Sorry about the delay but there was the holidays, and I got two of my wisdom teeth removed and when the awesome pain killing drugs wore off I was miserable. So here you go.
X-overs in this chapter: Ranma 1/2, Ouran High School Host Club, Bleach, and Inuyasha.
The next morning, Bree was lounging in the bath. There was a lot of shouting and arguing and Bree couldn't understand a word of it because she had taken off her translation key. There was a crash and Bree found herself sharing a bath with some debris and Ranma and Ryoga who had been beating the crap out of each other but they paused when they realized where they were.
They stared at Bree in horror. Bree stared blankly at them. She stood up and left the room. It took Ranma and Ryoga a moment to process the fact that she had been wearing a swim suit and then they went right back to pummeling each other.
Line line line
Bree spent the next two days trying to get in contact with some rich guy that owed her Aunt money. All she had to show for it were slammed doors and dropped calls.
"Is something wrong?" Kasumi asked after Bree slammed the phone down.
"Yes." Bree replied frowning.
"Anything I can do to help?" Kasumi asked.
"No, thanks anyway though." Bree answered. If she couldn't get to the man directly she could just go through his daughter.
Ouran Academy was over the top, pretentious, and a huge waste of money. It had a knockoff Big Ben and architecture similar to the nineteenth century architecture of Paris. It was pointless an extravengant. Naturally rich people wanted their children to go there and pretend to learn since they'd all be inheriting their parents fortunes anyway. And this was the school Bree had to infiltrate. Great.
She was wearing the schools uniform. Not the frilly yellow dress that the girls all wore. It was probably the ugliest garment Bree had ever seen in her life, and that included a rather horrific Christmas sweater that played jingle bells when you pressed the reindeer's nose. Poor Leo.
Anyway, Bree was wearing was wearing the far more sensible boy's uniform which consisted of a pale blue blazer over a white shirt and a pair of black trousers. She had dyed her brown, gelled to so it spiked out, put in green contacts, and tied down her "assets." She had silver cross hanging from one ear and a steel stud in the other. She had stuffed the translation key down her shirt so it wasn't visible and forced her voice to be deeper and more British.
She got a lot of looks from groups of giggling girls. She soon found her target. Brown hair, glasses, and a little self-conscious about her appearance. Bree had to fight a predatory grin off her face and settle for a more friendly expression.
"Excuse me, you're Fuka right?" Bree asked pleasantly. The girl flushed.
"Y-yes." She stuttered out. "C-can I help you."
"Why yes!" Bree replied. "You see, my Auntie and your father have done business together in the past and Auntie is trying to get in touch with him, but she's all in England and he's here in Japan and the time difference makes communicating a bit hard, so if you could just give your father this letter…"
Bree held out a plain white envelope to Fuka.
"Of c-course!" Fuka exclaimed, taking the letter.
"Perfect! Noe make sure you don't open that, I wouldn't want either of us to get in trouble." Bree replied. Not that she needed to, there was a charm that ensured that only the intended recipient would want to open the letter, but there was nothing wrong with reinforcing the idea.
"R-right." Fuka answered. Bree said goodbye and confidently walked off even though she had no idea where she was going. She got lost quite quickly.
"Maybe I should find someone and asked for directions." Bree mused aloud once she discovered the "point me" only showed her the direction of the exit and not an actual route to get there.
Bree opened a door and quickly regretted it when she found herself face with several boys in the school uniform who were apparently waiting for someone, otherwise there would be no reason for them to be posed near the door like that. There was a blue-eyed blond, a taller more serious version of Harry, a small childlike blond who probably had some sort of growth hormone imbalance, a set of twins, a tall brunet who looked kind of broody, and a smaller brunet who looked rather girly.
"Welcome!" they exclaimed as rose petals floated by on a non-existent breeze. As Bree tried to figure out if she had stepped though a thin place again the taller of the two blonds approached her.
"It's not often that we get a boy in here." He said.
"This was a mistake." Bree stated as she tried to back out of the room. The blond grabbed her.
"Now, now, don't be shy. We here at the Ouran High School Host Club feel that everyone should be able to embrace who they truly are! So what's your type? The Cool Type? The Twin Devils? The Loli-Shota Type? The Strong and Silent Type? The Natural Rookie? Or maybe," and here the boy moved uncomfortably close to Bree "The Prince Charming."
"I know you're probably trying to be seductive, but you just come off as creepy." Bree stated.
"Creepy!" the boy wailed in despair. He let go of Bree and went to mope in the corner. The twins snickered at him.
"Could someone sane please tell me how to get out of this school before I waste another hour trying to find my way out of here?" Bree asked.
The girly brunet volunteered. He introduced himself as Haruhi.
"So are you a new student here?" he asked Bree as they walked.
"Nah, it's just that wearing the uniform makes it so people don't ask questions about why I'm here." Bree replied.
"So why are you here?"Haruhi inquired.
"A father of one of the students owes my aunt money and he refuses to meet with me so I'm blackmailing him." Bree answered. Haruhi stared incredulously. Bree shrugged.
"I've been working for my Aunt so a debt collector." She explained before coughing a bit and allowing he voice to return to normal. "Man. Maintaining that voice is harder than I expected."
Haruhi blinked. "You're a girl?" he asked.
"Yes. I just didn't want to where that stupid yellow dress." Bree answered.
"… I'm a girl too." Haruhi stated after a moment.
"Huh… Well I did think you looked too girly to be a boy." Bree commented. "So why are you pretending to be a boy?" she asked.
"I've been working at the host club to pay back a debt for a broken vase." Haruhi explained.
"Host club? So that's what that… thing upstairs is?" Bree inquired. Haruhi nodded.
"So why can't you just pay back the debt instead of working it off?" Bree asked.
"I'm a scholarship student." Haruhi answered.
"Oh, that must have been difficult getting in here, pretty impressive." Bree commented. She rooted through one of her pockets and then handed some cash to Haruhi.
"Here, I know dealing with people who feel like their entitled to, well, everything can be pretty annoying so you should be able to treat yourself to something that helps you unwind." She said.
Haruhi stared.
"Is it too much or too little?" Bree asked. "I'm not really that good with foreign currency."
"It is kind of a lot." Haruhi replied.
"Oh." Bree took a little back. "There. Buy yourself something from one of those fancy cafes. Something with chocolate that always helps me relax."
"Are you sure about this?" Haruhi asked.
"Well, my school only had one self entitled bastard and I don't think you'd be able to use my method for dealing with him." Bree explained.
"How did you deal with him?"
"I made sure he was terrified of me. Oh look, we're here." They'd arrived at the front gate.
"Thanks for helping me out." Bree said.
Hours later Bree got a call from Fuka's father. He was ready to meet with her.
"I'm so glad you changed your mind." Bree practically purred.
"It's not like you gave me much of a choice." Fuka's father, Jiro muttered.
"Yes, well, you should have been more cooperative." Bree replied. "There was no need to be so evasive anyway, your company has more than enough money to pay back that starting loan my Aunt gave you."
"I remember dealing with your Aunt." Jiro replied. "I've heard that you take after her."
"So you were scared." Bree stated. Jiro didn't reply.
"You only need to be scared when you don't cooperate. As long as you do cooperate no harm will come to you or your family." Bree explained. "Now let's discuss your debt, would you like to pay all off at once or would you rather set up a payment plan?"
Once all of the details were hammered out, Bree put on her Wa Lolita outfit and headed back to Nerima. Halfway there she noticed the she was being followed. She hoped that she could keep her pursuers from attacking until she got to Nerima, the martial artists would easily be able to take them by surprise. Her luck didn't hold out and a cutting curse left a gash in her side.
She ran the rest of the way to Nerima, fighting for her life the entire way. Once Bree arrived to Nerima she was able to get help from Ranma who was in his female form and dressed as a maid for some reason.
After Ranma had beaten up the Death Eaters he/she took Bree to a clinic ran by a man name Dr. Tofu. The cut on her side needed to be stitched up and her sprained wrist was splinted.
"Who were those guys?" Ranma asked once they were back at the Tendo's.
"Why were you dressed like a maid?" Bree shot back. They glared at each other for a moment.
"Fine, don't tell me." Ranma muttered.
Bree's Wa Lolita outfit had been badly damaged. Kasumi offered to fix it and get the blood stains out. Bree didn't explain that since she had been recognized in it there was really no need for her to keep it anymore but refusing kindness from Kasumi was like kicking a puppy. Bree was looking into other styles, but until she found one she liked she was wearing more normal clothing. She still stood out since Japan was not a very ethnically diverse country and she was American.
Today Bree had decided to visit Karakura town since it was on the list of places that Magi could use spells out in the open under special circumstances. Nerima was on the list as well but didn't require special circumstances. Next to Nerima's listing there was also a note warning people to avoid the area for the preservation of their sanity.
It probably would have been better, safer, to have stayed in Nerima, but when Ranma wasn't there the Tendo household was boring and Bree needed something not boring. Besides, the hollow sightings in Karakura town sounded interesting. Hollows were a kind of violent spirit native to Japan. They no longer looked human, more like monsters in masks, and they were known to devour souls in order to get rid of the empty feeling they had inside. Bree wanted to see how well American methods worked on them.
It didn't take long for Bree to find one a hollow once she arrived. In fact, she found it almost immediately since it came after her with the intention of eating her. Bree took care of it with a shotgun blast of rock salt to the face. The next on got an iron rod through its mask. Once the mask was destroyed the things seemed to disappear for good.
It was a little disappointing really, in America salt and iron was only a temporary solution until the remains were found and burned. But hey, at least she didn't have to desecrate any graves, and she invented a new game. She had met a red haired boy named Jinta and a lacked haired girl named Ururu and taught them her new game that she had dubbed "smack the spirit." The game was pretty self-explanatory. You waited for a hollow to show up and then you took an iron rod and smacked it in the face.
"You know, you never told us your name." Jinta commented.
"No I did not." Bree replied. Jinta twitched.
"Well! Are you going to tell us or not!" he shouted.
"There's no need to be so loud, you could just ask." Bree replied.
"Okay then, what's your name?" Jinta asked.
"Oh that's easy!" Bree exclaimed brightly. "It's a secret." Jinta stared at her.
"You are so weird." He said.
"Yeah, well it's not like you have any room to…" Bree trailed off. The trio had been walking with no particular direction in mind and had ended up at the top of a steep hill. Bree was staring down to the bottom of it.
"Is something wrong miss?" Ururu asked.
"Keep walking and act as is everything is normal."Bree said tensely.
"What? Who are those guys?" Jinta asked when he figured out what Bree was looking at.
"Just some people who would kill me if they weren't ordered to take me alive." Bree replied while mentally berating herself. The Death Eaters were making their way up the hill.
"Alright scratch normal and just run." Bree ordered, twisted out of the way of a bone breaking hex headed for her knee. Bree responded by breaking open a fire hydrant with reducto and twisting the resulting geyser at her attackers. Then once her opponents were knocked down she froze then in place with glacius.
"We're not just going to leave you!" Jinta protested while this was happening.
"Then we'll run together!" Bree snapped, making sure both children were ahead of her as they fled down the street. She had only gotten three out of four Death Eaters with the hydrant.
As the kids turned a corner and well placed reducto hit its mark, the ground beneath Bree's feet. She was sent tumbling to the ground, getting a few cuts and scrapes in the process. The lone Death Eater approached as she tried to get up. The Crutatius curse hit and Bree screamed. Salvation came in the form of a lizard-like hollow. The fight had gotten its attention and it was looking for an easy meal.
The hollow lunged, distracting the Death Eater and freeing Bree from the curse. Bree struggled to her feet.
"Are you alright, miss?" Ururu asked.
"Just… give me a minute." Bree replied as she leaned against a fence. The trio watched as the Death Eater ran screaming from the hollow.
The kids took Bree to a shop ran by a man named Urahara. Bree called the Tendo's to let them know that she would be staying somewhere else that evening.
"So the wizarding world is at war huh?" he said after Bree explained things to him."Interesting. That explains all of the unusual activity that's been reported. And you're presence here is why hollow sightings have spiked. Most magi avoid Karakura since hollows are unusually attracted to them."
"I wanted to see if the methods I learned for dealing with spirits would work on hollows... They did." Bree replied.
"So you're an aspiring hunter then?" Urahara asked. Bree shrugged.
"Not really." She answered. "I just like knowing how to defend myself."
"I can understand that." Urahara responded. He looked at Bree for a long moment.
"Are you aware that you're shaking?" he asked.
"What!" Bree exclaimed, startled. She held up one of her hands. It was quivering and she couldn't force it to stop.
"It a residual effect from the curse you got hit with. I have something for that." Urahara stated. He went to a back room and returned minutes later with a small bottle. He handed it to Bree.
"Drink it, it will help." He said. Bree shakily raised the bottle to her lips and downed the contents it two quick gulps. The taste was horrible, but it was effective. Bree stopped shaking almost immediately.
Urahara chuckled when he saw the disgusted face Bree made. "I probably should have warned you about the flavor." He said.
"Do you have anymore?" Bree asked. Urahara looked surprised.
"Not quite the reaction I was expecting." He muttered.
"That's not the first time I've been hit with that curse, it probably won't be the last." Bree stated.
Urahara nodded. "From what you've told me it doesn't seem like they're going stop coming after you anytime soon, but still, if you get too much exposure to the curse of amount of that medicine will be able to help you." He warned.
"It's not like I want to get hit by it." Bree replied irritably. "I just want to be prepared." Urahara was about to respond when a shout came from the front room.
"Oi! Hat and clogs! Get out here!"
The source of the shout turned out to be a boy about Bree's age. He had orange hair, unusual for Japan. There was a black haired girl with him.
"Hello Ichigo, how nice of you to stop by." Urahara said.
"There's something wrong with this thing." The boy, Ichigo, said while holding up something that looked like a cellphone.
"Oh really?" Replied Urahara as he took the phone from Ichigo.
"It's been going off all day, but when we get to where it says there's a hollow there's nothing." Ichigo explained.
"That's interesting." Bree spoke up. "I've been killing hollows all day. It's pretty easy."
"Easy?" the black haired girl said in disbelief. "But, you're just an ordinary human with normal levels of spiritual pressure."
"Actually," Urahara interjected. "My friend here is what's known as a magi."
"Except in the U.K. and parts of Europe." Bree added.
"Right, but I don't usually deal with them so it doesn't matter." Urahara stated.
"Well I do, so it does." Bree replied.
"Could someone explain what a magi is?" Ichigo interrupted.
"Right, well a magi is someone who is naturally in tune with the energy of the planet and can channel it for their own ends. Hollows can't differentiate that from spiritual pressure and see them as sort of a walking buffet. My friend has been using western methods on the hollows that have been coming after her, they're rather effective." Urahara explained.
"So what's your friend's name?" the girl asked.
"I have no idea." Urahara replied. "She hasn't told me."
"If you need to call me something you can call me Eris. No offense, but I've become rather wary of giving out my name ever since I visited Yuko's shop." Bree stated.
"That's a good policy. You can lose a lot if you wander in to a place like Yuko's and you already seem to be missing something." Urahara replied.
"A price had to be paid, it's the way shops work." Bree responded.
"I heck of are you two even talking about!" Ichigo exclaimed.
"The sun and the moon and the sky in June." Bree replied cheerily.
"That doesn't make any sense!" Ichigo shouted.
"It's not supposed to!" Bree exclaimed happily.
The next day Bree decided that she wanted to see a shrine before she went back to the Tendo Dojo. Fortunately there was one on the way. Shrines had a lot of stairs. Or at least the one she was visiting did. Lots and lots of stairs the led up to the traditional red archway.
When Bree got to the top she heard a cry of "Demon" and found herself with a piece of paper stuck to her forehead. She pulled the paper off and frowned at the old man in traditional clothing who had apparently stuck the paper to her.
"Grandpa!" someone cried out in reprimand. A girl in a green and right school girl uniform ran over. Bree couldn't help thinking that her yellow backpack seemed to be packed for camping rather than a school day.
"She's a tourist, not a demon!" the girl shouted before turning to Bree. She said something that the translation key relayed to Bree as garbled noise. The girl had probably attempted an apology in Bree's native language and she probably wasn't very good at it.
"It's fine." The girl seemed surprised to "hear" Japanese. "I've had stranger days… So was that the shrines priest?"
"Yes. Grandpa has been in charge of the shrine since before I was born." The girl explained.
"He seems… interesting." Bree commented.
"He's been like that for as long as I can remember." The girl sighed. Bree nodded absently.
"You going camping soon?" Bree inquired. The girl looked surprised.
"Wh- what do you mean?" she stuttered.
"You're backpack." Bree replied.
"Oh!" the girl exclaimed. "Yes, I am. Going camping that is. My friends and I go, uh, every weekend. To the mountains! " She explained nervously. It was a rather obvious lie and Bree was quick to point that out.
"You're a terrible liar. Your expression, the tone of your voice, offering extra details. You should really work on that." She commented.
The girl laughed nervously as Bree walked toward a rather large and ancient looking tree.
"You're not going to ask me more?" The girl asked. Bree gave her a flat look.
"Do you want me to?" she asked.
"Well-no." the girl replied.
"Then why would I? You have secrets, I have mine." Bree said. There were a few minutes of silence.
"Japan is a lot more than I thought it would be." Bree commented.
"Excuse me?"
"I came here because I thought it would be interesting. I was right. It's really more interesting than I thought it would be. Tokyo has such a dense population and yet there are so many things that people don't see, or they ignore it, or they say their minds were playing tricks on them, or maybe thay don't see it because they can't see it."
The girl looked puzzled. Bree smiled.
"Sorry. I was rambling." She apologized. "Japan is just so unique! Just the other day I wander through a thin place without meaning to."
"What's a thin place?" the girl asked curiously.
"It's a place where the fabric of reality is thin enough for things to pass through one world into another. You could be on a city street one moment and in a forest the next." Bree answered. The girl's next question surprised her.
"Could something pass through to a different time?" Bree tilted her head and thought.
"Maybe." She answered after a minute or two. "The nature of time itself isn't something I fully understand and what I do know is hard to believe. It's like when you're little and they tell you the earth is round and you don't quite believe it because from your perspective its flat since you can't see it from above. Time is like that. We see it as linear, one event after another, in the right order, but it's not like that it all, it's… it's constantly in flux. Events are constantly being changed by time travelers and cracks in the universe and the thinness of reality but we never see it that way.
The girl looked confused. Bree laughed happily.
"You probably think I'm crazy." She stated.
"No. I think that there are a lot of unusual things that people don't know much about." The girl replied.
Bree nodded. "Sometimes I feel like I'm a magnet for unusual things. Other times I just kind of stumble into it." She said.
"I know the feeling." The girl mumbled.
"Kagome!" someone, a male, shouted. "You're late come on!"
The girl, Kagome, sighed tiredly.
"I'd better get going." She said.
"Well it was nice talking to you." Bree replied.
"Kagome!" the voice shouted again.
"I'm coming! Just hold on!" Kagome shouted back as she ran off.
