Yo-kai Watch Infinite Loops

by Black Omochao

What good is a watch in a world where time keeps repeating? Summoning yo-kai? Ok! Nate-Keita... whatever your name is, welcome to the Infinite Loops!

4. Chapter 4

4.1

"Ok, you're coming with us freak-show," one of the officers said as they apprehended Jinmenken.

"I'm just a dog I tell you! A dog!" the yo-kai cried out as they handcuffed him and started forcing him into the police car.

"Tell it to the judge."

"Excuse me, officers," the two policemen turned to see a young boy with brown hair looking at them with a concerned expression.

"What do you need kid? We're in the middle of something."

"Where are you taking my dog?"

"What? Your dog?" One of the officers asked with a skeptical look on his face.

"See! I told you I'm just a dog!" Jinmenken insisted, despite not really knowing what Keita's plan was. He even threw in a few barks to drive the point home. Though the policemen still did not look convinced.

"Exactly what proof do you have that this freak-show is your dog?" the other officer asked and Keita looked annoyed.

"First of all, I would like if you refrained from calling him 'freak-show,' second of all, I have all his adoption and medical records here," Keita handed the police a stack of papers, that he had seemingly pulled from nowhere. "And if you take a look at his collar, you'll find his license with my home number and address on it."

A quick look confirmed that Jinmenken did indeed have a collar with said information on it, despite the officers, or Jinmenken for that matter, not remembering it being there moments ago.

After looking over all the papers one of the police sighed before they removed the cuffs from the human-faced dog and released him.

"This all checks out, just keep your, er, 'dog' out of trouble from now on," the policemen said, handing the papers back to Keita whom nodded.

"Will do officer, I just hope you refrain from arresting innocent dogs in the future," Keita said with a triumphant smirk on his face. The two policemen gave him an annoyed look, but quickly got back into their police car and left.

"Thank you, but… How did you do that?" Jinmenken questioned, tugging at the collar around his neck.

"Never mind how I did it, just be a bit more careful in the future," the boy removed the collar from the yo-kai's neck and nodded. "I'm not sure I'll be able to pull that off a second time if they try to arrest you again, especially not if they call my parents."

"Right, of course," Jinmenken nodded, though there was a bit of nervousness to his tone. After all, he wasn't so sure he could avoid this sort of thing happening again.

"I know some yo-kai that can keep themselves hidden when they want, despite their power. They could probably teach you to be invisible to humans when you want," Keita said with a thoughtful look, Jinmenken's ears perked up a bit.

"Really?" he asked hopefully, Keita nodded.

"Yeah, I'll try to contact them later. But for now let's not worry about it. Come on, I'll buy you a steak," Keita offered, as they both walked off into the night.

4.2 Boohoooo!

Whisper whistled as he was bathing something.

"What'cha doing Whisper?" Nate asked his Yo-Kai butler.

"Washing this new Yo-Kai!" An unawake Whisper said, pointing to Brain Gremlin.

"You might wanna run." He drawled to a terrified Nate.

10 minutes later, Nate, Whisper and Jibanyan screamed and ran from a humongous horde of Gremlins.

4.3

"Jibanyan, are you just going to sleep there all Loop?" the cat yo-kai opened one eye and looked up at his local Anchor from his position on the rug. He gave a yawn and scratched his butt.

"Maybe… I may get up to get a choco bar in a little bit," Jibanyan shrugged before closing his eyes again. Nate sighed and rubbed his forehead.

"Geeze, you are the laziest cat."

"Don't I know it," Jibanyan responded almost proudly. Whisper floated over to Nate and crossed his arms.

"Leave him be Nate, he'll move when he wants to," The yo-kai butler stated and Nate nodded.

"I suppose so…"

"Huff, lazy? Him? Don't make me laugh," the sudden voice caused both Nate and Whisper to blink and look around, though Jibanyan didn't react to it.

"That voice," Nate muttered before he activated his Yo-kai Watch and shined the light around his room, the light focused on a shadow on his bed and a yo-kai that looked sort of like a little orange dinosaur in a robe, with long bushy eyebrows and a similar looking beard appeared.

"Hey," the newly revealed creature waved lazily.

"A yo-kai!?" Whisper exclaimed before quickly pulling out his yo-kai pad and trying to search on it without being noticed. "That yo-kai is, um…"

"Grif, you're a N'more?" Nate questioned, throwing Whisper off his game.

"Grif!?" Whisper asked in surprise before staring at the N'more on the bed, whom yawned.

"Yeah, I was enjoying being unseen for a while. Nobody complains about me sleeping when they can't see me… hey, can't you see yo-kai without the watch?"

"If I focus on where they are, but the watch makes it easier," Nate answered simply and Grif nodded. "Wait, why did you speak up?"

"Simple, because that cat seems to think he can proclaim himself to be truly lazy," Grif pointed towards Jibanyan, who's ear twitched before he opened an eye and looked at the yo-kai on the bed.

"What? Of course I'm lazy. Look I'm taking a cat nyap ryight nyeow…" Jibanyan let out a yawn but Grif didn't look impressed… and Nate and Whisper wondered if there was anything that should be impressive about a yawn.

"He also eats a lot of chocolate," Nate mentioned with a shrug, wondering where this was going.

"My favorite snack, gotta keep a good supply of 'em," Jibanyan nodded.

"Ha, you call yourself lazy? You call yourself a glutton? I bet you also think you can make a mess of the place real easy-like?" Grif questioned Jibanyan critically.

"I'm not really the kind of cat to clean," Jibanyan shrugged with an air of confidence.

"Maybe in your Baseline kid, but this is the Loops. And in the Loops everything is different," Grif explained while Jibanyan got to his feet and glared at him.

"What? You think you'd be much better at it?"

"I know I am. Trust me, I've been perfecting the art of laziness since before your branch even started Looping!"

"Well, why don't you put your money where your mouse is?"

"Oh come on! That one's not even a cat pun!"

"Are you going to complain about my word choices, or are you going to put your ability of sloth to the test?" Jibanyan raised a brow with a cocky smirk on his muzzle. Grif glared down at him.

"You won't know what hit you cat, a competition it shall be. Let the best lazy, gluttonous slob win!"

"You're on!"

"What just happened?" Nate questioned his butler whom floated beside him. Both of them looked extremely confused.

"I have no idea…"

.

"Hello everyone, we have a really interesting show for you today," Whisper announced with a microphone while sitting at Nate's desk.

"Show for who? Who's watching this!?" Nate questioned his ghostly butler with a confused look on his face.

"Whoever we share the recording with when we're finished," Whisper stated, pointing to the video camera that was set up to film Jibanyan and Grif's competition.

"… So we're really filming this?" Nate just stared at the camera blankly.

"Anyway! This is going to be one interesting showdown, Jibanyan Vs Grif. Both lazy, gluttonous, and messy. But today we'll find out just which one of them is the bigger burden!" Whisper announced eagerly, while Jibanyan and Grif stood near glaring at each other.

"There's still time for you to back out and save yourself some humiliation kid," Grif said firmly, but Jibanyan shook his head.

"No way old-timer! I'm going to show you what I'm capable of!"

"Seriously, what is going on?" Nate muttered in disbelief.

"This event is no doubt going to be intense! Two Loopers, out to prove themselves the superior in their craft," Whisper said, trying to make the competition sound exciting. "Now let's move over to my co-host, for the event order!"

"Wait, co-host? Is it Komasan?" Nate asked confusedly.

"Not even close," what looked to be a little girl added, appearing seemingly from nowhere. Nate jumped a bit at her appearance before glaring at her.

"Hanako-san!? But you're not even a Looper!?"

"Please darling, I don't need to 'get' this time-travel stuff to be involved in events like this. Also, the name's Toiletta, I've never heard of anyone named 'Hanako-san," the human-looking yo-kai said confidently. Nate just stared at her blankly for a couple of seconds.

"… Toiletta? Your name… is Toiletta?"

"Yes," she nodded. The two continued to stare at each other for a couple of seconds before Whisper got between them and pushed them away from each other.

"Now, now. Let's not get all huffy about little details like 'who's a Looper,' or 'who has a ridiculous name.'" Whisper spoke in a calming voice.

"Wait, wha– "Toiletta looked offended but Whisper continued.

"Look, let's just get the show on the road. The event order please, Ms. Toiletta," the ghostly butler gave a polite smile while Nate backed away from both of them. Toiletta sighed before nodding.

"Very well. There will be three events. Gluttony, messiness, and overall laziness. Normally such an event would be best two out of three, but for some reason we're going to do all three events even if the same yo-kai wins twice in a row," Toiletta explained in an uninterested fashion.

"… I thought you wanted to do this," Whisper questioned quietly, looking rather underwhelmed by her disinterested announcement. The female yo-kai glared at him and crossed her arms.

"Perhaps I have just been a little offended. I'll be in the living room if you need me," Toiletta huffed before exiting Nate's room. Nate looked at his door for a moment before looking back to Whisper.

"Well, looks like you're back to a solo performance," the watch-bearer shrugged and Whisper groaned.

"No matter, I can do this without any issue!" Whisper tried to look confident. Nate looked away from Whisper and towards Grif and Jibanyan's position, the two had been awfully quiet…

"Well, it won't be that hard. Your competitors are asleep…"

"Wait, what!?" Whisper shouted before looking at where Nate was and seeing both the nekomata and soldier-turned N'more snoozing, there was even a bubble coming out of Grif's nose. Whisper growled. "WAKE UP! THIS ISN'T THE LAZINESS EVENT! IT'S THE GLUTTONEY EVENT!"

The bubble in Grif's nose popped and both of their eyes slowly opened.

"Wait, what were we doing...?" Jibanyan rubbed his eyes tiredly.

"I think we were fighting…" Grif groaned.

"You're going to have a contest! We're filming it! Show some respect for the art of competition!" Whisper shouted in an angry tone. Nate sighed and shook his head.

.

"Ok, are we ready to start the competition?" Whisper questioned while eyeing the two combatants.

"Oh, you better believe I'm ready! Bring it on gramps!" Jibanyan taunted with fire in his eyes.

"Meh, I'm too lazy to be fired up," Grif shrugged with a yawn… Jibanyan gaped and stared at him in shock.

"Oh, that's going to cost Jibanyan some points!" Whisper announced excitedly.

"But you said this wasn't even the laziness event!" Jibanyan pointed out, swinging his paws frantically.

"That behavior's not going to do his score any favors either," Whisper shook his head disapprovingly. Jibanyan froze and looked like he was trying to think of something to say, but no words came.

"What is happening?" Nate muttered confusedly, Hidabat peeked out of the closet and patted his back.

"The first event is; the Gluttony Event!" Whisper announced proudly, a big, neon sign that read 'Gluttony' hung overhead.

"Where the heck did that come from!?" Nate exclaimed with both disbelief, and irritation in his voice.

"For this event we'll see just how much of their favorite food these two keep handy at any time, and what lengths they take to make sure their supply is always full!" Whisper continued as if he hadn't heard Nate, much to the Anchors frustration.

"Hey! Do we really need to do this in my room!?"

"You think you can beat my obsession with chocolate? Ha!" Jibanyan exclaimed before reaching into his pouch and throwing down about a dozen choco-bars. "I always make sure to keep a good stalk on hand! And– "he reached into his sub-space pocket and pulled out a fridge and threw it on the ground, cracking the wooden boards. "I always keep as much chocolate as I can obtain each Loop, and keep it ready and refrigerated in my pocket!"

"Seriously!? I'm not fixing that!" Nate shouted in irritation.

"And that's not all!" Jibanyan remarked cockily before he was covered in a flash of light, after the light faded he was replaced with his future self: Robonyan. "In the future of baseline and most Loops, I change myself into a cyborg yo-kai. I have Looped in as my future self on more than one occasion and have his form handy, with the ability to– "the robotic nekomata opened his mouth and choco-bars started flowing out. "Produce chocolate bars on demand! Even my UnAwake self sought after chocolate so much that he modified himself to include a chocolate bar factory in his own body! How can you possibly compete with that!?"

Grif looked briefly at Robonyan, then the piles and piles of chocolate bars that had been produced. Before giving a yawn.

"Hm!?" Robonyan's mechanical eyes flashed as he stared at Grif.

"Yeah, that's a lot of chocolate. And a chocolate bar factory in your own body, I'll admit I never thought of that one," despite his words, Grif did not sound very impressed. His eyes narrowed before he spoke more seriously. "But, what have you done to insure you have all the chocolate!?"

"What?" Robonyan questioned in his deep, mechanical voice before Grif continued.

"If you really were going to attempt to gain as much of your favorite snack as possible for any given Loop, there is only one way you can truly do that: Make sure you are the only one to have it!"

"Wait, the only one!?"

"That's right! I go out of my way nearly every Loop oreos exist to make sure I have total control over all oreo factories, gaining all they could possibly produce before shutting them down. Making sure you are the only one to obtain your favorite snack in a Loop is truly the only way you will insure you have as much as you possibly can of it! And until you understand that you can never call yourself a true glutton!"

"I-I. Error! Error!" Robonyan's eyes flashed red and his body shook and smoked. Before a small explosion occurred. Leaving a smoking Jibanyan sitting where Robonyan had been. The small nekomata dizzily groaned, before coughing up one last choco-bar. "He's a glutton of such unimaginable magnitudes… I can't win…"

"And the first event is over! Grif is the victor!" Whisper declared loudly and Grif smirked at his victory.

"Is that really something to be proud of," Nate muttered with a sweatdrop.

"Nate, hasn't Grif given you his oreos before?" Hidabat questioned quietly, from behind him, still in the closet.

"… Yes, yes he has," Nate muttered with a small smile on his face.

"Now then, before we move on to the next event. Let's get a word from my specially chosen co-host! Take it away Komasan!" Whisper explained, still as loud as ever.

"I thought you said Komasan wasn't involved!?" Nate exclaimed, internally feeling like he was starting to get a headache…

"Oh my swirls, I can't believe you picked little 'ole me to be your co-host," Komasan said, seemingly appearing from nowhere to sit next to Whisper.

"Yup, you were my first choice, after all we're friends!" Whisper said with a sweatdrop visible on his face.

"Sure, he was your first choice," Nate muttered while shaking his head. Whisper glared at the human boy briefly.

"I really appreciate this, ice-cream head," Komasan smiled when Whisper looked back at him, the yo-kai butler couldn't help but twitch.

"My name is Whisper…"

"… Oh, right!" Komasan held up a paw at the realization and Whisper face-faulted. "Oh dear, are you hurt?" Whisper got back up and shook his body.

"Never mind that, why don't you just give the forecast for the coming events?" he asked Komasan, wiping some sweat from his head with a handkerchief.

"Forecast...? Well ok…" The white and blue lion-dog looked clueless for a second before glancing out the window. "Oh!" he turned back to face Nate and Hidabat as if they were an audience and made his best impression of a professional news anchorman. "Looks like today we got nice and sunny skies. But y'all better watch out, some nasty clouds look to be rolling in– "

"I DIDN'T MEAN A WEATHER FORCAST!" Whisper shouted at the top of his (possibly non-existent) lungs, causing Komasan to fall over in surprise.

"Oh my swirls…" The little komainu muttered from his position on the ground.

"Calm down Whisper, he's just being Komasan," Nate spoke in the lion-dog's defense to his butler, whom sighed.

"Well, I suppose so… Komasan, could you just say how you think this competition is going to progress?" Whisper questioned. Komasan got back to his feet and shook his head to rid himself of the dizziness he felt before responding.

"Oh… Well…" Komasan glanced between the two competitors. Jibanyan was still seemingly knocked out from his first defeat, while Grif nonchalantly munched on some oreos (and a few of the chocobars Jibanyan had produced as Robonyan…). "… Um, neither one of them seem particularly sportsman-like."

"Well that's all well and good for this kind of competition, whom do you think has the best shot at winning?" Whisper asked with a pleasant grin on his face. Komasan put his paw to his chin as he looked between the two again.

"I really think we should stop this," Nate muttered with a shake of his head. "But of course, nobody will listen to me…"

"… I'll listen to you," Hidabat said quietly from behind her human friend. Nate glanced at the bat-like yo-kai peeking out of the closet before stroking her head with a soft smile.

"I don't know, they both look pretty lazy," Komasan shrugged towards Whisper. Jibanyan groaned and pulled himself back up.

"Oh, you're back," Grif grunted, throwing one of the chocobar wrappers in front of him. Jibanyan looked at it before his eyes widened in horror.

"My chocobars!?" he glared at Grif. "You ate my chocobars!?"

"If they were important to you, you shouldn't have left them on the floor," The simulation trooper-turned yo-kai shrugged uncaringly. The red nekomata seethed with rage and gritted his teeth.

"Oh, it is on nyow! I don't care if you won the first round, I'm beating you!" Jibanyan announced loudly.

"Well then, you better get a move on Jibanyan. It's the messiness event, and Grif's already ahead of you," Whisper noted, pointing towards the oreo crumbs and candy wrappers that surrounded the N'more.

"But those were my chocobars!" Jibanyan exclaimed while holding a wrapper. "This is my mess!"

"Sorry Jibanyan, but you weren't the one whom ate it. So it doesn't count," Whisper shrugged. Jibanyan cried out in panic.

"Great, now they're going to start messing up my room," Nate grunted with his arms crossed.

"Look! I have all these candy wrappers!" Jibanyan exclaimed, dumping a large number of wrappers from his pocket and rolling around in it. "See! I'm such a slob!"

"Hmm… Grif?" Whisper questioned while looking to Jibanyan's opponent. Grif yawned.

"Candy wrappers? That all you've got?" Grif questioned, before a large amount of food wrappers, and dirty laundry got dumped into the room from Grif's sub-space pocket.

"Seriously!?" Nate cried out, Hidabat ducked into the closet; offended by the smell.

"Yeah, I'm going to get around to washing this stuff and throwing those old wrappers out… eventually," Grif shrugged while Jibanyan just stared with a blank expression on his face.

"Well, I think it's pretty clear whom the winner of the messiness event is. But just in case, any comments Jibanyan?" Whisper asked, looking towards the stunned cat yo-kai.

"… The smell… is awful," Jibanyan muttered quietly. Whisper nodded with a smile before turning back to Grif.

"Congratulations Grif, you've won the second event."

"Whatever," Grif yawned uncaringly.

"Wow, that stinks worse than a dead junebug in the middle of summer," Komasan said with his paw on his nose.

"What does that even mean?" Nate asked blankly.

"Grif may have won two out of three events, but this next one will decide the winner. The most important event! The laziness event!" Whisper announced excitedly.

"Isn't it usually best two out of three? If you were just going to decide from the last event what was even the point of the first two!?" Nate exclaimed in both confusion in frustration, but he was–once again–ignored.

"I won't lose!" Jibanyan hissed with fire in his eyes. Grif still seemed disinterested.

.

"Well, this competition has certainly been thrilling so far! Wouldn't you say so, Komasan?" Whisper questioned while turning to his co-host. Komasan looked to the 'audience' of Nate and Hidabat with an unsure expression.

"… Um… Yes?"

"Of course it has!" Whisper exclaimed before pulling up some papers. "In a stunning turn of events, Grif has flawlessly blown through the first two events of the competition, leaving Jibanyan in the dust!"

"I'm not stunned, I'm just annoyed," Nate huffed with his arms crossed.

"I'm here for you, my friend," Hidabat said, quietly. Nate nodded and patted her head again.

"You are my best friend in the world right now, Hida," the Anchor sighed with a soft smile.

"I try," Hidabat nodded as she enjoyed the affectionate contact.

"Ahem!" Whisper fake-coughed to catch the 'audience's' attention again before he continued. "I'm sure you're all excited for the main, and final event! The laziness event!"

"As long as it gets this done with and out of my room," Nate shook his head in disapproval.

"Laziness is a cat's truest talent! There is no way I can lose! Not now! Not after my humiliation!" Jibanyan roared with fire in his eyes.

"Wow! Jibanyan's fired up once more! And just like last time: that's going to cost him some points!" Whisper announced cheerfully, Jibanyan facefaulted.

"Would you stop doing that!" The cat yo-kai shouted in anger. Whisper shook his head disapprovingly.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk, he just doesn't learn, does he?"

"Are you talking to them or me?" Komasan questioned confusedly. Whisper glared intensely at Komasan whom got a little nervous. "Um… Maybe I should go, Komajiro said we should spend a Loop exploring new places… Maybe this is the Loop to do that, I've been thinking about visiting Greece," Komasan muttered a bit as he backed away from the ghostly butler, whom was still glaring at him. "I'll um, just let myself out. Don't worry about me, I know my way around the city by now," Komasan left Nate's door and carefully closed it behind him.

"Congratulations on scaring away your co-host," Nate scoffed. Whisper growled.

"He was an incompetent! He had no idea what he was doing! It's a good thing he's gone, now I can focus on my part without his distractions. He wasn't needed anyway!" Whisper huffed.

"Weren't you the one who brought him?" Hidabat questioned quietly. It didn't seem like Whisper had even heard her, or if he did he just planned on ignoring her.

"But now's not the time to mourn lost causes, now's the time for action! Or should I say; inaction!" he looked to Jibanyan and Grif, the former glaring at him while the latter didn't seem to be paying attention, again… "Are you ready for the last event, gentlemen?"

"Ready! Er, I mean," Jibanyan rolled onto his back and yawned. "Ready… I guess…"

"Whatever…" Grif shrugged uncaringly.

"Great! I like those attitudes, this is going to be a tough one! I can feel it!" Whisper exclaimed excitedly, though the 'audience' clearly didn't share his enthusiasm.

"Just get this over with," Nate groaned while rubbing his forehead.

"We could all do without the attitude Nate," Whisper shook his head/body, before continuing his announcer-roll. "This contest is simple! Whomever can demonstrate the greatest feats of laziness, both from past experience and current activity levels, wins, thus that winner will be champion! Are we ready!?" both Jibanyan and Grif simply grunted in response. "Go!"

"Well this won't be interesting at all…" Nate sighed and Hidabat nodded. Jibanyan lay on his back, occasionally shifting around a bit, while Grif seemed to be sleeping, in the same position he had started in…

"… I'll have you knyow that I'm the laziest cat around, I mostly just lay around this house all day. I've got you beat," Jibanyan said confidently.

"Don't you go and try to fight trucks and go crazy over some girl band?" Grif questioned without looking at Jibanyan; said cat yo-kai stiffened a bit.

"W-well, you fill your team's guns with bullets when you do missions in your world, so– "

"That? I never remember to do that! I just wait around for Simmons to do it for me," Grif pointed out with a shake of his head.

"Um… but, I um– "

"You modified yourself into a robot in the future. That doesn't seem very lazy."

"I… uh…"

"I've got many ways to avoid work, and I really don't go searching for it. You lie around the house, but you're clearly not really lazy. I marked myself as all religions in my military application so that I could get more days off. And even when Sarge does manage to get me to do something I put as little effort into it as possible," Grif crossed his arms and nodded as Jibanyan stared at him, getting to his feet and shaking a little.

"Well um… I'm still lazy! I, um…"

"You just got up, I haven't moved from this spot since this started," Grif pointed out with a yawn. "You know, it's easier to avoid work in the winter months. I can just build a snowman and hide inside, nobody usually finds me until the snow starts melting."

"Hiding… in a snowman all winter?" Jibanyan was now sweating a little.

"Why a snowman? Why not just a pile of snow?" Nate asked Hidabat whom shrugged.

"His laziness is at another level entirely! I thought I was lazy, but him… It's too much, I can't compare!" Jibanyan fell to his knees as he stared at Grif. Nate looked a little concerned.

"I think he just got his mind blown… I hope Jibanyan doesn't do anything cra– "

"Master! Teach me!" Jibanyan bowed to Grif as respectfully as he could.

"WHAT!?" Nate, Whisper and even Hidabat exclaimed in shock.

"Teach you?" Grif raised a brow in confusion at the nekomata's request.

"I want to learn your ways master! Please let me become your disciple! You are truly on another level than I!" Jibanyan pleaded with his front paws clasped together.

"Hmm…" Grif hummed as he tapped his chin.

"You're not actually considering this!? Are you!?" Nate asked his adopted-brother incredulously.

"He'd better not be! I don't need Grif teaching anyone else his ways! I don't even think Yggdrasil could handle that much sheer terribleness," an angry voice with a bit of an accent shouted from nearby. Nate blinked before looking into the corner of his room and focusing, until he could make out a red snake-like yo-kai.

"Sarge!?"

"That's right dirtbag! And I've been looking all over for this AWOL sorry-excuse for a soldier!" Sarge hissed as he slithered over to Grif and glared at him.

"Seriously Sarge? Look we're not soldiers here! We're spirits, we can do whatever we want," Grif pointed out, but Sarge wasn't having any of it.

"Shut it!" he whacked Grif with his fan-tail. "Just because I can't hold my shotgun doesn't mean you can just ignore my commands! Now drop and give me fifty!"

"Hey! You can't talk to Master Grif like that!" Jibanyan hissed.

"Actually, he can," another voice interjected, the occupants looked over to the window, which was open and watched as a similar looking yo-kai to the one Sarge had taken the form of slithered into the room. Though this one was a somewhat grayish blue. "Well, he can because it doesn't really matter what you say to him, he's still going to do it… because he's Sarge."

"Sarge is Copperled and Church is Cynake? Why is that so fitting?" Nate muttered while scratching his head. "Are any of the others here?"

"Not important! What is important is that this insubordinate soldier is going to be punished! ASAP!" Sarge exclaimed, before he hit Grif with his tail and knocked him across the room and out the window.

"CRAP!" Grif shouted before the sound of him hitting concrete echoed.

"Master! Wait, I still have much to learn from you!" Jibanyan shouted before he jumped after Grif.

"Yeah, this isn't that weird for me," Church sighed while shaking his head, Whisper didn't look like he had anything to say. Nate just massaged his head before throwing his arms in the air.

"Done. Do whatever, I'm going to go watch TV," the Anchor grunted before he exited his room and found his way to the living room and began watching whatever was currently on. The sound of flushing was heard before he spotted Toiletta, hovering out of the bathroom and looking his way.

"Just so you know; your toilet's clogged," she stated uncaringly. Nate blankly stared at her for a few seconds.

"… Get out of my house ghost girl!" he exclaimed while pointing towards the front door.

"Whatever," Toiletta shrugged… before returning to the bathroom and shutting the door behind her. Nate stared at the door as the sound of flushing echoed once more… before a dripping wet Toiletta exited the bathroom.

"Right, clogged," she muttered before floating over to and fazing through the front door. Nate rubbed his forehead and sighed before he returned to watching TV, he could hear some kind of argument going on upstairs, so he turned the volume up...

4.4

"Wait… Where are we?" Fumi questioned as she looked around in surprise, noticing she was outfitted in some sort of blue armor and had a pistol.

"A boxed canyon in the middle of nowhere," a familiar voice answered her and she looked over to see a red armored person walking over to her.

"Keita-kun?" the girl was surprised at the sight of her Anchor, and his attire. She looked around some more and confirmed that they were in some kind of canyon.

"Hello!" another blue armored soldier popped up in front of Fumi, startling her.

"Ah!" she yelped and jumped back.

"Hi Caboose," Keita nodded to the new arrival, not looking at all surprised at his sudden intrusion.

"Hello Keita-Nate. What are you doing here? And who is this girl… she screams loudly."

"I do not!" Fumi protested angrily.

"Yeah, you kind of do," Keita muttered.

"Keita!"

"Just being honest," Keita shrugged, he looked to Caboose before speaking again. "Grif is Awake and Ruby's replacing Simmons, I'm replacing Donut. Sarge isn't Awake and is agonizing over being surrounded by 'Grifs,'" Keita chuckled a bit at that last part.

"Hmm… Yes. That is very interesting…" Caboose nodded absentmindedly.

"Wait, where are we, and what are we doing here?" Fumi questioned, feeling a little annoyed at being ignored.

"Um excuse me, but it's 'why we're here,'" Caboose insisted and Fumi growled.

"As I already said: 'a boxed canyon in the middle of nowhere.' Just look over your memories, that should answer your questions, and tell you how to properly hold a gun," Keita chuckled while patting his friend's shoulder. Fumi looked embarrassed when she noticed she was holding the pistol upside down.

"Right… my memories," she nodded a little unsure. Keita nodded back, before looking at Caboose.

"So, considering you're in good spirits I assume nobody's taken Church's place."

"Yes! Church is here and everything is good!" the local Anchor happily confirmed Keita's suspicions.

"So, I guess Fumi here replaced Tucker."

"Yup, that is another thing that's good!" Caboose nodded.

"Who's Tucker?" Fumi asked curiously, Keita glanced at her for a moment.

"… I'll tell you about him later. Hey, want to meet my siblings?"

.

"So, we're on the Blue team, and you're the Red team? And we're at war?" Fumi questioned after she finished reviewing her memories as she followed Keita to the Red base.

"Kind of. But it's not a real war, it's more of a simulation… Where you can die," Fumi gulped at that part and Keita snorted. "Oh relax, it's not like death really matters to us." The flippancy of this statement almost caused Fumi to stop in her tracks.

"Keita-kun, how… how can you say something like that so calmly?"

"Fumi?" the Anchor glanced back at his friend, seeming a little surprised by her tone.

"How can you say things like 'death doesn't matter to us'!?" Fumi asked, a disbelieving look under her helmet's visor. Keita stopped in his tracks and turned to face Fumi fully.

"… Right… I forgot," he shook his head and sighed. "Sorry Katie… Fumi… I forgot you're a lot newer to this than me, though you've been Looping for a little while you still haven't gotten used to everything."

"Is… is death really no big deal to you?" Fumi questioned. Keita looked ahead for a moment before sighing again.

"Fumi-chan, just be weary. This is your first Loop out of our home town, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Oh geez… Well, I'll watch your back, so don't worry," Keita insisted with a nod before they kept moving, Fumi was unsure of what exactly her friend meant by that but decided to keep following him. "Grif!" Keita called ahead, when a gunshot suddenly zoomed over the two visiting Looper's heads.

"Someone just shot at us!" Fumi shouted in shock.

"Take that you dirty Blue! You think you can try and invade our base just like that? And a one-man army? I respect your moxy. But a blue's gotta die!" The red armored figure shouted while pointing his shotgun straight towards Fumi's head.

"Keita-kun he's going to kill us!" Fumi shouted fearfully and Keita took a ready stance.

"Sarge, knock it off!" another voice shouted, before an orange armored soldier came over.

"I don't take orders from you dirtbag," Sarge huffed while he kept his shotgun at the ready. Keita blinked under his helmet before shaking his head.

"Sarge, are you Awake!?" Keita called over.

"Who wants to know!?"

"Yes! He Woke up a few minutes after you left!" Grif confirmed right before Sarge struck him with the end of his shotgun. "OW! What the hell was that for!?"

"Insubordination!"

"Geez. Fumi, I've told you of my brother Grif and his… associate Sarge," Keita gestured to the two while Fumi didn't look sure of what to say. "Ruby's probably inside, and once Yang shows up you can meet my whole Looping family… except Cinder…" Keita muttered that last part quietly with a shudder.

"Wait, what's wrong with Cinder?" Fumi asked curiously.

"Er, never mind! Let's get inside!" Keita exclaimed quickly, pushing Fumi inside.

"Hey! Don't you dare let that dirty blue into my base son!" Sarge shouted angrily, he was ignored.

.

"Hey there!" Ruby waved, in a set of crimson armor without a helmet on.

"So… you're Ruby?" Fumi extended her hand to the girl whom shook it eagerly.

"Yup! That's my name! Ruby Rose, Anchor of Remnant! And big sister extraordinaire!" she wrapped an arm around Keita's shoulder as he took off his helmet.

"I think that last one more describes Yang," Keita said with a small smirk on his face, Ruby glared at him lightly before pushing him away.

"Keita! You break my heart! After all I had done for you!? What did I do to deserve such rudeness and disrespect from my beloved little brother!?" Ruby cried out dramatically, Fumi sweatdropped at this. Keita chuckled a little, shortly followed by Ruby whom helped him back up.

"Okay, enough of that. I think your scaring the girl," Grif shook his head as he entered.

"Oh, lighten up, Dexter, we were just having a little fun," Ruby laughed.

"Don't worry, its fine," Fumi said with a good-natured smile. "So, your name is Grif, right?" Grif nodded, before Fumi continued. "… Which is spelled with two F's," Grif stared at Fumi, before looking over at Keita and Ruby, whom looked like they were trying not to laugh. "… Keita-kun was very insistent about that second F."

"Okay, seriously?! Keita! Get over here!"

"Nope!" Keita smirked, before running off in a blur. Grif growled, before following after him, Ruby laughing all the while.

"… Did I say something wrong?" Fumi questioned with a confused look on her face.

"Don't worry about it. Brothers, you know?" Ruby asked with a light-hearted smile.

"Um, no actually," Fumi admitted.

"… Oh," Ruby blinked, an awkward silence filling the Red base. "Um… So how long have you known my brother?"

"Well, a long time I guess, we were good friends in Baseline," Fumi admitted with a small smile, before a thought occurred to her and her smile slowly turned to a frown. "But… You know… I'm starting to realize how little I actually knew about him, with the watch, the yo-kai, everything…" She glanced in the direction her friend had left and sighed "Even now… he's so different. He doesn't seem like the Keita-kun, or Nate, I remember…"

"Well… that's to be expected," Ruby gave the other girl an assuring smile. "He has been Looping for a long time, and he's an Anchor, which means he has more Loops than a standard Looper on average. He's going to be different after all that time, but you just have to remember; he's still your friend. The reason you're Looping is probably because of how important you are to him," Fumi thought about what Ruby said, her smile returning after a moment.

"What did I say about Blues in the base!?" Sarge bellowed as he stomped in. "I thought I made myself clear about– "

"Sarge! Shut up!" Ruby hissed as she glared at the native Looper. "Could you lighten up on that for at least a little bit!? Fumi here's pretty new to Looping, she doesn't need you yelling at her on top of everything else!"

"… Alright fine, where's that no-good Grif and your other brother anyway?" Sarge questioned, leaving the room before Ruby could answer. The Anchor of Remnant rolled her eyes.

"You must excuse Sarge, he's not that bad once you get to know him."

"I'll take your word for it…"

.

Fumi hung around Blue base, not sure what she was supposed to be doing right now. Keita had said he'd come talk to her again later, and that she should try to get to know the Blues while she was on their team, but…

"Hey! Girl-Tucker!" Fumi twitched when she heard Caboose calling her.

"Caboose, I said my name was Fumi… and I'm right next to you, you don't need to yell," she sighed as she turned to the blue armored soldier.

"Okay! I'll stop yelling! Starting… Now! Sorry, I'm still yelling! I'll stop…" Fumi groaned as Caboose stayed silent for a few more moments, before finally speaking in a very quiet voice. "Now."

"… Thank you."

"You're welcome!" Fumi nearly fell over at the local Anchor's sudden exclamation.

"So, getting used to everything around here?" Church asked as he walked over. Fumi straightened her posture and looked at him cautiously.

"I guess… What exactly are we supposed to be doing?"

"Not much, when we're all Awake like this we mostly just wait around for Tex to show up, then we go from there depending on if she's Awake or not," Church answered simply. "That reminds me, it'll be getting to the time to call for backup soon…"

"Oh… Who's Tex?"

.

"So, Yang said she'd be showing up before Sister does normally?" Keita asked Ruby as they both sat in the kitchen of the Red base.

"She's getting here as fast as she can, been a little while since we've all been together and she doesn't want to waste it," Ruby explained with a smile.

"Good, I have an idea but for it to work I need Yang's help!" at Keita's exclamation Ruby narrowed her eyes.

"What exactly are you up to?"

"Nothing bad…"

"… Okay," Ruby shrugged before getting up and opening a cabinet.

"You believe me? Just like that?"

"Oh, I don't believe you, not at all, but I figure; you've got an idea, let's see where it goes," Ruby pulled a bag of chocolate chip cookies from the cabinet. "I know I've done some morally questionable things during my time in the Loops, and if you need Yang to agree to help you, it can't be that bad," she took a bite of one of the cookies, and immediately spit it out. "Stale!?"

"Why would you even take cookies from the cabinets? Don't you have tons stored in your pocket?"

"Doesn't mean I won't take a chance to get more," Ruby huffed as she threw the box of cookies onto the ground. "I should've know not to trust box cookies in a cabinet…"

"… Do you want me to bake you some cookies?"

"Yes please!"

"There will be no baking cookies in this base!" Sarge suddenly interrupted, holding his shotgun threateningly.

"What!? Come on!" Ruby groaned while Keita shook his head.

"I don't need you girlying up my base with baking!"

"Baking's not girly," Keita huffed with his arms crossed, Ruby patted his back in an assuring way. "I spent several whole Loops on baking classes…"

"Wait, so that's where you were those Loops Whisper said he couldn't find you," Grif interjected, walking in with an opened pack of oreos in hand.

"No, he knew what I was doing in the one's of those he was Awake, when he couldn't find me I was doing… something else," Keita scratched his head, looking a little embarrassed.

"Well… That's not suspicious," Ruby muttered with a shake of her head. Keita sweatdropped and Grif facepalmed. "Does this have anything to do with that 'plan' you need Yang for?"

"… a little."

"Tex estará apareciendo pronto, no deberíamos estar preparando en caso de que no esté despierta? {Tex will be showing up soon, shouldn't we be preparing incase she's not Awake?}" Lopez asked as he entered the room.

"See! Lopez agrees with me; baking is not something a man should waste his time on!" Sarge asserted, the other current members of Red team groaned.

"Sarge. O aprende. Español! {Sarge. Learn. Spanish!}"

.

"So… if you're not really fighting with the Reds anymore, why are you calling for reinforcements?" Fumi questioned as Church finished his radio transmission.

"Because, if we don't and Tex isn't Awake, she most likely won't show up," he stated as he led the younger Looper back to the base.

"I suppose that makes sense… sticking to Baseline enough so important events happen while still trying to live your own life can be hard I suppose…" Fumi muttered with a thoughtful expression, hidden by her helmet.

"Yeah, I guess," Church shrugged. "We find ways to cope, we all have our hobbies… Or obsessions… Surely you have something to do to keep yourself from going stir crazy back in your home Branch?"

"Er… I actually never gave that much thought," Fumi admitted, looking a little embarrassed at this admittance.

"What? You haven't come up with anything?"

"Well… I haven't exactly been doing this for very long, and finding the weird stuff in my home that's always been there but I've never noticed kind of keeps me from getting stir crazy…" Fumi sighed. "I mean, I'm not like Keita-kun, Whisper, Jibanyan, or the others. I was clueless about so much before I started Looping… it's kind of pathetic how much I didn't know about my friend actually…" she drooped a bit further.

"Please don't do that," Church sighed while shaking his head, Fumi looked at him with a little confusion before he continued. "Don't go all mopey about your Baseline self. So, you didn't know everything about your friend? So, you didn't know there were spirits all around you influencing you and others whenever?" he shook his head as Fumi kept her gaze on him. "Don't get me wrong, that kind of sucks how out of loop you were before you… Looped…" silence filled the air for a moment before Church coughed. "Okay, that was terrible, sorry…"

"No, it's fine, continue," Fumi assured before the local Looper returned to what he was saying.

"Thank you, anyway it's not really something to mope about, you know more now. I remember when I thought I was human, man how ignorant I was," Church shook his head at that thought, though Fumi just looked confused.

"Wait… you're not human?"

"… Did Keita seriously not tell you that?"

"I'm not sure, he might have and I could've forgotten," Fumi sighed, Church facepalmed.

"Okay, whatever, it's not important! What is important is that you stop worrying about how much you didn't know and start focusing on what you can learn now, the Loops are a practically endless opportunity, take advantage of it," Church explained, sounding a little irritated still. Fumi took in what he told her and thought about it carefully.

"I suppose you're right… I mean Baseline is Baseline, but as Keita-kun has made clear to me before, that's not exactly us anymore… I mean it is us, but not entirely… um," Fumi looked troubled as she tried to think of what else to say, but Church held up his hand for her to stop.

"Look, I get it. You don't have to explain something to me that I figured out eons ago."

"Oh… right," Fumi nodded before going silent, not sure of what else to talk about.

"Hey! Church! Girl-Tucker! What are you guys talking about!?" Caboose called from the ground, Fumi twitched a little.

"When will he stop calling me girl-Tucker? I told him my name is Fumi, or Katie, a ton of times," Fumi sighed in irritation.

"Don't worry about it, he doesn't know you yet. Eventually he'll come to see you as your own person and stop with the whole 'girl-Tucker' thing. He has a very simple personality and all the pieces just need to fit, for now you're a substitute piece for Tucker, but eventually you'll have your own place to fit into in his mind and become your own piece," Church explained rationally.

"Huh, that makes me feel a little better I guess," Fumi smiled a little.

"I mean, probably… I was kind of just spouting off gibberish there," Church admitted with a shrug. Fumi glared at him briefly before sighing.

"You know, you're really not much help emotionally…"

"You sure Keita told you about us?"

.

After the Freelancer known as Tex had shown up, Fumi had been introduced to her, and decided quickly to keep some distance. It wasn't that she thought Tex was going to hurt her, it was just that… she had an air to her that made Fumi a little… uncomfortable?

"Caboose, do you ever get scared without knowing why?" Fumi questioned the local Anchor as she approached him, she could see Tex and Church speaking a small distance away.

"Oh yeah, lots of times. Like whenever Church isn't here… those are scary," Caboose nodded.

"Yeah… So, Tex seems… nice," Fumi muttered, Caboose nodded.

"Yup, sometimes, but she doesn't really like me," he stated simply. Fumi gave him an odd look.

"Really? I didn't get that vibe from her."

"Yeah, she's a girl… girls don't like me," Caboose reasoned calmly.

"That doesn't seem like a reason someone wouldn't like you. after all, I like you," Fumi offered softly.

"Thanks girl-Tucket, yeah I like me too, girls just don't…" Caboose said without changing his tone, Fumi stared at him blankly.

"… You know I'm a girl, right? I mean, you keep calling me 'girl-Tucker'," Fumi pointed out in confusion.

"Yeah, and Tucker isn't a girl," Caboose said, seemingly without realizing any contradiction existed. The foreign Looper raised a finger as she tried to think of what to say next, but nothing came to mind.

"Don't worry about him, he'll catch on eventually," Tex said coming over, Fumi jumped a little at the sudden intrusion.

"Oh, hey Tex! When did you get here!?" Caboose happily called out to her with a wave, Tex waved back to him in subdued manner. Fumi just stood there with a look of confusion on her face.

"Um… yeah… I think Keita said his other sister will be showing up soon, he'll probably want me to meet her," Fumi said weakly before shuffling off towards Red base.

"… She's scared of me," Tex stated to Church as he came up behind her, a neutral tone to her voice.

"Nah, I think she's just a little intimidated. I've been to Keita's home Loop, things are usually a lot more harmless over there… wacky spirits notwithstanding," the Alpha A.I explained calmly.

"Spirits, like ghosts? Like the one you became… Church, are you a yo-kai?" Caboose questioned blankly.

"… No Caboose, I am not a yo-kai."

"Oh, good! Because if you were a yo-kai, I would be questioning why you hadn't given your best friend your medal yet."

"Well I don't have a medal, so you don't need to be concerned about that."

"What is this conversation?" Tex questioned incredulously.

.

"They are really confusing, Keita-kun. I mean, I know they're your friends, but I just can't wrap my head around this stuff," Fumi sighed, sitting beside Keita in Red Base.

"Yeah, it all seemed crazy to me the first time I came here too, but once you've been Looping for a few thousand years and experienced plenty of fused Loops this collection of characters doesn't seem that extreme," Keita said with a light chuckle, his friend gave him a look.

"You're not helping…"

"Fumi, trust me. They may seem crazy, but you know, Looping makes people a little crazy. I'm no exception either. Just be prepared, the Loop may seem pointless and crazy right now, but we're going to get into some major warfare soon, hopefully we can keep it to a level you can handle, but I just want you to know things aren't going to stay silly," Keita explained with a serious look on his face, Fumi was a bit taken aback.

"Oh... Serious huh? with these guys' personalities I can't help but find that a little hard to believe…"

"Well, okay, the silliness won't just disappear, but you need to be ready."

"No, I get it. I believe you Keita-kun, you wouldn't lie to me about something like that. This has all just been very… overwhelming for me, and that you seem to be taking it all in stride is kind of unnerving…"

"It'll all fall into place Fumi, don't worry. You're just feeling a little… out of place! Yeah, once you find your niche in all of this, it'll definitely start making more sense!"

"I sure hope you're right…"

"I know I am… now come on! Yang's transmission said that she'd be showing up any minute now, we need to be on the lookout for her ship," Keita said as he grabbed hold of Fumi's shoulder and pulled her along to meet with Grif, Sarge, and Ruby. "You know, so it doesn't land on anyone."

"I'm sorry, is that a risk?" Fumi questioned blankly.

"It happened in Baseline, it's just best to be careful," Grif stated calmly.

"I was robbed of a decent burial!" Sarge grunted angrily.

"You weren't the one hit, Sarge," Grif countered bluntly, only to be hit by the blunt end of Sarge's shotgun… bluntly.

"Shut up Dirtbag! I was talking about that stupid funeral you all put together for me after your sister came!"

"Wait, what?" Fumi blinked in confusion.

"It's not important Fumi, Yang should be here soon. I know she's excited to meet you," Ruby smiled to the younger girl.

"Really?"

"Ever since I told them you were Looping, my siblings have been waiting for an opportunity to meet you Fumi-chan, you've now met Grif and Ruby, but I think Yang was most looking forward to it," Keita explained to his friend kindly.

"Well… I hope I can make a good impression," Fumi smiled, a little nervously.

"Don't worry, you already have," Ruby chuckled a little and Grif nodded. Sarge was glaring at the sky, Keita noticed this and looked up at what he was glaring at, only to see a glowing, yellow dot in the sky… getting bigger…

"Guys, incoming!" Keita exclaimed, backing up, everyone else did the same, what seemed to be a small, glowing yellow meteor crashed several meters in front of them, creating a large crater in its wake. Smoke covered the area for a moment before a figure became clear, someone wearing similar armor to the other soldiers, only this one's was yellow and orange, with sun symbols painted on the shoulders.

"Hello Bloodgulch!" the newcomer exclaimed excitedly, dusting herself off as she approached the group.

"Yang… where's your ship?" Keita asked after a moment.

"Ship? I never said I was taking a ship, I just said I'd be there soon!" Yang laughed.

"Right, of course you did…" Grif muttered while shaking his head.

"Girl! Seriously, what's the big idea with just flying down like some sort of rogue missile intent on our destruction!? Not that there's anything wrong with missiles mind you! Though I prefer a weapon you can stand face to face against your enemy with, like a shotgun," Sarge ranted, and seemed to drift further and further away from reality as he continued talking about his preferred use of weapons. The three of them snuck back to base while he did so…

.

"So, you're this Fumi, or Katie, that I've been hearing so much about from my bro?" Yang asked after they had made it back to the base, Grif, Ruby and Lopez stood back and watched as Yang spoke with the younger Looper, Keita stood beside Fumi and was watch his eldest sister with a critical look.

"Yeah, that's me," Fumi nodded. "You're Yang, you're the one who told Keita-kun about the Loops in the first place?"

"That's right, this little guy was lost and I took him under my wing and made him the man he is today!" Yang explained proudly as she tried to ruffle her younger brother's hair, he swatted her hand away while glaring at her causing her to laugh. "Now then…"

"Yang, please don't hassle her," Keita warned, Yang waved off his concerns.

"Don't worry Keita, I just want to get to know her a little," Yang insisted, before turning her attention back towards Fumi. "So, I gotta ask, what exactly are your intensions towards my little brother?" she asked with a dangerous smirk forming on her face. Fumi shrunk back a little nervously.

"Yang…" Keita sighed in embarrassment.

"We're just friends… um, ma'am?" Fumi muttered weakly, Yang laughed at this and patted her on the shoulder.

"'Ma'am'? That's a little too formal, don't you think? No need to be so nervous, any friend of my baby bro's is a friend of mine!"

"Don't call me a baby!"

"But you are my baby bro!" Yang exclaimed, grabbing Keita in a hug that he struggled to escape from–and failed.

"Yang! Let go!"

"But you're so cute!" after another minute of hugging, Yang finally let Keita go. He smoothed out his clothes before looking towards her again.

"I told you not to do that…" he shook his head, before a thought seemed to occur to him. "Oh yah, Yang, can I ask you something?"

"Sure Nate, whatch'a need?"

"Can I have a pair of your gauntlets?" Keita asked, an ambitious smile appearing on his face.

"What? Why?" Yang looked at her younger brother suspiciously.

"Um… for a project?" he offered weakly, Yang narrowed her eyes at him, but after a moment a smirk formed on her face.

"Okay, on one condition."

"What?"

"You must do something awesome with these!" Yang grinned manically as she handed Keita a copy of her weapons from her pocket. Keita took the yellow gauntlets eagerly and nodded to her.

"I won't let you down sis!" Keita announced before putting the gauntlets into his own pocket for later use.

"Should we be concerned about that?" Ruby questioned Grif as they stood at the other end of the room.

"I'm concerned about what's going to happen next," Fumi sighed as she walked over to the two.

"Oh, don't worry, we'll make it fun… as much as we can that is," Ruby glanced towards Grif whom shrugged.

"Deberías tener mucho miedo. {You should be very afraid.}" Lopez stated bluntly, though Fumi could not understand him.

Next Loop…

Katie's eyes narrowed as she aimed her weapon, she lined up the shot and...

"… Now!" she exclaimed, pulling the trigger and causing water to shoot from the squirt gun, it hit a bird that was flying by, startling it before it flew further away.

"Katie, why are you scaring birds?" Nate questioned as he walked over to her.

"Practicing, I have no idea when I might end up in that place or somewhere similar again, I want to be more prepared next time," Katie said firmly as she took aim at another flying bird.

"… So, you're shooting water at birds?" Nate stared at his friend for a moment, but she maintained her position.

"Well, it wouldn't exactly be a good idea to practice with a real gun around here, so I'm doing this," she explained simply.

"Well, if that's what you want to do right now, I mean the Meta is scary… I remember the first time I saw it," Nate sighed while scratching his head. Katie fired another shot of water and nodded.

"… Say, what do you plan to do with those gauntlets your sister gave you anyway?" Katie asked curiously, Nate chuckled a little.

"It's a surprise Katie, you'll see."

"… That's not a very satisfying answer."

"It's not supposed to be."

"Whatever, so what can I expect in other branches after that insanity?"

"Oh, where do I start?"

4.5

Another day, another simple Baseline run. Seeing as there wouldn't be much going on for the beginning of the Loop, after getting Whisper out of the Crank-a-Kai and getting Jibanyan off the street, Nate had decided to show Katie, whom seemed to be the only other person Awake right now, some DVD's of their baseline.

The two sat in front of a TV (that Nate had pulled from his pocket) in Nate's room, they had just finished the Wazzat episode and the DVD was set to play the next one after the credits finished.

"Wait, so this cartoon is telling our future!?" Whisper questioned in shock, Jibanyan was just lazing around without care.

"I told you Whisper, time is repeating and this is just a backup of our Baseline… Well, one variant. I'll put on the subs after these," Nate shrugged and Whisper still looked confused. "I'd wish you'd Wake up already."

"What? I am awake!"

"That's not what I mean, never mind," Nate sighed while the opening theme for the next episode began. Katie had been sitting there with a thoughtful, yet frustrated look on her face for a few moments before she turned to Nate, looking a little angry.

"Nate, you erased my memory!?"

"No, Wazzat erased your memory," Nate corrected while shrugging. Katie didn't seem satisfied with that response, if anything it just made her angrier.

"But you didn't do anything to stop it! You were happy with it!"

"Hey don't blame me. That was Baseline Nate, he's an idiot," Nate scoffed while Katie just rubbed her forehead to alleviate some of her frustration.

"Seriously Nate," she groaned and her friend sighed.

"Look I'm sorry, but that was so long ago for me. In most repeats it doesn't even happen, unless I Wake up later," Nate explained as best he could, Katie was still frowning but didn't look as upset.

"I guess it's not a big deal… I mean, I don't even remember it," Katie muttered with a shake of her head.

"Wazzat is very good at what he does," Nate chuckled and Katie gave him an annoyed glare. "I know, I know. I really am sorry about that though, can we just keep watching?"

"… Yeah, I guess," Katie smiled a little as they focused back on the screen. "Besides, most of this is going to be about your screw-ups, so I can get a few laughs." She chuckled and Nate responded with a deadpan look.

"Very funny," he shook his head as they continued watching. Whisper scratched his head in confusion and Jibanyan munched on a chocolate bar.

4.6 GammaTron

"Hey, Grif? Did anyone respond on your radio this Loop?" Keita asked his Loop-Brother, the orange-wearing soldier Looping in as his older brother once more.

"Hm? Oh, yeah," Grif shrugged, looking at the clouds.

"Who was it?"

"Sarge. He said 'Don't bother me this Loop. I have an idiot to train,'" Grif shrugged.

"Huh?" Keita blinked twice.

"Y'ALL CALL YERSELF RED?!"

*BOOM!*

"Gomen nassai!" Aka Oni screamed as he fled from the human in red armor chasing after him in a tank painted red.

"Y'ALL ARE RED! Y'ALL AIN'T SUPPOSED T' BE WEAKER THAN A BLUE!" Sarge snapped, firing once more, "KEEP ON MOVIN', SOLDIER! WE AIN'T STOPPIN' 'TILL Y'ALL CAN BEAT THAT THERE BLUE OR Y'ALL ARE DEADER THAN DEAD!"

"But I'm a Yokai! I'm already dead!"

"THEN AH'LL MAKE Y'ALL SUPER DEAD!"

*BOOM!*

"That doesn't seem physically possible!" Aka Oni cried.

*BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!*

"YOU DO NOT QUESTION YOUR SUPERIOR OFFICER!"

Kuro Oni and Ao Oni shared looks as they watched Aka Oni fleeing from the human that managed to get them-self into Oni Time with a tank that had anti-Yokai ammunition. Kuro Oni looked at the throne behind them, the bronze Yamabuki Oni munching on a giant bucket of popcorn while taping the sight.

"(Despite that idiot not knowing Spanish, this is one of the more enjoyable things I like about Sarge)," Yamabuki Oni noted in Spanish.

"Eh, I'm sure he's fine," Grif shrugged.

4.7

It was turning out to be typical game variant for Katie, well one where she got the watch. Which was somewhat common, though not as common as Nate getting it. But neither Nate, Jibanyan or Whisper were Awake, and with no pings Katie concluded that Komasan and Komajiro were not either. There must have been a stealth Anchor.

"Hasn't been too tough so far, I can handle this on my own," Katie nodded to herself as she prepared to leave her house, Baku having assumed her form in bed.

"What was that Katie? You can handle what?" the unAwake Whisper questioned confusedly. The young girl chuckled sheepishly and rubbed the back of her head.

"Nothing Whisper. I just think we can handle anything that comes our way if we work together!" Whisper smiled with a bit of pride at that statement, but then frowned a little.

"Yeah… But still, I'm not too thrilled about having to retrieve a lost pair of underwear," the ghostly butler sighed. Katie repressed a shudder and shook her head.

"Never mind that," Katie sighed before pushing the front door opened and stepping out onto the street. "Let's get to the hot springs and get this over with."

Predictably once Katie and Whisper had left the Forester household; the world turned gray, and time seemed to slow to a crawl. Katie was familiar with Terror Time by now, and knew she did not want to be faced with Gargaros at this point in time. Nate might have an easy time facing him, but she hadn't exactly gathered a large amount of skills yet…

"We just need to sneak to the exit," Katie whispered to her companion, whom for once admitted he didn't really know what was happening… which was odd, she thought Terror Time was one of the things Whisper had Baseline information about, at least in the game variant. As they snuck around the corner, Katie spotted something she didn't expect to see in Terror Time. "A Noko!?"

"Katie! Shush!" Whisper hissed as quietly as he could, but it was too late. The little, plump hopping snake noticed their presence. It stared at them for a few seconds before turning its snout upwards.

"Noko! Noko! Noko!" it vanished in a puff of smoke before either Katie or Whisper could respond to this, before a large shout echoed through the area.

"NOOOOOKO!"

"… What was that?" Katie questioned nervously.

"A Noko…" Whisper muttered nervously, the ground started shaking; it sounded like something massive was hopping on the ground and headed their way. "Now I remember what this is…"

"Why was a Noko here!? And what's that?" Katie questioned incredulously, before looking the way the sounds were coming from; it certainly didn't sound like Gargaros…

"NOKO!" A giant Noko shouted as it came rushing forward from a corner, hopping along the street as it headed the duos way. The two wasted no time and rushed to where Venoct would hopefully meet them and help with the escape.

"Why is this happening!? Why is this a thing!? I thought Nokos were supposed to be good luck!" Katie shouted as they rushed away from the massive hopping snake.

"NOKO!"

4.8

Nate groaned as he drank a bottle of root beer and rubbed his head. Pikachu and Link sat beside him, the electric mouse's ear twitched a bit as he looked at the Yo-kai Watch Anchor in concern.

"What's wrong with you? Bad Loop?" Nate nodded to that question as he drank another bottle of the sugar-filled liquid.

"Bad…" he nodded.

"What, was it something like a war between humans and yo-kai?" Pikachu questioned and Nate shook his head.

"Harem…" he muttered tiredly.

"… Harem?" Link and Pikachu exchanged blank glances before looking back at Nate.

"Do you have any brain bleach!?" he called out and Link pulled him back.

"Wow, I know a lot of us don't like harem loops, but isn't that a bit of an over-reaction?" Nate stared at the green clad warrior blankly while Pikachu scratched one of his ears.

"Yeah, brain bleach? Really?"

"Every. Single. Yo-kai…" Nate groaned as he slumped in his chair. "Every one of them was female, they considered me taking their medals like accepting a marriage offer!" Both of the older Anchors sweatdropped at the younger's proclamation.

"Okay, that does sound a little overwhelming…" Link admitted.

"But… you probably had that girl you like after you too, right," Pikachu questioned, hoping to find some positive for Nate to look at, rather than dwell on negatives.

"I don't try anything relationship-wise with UnAwake Katie, not even when she shows interest in me. It's too weird," Nate admitted. "Still, it didn't help that along with her all her female friends also showed interest in me! Along with Inaho and every freaking girl in the whole school!"

"Well… at least it was a new experience?" Link offered while looking at Pikachu to see if he could add anything, but the mouse Pokémon shrugged.

"Oh yeah, nice new experiences. Like Ningyo using a fishing pole to drag me into the water…" Nate shook his head. "I'm just thankful there was no gender-bending… Unless you count Hidabat, but I'm used to her being female… Though I'm not used to her dragging me into the closet to cuddle with her… That actually wasn't so bad…"

"Wait, do you have a thing for the bat yo-kai?" Pikachu questioned with a skeptical look on his face.

"No, but she can be cuddly," Nate shrugged before drinking more root beer.

"Haven't you had enough of that?" Link questioned in concern.

"Since you guys won't let me have brain bleach I'm going to drink this until I feel like I've had enough!" Nate snapped before continuing. Link and Pikachu looked at each other and shook their heads, before getting some drinks of their own.

4.9

Keita walked up on a stage with a projector screen behind him and smiled.

"Hello everyone, my name is Keita Amano, though I also sometimes go by Nate Adams," he walked to the middle of the stage before continuing. "You know, I have a lot of friends, but I think the friends I have the most of are my yo-kai friends. In fact, a lot of people ask me: 'Keita… or Nate. How did you make friends with so many yo-kai?'"

Keita held up a remote and pressed a button, the screen behind him flickered on with a title card that read: 'Nate/Keita's guide to making Yo-kai Friends.'

"Well, I will tell you." He pressed a button the projection changed to map of the town. "One thing you have to remember about yo-kai friends is; you can find them almost everywhere. But you need to know where to look." The screen changed again to show the tree that the Crank-a-Kai sat beneath.

"One good way to get a yo-kai to be your friend is to free them from a capsule machine," the image changed to show a picture of Whisper shaking Keita's hand.

"Sometimes yo-kai will be inspiriting places, like intersections," the projection flipped to the next image which showed Jibanyan fighting a truck. "They might have their reasons for doing such things, the thing with friends is you need to be understanding with them," the image changed to show Keita and Jibanyan talking happily.

"Offering them a place to stay is a good thing to do," the image showed Hikikōmori hiding in Keita's closet.

"Or helping them adjust to an unfamiliar place," the image now showed Keita showing Komasan some of the sights in town.

"Sometimes making a new friend is as simple as pointing them in the right direction," the image showed Orochi looking at Jibanyan, it then flicked to the next to show Keita pointing him towards Red J.

"And sometimes you might not even know how you earned their friendship," the screen showed Kyubi giving a confused Keita his medal.

"There will be times when neither of you will understand how you even became friends," the image showed a surprised Keita pulling a panicking Ningyo out of the water with his fishing pull. He next changed the image to a picture of a sad Jinmenken.

"And then, there are times when a yo-kai just needs a friend," Keita pressed the button to change the image and it showed a picture of him patting the, now surprised, Jinmenken on the head. He changed the image again to show them both hugging.

"But I think the most important thing to remember about yo-kai friends, is that; they are friends," the image changed to a smiling Keita surrounded by many yo-kai that all seemed happy. "And good friends are something to treasure, no matter the species. Thank you," Keita bowed to his very confused audience of classmates and parents. A banner over the stage read 'talent show.'

"Woo! Encore!" Inaho called from the backrow while clapping loudly.

4.10

"Hi-Ho Slimamander!" Nate shouted while the large, three headed, slimy yo-kai reared back and slithered forward.

"… What is Nate doing?" Katie questioned while she watched this bizarre turn of events.

"Boredom can lead to many things, Katie," Whisper muttered, floating by the girl's side.

"This way! To the yo-kai revolution!" Nate exclaimed as Slimamander slithered out of the school's front gate, leaving a trail of slime in its wake.

"Yeah! Revolution!" Komasan shouted from nearby, holding a torch with blue fire burning. Eddie and Bear both walked over and stared in the direction that Nate had ridden Slimamander in. Though neither of them could see yo-kai, so…

"Did Nate just float away?" Bear asked with a blank expression on his face.

"No, that's impossible… right?" Eddie questioned. Katie chuckled nervously and tried not to look at her two non-looping friends.

"Revolution! Revolution!" Komasan chanted while marching around, an embarrassed Komajiro padded over and grabbed his brother's paw.

"Sorry about that. Let's go home brother," the brown komainu insisted while leading his white furred sibling away.

"I'm invincible!" Nate shouted as Slimamander slithered over various houses in Uptown Springdale.

4.11

The Yo-kai Watch Loopers were surprised by the sudden expansion, it felt like ages since their baseline had had any sort of expansion. It seemed to have just halted at that Christmas where the power went out because of the electric yo-kai going on strike.

But now they had an expansion, and it offered some rather interesting experiences for the Loopers, both human and yo-kai. Though there was one detail that the Anchor Keita–sometimes Nate–was dwelling on…

"I… died?" Keita muttered to himself as he sat in his room. Whisper hovered beside him and Jibanyan was off somewhere else.

"Yes, and you became a yo-kai," Whisper crossed his arms as he looked over the child Anchor whom seemed to have a blank look in his eyes. "You didn't seem to take it too bad in Baseline. Besides, you got better, that's more than most yo-kai can say." Keita nodded numbly while looking at his hands.

"I know but… a manhole?" he looked slightly aghast while staring at his ghostly butler. "An open manhole killed me? That's all it took?"

"I told you to pay attention," Whisper huffed indignantly. Though his expression took a bit more of a concerned form as he noticed Keita wasn't responding to him, just staring at his hands shakily. "Keita-kun...?"

"Just… like that? One wrong step and I'm dead? I know it was a test but…" Keita fell onto his bed and stared at the ceiling of his room blankly. "… Why do I feel like this? I've died before," Keita muttered to himself as he rolled over onto his stomach.

"... It will be ok Keita, you didn't die permanently. You're still alive in baseline, whiss," Whisper patted his friend's back before hovering away and through a wall to give him some space. Keita remained on his stomach for a few more moments before sitting up and pulling something out of his sub-space pocket; a yo-kai medal of Fuu2; his yo-kai form.

"My own yo-kai medal," Keita regarded as he glanced at the Yo-kai Watch he was wearing at the moment. "What would happen if I tried to use it?" he muttered as he glanced between the medal and the watch. After a moment he sighed and placed the medal back into his sub-space pocket. "I wonder how Yuto is doing...?"

4.12

"Emi…" Jibanyan sighed as he looked up at the moon.

"Hey Akamaru, you doing alright?" The Anchor questioned as he came up to the feline spirit's side.

"Nya… I guess," Jibanyan muttered unsurely.

"Thinking about the Expansion too?" Keita got a nod in response, he stood beside the nekomata for a few moments, both looking up at the sky. "You miss her, don't you?" Jibanyan blinked, glancing up at his human friend with a bit of surprise. "Your time with her in this latest Expansion was short, but I bet it was still nice to meet her again."

"… Yes, I just… Do you think Emi-chan will ever Loop, Keita? Nya," Jibanyan asked, looking at his Anchor hopefully, Keita frowned as he tried to come up with an answer.

"I can't really say, I've never really met her in Baseline, nor does she even appear very much in the hub-backups…"

"… Yeah, I nyow," Jibanyan drooped a bit. "I think it's unlikely, but I hope she does… I have so much I want to talk to her about."

"I understand," Keita nodded. "Emi means a lot to you, I don't know if she will ever Loop, but I'll hope with you," he offered with a smile, Jibanyan smiled back.

"Hey, you never nyow, Komasan got Komajiro Looping by hoping after all, nya" the feline yo-kai pointed out.

"I suppose that's true, though they might have just been meant to Activate together and Komajiro just took an extra Loop to catch up," The two shrugged at the possibility.

"So, what's on your mind, Keita? You look like something's troubling you, nya," Jibanyan, Keita took a second to process the yo-kai's question, before looking away.

"Yeah… You could say the last Expansion kind of… Bugged me."

"Oh, Inyaho that annoying?"

"Er, no that's not it."

"USApyon's Emperor Mode too scary?"

"No, not that."

"Never thought Komasan and Komajiro's mom would be that huge?"

"Jibanyan!"

"What, it was surprising! Nya!" Jibanyan defended his last remark sharply.

"Akamaru! I died!" Keita snapped, the nekomata stared at him for a few seconds, a look of realization on his face.

"Oh… So?"

"So!?"

"You became a yo-kai Keita, like most of the rest of us, what's the big deal?" Jibanyan questioned nonchalantly.

"But I died! I fell down a manhole!" Keita exclaimed angrily.

"Yeah, and I got hit by a truck," Jibanyan grunted with a blunt glare.

"…"

"… Sorry, low blow, I understand it's kind of shocking the first time, nya," Jibanyan apologized while trying not to look at Keita.

"No, I'm sorry Jibanyan," Keita sighed as he looked to the ground. "It's not like it was my first time dying, but… Dying in Baseline, and becoming a ghost? It was just a little overwhelming… Especially considering I died by falling into a manhole of all things. I didn't think about the fact that you've gone through this kind of thing a very long time ago, but you don't get to come back to life…"

"Don't worry about it, I've been dead since before I started Looping, doesn't bother me, nya," Jibanyan shrugged, biting into a choco-bar he had pulled from his pocket.

"Really? I always figured that would still be a bit of a sore spot for you," Keita muttered as he looked down at his cat yo-kai companion. "What about your vendetta against automobiles?"

"Oh, don't get me wrong, nya," Jibanyan finished his food before standing up with a determined look in his eyes. "I'll still make sure those evil cars and trucks never take another life again! Nya!"

"I think you'd have more than enough power to defeat a truck by now," Keita chuckled, sweatdropping a bit at Jibanyan's display. "Though… I'd be concerned for the drivers."

"Don't worry about it, I'll make sure no drivers are hurt in my crusade against cars! Nya!" Jibanyan exclaimed with pride. "Still, you ever want to talk about… Being dead, I'm all ears, nya."

"I know, good cat," Keita smiled, leaning down and scratching his nekomata friend behind the ears, Jibanyan purred a bit at affectionate contact.

"I do understand where you were coming from, I guess I've just accepted my lot in life a long time ago, or rather, afterlife?" Jibanyan blinked in confusion. "So, sorry if I was a little insensitive."

"No, I don't think you need to apologize. I was kind of insensitive too, even if your death doesn't bother you anymore," Keita assured, petting his friend's head a bit more. "Maybe I just needed to talk to you about this for your firsthand experience…"

"I'm always here for you, Keita-nya," the cat yo-kai gave an assuring smile.

"Likewise, for me to you, Akamaru."

4.13 KaiserRichard

"SOMEBODY HELP MEEEEEEE!" Whisper yelled as he was trapped inside a Giant capsule. While Nate knew what was coming, it was only a few loops back that his game variant was extended. Only Jibanyan was awake along with the Anchor.

"Whisper!" Nate said has he mentally thought if he should use his Yo-kai Watch to summon some friends or should he just do it solo, when all of a sudden...

"RATTLE ME BONES!"

Instead of Gusty Bones, there was a giant skeleton that had a Captain's hat, an eyepatch, and old pipe in its mouth.

"WELCOME ABOARD MATEY!"

Nate was now very confused with this swap. "What."

"SPIN THE WHEEL FOR THE TREASURE TO TAKE! USE YOUR SKILL TO TAKE WHAT WHAT YOU WILL! BUT DON'T RATTLE ME BONES!"

"What's with the Tree liking this old board game?" Jibanyan wondered as he got ready to do his "Nyext" Soultimate.

4.14

"AKA!" Aka Oni roared as it stomped towards Keita. The Anchor stood firm as the unAwake Whisper and Jibanyan coward behind him.

"Keita-kun, we should really run," Whisper, er whispered to his master as the oni continued its approach.

"Yeah, I don't want die again," Jibanyan whimpered. Keita smiled confidently.

"Don't worry, I've got this," he then turned to glare at Aka Oni. "Aka Oni! Listen up! I'm going over your head!"

"Aka?" the oni looked confused by that statement.

"Huh?" Whisper looked at Keita cluelessly while Jibanyan scratched his head in confusion. Keita simply pulled a medal from his pocket and began to do his signature summoning pose.

"Come on out my friend! Calling Yamabuki Oni! Yo-kai medal do your thing!"

Summoning Legendary!

Legend! Legend! Amazing!

"Yamabuki Oni!" The golden oni announced with a roar as it appeared between Aka Oni and its targets. "YAMABUKI!" he shouted as he held his club up threateningly.

"When did you get that medal!?" Jibanyan questioned Keita whom shrugged.

"That would be, um," Whisper pulled out his yo-kai pad, but Keita pushed it down.

"Yamabuki Oni. The strongest oni there ever was–no more explanation is needed. Even that was too much," Keita explained with a smirk as Whisper blinked in confusion.

"Yamabuki!" the golden oni slammed its club on the ground as Aka Oni backed up in fear and bowed.

"Aka! Aka!"

"Yamabuki!"

"Aka!" Aka Oni looked to be pleading to the higher oni, its clawed hands clasped together as he fell to his knees. Yamabuki Oni gestured to Keita.

"Yamabuki!"

"Aka!" The red oni nodded, before handing Keita his yo-kai medal.

"Um, thanks," Keita shook his hand as he took the medal. Aka Oni nodded, before turning tail and running, Oni time faded leaving them back in normal time.

"What just happened?" Whisper questioned in disbelief.

"Thanks for the help Yamabuki," Keita patted the legendary yo-kai on the shoulder.

"Yamabuki!" he nodded with a smile before turning and walking off.

"… Seriously, when did you get that medal?" Jibanyan asked again.

4.15 KaiserRichard

"Nyate?"

"Yes, Jibanyan?"

"Why is the X-files theme playing nyow?"

Nate sighed as he looked at Venoct, who looked like he had the 7 Chaos Emeralds. "The Tree works in very, very, weird ways."

4.16

Inaho yawned as she pulled herself up from bed.

"Wow, what a day that was. Huh USApyon?" the bespectacled girl looked around her room but frowned when the otter yo-kai was nowhere to be seen. "Oh yeah, he's probably still at that resort in the yo-kai world," she chuckled a little as she stretched and got out of bed. "Well I guess detective work will have to wait. I could really use a day off after all that anyway!"

So Inaho went about changing out of her pajamas, securing her namekichi keychain (that reminded her of USApyon…) and went down for breakfast. Though she couldn't help but think that she had forgotten something…

.

"Wait a minute," after breakfast had been finished she went to watch some Sailor Piers on her computer (since it was summer break she didn't need to go to school, though for some reason she wasn't sure if it had been summer break yesterday.) when she noticed something missing, something that had been a crucial part of her life for quite a bit now. "My Yo-Kai Watch is gone!"

"Sis, what are you yelling about?" Inaho's little brother; Riku peaked into her room, only to see his sister tearing through her sheets and dumping her pillow from its case. Inaho froze in surprise when she noticed her sibling looking at her, but her surprise soon turned to suspicion.

"Riku, have you seen my yo-er-Space Watch?" Inaho questioned with a stern expression on her, usually cheerful face.

"Your what-watch?" Riku questioned with a clueless expression before shaking his head. "I don't know anything about your stuff, but if you lost it it's probably your own fault, you need to look after your things," the young boy huffed before exiting the room. Inaho glared after him for a moment before crossing her arms and thinking.

"USApyon's not going to be happy I lost it, but where is it… I know I never took it off," she paced a bit before something caught her eye; the calendar. "Wait a minute… this isn't right! This date is months before I got my Yo-Kai Watch and met USApyon!"

Inaho's pupils shrank and she stared out the window. "Could it be...? There's only one logical explanation!" she adjusted her glasses seriously as the light shining off of them obscured her eyes. "I've gone back in time!"

.

Nate and Jibanyan both sat on the roof of the Adam's house, looking to the sky and watching the clouds roll by.

"Hey, do you ever wonder why we're here?" Nate questioned, giving his feline friend an aside glance.

"We're here because some undefined disaster broke reality and time is endlessly repeating in an attempt to keep it from becoming even more broken," Jibanyan commented nonchalantly. Nate nodded to this.

"Yeah, I know that, but…" he turned towards Jibanyan and gestured towards their surroundings. "Why are we up here? On the roof?" Jibanyan blinked.

"Oh… I'm nyot sure…" The two looked at each other blankly for a moment before they returned to watching the clouds. As they sat there they noticed someone walking down the street that Nate didn't usually see this early in the Loop, unless he went out of his way to find her.

"Inaho?" he questioned while he watched her approach his house while walking on the sidewalk, muttering something to herself.

"If I have gone back in time what could be the cause? A yo-kai… nah, too easy. Probably some sort of alien plan, they want me and USApyon separated for some reason, or perhaps something went wrong in the time stream and things needed to be rewritten," Inaho muttered to herself, she wasn't sure where she was going. Her Yo-Kai Watch probably wouldn't be in the store at this point, but she needed to find one and see if she could find USApyon, if she remembered than maybe he did too.

Her thoughts halted when she noticed someone she recognized, sitting on the roof of a house of all places. Though his position didn't concern her.

"Keita?" she questioned, loud enough for the boy and nekomata to hear from their place on the roof. Nate looked surprised and looked towards Jibanyan.

"Did she just call me Keita...?"

"Yes, she did."

"Keita-kun! Do you remember me!? I'm Inaho Misora! We summoned an anime hero yo-kai together! Do you still have your Yo-Kai Watch!?" Nate sighed at Inaho's calling before he decided to get down and meet with her.

.

"Wait, so it's not aliens?" Inaho questioned, sounding almost disappointed after Nate had explained what was going on to her.

"That depends on your definition of 'aliens' I suppose," Nate mumbled.

"I don't knyow, don't Loopers from other branches count as aliens?" Jibanyan asked as he padded over to his friend and Anchor's side.

"That's a whole other issue I don't want to try and figure out, especially with all the different species and worlds within the Loops," Nate shook his head. Inaho looked confusedly between Nate and the spot Jibanyan stood, before Nate sighed and rummaged through his sub-space pocket for a moment and pulled out a yellow Yo-Kai Watch U, offering it to Inaho, whom quickly snatched it from his hand.

"Hey! This is my Yo-Kai Watch! You stole it!" Inaho exclaimed while pointing an accusatory finger towards Nate.

"That is not your Yo-Kai Watch, I have a large supply of every known Yo-Kai Watch model in a variety of colors stored within my sub-space pocket," Nate said with a look of annoyance on his face. Inaho lowered her finger and glanced between Nate and the watch he had handed her.

"Oh… sorry… wait, sub-space what?"

"We'll go over that later," Nate waved his hand dismissively. "More importantly do you understand what I told you?"

"Of course I do," Inaho scoffed before a smug smile formed on her face. "Our universe is actually a computer program being run in a giant super-computer tree, but the data has gotten corrupted so to stabilize it the program is set on Loop through the more stable parts of the program, with the corrupted or unstable bits isolated until they can be fixed and added to the Loop," Nate and Jibanyan glanced at each other briefly.

"Um… Sure, I guess that's about right," Nate shrugged. Inaho nodded before continuing.

"And to keep the program more stable, a suitable candidate was chosen to this position you spoke of, this 'Anchor' to keep the reality grounded and running smoothly, and other Loopers Activate to help keep said Anchor from going insane. And that Anchor for our world is… Me!" Nate facefaulted at Inaho's conclusion while Jibanyan burst into laughter. "What? Keita-kun?"

"You are not the Anchor!" Nate exclaimed, getting back to his feet and giving Inaho a critical glare. "How could you possibly come to that conclusion!?"

"What, it makes sense. My life is full of the activities of a main character, and from what you said that's typically the type of person whom is chosen. And I'm definitely stable," Inaho nodded with a smirk. Nate sweatdropped while Jibanyan kept laughing, though Inaho couldn't see or hear him since she hadn't yet used the Yo-Kai Watch.

"Inaho, if you were the Anchor I wouldn't have been able to explain this to you, because you'd be the first one to Loop in our Branch," Nate pointed out and the purple haired girl blinked and thought this over. "I'm the Anchor!"

"… You?" Inaho couldn't help but chuckle a little, Jibanyan had finally stopped laughing, but was now smirking at Nate whose eye subtly twitched. "No offense Keita-kun, but I just find it hard to believe someone as ordinary as you would be put into such an important position, I mean you're okay. But you're not main character material. So come on, who's the real Anchor?" Jibanyan had started snickering and Nate glared down at the cat yo-kai, causing him to stop. Nate than turned his focus back to Inaho and said the only thing he could think to while he tried to calm down.

"My name is Nate…"

"… Why'd you change your name?" at that question Nate facepalmed.

.

USApyon hummed in thought as he marched through the town, invisible to the humans that occupied the streets. Odd that he didn't recognize his location, or remember finishing his vacation…

"Uh, I need to find Inaho. Dani," the otter dressed in a rabbit-space suit sighed while looking around for any familiar land marks, surely if he tried he'd be able to find Inaho's house without much issue…

.

"Where is it!?" USApyon shouted, collapsing onto the grass of the park he found himself in. He had been searching for several hours and had been unable to figure out where Inaho's house was… or even where in Sakura New Town he was. Nothing looked familiar!

… Well, some things actually did look familiar, but they weren't landmarks from Sakura New Town. He had definitely been here before, but it was a while ago. He just couldn't put his paw on it.

"… Wait a minute," USApyon's eyes widened in realization. "I know where I am! Dani!" he looked around again as memories filled his head.

The rabbit-looking otter yo-kai soon frowned as his realization sunk in and his eyes widened.

"How did I end up back in America!? DANI!"

.

"If we want to find USApyon, the place where you first met him is probably a good bet… Though it's earlier in the Loop than that usually happens, so it may be trickier," Nate explained as he walked beside Inaho and Jibanyan.

"Huh, what a boring plan… I guess I shouldn't expect much else from you," Inaho shrugged and Nate glared at her. "… What's with the look?"

"Our goal here is to find your partner. I've said the most logical course of action to do that, and yet you're still making fun of me!?"

"I'm not making fun of you!" Inaho exclaimed in her defense. Nate gave her an unconvinced glare.

"… Ok, so do you remember where you met him?" Nate asked after a moment. Inaho seemed to be thinking, she 'hmmd' as she tapped her finger to her chin, though she occasionally sent glances Nate's way. "… What?" Nate questioned; noticing Inaho's focus on him.

"It's nothing!" she insisted defensively. The two humans stared at each other for a couple of seconds before Inaho opened her mouth again. "Ok, so you're really the Anchor?"

"For the last time; yes! Stop asking!" Nate hissed in aggravation. "What do you not understand about that!?"

"Sorry, it's just kind of hard for me to wrap my head around," Inaho chuckled sheepishly while Nate kept glaring at her. Jibanyan chuckled a bit a and patted Nate's pants leg

"Yeah, he didn't exactly seem like 'Anchor-material' at first to me either, Katie would have probably been a better choice. But sometimes things just happen," Jibanyan shrugged with a smirk on his feline face. Inaho chuckled a little along with the small nekomata, though neither noticed the Anchor's face twist into a snarl before a growl starting emitting from him.

"Rudy!" the brown-haired boy suddenly snapped while glaring down at the fire-using yo-kai. Jibanyan looked up at Nate, a little shocked at the use of one of his living names at this moment, before Nate spoke again. "Shut up!" With that Nate turned away from the two and began storming off. "Fine!"

"Nyate?"

"If I'm so unfit to be an Anchor you two can find the otter-rabbit yourselves!"

"Oh, come on Nyate! I didn't mean that! It was a joke!" Jibanyan called after his Anchor, though he didn't seem in the mood to listen. "Come back…" Jibanyan's ears drooped a little as he watched his friend leave.

"What's his problem?" Inaho asked curiously, Jibanyan's ears perked up a bit before he looked at her with a deadpan expression. "… What?"

.

"'Uninteresting.' 'Normal.' Not 'Anchor-material.' I'll show them," Nate growled as he walked towards his house. "See how well they do without my help!"

"Nate!" the call of his ghostly butler caught Nate's attention, he looked over as he floated to him.

"Whisper? I thought you were with Katie this Loop?" Nate questioned, his anger momentarily forgotten.

"Well I was, but she Woke up a little while ago so I figured I'd go find you. She's probably already befriended Kyubi," Whisper explained with a shrug, Nate sweatdropped.

"How does she always befriend him so fast?" he shook his head before smiling a little. "Well, nice to have you back for the Loop. I'm glad you at least think I'm worth something."

"Huh?" Whisper questioned in concern, he noticed Nate looked a bit upset and was staring towards his house. "Nate? What happened? Where's Jibanyan?"

"That cat's off with Inaho, she's Looping by the way, they want to find USApyon," Nate explained with a huff while crossing his arms.

"Inaho's Looping now!?" Whisper's eyes widened in surprise… before he blinked and scratched his head. "Um… Which one is Inaho again?"

"The girl with the glasses."

"The shy one in your class? You barely interact with her!"

"No, that's Shelly. Inaho's the hyper one with purple hair and a Yo-Kai Watch. We met her Baseline-wise in the latest expansion, she's partnered with the otter yo-kai in the rabbit-space suit," Nate explained as best he could as Whisper looked to be thinking.

"… Oh! Right, now I remember her," the yo-kai butler nodded with a smile, but the concerned look returned to his face when he looked back at Nate. "Wait, why is Jibanyan with her but you're not? And why are you upset?"

"Upset? What makes you think I'm upset?" at that response Whisper just stared at Nate with an unconvinced expression. "… Ok, I'm a little upset."

"What's the problem? Still dwelling on how in the last expansion you kind of… died?" Whisper asked carefully. Nate sighed and shook his head.

"'Temporarily died.' And no, I'm pretty much over that. It's just…" the Anchor trailed off as he looked away from his butler/friend.

"… Just what?"

"… Inaho's annoying!" Nate shouted after a moment; startling Whisper whom fell back a little, but managed to keep afloat.

"Ok, that was uncalled for," Whisper muttered, rubbing his forehead before balancing himself again and looking towards Nate. "I'm a little confused. Don't you like Inaho? I seem to recall you going out of your way to befriend her in quite a few Loops since you first met her in that medieval kingdom variant."

"I liked her better when she wasn't Looping! I explained the Loops to her and her first conclusion was that she was our world's Anchor!"

"… After you explained to her what was going on?"

"Yes! And then Jibanyan goes in and starts talking about how I'm not 'Anchor-meterial' while Inaho just says I'm so 'ordinary' and 'uninteresting!'" Nate growled as his hands balled into fists.

"Can't blame her for that one," Whisper commented with a shrug, though he flinched at the glare Nate sent his way. "What I mean is; Inaho only knows the Baseline 'you' she met during the latest expansion. She doesn't know how much you have grown in the Loops or the skills you've learned."

"… Well maybe so," Nate nodded, but he still seemed upset. "Rudy however doesn't have that excuse. That cat's been Looping nearly as long as you, and yet he thinks I'm not 'Anchor-material!' Really!?" the brown-haired boy stomped his foot on the ground in aggravation.

"What does that even mean? Anchor-material? You are the Anchor, the admins decided that a long time ago," Whisper scratched his head in confusion. "I think you're getting worked up over nothing, you know how Jibanyan is, he probably didn't mean anything by it."

"Maybe… But I'm not going back there," Nate huffed as he started walking up his front porch. "They can find USApyon on their own."

"USApyon?" Whisper questioned, before pulling out his Yo-Kai Pad.

"The otter in a rabbit space-suit I mentioned Inaho hangs around with," Nate clarified with a shake of his head. "Seriously, I'd think you'd have memorized at least as many yo-kai as me by now," a tick-mark formed on the ghostly butler's head at that comment.

"I'll have you know that I am, have always been, and always will be, a never-ending source of infallible yo-kai information!"

"Seriously Whisper, just stop. I'm not in the mood right now," Whisper deflated a bit at his master/friend's dismissal of their usual banter as he opened the door and went inside his house.

"This could be serious, as a butler it's my duty to make sure my master is well… and as a friend I should make sure he's really ok," Whisper said in concern before he floated after Nate, seamlessly passing through the door the Anchor had closed behind himself.

.

"USApyon!" Inaho called as she walked through town, followed by a somewhat guilty Jibanyan.

"Nyate…" the nekomata sighed as he thought about his friend.

"No, it's 'USApyon', and you need to call louder," Inaho explained to Jibanyan before turning forward again. "Like this: USApyon!" Jibanyan groaned and shook his head.

"I'm worried about Nyate," he stated while looking up at the newly-Looping girl. She glanced down at him again before patting his head and smiling.

"Oh, don't worry about him. I'm sure he's fine, so he got a little riled up. It's not anything I haven't seen before. At least he doesn't shoot lasers at you," Inaho said with a cheerful smile.

"But I think I hurt his feelings," Jibanyan scratched his head as he looked up. "And, nyot to play the blame game or anything, but you kind of did too."

"How did I hurt his feelings?" Inaho asked, looking genuinely confused at the accusation.

"Do you remember back in baseline, when you first met him and said he pretty much had nyo interesting qualities?"

"I was complimenting him," Inaho pointed out, which surprised the cat-like yo-kai a little. "Someone as normal as him having such a talent for making friends with yo-kai? I thought it was really cool! Not to mention he's famous among the yo-kai! USApyon only came here because he was looking for him."

"Wait, seriously?"

"Of course, why would I want to insult him?" Inaho asked with a tilt of her head.

"I don't know… people make fun of each other? It sounded like you didn't think much of him, and how you were having a hard time believing he was the Anchor. He took it that way at least… we need to go talk to him," Jibanyan concluded with narrowed eyes.

"But we still need to find USApyon."

"Inaho, think about this: You said USApyon only came here because he wanted to find Nyate originally, right?"

"I remember it as 'Keita', but yes."

"Both are correct. Anyway, if that's the case he's not going to be here," Inaho looked confused after Jibanyan had said that.

"Why not?"

"Because it's early in the Loop! Nyate hasn't really met any other yo-kai except for me. Plus, this Loop is a variant; Katie is the one who freed Whisper from the Crank-a-Kai, and even if USApyon comes to meet Katie like he did for Nyate in baseline, that's nyot going to happen for a while."

"Hmm… Katie? Crank-a-Kai? Whisper is the poached egg-looking guy, right?" Inaho tapped her forehead in thought. Jibanyan facefaulted.

"Did you even hear me!?"

"Yeah I did! So, what are you waiting for!? Let's go get Keit–I mean, Nate!" Inaho called as she ran down the sidewalk. Jibanyan blinked as he watched her move further and further out of sight.

"… Hey! Don't just run ahead like that! Wait for me!" the cat yo-kai shouted as he dashed after the bespectacled girl.

.

"For my next trick, I'll make this slip of paper vanish before your vary eyes," Kyubi, in his human form, exclaimed while taking a confident pose to the people that had gathered to watch at Uptown Springdale's riverbank. Katie stood by with her arms crossed and an unimpressed look on her face, her friend Sarah stood next to her; her face red as her eyes focused on the disguised yo-kai.

"Where did you meet him again?" Sarah whispered to Katie whom sighed as Kyubi used his powers to stealthily burn the paper to smithereens.

"Thank you, thank you. You're a wonderful audience," the fox yo-kai disguised as a boy bowed several times as a few of the people clapped.

"I just met him around," she sighed, was Kyubi always this 'show-offy'? Why hadn't she noticed the first time she ran into him?

"Wow, lucky," Sarah muttered in awe. Katie shook her head before walking over to Kyubi.

"And now for my next trick– "whatever the nine tailed fox wished to say was cut off when his human companion gently jabbed him in the chest with her elbow.

"Ok that's enough, quit showing off. I think you've wasted enough of our, and their time," Katie insisted, pulling the disguised yo-kai along.

"But my fans!" Kyubi protested, which Katie ignored as she dragged him.

"Sarah, sorry to ditch you like this, but I think it's time me and my 'friend' headed home," Katie sighed. Sarah blushed harder and covered her mouth with a small gasp, to which Katie gave a confused look.

"Oh my, inviting me to move in already? I know I'm smooth but still," Kyubi chuckled, Katie thought about that for a moment before she too blushed.

"Our separate homes!" she exclaimed before glaring at a chuckling Kyubi.

"Oh, come now, we can all have a good time at your place," Kyubi laughed while Sarah turned away in embarrassment.

"You know, I think mom was interested in exotic recipes lately… like maybe, 'fox stew," Katie spoke in an unamused tone. Kyubi stiffened a little, his ears and tail popping into view.

"Shutting up now."

"Good," she nodded, pulling Sarah away before she could look at Kyubi's revealed yo-kai features.

"Go on home Sarah, this guy's all talk. He's a decent friend, but you shouldn't get all riled about what he says," Katie insisted to her friend whom nodded slowly.

"Don't worry about me, fair maiden. We shall see each other again, and I look forward to that time, but for now we must part. Good day," Kyubi (whom had hidden his ears and tails once more) spoke dramatically, with a wink and bow. Sarah blushed again and smiled dizzily.

"B-bye," she waved before leaving. Katie glared at Kyubi whom smirked at her.

"What? Jealous?"

"I wish you wouldn't mess with my friends' heads," she sighed with a shake of her head.

"The heart wants what the heart wants my dear Katie," Kyubi said with a flip of his hair. Katie facepalmed.

"Why do I keep befriending this guy? Why do I keep befriending this guy?" Katie muttered to herself, but Kyubi's sensitive ears picked it up and he looked at her questioningly.

"'Keep befriending'? What do you mean by that?"

"Um…"

"Wait up!"

"Keep up! We're almost there," Katie and Kyubi both looked over curiously as they saw a girl running with a nekomata not too far behind, both of whom Katie recognized.

"Jibanyan? Inaho?"

"Katie?" Jibanyan looked over at her questioningly, only to ram into Inaho, whom had stopped to look Katie's way. "Ow!"

"How do you know my name?" Inaho questioned in confusion.

"I already told you, Katie's Looping," Jibanyan muttered dizzily.

"You didn't mention that, also I don't know her," Inaho pointed out.

"I'm pretty sure I did… and I forgot you never met her in Baseline," Jibanyan rubbed his head.

"Wait, Inaho's Looping!?" Katie exclaimed in surprise.

"Looping? What the heck are you guys talking about!?" Kyubi questioned with a voice full of confusion and aggravation.

"Well you see, it starts with this tree-" Inaho's attempt to explain was cut off by Jibanyan jumping up and grabbing her arm.

"We don't have time! We need to go see Nyate!"

"Wait, did something happen to Nate?" Katie asked in concern.

"Who's Nate?" Kyubi questioned with a raised brow.

"Oh right! Let's go!" Inaho shouted before rushing off, Jibanyan holding onto her arm.

"Wait! What's going on!?" Katie yelled as she chased after Inaho and Jibanyan.

"I would like to know that too!" Kyubi shouted before transforming into his true form in a puff of smoke and flying after the others.

.

"Why are shiny Pokémon so hard to find!?" Nate growled as he played his 3DS.

"Why don't you just hack the game? You hacked into military computers, I think you could hack a simple game," Whisper pointed out.

"I need to catch one legitimately! That was the bet. And trust me, Pikachu will know if I hacked," Nate insisted before focusing on his game once more.

"If you say so," Whisper shrugged with a sigh. The sound of small rocks hitting the bedroom window caught the yo-kai butler's attention, though Nate didn't seem to notice. "… Nate, I think someone's trying to get your attention."

"Can't talk right now. Battling hoards!" Nate insisted as he continued to play his Pokémon game. More rocks tapped on the window.

"Nyate!" an easily identifiable voice called from outside.

"That sounds like Jibanyan," Whisper said before floating over to the window.

"Tell him I'm busy," Nate growled before he had his Victreebel use sweet scent to trigger another hoard.

"Nate! Mr. Anchor!"

"That's Inaho," Whisper said, looking out the window and down at the visitors.

"I don't want to talk to her!"

"Nate!"

"That's Katie," Whisper said.

"Yes! A shiny! Wait, Katie?" Nate dropped his 3DS "NO!" he reached for the falling device, but despite his super speed he did not react fast enough. The 3DS hit the wooden floor with a cracking sound and the game screen froze. He dropped to his knees as he stared at the screen, showing his Greninja in the middle of battling two Plusles and three Minuns, one of the Minuns being shiny, "I was… so close," he whimpered over the audio of the game, which had been reduced to a glitch, buzzing noise.

"… Nate?" Whisper crossed his arms and looked at his 'master' with a skeptically. Nate took a moment before he came back to his senses.

"Nyate! Come out!"

"Maybe he's not in there…" Kyubi's voice suggested before the nine-tailed fox yo-kai hovered up and looked in the window, he spotted Nate and tapped on the window.

"… Ok, let's go see what they want," Nate sighed after shaking his head and pocketing his 3DS and getting up, he waved to Kyubi before leaving his room and heading down the stairs to the front door.

.

"Jibanyan, Inaho, Katie, Kyubi," Nate nodded to each of them after stepping out of his house, Whisper following closely behind.

"How did you know my name?" Kyubi questioned. Inaho chuckled as she adjusted her glasses.

"Allow me to explain, you see it all starts with a tree– "

"Who doesn't know about the 'great Kyubi'," Nate interrupted Inaho with a sarcastic tone to his voice. Inaho fell over as Kyubi chuckled arrogantly.

"Oh, a fan. I should've known. What, do you want an autograph?"

"Kyubi!" Katie pushed the fox yo-kai aside before looking at Nate. "Nate, what happened? Is something wrong? Jibanyan and Inaho seemed worried."

"Nothing's wrong Katie, I just needed to blow off some steam," the Anchor assured his friend/crush. "Though they did cost me that shiny Pokémon," he added under his breath while his eye subtly twitched.

"What?"

"Nothing! Nothing, everything's fine," he assured again with a very big, fake smile on his face. Katie didn't look convinced, but Jibanyan pushed forward and looked up at him.

"Nyate…"

"Rudy," he nodded. The cat yo-kai looked at him for a moment more before hugging his leg.

"I'm sorry for hurting your feelings, I didn't mean it… you're a great Anchor," he assured, Nate frowned and looked away from the nekomata, who's ears drooped, but a moment later Jibanyan felt a hand on his head, and look to see Nate petting him.

"Don't worry about it Rudy, I know you didn't want to hurt my feelings. I don't want you to beat yourself up, I overreacted. I really was just blowing off some steam, I'm fine now," he said soothingly as he stroked the cat's furry head. Jibanyan gave a few purrs in response to the affectionate contact.

"Aww," Katie smiled at the scene while Kyubi crossed his arms and scoffed. Katie glared at him before jabbing his stomach with her elbow.

"Ow! What!?"

"Yeah! You guys made up! I'm so happy for you!" Inaho cheered, rushing over to Nate and Jibanyan and pulling them into a hug. Nate looked annoyed while Jibanyan looked disappointed that the petting had stopped.

"Yes, everything is alright now," Whisper said with a smile, Nate turned his annoyed glare on his yo-kai butler.

"Please let us go," Nate spoke to Inaho in an even tone. The girl nodded before releasing the human and yo-kai from her hold.

"I'm just glad all that worked out! Now let's go find USApyon!" Inaho shouted, pointing to the sky.

"I'm still not thrilled with you, Inaho," Nate growled a little. Inaho looked at him and scratched her head with a nervous chuckle.

"Inaho! Remember what we talked about," Jibanyan was looking up at Inaho critically.

"About USApyon not being here yet?"

"No, about Nyate's feelings."

"Oh, right," she looked back at Nate whom was looking at her skeptically. "So, your friend tells me I might have said some things that might have possibly… offended you…"

"… Wow, you think?" Nate's sarcastic tone did not deter Inaho from continuing.

"So, he said you may have taken some of my descriptions of you as insults. And I just wanted you to know that I wasn't trying to insult you."

"… Ok."

"Really! I have like, one hundred and ten–no!–twenty percent respect for you! I- Wait, ok?" Inaho looked confused as Nate nodded.

"Yeah, ok."

"Just like that!?"

"I know you better than you think Inaho," Nate smiled before lightly flicking her forehead. "You're like the master of unintentional rude comments."

"Hey!" Inaho covered her forehead and glared at Nate as he laughed. "That's not funny! I thought you hated me!"

"I could never hate you, you've become my friend too many times for me to count," Nate smiled as he patted Inaho's shoulder. "Don't worry about it. I got all that out of my system one-shoting Pokémon hoards with surf anyway."

"Um… What?" Inaho asked in confusion, Katie and Jibanyan chuckled while Kyubi scratched his head, looking just as confused as Inaho. "… So, you'll help find USApyon?"

"Sure, how hard could it be?" Nate shrugged.

"Yes! Even if you're incredibly average your aid to this search will no doubt be invaluable!" Nate glared at Inaho after that exclamation. "Er… I mean, you're not average at all… in fact you're extraordinary!"

"Never mind, where do we start looking?"

.

The airport was abuzz. Families waiting to get to their vacation destinations. Business workers going to or returning from business trips. Bored kids making noise. Crated dogs barking.

USApyon peeked out from his hiding place behind a potted plant and looked up at a flight schedule.

"Ok, which flight will take me to Japan? Dani," he questioned as he looked over the destinations and the flight numbers. A person walked by and he quickly ducked back behind the plant, slowly peeking out again when they had passed. "Hmm… The soonest flight going to Japan is leaving… Now!? Dani!"

He looked around again to make sure the coast was clear, before rushing forward to the correct line, he looked for an opportunity to sneak on the plane… before he remembered one, important detail.

"Wait a second! I'm a yo-kai! Nobody can see me! Dani," The rabbit-looking otter yo-kai shook his head before he stepped forward and looked at the people lined up to get on the plane. "I'm cutting in line to board this flight! And I'm not paying for a ticket! Dani!" he announced proudly, confident that nobody could hear him, before marching forward.

USApyon's moment of triumph however was cut short, by a sword blocking his path.

"Dani!?" he jumped back and stared at the yo-kai that was in his way.

"So, you don't intend to pay for a ticket huh? BRATS LIKE YOU NEED TO BE TAUGHT A LESSON!" Snartle shouted angrily.

"Oh, come on! You're not even a merican yo-kai! What are you doing here!? Dani!"

"Exchange program," Snartle shrugged before brandishing his swords threateningly. "But no matter where I go brats who break the rules will be punished!"

"Well this won't be pleasant," USApyon sighed with some dread in his voice, as he held his laser gun up defensively.

.

"I have no idea where we're supposed to find that namekichi," Inaho sighed as the group sat in Uptown Springdale's park, a little kid cheerfully swung on the swing set in the background.

"Why did you call USApyon a nyamekichi? Also, what's a nyamekichi?" Jibanyan questioned Inaho blankly. The girl reached into her pocket and pulled out the mushroom-like keychain that she often compared USApyon to. Jibanyan stared at it for a second. "… Yeah, I can see that."

"If we just wait he should show up like in Baseline anyway, looking may be pointless, he might not even be a yo-kai yet," Nate pointed out before biting into a donut that none knew where he got from.

"Well than what do you propose we do?" Inaho asked with a critical look in her eye. Nate shrugged and finished his donut.

"Well… We could deal with Slimamander," Katie suggested as she stared wide-eyed in the school's direction.

"Slimamander?" Nate raised a brow, before a realization hit him. "Oh! It's summer vacation, so I guess we're doing a game-variant. Ok, Slimamander's no problem, let's just– "Nate was caught off by a loud, deep sounding roar that echoed from the school. The two humans and three yo-kai all slowly looked where Katie was and saw, even from their position in the park, how an absolutely enormous Slimamander had claimed the top of the school as its own. "… Well, so much for a normal game-variant."

"What's a game-variant?" Inaho asked, seemingly already over the shock of seeing the huge boss yo-kai. "No wait! Don't tell me! I can figure this out, let's see…"

"It's a variant where we go through the story of our hub-backup video game," Nate deadpanned.

"I told you not to tell me! Wait… we have a video game?"

"Yes. But never mind that now, we have a giant three headed salamander to deal with."

.

"Oh, finally got away… Dani," USApyon sighed as he let out a few breaths of relief. He had managed to slip onto the plane going to Japan and escape Snartle's wrath. Now all he needed to do is wait… Just wait. "… This is boring… Dani."

.

"This is awesome!" Inaho shouted as she, along with the others did battle with a bunch of colorless, red eyed yo-kai. Inaho wielding a large rocket-launcher that she was using to fight of some enemies on her own.

After the group had taken care of the giant Slimamander, Nate had decided that they should just take the fight straight to McKraken (though Inaho didn't recognize that name). They had recruited Komasan and Komajiro, whom were luckily Awake, before heading to the Yo-Kai World to take on the head honcho himself.

"Take this evil doers!"

Komasan watched with a smile as Inaho shot a rocket at some of the enemies, causing them to scatter in many directions before looking to his also brother whom had a concerned look on his face. "I knew it was a good idea to hold onto that."

*BOOM!*

"If you say so brother…"

"This seems a lot easier than the last time we came here!" Inaho called to Nate whom was using Spectral Fang in gun-mode to take out some evil yo-kai in his way.

"It's normally a bit more suspenseful, but we kind of just want to get this out of the way right now," He switched his weapon to scythe-mode and got into a fighting stance.

"Where'd you get that cool gun-scythe anyway!?"

"I'll tell you later!" Nate shouted before rushing through several of the evil yo-kai in his way and heading down the pathway that lead to McKraken. Inaho shrugged before she continued shooting rockets at the enemies.

"You think you stand a chance of fighting me? Ha! Take this!" Kyubi shouted as he blasted flames at some of the white yo-kai.

"Yeah! Show them we mean business!" Katie cheered from the sidelines.

"We? You're not really doing anything," Kyubi pointed out. Katie crossed her arms and huffed before glaring at some of the white yo-kai, she held out her hand and growled a bit before some of the yo-kai floated in mid-air and were tossed into others, defeating several of them.

"How's that for doing something?"

"… Ok, I'll admit that's a little impressive."

"Take this! Paws of Fury!" Jibanyan cried from nearby.

"Spirit Dance!"

"Wild Zaps!" the Komainu brothers joined in with their own attacks to help out. "Wow! Never really had to go all out like that in Baseline!" Komajiro exclaimed excitedly.

"Oh my swirls! There's more in-coming! Come on Komajiro!" Komasan exclaimed as more evil yo-kai approached and the two got ready to fight.

"McKraken's up this way, we'll get him before he even has a chance to absorb the yo-kai energy in the human world!" Nate shouted as he sped along the path, Whisper with him.

"We're coming up on his location fast," Whisper said while glaring up a head.

Nate smirked as they came up to the door to King Enma's former-throne, he held his weapon ready as he prepared to break down the doorway.

"Hey Nyate! Wait up!" Jibanyan called out as he came running over, followed by the others in their group.

"So, the big baddy behind there?" Inaho asked with a confident smirk as she held her rocket launcher ready.

"Yeah, not like he'll be much of an issue," Kyubi chuckled.

"I'm not so sure after that giant Slimamander…" Katie muttered.

"Come on, we got through easily enough. What could that nasty squid really have to throw at us?" Whisper asked confidently. Suddenly the entire Yo-Kai World seemed to shake and giant white tentacles could be seen rising up over the gate. All of them glared at Whisper. "What!?"

.

USApyon snatched a bag of nuts from a food cart and glanced out one of the plains windows.

"How many more hours to go? Dani…"

.

"Take this you oversized cephalopod!" Nate shouted as he punched the, currently almost kaiju-sized and more monstrous looking, Chairman McKraken, with a modified gauntlet that was on fire.

"Nyext!" Jibanyan exclaimed while using one of his alternate soultimate moves. Inaho shot rockets at the monstrous yo-kai while Katie psychically threw debris from the destroyed surrounding architecture.

"Inferno!" Kyubi shouted, unlashing his soultimate move upon the enemy.

"Oh my swirls! This sure is exciting!" Komasan exclaimed while his brother stood beside him, shooting electricity at McKraken.

.

USApyon watched some random movie play from behind one of the passenger's seats, he tried to open his bag of nuts… but the bag wouldn't open…

.

"Octo Snake!" Venoct, whom had joined in on the fight against McKraken, shouted as the heads on his dragon scarf lunged forward to attack.

"How much will it take to defeat this guy!? Do we need to summon King Enma again!?" Inaho called to Nate, shooting another rocket at McKraken in the process.

"That shouldn't be necessary… nor do I think it's even possible at this point in time!" Nate called back, he switched the medal in his gauntlet from Swelterrier to Blizzaria and put a Robonyan F medal in Spectral Fang. "We just need to keep up the assault!"

"You don't nyeed to tell me twice!" Jibanyan exclaimed, before transforming into Robonyan and flying over some of the higher, flailing tentacles. "Rocket Punch!"

"I don't understand how you guys do half the things you do. But I'm having too much fun to question it!" Kyubi shouted as he released more flames towards the giant squid-like yo-kai. Komasan and Komajiro both willed themselves to evolve into Komane and Komiger and started throwing stronger attacks.

.

USApyon's eye twitched as he tried to pull the bag of nuts open.

.

"He's almost down guys! Let's go, all together!" Nate shouted as they all kept throwing attacks at the giant boss yo-kai. McKraken roared, seemingly unable to speak in his monstrous form, before finally falling and vanishing in a giant puff of smoke.

"Did that do it?" Venoct asked, hovering by Nate.

"Doesn't he usually go to the human world and get stronger?" Komane asked while scratching his head. Kyubi looked at the lion-dog in confusion.

"Usually? Seriously, why do you guys seem to know the future or something?" he looked to Katie for answers and she scratched her head awkwardly.

"Um, well…"

"I would like to know that too, how did you know that the Yo-Kai World was in danger?" Venoct asked while looked toward Nate.

"Oh! Let me explain!" Inaho exclaimed excitedly. "You see, it all starts with this tree– "before Inaho could finish the entire Yo-Kai World seemed to be shaking again, the demonic laughter of McKraken echoing.

"Looks like this boss fight isn't over yet," Nate said seriously, Inaho drooped in disappointment at being interrupted again.

.

"Come on you stupid...!" USApyon's growled as he pulled on the plastic containing the assorted nuts.

.

"Come on everyone! Let's defeat this guy once and for all!" Nate shouted as they stood before the massive, powered up Squiddilius McKraken. He had transformed into some sort of giant dragon-squid yo-kai that was flying over Mt. Wildwood. They had been joined by some other non-Looping yo-kai friends like Walkappa and Baku, whom wanted to help defeat the giant evil yo-kai.

"Why is he randomly a dragon!? Does that even make sense?" Whisper asked Katie, whom shrugged.

"Everyone, his weak point is that mouth on his stomach… at least if he works the same way as his regular final form… Anyway! Let's all get up there somehow and take him out!" after this everyone cheered, except Whisper who still looked confused.

"Seriously, why is he a dragon?"

.

"Er! Will you just… open already! Dani!" USApyon hissed as he pulled harder on the bag of nuts, even biting at it to get the bag open, he tugged and tugged. Until finally the bag opened… and sent the nuts flying around, startling the passengers in the process. "… Whatever," he sighed, before grabbing one of the nuts off the ground and eating it.

.

"Attack! Everyone aim for the stomach-mouth!" Nate shouted, shooting several shots into the sky with Spectral Fangs gun-mode. Everyone through their projectiles into the air to hit McKraken's giant, draconic form.

"Rocket Punch! Rocket Punch!" Robonyan shouted, shooting more. He transformed into Robonyan F and kept firing.

"Come on brother! Let's give it all we've got!" Komiger exclaimed and Komane nodded.

"Right behind you Komajiro!" he nodded before they shot more fire and electricity at McKraken.

"Take this!" Walkappa shot water into the sky while Baku expelled sleep smoke, Cadin flew up and attacked with a sword and Buhu tried to inspirit the boss.

"You're going down giant monster!" Inaho shouted confidently while shooting rockets at the stomach-mouth, which had opened up just in time. It seemed to take forever, but after a lot of hits, dodging attacks, and healing from any damage the boss yo-kai threw at them; it seemed he was finally falling.

"Is he going down?" Kyubi asked, looking a bit tired.

"I think he might be," Katie smiled.

"I think we did it guys," Nate added, looking a bit relieved.

"FOOLS!" McKraken's voice suddenly shouted out.

"Oh come on! Don't tell me…" Nate groaned as the other members of their group stood ready in case of another attack.

"This… is… Not… Even…"

"… Not even what!?" Inaho questioned loudly.

"MY FINAL FOR– "McKraken started to shout, only for a closet, of all things, to appear over his head and fall onto it, happening to hit the exact weak point to defeat him once and for all. The closet landed on the ground before the stunned group before it opened a tiny bit.

"Um… hello," the yo-kai in the closet greeted shyly.

"… Hidabat! You came!" Nate shouted happily. Robonyan F landed on the ground before changing back into Jibanyan whom gave a sigh of relief. The Komainu brothers both reverted to their smaller forms and everyone seemed to relax a little.

"So, he's done now?" Whisper asked, a little nervously.

"I believe he is," Venoct nodded.

"Finally! But that was fun," Inaho laughed a little, before looking over at Komasan and holding up the rocket launcher. "I can keep this, right?"

"Sure!" Komasan nodded cheerfully. Inaho giggled as she clutched the weapon, while Komajiro sweatdropped with an unsure expression on his face.

"So now what?" Kyubi asked Katie whom looked relieved the battle was over.

"What else? Party time!" Jibanyan shouted in excitement.

.

"Finally! I finally made it! Dani…" USApyon groaned as he stood before the Misora household. "I only hope Inaho hasn't gotten into too much trouble without me… well, she better be grateful for all the trouble I went through to get back here! Dani!"

Without wasting another second USApyon pushed the door open, not really caring that it was unlocked, and rushed up to Inaho's room.

"Hey Inaho! I'm back, so you can stop worrying or whatever!" USApyon stood in the doorway of the room, waiting for some sort of response. Though he just heard the sounds of video games… He looked and spotted Inaho, playing a video game on a 3DS with a boy he recognized as Keita, and a girl he didn't recognize at all.

"You guys are going down! I have absolutely mastered the power of Samus at this point!" Inaho cheered confidently.

"Yeah, keep telling yourself that. But I'm the one who just got the Smash Ball," Nate smirked.

"Hey! You stole that from me!" Katie accused.

"Ahm!" USApyon's voice caught the attention of the three children whom looked his way.

"USApyon? Where have you been?" Inaho questioned the newly arrived yo-kai.

"I… I, I ended up in America! I don't know how! I don't know how!" USApyon shouted, tired, confused, and out of breath. "I snuck onto a plane back here, and then I searched all over for you! It took me a week to find you after getting off the plane!"

"Wait, you remember her!? You're Looping too!?" Nate interjected in surprise. USApyon looked at him confusedly.

"To be honest, I'm not surprised at all by that," Katie muttered while shaking her head.

"Looping?" at USApyon ignorance Inaho patted his head, a smug grin on her face as the reflection of her glasses obscured her eyes as she adjusted them.

"Allow me to explain."

"No," Nate shook his head. "Allow meto explain."

"Oh come on!" Inaho shouted as USApyon turned his attention to the Anchor.

.

"So, we're time traveling!? Dani!?" USApyon grabbed his head as he tried to process what he had been told.

"Basically, though it isn't simple time traveling. This Loop we're experiencing right now is a variant after all," Nate shrugged.

"I would've explained better," Inaho huffed as she looked away from them.

"I'm sure your explanation would've made less sense," USApyon grunted while looking at Inaho dully. Inaho growled and glared at the otter yo-kai.

"I'm glad I forgot about looking for you! You rude little namekichi!"

"You forgot about me!?"

"Oh yeah, that's what we were supposed to do… I guess we kind of got sucked into the celebration after we beat that super McKraken-dragon… then we just kind of forgot about it completely," Nate looked to Katie.

"Yeah, I kind of forgot about it too…"

"Grrr…"

"VADER MODE!"

"Oh yeah, that's a thing," Nate muttered while Katie and Inaho nodded. Before the three children ran out of the room, with USApyon chasing them and shooting lasers at them.

4.17

"Jibanyan, what are you doing?" Keita questioned as his feline companion sprayed some sort of substance around the room.

"Well, you know when my tails accidentally set the curtains on fire earlier this Loop?" Jibanyan questioned while looking over to his human friend.

"Who could forget? Wissu," Whisper shrugged while floating over.

"Yeah, mom was ticked," Keita sighed. Jibanyan nodded before he continued spraying.

"Well, if things can be caught on fire so easily by my tails this Loop, I thought keeping this place a little safer would be good. I mean, a lot of this is wood! What if my tails set the house on fire!?" both Keita and Whisper nodded to the ghost-cat's concern. He smiled at the two and held up the can of what he was spraying. "So, I went and got this 'inflammable spray!' And sprayed it all over the house so we don't have to worry!"

"… Wait, you did what?" Keita questioned in a worried tone before he and Whisper glanced at each other.

One explosion later Whisper and Jibanyan were standing over the burning remains of the Amano residence. Whisper didn't look like he knew what to say and Jibanyan was panicking.

"Inflammable means flammable!? What kind of a world is this!?" The nekomata shouted in confusion. Fuu2 came out of some of the debris and surveyed what was left of his home, before sighing and floating over to the two other yo-kai.

"Well my house, and body's toast. At least mom and dad weren't home…"

4.18

"Man, I'm so bored. Things haven't been interesting anymore since the time travel stuff started," Inaho groaned as she sat at her desk. USApyon sat nearby, polishing his ray gun. The rabbit-looking yo-kai gave his partner an unamused look.

"Not interesting? I think things have been a little too crazy since this whole Looping fiasco started," he huffed as the purple haired girl gave another groan and leaned back.

"But we know the answer to all the cases! And we barely get any new ones! I'm bored!" she cried out as she raised her hands. USApyon looked irritated but this wasn't enough to set him into 'Vader Mod.' Though it was getting close… "I know!" Inaho suddenly looked cheerful as she pulled a yo-kai medal from her sub-space pocket.

"… Where did you get that?" USApyon questioned as he came over and saw the yo-kai that was depicted on that medal. He already had a bad feeling about whatever his partner was planning to do.

"Keita-kun gave it to me! I think having a friend over would help ease the boredom! Now then," She held up the medal ready to insert it into her Yo-kai Watch. USApyon stood back.

"Just for the record, I think this is a bad idea," The little yo-kai hissed.

"Noted. Doing it anyway!" Inaho cheered before continuing. "Come on out my friend! Calling Fuu2!" she inserted the medal into the watch and watched as it began to activate. "Yo-kai medal do your thing!" The summoning tune for the Fushigi-zoku tribe played before a small, blue, ghostly yo-kai with a tail that was shaped like the number two appeared.

"Fuu! Fuu! Fuu2!" The yo-kai announced, holding up two fingers. He blinked after a moment and looked around in confusion, he then looked down at himself and gasped in disbelief.

"Hi Keita-kun!" Inaho greeted her friend while USApyon sighed in the background.

"Inaho! What did you do!? I thought I told you to only use that medal in an emergency!" Keita–or Fuu2–cried out in distress.

"But this is an emergency! There's nothing to do! You're good for making boring days fun!" Inaho insisted with a friendly smile.

"I was doing something," Keita hissed disapprovingly. "You can't just rip someone's soul from their body anytime just because you're bored! It's rude!"

"I told her not to do it," USApyon shook his head. Inaho chuckled a little embarrassedly.

.

Back at Keita's house, Jibanyan walked into said Anchors room while eating a chocolate bar. He stopped when he saw the boy sitting at his desk, with his head down on the game he had been playing, the screen beeping as he continually held down the random buttons with his head. No signs of life at all came from him. The fire-using nekomata stared at this scene for a moment before glancing back down the hall.

"Whisper! Keita's dead!" he called out nonchalantly, before he hopped onto the bed and took a bite from his chocolate bar.

4.19

"Can't believe we're an idol group this Loop," Weiss said with a shake of her head.

"I can't believe we woke up right in the middle of a concert and Yang had to clamp her hands over her mouth to stop herself from singing!" Ruby laughed as her sister glared at her silently.

"And I can't believe we still have fans after that whole mess, and Yang refusing to make any comments on it," Blake muttered with her arms crossed.

"Meh, doesn't surprise me. Next HarMEOWny. Or NyaKB. Had a lot of fans in Baseline. I honestly never got the hype, but considering their replaced with your 'RWBY' group this Loop, I guess the devotion gets carried over," Nate shrugged, not really concerned with the circumstances that surrounded his siblings and the rest of team RWBY Looping in, and just happy to have them over. Still…

"Next HarMEOWny! WAAAHHH!" Jibanyan cried, a fountain of tears flowing from his eyes, as he lay on the floor while banging his front paws on it.

"… Is he always like this?" Weiss questioned, looking a bit irritated by the undead cat's tantrum.

"No. Only when it concerns that band he's so into," Nate sighed with a shake of his head.

"Next HarMEOWny's not just a band! It's a way of life!" Jibanyan suddenly shouted, standing on the table the five humans (or four humans and one faunus, depending on how you looked at it) were sitting at and staring Nate in the eyes.

"Jibanyan calm down, they'll be back next Baseline run," Whisper interjected, trying to settle the nekomata's mood. However Jibanyan simply turned his glare on the ghostly butler.

"Don't you dare tell me to calm down!" he suddenly pounced on Whisper, causing the ghost to cry out in shock.

"Stop! Nate! Help me!" Whisper called out as Jibanyan took out his frustrations on him. Nate sighed before getting up from the table to separate his two friends.

.

"So, Yang's not talking at all this Loop?" Nate asked as he, Ruby and Yang were walking down the sidewalk in Uptown Springdale. Weiss had gone off to the Yo-kai World for some observation of the culture of the odd spirits, while Blake was just hanging out back at his house.

"Not just this Loop, she's been at it for a while. And she still has a few more to go. It was a bet," Ruby shrugged. Yang nodded, and as explained, kept her mouth shut. Nate just stared at her with a look of disbelief.

"Why would you take up a bet like that?" Nate questioned his blond sister whom just gave him a look that told him all he needed. "You just can't resist a challenge, can you?" her only response to that was a smirk.

"Yeah, surprisingly one of those yo-kai showed up at Beacon a few Loops back, a babblong. Tried to get Yang to talk, and failed. Hard!" Ruby explained while Yang smiled proudly.

"Really? You resisted that thing? You're going to have to tell me how… when the bets over, that is," Nate said in an impressed tone and Yang nodded.

"There was also a blazion inspiriting Nora… but that's a story for another time," Ruby mentioned and Nate couldn't help but shudder a little.

"So, what are you going to do about the whole 'idol thing' this Loop?" the youngest sibling questioned, in an attempt to change the subject.

"I called the manager of our band and gave an excuse for why Yang can't sing. I basically told him she has a bad throat and we don't know how long it will last," Ruby shrugged. "I told 'em we'd call when she was better, so that should at least keep them from bugging us for a while." Nate laughed a little at that.

"You know, it's kind of weird having memories of being the little brother of two members of a famous idol group. You'd think that would make me considered a little above-average. But everyone just comments on how normal I am compared to you," he grumbled that last part a bit, but smiled when Ruby pat his head. Yang held her fist up in an encouraging way and punched it into her other hand. "… No Yang, I don't think combat would be a good way to impress them…"

"Nate! Wait up!" the three glanced behind them and saw a girl Nate's age, with short purple hair and glasses, running towards them.

"Oh great," Nate sighed with a sweatdrop.

"Who's that?" Ruby asked before Inaho stopped in front of them.

"Chi-watchi!" Inaho exclaimed while showing her Yo-kai Watch proudly, before she began looking them over excitedly. "Oh gosh! It's you! You're from that awesome hub-show!" she exclaimed with stars in her eyes.

"You've seen our show?" Ruby questioned curiously.

"Well only the first season. But you guys are awesome! I thought Nate was bluffing when he mentioned you were his sisters! But here you are! Nate, I can't believe someone as extraordinarily ordinary as you would have such close ties to someone like THEM!" Inaho exclaimed excitedly and Nate's eye twitched.

"… New Looper?" Ruby asked her little brother.

"Unfortunately," Nate groaned, Ruby patted his back with a sympathetic look on her face. "Ruby, Yang. This is Inaho Misora."

"Chi-watchi!" Inaho showed her watch again with a big smile on her face.

"Yeah, hello. You already did that," Ruby nodded, looking a little confused by the girl's actions. Yang looked at Nate and pointed at Inaho, while swirling one finger around her head. Nate just shook his head to the unspoken question.

"It's just so exciting to meet you! I mean not as exciting as it would be to meet Sailor Piers, but still! You guys are awesome! Where are the others anyway!?"

"We had a recent expansion, she and her partner were kind of dragged in un-expectantly," Nate whispered to his sisters.

"Well, she seems really nice but…" Ruby smiled kindly, but glanced at Inaho whom was still chattering on, seemingly oblivious to the conversation she and Nate were having. "She is really… Chatty…"

"Yeah, I already checked. She's not being inspirited," Nate muttered while rubbing his head.

"And anyway! We can all hang out! If we get the others it would be cool! And Nate can come too, I guess. Not that I don't like Nate or anything, but when I think 'cool', my mind doesn't exactly– "as Inaho continued to speak Yang started making a mouth gesture with her hand, opening and closing it rapidly.

"Hey! Inaho!" they looked over and saw what looked like a little, rabbit-like creature in a space suit, holding a laser gun. He ran over and glared up at Inaho whom had stopped talking to look at the angry yo-kai. "What's with just running of on me!? Dani!"

"Aw, cute. Who's this?" Ruby asked Nate enthusiastically.

"USApyon, the partner of Inaho's I mentioned also got dragged along when the expansion hit. He's alright, but I would be wary of him," Nate whispered to Ruby and Yang. USApyon might have been offended, had he heard what the Anchor said. But currently he was too busy being angry with Inaho to pay much mind to his whispering.

"You can't just run off like that without any warning! Dani!"

"Don't be such a crybaby, you little namekichi!"

"What did you call me!? Why you!"

"VADER MODE!"

"I think I see what you mean Nate!" Ruby commented as they ran away from the berserk, laser shooting, yo-kai. Yang nodded in agreement, though was smiling for some reason.

"You're enjoying this!?" Nate questioned in disbelief. Yang shrugged.

4.20

Dr. Maddiman giggled as he looked down at his restrained patient. He held his blades up with his one big eye dilating.

"Now than Nathen, let's get that heart out! Don't worry, you won't feel a thing… once it's over!" The mad yo-kai doctor let out a maniacal laugh. But Nate didn't seem fazed at all.

"Yeah, that sounds fine. But there's one problem with that idea," The restrained boy said calmly. Dr. Maddiman looked at him in confusion.

"What would that be?" after that question Nate's eyes darkened and a creepy smirk formed on his face.

"I'm already dead!" without warning Dr. Maddiman was thrown back by a burst of energy. The cyclops yo-kai rubbed his head in a daze and looked up before gasping, floating before him was a blue, demonic ghostly, skeletal beast of some sort. It had piercing red eyes, a star shaped hole in its torso, and held some sort of mechanical scythe in its hands. "You got a lot of projects under your name? Don't you doc? How many subjects did you have, how far do your projects go back?" The blue yo-kai gave a menacing laugh as he held his scythe up "Well, I think it's time you learned what it's like to be helpless! Like one of your strapped down science experiments! It's time for you to be culled!" Dr. Maddiman trembled in fear and tried to back up as the reaper-like yo-kai that had previously been Nate approached him.

"No! Get back! Please! No!" the yo-kai doctor's screams filled the halls of Nocturne Hospital.

.

"Nate...?" Whisper looked at his charge with a questioning expression as he walked along the side walk with a pleasant smile on his face. "What happened last night exactly?" this Loop so far had seemed to be a normal, game-variant. But the other night when they had been in Nocturne Hospital Whisper had heard… Some unsettling screams.

"Oh, I just put a certain doctor in his place," Nate smiled in a way that Whisper somehow found unsettling. "Don't worry. I didn't do anything to him… physically. But I don't think he'll be trying that trick again," Nate continued on his way, still as cheerful as ever, Whisper just followed with concerned look on his face.

"If you say so Nate…"

.

In a certain abandon hospital in the town of Springdale. A yo-kai that was a madman, even when he was human, sat in a corner of his old office, his legs pulled up to his chest with his arms wrapping around them as he rocked back and forth.

"Doctor, what's the problem? Do you want me to try and find another subject?" The little Leadoni that was his assistant asked as he peaked through the door. Dr. Maddiman rapidly shook his head.

"No! No more subjects! No more, no culling! No culling!" he cried as he rocked back and forth faster. The Leadoni scratched his head with his large arm before shrugging.

"Um… okay than," he backed up a bit slowly before quickly leaving without another word.

4.21

"Hey Fumi!" Inaho greeted with a smile as they both approached school.

"Oh, Inaho. Hey," she waved with a small smile of her own. "What's up?"

"Oh, nothing much, just checking out those anime hub-backups of our Loop. Funny stuff in there," Inaho chuckled a little while Fumi nodded.

"Yeah… though some of it is kind of embarrassing…"

"Speaking of which, you do know that Keita-kun has a crush on you, right?" Inaho asked with a smirk on her face. Fumi briefly turned red before looking away from the other Looper.

"I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."

"Oh come on! You've seen the backups too. There is no way you don't know!" she slid over to Fumi's side and put her arm around her shoulder. "Plus, with that whole Yakimochi ordeal, I don't think the feelings are entirely one-sided."

"Yo-kai inspiriting make people act out of character all the time! Y-you can't pin anything I did while inspirited on me! Baseline or otherwise," Fumi insisted, still refusing to look at Inaho or reveal her red face.

"Maybe, maybe. But I'm pretty sure Yakimochi, or Minochi, makes you jealous about people taking away what you already want, or someone you already want the attention of. So, when all your jealously was focused entirely on Keita-kun and nobody else, what exactly does that say about you?"

"Well you see, that is, Er–nice talking to you Misora-san, but I really need to get to class!" Fumi exclaimed before breaking away from her friend's grip and rushing to the school building.

"… Was it something I said?" Inaho questioned with a shrug before putting her hands on her hips and frowning.

4.22

Nate (or Keita, depending on when you ask him) knew, and accepted, that despite the thousands of Loops under his belt, he was among the younger Loopers. Especially when compared to his adopted Looping family, whom had experienced billions, perhaps even trillions of Loops prior to his Activation.

Because of this simple fact, Nate had often been considered the 'baby' of his Looping family unit. Not that that was a bad thing, but he did get a little aggravated at times with how much Ruby seemed to enjoy calling him her 'baby brother,' or how protective all three of them could get at times.

On the other hand, it wasn't like they weren't protective of each other too. And he loved all of them, Nate wasn't sure he could've handled the Loops up until Whisper's Activation if not for them.

Still, the whole 'baby' thing just annoyed him sometimes, not too often, but when it came to Loops like this…

"Oh! You are just so CUTE!" Ruby, in chibi form, squealed as she hugged a much tinier, five-year-old, chibi Nate a Jibanyan costume.

"Ruby, please put me down," Nate groaned in a somewhat high pitch voice.

"Sorry, but you're so cute!" Ruby giggled, placing the small child on the ground and smiling at him. "You don't come here during Chibi Loops very often," Nate pouted as he glared at his sister, an action that only made her squeal more over how 'cute' he was…

Yeah, with a Loop like this, Nate couldn't help but wonder if Yggdrasil was just trying to annoy him…

"Why is your little brother allowed at Beacon? And what's with his pajamas?" the, UnAwake, Weiss interjected, looking at Nate with a bit of reservation.

"Well… I'm not sure, but he is," Ruby shrugged, before she noticed something behind Weiss. "Um, Weiss? Who's that?"

"… Oh, that's just my little sister; Katie," she stepped aside, revealing the little five-year-old girl, in a Komasan costume.

"… And you were questioning why my little brother's allowed to be here?" Ruby asked, not looking at all surprised at the presence of Katie as Weiss' younger sister.

"Well, Katie's cute is all…" Weiss shrugged, Ruby glared at her partner, UnAwake or not, Ruby wasn't going to let her get away with that.

"You take that back! Nate is much cuter!"

"Um, no."

"Oh yes he is! Look at his little kitty hood!"

"Yeah… not cute."

"Grrrr!"

"Hey Nate," Katie waved, walking over to him awkwardly. "I'm… not exactly sure what's going on around here… We're on Remnant, right?"

"Chibi-Loop," Nate shrugged, trying to ignore his sister's argument with her UnAwake partner.

"Heard about those, never had one," Fumi shrugged. "So… Are you always...?"

"I'm not usually a five-year-old if I come here, most of the time I replace Ruby."

"Ok… So, do you know what's with the… um," Fumi blushed a little as she looked down at herself.

"The costumes? No, I think it's weird too though."

"What's going on?" the two arguing sisters looked, just in time to see Yang and Blake enter the room. Blake being the one whom questioned them, Yang immediately went over to Nate and hugged him.

"Oh! My baby brother! What are you doing here?" she cooed to him, Nate groaned, not liking the babying at all, he didn't voice his complaints though, as it was clear she wasn't Awake.

"I took the dust-ship," Nate spoke, in as childish a tone as he could pull off. Yang squealed and hugged him tighter.

"Blake, who's cuter, mine and Yang's little brother, or Weiss' little sister!?" Ruby asked, pointing to Nate; still being hugged by Yang, and Katie, whom waved nervously. Blake blinked, before silently stepping aside, revealing a five-year-old girl in a USApyon costume.

"Dun dun du duh! Super Space Agent: Sailor Namekichi is on the case!" Inaho cheered as she held up her little toy replica of USApyon's laser, before running around the room, pretending to shoot things. Ruby and Weiss blinked in confusion.

"… You have a little sister too?"

"What makes you think that?" Blake questioned, before going over to her bed and opening up a book. Ruby and Weiss just stared at her, Yang had moved on from fawning over Nate, to fawning over all the little children, and Blake just read her book.

4.23

"Nobody but us Awake this Loop?" Nate asked Whisper as he walked through the doors to school.

"Nope, I didn't get any other pings. You?"

"Same. Oh well, was hoping to try something crazy with Inaho. Guess we can just enjoy a little Baseline… Though avoiding some yo-kai related mishaps," Nate shrugged.

"You speak as if all of your Baseline problems are caused by yo-kai," Whisper pointed out, looking a little offended.

"Not all of them, just most of them," Nate commented as he continued his way to his classroom.

"Well now, that's– "

"Nate! Come quick!" Whisper's attempt at an argument was cut short by Eddie, whom was gesturing Nate to hurry to the classroom with a panicked look on his face.

"I wonder what's got him riled up…" Whisper stated, his previous anger seemingly forgotten.

"Eddie, what's the problem?" Nate asked his friend as he approached.

"It's Bear! Something's really wrong!"

"Hold on, what do you mean by 'wrong'?" even as Nate asked this he internally groaned. 'I was hoping it was just Baseline with no alternate yo-kai shenanigans…'

"I have no idea what to even call it! Just get in here!"

"Alright, alright. What exactly happened to–Bear!?"

"HI NATE! Would you like some of my chocolate dipped pickles!?" Bear–or at least what looked like Bear–offered to the newcomer, as well as the other classmate's whom seemed disturbed. For you see, there were a few minor details that were just… wrong with this picture.

"B-Bear's nose!?" Nate gasped, pointing to the huge, pink, bulbous nose sprouting from Bear's face. That, and the fact that his eyes had been reduced to nothing but small, black dots, painted a rather horrifying picture for the two Loopers.

"BILLY!?" Whisper exclaimed in both shock and fear as the Billy-Bear tried to get some of the students to try his 'chocolate dipped pickles.' "Did he replace Bear!?"

"This is bad," Nate muttered while rubbing his head.

"I know man, I have no idea what's going on. Though the swelling and odd behavior might indicate an injury of some kind," Eddie sighed as he puzzled over what was wrong with his friend. A sudden scream caught his, Nate's, and Whisper's attention and they looked to see Sarah pointing at Alex with fear in her eyes, said tomboy was slumped over, almost dead to the world.

"Sarah? What's wrong?" Nate questioned.

"A-A-Alex's nose!"

"Say," Alex twitched a little before, much to everyone's terror, she revealed her face, and how her nose had swollen the same way Bear's had, and her eyes had turned to black dots as well. "DO YOU GUYS LIKE PIES!? I LIKE PIE! PIEPIEPIEPIEPIEPIE!"

"What in the world?" Nate questioned fearfully as he backed up. A few more students gasped as others slumped over, before they too were revealed to have been 'Billy-fied.'

"You guys want to hear all the things that rhyme with cheese!?"

"Anybody want to have a parade!?"

"LET'S FIND A KIWI NEST!"

"This is a nightmare!" Nate shouted while clutching his head.

"What's going on!? Is it a virus or something!? We need to call– "Eddie stopped mid-sentence and slumped over as well. Nate and Whisper looked at the boy fearfully and fully backed out of the classroom.

"Eddie! No!" Nate cried, before his normally intelligent friend lifted his head back up.

"Nate! DOOOO YOU LIKE PIE!?"

"NO!" Nate shouted before he raised his wrist up.

"What are you doing?" Whisper asked his master/friend, momentarily forgetting his horror.

"I'm going to see if there's a yo-kai behind this! It's the only thing I can think of!" Nate shouted, before his yo-kai butler could protest Nate shined the watch's light over the room, before what appeared to be a ghostly Billy appeared in the center of the class.

"Come on everybody! Let's dance!" the yo-kai Billy cheered as all the 'Billy-fied' students mimicked him.

"Whisper…" Nate muttered, looking his way. Whisper quickly scanned through the yo-kai pad.

"According to the data of this Loop. This is… 'Billy-Nose?'"

"Billy-Nose?"

"He's an eerie Tribe yo-kai whom causes those he inspirits to grow a large nose, get small black eyes, and start acting like he does–which in this case is… that!"

"COWPIES! COWPIES! COWPIES! COWPIES!" Billy-Nose and all the students chanted as they did a silly a dance.

"Horrifying," Nate muttered with one eye twitching.

"And that's not even the worst part!"

"Worst part?" Nate looked at Whisper in concern as the butler seemed to grow tenser.

"Billy-Nose is a legendary yo-kai. And anyone he inspirits stays that way unless he turns them back himself. Even if he's not around them!"

"Legendary!? Him!?" Nate questioned in shock, before he processed what Whisper said. "Wait! I need to convince him to turn them back!?"

"Yes. I'm afraid so!"

"Ok class! Today we'll be studying PIE!" Mr. Johnson exclaimed while walking in, already sporting a Billy nose and eyes.

"No! They've already got to him!" Nate stepped out of the inspirited teacher's way.

"Yeah! I was too bust playing in the mud to do homework!" A Billy-fied Katie exclaimed as she ran into class.

"Not Katie!" Nate shouted as all the inspirited class became to chat about nonsense and do things like pick their noses. "I NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE!" Nate shouted before he used his semblance to rush out of the building, dragging Whisper along for the ride.

"Wha! Slow down Nate! I want to get away too, but this is too fast!" Whisper cried as Nate ran down a sidewalk. Every person they passed had seemingly already been inspirited by Billy-Nose.

"No! This can't be happening!"

"He works fast," Whisper muttered, dumbstruck.

"Somebody kill me and end this stupid Loop!" Nate shouted madly.

"Won't do any good, you'll just become Fuu2. Remember?" Whisper pointed out.

"Then somebody kill me twice!"

"Hello!" the familiar voice that both of them dreaded was heard, and they turned to see Billy-Nose smiling stupidly at them, a legion of Billy-fied people and yo-kai flanking him. "You don't look like you're having fun! EVERYONE SHOULD HAVE FUN!" identical sounding laughter sounded from him and all that he had inspirited caused Nate to scream.

"YOU NEED TO TURN EVERYONE BACK!" Nate shouted in rage.

"Nate! You know who this is! It's useless reasoning with him!" Whisper cried out, while gripping his friend's shoulder in an attempt to calm him.

"Be happy!" Billy-Nose exclaimed while giggling, before sending his inspiriting wave their way. Nate dodged, though Whisper wasn't quick enough.

"WHISPER!" Nate shouted, wishing he had thought fast and grabbed him first.

"Don't worry Nate, if you think I can be inspirited after all my time in the Loops, you are gravely under– "Whisper slumped over before rising with a Billy nose and eyes. "AND you need to be careful of clowns! They'll DESTROY US ALL!"

"NO! WHISPER!" Nate cried in anguish, the Billy-fied horde laughed and Nate's body trembled before he pulled Spectral Fang from his pocket, his eye twitching madly and a smirk forming on his face.

.

"Huh?" Keita Woke up to find himself, Fumi, Kuma, and Kanchi standing in what seemed to be an old mansion.

"The doors locked, now what?" Fumi questioned fearfully.

"Easy, we just search around till we find something. There's gotta be a key around here somewhere," Kanchi waved off Fumi's concern. Nate nodded slowly, though he felt like a sinister presence was watching them.

And then he noticed he was pocket-locked…

4.24

"So… what are we doing today?" Mercury asked Emerald as they both stood outside a dust shop.

"I'm… not sure, Cinder has some plan," Emerald muttered uncertainly, their discussion halted when a shiny sports car drove past them, loud music blaring from it, before it slowed and backed up, stopping next to the two criminals.

Mercury and Emerald both stared in confusion as the window slowly rolled down to reveal a red and white cat that tilted down his sunglasses to look at them. They also couldn't help but notice the sunglasses wearing corgi in the driver's seat…

The cat stared at them for a few seconds as they stared back in disbelief, before he stuck out his tongue at them and the window rolled back up, the car then zoomed off, splashing water from a puddle onto them along the way.

The two stood in silence for a moment before Mercury glared at Emerald.

"… What are you looking at me for? I'm just as confused as you!"

4.25

"So, it seems we've had a bit of an expansion, recently," Keita said as he looked between the present Loopers, they were all meeting in his room, everyone was accounted for; Whisper, Jibanyan, Fumi, Inaho, USApyon, Komasan, Komajiro, and of course Hikikōmori was peeking out from the closet (which was why they were having the meeting in his room in the first place).

"Right, so any new business for you guys?" Inaho asked eagerly. Keita, Fumi, Whisper and Jibanyan looked to each other and shrugged.

"Not much really happened… except," Keita looked like he was thinking.

"Oh! Let me guess!" Inaho raised her hand excitedly before pointing towards Keita and Fumi "Did you two find out you're really twins that were separated at birth?"

The two humans stared at her blankly as all the yo-kai didn't look like they knew what to say.

"What… no?" Keita said, a confused look on his face.

"How on earth would you come to that conclusion?" Fumi asked, her expression a near perfect reflection of the Anchor's. Inaho noticed everyone in the room giving her weird looks…

"What? They look a lot alike. Come on, I can't be the only one who sees it," Inaho tried to justify herself. All the yo-kai turned to stare at Keita and Fumi, their eyes widening a little. Keita and Fumi likewise stared at each other briefly, inspecting themselves and continuously glancing back at the other. After a few moments of this Keita gave a small cough and decided to change the subject.

"That… unsettling realization aside–Not much really happened for us, other than a few new yo-kai showed up, oh and Kuma has a younger sister apparently," Keita shrugged, trying to forget what Inaho had said.

"Yeah, you'd think something like that would've been mentioned earlier," Fumi pointed out.

"Anyway, nothing big like last expansion, though I'm sure Baseline me will end up doing a lot of stupid stuff," Keita sighed.

"Well I got sick again, wasn't much of an issue for us as we are, but I do wonder how Baseline will handle that, wiss," Whisper said, Keita didn't have an answer.

"I just did my thing, nothing really happened for me except hanging out and eating chocobars, I used some of the time to work on those laziness exercises Master Grif gave me," Jibanyan stated proudly.

"… Laziness exercises? Dani," USApyon looked at Jibanyan like he was crazy.

"Nothing really much for me either, but I just hang out in the closet," Hikikōmori said briefly.

"I do feel like we don't have much going on in Baseline right now, zura," Komasan sighed.

"It's just more time for us to enjoy ourselves, with our abilities as they are right now most yo-kai problems seem insignificant, we'll find out what's actually supposed to happen once we see the hub-backups," Komajiro said, patting his brother on the back.

"What about you guys?" Keita asked Inaho and USApyon. Inaho blinked before a smile formed on her face.

"Well, we finally found out the identity of that Phantom Thief Kopin!" The bespectacled girl announced proudly.

"Turns out it was just some egg yo-kai…" USApyon said in an unimpressed tone.

"… Okay," Keita muttered, unsure of how to respond to that.

"… Oh, yeah also there's something up with my classmates," Inaho added, a confused look appearing on her face. "Yo-kai powers don't work on them… or at least they don't work right…"

"We have no idea why, but it seems no yo-kai can beat them," USApyon shrugged.

"… So, this expansion was uneventful," Keita said after a moment. Everyone nodded in agreement. "Okay then, meeting adjourned! Let's all go do something that's actually fun!" the Anchor was met with a chorus of agreements.

4.26 GammaTron

Qrow exhaled under his breath as he Awoke a few days after Summer's funeral. As he heard the snarls of Beowolves, he recalled that he was actually coming over to see how Taiyang was holding up.

"Guess I gotta go save my..."

*RRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRR*

"What was that?" Qrow tensed as he soon heard explosions, slicing, yelps of fear, and...and was that... "Who plays Mexican polka?"

Quickly making his way to where he normally would find Yang and Ruby at, he skidded to a halt at seeing a metallic orange bear twice the size of a normal human ripping apart the Beowolves while keeping them away from an upturned wagon where two three-year-olds and a five-year-old were hiding behind, the younger two crying. The revving of a chainsaw made Qrow look at the robo-bear...or, rather, it's claws to see they were actually claw-shaped chainsaws with said chains being plasma. It was using said claws to slice through Beowolves before deploying a pair of cannons with curved oversized blades on them from its shoulders and shot blasts at them. By the time the Beowolves were retreating in fear, there was roughly three from-judging from all the black dust-a hundred. The robo-bear roared, its gold visor-like eyes glowing faintly before it tensed and parts of it began to shift and change. Qrow watched as the humongous robotic bear became a man in orange hi-tech armor with a gold visor. His eyes further widened as the armor turned into a wrist-mounted device that the eight-year-old boy that looked like a younger Taiyang with Raven's hair put behind his back and pulled his hand back to reveal it was gone.

"Darn it, Yang! What were you thinking just running off with Keita and Ruby like that?!" the boy snapped, "You're just lucky that I was coming home from Simmons's house or you would've..."

'Might as well get notices,' Qrow thought before saying aloud, "Ahem!"

"U-Unca Qrow!" Yang gasped.

As Taiyang scolded and hugged Yang in the room nearby, Qrow sat across from the young boy as he carefully dunked an Oreo a few times into the cup of cold milk before eating it, the filling having already been licked off with no remains of it to be seen on the cookie halves of it. After he finished swallowing it, the boy looked up at Qrow.

"Kinda loopy how Yang just did that, huh?"

'A Looper, huh...' "Yeah, you could say she needs an Anchor."

The boy nodded, "Dexter Grif, Looper of Red VS Blue."

"Qrow Branwen, Looper of Remnant. Not your first time Looping here, has it?"

"Not in the least. Considering that our Loops are sorta siblings Loops since we come from the same company in the Hub Loops, we often have Loops like this," Grif explained as a red and white cat got onto the table, "Hey, Jibanyan. This guy's a Looper."

"Okay," Qrow raised a brow at the talking cat, "Name's Jibanyan, nyan. I'm from Sakura New Town and Master Grif's student, nyan!"

Grif tossed a bar of chocolate into the air and it was gone in mid-air, "I never agreed to that, dammit." he looked at Qrow, "Anyways, you can already guess it, but my name this Loop is Dexter Grif Rose."

"Right..." Qrow nodded before pointing lazily at the living room, where Ruby was fast asleep on a blanket on the floor with the little boy, "And the little kid fast asleep with Ruby there?"

"Keita Amano from Sakura New Town," Grif replied, "He does have another name, but I just prefer calling him by the name I first met him and became his older brother as."

"So, I take it that it's just the three of us at the moment who are Awake?" Qrow asked.

"Yep," Grif nodded.

"That's right, nyan," Jibanyan nodded.

"That somewhat explains the suit you used," Qrow noted, "Kinda looked like an Ursa or a bear."

Grif's eyes widened, "Oh godda..."

BEARS!

"What was that?" Qrow asked, looking around as Grif slammed his head on the table with an annoyed groan.

"The Admin of Master's Loop put a little joke that does that whenever Master is around and someone ends their sentence with the word 'bear' or bears,' nyan," Jibanyan explained.

"Dammit, Greg...You just had to make me find bear jokes hilarious..." Grif groaned, his voice muffled by the table.

"I see..." Qrow took a swig of his beer, "So... What are your intentions this Loop?"

"Well, it's Keita's Loop Birthday this Loop, once Ruby, Cinder, and Yang are Awake," Grif explained as he pulled out a calendar that had multiple 'X' marks on the days with one uncrossed day having 'Keita/Nate's Birthday!' on it and circled, "I wonder if he'll like the gift the three of us worked together on for him..."

"So how close are you to them? Because I should warn you that..."

"I know and support Yang's relationship with Blake Belladona, mainly because I know they can look out for each other and because Blake scares me more than I scare her. Then again, all the girls I know that can fight can kick asses six ways to Sunday...and always aim for the balls."

"Yep," Qrow nodded, cringing as he recalled his in-Loop memories of Summer and Raven doing just that to him and Taiyang at times in fights.

Jibanyan merely smiled as memories of his old owner in his baseline went through his head.

"Have they told you much about Keita and me?" Grif asked.

"A bit," Qrow replied, "They said it'd be better to meet you both in person. I'll be blunt, you got my interested with that suit of yours."

"Thanks. I thought of it when I Looped into this place called Chima and became a bear," Grif explained, "That was the best Loop ever. Of all time. I got to sleep so much." he glowered, "Unlike here in Remnant. Because those goddamn Ursa are always awake..."

Qrow raised a brow. He knew from what his nieces told him that Grif loved to sleep, but the Grimm were actually preventing him from sleeping?

"For some reason, Master can't sleep during the day because of the Ursa, nyan," Jibanyan explained.

"They don't know how to sleep! What the fuck is wrong with those things?! They're bears, dammit! They should know better than to stay awake!" Grif complained, "Ugh. I need a shot of whiskey or some strong alcohol."

"You drink?"

"Buddy, if I'm not eating, sleeping, being an overprotective older brother to two girls and a boy, or being a soldier for an insane guy in red, it's drinking."

"...I think we're going to get along just fine," Qrow smirked, pouring Grif a shot of whiskey.

Qrow watched as he saw Keita freeze for a fraction of a second before dodging a swipe of the Ursa before him before he swung his gun-scythe and lopped its head off.

"Feeling a bit Loopy after that last takedown?" Qrow called to the now teenager.

"Yeah, I'm just Anchored now," Keita replied as he turned and walked over to Qrow, "So you're Looping? That's great! It's nice to meet you!"

"Likewise," Qrow nodded, "Grif's been telling me a lot about you."

"I can guess," Keita rubbed the back of his head, realizing his brother was Awake as well, "Is anyone else Awake this Loop yet?"

"Well, Grif's been talking with that Cinder girl..." Qrow frowned as Keita couldn't help but feel uncomfortable.

"Well, she is another Looping sister..." Keita noted.

Qrow nodded before the two began to leave the forest they were in, "Just to let you know, your brother's over at Beacon. Tomorrow's the day Ruby normally ends up getting spotted and invited by Ozpin."

Keita nodded, "We were planning on going to the Dust shop tomorrow anyway. So what's the team that Grif's on?"

"They filed for a name change and instead of being a letter in their names making up a word, they just call themselves Team Purple," Qrow shrugged, "And you should know them already. They came to Patch for their last break."

Keita blinked twice before his in-loop memories finally sorted themselves out, "Oh...So that means SImmons, Tucker, and Washington are here and Awake."

"So, ready to go to Beacon?"

"A little," Keita replied, "It'll be one of the first times I've been there as Ruby's twin brother, though. Normally, I replace her or she's my really older sister that already attended Beacon and I go in her place."

Qrow nodded, just letting Keita talk.

"So, what do you think of big bro and baby bro, Unc?" Yang asked as the two nieces and one uncle sat at a park.

"Well, after spending a few years with Grif, I've learned that he despises Ursa, has some decent weapons, and is actually more protective of you two and Keita than me," Qrow noted, "And the bit of time I've had with Keita outside of the time I've spent with you all after Grif coerced me to stay, I have to say the kid's not bad. Reminds me a bit of you, Ruby. Especially with the scythe of his that he pulled out of his Pocket to show me."

"Aw..." Ruby beamed.

"By the way, mind telling me why Grif stole all the oreos in the world and gave me a packet of them?" Qrow asked, showing the small six pack.

"Grif always steals his favorite snack after what Maya Fey did to them that one Loop," Ruby noted, "He's so good he only needs an hour or so after Waking up to get it all."

"As for the packet..." Yang pulled out a contained with a six pack inside of it, "It's a symbol of Grif stating you're family and that he'll always be there in a way, even if he isn't. He willingly gave you something he treasures more than life itself by giving you that pack, Unc. So, keep it safe since it means he sees you as a real uncle."

"When we first learned about you after Grif became our honorary big brother, he's always wanted to meet you and see what kind of man you are," Ruby added, "He must see something pretty great since he gave you one."

"Well, we did bond over some oreos and different kinds of beer. Never even knew that Oreo had one of every kind of beer made into an Oreo..."

"Beer and oreos...no wonder he loves you like a real uncle," Yang snickered.

"Hey, no puns, little lady," Qrow frowned.

"Aw come on. You think I'm gonna qrow how you get along well with our over-bear-ing big brother?" Yang grinned.

"...Just for that, you don't get a Strawberry Sunrise today."

"Aw come on, Unc~" Yang whined as Ruby giggled.

---

Closing Comments.

4.1: Remember, don't arrest innocent dogs…

4.2: Yeah, don't get those wet.

4.3: And so Jibanyan's training in the art of laziness begins.

4.4: Katie/Fumi meets some new friends.

4.5: Wazzat? I can't seem to remember who that is…

4.6: Apparently Sarge didn't take the knowledge that the blue oni was stronger than the red oni very well.

4.7: Noko time!

4.8: Brain Bleach can't solve everything… But it might help.

4.9: Nate/Keita might be spending too much time with Caboose…

4.10: Cheers to Slimamander being befriendable! :D.

4.11: Second movie Expansion has hit, seems Nate/Keita has some things to think about…

4.12: A nice talk between friends.

4.13: Rattle me bones!

4.14: Yeah, when did he get that medal?

4.15: Illuminocti confirmed!

4.16: Inaho and USApyon join the Loops.

4.17: It is kind of confusing…

4.18: Yes, that is rude.

4.19: Ruby, Yang, meet Inaho and USApyon!

4.20: Yes, okay then.

4.21: It's hard to have secrets in the Loops, especially if you're a main character…

4.22: Yeah, maybe Yggdrasil is trying to annoy Nate/Keita?

4.23: Whatever Nate/Keita did to end that Loop, it was probably justified…

4.24: The Adventures of Jibanyan and Zwei, coming soon to a theater near you!

4.25: They do kind of look alike…

4.26: Uncle Qrow meets his nephews :).