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After the mall opened a couple hours later, Hazuki first led Zuko through the shops for menswear to help him pick out something that would look normal for men his age in this world and still cater to Zuko's style. He was being somewhat picky about it until Hazuki mentioned she could just as well be putting him in women's clothing and he wouldn't be any wiser, so finally he let her pick out some black jeans and some red and black t-shirts for him, though he clearly wasn't impressed with how they looked on him, he looked considerably more normal than he did in his royal pajamas.

After that Zuko mentioned he was getting hungry, so Hazuki bought him a cinnamon bun-pretzel and an orange smoothie for breakfast and left him to eat it at the food court while she went shopping for some new clothes for herself. To say she was long overdue would be a gross understatement. She kept her clothes and person as clean as she could considering most of the worlds she'd visited lately did not have any sort of plumbing, but she'd been wearing the same schoolgirl uniform for three whole years - The most pressing problem was of course that she was outgrowing it, but she also realized she was a full grown adult by now - If she'd been left in her own world she would have graduated months ago. She wondered again for probably the thousandth time whether or not her parents were saddened about her disappearance, or if Lilith had indeed erased their memories of her as she had claimed. It was hard to tell when Lilith was telling the truth or just messing with her, though.

Hazuki ended up picking out a pair of blue jeans for herself, a baby blue button-up shirt and a navy blue sweater, which she changed into. She also decided on a long, flowing red skirt and a maroon colored sweater, some extra underwear and a new bra, and an indigo one-piece bathing suit, which she carried in a bag. After that she returned to the food court to pick up Zuko, who was staring at a child who was playing in one of those coin-operated rides, this one being shaped like an airplane.

"I don't get it." He mentioned as he saw her approach. "It's literally doing nothing but moving fowards and backwards two inches. What's so fun about that?"

Hazuki shrugged, "I don't know, Zuko. I didn't have much of a childhood either..."

Zuko couldn't help but notice, "You look gloomier than usual..."

She sighed as she sat down next to him at his table. "Worlds like these always depress me. They look almost just like my world, but they're not... I come from a dimension where a single tiny planet exists that can support life, but it is surrounded on all sides by dead space. Many simply call it Earth. Many of the people of Earth believe it to be the only life-sustaining planet in the universe, and it is, in OUR universe, in OUR dimension. But what they don't know is, there are countless copy-dimensions of Earth. Many of them are almost exactly the same, too, with only very small differences from one to the next. And some have bigger and bigger differences and some places are as much unlike Earth as they are like Earth, and some are completely unlike Earth. I have a feeling you're from one of those places." She smiled a little as nostalgia swept through her mind. "Earth is a funny place. Many versions of Earth have no magic, and just as many others do have magic, it's just hidden. Some people on Earth get psychic transmissions or are sometimes even transported directly to and from other worlds and write them down as stories, but they're actually real worlds. For example, there was a book I read as a child called 'Alice in Wonderland' and another called 'The Wizard of Oz', and I never thought they were anything but made-up stories, but I actually visited the worlds of Wonderland and Oz last year. Wonderland is a place I probably wouldn't want to visit again, there's no order, it's too chaotic - But Oz was nice, even if it was strange, it had structure to its silliness." She sighed romantically without realizing it. "Dorothy Gale was so beautiful, she actually looked kind of like my sister Hatsumi in person... And Queen Ozma was a beacon of magical order in the madness of her world, she was truly inspiring to behold..."

Zuko of course didn't get the reference, but he gave ger a brief half-smile after sipping the last of his orange smoothie. "It's good that you can have fun, even when you're sad and lonely too... How many more payments do you owe Lilith?" He asked offhandedly, wondering if Hazuki had a chance of going home anytime soon. If he was so bad and only owed 7 payments, how much more could the noble Hazuki owe for her minor transgressions?

Hazuki slowly sighed. "Lilith originally said one thousand and one. But there's been a few times where she's said she'd add or subtract to that, so really, she basically has me as long as she wants to keep messing with me. Could be a few months, years, or maybe never..."

He huffed a little. "I don't get it. What, did you burn down any villages, Hazuki? Kidnap or kill anybody?"

"No, of course not!" Hazuki was quick to defend herself.

"Then you don't deserve the harsh punishment you're getting..." He trailed off.

Hazuki was quiet for a moment, then tugged on the sleeve of his shirt as she got up from her seat. "There's a saying where I'm from. 'War is hell'... I've known plenty of good people who've had to do terrible things at wartime. I'm not saying I trust you're really a good person just yet, but I won't judge you alone based on what you had to do at war."

He was briefly touched, but then he remembered that he too had no reason yet to trust Hazuki any more than she trusted him, so simply shrugged, "So if so many of these worlds look so similar to yours, how do you know you're not in your own world again?"

Hazuki shook her head, and held up her sword to him. "If I was in my real world again, this sword would once again be the mere letter opener that it was in my world. Plus, my world is like my mother... I couldn't mistake her for another, even if they looked very similar, I'd know the difference... Come on now, follow me." She instructed him.

He did indeed follow her, and she led him through the mall. She was originally intending to just walk out of the place, but she stopped as they were about to pass a candy store. She led him in, deciding to buy some to snack on later since she hadn't gotten breakfast herself. She picked out some lollies and rock candy, sweet and sour gummies, and then she came across the red hot cinnamon candies. She bought a few of those too and offered one of the bigger sized red hot jawbreakers she'd bought, about the size of quarter, to Zuko as they left.

"Do they have anything like these where you're from?" She asked as she handed it to him.

He looked at the ball quizzically for a moment, gingerly licking it before smiling. "Hey... Actually, yeah, we do. We call them Flaming Sugar Comets. Except, they're usually served like this..." Zuko popped the whole red ball into his mouth for a moment, sucking and swishing it around. The he pulled it out again and the candy came out of his mouth consumed by flame.

She smirked and waved it away, "Hey, put that back in your mouth. You don't want people in worlds like these to see you doing that fire stuff you do. It can be dangerous."

Zuko shrugged and blew the flame out before popping the candy back in his mouth. "Ooh, danger, I'm so scared..." He replied sarcastically.

"You may eventually take back those words." Hazuki warned him, leading him out of the mall. "Those who fear what they do not understand are ignorant and weak, but they are also many in number. There's a lot more of them than there are of us. Remember that."

They again began making their way through the mall, but then Zuko stopped as they were about to pass a novelty store. "Hey, they have weaponry in this store." He pointed out. It was a fantasy themed shop with various medieval and ninja style swords and weaponry.

Hazuki hated to burst his bubble early, so she followed him as he went inside and began to inspect their crafts. As she suspected, he immediately noticed their poor quality. "What the heck? This thing probably wouldn't last one real battle! Why even make a sword like this?"

"They're replicas." Hazuki informed him. "They're just for playing and costumes."

He balked, "That's just dumb! If you're going to make a sword at all, why make a useless sword?"

The shopkeep started to glare. Hazuki took the sword, a curvy Chinese broadsword with decorative red and green flags tied at the end of the hilt and a black scabbard, to the shopkeep and showed him her own. "My friend is rude, but he's right. I know you don't have anything as fine as my sword, but you must have something better than these display only pieces, and if you do, we are serious buyers and willing to pay for it."

Zuko spoke up, "I'm used to using dual swords."

The shopkeep's glare lessened as he marveled Hazuki's sword and considered the profit of selling two of his more expensive products. "This is one of the finest pieces I've ever seen, ma'am. You're right, I have nothing quite this fine, this is truly a masterpiece. But I have a few things that might be to your refined tastes. Follow me."

They did, and headed into the back of his shop. There were about ten cases in various black, brown and tan cases - He picked one of the black ones and one of the tan ones, and opened them. In them was essentially the same sword, the only difference was that one had a black scabbard and hilt, and the other was white. Both had the same gold designs on the scabbard and were slightly curved broadswords. Zuko picked up the white one and inspected the blade. It was still not to his tastes but it was indeed finer than anything else in the shop, not just in decoration but in craftsmanship. Depending on how he used them they might last a handful to a dozen battles in his hands. It was better than nothing for now. He finally nodded his approval and said he'd take them both, and the shop-keep hurried to ring them up. The total came to just over a thousand dollars, which left their coin purse almost half depleted.

Zuko carried the swords over his shoulders on straps as they began heading out the mall once again, then found themselves walking down the street with no particular place in mind to go. They passed a park and Hazuki once again stopped at an gelato vendor.

"I bet they don't have this kind of stuff in the Fire Kingdom." Hazuki guessed, giving him a chocolate one.

He tried it, "...Well, nothing exactly like this, no." He finally admitted, "But icy treats are actually just as popular as spicy ones in the Fire Kingdom."

"Oh, is that so..." Hazuki shrugged, taking a vanilla and strawberry one for herself. "Maybe your world has more in common with mine than not, after all."

Zuko shrugged back, "Maybe."

They finished their frozen desserts on a bench and discarded the disposable cups and spoons into the proper receptacles afterwards, and then Zuko sighed, utterly bored, "Hey, this world is real cushy and all, but I'm ready for more of that Hydra fighting stuff - Any idea where to go to find that?"

Hazuki gave any annoyed sigh, "Lilith's hints are usually more specific than 'something money can't buy', and we're in a world where almost anything can be bought, so..." She trailed off as she spotted something in the distance, across the street from the outskirts of the park - It was an antique bookshop. "...Hm. But I think I may have one idea, for now... Lilith is the guardian of a gigantic mystical library, where her books contain entire worlds... And in Earth worlds, we are usually connected to other worlds only by books..." She didn't explain anymore, she just let him follow her as she headed out of the park and across the street to the bookshop. Inside it was completely full of books - Every shelf was full and there were some plastic tubs full of books next to the shelves too. Besides being full of books though, it was empty of humans, except for one grouchy-looking old man, presumably the owner.

He turned as he heard the bell on his door jingle, and blinked in surprise at the two strange-looking youths that stepped inside. "...I don't sell fashion or punk rock magazines or any of those god-awful new bestsellers about vampires or whatever kids like you are into nowadays, so look elsewhere if that's what you're hoping to find here..." He grumpily informed them.

Hazuki liked the old curmudgeon already. He reminded her of her grandpa. Hell, he reminded her of her grandma a little bit too. Zuko wasn't as impressed, so he let Hazuki do the talking. "Sorry, we're not actually sure what we're here to find, we just came in to look..." She informed him as politely as she could in return.

The old man shifted his spectacles and sniffed. "Well you may as well. I'm surprised you kids don't have those newfangled Kindies or whatever they're called. Bah. Technology will do what it will, and I'll eventually go out of business thanks to it, but I'll always prefer the feel and the smell and the sight of a real book to those i-books or e-books or whatever they are..."

Hazuki bowed her head and ducked around him as he lamented his fate, skimming over the spines on the shelves and the tops of the piles of books in the bins - He had hundreds of classics from "Treasure Island" to "Pride and Prejudice", but nothing stood out to Hazuki or inspired her particularly.

Until, she laid her blue eyes on an old leatherbound book by the front desk. The book looked old, but it had been well taken care of and had no damage. It had no title to be seen on the front, back or the spine, but it had the most curious metal symbol on the front of it of two snakes, one silver and one gold, writing around each other and eating each other's tails. Hazuki felt the strangest pull of familiarity to the book and it's symbol, a wave of nostalgia that she couldn't place. She didn't know or care what it contained, she knew instantly that this was what she had come for, she had to have it.

"That book is NOT for sale."

Hazuki was snapped out of it as the grouchy old man leaned against the counter next to her, tapping the book she was staring at and repeating himself. "This book is NOT for sale."

Hazuki blinked. "I'm sorry, but are you sure? I have plenty of money."

He shook his head, "I'm quite sure, young lady, and what's more-" He was about to rant at her again, but suddenly, fron the back of the store, a phone started to ring. The old man sighed and immediately went to get it, as he had been expecting an important call.

Hazuki waited until he was out of eye and ear-shot, then nudged Zuko's shoulder. "Hear that? Money can't buy this book..."

Zuko didn't need to be told twice, he nicked it right away. Hazuki however felt a little bit worse about stealing, and she pulled out the coin purse Lilith had given her and pulled out the rest of the bills and placed them on the counter. To her surprise the coin purse was magically full again as soon as she had emptied it, so she emptied it three times more before rushing out of the shop, leaving almost ten thousand dollars, which she hoped was fair enough.

The old man sighed as he got off the phone with his wife. She had been attending chemotherapy and it, on top of the failing business, had nearly cleaned them out of their savings. But then on top of that, their car had just broken down. It was stressful enough before that book, that book he was sure had vanished forever ago, suddenly appeared in his bookshop this morning. He wasn't sure what to do with it, but as he came to the front of his shop, he discovered that not only had the book taken care of itself, but so had his car trouble.

Bastian Balthazar Bux gave a tired smile as he closed up his shop, and wondered what that pretty blue eyed girl would name his Moon Child this time...

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