With a lurch... or the idea of a lurch maybe, because it doesn't feel like I've moved, I'm not in Iron any more.

I'm not in Konoha, or even the Elemental Nations any more. In fact, I'm not entirely sure where I am. 'Cause it looks like a small twenty-first century town...

I pause as I catch sight of something out of the corner of my eye and turn to get a better look at it. It's a pay phone. Complete with phonebook hanging from under the small booth. So maybe very late twentieth century?

I'm standing on a quiet side street in some suburbs, at night, though what time it is precisely I can't tell, and from the sounds coming from right around the corner there's a lot of excitement going on. Lots of little bodies, and not so little bodies, running around performing feats of strength and speed all out of proportion to their size. And there's a single individual followed by a group coming towards me at a fairly fast clip.

I'm prepared for a lot of things. Given the general chaos, there's very little that could come around the corner that would surprise me. A group of two dozen or so Caribbean pirates chasing a caveman in a somewhat modern town manages it, though.

The group of pirates, sized both adult, child, and everything in between, skid to a halt as they round the corner and see me, letting the caveman continue unmolested down the street. I take a quick glance down at myself and find that I'm in my armor. Which is neat and a little weird, 'cause last time I checked it hadn't quite finished healing yet. Yet here it is ready to go, hood and mask down, but all intact. Sclamhaire is on my back, my athame in its sheath and...

A gun belt and holster, empty, is hanging from my hips. The holster is on my right side and angled slightly so that, if I'm judging correctly, a pistol set in it would have it's handle offered up, oriented towards the front of my body and face down.

Why do I have a gun belt?

I've never shot a gun before.

I've never even held a gun before.

Why...?

"Look at 'er boys! Grab the fancy wench and we'll have entertainment for a month!" the pirate with the fanciest hat and coat declares loudly while pointing at me with a drawn cutlass.

He did not just imply what I think he did.

The pirates cheer and rush forward.

He really did.

My hand unconsciously reaches for Sclamhaire's hilt over my shoulder... then I think better of it. Sclamhaire against a bunch of malnourished mundane pirates would be overkill. Besides, I'm really feeling like punching something.

And, oh look! Stress relief!

I stride towards the oncoming horde with a savage grin.

I'm going to enjoy this far more than I should.

###

Feeling far more relaxed, and leaving some thoroughly broken pirates behind me, I wander towards the sound of the most activity, while examining my surroundings to try and figure out where I am. Someplace English speaking, judging by the street signs, and not someplace where English has competition for the primary language, since it's the only language on the signs. The architecture is all wrong for England, and it doesn't strike me as right for Canada either, though I'm less certain of that. Which leaves the US and Australia. The smell of salt water in the air tells me I'm on a coast, which doesn't really narrow it down much, except that there isn't nearly enough brickwork making up the buildings for it to be the US East Coast. So Australia or the West Coast.

I'm inclined to think it's the West Coast, just because I grew up there in my last life and the environment feels kind of familiar. It doesn't help a lot, but the knowledge does help me feel a little better about things. It's progress, at the very least.

After a few minutes of walking I step onto a main road, and I have to stop for a moment to take it all in. I'd heard it all for several minutes before I actually arrived, but somehow that failed to prepare me for the actual sight of what's waiting for me.

It's mass chaos. Like a riot kicked off, only a riot would be more organized. Packs of small demons, werewolves, and other monsters rampage up and down the street, chasing normal civilians, cars and each other. A witch flies by overhead, cackling, chased by what looks like somebody with a jetpack. A group of four fae knights ride down the middle of the street in pursuit of a pharaoh in a chariot. A mutated zombie wanders directly in front of me without even acknowledging my presence, letting out the most apathetic 'grrr, argh' I've ever heard.

Just... what the hell?

###

The gunshot and the woman's scream come almost on top of each other, and trying to resolve the echoes of both into images nearly gives me a headache. Multitasking, for all that I've improved about myself, is still something I can only do as well as the average human. Given some of my monomaniacal tendencies in my last life, possibly somewhat worse than average.

What saves me from a lot of frustration, and some pain, is that the scream comes from a nest of alleyways that seem like they're designed for somebody to get mugged in. The complex lay out of the narrow passages means there isn't much meaning to extract from the sound by the time it reaches me.

The gunshot, on the other hand, is quickly followed by several more. Each sharp crack painting me an image of a man wearing what sounds like fatigues of some sort, with a rifle that makes me think of the ones that are standard issue for the US army in movies. So who knows what it actually is. The man, soldier, is in an upright firing stance firing single rounds at more of the seemingly endless supply of monsters and other nasties that seem to be infesting this town, with regular deliberate rhythm.

Clearly that guy can take care of himself. The woman screaming probably can't, or at least not as well. The screaming probably means that whoever it is, is a normal person caught in this. I've seen a few wandering around. They either get inside in a hurry, or are in cars driving away, or in a few cases, corpses. In those cases the cause of death is unfortunately obvious, broken bones, torn flesh... though in one case there was the body of a girl a bit older than my physical age, dressed for clubbing, who seemed to have just keeled over for no reason.

As a samurai of Iron I'm charged to defend civilians against all that might do them harm... granted these aren't my civilians, and most that I've seen are either beyond help, or already as safe as they could be in the given situation. But I still can't quite bring myself to just ignore somebody clearly in danger, when I might be able to actually do something. So with a slightly melodramatic sigh, I spread my wings and launch myself into the air, heading in the direction of the scream as fast as I can without risking missing them entirely.

I find them almost immediately. Four people dressed in the very best of grunge fashion, another point for this being the nineties, wherever it is, spread out in a line across the alleyway, chasing a small brunette woman in a very fancy Victorian dress.

...

So the odd person is being chased by four normal ones. Not what I was expecting, but sure. I fold my wings and drop into the middle of the four grunged up chasers. Careful to moderate my strength, I club the two front runners into the ground with my fists and the force of my fall. I may have been in the Elemental Nations for the last fourteen years, but I still remember that in twentieth century Earth nations, killing, except as a last resort, is frowned upon. Something I'm more than willing to go along with. Both to not get off on the wrong foot with the local authorities, whoever they are, and because I'm still not entirely sure what's going on. Checking your targets is never a bad idea.

I turn and lunge at the other two attackers. They're already turning to face me with impressive speed, more than human speed actually. Still, supernatural or not, it's not trained speed. Trained speed is as much about efficiency of movement as it is about actual feet per second. Honestly some humans, normal ones even not chakra enhanced or Ku, would have been able to get the drop on these guys.

I'm significantly faster than a normal human.

So while the one closest to me is still reacting to the sound of my landing on his friends, looking around to find what happened and turning clumsily, I've already reached him. I kick one leg out from underneath him, tipping him backwards, and smash the back of my fist into his nose to finish sending him to the ground. His head lands with a loud crack that tells me that he's not a concern anymore. The second has actually turned to face me as his friend hits the ground and I lunge over him. A jab to the nose rocks his head back, a straight to the stomach curls him forward as air is violently expelled from his lungs, and brings his head down to meet my rising knee. A knee that snaps him upright before toppling backwards. A moment later all four of the muggers are on the ground and I'm turning to check on the woman in the gown.

Only to find she's already rushing in my direction, "Oh, good sir! Thank you so much! How can I..." I think she just figured out I'm female. She had been running towards me with her skirts hiked up just high enough to not drag in the debris scattered around the alleyway. Then she gets a good look at me, and her expression does an absolutely fascinating gymnastics routine.

First, her eyes go wide and her lip curls in the beginning of a sneer even as she inhales to say something probably scathing. Then, her eyes drop down to my armor and she hesitates, seeming to reconsider, if not actually change her opinion. Finally, her gaze drifts back up to my face, and I get to watch her pupils blow wide and a flush run from her cheeks all the way down to her chest.

I open my mouth to check on her, not quite sure what to make of that series of expressions, when something jumps onto my back. Arms that are stronger than they should be wrap around my shoulders, limiting my movement for just a moment. But a moment is long enough for two sharp somethings to dig into my neck.

Fire erupts from the wounds, and the punctures are gone moments later. More fascinating is the reaction of the man on my back. He lets go of me, staggering backwards, and I spin fast enough to see him clutching his throat. Fire billows from his mouth for a moment before he explodes into ash in a way that can't possibly be explained by the burns from... biting me apparently?

What the fuck is going on here.

My answer comes a moment later as I look past the pile of ash to find the other three muggers I thought I'd dropped still standing. Their eyes have turned a predatory yellow, their faces deformed with overly prominent brow ridges and exaggeratedly sharp dentition.

Right, I'm going to have to be more thorough this time.

Ignoring the panicked shrieking of the girl behind me, I draw Sclamhaire from over my shoulder. She's still massive overkill for this, but also guaranteed to get the job done. Which seems to be the issue at the moment.

I don't give the deformed muggers the chance to do whatever they're planning on. I lunge forward as Sclamhare comes free of her scabbard. The black blade leaves a trail of frozen vapor behind her as I bring her down on the first mugger I can reach. Her blade slides through him without resistance, bisecting him from shoulder to hip. The next I bisect at the waist, putting my left hand on Sclamhare's hilt as well, before cutting up through the third in a reverse of the cut I made on the first. The entire sequence a single flowing motion.

They stand frozen for a moment as I dart back a step and return to guard position. Then they explode into ashes like the first one did. I blink at that for a moment before turning back to the girl. The brunette in question is tiny, like, possibly shorter than Kushina, tiny. The red dress she's wearing is nice, though kind of generic, and she fills it out well.

While the muggers failed utterly at their chosen activity, they did seem to help the girl settle whatever emotional distress she had been wrestling with. She rushes forward again, tucking herself into my front trembling slightly, one hand pressed to my breast plate.

"Sir... madam... I'm sorry, I'm not sure what the proper address is for a female knight. My etiquette tutors would be so ashamed." She pouts up at me. It's cute, like a sad puppy.

"Well... My name is Ericka Rhostana, you can call me that," I offer up, a little unsure how to act. Sure, there were high born girls in Iron that fawned over and tried to get close to samurai, but it had never happened to me before.

"Lady Rhostana then," she nods to herself, "I am Lady Elizabeth of Summer." She doesn't look or sound like a fae, so I'm just going to leave that alone for the moment. More important things to focus on. "Are you unharmed? It looked like that... that ruffian bit you!"

I shake my head, "I'm fine, see?" I tilt my head to the side to show my unblemished neck, "Not even any blood." She rises on to her toes to examine my neck, her blush growing a bit darker as she does. "Are you okay? They didn't get a piece of you before I arrived?"

Elizabeth shakes her head, "No. I am unharmed, thanks to you, Sir." Apparently she's having a hard time not referring to me as a knight. Eh, there are certainly worse things she could decide to call me. Given how she's behaving, I'm betting she's from a time when women acting like I do are not well thought of. No idea how such a person would have gotten here, but I don't know how I got here either, so that's not really an argument against it happening. "Sir, where are we? What is going on? What were those men?" The girl, who I'm becoming increasingly certain is a rather sheltered noble, is growing more hysterical with each question.

I heave a sigh, "I don't know what's going on, or where we are. As to those men?" I turn slightly to look back at the small piles of ash that were shrinking even as I watched, every stray breeze blowing more and more of the fine dust away. They had weathered hits that should have floored them, with no evidence of harm and were stronger and faster than a human should be. The first one who dusted had fire in his mouth, and the only place that could have come from were the two puncture wounds in my neck. So as the Lady said, he bit me. And upon dying all of them turned to ash. That combined with the fangs... "I think those were vampires..."

"VAMPIRES!" Elizabeth shrieks, and I'm immediately worried that she'll attract attention from any one of the things running around on the street. "Such things EXIST?" She demands, her breath coming faster and faster.

"Evidently," I tell her calmly, "But..." My efforts to calm and reassure her are interrupted by her eyes rolling up in her head before she collapses in a faint. The only reason she doesn't hit the ground is because I manage to wrap my free arm around her waist before she can. Which leaves her flopped backwards over my arm in very dramatic fashion.

I heave a sigh.

Well damn. We can't stay here, and there's no telling how long she'll be unconscious.

I sigh again.

###

"Buffffyyyyy!" I'm jerked out of wondering where to go with the girl I'm carrying by somebody screaming a mildly silly name that I unfortunately recognize. I really hope it doesn't mean what I think it does. Rushing towards me are a redhead in club wear that I'm pretty sure I saw dead earlier and the soldier I know I made note of. He's got his assault rifle pointed at me for a moment, before he lowers the barrel but keeps the gun ready. Probably because of the girl I'm princess carrying. "Who are you!? And what are you doing with Buffy?" the redhead demands.

"I'm carrying her. She was attacked by... what I think were vampires back there," I jerk my head at the alley I'd just left, "and she didn't handle it well."

"Vampires?"/"Oh my god!" The two speak over each other, but only the redhead keeps talking, "Are you okay, did Buffy stake them?

"Uh, assuming you mean Lady Elizabeth of Summer," I heft the girl in my arms briefly, "then no. She fainted." I then turn to the soldier, "And yeah. Vampires. With everything else running around out here, are vampires that much of a stretch?"

He sighs and finally lowers his gun from the ready position he had it in. Which is good, I was about ready to remove it from him. "I suppose not." His bearing snaps to something more formal that isn't quite all the way to 'attention'. "Corporal Alexander Harris, US Army."

I lock up slightly at the name. It sounds... familiar. Worryingly so.

"But what about the vampire?" the redhead asks, looking back at the alleyway I'd just come from. "How did you get away from them? Are you still being chased?"

I give her a look. "We didn't 'get away' from them. I killed them. The sword and armor aren't just for show. Now, who are you?"

"Oh!" She looks at me wide eyed like she can't quite decide what to make of me. "Um... I'm Willow, Willow Rosenberg."

I recognize that name too. Honestly, I probably could have figured it out when they first came running up yelling 'Buffy'. But I'd managed to convince myself that it was... I don't know, something else.

"I don't suppose that this is Sunnydale, is it?" I ask without much hope.

"Yeah! How did you know?" Willow seems surprised, which isn't totally unreasonable I guess.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath, taking in more than just air. Drawing in just the mana that I want is... hard. Like trying to inhale through several layers of thick cloth. I hadn't even noticed that I wasn't getting anything from my mana senses since I got here. Now that I'm paying attention it's... it's like being suddenly exposed to a stench so bad that your nose immediately shuts down in self defense. Now that I'm paying attention though? The disgusting, putrid, almost rotting mana is impossible to miss. Trying to extract pure life force out of the morass is nearly impossible.

I open my eyes and sigh, "The Hell Mouth is sort of hard to miss." Willow's eyes go even wider if that's possible, and Harris mouths 'hell mouth' to himself. "Look, is there someplace we can go that will get us off the street? And where we can put sleeping beauty?" I heft the girl in my arms again.

That seems to get Willow to reboot successfully, "Uh, yeah. Yeah! We can go to Buffy's place."

"Great. Then maybe we can figure out what the hell is going on." Because jumping from the Elemental Nations to Sunnydale, without experiencing the Gap in between? There's so many things wrong with that I don't even know where to start.

Really though, I just wish I could remember more about this episode.

###

The Summers home is a two story ranch style house, painted white. The yard is well landscaped, the path to the front door framed by a pair of trees, hedges and bushes formed additional barriers between the front porch and the street. I did notice that to approach the house one would have to cross a good ten feet of bare lawn.

It's a good setup. I think there's been some sort of evolutionary pressure towards semi-competent siege landscaping in Sunnydale. Which makes sense when you think about it. Willow points out to Harris where the spare key to the Summers house is hidden, and moments later we're inside.

I lay Lady Buffy on the couch, then straighten up with a sigh. A pull at my soul and my shoulder bag manifests in my hands. Opening it, I check to see what I've got on me. I'd assumed that it would be what I normally keep in it, but I'd also assumed that I had gotten here in something like my normal fashion. Increasingly, I'm leaning towards the conclusion that something far stranger is going on. Fortunately, I've got what I expected. Or at least what I want at the moment. My Script dictionary, the journal I keep my completed Scripts recorded in, spare paper tags, ink, and a brush.

While I settle in to work the others continue to talk, so I try to keep an ear on what's going on.

"So what do we do now?" Willow asks, wringing her hands. "We should call Giles. Giles will know what to do."

"Can he get here through all of that?" the corporal asks, gesturing at the door.

"I mean... maybe?" She doesn't look particularly certain, "He at least might have some idea of what's going on!"

"Do you have his..." The soldier is cut off as Lady Buffy abruptly regains consciousness with a shriek. Arms, legs and petticoats go flying every which way, and the now noble girl falls right off the couch.

Everybody pauses what we're doing to look at the girl on the floor. After a moment's pause she scrambles to her feet looking around wildly. Upon spotting me she darts to my side and flings herself at me. "Sir!"

If it wasn't for my armor's energy absorbing qualities, the tag I've spent the last five minutes on would be ruined.

I sigh and lay the brush down and focus on the girl as she babbles, "Where are we? Who are they? Are we safe? Can...?"

I stop her ramble with a finger to her lips which seems to shock her back to sense. She takes a quick, though small, step back and smooths out her skirts, studying her feet and blushing faintly. "In order, we're... we've found a place to hole up for the moment." I'm not getting into the identity crisis of telling her that we're in her house. Willow is just herself as a ghost, Harris is himself as a soldier. I'm not sure that Buffy doesn't have a more complete persona though, I'm here after all. "That's Willow, a native guide, and Corporal Haris, a soldier. And we're safe at the moment, I'm..." I pause for a second as I hear somebody softly opening a door elsewhere in the house, followed by it closing again and nearly silent footsteps, "working on making us safer." I continue speaking as well as I can without letting on that I've noticed the intruder.

I make eye contact with the Corporal and nod in the direction I can hear movement from. He looks confused for a moment as I stand, but understanding comes when I draw my athame. The soldier snatches up his rifle as I continue talking and follows me with the gun at the ready.

I can hear the stranger moving as well, getting closer to the door I'm approaching. From what I can hear and see, it looks like the kitchen. I reach the door just as the stranger sidles up to the edge of the door, hiding behind the frame. I glance back at Harris, who gives me a nod to show he's ready.

With that I dart around the doorframe and grab the man by the neck, my hearing letting me aim accurately without looking. There's a startled noise as I yank my victim back around the door and slam him into a convenient wall. Harris darts through the doorway to check the rest of the house. We trade nods as he goes, each assuring the other that we've got our particular tasks handled.

The man in question is scrabbling at my hand, trying to get me to let go. Which is fair, I've got him dangling a good six inches off the ground while pressing him against the wall. He's got dark hair, dark eyes, and skin pale enough to make me suspicious.

"Who the hell are you?" I demand, my voice on the edge of echoing.

"Angel!" Willow yells, sounding excited.

Angel, on the other hand, is looking at me, eyes wide. "Oh fuck." Strangely enough he sounds terrified, which makes me smile.

I don't think the smile helps his calm at all.

"What are you doing here?" Angel asks, sounding like he dreads the answer.

"You know her?" Willow demands.

This is... odd. I've never met Angel before. Pretty sure I would remember that. I mean, I've never even been in this world before. How the hell?

"'Know' might be a bit of a stretch," the vampire says, then he blinks, "Wait... did somebody dress up as you?" He sounds horrified at the idea, "Why would anybody... Does this mean you're just an imit..." I activate my doujutsu, watching as the world takes on more definition. Angel swallows whatever he was going to say.

I pull my mana away from my eyes and turn to look at Willow, "You know him?"

"Yeah," the redhead nods, "He's a vampire!" The Lady Buffy squeaks and retreats to the far side of the room. "Oh! But a good vampire! Who's nice, and good, and-and Buffy likes him!" She nodded at this last point like it would win her any argument.

I turn to give the vampire I have pinned to the wall an incredulous look. Angel looks like he'd like to fidget, but I've still got him pinned to the wall by his neck, so he seems to think better of it.

After several moments of my continued silent staring, the vampire cracks, "Things have... changed since our last... encounter."

I just hmm, and ignore the way that Willow is now looking at me with surprise. I'd interrogate him more, but honestly at this point I'm just stalling. I know he's as on the level as a vampire can be. But if he snuck in...

Harris comes back into the living room from the far side of the room having made a circuit of the house. "We're clear," he reports shortly.

I nod and drop the vampire and return to the Script I'd been working on. "So now that that's settled, what the hell is going on out there?"

"People are turning into their costumes!" Willow explains hurriedly. Which is an interesting tidbit. Not only do Angel and I have a history, but I'm well known enough here to be a Halloween costume. Not well enough for Willow or Harris to identify me on sight, though. If it were just the costume, I'd say it's like the clans Felidae knowing I was coming.

Angel, though, is scared of me. Personally. Meaning it's more than just a prophecy, or eerily similar stories. He's met me before, and it apparently didn't go well for him. So clearly something else is going on.

"Not everybody," Angel pointed out, having collected himself from his unexpected interview against the wall. "Many are, but far more haven't. The casualties from tonight are going to be... extreme."

"So, what's different?" I finish up the Script I've been making and start packing away my tools and books, leaving the tag out to dry. "What do you three have in common," I gesture to Willow, Harris, and Lady Buffy, who has been making sure that she keeps me between her and Angel at all times, using me as a shield, "that doesn't apply to..." I waved my hand at the front door indicating the outside, "those that haven't changed?"

Willow slumps, "I don't know." That admission sounds painful to her.

I sigh, "Well where did you get your costumes? I can start looking there for any hints at least."

"Just you, ma'am?" Haris asks, having caught the singular in my given plan.

I sigh again, "I'm the only person here who's really prepared for magical combat. You, Corporal, are the next best prepared."

"I could..." Angel starts but my glare stops him. I know, generally, he's supposed to be one of the good guys, but my ignorance of our 'previous' association makes me reluctant to trust him at my back.

"But there are just too many things that could be out there that a bullet won't stop. Or even slow down," I continue as though I hadn't been interrupted, "not to mention that you're the only person here that I trust to know how to hold a fortified position. So you'll keep the noncombatants here and safe, and I'll move as fast as I can to resolve this."

Harris straightens slightly at my statement of trust, but other than that he just nods. "I'll keep them safe, Ma'am. But this doesn't really strike me as a place more fortified than any other house."

"That," I stand and pick up the Script tag, "is what this is for." I move over to the closest wall and stick the tag to it. Pressing a finger against the right part of the Script, I prime the siphon Script and sing the tag to life.

When I turn back to the room everybody is staring at me. Lady Buffy is the first to snap out of whatever fugue state they're in and starts clapping with a large smile on her face, "Oh, that was wonderful, Sir!" The others, except for Angel, all nod.

I just shrug awkwardly and try to move along. "That will reinforce the house so that nothing should break while the tag lasts. There's only so much a single tag on paper can do though. Keep an eye on it, if the paper starts to brown, it's reaching its limits."

The Corporal nods seriously, "I'll keep an eye on it, Ma'am." I'm not sure when he'd decided that I'm his superior officer in this situation, but I'll take it.

"Now, where am I going, and how do I get there?"

###

It took several minutes for Angel and Harris to find a map at Willow's direction. While they were doing that I was doing my best to make sure that Lady Buffy wouldn't go running off while I was gone. Granted, once I figure out how to undo this she'll be more than capable of taking care of herself, but who knows how long that will take?

The longer I'm here the more I remember about the Buffy TV show. I do remember this episode, vaguely. I remember thinking it was a pretty good idea and I had fun watching it. Unfortunately, I don't really remember what all the twists and turns were.

Even so I'm pretty sure that I'll find my answers at the costume shop.

Taking to the wing from Buffy's front lawn left an impression on the people watching from the house, but it did get me here as quickly as possible.

Ethan's Costume Shop, or whatever it's called, I admittedly didn't pay much attention to anything but where it is, is a warehouse store. One of those buildings rented out for seasonal stores. The kind that's made out of nothing but right angles and the most boring cinder blocks the builders could find.

My mana senses have been worse than useless the entire time I've been here. The miasma that the hell mouth puts off has blanketed and sunk into everything, and is absolutely revolting which makes sensing anything past it almost impossible. I'm pretty sure it's trying to infect me as well, but my armor keeps eating it. So instead I just get a constant stream of mana, which is nice.

My doujutsu says there's definitely something hidden there, and a source of power that I don't recognize as well. Of course, the only thing I've ever seen with the Shinjitsugan is various forms of chakra, so that doesn't actually mean much. Beyond those two things though, I can't tell much. The Truth Eye doesn't have the... resolution of any of the great doujutsu, so trying to interpret the details of the power wouldn't work even if I had any clue of what it is.

Which means we cut to the chase and hope I don't step on anything too nasty.

I keep my eyes on, just in case.

Now how to do this? Kick in the front door? Try to be sneaky and kick in the back door?

Any of those would work... but I think I have a better idea.

I drift over the building until I'm just to the side of the source of the power I can see. I take another moment to pump my mana through my body to reinforce myself further, pull up my hood and mask, then fold my wings and drop like a stone.

My feet hit the flat roof of the warehouse building, and punch through the material it's made out of like I'm punching through paper towels. So with a spectacular crash, I find myself in the warehouse. The crash fills the open space with sharp sounds. The leftover costumes absorb some of it, but for a moment there's more than enough sound to paint me an accurate picture of the entire interior of the building. Which is why the moment my feet touch the ground, I'm moving again.

Off to one side there's the shape of a man scrambling for a side door set into the bare and unadorned wall of the warehouse, and I sprint after him. He manages to reach the door and partially open it before I can reach him, but a pluck of my mental bowstring slams it shut again. Before he can try to get through the door a second time, I'm on him. I shoulder check him into the door to stun him for long enough to grab him at my leisure. A moment later I have him pressed against the door with my left hand pressing into his chest.

He's looking at me wide eyed, but he doesn't smell really afraid just yet.

"Ethan Rayne?" I ask, just to make sure.

He shakes his head, "No! I just work the register!" To my doujutsu the statement might as well have been labeled in blinking neon.

"Lie," I tell him flatly, "Now let's try this again, are you Ethan Rane?"

He shudders at the sound of my voice, his eyes going even wider. Now he's starting to smell worried, "Who are you?"

"You sell costumes of me, and don't recognize me when you see me? I'm almost disappointed."

"Rhostana...! What are you doing here? And what do you care about the costumes?" He demands, his voice getting a little shrill.

"I care when they drag me to small towns without warning!"

"Wait..." He starts to laugh, sounding a little unhinged, "You... You're not really here! You're just the result of a costume!" Mid-laugh, he raises a hand and an honest to god spring loaded, wrist mounted, holdout pistol comes flying out of his sleeve.

I turn my head just in time to catch the little 22. bullet on the outside of my hood. The round ricochets off into the dimly lit store. The moment it has, I smack his arm with the gun out to the side, and in the same twist of my hips slug Ethan across the face. My armored gauntlet splits the skin of his face open from cheek to jaw, his jaw snaps in several places, and sends him crashing to the ground.

Good thing I didn't hit him any harder. Note to self, non Elemental Nations humans are a fragile bunch.

I plant my armored boot on the forearm of the arm without the gun hard enough to snap both bones. I draw Sclamhaire and let her point just touch the concrete floor in front of Ethan's face. He'd been whining and moaning as well as he could with a broken jaw, but the chill of my sword so close to his face gets him to shut up pretty quickly.

"Right. I'm done playing with you, Ethan. How do I end the spell?" For a moment he doesn't answer, so I move Sclamhaire enough for her flat to touch his cheek. He flinches back from my sword's touch almost immediately, but even with that small contact I can see frost matching Sclamhaire's silhouette on his cheek. "The spell, Ethan. Now!" He can't really speak, broken jaw and all, but he manages to make some indicative noises and point in the direction of the power source I'd landed next to. "There, that wasn't so hard now was it, Ethan?"

A casual swing of my sword arm hamstrings the warlock on the ground, getting another scream from him. I'm past caring about what happens to him now. He won't be able to flee, and I'm not going to be around to extract vengeance or justice from him. In light of those facts, what happens to him next is completely irrelevant.

The source of power ends up being what looks like a Greek bust of a man with a face on both sides of his head. I tilt my head for a moment, once again looking at the bust I feel like there's something I should be remembering...

But after several seconds it doesn't come, and I'm not willing to wait any longer. I cut the bust at a diagonal with Sclamhaire and she devours the power contained in the statue. Even through the hellmouth pollution I can feel the warping of reality that the bust anchored start to unravel.

...What?

I catch movement out of the corner of my eye, and whip around to see what it is. For just a moment I catch a glimpse of myself in a full length mirror by the door...

Was there always a mirror...?

###

I sit up with a gasp. For a moment I'm not sure where I am, looking around with all of my senses I calm quickly. I'm in my room in the samurai quarters in the Iron Capital.

"Princess?" Nell asks, sounding like she's still half asleep.

I smile slightly at my attendant, "I'm fine, Nell. Just a... strange dream, I guess." My breathing calms quickly, even if the odd dream sticks with me instead of fading.

"Do you need anything, Princess?"

I sigh, she's not going to relax until she does something for me. She likes to feel useful to me, especially when she can't do anything about the actual problem. "Sure, warm milk?" Nell murrs an affirmative sound and heads for the door.

I lay back down with a sigh. I'd better try to get back to sleep. Tomorrow isn't really going to bow to my subconscious' whims.

I try to roll over, but something around my waist catches on the blankets. Pushing them down further, I find a gun belt with an empty holster around my waist. The same one I'd been inexplicably wearing in my... dream.

Carefully, I unbuckle the belt and carry it over to my armor stand. Draping it over the stand I quickly return to bed with a slight chuckle.

Miku and Kushina are never going to believe this.