I don't have much to write about today to be honest. I wouldn't say that not a lot happened, as we were fairly busy, but it was relatively straightforward. Still, we made big strides in our renovation project, and there's no way I'm not going to record that.

After our breakfast and morning exercise, we got straight back to work. We split into two groups again, one group heading to the original garden block (not the one that now has the two giant pits filled with water) to dig out a basement for it. Apparently some of the things they need are best grown in underground environments, so they're making some of those as well.

Instead of one giant room like on the core block, it was divided into four rooms, though they aren't all the same size. We also dug a tunnel between the core block basement, which is our main storage area, and the garden block basement.

Most of us worked on that, once again moving the dirt that VV was digging up. It was hard work moving that much dirt one pot-full at a time. At least, it was until we were about a quarter of the way done.

Uzume walked past me, her pot filled with dirt as she headed toward the edge. Shiina was next to her. "Man, it's too bad you can't just erase all the dirt too, huh?" Uzume groaned.

"Oh."

We all froze and slowly turned to face Uzume and Shiina. Shiina had a look of realization on her face. Then she realized everyone was looking at her and she blushed as she started squirming. "I mean… I could? I just thought there was a reason…" she trailed off as everyone kept staring at her.

The silence was broken by Matsu falling to her hands and knees, despairing. "We're all idiots," she groaned. "Idiots! Stupid! Dumb!"

VV let out a whine and flopped over as well, exhausted from his continuous use of Dig. The others looked equally despondent.

"God fucking dammit," Kyouko growled. "Are you for real?" Akitsu placed a hand on her shoulder comfortingly, calming her down a bit.

"All that hauling for nothing," Uzume sighed.

"I-I'm sorry, I should have said something," Shiina said timidly.

"No, this is my fault," I assured her. "When I got the Dig TM for VV, this is what I had in mind for it, and I just focused so hard on that idea that I forgot we had a better option now."

"We're all dumb," Matsu insisted, still on her hands and knees. "One of us should have realized. Any one of us could have put the pieces together. But none of us did."

"Sorry…" Shiina said in a quiet voice.

I sighed. "Let's just go with that. All of us are equally at fault, which means none of us are at fault. We'll accept that and move on and Shiina can start digging the tunnels. Everyone fine with that?"

There were more muttered complaints, most of them self-directed, but we all shifted gears pretty easily. Shiina swapped in for VV and Chiho directed her to carefully use her power to carve out sections of the underground.

The rest of us turned our attention back to the main house, which had literally sprouted into existence while we had been hauling dirt, slowly grown by Kusano's efforts.

I let out a low whistle as I looked at it. "Damn Kusano, it looks good!"

The house was bigger than our old one, not only having been expanded out to cover the entire core block, but we had opted for a second floor as well, making it twice as tall. The shape was pretty boxy, save for the rounded corners where she had planted the trees that she used to make it. But leaves and vines grew from the outside, breaking up the otherwise uniform exterior with irregular pops of green that made it look really nice.

"Thank you!" she replied with a bright smile. "The Building Trees grow so easily into the shapes I want, so it was easy. Though I think part of that was the potion from Chiho."

"Which you helped her make," I said, putting a hand on top of her head. She leaned into my touch. I looked back to the house, specifically at the door that led into it, which was covered in vines that hung down from above. "Is that the door you came up with?"

"Yes!" she said. "They were Chiho's idea, actually. She said she realized that we needed a way to handle water after the storm, so we came up with these vines. They can absorb, store, and transfer water around."

She stepped away from me and went over to the door, grabbing one of the vines. She squeezed the tip of it and a small dribble of water shot from it. She looked sheepish. "Okay, normally it's more water than that, but since I just grew them they haven't had time to collect much yet."

I chuckled. "It's alright, I understand. Gotta fill up the tank first. So you decided to turn them into a door?"

"At least for the exterior doors," Kusano nodded. "Since they absorb water, they won't let any rain in. And when it's not raining…" She turned back to the vines and put her hands in between them, splitting them down the middle as she lifted them outward, opening the door. Two small branches grown from the corners of the door served to hold the vines spread open like that, leaving the doorway completely unobstructed. She turned back to the rest of us. "Like that! I'm going to do that for all the windows too, but I need Shiina's help to make them first."

"Clever thinking," I praised her. "Why don't you show us the rest of the house? I know we all planned it together, but seeing it like this is very different."

"Sure!"

We all followed Kusano inside. "On the right is the kitchen," she said, pointing at the currently empty space. "Well, that's where it will be. That room right there is the pantry, for ingredients and snacks we need to access quickly." She indicated a room just south of the empty kitchen space. "I've already grown a lot of shelves in there, so we can start moving things over soon."

She turned around to the left of where we had entered. "And that's the new dining area! We have three tables now." Three massive tables, identical to the one she had made in the original house but with the Building Tree wood that looked much nicer, filled the entire corner of the house from the door to the garden to the door to the training area. Benches ran along them their lengths, but at the head of the center most table was practically a throne.

"Is that my seat?" I asked.

"Yours and yours alone," Kusano confirmed with a nod. "You're our leader, after all. You should have a special seat at the head of the table."

I heard Kyouko snort behind us, but I didn't pay her any mind. "Thanks Kusano, it looks great."

She beamed at me before leading down further into the house. On the outside wall of the pantry near the tables were two more shelves that ran along it. In between the shelves were two cylinders, also grown from the Building Tree branches in a spiral pattern upward. One of them had a vine right above it, and what looked like a coiled up vine forming a base just a little bit below the lip of the cylinder. "This is a sink for general use," Kusano said. "Getting water, washing things, whatever. The vines filter water so it's all drinkable and clean."

She pointed at the other cylinder, which was empty all the way to the ground, where it ended in a dark hole. "And this is a trash can. The janitor slimes we use in our toilet multiplied, so I moved one of them over there." She paused. "Actually, I used a Law to order it to move over here. I… didn't want to touch it."

"I wouldn't want to either," Uzume commented, peering in as well. "I try not to think about them, honestly. Like, I appreciate them, and they're convenient, but knowing that they're under me when I do my business…" she shrugged. "It's just kinda weird."

"Well, I didn't really change the bathroom," Kusano said, pointing towards the corner where the bathroom had been before, and still was. Vines hung from it as well, and the wood around it was darker in color. "I just changed the wood there to absorb sound and added a sink like this one."

Uzume sighed. "It's fine, I've gotten used to it. Are those stairs I see over there?"

"Yes! Though before we go." She pointed at the other corner, on the other side of the pantry from the kitchen. "That's where we'll set up our couches and stuff again, for our living room. And the area near the bathroom and stairs are for workshops, like your sewing table."

"Nice and big," I commented.

"That's what Matsu said," she quipped. I heard a few snorts of amusement.

Kusano led us upstairs. The stairs themselves were made of the same material, of course, and very sturdy under our feet. The bottom of them was just a few feet from the door to the training area and they led up to the south-east corner of the house, going above the bathroom.

At the top of the stairs was an open room that took up about a quarter of the floor. To the south was a hallway, and to the east was a doorway.

"This will be another place where we can hang out and relax," Kusano explained. "A lounge or something, away from the TV we'll set up downstairs. I think that nook over there would be a nice spot to read a book, once we get some chairs and bookshelves in here."

She pointed down the hallway. "And those are the guest bedrooms, four rooms in total and each of them have enough space to fit four people if they're willing to share beds in pairs."

"Which is honestly probably more than we'll ever need, or at least for a long time," I mentioned.

"Are those soundproofed as well?" Kyouko asked.

"Nope!"

"Why the hell not?!"

"Because I didn't want to," Kusano replied cheerfully before turning to the next doorway, ignoring Kyouko's annoyed grumbling. "And through here is the master bedroom!"

We all stepped inside and looked around. It was empty right now, and dim due to the lack of windows. But it was massive, taking up the entire western half of the floor.

"This is enormous," I said. "I know we made it a big room on the plans, but it feels so much bigger now that I'm standing here. I can't imagine we'll fill this up anytime soon."

"We'll see~" Matsu teased in a sing-song voice. "Roland-tan's greed knows no bounds after all. Look how much we've grown when it hasn't even been two months since you started!"

I felt my cheeks warm up. "That's just how things worked out. Anyway, this all looks great Kusano. You did a fantastic job."

"There's still plenty of work to do though," Kusano said. "Like moving all of our stuff back over."

"Let's get started on that then," I agreed.

And that's what we spent most of the rest of the day on, Shiina and Chiho joining us shortly after the tour to help move stuff from the temporary house and setting it up in the new house. Kusano was running around all over the place, growing shelves and other furniture on demand, or creating Battery Berries from the wall so electronics could be powered.

Anything we didn't need immediately was brought downstairs, to the basement. The stairs to it were near the kitchen, between the door to where the onsen was going to be and the pantry. The room itself was large, almost the entire block carved out down to the stone layer. The only exception was the south-west corner, which had been carved into a smaller self contained room that was designated as our freezer. Right now it's filled with Akitsu's ice, keeping it cold, but Kusano said that she has plans for a kind of frozen moss that she'll grow over the shelves that will keep everything at the optimal temperatures.

The rest of the space we didn't really know what to do with. It was definitely more room than we needed, which hopefully meant it would be enough for a while. Kusano grew some shelves as needed, and we moved pots and crates filled with stuff down there as well. The old solar panels were also stored there, in the back corner. We likely wouldn't need them again, but there wasn't a good reason to throw them away. At the very least, Matsu or someone might be able to salvage parts from them.

It took us a lot longer to move things from the temporary house to the new one than it took for us to move everything to the temporary one. Probably because we were taking the time to consider where everything should go and set things up. Like the TV and Switch, which the others considered very important. They had gotten hooked on the party games.

But the sun was just setting when we finished emptying the temporary house of everything, and we said goodbye to it for good as Shiina used her power and erased all of it, leaving us with a fresh blank skyblock once more.

"One more night, then we'll have a proper bath," Levy said, almost dreamily. "Just one more night." The others nodded, determined and excited.

I opted to remain silent. I hadn't minded the bathing conditions before, but I knew better than to poke that particular hornet nest.

We all went back inside to settle in for our normal evening routines. It was a little weird, now that everything had been rearranged. But it was nice as well. We had so much more room, and everything was so much more convenient.

The other big thing that stood out to me was the tree trunk in the center of the first floor, between the living room and dining tables. Not that I minded its presence, it helped ensure the entire floor was stable, and I didn't begrudge that. It was more about what it marked. Because it wasn't quite centered, it was just a meter south of the true center. Which was because the true center of the house was, of course, where the portal to other worlds would open.

Back when Kusano grew the first house, I had her make it around the portal, not wanting to have it open up inside of our home. It was the path to outside, to places that weren't home. Placing that path within the walls where we slept and ate seemed wrong.

But my opinion has changed since then, in several regards. For one, I realized that the entire Skyblock was our home. Whether the area was enclosed in walls or open sky, it was the same. And second, I had come to trust the portal a lot more. After using it so many times, even running from enemies a couple of those times, I was assured that it wouldn't allow anyone that I didn't want through it.

And it wasn't just the portal I trusted more, it was the Company as a whole. Not that I had ever really distrusted them. I was maybe a little wary, but it was more like the experience you have when starting any new job. You don't know what the conditions are really like until you've worked there for a bit.

And now, nearly seven weeks into it, I can say that I'm pretty happy. They gave me everything I wanted and more, demanded nothing, and enabled me to live out my wildest fantasies, even working to create this unique experience for me. They had done nothing but improve my life, and I had turned from a nervous new employee to one that enjoyed his job. If it could even be called a job. The theme sorta broke down once you actually looked at what I spent most of my time doing.

The point is, I trust having the portal in my living room now. It was still a little odd, but just in the way that the entire new house was odd, not in any way that made me nervous or uncomfortable. Especially since it wasn't actually there except for that one day a week, so there was no point in being nervous over nothing.

The one downside to having it inside is that it's going to ruin that first time experience when someone steps through the portal for the first time and sees the wide open sky in front of them. Maybe we should move it to the roof, just for that…

Maybe later. It's not worth the cost to do that right now, even if it's only five Credits.

Still, after another dinner of fruit, since everyone was too tired and hungry to cook, we all relaxed. The old cushions that Uzume had made were placed on newly grown couches and chairs, and people started doing their own thing.

I was on my way to grab Matsu and Uzume for some more Ashikabi meditation when I spotted Mami sitting at one of the new dining tables, writing in a notebook. I stopped and peered over her shoulder, curious.

"Hunters?" I asked, looking at the bulleted list of names she was writing down, most of whom I recognized from Hunter x Hunter. I looked closer, and realized that their Nen techniques were all written next to them.

"Yes!" Mami said, still writing. "Or rather, Nen users. Conjurers specifically. After seeing Levy come up with her technique, I asked Bisky for examples of different techniques she knew of so I could get a better feel for them."

"Smart thinking," I agreed, skimming through her list. I recognized most of them, but there were quite a few names that didn't ring a bell, likely people that Bisky knew but were never relevant to the show. She was pretty experienced after all. Honestly, I'm surprised there weren't more that I didn't recognize, but perhaps she didn't consider their techniques good enough, or there just weren't as many Hunters as I thought there were.

"Here's one she missed," I said. "Welfin, he was a Chimera Ant. We haven't gotten to that part of the anime yet, and Bisky wasn't involved in that incident, not directly at least." I gave her a rundown of Welfin's abilities, and she jotted it down dutifully.

"Thanks, Roland, that's helpful," she said, beaming up at me. "Could you look over some of my other ideas?"

"Sure, lemme take a look," I said, sitting down next to her, my leg pressed against the side of hers. She smiled and scooted even closer to me, pressing into me as she slid over her notebook and turned the page.

On the page she showed me were meticulously arranged notes of the different ideas she had come up with, ranging from Nen versions of her magical powers to conjuring things like cake. Detailed comments about limitations, conditions, and possible paths to grow the ability were laid out under each idea.

"This is pretty impressive," I said as I read over it. "Not just how much thought you've put into it, but the attention to detail as well."

"I just have a lot of practice," she said. "When I became a Magical Girl I would take notes like this as well. I'd write down information on the Witches I came across and the problems I faced, and come up with ways around them." She smiled, but it was just as sad looking as it was nostalgic. "I've filled several notebooks since becoming a Magical Girl. They helped a lot, and kept me alive."

As I was considering how to respond to that, she looked up and noticed Kyouko and Akitsu passing by. "Kyouko!" she suddenly called out, standing up.

Kyouko, clearly caught by surprise but not flinching, turned to Mami. "What do you want?" I noted that Kyouko's eyes flickered down to Mami's breasts, which were of course exposed, before she yanked them back up. It wasn't the first time Kyouko had trouble figuring out where to look at one of us nudists, but I had definitely noticed that it happened more with Mami than the rest of us. She avoided looking at me entirely.

Mami grabbed another notebook from the table and walked over to her. "Here, these are some notes I made for you, about Emitter techniques. Since none of the rest of us are Emitters, I asked Bisky about them and compiled some examples to help you figure out your own technique."

Kyouko considered Mami for a moment before sneering. "What? You think I need help training?" She pushed the proffered notebook to the side. "I can figure it out on my own, thanks." She brushed past Mami before she could get another word in, heading for the stairs. Akitsu paused just long enough to acknowledge us with a nod before following after Kyouko, her expression impossible to read.

Mami's shoulders drooped, arms falling to her side, notebook clutched in one hand. "That's… not what I meant."

I stood up and placed a hand on her shoulder. "I think she knows that. She's just being… stubborn. Prideful. I bet you that if you slip it into her room while she's not looking, she'll read it eventually, and be grateful, even if she won't admit it yet."

"Do you mean that?" she asked. "Not the part about her being grateful. I think you're right about that. But you really think she'll change enough that she will admit it?"

"I do," I said confidently. "You know what she's been through better than most. And you know what she's like. The fact that she accepted Akitsu is a huge step forward for her. I think it's just a matter of time until she finally lowers her prickly walls. And not too much time at that."

"I hope you're right…" she replied before looking down at the notebook, colored red just like Kyouko was, that she had tried to give her. "She joined me, for a while, in writing up notes. We'd go over our battles after taking down a Witch. I helped her come up with a name for her technique too."

She looked back up at me, determined. "I'll do what you said, and I'll give it to her anyway, in a way she'll be forced to accept it. I gave up on her once, but I won't do it again."

I grinned. "That's the spirit. I'm right there with you. We'll help her, all of us will, together."

Mami's motivation stoked once more, I spent another ten minutes with her going over her ideas with her, making suggestions and corrections. Not that I had to do much of the latter, her grasp of the mechanics of Nen was pretty solid, despite being one of our newer additions. Her studious nature really paid off.

But I needed to get to my own training as well, so I left her to it before grabbing Matsu and Uzume and pulling them both out to the garden.

The garden had changed a lot. Most of the plots had been destroyed, leaving only a couple of small ones. The new block had the two pools of water, which the others had taken to calling the Sky Lake and the Sky Sea, and sand had been dumped around them. Sand had also been dumped on the north side of the new block, next to the Sea, which was apparently going to be turned into a desert area. South of that was a grassy area where the chicken coop had been rebuilt and the chickens moved, kept in that area by Laws.

But on the main garden block, the old original one, the little park area where I normally relaxed had been moved as well from the north-east corner to the south-west one, and new benches hadn't been grown. But I didn't mind sitting in the soft grass. I had long gotten used to the feeling of the grass brushing against my more sensitive bits.

"So you need my help with the Ashikabi stuff tonight?" Uzume asked. "What do you need me to do?"

"Roland is trying to emulate Matsu's telepathy by himself," she explained. "Matsu wants to see if getting deep into one of his other Sekirei will help him figure it out."

"If you wanted to bang, you didn't have to disguise it by calling it training," Uzume commented teasingly.

I rolled my eyes. "Down girls, this is important," I replied. "When Matsu uses her power, I can get a pretty good read on her, but she's doing a lot of the heavy lifting. I want to recreate that, initially with her assistance, but with a Sekirei who…" I paused.

"Whose mental psychic powers aren't very good!" Matsu 'helpfully' finished my sentence for me. "Which is why we can't ask Kusano. Plus she's tired out."

"I was going to say whose psychic powers wouldn't help… but yes," I admitted.

"Hey, I'm not offended, don't worry," Uzume shrugged. "I've never really had a knack for telepathy or dream stuff. Most Sekirei don't, unless they're Brain Types. Kusano's the odd one out to be honest."

"It's actually fairly common for winged Sekirei, but it's likely that has more to do with their Ashikabi than the Sekirei themselves," Matsu added. "Which hopefully means that Roland-tan will be able to pull this off." She grinned at me. "Now, enough wasting time!" She wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled me in for a deep kiss, activating her Norito.

Once Matsu's power was running, we all closed our eyes, sitting in a triangle formation facing each other, and meditated. Once again, I felt Matsu's link light up as she started sending information down it. I resisted the urge to follow the flow back toward her and waited as she reached through me to find another connection, Uzume's.

This time I did follow her power, riding alongside of it to make my way to Uzume. She gasped as she felt me enter her- okay no, the euphemisms with this kind of thing are so easy even I'm doing them by accident now.

Uzume reacted as she felt my consciousness directly touch hers, or our Rei's brush, whatever was actually happening. I could feel her emotions just as strongly as I felt Matsu's the other day.

"W-wow," Uzume said, stammering slightly. "That's… a lot."

"Yeah," I agreed softly. Uzume wasn't like Matsu. Matsu had depths and complexities to her that she hid under a joking and horny mask. Well, not a mask. The teasing and the lewdness were also very real and important parts to Matsu, but they are just the ones she chooses to show on the surface, while the rest of her lurks under it.

Uzume didn't have that, not to nearly the same degree at least. There was some there, some worries and thoughts that she rarely showed, but they were a small part of her, relatively speaking. But what she lacked in complexity, she made up for it in intensity. Her love was powerful, beating with a desire to protect Chiho and make her happy. And, surprisingly, her love for me was equal in size and intensity. The two of us stood as pillars within her heart. The details in how she felt for us were different, different flavors or colors. But neither was lesser than the other.

Once again, it was humbling and a little embarrassing to feel something like that directly. And I could tell that she could tell that I had noticed. I caught the feeling of embarrassment mixed with a stubborn pride brushing past my senses.

"That was easier than it was yesterday," Matsu commented. "Matsu thinks you're ready to swim on your own. Don't move!"

I wasn't sure what she meant by that until I felt her power cut off, quickly retreating from Uzume and then from myself. The connection between Uzume and I became thicker, impossible to navigate. Except I already had, a thin bridge of my energy traveled along it from my core to hers. It just wasn't supported by Matsu anymore.

It was… heavy. That's the only way I can think to describe it. Matsu's energy had been like electricity, instantly traveling along the connection and dragging everything with it. Now, alone, it was like trying to push water through a tube that had a crushing weight on it. But the water was already there, meaning the connection persisted. But I had to struggle from the get go to keep it that way, or else it would be crushed.

I lost track of my body, of the outside world, as I focused on the mental pressure I was under. I focused on Uzume and her emotions, practically clinging to her, or doing the psychic equivalent of it.

And Uzume was there for me. She could sense my struggle, and she reached out to help. She couldn't do what Matsu did, she couldn't send her energy along our connection to lighten the load for me. But she could serve as an anchor. Without that anchor, I would have lost the connection immediately. But with her? I held, and I kept holding.

Slowly, over a timeframe I wasn't able to really even be aware of, the pressure lessened. No, that's not right. It didn't lessen, but my connection to her grew more firm, more able to handle the strain.

Eventually, it reached the point where I was comfortable lessening my focus, opening my eyes to look at the other two. Uzume looked back at me with a grin, the two of us still connected and therefore not needing to speak to know what the other was feeling.

Matsu, however, was not part of that. "So? So? Did it work?"

"It did," I confirmed. "At least, I'm still connected to her."

"It's hard though," Uzume said. "For him, at least. I'm doing what I can to help him, but there's only so much I can do."

"It's getting easier, thankfully," I continued.

"Another few minutes and you should have it," she agreed.

"Wow, that's so weird," Matsu commented, causing both of us to stop and look back at her. She giggled. "You two are so in-sync like this. It's interesting!"

"Well, yeah," Uzume said with a shrug. "Duh."

I nodded. "We're literally synced up. And it's a stronger connection than yesterday. You said you could only kind of feel my emotions, didn't you Matsu?"

"I couldn't feel them all that well at first either," Uzume said. "That got better after Matsu pulled back though, and as you learned to handle it. It was like the connection cleared up."

"It was stronger today than it was yesterday too," Matsu said. "His Rei felt more solid and they carried more emotions."

"But I still can't sense my own Rei," I mused. "I can only tell there's a connection because of the effort it takes to feel you. It's like trying to lift a weight when your arm is completely numb. I can feel how it pulls on the rest of me, but not the way my muscles are contracting."

"Hmm…" Matsu mused. "I wonder…" she trailed off.

"Wonder what?" I asked.

She thought about it for a moment longer and then shook her head. "No, nevermind. I'll keep going through Takehito's notes, the answer might be in there. For now, we'll just keep practicing as best we can."

We chatted for a few more minutes, Matsu 'testing' things out by groping one of us and seeing if the other could feel it. Which, no, we couldn't. Not the physical sensations at least, but the rush of excitement and arousal was easy to feel. But the burden eased and my connection to Uzume grew more steady.

"I think I want to try something," I said. And then I let go of my connection to Uzume. She blinked, not quite recoiling from the loss, something I sympathized with but had been more mentally prepared for. I took a deep breath, focusing again. "I'm going to try to connect to you again, by myself."

"Okay, got it," Uzume replied with a nod.

I closed my eyes and focused inward again. Finding the connection between Uzume and I was easy thanks to our time connected like that. My senses were immediately drawn to the spot. It was still fairly indistinct, a seemingly blank patch surrounded by nothing. But I knew it was there.

Then I pushed against it. And then I pushed harder. And then I kept pushing. I tried to focus on the sensations that I remembered from when we were linked, and I pushed.

Eventually, slowly, it clicked. I couldn't tell if I had been slowly pushing along the connection until I reached her, or if there was just a single barrier I had to get through. One moment I was pushing, and the next I felt her emotions brushing up against mine.

I nearly lost the connection when I opened my eyes and let out a whoop of victory, my celebration cut short as I scrambled to regain my focus to keep it active. Once it stabilized again, I let myself smile. "I did it!" I announced.

"You did it!" Matsu cheered.

"You did it!" Uzume agreed.

High on victory, I reached for the connection between Matsu and I and started pushing against it as well. I pushed and pushed, and I broke through, feeling both Matsu and Uzume's emotions.

And then both connections collapsed and a spike of pain slammed into my brain. I hissed in pain. "Fuck, that smarts," I groused, but the pain was fading to a dull throb already.

"You got greedy," Matsu said, shaking her head.

"You moved a little too fast, yeah," Uzume agreed, more amused than worried. "Save the multitasking for when you're not struggling with just one connection."

"Yeah, yeah," I grumbled. I was a little embarrassed, because in hindsight it was definitely dumb. But my excitement couldn't be beaten that easily. "Alright, let's try again."

"Nope, we're done for the night," Matsu declared. "You shouldn't push yourself. You can't sense your own energy, right? Maybe the connection failed because you ran out of steam. Running out of Rei probably isn't as bad for you as it is for us, but it's still probably bad."

I hesitated, but I saw her logic. I sighed. "Fine, fine. Tomorrow then. Maybe I'll ask Shiina for help. Now that I can form a connection, I need to figure out how to sense Rei, and Shiina still has her limiter, so it's more safe for her to deplete her Rei so I can sense that."

"That's a good idea," Uzume agreed. "Lemme know if you want my help again though. That was… nice."

"Yeah, it was," I agreed with a smile.

We all headed back to the house after that, relaxing with the others as I started typing this up. Like I said at the top of this, it was a simple day, but we got a lot done. Hopefully tomorrow will be just as fruitful.


Shifty's SubscribeStar: subscribestar com / shifty-s-fiction

Shifty's Discord Server: discord .gg/aWJrmhf4Hy

AN: The new map is officially finished, but Roland and the crew aren't done renovating yet, so you'll have to keep waiting. Not the longest chapter, but that's fine. Honestly we've been averaging far too long lately. Simple days like this are nice too, though if it had been slightly less interesting I would have just skipped it and combined it with tomorrow's entry.

Going to try to get some more Mami focus in over the next in-story week or so. Not just because she's a key part to Kyouko's development, but because she needs some. Also, shout out to the spin-off manga The Different Story, which has a lot of details on pre-canon Mami and Kyouko, and a timeline where they repaired their relationship(sorta- PMMM is still a shitty world where no one is allowed to be happy).

And progress with the Psychic powers! I once described Talents as "Shounen protagonist training aids". They let you learn what you need precisely as fast as you need to learn it for the plot. Roland has a great need and a good teacher in Matsu, so he's making good strides with the power.