force is for fools. Leverage is for warriors."
They clashed again. This time, the impact of their forearms created a shockwave that shook the trees in the garden. It was a dance of titans.
Kara was speed and pure power, a blur of blue and gold. Barda was experience and calculated brutality, an immovable rock who knew exactly where to hit to cause pain.
They exchanged blows, locks, and throws. The perfect lawn was marked by their boots. The water in the pond churned from the pressure waves.
But they were having fun. For the first time since they arrived, Barda was laughing. A loud, guttural, free laugh.
"Come on, sun child! Hit harder!" she yelled, blocking a punch that would have toppled a skyscraper. "Put your back into it!"
"I'm trying not to send you into orbit!" Kara retorted, smiling as she dodged a spinning kick.
The intensity rose. Adrenaline took over. They forgot they were in a garden. They forgot they were in a house. Kara dove from the air, fists first.
Barda planted her feet, grabbed Kara by the wrists in mid-flight, and with a roar of effort, spun around. It was an Olympic hammer throw, executed by a New God.
Barda released Kara. Kara shot out like a ballistic missile. She crossed the garden. She crossed the pond. And she headed straight toward the sacred zone Urahara had fenced off so carefully the week before.
The vegetable patch.
Specifically, the raised bed where Urahara had been cultivating, with paternal love and illegal spiritual fertilizers, his pride and joy: the Fortune Cabbages.
They were giant cabbages, the size of beach balls, glowing with ethereal green light and supposedly bringing good luck to whoever ate them.
Kara tried to brake. "No! Not the cabbages!"
But physics was relentless.
CRASH!
Kara landed in the center of the bed. There was an explosion of black earth, green leaves, and spiritual light. It was a vegetable massacre.
Kara sat in the crater, with a piece of glowing cabbage on her head like a hat. She looked around. Not one remained. All the cabbages had been crushed, shredded, or vaporized by the impact.
Barda ran toward her, stopping at the edge of the disaster.
"Oops," said the warrior, bringing a hand to her mouth, though her eyes shone with amusement. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," Kara said, picking a leaf out of her ear. "But I think my luck just took a drastic turn for the worse."
At that moment, the lab door burst open. Urahara Kisuke and Scott Free ran out, their faces stained with soot and the toaster (now silent and smoking) in Scott's hands.
"We heard a crash!" Scott shouted. "Was it another invasion? Is it Darkseid?"
Urahara stopped dead. His fan fell from his hand. His eyes fixed on the smoking crater where his vegetable patch used to be. He saw the churned earth.
He saw the fragments of glowing cabbage scattered like corpses on a battlefield. He saw Kara sitting in the middle of the destruction, smiling guiltily.
Urahara fell to his knees. It was a slow, tragic movement, worthy of an opera.
"My babies!" he cried to the sky, raising his hands. "My beautiful, crunchy, spherical children! They had names! That one over there was Hiroshi! And that one was Kenji!"
He crawled to the edge of the patch, picking up a broken leaf with reverence.
"They were going to be the secret ingredient of my special okonomiyaki... oh, the humanity..."
Scott looked at the disaster, then looked at Barda. Barda shrugged, innocent. Kara stood up, brushing off the dirt.
"I'm sorry, Kisuke," she said, trying not to laugh at his dramatics. "It was... a training accident. Barda has a very strong throw."
Urahara looked up, a fake (or perhaps real) tear in his eye.
"Violence," he said solemnly, "always exacts a terrible price. Today, the price has been the salad."
He stood up, sighing, and dusted off his knees.
"Well," he said, recovering his composure in a second. "At least the soil is well aerated now. I'll save on plowing."
Scott lifted the toaster triumphantly.
"And I bring good news to compensate!" he announced. "The operation was a success. The angst circuit has been nullified. The bread no longer suffers."
"Are you sure?" Barda asked skeptically.
"Sure. Now it just... well, now the bread comes out with little poems printed on the crust. Haikus, mostly. It's very cultural."
Kara burst out laughing. Barda let out a guffaw. Scott grinned.
Urahara looked at his strange family: a solar alien covered in dirt, a sweaty warrior goddess, an escape artist with a poetic toaster, and a dog barking at a butterfly.
His garden was destroyed. His kitchen smelled like ozone. His quiet life was a distant memory. And he wouldn't change it for anything.
An hour later. The artificial sun had set, giving way to a starry and soft night. The group sat on the wooden porch (engawa), feet dangling over the garden.
They hadn't cooked. The kitchen was a disaster zone and the vegetable garden was history. Instead, there were pizza boxes stacked between them. Gotham Pizza, with extra cheese and pepperoni, delivered via express portal.
Barda was leaning against a pillar, a slice of pizza in one hand and a cold beer in the other, looking more relaxed than Scott had seen her in years.
Scott was trying to teach Krypto to catch crusts in the air (the dog was missing on purpose so they would throw more).
Kara was sitting next to Urahara, head resting on his shoulder, half-asleep, full of food and happy exhaustion.
Urahara was eating a slice of vegetarian pizza (in honor of his fallen cabbages), looking at the fake stars.
"You know, Kisuke," Scott said, breaking the comfortable silence. "I think the toaster needs a name. I was thinking 'The Hot Poet'."
"Too literal," Urahara murmured. "I prefer 'The Oracle of the Crumb'."
"I vote for 'The Thing That Must Never Be Plugged In Again'," Barda said.
Everyone laughed. Kara stirred, settling better against Urahara.
"I like it here," she mumbled, eyes closed. "Despite the screaming breakfast."
Urahara smiled, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
"Me too, Kara-san. Me too."
He looked out into the darkness of the garden, where spiritual fireflies were beginning to dance over the pond. The war with Darkseid would come. Waller was still out there. The universe was full of threats.
But for tonight, in this little corner outside of time, everything was okay. Urahara took a small notebook from his pocket and made a mental note.
Note to self: investigate if spiritual cabbage scraps can be used to create bio-organic fuel for the water heater. Waste nothing.
He closed the notebook. He took another slice of pizza. Life was good.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Thanks for reading!
If you want to read advanced chapters and support me, I'd really appreciate it.
If you liked the chapter, please leave your stones.
Mike.
Patreon / iLikeeMikee