Like the absolute King he was, Karma stumbled into his house at four am absolutely smashed and singing a Japanese song that may or may not have been from Hatsune Miko at top volume.

So naturally, Ryuunosuke was waiting half asleep at the hearth to witness him in his full glory. Slightly overjoyed to see him, Karma attempted to walk towards his apprentice. Unfortunately, he had forgotten about the steps leading up from the door, and promptly fell flat on his face. When he pulled himself up to his feet and grabbed the banister, or what he assumed was the banister, for support, he lifted a foot and gingerly placed it on the step. When he put more weight on it, his foot slipped off the (perhaps) stair and he would have fallen flat on his face if not for someone grabbing him around the waist.

"I'm going to murder you, Kaya," an unfamiliar, almost certainly sleep addled and strangely affectionate voice, muttered. Karma squinted and his apprentice morphed into a stranger.

"As if you could," Karma answered, offended. He was one of the most powerful magic users ever in the world! In the nine related worlds even, though certainly not across the twelve series. His measly apprentice could never, let alone this stranger.

Then he promptly forgot to be offended when he stumbled backward and hit his head against the walls at the side of the entrance with enough force to knock the door back open. Swearing loudly and rather joyously, Karma slung his arm around the stranger's neck. "Who are you? One of my lovers?"

"Do stop, Kaya, I'm lacking enough sleep without your yelling," the stranger sighed, their breath tickling Karma's ear. Enticed, Karma tried to wrap his other arm around the strangers neck, but missed terribly and swatted their face.

With surprising patience, the stranger led Karma up the steps and into the parlour, where Karma could scarcely see the fire, Ristu, burning at the hearth.

"Hi, Ritsu," he shouted, and lifted his foot up gingerly, attempting to make his way toward them, "why are you up so late?"

Ritsu didn't respond, simply dimming their light in a show of displeasure. Perhaps the smell of sake was upsetting them.

"Ehhh, don't be like that, I'll pour water on you," Karma threatened, feeling rather imposing though he knew the effect would be ruined by his slurring.

"You're the one who needs water poured on them," Ritsu said indifferently, drawing their logs away from the edge of the hearth. "Don't come near."

"What are you—doing..." then suddenly Karma was halfway up the main stairs, face pressed against the neck of the stranger as they muttered angrily. "Stop that, it's hot!"

"I know I am," Karma preened, then lightly blew on the stranger's neck. "Who are you? Are we going to bed together?"

The stranger said a choice word that made Karma gasp in exaggerated offence, enjoying himself immensely.

"How could you!" He yelled, abruptly feeling himself sink down into a soft mattress—his mattress? it felt like his mattress—and tried to make the stranger understand how wronged he was to be called such a thing. "Come here."

"Say one more word, Kaya, and I won't make any sobering soup for you tomorrow."

Karma immediately quietened down, thought he wondered what the stranger was going to make the soup out of. Despite Ryuunosuke and Ritsu's best efforts, the house was very much lacking in ingredients. It wasn't Karma's fault, of course, nothing ever was really, food just tended to disappear and not reappear, and money was always scarce. Besides, Ritsu wasn't going to let Ryuunosuke cook on them. They were much to 'dignified', they claimed incorrectly.

As Karma drifted off to sleep, it occurred to him that his name was not Kaya. No one had ever, in his entire twenty six or seven (he couldn't remember which), called him Kaya. What a strange nickname.

Karma also belated realised that it had not been Ryuunosuke waiting for him at the hearth; Ryuunosuke was taller.

He wasn't even sure that the figure at the fireplace had been expecting him.

Well that was a problem for tomorrow's him.

After the debacle of last night, karma dictated that Karma woke up with a hangover as huge as all the twelve series and their little worlds combined.

Groaning, he lifted a hand and breathe out a short command to spell the door open. "Ryuunosuke, send up some painkillers, I might be dying!" he bellowed.

Ryuunosuke, that prick, didn't respond. So naturally, Karma spelled his voice thrice as loud and repeated himself.

"If you're really dying, I'm afraid it'll be a waste of medicine," An unfamiliar voice answered, barely loudly enough to be heard.

Karama actually blanched. Launching himself out of bed, he ran out of the open door. He barely remembered to slow down and saunter down the stairs, his head swimming. Had he brought someone back last night? How was he going to explain Kunugia to someone from Japan?

"Good morning," the voice greeted. It belonged to a very pretty person. So pretty that it was frankly unfair. They had short, soft looking blue hair, angular blue eyes and a lovely smile. It had taken Karma several years to learn a smile that fit his face, but it was clear from that person's crinkled eyes that they hadn't been practicing it for long stretches of time in the mirror and had, in fact, been unfairly born with it.

Even as all these fell into Karma's head, he indifferently leaned against the banister. More importantly than their looks, this person was not from Japan. Their hair was naturally blue, and that didn't occur back in his own world.

"Yep," he said languidly, then arched a lazy brow at Ryuunosuke. "Where's my greeting? And who is this?"

Ryuunosuke turned his fringe covered face to Karma, then said, in his usual voice which lacked cadence of any sort, "I thought you were dying?"

Karma belatedly recalled his hangover, which admittedly hadn't been all that bad (though he liked to dramatise it) and promptly flew down the rest of the stairs to swagger to Ritsu's side. Without looking away from that prick Ryuunosuke, he held out his hand to Ritsu.

Ritsu made a sound not unlike what disapproval would have sounded like if it lacked any emotion at all, but obligingly curled around his hand. Their flames were warm, and within a moment, the slight headache Karma had been feeling had gone away.

"...did you really just use a hugely complicated and largely impossible spell to take away your hangover?" Ryuunosuke sighed.

In response, Karma smirked. Then, he sauntered over to the table and examined their breakfast. "Oh, what's this?"

Laid out over the table was nothing but toast, bacon, eggs and plates. This in and of itself would not have been peculiar, if not for two things.

One: the toast, bacon and eggs were cooked, and two: the table was cleared of everything but food.

The night before, it had been cluttered with piles of Karma's spells, books, files, folders, stationary, magical powders and a single skull that Karma liked to use to recite Macbeth when he was feeling particularly dreary. Now none of these were to be seen.

Furthermore, it could not be ignored that the toast, bacon and eggs were cooked. Ritsu did not let anyone but Karma cook on them.

"Interesting," Karma hummed, sitting down. He absently took a slice of toast and placed it on his own plate, cutting some of the egg to place on top of it.

"What is?" the stranger asked.

Karma gave them a once over. Pretty, again, but strangely feminine. Too masculine to be a girl though, and...

Almost certainly touched by magic. Karma could feel the remnants of the Wizard of the Marshes' magic on them. Which was not ideal, given Karma's tragic history with the Wizard of the Marshes.

Still, Karma was hardly about to ask after somebody. It simply wasn't his style.

"Ritsu's being very obedient today," taking a leaf out of Ryuunosuke's book, Karma made the observation in an insipid tone.

"They're rather cute," the stranger said with a pretty, tiny smile. They cast a look at Ritsu, whose little face scrunched up in pleasure even as they pretended to be indifferent. The sudden flare of purple fire also gave away Ritsu's delight.

"Ritsu, you're cheap," Karma snorted.

Ritsu declined to comment.

"So your name is Ritsu?" The stranger stood and approached Ritsu, stretching out a finger to pantomime touching Ritsu's 'cheek' (as a flame, Ritsu had no actual cheek). "What a pretty name."

Ritsu crackled energetically, and their flames flashed out momentarily. Karma knew without even looking that Ritsu had been too excited, and hadn't made their flames harmless. So, without visibly doing anything, he quickly applied protection to the stranger's hand and wrist.

Ritsu's purple flames flared out over the stranger's hand. Ryuunosuke lept to his feet, knocking over his chair.

"Oh, that's warm," the stranger marveled.

Ryuunosuke quickly glanced at Karma, a question visible in the red eyes hidden behind his bangs, but Karma ignored him.

Before Ritsu had shown themselves fond of the stranger, he had fully intended to throw them out. After all, the last thing Karma needed was yet another thing—person—to worry about, let alone a person who had not only survived an encounter with the Wizard of the Marsh but had a trace of the wizard's magic on them. For all Karma knew, this person could be the Wizard's pawn, sent to spy on Karma.

However, Ritsu so rarely liked people. Chances were, this person wasn't the Wizard's pawn...all the same, Ritsu was a demon and might like people who had hidden intentions...

Finishing off his toast, Karma dusted the crumbs off of his hands and languidly propped his feet up on the dining table. "So, what's this blueberry doing in my house?"

"Blueberry?" The stranger frowned.

"Blue, blue, green, purple," Karma wagged his food at the stranger's hair, eyes, outer coat and inner coat respectively, "questionable colour theory aside, I'd say you make quite a convincing fruit. Now, what are you up to? Thievery? Murder?"

"What?" The stranger returned to their table, oddly calm despite the accusations Karma was frivolously throwing around like party favours.

"I do hope it's one of the two," Karma said with deliberate slowness, picking at the underneath of his nails. "I've been itching to try out some of the new torture spells I've learnt."

The stranger levelled an unimpressed look at Karma that reminded him of his teacher, Mr Karasuma.

"So? The punishment for Thievery?" Karma propped his arms up behind his head and allowed just enough magic to crackle and slip across his skin, so that his hair started to float limpidly, and a gentle breeze began to pick up, originating from him. "Or the punishment for Murder?"

Ryuunosuke gave Karma a worried look, and wasn't that just interesting? Ryuunosuke liked people about as often as Ritsu did—

"How about wages for cleaning?"

That definitely had not been what Karma thought the stranger would say. Momentarily stunned, Karma lost his hold on the accumulated magic around him. The breeze died down and strands of hair fell back against his head as he stared at the stranger with some bafflement. "What?"

"You house is even messier as my sister's room despite being several times as large, so I took it upon myself to offer my services." The stranger explained, looking slightly annoyed. In fact, they almost looked as though Karma's house had personally committed an offence to them.

"Right."

"So I'm offering my services," the stranger shrugged carelessly. "I need some reputable references if I am to work under a decent magic user when I'm more experienced, so heading to the Sorcerer Karma's moving castle seemed apt. Sorcerer Karma, despite the poor reports of his behaviour, is notably praised in his work."

Karma was torn between being amused, bemused, offended and pleased. He settled for feeling all four at once and adjusted his face so that a smug expression painted it.

Cocking a brow, Karma slowly drawled out the word, "right." He flicked his gaze to Ryuunosuke and saw him staring at the stranger with dread. Ryuunosuke's room was no cleaner than the rest of the house, but Karma knew that his apprentice had recently taken to making it even messier, so that he could hide certain things around the room.

"May I know your offer?"

"Eh, you demand so much from me, but won't even give me time to think?" Karma arched his other brow.

The stranger visibly paused and considered. "Then you may take me on a month's trial."

Now wasn't that just interesting. A month. That was more than enough time for the stranger to clean the whole house. What would they be doing in the meantime? Karma couldn't help but to be curious. With a remaining magic that strong, the stranger must have met the Wizard of the Marshes a day or two before coming here. Had they perhaps been sent to spy, to ensure that Karma's curse would come to its fulfilment?

"How interesting."

"Pardon?"

"There are several points of contention, your name included," Karma hummed, making no attempt to address the stranger explicitly as he bit into his toast. Thankfully, they weren't that thick and responded.

"You may call me Shiota Nagisa." The stranger answered.

"What's your pronouns?" Ryuunosuke asked quietly as Karma chugged his tea.

"Me? I'm...a boy." For a moment, wonder flashed through Nagisa's eyes. He nodded absently when Ryuunosuke confirmed 'he/him?' with him.

Karma watched the boy from over the rim of his cup; he stared quietly at his plate, lips moving slightly as if turning the words over and over in his mouth.

Pretending to not have noticed, Karma finished off his tea, then got to his feet. "Breakfast was quite good. I shall see you in the evening for lessons, Ryuunosuke."

Ryuunosuke made a sound that could have been both disappointment and assent.

"What do you have to say about the month's trial offer?" Nagisa called after him.

Karma paused on the stairs to study Nagisa.

Strange boy, he was. Very small, almost like he had been undernourished. He had a soft face, but sharp eyes, and looked like the kind of person who could easily be pushed around and who was naive to the ways of the world.

But at the same time, he looked world weary and tired.

Well wasn't that stranger just so interesting.

What was this person's agenda? Not a pawn of the Wizard of the Marshes, yet wanting to stay in the castle of one of the most infamously volatile magic users in all of Kunugia for 'good references'? Did this person want to do magic? Were they running from the Wizard of the Marshes? What was going on? Were they the relative of one of Karma's pitiful ex-partners, on the path of vengeance? Did they want to die?

Blue eyes peered at Karma, gently requesting a reply.

Instead of giving one, Karma smirked and continued up the stairs.

Would this be enough to make the soft looking Nagisa give in? Would he meekly leave? If he stayed...

Then Karma supposed that he would have plenty of time to find out the answers to his questions.

So like I really wanted to write this. Will it make more sense later? Probably.

I'm just having fun with this yall! Will update less than my other series (if that's even possible).

Maybe this will just be a oneshot. We shall see!

Hope you liked it tho!