Scarlet is fun.

{Tara's General Narration}

After our return to Kuoh, things settled into our new normal. Koneko and I had been practically inseparable for a few months, which we found out were a mix of my dragon instincts protectiveness, and her Nekoshu instincts to stay with the best source of safety. Not to say our feeling towards each other were mainly caused by said instincts, they were just subtly influenced by them. We managed to get used to not being around each other 24/7, but Koneko would always come to sleep by my side when it was time to sleep. Combined with her and Rias, and my bed was always dull nowadays.

My kitten, which was what I ended up settling on, was expressing herself more and more, breaking out of the apathetic shell she had secluded herself into. Nowadays, it was common to see her with her tail and ears out. She was also turning into quite the prankster, and a cheeky little shit... But she was MY cheeky little shit.

Eventually, around 2 months into our new relationship, we had a talk about her past. It all started with a throw away comment I made to Rias about how Senjutsu from Naruto was sort of cool, but Hollow abilities like the Cero were cooler. That comment, specifically the word 'Senjutsu', made Koneko still in my lap, practically turning herself into a statue. Seeing that, Rias looked at me, and after mentally debating with herself about something, she asked Koneko if she wanted to tell me herself. My daughter looked at me, worry and indecision obviously in her eyes, and I held her closer to me.

She had relaxed into me when I did that, and after a few moment, told Rias she could do this. My younger sister nodded, and after asking another question, whether she'd like her to be there, Rias nodded when Koneko said she wanted her here.

The conversation we had was not something I was expecting.

{Tara's POV}

Blinking, I looked between Rias and Koneko, eventually deciding to keep my gaze on my daughter, who was nervously shifting on my lap. We covered the whole thing, being taken in by the Nebirus or whatever house, and her life there with her older sister. An older sister I had no clue about before today, and was curious to learn more about. Though, hearing the whole 'gone mad with power' bit, something sounded off to me. Hearing how she evaded Hell's patrols and stuff like that, the niggling at the back of my mind grew. I wasn't a genius, I'd never claim I was either, but I wasn't stupid. "Kitten, I've got a question for you." My daughter slowly nodded at me, and I took that. "The weeks leading up to your sister 'going crazy'," The way she stilled when she registered the air quotes in that statement was something to see. "How did she act? Was she jumpy? Paranoid? Tired? Anyway shape or form out of the ordinary?"

Koneko didn't respond right away, looking passed me more at me, and I let her think. Martha had told me how the conversation with Akeno had went, and after the one with Kiba, I was fully expecting Koneko to confirm what I thought. (And if I'm right, we're going to have some problems.) I didn't know what kind of problems, but I was used to beating the shit out of my problems in this life, and considering I was a dragon, a majority of those problems never bothered me again.

"Nee-sama was..." Looking at my daughter, I saw the hurt in her eyes, and gently ran my fingers through her hair, and over her scalp. It never failed to turn her into a puddle, and helped her relax. She looked up at me, and I gave her another soft smile. After returning it, Koneko closed her eyes, and leaned into me, resting her head on my tits. "Nee-sama was tired. Everyday, she was getting more and more tired. She was hiding something, something important... But I didn't know what. I was being fed, clothed, bathed, everything we wanted or needed... I didn't think it was that big back then... But suddenly, she was mad. Very mad... I woke up to shouting, screaming... She screamed..." Her face scrunched up, most likely trying to remember what it was. "I think... Hurt... I heard hurt... But that's all I can remember." I mentally, and almost physically, frowned at that. 'Hurt' could mean anything tho...- "But," I focused on my daughter, and saw her frown. "... But... Senjutsu doesn't make us tired... It does the opposite." That tidbit seemed to do something, and she stilled again. "But then... Why?"

It hurt to hear the confusion and pain in that whisper, so I held her close, and brought out my wings, wrapping her in my warmth. "It's ok kitten, we'll figure it out." And we would. I wasn't sure how, or when we would, but we'd figure out just what happened with Koneko's sister... Even if I already had an inkling that it was to protect her, I needed to be sure.

{Tara's General Narration}

With Koneko's permission, I told Martha what I learned, and after a muttered 'One PhD coming up', she agreed with me that there was more then met the eye with Kuroka's situation. 'An insane Devil somehow escaping all the underworld's patrols? Pull the other one.' That stumped the Devils when she said that, and after conferring with Serafall and Sirzechs, who still didn't like mom, Martha and I, they decided to keep an open mind... Well, Serafall did, Sirzechs just seemed to be humoring us, and only accepted to do that when Rias and Serafall narrowed their eyes at him. Sirzechs tolerated us Sakura's, but the more time went on, the more he seemed to just dislike us for 'stealing his Rias.' It sucked, and Rias hated being referred to like that, but it was what it was.

Anyway, Koneko wasn't the only one who changed. After her talk with Martha, Akeno seemed... More grounded? Real? She was still the teasing sadistic bitch she always was before, but now she was more relatable? I had no idea how to accurately explain it, but Akeno was easier to talk too after that. Over the months/year, she slowly but surely branched out a bit, talking to friends we had but she hadn't tried talking to before, like Irina and Futaba, and made an effort to talk to us about stuff she never brought up before. It was nice.

Another person that changed over the months was Futaba. Despite visiting her and Uncle Ro every Sunday, or when we had time, the most Futaba could do was crack open her door. After some needling, she told us she felt this sense of impending doom at the thought of leaving her door. Now normally, we'd just chalk that up to being a metaphor or something, but given what we knew of Futaba and her palace, we had no idea what could or would happen if we tried to lead her out of her room. Thankfully, she could still go to the bathroom, so we didn't need to pay to get Uncle Ro's home reworked, but it was still worrying.

Another thing with Futaba was that she started her campaign as Medjed, one she told us about after Martha and I not so subtly started talking about 'them.' My sister told her not to overwork herself, otherwise she would wait until she was older to give her another Grimoire. That set Futaba straight, and kept her sleep schedule reasonable.

Futaba was also doing good with her magic studies, and had reached 'level 15' in them after 2-3 months... None of us knew what she was basing that on, but she felt like she had been on the cusp of her first hurdle, so we just accepted that. It was another month later that she said she leveled up and passed said hurdle, which highly amused and interested the magical nerds. Though, by the end of the year, and when Futaba had started taking Moon Dew Tea, she said she ended up passing her next hurdle, and was officially passed level 36... Though when she felt the next hurdle, she changed her mind and decided to use Digimon terms, and put herself at the Rookie level.

The gremlin being a prodigy aside, things were going fine in Kuoh. Martha and the magic nerds were working on projects, one of which was the golem spy network Martha and Azalea thought of back in Tokyo, and it was actually feasible. They used magic to make and temper clay to be the perfect material, and my sister enchanted massive slabs of clay to work better. By the end of the 4th month they were working on it, Kuoh ended up home to a few Conspiracies... Which was what a flock of Ravens was called... That or an 'Unkindness.' I didn't know who came up with those, but they had to have been on some good shit.

The 'Ravens' were slowly introduced into Kuoh, and after a year, it was now normal to see flocks of Ravens flying around. So far, they helped find Stray Devils, the occasional Stray Exorcist that made their way into Kuoh, and other stuff. Though, in the 'Raven's Nests', three rooms, one in our house, one in Sona's compound, and the last one in Rias' place, that held all the recordings made by the Raven's, there were a months or so worth of video evidence of some kind of black cat being seen around Kuoh. The strange thing was, this cat had amber eyes, and acted far more like a person then a cat. A person that was focused on watching Koneko.

We had no idea when the 'cat' had started watching us, and neither mine or Martha's senses could tell us when we were being watched. It was sort of worrying to be honest. Though, if the cat was who we thought it was, then that would help us figure out what happened... The only issue was approaching it. We'd only noticed this around the start of our 2nd year at Kuoh, and so far, the cat hadn't shown up. We knew it would, but until it did, we were stumped.

Till the cat showed up, we decided to keep up our routine, and address it when the time was right... And a good way to keep ourselves distracted was to watch Martha try to breed Post Owls into existence. I found out a week after she made some kind of Ward to attract owls. She somehow underestimated how effective it was, and I woke up one day to a scene similar to that one episode of Shield Hero, but with owls instead of the Chocobos. A bunch of the feathered menaces had flown in through an open window, and were fucking around in the livingroom.

It must've been a hilarious scene for mom, because the moment she came downstairs, bedhead worse then mine, and spotted a naked me and Rias, holding back a pajama clad Koneko hissing and pawing at the owls, which were swarming a frantic Martha, she broke out into a cackle that just infected Rias and I. Koneko was too annoyed with the owls to give a damn, and kept trying to catch one of them to eat... It was a crazy morning.

After that, Martha had a good 43 fucking owls for her project. They were placed in the woods, in our old training ground. Martha and her magic squad would spend atleast 3 or so hours with the owls, conducting their experiments and stuff, then do whatever else. The natural owls didn't seem to change much over the weeks/months they were here, sure they were smarter only by a bit, but when it came time for eggs?

The 1st generation of owls hatched from the new residents of the forest were something... They were...

They were pests.

That's what they were!

The little shits were smart. They were smart, and Martha couldn't control them! For 4 months, those little bastards fucked with EVERYONE! There were 22 smart juvenile owls in Kuoh, and those feathered rats hooted as a collective in the middle of the night, loud as shit for no reason, flew around the area to shit everywhere, and were consistently bothering us every goddamn day.

It got to the point where I went to our old training ground, Shifted into my dragon form, and roared at the little bastards, and offered them an ultimatum. Either they stop being fucking bastards, or I turned them all into KFC. I accentuated my point by breathing a pillar of fire into the air, which worked wonders.

They weren't assholes after that.

The owls weren't exactly what Martha wanted though, so she and the rest of the magical minds kept experimenting. It took a total of 9 months, and another 3 gens of owls, they had a growth acceleration field on the training grounds or something, but they eventually got it right. With the right owls, they let the older gens free, free to torment the world... I was serious.

There was a news report about some owl gang off in Florida, and I recognized one of the 1st gens in the picture... I wasn't sure why, or how, but it made sense for it to be Florida... Atleast it wasn't Australia... Either they'd taken over the land where grass could kill you, or they died... It was either or when it came to the land down under.

Anyway, on the normal side of things, life marched on. School was school, boring and annoying. My title as the Valkyrie Queen ended up being shown as well earned when Kiba had decided to call me out for some spars, proving that he too could be bored with the monotony of daily school life. We limited ourselves to base human strength and speed, focusing more on technique and skill. When it came to those last two, I was weaker, I obviously preferred my Renewal Taekwondo, but that didn't mean I was weak.

I had my instincts as a dragon, combined with my martial arts training, I could beat Kiba 8 times out of 10. He had skill and technique in spades, he was just having issues fighting against someone that trusted their instincts, rather then someone with a structured form of combat. As soon as he got over that, he'd be fine.

Aside from that, I ended up with another title 'The Motherly Monarch', which was from people seeing me care for Koneko, walk home with her on my back, hand in hand, or even on my shoulders. Apparently, being seen as a good mother was title worthy... And I actually liked it, so it was all good in my books.

Time marched on with our new schedule, and after birthdays and holidays, we eventually got to our 2nd year at Kuoh Academy.

Nothing really changed at the start, but we worked on stuff outside of school.

Issei had managed to hold his Balance Breaker for 5 minutes, which was apparently good for a host of the old gecko's, especially one as young as Issei was.

Koneko had decided to be brave, and slowly started getting back into Senjutsu practice. She was worried about it, but after promising her I'd stop her should anything happen, she set a routine to spend atleast an hour a day practicing it.

Kiba had been building up a folder of names we were getting from Irina and her dad, names of anyone involved in the project that ruined his life. His hate was focused on them, and was only getting firmer the more names he got. I also told him about how the other guy with Sword Birth used his Sacred Gear, giving Kiba some new ideas to use his own with.

Gasper was starting to come out now, though he stayed in his box... Which never failed to get the Solid Snake music play in my mind. He also had a modicum of control of his Sacred Gear now, though it would still activate if something surprised him.

Akeno was starting to experiment with her Fallen side, especially with her Holy Lightning... Which was fucking strange if I was being honest. I'd eaten it a few times, and wasn't sure if it tasted slightly spicy, or weirdly sweet. It was a weird taste, but VERY filling.

Rias was blatantly stealing from anime when it came to using her Power of Destruction, she even dipped into Bleach, and stole Hollow techniques. Her version of a Cero was a highly compressed ball of destruction she fired at the speed of a rail gun, turning wherever she pointed at into a perfect crater. Her Gran Rey Cero was basically a big ball of fuck off power, and was responsible for a big patch of the training grounds at the mountain being barren for months. She also had actual techniques that didn't resort to 'big ball go boom', like letting her PoD roll out of her like a fog, destabilizing the area around her, and making her a walking calamity depending on how concentrated she made her PoD for example. There were others too, but those were the ones that were the most dangerous at the moment.

Martha and Sona's group made improvements too, Sona ended up recruiting a new girl for her Peerage, a girl I liked to hang out with called Tsubasa Yura, Sona's first Rook. Though, aside from her, I didn't really follow what they did.

Martha got more magic books, and learning a bunch of shit that made my head spin, and also becoming a drug maker considering she was working on potions or more stuff like the Moon Dew Tea.

As for me, I worked on making new spells for my Lightning Dragon Slayer magic, and even managed to make a badass Secret Art that made lightning hounds... It wasn't based off a Jutsu from Naruto, and I'd fight anyone that said otherwise! It was Stark I was stealing from!

... I also remade the Chidori, because I liked the noise it made, and it worked wonder with my tail. But that was the only thing I took from Naruto.

Our new abilities aside, not much had happened... Until a surprise trip showed up out of nowhere. We were told that 2nd years got a free trip to Kyoto, and it was interesting to say the least.

Apparently, when we asked Rias and Sona, they told us it was an established tradition for Kuoh Academy students to go to Kyoto. Apparently, the Yokai had a similar trip for a majority of the high schools around, mainly to sound out new recruits and stuff like that.

Though, that opened up a problem. Rias and Sona were in Kuoh for their protection, so leaving Kuoh to go to another Faction's territory could be an issue. But, if they didn't go, the Yokai could see it as a snub towards them. So they were kind of in between a rock and a hard place. Another issue was that if we went, we'd be leaving behind Koneko and Gasper... Which was a big no for obvious reasons.

But there was an issue THERE too, because Koneko was a Nekoshu, even if she was a Devil now, she was still recognized as a Nekoshu... And the Yokai were apparently still a bit butthurt with the whole thing... So yeah, this seemingly innocent trip was giving us a bunch of problems.

Eventually, it was decided that we'd all be going, and attempt to NOT antagonize or let there be any misunderstandings between us and the Yokai. Since Sona was the sister to Leviathan, the one responsible for facilitating and dealing with foreign affairs, her leading us to talks with the Yokai, if it was needed, would do wonders. It also helped that Serafall promised to pop in if it was required.

We also agreed to have mom stay behind, mainly to keep Koneko and Gasper company. Mom didn't like that we were sidelining her, but without knowing how the Yokai would take us bringing Koneko along, we didn't want to risk it. Koneko didn't like that we were basically leaving her behind, but I wouldn't allow her to be in danger if I could help it... Though, I knew she could handle alot, I didn't like seeing her hurt.

Anyway, we had a few plans for the trip. and after preparing for it, were ready to take on Kyoto.

{Tara's POV}

Looking outside the window, watching the surroundings go by, I mentally hummed in excitement about what we'd see in Kyoto. I'd gotten used to sparring with the Devils, and my sister, but Yokai were diverse as hell, and could maybe keep me entertained if it came down to a fight. Though, it annoyed me that I'd probably be scolded for thinking about fighting anyone.

"Mhmmm, cakeee." That mutter from Rias made me snort, and I turned to look at my younger sister, who was snoozing her life away on my shoulder. She just wanted to take a small nap, but somehow, that 'small nap', turned into a half hour snooze fest. What made the scene even better was that she was just slightly drooling, and her ahoge was slumped...

It was both hilarious, and adorable. (Sucks I can't bring my phone out to take a pic of this.) While I COULD use my left hand to reach over and get my phone from my right pocket, that much movement could've woken her up, so I decided not too. (Doesn't mean I'll let her live it down for a while.) I WAS an older sister after all.

Feeling amusement from my twin, I looked over Rias' head, and saw aforementioned twin, along with Sona, looking over at us. The three of us stared at each other for a moment, I mouthed 'phone?' They both understood what I was asking for, and Sona brought out her phone before Martha could. It was like she had it holstered in her non existent sleeve or something. "I find this highly suspicious." Sona quietly snorted, and waved that away as she started taking pictures of Rias sleeping on my shoulder.

Hearing a small bit of snickering, I looked at the seats in front and behind my sister and Sona, and saw Akeno, who was sitting with Momo, and Tsubaki, who was sitting with Kiba, looking at us. I just rolled my eyes as the Queens took in Rias' current predicament. They weren't the only ones either, since in front of me, Tomoe and Tsubasa were looking over the seat, and grinning at me. Surprisingly, Reya was the only one not joining in on this, though I did catch her peering around the side, just to see what was going on.

Everyone looked on for a bit, but eventually decided to look away when the chaperone for this trip announced we were about to reach our destination. Hearing that, I decided it was time to wake up the slumbering Devil. So, poking Rias' cheek, I begun anno...- Waking her. "Hey, hey you, hey, listen." With every poke, she got closer to waking up. "Uuuuup."

Grumbling, Rias sleepily swatted my hand away, and snuggled further into my shoulder. "'Lone, slee'y." I rolled my eyes at that, and charged a minor bit of electricity into my finger, enough to be like the shock you get when you touch something metallic after rubbing your socks on something. With the charge, I grinned to myself, and poked my sleepy sister on the cheek again. This time though, her eyes shot open, and she jumped. "YAAAH!" I laughed at the yelp from my sister, and laughed even harder at the glare/pout she aimed at me. "Why are you so mean, Tara-nee?"

I chuckled, and gave her a good pat on the head. "It's my divine right to be this way as your older sister."

The exasperated sigh she let out nearly sent me back to laughing.

Our little comedic routine aside, we ended up at our destination, a parking lot besides a hotel, prepaid by the sponsors of our trip, AKA the Yokai.

After getting off the bus, we made our way to the hotel, and the moment we entered, we all subtly tensed. I recognized the feeling of passing a Warded area, and knew that was what we just did. The Wards were decent, nowhere near my sister's, but decent. {What're we working with?}

Martha didn't skip a beat. [Identification, surveillance, and defensive Wards. Should it come to it, I can easily dispel them, but that would undoubtedly alert our hosts, and would most likely be seen as hostile action.] I mentally hummed at that, and accepted it. Martha knew her shit, I was never going to question that. Though I kinda wanted to see who'd show up if we started shit. [Tara.] Mentally whistling, I ignored the annoyed mental whack to the back of my head, and kept going.

With an idea of what we were under, Martha had put up a privacy screen to share the news, and dropped it when she was done, we walked with the rest of our classmates. I wasn't worried about the Wards, my status as a dragon would be hidden thanks to Martha's Enchantment, and since the rest of our friends had similar accessories, the worry about the 'identification' part of the Wards were out of their minds. It just went to show how much we all trusted Martha's skills as an Enchantress, that we walked into enemy territory without really caring about much.

{15 minutes later}

After everyone was set up in our rooms, they were 4 beds per room so it was me, Martha, Rias and Akeno, we talked about our plans. It was agreed that none of us would go out on our own, if we got into a situation we'd ping the GC with our coordinates, or the situation itself if time wasn't scarce. We also decided to stick to areas that shouldn't have many, if any, supernaturals. The main reason was to just not be on the Yokai's radar, while the minor point was to keep me from starting shit... I didn't like how much they treated me like a child in a candy store, but I also couldn't fault them, cause I DID wanna fight... (This sucks.)

That aside, we wanted to enjoy the sights, so when we were allowed to go out on our own, we did just that. We split up into groups, me, Rias and Akeno were one group, Martha, Sona and Tsubaki were another, and Kiba went with Tsubasa, Reya and Tomoe... Which had him on the end of a bunch of playboy jokes... Which also made Tsubaki and Tomoe blush... Akeno, Rias and I filed that away for later teasing.

Anyway, with the plans set up, we left the hotel, and went off to explore!

Humming to ourselves, Rias and I shared a look, and laughed as we walked into the local Mandarake, and began the hunt for manga and merch. We ignored Akeno's long suffering sigh, and went to town. "I should've gone with Martha and Sona." We ignored that too.

The two of us were having a blast, a bunch of manga we'd been thinking of pirating or ordering online were here, and thanks to taking our cards with us, we could buy them all. We were both tempted to pay for each other, but after a quick game of Rock-Paper-Scissors, which I cursed her luck for after, it was up to me to pay for us... Though, initially, I didn't pay for most of the doujins Akeno bought... A majority of which were BL, much to the interest of my sister. I didn't really care about BL, I'd read it if it was good, but I wasn't interested in it...

I did pay for the Yuri though, which I knew Akeno was bribing me with... So I ended up paying for everything... (Stupid horny miko.) I wasn't sure how, but Akeno must've known I thought that, since she giggled a moment after it.

I rolled my eyes at her, and walked out of the store with Rias by my side, and Akeno behind us.

After leaving Mandarake, we walked around, just taking in the sights. The looks we were getting slightly annoyed me, but I'd gotten used to them, and just talked with Rias and Akeno to tune them out. "Anywhere else we should visit?"

My sister hummed at that, while Akeno actually had an answer. "While it's bound to be a hot spot for the Shinto or Yokai, I'd like to see one of the shrines here." That got her raised brows from both of us, and she elaborated. "While I live in and care for a shrine, I haven't exactly been kept up to date about certain... Procedures." Even higher raised brows. Akeno rolled her eyes at us, then slowly shook her head. "I don't think I can actually tell you, unless I'm given permission. It's a rule all Miko's follow."

Huh... Sharing a look with my sister, we both shrugged, then turned back to Akeno. ""Ok.""

We both saw Rias preen a little at getting that right, which made me laugh, and the resident Shrine Maiden huff in amusement. "Anywaaay, what about you, ladies?"

Thinking about it, and also looking around, I hummed to myself, though it was my fellow redhead that spoke before I could come up with somewhere to go. "I think there was supposed to be a mall a few minutes away!" Blinking, the Queen and I shared a look, looked at the excited and eager Rias, whose ahoge was bouncing around, and both nodded. My sister fist pumped the air, and started literally dragging us along. "To the mall we go!"

I was getting a feeling of deja vu, and had no idea why...

I also felt like there was something happening, but didn't know what... (Eh, probably not that important.)

{Meanwhile, back in Kuoh}

Perched on a rooftop, a black cat stared at the Junior High division of Kuoh Academy, anticipation gleaming in her amber orbs. The majority of her obstacles were gone, and all that stood in her way was one Devil woman.

Easy.

[Omake - Annoyance, thy name is Martha. Martha's POV an hour later]

(There is some form of karma at work here, and I don't like it.) The exploration had been going remarkable well. Sona, Tsubaki and I had found an old bookstore, similar to the one I'd found in Tokyo, and had discovered a pair of magical tomes, one being the diary of an old mage, one who worked on Alchemy. From what I'd gleamed, he wasn't exactly good at it, but it was a start on an interesting field.

The other had been a book on the common Yokai techniques, Toki, Senjutsu, the like. The author had enchanted the book to seem normal to the mundane eye, but an enchantment of that level was child's play to me. We were all interested in the techniques in the book, not only because they were highly detailed, but because this would be quite useful for a certain feline Yokai we knew.

Sadly, those were the only tomes we had found. We'd moved on after that, and began looking around for any sights that gained our interest, while also stopping by a small cafe for a light snack. Their coffee wasn't as good as my Uncle's, but it was enough for the moment.

We had been having a good time acting like tourists, but of course, something had to happen.

Said 'something', was an unexpected encounter we had stumbled upon. We had gone near a shrine, hadn't even passed the Tori gates, when we felt ourselves pass into a Bounded Field, as well as see a small child fly out of the gates, and crashed into Tsubaki, knocking her to the ground. Sona and I were surprised at this, but when dozens of creatures emerged from beyond the Tori gates, and began to surround us, Sona and I reacted before anything could be done.

A snap of my fingers denoted the air and stone around the creatures, which seemed to be some strange form of Ent, becoming shackles that bound them all, pulling them in two directions at the same time. Sona followed this up by creating water lances, which were then turned into ice lances, and shot towards the Ent creatures, impaling them in the 'heart', 'lungs', and 'brain.' I was unsure if those creatures had them, or if they were constructs, but with Sona impaling them, they froze and shattered into hundreds of pieces.

The altercation lasted for all of a few seconds, we'd trained to react to sudden attacks with extreme prejudice, with no follow up, but those seconds were enough for Tsubaki to get back up, holding the unconscious child, and give Sona and I a chance to see her. The girl seemed unassuming at first glance, aside from the blood and bruises, but upon noticing a glamor/illusion was in place, I casually dismissed it, which wasn't hard considering it was on its last legs, we got a look at the girl.

She was a mousey little thing, perhaps 8 or 9 years old, maybe younger, blonde, nearly white hair, pale skin that may suggest albinism, a red coat with darker red segments, a white dress under said coat, as well as a scarf and red hat that somehow stayed on despite her having been hurled through the air. Though, the hat was a little strange, but after taking it off, I realized the protrusions were additions for the rabbit ears the child had. She had no shoes or socks, perhaps due to her being perused.

The three of us made sure to stay on our guard, even as I cast diagnostics over the girl, as well as letting my Verdant Light radiate over her, applying First Aid. We kept our guards up, but after a minute of nothing, we relaxed, and I took in the short list of her injuries. Now that I knew what her issues were, I let my Verdant Light repair her injuries.

With her healed, there was now the sole question we all shared as we looked at each other.

'What now?'