She was just taking a walk when she heard the sound of a car hitting something, and the sound of something flying past the guard rail only to roll downhill.

She didn't even think twice, her "saving people thing" as one person had called it demanded she find out what happened.

It was a good thing she did...she was able to administer a potion that would save a young man's life. He couldn't be more than a year older than her, if that.

The girl usually hated her luck, but for once it was acting in her favor. She had been practicing a particularly difficult potion in order to pass her secondary exams later this month, and it was perfect for stabilizing a patient so that they could be transported to a hospital for treatment.

This area was rural enough that it would take too long for her to reach a proper hospital, and if he had gotten hit by a car then it was almost certain there would be internal trauma. A lot of internal trauma.

Using a wandless levitation charm, she managed to get the teen away from the scene of the crime. Considering what little she heard from the driver (she made sure to memorize his face so she could take a picture of it from a pensieve later) he had been planning to dump the body in the nearby man-made lake so no one would know of his crime.

She scowled. It was a good thing she was taking a break nearby, otherwise the guy she saved would have died from drowning! A car might have been able to get him to a decent hospital if the driver was smart about it, but this driver wanted to insure he wouldn't live!

She used a minor spell on him and found he had a decently sized magical core...too much to be residual effect from the potion she gave him.

Which meant she could take him to a magical hospital and have him fixed up once they administered the antidote to Draught of the Living Death.

First though, she had to clean up her cabin. She did not want to be cited for leaving potion ingredients and other signs of magic in a strictly mundane area, and it wasn't like his condition would change while he was under the potion.

She would only find out later that by putting him in a near death state, she had successfully fooled the teen's identical twin brother into believing he had been killed.

In the Tokyo Magical Hospital...

The girl known as "Mai Taniyama" waited patiently outside the room while the healers and mediwizards went to work fixing the damage done to the young man she saved. As she had suspected, he had a fully matured magical core, though his wand had been damaged to the point he would either have to get it repaired or replaced.

The teenager had been badly injured, but thanks to her quick actions and the fact she put him under the Draught of the Living Death almost immediately, he would live.

There was, however, a slight issue.

"What do you mean his soul isn't there?"

"The young man you brought in happens to be an active psychic. One with the ability to walk 'out of body', in layman's terms. Essentially the shock of nearly dying caused his soul to leave, but because of how quickly you saved him it hasn't returned yet. We can heal his body, but there are very few ways to recall a soul that has left. The only reason he's still alive is because his body is used to functioning without one for a time," explained the healer patiently.

"...Is there any way to find out where his soul went?" she asked.

"All we know for certain is that he hasn't passed on just yet," he replied. "However if he remains out of his body for too long, the connection he has to it can sever or worse, it can be possessed by an outside force and the link destroyed."

Mai didn't like the sound of that.

So you could imagine her bewilderment when she went to sleep that night...and found the same boy she had saved looking quite confused.

"Um, hello? I'm not quite sure how I ended up in this place."

Mai stared at him, before sighing.

"Are you aware of what a life debt is?" she asked.

He blinked.

"Isn't that a bond that is created when someone performs a life-saving action for another or a group?" he asked.

"From what I can tell, you were hit by a car and nearly killed. The driver was fully prepared to throw you in the lake to hide the evidence of what he did, had I not been taking a walk at the time. As it is, you're currently in Tokyo undergoing medical treatment, however your soul has seperated from the body and they have no idea where it went."

He winced.

"The last thing I remember is a sharp pain and blacking out. I mean I've astral walked before, but not like this! As for where my soul went... I must have followed your aura instinctively because I've been wandering around this place for the past couple of hours."

Mai went through that comment in her head and could only come up with one conclusion.

"You're in my mind?" she all but shrieked.

She had good reason to be alarmed...most of her past was too painful for most to tolerate. It was a miracle she hadn't turned to drinking or some other vice to compensate.

"I can't read your mind, if that's what your asking. Legilmency was not something I bothered to practice, and I only mastered Occulmency to keep spirits out when I left my body. It creates a residual shield of sorts. However you seem to have some sort of massive fracture in your natural shields that allowed me to bypass them entirely."

"I have a good idea what caused it, but it's going to be months before I can even remotely start to fix it," she commented. "Can you return to your body? Thanks to the potion I was able to get you to a hospital with plenty of time for treatment."

"I can try, but I've been wandering around this sort of null area for hours and I still haven't found a way out."

"Well at least we have a general idea where your soul is. That's a start," sighed Mai.

Once she relayed this new information to the healers...who were all somewhat horrified she not only found the young man that she had saved, but that he had apparently gotten stuck inside her own soul by complete accident due to his psychic powers... they were rather stuck on how to proceed.

They couldn't remove him from her without damaging her soul irreparably, and his body would deteriorate if it was left without his soul for too long.

It wasn't until Mai made skin contact (via holding his hand) that they found a solution, at least until they could figure out how to fix this mess.

For some reason, Mai was able to 'recharge' the body's connection to the boy's soul. Likely because she was shielding his soul from being eaten by any number of unpleasant spiritual demons just waiting for the unwary to wander into their general vicinity.

And at the same time the young man's soul was acting as a sort of spiritual glue, thus rendering any further possession impossible. The fact he also managed to double as a fake Occulmency shield to shore up Mai's ruined one was another benefit.

The thing that had her blushing was the fact that the youkai in charge of the banking system confirmed that if and when the young man awoke, the two would have a soul-deep connection.

She wouldn't have minded so much if the cheeky kitsune they had consulted had said something other than "congratulations" on her betrothal and how the young man in question was "quite a catch for a husband".

At least she got his name by the end of it, though he was blushing almost as hard as she was once she told him.

Eugene Davis was a rather...interesting...person and he seemed far more tolerable than anyone she would have been stuck with if she hadn't relocated to Japan permanently.

Gene had to admit, he could have done worse than Mai for a literal soul mate... a term that still had him blushing and almost dreading Noll's reaction when he found out.

It was nothing compared to the rather blunt order from the healer that Mai share the same bed as him at least twice a week. It wasn't anything intimate, just her using his unconscious form as a make-shift teddy bear so his body could maintain the residual charge that was keeping it alive until they figured out a way to fix the mess they were in.

Gene had never shared a bed with a girl, intimate or otherwise. The most he had done in that regard was share a bed with his twin Oliver, and that had been when they were children. Noll was too 'mature' these days for such a thing unless he had no other choice, but Gene had never minded cuddling all that much.

For the most part he tended to 'sleep', as he was too polite to dig into Mai's memories. From the sheer level of panic she had at the mere thought of such a thing, he had the distinct feeling that her past wasn't as pleasant as his own had been. It did not help in the least that her mental shields had been completely shredded by someone who wanted to deliberately sabotage them. Someone had hurt her, badly, and she was only now starting to recover control over her own life.

Soul mate or not, he wasn't about to pry unless given permission first.

When he wasn't sleeping, he was chatting amicably with Mai. Since they were stuck together for the foreseeable future, he saw no reason that they couldn't get to know one another.

He didn't know what had happened to Mai in the past, but she was extremely shy about opening up when it came to personal information and reacted with a very confused expression towards any positive touch.

She looked openly baffled when he did something as simple as holding her hand, and there was a slight microflinch when he hugged her twice, before her brain caught up and told her who was hugging her was safe.

It didn't paint a very pleasant picture of her home life, and Gene was starting to realize there was a reason her soul was fractured to the point his own had managed to slip in by complete accident and form a natural soul bond to act as glue.

He made a point to draw her into light conversation about topics he found interesting, and it hadn't taken much for them to find several things they had in common.

For one thing, they both loved owls. Gene was absolutely smitten with Hedwig from the memories Mai shared with him. It was a shame he couldn't pet her. He was also an avid Quidditch fan, but not to the point he liked one team over another. Except the Harpies. He was a guy and there was something appealing of an all-girl team.

He would deny blushing when he made a comment about a "cheerleader outfit" and Mai had cheekily corrected him when she said she generally played Seeker, rather than sit on the sidelines. Memories of flying in Quidditch games and the view from the infamous World Cup when the terrorists known as "Death Eaters" crashed the after party were some of the few memories she can and would share with him.

Finding out his soul mate was a bit of an adrenaline junkie and as agile as a bird in the air was a pleasant surprise. Gene was acceptable on a broom, but he didn't have any particular fondness of it.

That being said, once Mai figured out how to change her clothes in the shared mental scape, she did wear something close to a cheerleading outfit.

However it wasn't to represent any team sports... it was actually a pretty good recreation of Sailor Moon.

If Gene had any biological functions right now, he would have one massive nosebleed. As it was there was a suspicious wetness where his nose was the next morning, as that had been one of the nights Mai used his comatose form as a teddy bear.

She was quite smug about that.

Gradually, the two got used to their new situation. Mai was rather adaptive, considering her life before she moved to Japan was rather hectic and fit the definition of "May you live in interesting times".

Gene was just glad that he didn't have to suffer through normal schooling twice. For Mai it was a novelty, but for him it was a dead bore.

Though he would openly admit to snickering every time Mai mentioned her friend "Yuu-chan" because she happened to notice the fact that his first name if pronounced by a native Japanese speaker could easily be mistaken for the word "Yuujin", which meant friend.

At least Gene could help her with her homework. She had several years of missed classes to make up for.

Getting a driver's license and a motorcycle license barely rated more than an interested eyebrow from Gene. After all, any teenager would want a chance to explore their newly granted freedom because they were old enough to be considered "responsible".

However it was the third license that had Gene very confused.

"Why do you have a pilot's license for a helicopter?" he asked baffled.

"One, because I have the money to afford an actual helicopter instead of a small two-seater. Two, because I love flying and this way I get to explore new ways of enjoying that hobby without having to hide what I'm doing so long as I follow established regulations for it and don't crash into anything. And three, which is something you haven't considered... how exactly did you think I got you to Tokyo so fast when I despise port-keys and barely tolerate apparition? A broom would have been unspeakably awkward and difficult to pull off."

Gene blinked. He honestly had no idea how Mai had gotten him to Tokyo, though now that he thought about it she did prefer her bicycle or her broom compared to other transports. The area she lived it made it highly impractical to own a car and there wasn't much room for her to park a motorcycle.

However Mai did own a small enchanted helicopter that was specially retrofitted with certain runes and was insolated against heavy magic use. It was much quieter than normal helicopters, but still held all the same technology.

It was just surprising a girl who wasn't even seventeen yet owned a helicopter of all things and was licensed to fly it solo.

"Can you show me how?" asked Gene, hopeful. It certainly sounded like an interesting way to pass the time.

"I can try. Most of what I can do is instinct, and I only got my license because the Japanese Ministry really wanted to piss off the British if and when they found out where I am. The fact this gives me an alternative way to get around without exposing magic is just bonus."

Mai made a point to go flying at least once a week, more if she could. It was a great way to relieve stress.