Chiaki drifted into a restless sleep that night. At first all she could feel was heat, then she could feel fire, smell smoke. Salt. A dark sky over a turbulent ocean. An ocean on fire. The world was shaking under her feet. Then there was a coolness against her back. She was enveloped in blue light.

"Fuck!" Chiaki said sitting up abruptly.

"Request denied." Came an amused voice.

Chiak turned to see the boy. He was a small male child with blue-green fins where his ears should have been. His hair was short with both the shape and color of seaweed. His skin was tinted green too. And his clothes were white silk. The Voice of the Beast God that had brought her to this world. He looked amused. "Oh, Tobi-"

"Hello."

"Why am I here?"

"You called out with your connection in your sleep. So I pulled you here."

"I called out?"

"You were dreaming a nightmare." He looked worried. "I am afraid that something on the world below is changing." He waved a hand and the swirling mist that covered the floor where they were cleared. Chiaki gasped. This was the first time she'd ever seen the world. From the frozen north to the mountains and green forest, to the sand and sea. "Here." Tobi said pointing at a red area. "A volcano erupted here before it should have." He pointed to another red area. "An out of season Tsunami happened here." Another. "Earthquake." Another. "A year long drought."

She shuddered. She'd felt those, all of those, all at once. "What's going on."

Tobi bowed his head. "I fear this world does not have the time left that I thought." His eyes moved to her. "I will not have another chance to bring another to this world in one hundred years, there will be nothing left."

Chiaki looked away, breaking eye contact. "You want to ask me again to find a way to revive the Beast God."

"Yes."

"Why me?! I've met other women from earth down there!" She pointed to the planet below. "Huanhuan has even been able to make it to the Beast God's domain like I did!"

Tobi's ears twitched. "Xiao Ba didn't tell me his chosen one had done that."

"You guys can interact up here?"

Tobi snorted. "Of course we can! How would the servants of the Beast God be able to take care of the sacred domain if we were isolated?!" He shook his head. "It doesn't matter right now. Look at this." He waved his hand over the planet again and this time areas glowed blue instead of red. "See these? This is where praise for the Beast God is strong enough to collect power from."

Chiaki studied the places. "Hey, overlap the two maps, could you?" With a nod Tobi changed the color overlay once more. "Look here." Chiaki pointed. "There's large amounts of blue around this red area."

"That is the volcano. To the east is the village of leopards-" His finger traced a long path to another bright blue area. "Here is the land of winged beasts, where you originally came to this world."

"Ji Mo is there."

"Ji Mo?" Tobi asked.

"Another woman from my world. I don't know if she's been able to contact a Voice."

"Knowing her name, I will ask around later. It matters not right now. She has increased the praise from the winged lion tribe and winged tiger tribe that live there... they were already one of the few last places where worship of the Beast God remained high. Her area of influence is spreading to other nearby also."

"If that was the were Highcliff Beast City once stood, then is this the Rock Mountain?" Chiaki pointed to another bright blue area south-west of the volcano.

"Yes, it also has been releasing high praise for the Beast God lately."

"Huanhuan is there and I just left the Rock Mountain Wolf Village this morning." She noticed a couple other highly blue areas, ones that were very far away from the volcano. "What are those?"

"Others who were brought to this world, like yourself. I do not know who they are or what Voice summoned them. It seems they have increased the Beast God's power where they are as well."

"And it's still up to me to save it." Chiaki put a hand to her face and glared down at the world below her. It looked like she had been given a choice where she actually had none. Tobi stood quietly beside of her. She sat there for what could have been minutes or hours or years, time held no meaning in the domain of the Beast God. "I haven't got any abilities that could save a world, Tobi."

She sounded so small. Where was the fire he'd felt when searching for a worthy person to bring to this world? "Indeed."

"Tell me, have you found out anything more about what happened all those years ago?"

"I have only learned what you have, my memory from that time still evades me. I believe somehow the Beast God hid those memories away from us servants before falling into deep sleep. Why, I do not know."

"Why does this place feel so much realer now? Why haven't i snapped awake back in my body?"

"This place holds more power now, your connection is not so insignificant." Tobi turned. "Come with me."

Chiaki followed the child, as she did the area around her once again transforming from a vast nothingness to the marble halls of the Beast God. Tobi lead her past the area she had seen before and towards a glowing door. He pushed it open. Chiaki blinked as the brightness increased to an almost painful amount, had she been in her body she felt she'd have gone blind as if looking directly into the sun.

But as it was, her eyes adjusted. The room was large and open. A tranquil garden surrounded by marble walls. In the middle, where the blinding glow emanated from was a form. Resting on a low marble dais was...

"Is that the Beast God?!"

"Yes." Replied Tobi walking over to the sleeping form. It shifted from a glowing human shape to that of a dragon, then to turtle, then a rabbit, then a bird, constantly in motion. There were no features, just an ever changing bright rainbow light. "The Beast God is asleep, regaining power that was lost."

As she watched a thin tendril of blue light wove its way into the room and was pulled into the Beast God's body. Small particles of blue remained in the air. Tobi held out his hand and they collected in his palm. "Not all of the praise power is absorbed. These bits allow me to grant you your wishes back on the world below."

"My wishes?"

"You wished to talk the language of all beasts, you wished for a knowledge to feed the people-" Here he held out his other hand, the specks of blue flowed into a globe of the same in this hand. "You have wanted for very little, look at the amount of praise."

"Why don't you just give that to the Beast God too?"

Tobi shook his head. "The bits left behind are for seeding the world with new praise. They hold more power in this way than what they would provide alone."

"So... I could ask for something? Like I could make my mates ultra powerful? Or bring the people who died at Highcliff City back to life?"

"No. Only the Beast God himself could grant such powerful wishes."

"Then... what about... could I wish to keep myself from getting pregnant?" She asked hesitantly.

"Why would you want that? Your children are their own seeds of change for this world!"

"I didn't mean I didn't want to have anymore children ever!" Chiaki waved her hands in front of herself. "But you want me to have a bunch of powerful mates AND go on this epic quest! Do you know how hard pregnancy is on me? Humans aren't meant for having litters of babies again and again, we aren't even meant to have more than one or two at most in a pregnancy and it's often more than a year between having one baby and getting pregnant again. The fertility of a human woman and the fertility of beast men is too much!"

"I- could grant you- the ability to put your estrus on hold." Tobi admitted. "You would be able to restart it when you wished, but it would not be something you could do back and forth."

"Then, please? I wish I didn't have to worry about getting pregnant again until I choose to."

Tobi held the ball of praise in his hands and closed his eyes. The ball wavered and a thin tendril of blue disappeared into Chiaki's body. The ball was smaller now. "Wish granted." Tobi said as he opened his eyes.

"It didn't use it all up?"

"This wish only effects you, it is small."

"I want one of those overpowered market skills I saw in anime and manga then!" She said, her hand in a fist and her eyes blazing with fire.

Tobi looked confused. He tilted his head to the side. "You want what?"