AN: Alright, so, I've been on hiatus for a while now and I promise I will get back to that story about Prince Altair and peasant Malik eventually BUT. (gods help me) a friend (Phoebe the Master Thief) and I have fallen back into the void that is the Naruto fandom. We're doing a thing. Here is that thing. I need to throw a disclaimer in that the pagan rituals/spells portrayed in this chapter and possible future chapters are total bullshit that we made up for llama drama. No blood magic was actually preformed in the making of this story.

Phoebe: Alexi belongs to Shepard, and Alyssa belongs to me. This first chapter was written by the both of us. I wrote the first half, and she wrote the rest. All subsequent chapters will be written (mostly) by one person. Alternating characters as the chapters go.

Shep: This is sort of a self insert but not lame. Alright, warnings and disclaimers are done. Now read you fucking cuties.

High pitched shrieking filled the air, something that left a ringing in your ears. Alyssa sighed, pushing her fingers against her temples in an attempt to stop the throbbing headache she was experiencing. Yelling children ran around the room, the loud noises of arcade games mixing with the screams in an awful cacophony of sound. Annoyance flooded through her, and she checked her phone once more to see how much longer she had to endure this torture. 'Five more minutes,' she thought. 'Five more minutes and I'm gone. Forever. The thought brought a smile to Alyssa's face. For two years she had worked here, and now she was finally moving on. Granted, it was to another entry level job, but still.

The next five minutes passed quickly. Alyssa cheered inwardly, and practically skipped to the exit. "By Casey, bye Bryce, bye Lilah!" She received halfhearted waves, her coworkers still having a few hours left of work. She happily walked through the parking lot to her car, slid into her seat and checked her rear-view mirror. What looked back at her was a nineteen year old girl with eyes that decided to be green that day framed behind blue, metal rimmed glasses. She put her hands up to fix the dark eggplant colored faux hawk she had gotten on a whim. Surprisingly it looked very good on her.

"I am the very model of a scientist salarian," Alyssa reached into her pocket to produce her cell phone. She hummed along with Mordin for a bit before opening her phone. "What's up, Lex?" Alexi, or Lex as Alyssa called her, had been Alyssa's best friend for years. The two of them were almost exactly alike, the only differences being key personality points. Where Alyssa was mostly calm Alexi was mostly hyper. Alyssa was more physically violent in her anger, taking an icy stare and keeping a low and deadly tone, whereas Alexi became livid in her movements, and verbally voiced her offense. The two of them shared interests, and reacted almost the same to everything. Sometimes people mistook them for sisters, and they were, of a sort. Soul sisters, they called themselves. They managed to find each other in each life they had. Yes, they believed in reincarnation. No, they didn't make that public knowledge.

"You wanna head over and hang out? We could play Mass Effect, or have a Naruto marathon." Alyssa laughed at the second suggestion. They were big into Naruto when they were in their early teens, and had just recently decided to re watch it, for nostalgia. "I'm all for watching some Naruto. I'm on way over now."

The two grown ass women were currently watching Naruto with slightly more enthusiasm than necessary. Granted, most of that enthusiasm came from random comments and pointing out plot holes. They finished the only box set in Alexi's possession, and began simply chatting about their days.

Alexi had had a rather uneventful day of drawing and writing in her grimoire. Alyssa gushed over the her new tattoo design, courtesy of her friend. Tarots were read, runes were deciphered. The two being the only two pagans they knew were constantly bouncing philosophical theories and magical techniques off each other. That evening was no different.

"Dude, it's Litha." Alexi proclaimed in hushed excitement after checking her phone's calender. "Oooh, and it's a full moon!"

"Woo! Is there a ritual we need to do?" Alyssa asked expectantly.

"There is but, it's not really a major holiday. A lot of trad pagans only celebrate the big four. I doubt the gods will frown too much upon us if we just take advantage of a thin veil and loose energy." the other girl said with a shrug and a grin. "There's this thing I wanna try. An astral projection technique that I think might work but I haven't tested it yet."

"What?"

"Ok, well, don't freak out but, it's sort of blood magic."

Immediate recognition of the Dragon Age reference only got Alexi a suspicious look from her friend.

"Chill bro, no demons. Just gimme your necklace. Here, you take mine." The exchange was made and Alexi went to the kitchen to grab a small pocket knife off the top of the fridge and a lighter. She reentered the room and sat across from Alyssa on the cleared floor, cross-legged with a the blade out. She flicked on the lighter and used the flame to sterilize the knife and said, "okay, just prick your finger like so," she demonstrated with only a small wince, "and bleed on the object." She pressed her figure to Alyssa's necklace, the bead of red smearing onto the pendant. She re-sterilized the blade and handed it to the other woman who merely stared at it with apprehension.

"Um, do we really have to? I mean, it feels kind of...wrong." Alyssa seemed to squirm a bit before adding, "and you know how my pain tolerance for small pain is really low."

"Nah, blood is just so we don't get separated in the astral. Also, don't be a baby. It's just a small prick. It only hurts for a second."

Alyssa sighed, and pressed the tip of the knife to her finger. The prick itself wasn't all that bad, it was the feeling of dread that rolled around in her stomach that made her hesitate. She took a deep breath and smeared the blood on Alexi's pendant.

"Okay, gimme." She said and they swapped their necklaces again. "See you in the astral plains." Alexi waved as if they were parting ways for the evening. They feel into their meditative states and push their consciousness into the astral. Their respective starting points were merged into one and they saw each other across a vast field with tall grass and a surrounding forest. Alexi lifted her arm to wave and get her friends attention while she crossed the field in a hurry.

Halfway through, a heaviness began to weigh on her shoulders. Alexi spent enough time in the astral plains to know when something felt so unfamiliar, it was generally a good idea to shield against it. She erected a transparent wall of energy that encased her in a hallow globe. A great, blue dragon floated along the walls as if it were alive but two dimensional. She trusted Alyssa would know to do the same. Still, though, the heaviness didn't lift immediately. That was odd. She focused on the feeling. It wasn't threatening, though it didn't seem too pleased with her shield. Was it a spirit she had met before? No, none of them were particularly heavy. Even the old dragon had an air similar to that one feels walking into a library. Who, then? Or what?

There was not much time to figure out the answer. Alexi was suddenly slammed into and pushed back quite a ways. She attempted her usual defenses but something seemed to be blocking her channeling of energy. She was thrown into the forest, deeper and deeper until it was completely black. She felt a sudden panic when she realized she couldn't breathe and felt the drag of grass and dirt and small rock against exposed skin. When the pushing finally stopped and everything was quiet, she sat up with a desperate gasp and looked around.

"The fuck was that?!" She shouted.