Xander Quest

by Throwaway1971

All credit goes to the OG author Judge Mental on SB

285. The Endless Eight(h Year) 3

You don't want to back off now. In order to create the strongest, most useful, and most valuable reagent, you have to see the process of gathering the elements through from start to finish.

That said, you don't have to be reckless about it.

Tucking your glass bottle back into your pocket for a moment, you break off channeling power and cast the Spell of Emergency Force Sphere, tweaking it so that instead of a hemisphere of force ten feet across, it manifests as a bubble about half that wide. It's the effort of barely a second, and you feel that the momentary disruption to your channeling - which won't significantly impact the quality of the reagent - is well-worth the added defense against the imminent lightning strike.

Especially when said lightning goes off a moment later, with an intensity that beggars the previous bolts, leaves you blinking even THROUGH the protective haze of your Cantrip of Darkness, and hits the force-bubble so hard that it SHATTERS around you. Your Sphere of Silence and Spell of Protection From Lightning buckle under the subsequent onslaught, but they don't break.

You think they might have, if you'd left them to take the brunt of that discharge directly.

As it stands, that "wobble" you sensed in the Sphere before is back, and doesn't seem like it's going to go away. Another massive hit like that - or two or three of the smaller ones you encountered on your way in - and it'll probably be done for. The Spell of Protection is a little better off, but at least half of its original strength has been spent.

It's a VERY good thing you're not planning to fly back to the ground.

In any case, your defensive spells aren't the only things the lightning blew through: it also hit its main target, which now hovers before you.

The Heart of the Storm is still of an indistinct shape, and still mostly made up of Wind and Water. The levels of Lightning and Thunder, however, have increased substantially, giving the vaporous object its own luminescence, a mix of blue and white and gold that shifts about within it like a tiny aurora. The level of Elemental Ice is still low, but it's there all the same.

You have to take a moment to just observe it - but then you pull out the glass jar and its cork, sweep the latter towards and through the Heart, stuff the cork in, and then hold on with both hands as the jar rattles.

The disturbance doesn't truly end, but after a few seconds, it calms. For all the power it represents, the Heart itself doesn't have a huge amount of energy to work with, so long as it's cut off from the air and the essence of storms.

You take the opportunity to put the bottle back in your pocket, where the effectively frozen flow of time will help to keep it contained.

Gained Heart of the Storm
Gained Ice Affinity F (Plus)
Gained Lightning Affinity F (Plus)
Gained Lightning Elementalism E (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Raiden's Favor E
Gained Thunder Affinity F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Thunder Elementalism D
Gained Water Affinity E
Gained Wind Affinity F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

Well, that's it. You just successfully collected the essence of a thunderstorm and put it under glass. You feel...

---

Hovering in the heart of the storm, surrounded on all sides by the power of Nature at its finest, a sudden impulse wells up from your heart.

You give in to that urge, throw back your head, and cry out, "That. Was. AWESOME!"

As if on cue, lightning flashes around you - at a safe distance.

It's almost like someone's agreeing with you. Or maybe just laughing.

Gained Lightning Affinity F (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Thunder Affinity E
Gained Wind Affinity E

Regardless, you pump your fists in the air and shout once more, wordlessly, before getting your emotions back under control.

Awesome or not, your work in this part of the storm is done. It's time - and probably past time - for you to move on, before lightning strikes again.

Using the fading residue of your channeling efforts as one point by which to navigate, and the temporarily overpowered but still-present pull of gravity as another cue, you aim for the top of the storm, and fly.

Gained Flight (Magical) D (Plus) (Plus)

As with your previous climb, escaping the thunderhead takes time. One minute becomes two, and then four, and you're pretty sure you're working on the seventh minute before the clouds begin to visibly thin. By that point, you've encountered another half-dozen lightning bolts, all of which but two flashed past at a distance sufficient to not rattle your protective spells. The first of those bolts did some damage, but was much more akin to the strike you withstood on your way into the storm, as opposed to the supercharged blast you experienced at its heart; the second bolt was probably about as intense, but only grazed you. The Sphere of Silence and the Spell of Protection From Lightning are both weakened - the former especially so - but they could take one more hit at that level of power before failing.

No such strike occurs, however. By the fifth minute of your ascent, you've left the main mass of the storm, with all its howling currents and swirling mixture of particles, and when the sixth lightning bolt tears across the sky, it does so below you. After the sixth minute, the rain has basically stopped; you're still registering "impacts" on your Spell of Protection From Water, but that's more because you're flying into the near- and wholly-frozen water droplets that exist at this altitude than because they're falling into you.

Above you, meanwhile, you can see the red hue of the evening sky peering through the thinning cloud layer.

Orienting towards the largest patch of sunset-scarlet you can see, you pour on the speed.

Higher, faster...

And then, you're out of it.

Seen from above, the storm is every bit as vast as it was when viewed from below, dark and raging and lit from within by the occasional burst of light. And yet... it seems lesser, somehow.

After gathering the Heart of the Storm amidst (silently) howling wind, sheeting rain, and dazzling lightning, the collection of the Wind reagent you wanted is downright anticlimactic. You channel, take out your remaining bottle and open it with a *pop*, then sweep it through shimmering air and re-cork it.

Done, and done.

Gained Essence of Wind

You hover in place a moment longer, checking on your overall condition. The Sphere of Silence is pretty much done for; even if you didn't take another hit, it's reaching the limits of its duration. Everything else, though, is in pretty good shape. Of course, you can't return to Sunnydale with THIS much active magic wreathed around you, but there's no need to. Once you're back on the ground, you can dismiss everything except the Spell to Endure Elements and the Spell of Protection From Water - those two are minor enough (and your caution when casting them sufficient) that you can keep their presence in your aura hidden.

You know, as long as nobody actively probes you with a Spell to Detect Magic, or something along those lines.

Slap on a Spell to Mask Dweomers, and you're golden.

Spells aside, your other main concern is the state of your mana reserve. Channeling the elements didn't eat up any mana - it's very much a ritual in that respect - but you used a few more spells than you'd been intending to. Just enough, as it happens, to deplete your reserve to the point where your mana recovery would drop, if only slightly.

Checking the time, you figure you'll be home by quarter-after seven - later than your mother was hoping for, but not unreasonably so, and certainly not a violation of your promise to be home as soon as you could manage. Based on the amount of mana you have now, and what you know of your recovery speed... hmmm... nope, as long as you forego further spellcasting once you're home and get a full night's sleep, you're still on track to have your tank topped off by morning. Even casting a Spell of Teleportation to return to the ground won't significantly delay your recovery - not by more than an hour or two of spell-free activity tomorrow morning, anyway.

---

You cast the Spell of Teleportation, blinking past the mass of the storm. The real-world distance covered by your extradimensional jaunt is so short, and the passage so brief as a result, that you don't even glimpse the green glow of that entity on the other side.

It is, dare you say it, a perfectly normal teleportation. One second, you're standing on top of the clouds, under the evening sky; the next, you're standing on the wet, weathered tarmac behind the abandoned gas station outside town, as the rain falls in sheets from the roiling clouds above.

One by one, you cancel your various active spells, until only the Spell to Endure Elements and the Spell to Resist Water remain. That done, you leave the old station and start back to Sunnydale.

The trip takes a little longer than you were planning, the addition of the rain having made the ground more treacherous than normal. Whether it's the slick road or the muck and mud alongside, you have to mind your footing, which limits just how fast you can go.

On the upside, it's fresh practice for your Ki Step technique.

All in all, you figure it must be around seven-thirty by the time you hit Sunnydale's town limits, and several minutes past that when you finally get home. One happy bit of news is that, between the hour and the weather, you don't see a single person on the street besides yourself - potential evidence that the average demon doesn't like being out in a thunderstorm any more than the average human does.

Gained Local Knowledge (Sunnydale) D

As you enter your house and announce yourself, your mother turns up to give you a once-over. Once it's clear that you are bone-dry and no worse than slightly cool from your run in the rain, she nods to herself, and asks how your trip went.

You tell her that Gen had a couple of customers there ahead of you, and that the two of you talked business for a bit besides. You also add that it was raining when you got back, and the slippery conditions slowed you down more than you were expecting - you apologize for that, and tell her you'll keep it in mind in the future, just in case.

Your mother says she appreciates that, but would rather than you stay inside when it's raining in the future.

Your father - who's come out of the living room by now to listen in on all this - grins, and says, "Come on, Jess. A strong man likes the feel of Nature on his face."

"And a wise man has enough sense to get in out of the rain," your mother shoots back.

...you have the distinct impression that your old man just got zinged. Hard.

On that note, you tell your folks you're going to turn in a little early tonight, and then head upstairs.

As you make your way to your room, you send a pulse down your faulty link to Briar, letting her know you're safely home. Her head emerges from your shirt pocket a moment later, looks around, and is followed by the rest of her fluttering into the air.

"How'd it go?" she asks.

"It was awesome," you reply with a grin.

She gives you a suspicious look.

"No, really, it was. I flew into a thunderstorm, took the worst it could throw at me-"

"Under half a dozen different layers of protective magic," Briar notes.

"-all but the outermost of which survived the trip," you retort. "Which included a bolt of lightning more powerful than anything I think *I* could summon up right now. And then I flew out, not a scratch on me, two reagents richer."

That draws a moment of interest from Briar, but on the whole, she still seems to think your trip into the thundercloud was a crazy idea.

You disagree, but no sense arguing about it now.

Although you do change into your pajamas and brush your teeth, you don't get into bed; instead, you settle down on your customary patch of carpet, close your eyes, and meditate for the next hour or so. You don't strictly NEED it, but the boost to your mana recovery would be nice, and regular meditation is a habit you've tried to hone over the last year or so.

When you hear your parents come up to bed themselves, you call it a night, and drift off to the staccato song of the rain.

The next morning, you awaken to find yourself fully recovered and recharged. A look out your bedroom window shows that the sun is shining brightly through the remaining clouds, thin and white and fluffy as they are, and while everything you can see is still damp with rainwater, it all looks that little bit more alive as a result.

Although you've never done hunted a fox before, in this lifetime or any of the others you can recall, you feel like this is a good day to do it.

Your allies in Japan agreed that there was no point in delaying the task any longer than necessary, so you can head to the Hakuba Shrine after lunch without worrying about turning up too early. That still leaves you - you glance at your bed-side clock - five hours of free time, accounting for meals.

Are there any last-minute preparations for the hunt that you'd like to make, short of actually scrying for the kitsune's lair? Or some other task you'd like to take this opportunity to get out of the way?

---

You take a few minutes after breakfast to do research on the topic of nine-tailed kitsune, employing a few minor spells to provide more detailed information than you'd be able to acquire from your purely physical resources.

Tobin's Spirit Guide only has so much to say on any given subject, after all.

While going over the information that the Spell of Page-Bound Epiphany has inscribed into your much-used and re-used Conjured Book, you consider using the previous day's encounter with Tamamo-no-Mae as the focus for the Spell to Know The Enemy, and after that, the Spell of Literary Vision. Given how the latter spell actually works, though, you end up ruling it out: its derivation from Legend Lore means that it targets SPECIFIC entities, not whole kinds; it's more likely to fail outright since you don't have Tamamo on hand anymore; and even if it DID succeed, the results would be incomplete.

Know the Enemy works just fine, though. It's non-specific, and it's a simple enough spell that - even with the troublesome issue of having to spend extra mana to "fake" divine magic - you can easily recoup its cost and the cost of the other minor spells you've cast before you leave for Japan.

Gained Cryptozoology D (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Japanese History F (Plus)
Gained Knowledge (Buddhism) F (Plus) (Plus)

As it happens, your mother had to go in to work a shift at the hospital today, so you and Zelda have been in your father's care for a change. When you let your father know that you plan to visit Japan again this afternoon, and could be a while, he just nods and reminds you to be back for supper.

Arriving at the Hakuba Shrine at about six in the morning local time, you join the other morning pedestrians in being a little surprised by the sight of a fancy black car pulling up to the curb. It looks suspiciously familiar, and the emergence of the driver - whose aura clearly marks him as a youkai under that fancy outfit and hat - does nothing to change your first impression.

When the driver walks around to open the rear passenger-side door, you're probably the only human on the street that isn't surprised to see Shuzen Gyokuro step out of the vehicle.

You're definitely not surprised when she looks right at you and nods once in recognition, before turning back to speak with her driver. The youkai bows, closes the passenger door, and goes back around and inside the vehicle, pulling away through the morning traffic.

Gyokuro, meanwhile, gives the crowd standing between her and the shrine stairs a single look, one that has salarymen and office ladies all but leaping out of her path, some of them visibly fighting the impulse to bow respectfully.

A few either don't succeed in resisting the urge, or just don't bother to fight it.

What's really impressive is that Gyokuro manages this without so much as a pulse of youki. As far as you can tell, it's just style, bearing, and sheer force of personality.

Gained Commanding King F

You have to stop and think about what to do next. It's pretty clear that you and Gyokuro are both here for the same reason, and that being the case, the gentlemanly thing to do would be to catch up and escort the lady to her initial destination.

That said... well, you're a kid, and Gyokuro definitely isn't. It would look pretty strange if you were to just walk up to her, and with the way everybody is either gawking or trying NOT to stare after the lady vampire, it'd be remembered. By a LOT of people. It might be better, then, for you to wait until the crowd gets over their collective astonishment and starts moving again, before you make for the Hakuba Shrine yourself.

Or you suppose you could just use magic to turn yourself inconspicuous.

---

In the end, the power of manners compels you. If you're seen, you'll at least be seen as a proper young gentleman.

Besides, the odds of anybody significant, dangerous, significantly dangerous, or dangerously significant being part of or connected to this crowd of white-collar workers are pretty low. And if someone of that sort does hear about this, they'll probably be well-placed enough to find out who (if not what) Gyokuro is, which ought to put them on their best behavior. Assuming it doesn't scare them off from investigating further.

Even if they do dig further, your own name is already out in the local supernatural community, thanks to the events of the World Tournament. Finding out that you beat Kahlua in the prelims wouldn't take that much effort, and from there, explaining your familiarity with Gyokuro is a pretty straightforward matter. Especially if word has gotten around of your attendance and activities at Kahlua's birthday party - and it undoubtedly has.

Gossip is a force even magic has to respect.

Shaking your head, you make your way through the crowd, taking advantage of the distraction that has overtaken many of its members to find and slip through gaps in their ranks.

While you're far from forceful or rude in your advance, you don't exactly go out of your way to be unnoticed, either. Thus, you're once again unsurprised when you reach the base of the Hakuba Shrine stairs to find Gyokuro waiting for you.

You couldn't get the best look at her before, what with all the bodies in the way, but now that you're clear of the crowd, you see that she's dressed down a bit, compared to what you saw at Castle Shuzen. Today, she's wearing the classic little black dress, a long, vaguely military-looking black coat, and a pair of sandals.

All in all, it's not a bad style for someone about to go into a fight. Gyokuro doesn't actually have her arms in the sleeves of the coat, so she can discard it at a moment's notice, even use it to momentarily blind or tangle an opponent. The dress looks loose-fitting and flexible enough not to impede her movements, but not so much so that it would pose a particular risk for getting caught on - or by - anything. As for Gyokuro's choice in footwear, the sandals look like something out of a piece on Roman gladiators, all strappy thongs tied over the foot and up the lower leg. They have no heels to speak of, and so won't affect her footing or balance - or break at an inopportune moment - they definitely aren't about to come loose without a lot of very specific damage, and they don't restrict her ankles as most boots and some types of shoes would.

And for all the sheer practicality of the ensemble, there's no question that it looks good - though much of that is due to Gyokuro herself. It takes a certain amount of self-confidence to wear a dress like that, and most people couldn't pull off that coat at all, no matter what else they were wearing.

Gyokuro has no problem with either.

Gained Style E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Tailoring E (Plus) (Plus)

"Good morning, Alexander," Gyokuro greets you.

"Good morning, Mrs. Shuzen," you reply, with a bow. "Do you mind if I join you?"

"Not at all."

And with that, she turns and starts up the stairs.

Feeling the dozens of pairs of eyes staring at your back, you follow.

"I spoke with Koujiro last night," Gyokuro says, after you've gone up far enough to be out of casual hearing. "He had some interesting things to say about you, and the role you've taken it upon yourself to play in today's... undertaking."

"Good things, I hope."

"For the most part, yes. Although Akasha did ask me to ask you not to summon any more legendary monsters - at least until AFTER the eclipse."

She gives you a look that clearly expects an answer.

---

The request Gyokuro has passed on to you seems perfectly reasonable - you say as much, and add that, should a situation arise in the next week before the eclipse where you need to summon assistance, you'll make a point of specifically calling for aid from the celestial servants of your Goddesses.

"That sounds fair," the Shuzen matriarch replies, giving you a guarded look. "Although... would any of those 'servants' happen to be legendary monsters themselves?"

Besides Link?

It's not an entirely unfair remark on your part. You're dimly aware that the Hero has spent non-trivial portions of various adventures stuck in forms other than the one he was born with - though the same could also be said of your past self. But Ganondorf was never a servant of the Goddesses, Chosen of Din or no, and it's not like you're going to be calling him OR Link up any time soon.

You wouldn't describe the various non-human Sages as 'monsters' - certainly not in the Hylian sense of the word, which implies destructive demon-spawn. As the term is used on Earth, however, as a general catch-all for non-human, non-demonic sentients? It's technically correct.

And from your recent readings of the holy books of the Church, you're aware that there were a few dragons associated with the Goddesses. Most of them are long dead, but while that's a loss for the living races of Hyrule, it DOES mean that they should be hanging around the celestial planes under the Goddesses' dominion, ready and waiting to be called on.

Of course, the whole reason Gyokuro is asking about this to begin with is because you summoned Tamamo. And if THAT'S what she has in mind when she uses the term 'legendary monster,' the only being in Hyrule's history who has anything like the same reputation is Ganondorf.

The Hakuba Shrine stairs aren't so long that you have time to say much more than that, before you've gotten close enough to the top to be greeted by Ichirou. As he welcomes you and Gyokuro to the Shrine, and informs you that the Hayashi Clan's representatives have yet to arrive, you notice that his demeanor seems both more serious and more relaxed than it has been in the past.

The seriousness, you can understand easily enough. You're going after a nine-tailed kitsune in the next hour or so. The ease, on the other hand...

Gyokuro notices the change as well, and is evidently amused by it. Her brief smirk vanishes as she looks towards the central shrine, an expression of determination settling.

"You'll want to stand back for this next part, Alexander," she says firmly.

Puzzled, but recognizing the note of command, you back up a step.

Once you've done so, Gyokuro strides through the gate.

As soon as she crosses under the torii, arcs of energy erupt all over her body, flashing and snapping in and out of existence like tiny bolts of electricity - save that they are colored a red so deep and dark that it's nearly black. With each step Gyokuro takes onto the grounds of the Hakuba Shrine - the HALLOWED grounds, you realize in a sudden burst of recognition - the writhing aura of purifying youki intensifies.

Despite that, Gyokuro doesn't slow down, or even flinch.

The lightshow lasts less than ten seconds, all told, and once it's over, there's no sign it ever happened.

At least not until Gyokuro lets out a single stressed breath.

---

"Not in the way I think you mean it, ma'am," you say in reply to Gyokuro's question.

She smiles wryly. "I take it your Goddesses aren't particularly fond of monsters, then?"

"If by 'monsters' you mean 'non-humans,' there are actually several races that honor the Goddesses, whether individually or as a whole," you answer. "What the Goddesses and their faithful define as a 'monster' is more along the lines of demon-spawn, manifestations of magic run amok, and evil incarnate."

Gyokuro appears first startled, and then interested by your words. However, that's all you have time for before reaching the top of the stairs.

Your mind turns over what you've just seen, searching through your knowledge of magical theory and divine mandate to see if there's anything you could do that might alleviate the obvious pain Gyokuro is experiencing.

Some possible approaches do come to mind. A Spell of Protection From Purity or Holiness, to act as a temporary buffer against the sanctifying power of holy places and entities. A Spell to Resist the same forces, to reduce the impact of exposure over a longer period of time, rather than block it entirely for a minute or two. Even just a Spell to Remove Pain, as a mere placebo, would be within your power to offer Gyokuro right now.

Instead of making such an offer, however, you choose to stay quiet and give the lady a moment to recover herself.

You've learned enough about vampires over the last few months to understand that pride is at the core of their nature. Where a human experiencing this kind of pain and loss of power would likely jump at an offer of assistance in preventing either, a vampire could so very easily take it as an implication of weakness - and thereby be insulted.

Besides, it's not like the power invested within the Hakuba Shrine was trying to purge Gyokuro from existence. It lacked that sense of divine judgment, rejection, and wrath you felt when you or Ginta called up those Holy Smites in the Memorian compound. Rather, there was a feeling of... not welcome, per se, but more like testing, forbearance, and respect.

You're pretty sure Gyokuro senses that as well, as she bows formally to the central shrine.

Standing straight once more, she glances over her shoulder at Ichirou. "Is your grandfather available?"

"He and father have been preparing themselves since dawn," the young priest replies. "They should be free to speak with you soon."

Gyokuro nods, evidently satisfied.

For yourself, you look at the shrine a little more closely, and after a moment's focus, you can make out two human auras amidst the stronger flows of divinely-enriched spiritual force.

It occurs to you that there's little to be gained by standing around, and that this would be as good a time as any for you to summon Lady Akemi's spirit. The only reasons you can think of for putting that on hold are the off-chance that your magic might interfere with the Hakuba priests' invocation of their patron kami - something you could easily avoid by putting distance between yourself and the shrine - or that you could use the time to take care of something else instead. Talking to Ichirou or Gyokuro, for example.

---

Seeing no reason to waste time, you let Ichirou know of your intentions, and - after he nods and gestures for you to proceed - cross the shrine grounds.

Gyokuro follows along, looking honestly curious.

"I've never seen anyone summon a spirit from Beyond before," she admits.

You don't mind the audience, and just ask her to be sure not to stand too close.

The process of summoning Lady Akemi takes about ten minutes, all told. Normally, it would take at least twice that long, as you'd have to cast a Spell of Creation to conjure up powdered iron for a summoning circle - a process taking ten minutes all on its own - and then cast the Spell of Planar Binding, like you did the other day. Casting the Spell of Dimensional Anchor in between would not go remiss, either.

After all, a dead soul dragged from its rest is a ghost by any other name. Not the sort of thing you want to call up without taking a few precautions.

Fortunately, because you have Lady Akemi's permission to summon her for today's events, as well as the implied permission and even approval of at least one major kami, you can call the woman's soul to you via the Spell of Planar Alliance instead. This wouldn't normally be possible, as Lady Akemi has no affiliation to the Golden Goddesses, nor is her soul in their care - and even if she was, you don't have the material offerings the spell in question typically requires. You're effectively trading in the favor you're doing for Lady Akemi and the goddess Inari, by helping to confront and - hopefully - cure the Nine-tails.

Technically, Inari will owe the Goddesses for your assistance after this.

You can only wonder how that particular debt will be paid.

Gyokuro observes your spellcasting in silence, keeping a respectable distance the entire time.

Lady Akemi's solid-seeming spirit appears before you, shimmering out of thin air.

"Good morning," she greets you, bowing.

"Likewise," you reply. "Are you ready for today, ma'am?"

"I am," she says firmly. "Are we departing now, or later?"

"Later." You reach out with your own senses, considering the feel of the shrine and those present on its grounds. Three youki signatures are present near the gate: one is Asamu; the second is Elder Mitsuki; and the third is unknown to you, but pretty strong. "The priests seem to be finishing up their own preparations, and I believe the Hayashi Clan's contingent has just arrived. I have some additional spells I'd like to cast to make sure everyone is safe, and a final scrying to confirm the location of your foster-mother's current residence. After that, though, we'll be off."

Lady Akemi nods, and turns to Gyokuro. "I do not believe we have met. My name is Akemi."

"Shuzen Gyokuro," the vampiress replies.

As the two women size each other up, you wonder if you should say something, or leave them to their own devices and get on with your own business. You DO have a fair amount of spellcasting that needs doing - in particular, if you intend to call up any further allies to confront the Nine-tails, this will likely be your only opportunity to do so.

---

You keep quiet and wait to see what transpires between the vampire and the ghost.

"Excuse my pointing out the obvious," Lady Akemi says with excessive politeness, "but you do not appear to be human or kitsune."

"That would be because I am a vampire," Gyokuro replies, in much the same tone of voice, and with a slight uptick in the intensity of her youki.

"I see," Lady Akemi says, folding her hands together in her sleeves.

And is it just your imagination, or is the air around the ancient Japanese woman starting to darken as well?

"And may I inquire what your interest in this affair is?" she continues.

"You may," Gyokuro allows graciously. "And my interest is twofold: I mean to ensure that my family's associates and allies stay alive after they've met your foster-mother; and I intend to deprive a certain Dark Lord of the power of a mad nine-tailed fox before his upcoming revival."

The shadow that was building around Lady Akemi fades.

"...oh dear," she sighs. "Lady Tamamo DID say there was an urgent reason for me to speak with Mother."

"Let me guess," Gyokuro asks. "She didn't mention the Dark Lord."

"Not as such, no."

"Scatterbrained, trying to be kind, or just messing with you?"

"With Lady Tamamo, one is never quite certain."

"I have met the type."

Both women sigh.

Seeing as how they've stopped glowing and being formally passive-agressive towards each other, you figure this would be a good time to speak up.

"Shall we go join the new arrivals, then?" you suggest.

"That's not a bad idea," Gyokuro admits. "I want to see who Hanabi's family thinks they have that can face down a nine-tails without breaking."

"It is an elder male," Lady Akemi notes, with a glance towards the front of the shrine. "Seven tails, perhaps eight."

Gyokuro had half-turned to go, but stops and looks back at the Japanese ghost. "You can tell that much from here?" she asks in a considering tone.

"I have extensive experience with kitsune," the woman answers simply.

Gyokuro hums briefly, before heading off. Lady Akemi trails behind her; it LOOKS as though the elaborately-dressed noblewoman is walking, but the smoothness and silence of her pace suggest instead that she's floating, like any other spirit.

You bring up the rear, taking the chance to speak with Briar.

"What do you think about the idea of summoning a few more fairies, to act as healers in case of emergency?"

"I think you could spend all day summoning fairies, before you found one that was willing to help AND capable of keeping the idea in her head long enough to be useful," Briar replies. "And even then, she'd probably take off at the first sign of danger - or of something shiny."

You consider that response. "Link carried them around in Hylian glass bottles for more than one reason, huh?"

"Oh, yeah."

As you return to the main part of the shrine, you take in the latest arrivals.

Asamu looks the same as always, like a youthful middle-class father in better-than-average condition. You're pretty sure this is further evidence that he's NOT going to be joining the hunt, and is probably just along because a) he's the one you originally called, b) his elders have been using him as a driver, and c) Emiko probably wants to hear what you're up to.

Similarly, Elder Mitsuki has reverted to the composed, traditionally-dressed, agelessly lovely woman she was yesterday, before you unintentionally summoned Tamamo-no-Mae. Although she DOES twitch at the sight of Lady Akemi, it's followed by an immediate sigh of relief - clearly at the absence of the energetic legend.

Accompanying the two members of the Hayashi Clan is a much visibly-older specimen, who is... probably male. Unlike the other two, this kitsune is making no attempt to conceal his nature; not only are his ragged-looking ears and eight well-groomed tails plainly visible, he also has the whiskered head, unclothed hindquarters, and silver-streaked fur of a fox. He wears a rich brown haori covered with elaborate imagery of foxes playing with fire, numerous beaded necklaces, bracelets, and bangles, and a Yomiuri Giants baseball cap. One clawed, furry hand holds a monk's ringed staff, on which the kitsune leans with the air of long habit.

He also has a pair of glasses - which MUST have been custom work - through which he peers at you and your companions.

"Goodness me," the old fox says in the too-loud voice of someone going deaf, "what's a child doing here?"

---

You meet the old fox's gaze, and answer earnestly.

"I'm helping my elders, naturally. Although..."

And here, you reach into your dimensional pocket and make as if rooting around for something, using the whole action as misdirection while you cast a minor Spell of Illusion - just a cantrip, really.

Gained Sleight of Hand E (Plus)

When you pull your hand back out of your pocket a moment later, you appear to be holding a broad sash of green cloth with several dozen badges sewn on it, and one prominent empty patch.

"I have to say," you continue, "I wasn't expecting to get my Assisting the Elderly Badge out of this."

The eight-tailed kitsune leans forward noticeably, squinting at you and your "sash" behind his glasses.

You smile back.

Then the old gray fox grins - without showing any teeth in the process - turns to Elder Mitsuki, and nods in your direction. In a perfectly normal tone of voice, he says, "I like him. He's silly."

Gained Comedy E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

...

Did he just quote Bugs Bunny?

"I'm glad to hear that, Uncle," Mitsuki sighs.

Seeing as how he's wearing a Giants cap, you're tempted to ask "Uncle" Hayashi how his baseball team is doing, but any further conversation is forestalled by the sound of the shrine door sliding open. All eyes turn to find Koujiro and Ginta emerging from the main building, an air of serenity and lingering divine power hanging about the two of them. They're both wearing fancier versions of the robes you've grown accustomed to seeing them in, as well as these little hats.

Each man is carrying implements of their faith. Koujiro has the ritual sword they used in your exorcism, but also bears a wooden rod, from whose head hang many zig-zagging paper streamers. Behind him, Ginta carries an aged bow in one arm, while the other holds that sanctified arrow you repaired and empowered, after the exorcism of the Fae phantom.

Like the priests who bear them, these items also give off a sense of holiness and purpose.

"Lady Shuzen," Koujiro says, as he bows in greeting. "Elders of the Hayashi Clan. Honored Lady. Allies. Guests. Good morning, and welcome."

Words, demeanor, and attire are all more formal than you've gotten used to experiencing around the old priest in the time you've been visiting, but considering the risk you're all going to be taking today, this IS the right time for that sort of thing. Even moreso, given that Koujiro just got out of communing with his god.

"Are your preparations complete, Priests of Hakuba?" Gyokuro asks, with some of the same formality.

"They are," Ginta answers.

"Then all that remains is Young Master Alexander's contribution." Gyokuro turns to you with an expectant air.

"Would everyone who will be going on the hunt please gather together?" you ask. "It will make the spells I have in mind a little easier to cast if we're not too far apart."

"And what spells would these be?" the old kitsune asks.

You mentally review the list of spells, and then start describing them to your companions, just to make certain that everyone is on the same page about the magic you're about to work, and what it will - and won't - do.

You and Briar are the only ones in this group that actually need the Spell of Cultural Adaptation, so you leave that off the list.

The Spell to Detect Scrying will be useful, but seeing as how it covers a fairly large area by default, and that the subject needs to be a trained magic-user to utilize the full function of the spell, you can probably just cast that one on yourself. Or maybe one of the Hakubas?

The Spell of Protection From Chaos, and the Spell to Suppress Charms and Compulsions, on the other hand, you'll definitely be spreading out for general use. Likewise with the Spell of Nondetection, and - once you've got all your other spells cast - the Greater Spell of Magic Aura, to hide all the magic you'll have layered over your allies, as well as whatever they've brought with them.

Aside from those, there's the Spell of Scrying left to cast. Or rather, since you have neither the requisite mirror, nor the time to perform the ritual, the Greater version of the spell. Under the circumstances, spending a little additional mana is no hardship at all, especially when it lets you compress the usual hour-long rite down to just a few seconds.

That said, you're pretty sure that the scrying spell alone won't be enough to confirm the location of the Nine-tails' current lair. Her kind are LEGENDARY for their mastery over illusions, after all, and Illusion is pretty much the antithesis of Divination. There's one Spell of Illusion which exists specifically to thwart scrying spells - the Spell of False Vision, which is just a little outside your own ability to cast, but would be well within the reach of a nine-tailed fox.

Weighing against that, however, is that line in your little prophecy which said, "The boar may find the door." That implies that you have a shot at tracking down the Nine-tails and her abductee. The question is, how to do it?

You could just cast your spell and see what happens, of course. As a data point, if nothing else.

Alternately, you could try to call on your totem animal, and intermix its power with your spell. You've never really attempted something like that before, though, so you're not sure what the results would be like.

You might also try calling on your Power, and seeing how it interacts with the Spell of Scrying. That particular magic DOES allow for certain sensory spells to function through the sensor it creates, and your Power IS partly magical, so it COULD work.

Potentially.

In theory.

Or the spell might just burn out.

Perhaps you should teleport to Misaki Town first, and do your divining there? There's a chance the Nine-tails has laid wards over her territory to alert her to incoming magical travellers, but if you aim AWAY from the part of town where the Hayashi Clan believes her to be, use a low-intensity, ritualized Spell of Teleportation, and do your best to suppress its mana signature, you should be able to get into town without alerting your quarry. And being closer to your target would let you use other Spells of Divination, which have a shorter effective range than the Spell of Scrying, but can be more potent in their way.

---

You're about to lay out the full roster of spells for the consideration of your allies, when it occurs to you that you're going to be throwing around a LOT of mana in the next few minutes - and you're standing out in the open in the middle of the Hakuba Shrine grounds.

Koujiro has asked you to avoid using too much power out in the open before, so perhaps you'd better do something to hide the energy you're about to call up?

With that in mind, you figure you ought to cast the Ritual of the Private Sanctum, which can ward the area where your allies have gathered against most forms of detection. As a bonus, you'll be able to cast the Greater Spell of Scrying within the Sanctum, without fear of having the magic back-tracked by the Nine-tails; at most, all she'll see is a fuzzy grey area.

Before you get started with that, you describe the roster of spells you have in mind, so that your allies can go over them and make any final suggestions. You keep one ear open as you begin your ritual, but for the most part, you're relying on Briar to stand in for you.

Luckily, she knows your magic as well as you do.

Official or not, fairy partners are handy that way.

After questioning Briar about the extent of the benefits, your offer to cast a Spell of Augmentation that would increase all physical and mental abilities is politely turned down by Gyokuro, Mitsuki, and Uncle, on the grounds that the effects of the magic don't compare to the sort of strength, speed, and enhanced awareness their youki grants them by nature - especially in Gyokuro's case. Lady Akemi also turns it down, as she has no fighting skills to speak of, and the magic would simply be wasted on her.

The two Hakuba priests accept the offer without hesitation, though.

As far as your suggested defensive magic goes, even Gyokuro doesn't object to the idea of weightless, invisible, full-body magical armor and a free-floating shield. Recalling what happened to her at Kahlua's party, you suspect that vampire pride has taken a back-seat to not getting her clothes trashed again.

You were careful not to look too closely at anybody when mentioning the Spell of Age Resistance, but after some good-natured muttering, everyone other than Gyokuro - who was looking rather smug about the whole business - and Akemi - who's well past worrying about her age - everyone agreed that it would be a sensible addition.

Nobody turns down the Spell of True Seeing. You're a little surprised at this, until Elder Mitsuki admits that not even another nine-tails could be entirely certain of being safe from the illusions of one of their own. Gyokuro's acceptance is a bit grudging, though.

The Spell of Air Walking is turned down, on the grounds that it makes the subject(s) too vulnerable to strong winds - something Elder Mitsuki explains that the Nine-tails is capable of creating with little more than a flick of her tails, if she has a mind to. The lesser version of the spell, Air Stepping, suffers from the same weakness and has reduced traction and speed besides.

Better for everyone to keep their feet on the ground, so you can at least use it for proper leverage.

The Spell of Displacement is also rejected - in fact, all three Hayashis argue strongly against relying on any Illusion Magic in the upcoming encounter. As useful as such things would be against any other opponent, a nine-tailed kitsune is a past master at that field of magic, and all too likely to simply see right through them. There's no point in wasting your energy applying effects that are almost certain to end up failing.

That said, you still intend to cast the Greater Spell of Magic Aura. Partly because you're trying to keep up the habit of looking ordinary, and partly because, even if the spell ends up offering no advantage against the Nine-tails, it'll still be perfectly effective against anyone else that happens to look your way.

Elder Mitsuki and her Uncle strongly advise you to cast every version of the Spell to Resist Energy that you can, because the Nine-tails is entirely capable of using every material elemental against you - either for real, or by means of her powerful Illusion Magic. She can't hit you with the more esoteric forces, fortunately, but that still leaves Air, Earth, Fire, Water, and the like to worry about.

Gyokuro also accepts the offer of a Spell to Resist Water.

The rest of your suggested spells get a general pass, some for all-around practicality - Haste and Greater Magic Weapon, for example - others because they simply make sense against this particular enemy - the Spell of Flaming Aura and the Spell to Suppress Charms and Compulsions, to name two.

It doesn't take your allies more than a few minutes to complete their discussion, but that's fine; it only takes you another minute or so to complete the Ritual of the Private Sanctum, which you've attempted to scale downwards in terms of area of effect, duration, and ritual length.

As the spell takes effect, grey fog boiling up out of nowhere and spreading in all directions with the speed of an explosion, your supernatural senses are slightly numbed, making you wonder if you made a mistake. You're quite good at Abjuration Magic by this point, but it IS the first time you've ever cast that particular spell; you COULD have overlooked something in its formula.

While the extrasensory interference doesn't entirely go away, the spreading mist around you thins out to your normal vision, leaving only a faint haze in the air. Judging by how much of which shrine buildings got swallowed by the murk, the affected area is about fifty feet across. That's a heck of a lot more space than you need to ward, and more than you were aiming for, but it's a pretty significant reduction to the usual scale of this magic.

If nothing else, you've at least managed to avoid giving everybody down on the street the impression that the entire top of the hill just got hit by a huge and strangely-silent smoke bomb. The haze doesn't reach a height of more than ten feet, and that only at the highest point of the low dome that it's settled into.

As for the other effects...

You excuse yourself for a moment and walk away from the rest of the group, until you're just about to pass through the edge of the Sanctum. Then you poke your head through the "cloud"-

!

-and immediately lose all sense of everyone still inside, even as that interference with your Mage Sight and the like clears up.

Success! Kind of!

Drawing back in, you rejoin the others and confirm that your spell is working more or less as intended. As no one else has any further spells to suggest, you settle in and start casting.

First up, the Spell of Augmentation, which you cast on Ginta and Koujiro as requested.

---

Right after physically and mentally Augmenting the two priests, you cast the same spell for a third time, increasing your own abilities - and Briar's, by extension.

"Alexander?" Koujiro asks, giving you an inquiring glance.

"This is just in case, sir," you explain. "I don't INTEND to stick around once we've found the Nine-tails, but she may decide otherwise. Actually," you add, "given the contents of the Prophecy, it's pretty likely that she WILL decide otherwise. And while I can enhance my abilities pretty well just using ki, adding magic on top of that just gives me more of a safety threshold."

The old priest considers that, and nods.

"Besides, I can share the effects with Briar."

"Who really appreciates them," the fairy notes.

Koujiro chuckles at that, and signals for you to carry on.

You do so.

The Spell of Augmentation is followed by the complete roster you laid out for your associates - forty spells in all, the equivalent of, what, two hundred spell levels? Give or take?

Sweet Din, you KNOW you've never called on THAT much power before, let alone in such a short span of time. Each spell takes you only a few words and gestures to cast, three seconds of effort on average, plus a second or so on either side to apportion the necessary energy from your reserves, or to recover from the expenditure.

And those reserves just keep. Getting. Lower.

You've just finished casting the Communal Spell of Haste - bringing your mana reserve down to twenty percent capacity and change - when you decide to stop, take out one of the two bottles of Smoke Water you bought at Gen's for just such an occasion, and drain the mana potion within to replenish your energy.

You probably could have done this sooner, but this way, if it turns out that your estimate of the potion's restorative properties was low, you won't risk wasting any of the excess.

As it happens, your guess appears to have been spot-on; the Smoke Water - which has a taste befitting its name - is indeed three times as potent as the Spring Dew you'd previously consumed, almost to the drop. You're not sure if you can claim that one as a triumph for your magical skills, or if it's just Gen's keen financial sense showing through.

You also learn what your business partner meant about "rumors of smoke-breathing." While the Smoke Water doesn't literally burn going down - you know what that feels like, thanks to your one-time-only attempt to devour some of Altria's dragon-aspected mana, and this isn't at all the same - it definitely carries a serious charge of magical power, more than enough to disturb your own system.

And that's BEFORE the potion really takes effect, and starts drawing in extra mana from the environment to make up the difference.

You may not breathe smoke after drinking the Smoke Water, but for the next minute or so, there's an unmistakable heated tang of excess mana whenever you exhale.

You try to ignore that as you resume your spellcasting.

Gained Magic Power D (Plus)
Gained Mana Control B (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Lost Smoke Water (x1)
Gained Clay Bottle (Empty)

The entire process takes only five minutes, and that's with the break for drinking the Smoke Water and letting it work its particular magic. All that remains is to cast the Greater Spell of Scrying, see what the results are, and then teleport to the Nine-tails' lair.

As you run the numbers in your head, it occurs to you that if you drank your other Smoke Water and one of the two Spring Dew potions you have in your pocket, you would recuperate EXACTLY enough mana to bring yourself back up to full capacity after casting the Greater Spell of Scrying and the Spell of Teleportation. That WOULD be a good way to venture into the fox's lair...

---

Bracing yourself for the flavor and the non-flammable burning, you uncork the second bottle of Smoke Water, and chug it down.

Glargh.

Lost Smoke Water
Gained Clay Bottle (Empty)

Maybe you should talk to Gen about his recipe? He might sell more of this stuff if it didn't sting so much going down, or leave such a strong aftertaste of mana-enriched breath.

While you're doing that, your associates are studying themselves and the many-layered defensive magics you've woven over and about them. The priests have invoked their kami's guidance through prayers equivalent to your own analytical Spells of Divination, and are going over your spellwork - or at least they're trying to. Your modified Private Sanctum seems to be getting in their way.

Perhaps because of that, the Hayashis are taking a more direct approach in their own investigations. Uncle is holding out one hand and throwing small bursts of various elemental forces at it from his tails, stress-testing the Spells to Resist Energy, while Elder Mitsuki works some Illusions - which come out with an obvious transparency, thanks to your Spell of True Seeing.

As for Mrs. Shuzen, she's looking around at the air, which - for all your control over your power, and the effects of the two mana potions you've imbibed - is still rich with residual mana.

Then she turns to you, eyes wider than you're used to seeing, and a little wild around the edges.

You silently salute the lady with your empty potion bottle, then tuck it away in your dimensional pocket and clear your throat - both to shake some of the Smoke Water's residual tang, and to draw the attention of the rest of the group.

"I'm going to cast a Spell of Scrying, now," you announce. "I'm not casting aspersions on the Hayashi Clan's information, I'd just prefer to have confirmation of where the Nine-tails has made her lair."

Elder Mitsuki nods. "Verification is always nice."

"And it'll help me lock in the teleportation, besides," you add. "Lady Akemi, would you mind assisting me with this part?"

The lady's spirit blinks in surprise, and she points at herself. "I?"

"Yes. As the Nine-tails' daughter, you have a connection to her that my magic can track." It'd be a stronger link if she were the kitsune's natural-born child, but even without that, Lady Akemi was the fox's daughter for all but her early childhood. That's no small thing.

The ancient noblewoman nods, and comes to stand next to you while you begin working your new spell.

As you gather your mana and shape the formula of the Greater Spell of Scrying - shaving off most of the massively-excessive duration to conserve energy - you reach into your soul and try to catch the attention of the Boar, on the off-chance that the prophecy statement "the Boar may find the door" was more literal than metaphorical.

You cast the spell, and immediately, a large globe appears in the air above you, reflecting the image of a residential property that has more in common with Cordelia's family home than yours. Low stone walls in that particular style you've seen around Tokyo surround a yard that your American sensibilities would describe as decently-large, but which you know must be huge by Japanese standards. The house itself is a thoroughly modern affair, two stories and about a dozen rooms, with an attached garage - the sort of place a classic nuclear family could easily call home.

When perceived through your senses, channeled by the magical sensor of your spell, the place glows with a veritable kaleidoscope of energies. Magic, youki, spiritual power - the property is warded by and against them all.

Within your mindscape, the Boar snorts, once.

Gained Mage Sight B (Plus) (Plus)

The scrying globe is perfectly visible to your allies, and so it is that you hear Elder Mitsuki give a faint whine.

"Is there a problem?" Gyokuro inquires mildly, with a glance in her direction.

"That's... not the house we found," the female fox admits, ears and tails drooping.

"Oh?"

"It's not even ONE of the houses that we found," Uncle chimes in cheerfully. "We back-tracked the Nine-tails through six different residences in four separate towns, owned and abandoned over the course of the last fifty years. We were SURE that the one we found in Misaki was the latest, but this place wasn't even on the list!"

He sounds entirely too entertained for someone who had the wool pulled over his eyes.

Then again, kitsune.

Regardless of the old fox's reaction, you're puzzled, and a bit concerned. The sensor for your spell should have appeared close to its designated target - and by "close," you mean "within the same room" - not just outside the property line of her current residence. Most anti-scrying spells you know would not shunt the sensor aside like this; they'd either obscure its vision, show a false image, or prevent it from forming in the first place.

True, it's entirely possible and even likely that the Nine-tails knows a form of warding you aren't familiar with, but what's the benefit in just pushing the sensor aside?

As you're pondering this question, and wondering if the fox is truly to blame for the seemingly-malfunctioning magic, you "hear" the Boar grunting.

It sounds impatient.

---

You'd received a prophecy that could be interpreted to mean that the Raging Boar could help you to find the Nine-tails and her most recent victim, and you'd previously asked your totem animal if it objected to helping you. For the record, it didn't.

With that in mind, if the Boar is making noises like it wants to do something now, why would you ignore it?

While keeping a portion of your attention on your active Spell of Scrying, you focus the majority of your awareness on your totem spirit, channeling spiritual energy to it in an unspoken signal.

The Boar grunts.

And then your magical sensor starts moving.

It's... not supposed to do that. Not unless its target moves first, which you don't think is the case here.

Whether it is or not, the view in the globe hovering above you shifts to the left, then to the right, and then down to the sidewalk, where it circles around for a moment.

You can hear the Boar snorting and snuffling in the back of your mind the entire time, and you can only hope that the noise is restricted to the inside of your own head.

"...young man," Elder Mitsuki cuts in, giving you the ODDEST look, "why is your tracking spell behaving like it's trying to catch a scent?"

As you're talking to the kitsune matron, the scenery in the scrying globe continues to move, ranging over the stretch of sidewalk and road in front of the warded house, then onto and through one of the adjacent properties, down the length of the boundary, around the back of the Nine-tails' lair - or possible latest in a line of decoy houses - and finally back up along the other side.

Your porcine stereo accompaniment continues the entire time.

Having "walked" the perimeter, the Boar pauses, radiating suspicion.

Then the sensor feed seems to turn around, ignoring the house entirely as it crosses the street and heads down the road at a pace you'd consider an easy jog, but which something as big as the Boar probably considers a walk.

Two minutes of constant sniffing later, the Boar-guided sensor stops outside another house. This one isn't too much different from the first, except that as far as you can see or sense through your spell, there are no wards on the building or the surrounding grounds.

Yet the Boar's attention is fixed on this new property, and its eager intent is unmistakable.

"Another house?" Ginta mutters.

"A decoy!" Uncle Hayashi crows. "Oh, that clever old vixen!"

Yeah, he's DEFINITELY enjoying this too much.

Before you can respond, the front door of the house opens.

The woman who looks out seems like a perfectly normal Japanese housewife, except that she has reddish-brown hair and is entirely too pretty to fit any definition of "normal." You don't see anything as obvious as fox-ears and tails, a fashion sense several centuries old, or a youki signature, but there is no doubt in your mind that you're looking at a magically-talented non-human in disguise.

The way she's staring straight at your sensor, eyes wide with something that's neither fear nor fury, but has elements of both, kind of gives it away.

The tooth-baring snarl doesn't help her case. At the very least, you've never met anybody who has canine teeth QUITE that large and sharp, while being entirely human.

The final nail in the coffin, so to speak, is the way your Spell of Scrying LURCHES when the woman comes into view. The spell itself is fine, what you felt was just the sympathetic link between Lady Akemi and her foster-mother snapping into place.

...speaking of the ancient noblewoman, she's staring at the image in the globe, eyes wide above the sleeves she's raised to cover her mouth.

Around the layers of heavy fabric, you hear a faint, "Haha-ue...?"

Gained Japanese C (Plus)

The Boar rumbles in triumph.

---

"I asked my totem animal if he was willing to help find the girl," you explain briefly. "He agreed, and I tried to tie the scrying spell to him."

"Oh, spirits and ancestors," Koujiro groans, facepalming with his free hand.

Ah, he remembers the Boar.

Elder Mitsuki looks from you to the priest, then to the scrying globe, and then back to you. "What sort of animal is it, if you don't mind my asking?"

"I call him the Raging Boar," you reply.

"Heeee's a big pig?" Uncle guesses, in a burst of English with a suspiciously-familiar cadence.

In the depths of your soul, there is a porcine grunt.

"Not now, Uncle," Mitsuki says.

"Everyone!" you say immediately. "Please form a circle and either join hands or hold on to the next person's shoulder! Lady Akemi," you add, "would you object to facing outwards, so that your mother can see you first when we arrive?"

"Not at all!"

The adults waste no time on protests or questions, instead doing as instructed with all speed. You end up with Ginta to your right, having passed the sacred arrow to his other hand so he can grasp your shoulder, and his far arm locked at the elbow with his father's. Lady Akemi has her left hand on Koujiro's right shoulder, and her right hand on Gyokuro's left shoulder. The vampire - who is also standing with her back to you, evidently not wanting to give a nine-tailed fox a clear shot at her back - has joined hands with Elder Mitsuki, who is holding her Uncle's hand, who completes the circle to you.

With both of your shoulders occupied - priest and old fox alike having recognized that you'll need your hands free - Briar has taken a spot on top of your head.

While the rest of the group are repositioning themselves, you're gathering mana, shaping your next spell, and watching the scrying globe overhead. Rather than fleeing into the house, the Nine-tails has used these few seconds to start casting a spell of her own. You're not able to detect its signature through your scrying sensor, something that sets warning bells to ringing in your mind, but you do pick up a mana-based disturbance which tells you the magic has been cast.

And by the shocked surprise on the fox's assumed features, it didn't return a result she was expecting.

Your best guess is that she just tried to back-track the source of the magical sensor hovering just off her property, and ran into your Private Sanctum.

Before she can do anything else, you finish your Spell of Teleportation, aiming for...the sidewalk just outside the property.

The grey-tinted grounds of the Hakuba Shrine vanish, and are replaced-

-F-

-almost instantly, by a quiet residential neighborhood, one that is slightly more upscale and distinctly more spacious than the ones you've visited while walking, driving, and teleporting about greater metropolitan Tokyo. The sun is still low in the morning sky, birds are singing, and a car is driving around somewhere out of sight.

Gyokuro staggers on the landing, badly enough that she actually needs Elder Mitsuki's help to stay completely upright.

You think of your previous experience with the vampire woman's senses, the oddities of your teleportation, and wonder what, if anything, she saw in that biref instant of dimensional translocation.

One more reason to be glad you aimed for the sidewalk, then, but not the MAIN reason you did so. THAT was because you were concerned that the Nine-tails could have laid wards on this place as well, ones that were better-hidden than the defenses she set up on the "decoy" house - the place that was MEANT to be found.

The wall that surrounds the Nine-tails' actual lair is tall enough - or you and your compatriots short enough - that none of you can see into the yard over the top. Fortunately, you aimed for the area in front of the gate, which is one of those fancy metal jobs rather than a solid wooden door or something.

The result is that Lady Akemi has a pretty clear view of her foster-mother, who can, in turn, see the soul of her onetime adopted daughter just fine past the bars.

"Honored Mother," you hear the lady's spirit breathe softly.

"That face," you hear the Nine-tails say, in a tone that makes it obvious she's speaking more to herself than any of you. "I know that face..."

"And I know your face," Akemi says, stepping towards the gate. "I remember seeing it almost every day of my life."

"I know that voice..."

"And I know yours," the spirit repeats. "I remember hearing it - laughing, scolding, singing me to sleep at night..."

While the ladies are talking, you slip one hand into your dimensional pocket and grasp the Mirror of Shadows - but you don't pull it out JUST yet, worried that its powerful aura could set off the Nine-tails, or interfere with the other thing you mean to do while you've got a chance.

On that note, you cast about with your passive senses, trying to locate a human or mostly-human presence other than yourself and the two priests.

You pick up plenty of faded traces on the sidewalk, men and women and children, perfectly ordinary life-forces that have seeped into the concrete by dint of sheer number, and year upon year of habitation and regular routine. There's nothing unusual that your default abilities can detect.

While you're doing this, the other adults have spread out a bit from your landing zone. Gyokuro has recovered from her sensory-induced stumble, and stands slightly behind and to one side of Lady Akemi, an image of relaxed ease belying the fact that she could be over or THROUGH the wall in front of her in an instant. The Hakuba priests are moving towards the open driveway to your right at a relaxed pace, while Elder Mitsuki and Uncle have shuffled silently off to the left, getting themselves out of the line of sight through the gate.

You wonder which group of adults you should stay close to.

On the one hand, if you go with the Hakubas, the driveway would provide an excellent view of the front of the house, and the Nine-tails along with it - just about ideal for catching her reflection in the Mirror. Plus, you'd be able to cover for the two men, who are, in the final analysis, the most physically vulnerable members of the group. Of course, those advantages are also the drawbacks: if you could have a clear line of sight to the Nine-tails, she'll be able to see YOU as well; and if she decided to attack, you'd probably have to cover the priests as well as yourself.

On the other hand, if you went with the Hayashis, you'd definitely be safer. You'd also be out of position to use the Mirror, unless you leapt onto or over the wall - and you still aren't sure whether or not it's warded, so that might not be an option. Maybe if you got up on the wall for the house next door? But then you'd be exposed...

Your third option is just to stay put, behind Lady Akemi and Gyokuro. You're pretty well hidden behind the two ladies at the moment, and the gate has enough distance between its bars for you to pull out and use the Mirror, assuming you can get one or both of the women to move aside.

"Do you remember those songs, Honored Mother?" Lady Akemi continues. "Do you remember my favorite?"

There is a pause. Then, Akemi starts to sing. She has a good voice, if not a spectacular one, and you find yourself stopping to listen:

Teru-teru bozu, teru bozu
Ashita tenki ni shite o-kure,
Itsuka no yume no sora no yo ni.
Haretara kin no suzu ageyo.

Listening to the lyrics, the song seems to be a rough equivalent of, "Rain, Rain, Go Away," and talks about offering a golden bell to someone or something that brings a sunny day.

As Akemi finishes the first verse, the Nine-tails begins to sing the next part. Her voice is better than her foster-daughter's, or it would be, if she didn't sound so sad:

Teru-teru bozu, teru bozu
Ashita tenki ni shite o-kure.
Watashi no negai wo kiita nara
Amai o-sake wo tanto nomasho.

Basically more of the same, only this time, instead of a bell, the song offers to share sweet sake with whoever brings the sun.

Both women sing the third verse together:

Teru-teru bozu, teru bozu
Ashita tenki ni shite o-kure.
Sore de mo kumotte naitetara
Sonata no kubi wo chon to kiru zo.

...

...and now the song is threatening to snip someone's head off if it rains.

And this was Akemi's FAVORITE song as a little girl?

Yikes.

"Akemi?"

Something SHIFTS in the Nine-tails' voice. It's like the difference between someone who's half-asleep, and then suddenly awake. You've overheard your parents in such a state a few times.

"My little Akemi?" the Nine-tails says.

"Yes, Honored Mother. It's me."

"But... you died."

...

Ow.

That... that tone of voice just now.

That was pain. That was a LOT of pain.

Lady Akemi has definitely and thoroughly distracted the Nine-tails.

---

A part of you feels really awkward about what you intend to do next, even a little ashamed. Lady Akemi and her foster-mother are having a very personal and painful moment, and you're about to stomp on that.

With cleats.

Any and all awkwardness is overridden, however, by the recognition that this, right here and right now, is precisely WHY you brought Lady Akemi along in the first place. At this moment, the Nine-tails is likely at the most vulnerable she's been for a very, very long time - distracted, confused, emotionally-wrought, and - so far as you can tell - with none of the many and varied supernatural defenses that are within her means to utilize currently active.

You're never going to get a better opportunity to launch what amounts to a surprise attack on her, to say nothing of the odds of having it succeed.

Stepping away from and a little head of the Hakubas, who you've accompanied over to the corner where the property-wall comes up against the driveway, you move into the open, turning to face the Nine-tails as you do so.

This is the first clear view you've gotten of your target since arriving, and her human guise blurs under your Spell of True Seeing, revealing the foxy ears, whisker-like facial markings, and full, fluffy, white-tipped red tails that distinguish both her kind and her exalted status. They're drooping low, incidentally, a clear sign of distress. Her facial features are a bit sharper, more obviously vulpine, but the resemblance to her assumed form is clear.

She's still dressed like a housewife, incidentally, which makes for a rather odd image.

At the same time, you can also see the image of a larger-than-life red fox, bigger than most horses you've seen images of or can recall encountering in other lifetimes, superimposed over the hybrid humanoid form.

Fox and fox-woman alike turn their heads in your direction as you step into the open - but the motion is slow and almost looks forced, as if the Nine-tails has to fight herself to take her eyes off of Lady Akemi.

This gives you plenty of time to take out the Mirror of Shadows, whose powerful aura becomes apparent to you the instant it slips from your dimensional pocket.

Given the way the Nine-tails' head SNAPS in your direction and her eyes start to widen, it's pretty clear she can sense the power in the artifact as well.

"Shadow," you declare, holding the dark glass before you with both hands, "show."

As with Ichirou the previous day, a wave of crawling shadow-stuff erupts from the Mirror's face and races towards the Nine-tails. To her credit, even when taken entirely off her guard, the ancient kitsune recovers FAST; her youki surges from nonexistent to a crushing wave of hot, shrieking fury in a split-second, tails spiking straight and fanning outwards behind her as their tips begin to blaze with elemental power.

Quick as she is, the Nine-tails doesn't manage to get off a response before the shadows seize her.

Which isn't to say that she doesn't get an attack off at all.

The next few seconds are VERY confused, as you channel ki and the force of your roster of enhancement magics to dodge a blistering bombardment of small, high-intensity elemental projectiles - fire, lightning, colorless blurry patches that could be bolts of pure heat, compressed air, or perhaps missiles of force - while keeping the Mirror of Shadow aimed at the Nine-tails.

Things behind you are EXPLODING, Gyokuro has just come THROUGH the gate, the two Hayashis are doing something involving youki, spiritual energy, and Illusion Magic that feels like it's going to cover the entire property, and you can only hope that the Hakubas didn't get caught in the line of fire.

Then, from ahead of you, there comes a SCREAM - something you don't hear with your ears, so much as you feel it in your bones, and the sudden ache in your head.

The latter sensation is thankfully brief, being quickly drowned out by the thunder of the Boar's anger.

Although her wide, fanged mouth and stark, staring expression could easily be the source, the scream is not actually coming from the Nine-tails - at least, not directly. Rather, it's coming from the mass of writhing shadow-stuff that's half-appearing beside and half-emerging from her head and heart, like some pulsing, weeping sore full of oily black filth.

Even half-manifested, the stuff roils and writhes like a thing alive and in pain, and it bristles with growths that are needle-fine fur one moment, snapping jaws or hooked claws the next, and then staring, bloody eyes after that.

Your stomach turns at the sight, and it belatedly occurs to you that, for all your protective spells, you didn't include a nausea suppressant.

---

The sight before you is indeed disgusting, but you clamp your jaw firmly shut, set your stance, and focus on just two things: keeping the Mirror of Shadows on-target until its magic has completed its task; and keeping your lunch where it is.

If you lean on your buff spells in the process, nobody but your present allies is going to know - and you don't think THEY'RE going to complain.

Gained Iron Stomach E

An exclamation of profound disgust from behind you supports that idea, and also reassures you that Ginta, at least, is still intact and conscious - although considering what you're both awake to see right now, he might be wishing otherwise.

Fortunately for both your stomachs, the manifestation of the Nine-tails' madness is rapidly coalescing into a less gut-wrenching form.

At first glance, it could be taken for a normal Dark Self - an off-color "twin" of the kitsune's humanoid form, with hair and fur turned black where hers is red, and a charcoal blouse and black pants rather than the green top and blue bottoms she has.

But when you look closer, there are obvious differences. The newcomer's hair is unwashed and uneven, her clothes are threadbare and spattered with stains of unpleasant hues, and her fingernails seem bitten to the quick. Easily the worst are her eyes, which are still the madly-bulging red orbs you glimpsed in the Shadow-essence's transitory phase.

And this is BEFORE you take the Spell of True Seeing into account.

Viewed through that magic, the avatar of insanity also takes on that double-image quality, giant fox superimposed over half-human guise. Matted fur, slavering jaws, a once-sleekly muscled built turned wasted and gaunt... and around both, that aura of seething, unrestrained lunacy.

As the madness finishes forming, the Nine-tails freezes in place, and then slowly topples sideways.

Lady Akemi lets out a wordless cry, and enters through the ruin of the outer gate, heading straight for her fallen mother.

Gyokuro, meanwhile, ignores the collapsing fox in favor of launching a charging attack on the new arrival, youki surging around and through her entire body - but especially about her hands, held ready at her sides.

As fast and powerful and focused as the vampire is, however, the Nine-tails' doppelganger is just as quick and strong. Having come into existence facing you, she shifts her hips and curls up her tails as they're swung about into Gyokuro's path - and then, with a pulse of her own strength, she unfurls the appendages all at once, youki blazing with the essence of half a dozen different elements as makeshift spears thrust into the path of Gyokuro's charge.

Gyokuro's sandaled feet tear a hole in the soft lawn as she kicks off to the left, simultaneously avoiding impaling herself on the pseudo-kitsune's tails, and trying to get around the barrier they present.

For her part, the Dark Self - Mad Self, maybe? - pays Gyokuro only a modicum of attention.

Her original, she ignores completely.

Her eyes, those burning mad eyes, have been fixed on you since she came into being, and now they narrow into a hideous, hateful glare.

"DeCEiveR!" the entity hisses. "LiAR!"

Its aura surges.

You- Run away RIGHT NOW, and leave the rest to the adults.

You told the adults that your part in the plan was to provide magical preparation and transportation, to make use of the Mirror of Shadows, and then to get yourself out of harm's way while they took care of business. You DID add a qualifier about taking Mai with you if you saw her, but you don't.

Everything else you said you'd do, you've done, save for leaving. And the longer you hang around in the company of a ticked-off bundle of shrieking madness, the less likely you'll be of upholding that promise.

Time to go.

And it's not like leaving the field will put you entirely out of this fight. You still have your magic, and between scrying and teleportation, you've got plenty of options for supporting your allies from beyond visual range.

As the Madness's aura surges, you raise your own, pouring ki into the shape of a Body Flicker, and then adding more energy on top of it. You immediately start radiating pale white energy, but that's fine by you - now is not the time to be worried about technical perfection in the application of your skills, only combat-effectiveness.

Besides, she started it.

Gained Ki Overload D (Plus) (Plus)

Looking like a bit like it's set itself on fire, the youki-wreathed avatar of madness surges towards you, screaming a single word: "DIE!"

You immediately trigger your technique, racing up the driveway, past the corner of the house, and down the stretch of lawn that lies between the building and the stone wall, heading for the backyard. You choose this direction because it's pretty much a given that the Nine-tails' Mad Self is going to chase you, and leading an insane nine-tailed fox into a residential neighborhood strikes you as a recipe for pure tragedy.

Then too, whatever barrier or other effect the Hayashis are whipping up seems to be limited to this property, and a short radius outside of it; it's clearly meant to help your party in your fight with the Madness in some manner - because otherwise, why bother creating it? - so keeping her HERE would be a good idea.

You also don't want to lead the raging avatar towards any of your other allies. The Hakubas are unlikely to be able to take it, and to get to any of the others, you'd have to get past the Mad Self anyway, who is all teeth and claws and dangerously-capable tails. You'd simply prefer not to chance it.

As you slip into the Body Flicker, you get a brief but clear view of the expression on the Madness's face, which shifts from snarling fury to a mirror of the Nine-tails' own earlier surprise as you shoot out of its path.

Seems like it wasn't expecting you to be this fast.

You ALSO see Gyokuro coming at the kitsune's crazed Shadow, and not far from her, Lady Akemi - who almost appears caught in a frozen instant, due to her lack of super-speed - about halfway across the front lawn to where her foster-mother is sprawled out, seemingly unconscious. Elder Mitsuki is just coming through the wreck of the front gate, though you can't tell where she intends to go. The Hakubas are just a flicker of moving red and white, caught out of the corner of your left eye, and Uncle Hayashi is still out of sight on the front sidewalk, behind the wall, working on that barrier - and it IS definitely a barrier, the elements of Abjuration Magic are too pronounced for it to be anything else. It incorporates a lot of Illusion, too, though...

Then the bulk of the house is between you and the yard, and you can see no more.

Your ears, on the other hand, pick up another explosion, more muted than the short shower of destruction that tore up the driveway. That's followed by a softer impact and an enraged snarl.

Judging by the shifts in the most intense youki auras and the sudden shockwaves as the two of them clash, Gyokuro caught up with her target before it could follow you.

That's a relief.

You zip around into the backyard of the Nine-tails' residence, which you note in passing has room enough for a fair-sized porch, a single large cherry tree next to a modestly-sized pond, and a row of bushes near the back wall. You don't see any indications of a child's presence - no toys left out on the grass or the porch, no treehouse - but that's okay, because you can see the girl herself through the kitchen window.

Mai is about your age, although being a Japanese girl, she's quite a bit smaller than you. Despite that, the kitchen window is tall enough that you can see she's wearing a dark blue blouse and matching ankle-length skirt - not a full-blown school uniform, but close enough to give that impression. Although she's on course for the back door, Mai's head is turned towards the front of the house, her expression visibly worried. Her arms are occupied by a bag that doesn't look at ALL like a backpack.

Your attention is mostly on the girl's hair. Miss Suzuka described Mai as brown-eyed and brown-haired, unless the light hit her head correctly, in which case she could look red-headed.

Either your Body Flicker warps light the best way possible to produce that particular effect, or something a lot more serious is going on, because the girl in the window has hair as red as the Nine-tails' own.

Then your Body Flicker cuts out - and in the next instant, the still red-haired girl snaps about to face you, alarmed.

You don't see or sense anything else out of the ordinary about her... but then, you realize that you don't sense anything at ALL, at least not from inside the house. The youki auras raging in the front yard are clear, even with the mass of the building in the way, and you can sense Uncle Hayashi's power as the barrier centered on the house stabilizes.

But as far as your supernatural senses are concerned, Mai might as well not exist.

More wards, you immediately suspect, and subtle enough that you couldn't notice them until you ran headfirst into their effects. Even now, you can't seem to detect them.

---

You feel the urge to raise your right hand and send a wave of greeting and acknowledgment Mai's way, while saying, "Yo," all cool, calm, and casual-like.

Then your social instincts kick in and give that random impulse the metaphorical dope-slap it deserves.

You're a complete stranger to Mai, and a foreigner besides.

That's strike one.

You're bigger than she is, and yet - judging by her abrupt, startled reaction when you dropped out of the Body Flicker - have managed to appear as if from out of nowhere, BEHIND her. Even with a wall between you, that's a scary thing to experience.

Strike two.

You're standing outside a place she either considers her house, or the house of her kidnapper.

...under the circumstances, you'll call that one a foul.

Some high-level monsters are tearing up front lawn, and while Mai not be fully aware of the specifics, the fact that she was headed for the back door with a carryall in her arms makes it very, VERY likely that she knows SOMETHING bad is going on out there - and now, here you are.

DEFINITELY strike three.

No matter whether Mai was a normal little girl, possessed by a kitsune, or transformed into a hanyou, the situation is such that a simple "yo" is NOT going to cut it.

ESPECIALLY not when your SECOND strong impulse is to fire up your Power Sight and go all glowy-eyed, so you can analyze the wards the Nine-tails put on this place.

"Hello," you say hurriedly, and hopefully loudly enough to be heard through the window. "I know you don't know me, but it's REALLY dangerous for either of us to stay here right now, so can I convince you to come with me to a safe place, until things calm down?"

Mai blinks at you, then turns as if to run deeper into the house.

On the plus side, she isn't screaming, and she's turned her back to you, so she won't see your eyes when you do... THIS.

Power surges through you, and for a moment, your vision is overlaid by golden light. Through your Power Sight, you take a second, deeper look at the Nine-tails' house.

...

There's good news, and there's bad news.

The bad news is, the house is COVERED with wards. You're not sure if it's one huge, massively complex array, or a series of smaller and simpler ones that have been worked together - your knowledge of magic in general and the abilities of kitsune in particular, who aren't renowned for long-term defensive constructs like this, suggest that the latter is the more likely.

The good news is, most of the arrays aren't active - and the ones that ARE running aren't all that impressive on their own. The ward Ambrose set up around your house channels a lot more energy, and is significantly more complex, what with that trick of his regarding three-dimensional arrays on the inside of the ward-stones. These wards are a lot more conventional in every respect.

Which is more bad news, because while you may not recognize all the subtle details of the Nine-tails' personal warding style, the effects aren't difficult to identify.

You're not worried about the basic household maintenance magics you can detect - stuff like protection from wind, rain, and fire, regulation of the interior temperature, and wards to scare off vermin - although you do make a mental note to look into adding something of the kind to your own house at some point.

The presence of the anti-Divination ward that was blocking your passive senses earns a similar reaction. You'd already figured it was there, this is just confirmation of the fact, as well as further inspiration for future home improvements.

Under different circumstances, the alarm wards would be an honest concern to you. One's clearly set up to go off if someone scries on the house, the grounds, or their occupants, and the other is a clear derivation of the standard intruder alarm. Both have already been tripped, however - the first, most likely by you and the Boar; the latter by the ruckus going on out front - and they don't seem to link into any of the other wards, so you don't waste time worrying about them.

The dimensional ward DOES present you with a problem, though. What you can see of it suggests that the Nine-tails set it up so that she could teleport herself and Mai away from here in an emergency, and while that sensible precaution might not be doing either of them much good right now, but the rest of the ward is functional. It'll allow the lady of the house and those she takes with her to pass, but nobody else is getting in or out of the house via extra-dimensional shenanigans.

A shame, that. This would have been a lot quicker if you could just teleport in, grab the girl, and bug out.

You briefly consider going to Maximum Power, wrapping yourself in your supercharged aura, and making like the Kool-Aid Man to get inside, but one look at some of the currently-inactive wards makes you scrub that idea. They're not running right NOW, but there's a fair amount of Illusion and Elemental Magic bound up in them - Fire and Lightning are most prominent, but there are others, including Wind, Thunder, Wood, and Metal - and they're all tied into a third Divination-based alarm ward, which HASN'T gone off yet, and looks like it's focused on the state of the house.

One alarm to tell the kitsune that she's being spied on.

A second to tell her that there's someone on her lawn.

The logical progression would be for the third layer of alarms to involve an intruder doing something to the house, or getting inside. The Nine-tails probably has Illusions set up to scare off delinquints, solicitors, and other undesirables, with the real firepower reserved for active threats that manage to get inside.

You're not worried about the Illusions, thanks to your Spell of True Seeing, and if the elemental bolts start flying, even with the level of force the Nine-tails's Mad Self demonstrated it could throw around, your many-layered defenses mean you'd probably be okay.

Probably.

For a few hits, anyway.

You're less certain about Mai, who - until you have evidence to the contrary - you HAVE to assume doesn't have ANY of your advantages. You don't think the Nine-tails would leave such a glaring hole in her own defenses that they'd endanger the child she thinks of as her own, but... accidents happen. Especially in battle.

Letting your Power Sight lapse, you consider your options.

Teleporting inside is out.

Breaking in is also out.

...

You suppose you MIGHT be able to just WALK inside, assuming the door is unlocked, but there's still a chance the wards will identify you as an uninvited guest.

That would PROBABLY be negated if you could get Mai to invite you in, but if you want her to do that, you're going to have to talk fast. You were only using Power Sight for a couple of seconds, but Mai is clear across the kitchen; you're going to have to shout to be heard as it is, and if she gets any deeper inside, you can forget it coming across as anything but threatening.

Another option is to try and turn off the wards. A Greater Spell to Dispel Magic, turned up as far as you can, might be able to do the job - and then again, it might not.

The last possibility is one you hate to consider, but have to acknowledge: you could just leave.

---

Rather than attempt to enter the heavily-warded residence without an invitation, mess with its defenses, or try your luck reasoning with a spooked, possibly-possessed girl who has no reason to trust or listen to you, you reach for your magic.

"That doesn't look like a Spell of Teleportation, Alex," Briar notes, as a mote of crackling energy appears on the ground and begins expending into a single meter-long line.

"It's not," you answer, as the line thickens and then splits into identical halves, one of which remains flat against the Nine-tails' lawn while the other rises into the air atop extending pillars of snapping power.

Briar has accompanied you through enough uses of this spell to know its range limitations. "If we're not going back to the Shrine, then where ARE we headed?"

"Out front," you answer, before stepping into the lightless void of the Dimension Door, lightning-like energy limning your body as you pass.

A moment of disorientation and one funny, flat tone later, you're back on the sidewalk in front of the property. You'd briefly considered aiming for the location of the Nine-tails - the actual kitsune, not her incarnated insanity - but given that there's a full-tilt monster brawl in progress in the front yard, that seemed like a bad idea.

Not that the stone wall would present much of an obstacle, if the Mad Self decided it wanted to come after you, but at least this way, the Mirror-spawned thing won't have direct line of sight to you.

Hopefully.

As it happens, you step out of the void and back into the real world just out of arm's reach from Uncle Hayashi, who has just leaned forward to wave a very small clay bottle of something smoky under the Nine-tails' nose. The female kitsune in question has been propped up against the outside of the property wall, well back from the ruined gate and the youki-fueled chaos raging beyond it. Lady Akemi is nearby, heedless of any dirt she's getting on her robes as she kneels next to her still-unconscious foster-mother, holding one limp hand and looking quietly worried. You can also see the Hakubas down the way, their own garments scuffed and dirty, but their attention decidedly elsewhere as they pray, brandish their various implements, and channel divine power at the three monstrous females tearing up the grounds.

The male kitsune and the female human spirit are both looking up in surprise as you and Briar appear, the portal remaining in existence behind you, according to your will and the extra parameters you worked into the spell - though you have to admit, you're not sure how long it'll last. Probably as long as you keep your mind bent on that particular task, and not a second more.

You abandon that thought as the Nine-tails snorts, coughs, and awakens, head turning sharply to one side as she recoils from the scent of whatever it is Uncle has in that bottle - which he quickly withdraws, re-seals, and tucks into a hidden pocket.

"Mother?" Akemi asks intently.

"Ake... mi...? I had the most... awful nightmare..."

Perfectly on cue, one of the monsters in the yard snarls furiously.

The already-thick youki in the air surges.

Something else explodes.

Recognition flashes through brown eyes before the Nine-tails closes them firmly, and quietly says, "Not a nightmare, then."

"I'm sorry, Mother," Akemi replies contritely. "But no, it's not."

The Nine-tails sighs, nods, and opens her eyes once more, studying you, Uncle, and Briar.

"Tell me, little one," she says to Akemi, then. "Which of these gentlemen do I have to hurt for disturbing your rest?"

Urk.

"You can't blame them, Mother," Akemi replies firmly. "I was quite disturbed already, worrying about you and the rest of my family."

The Nine-tails flinches.

"Also, while I am currently TECHNICALLY bound by a summoning spell, I was first introduced to the summoner by Lady Tamamo-"

And now the nine-tailed fox blanches.

"-so unless you're saying that you're ready to argue with HER about her decisions..."

"Not with Lady Inari's blessing and a dozen of my siblings behind me," the Nine-tails murmurs.

Akemi merely nods, and lets that subject drop.

"Not to intrude," you say then, "but when I ran into the back yard, I interrupted Mai when she was on her way out the back door of the house."

The Nine-tails looks at you sharply.

"I think I spooked her, because she turned right around and-"

Your next words are drowned out by a roar of fire and thunder, but the noise does nothing to prevent you from seeing the sudden alarm on the kitsune's face.

Mana surges around the Nine-tails. Summoning Magic, space-time warping - the vixen is about to teleport, and given that Lady Akemi is still holding her hand, she's taking her older daughter with her. Even if you dropped your Spell of Dimension Door this instant, you wouldn't be able to gather the power necessary to counter her magic in time. Short of lashing out with a punch, there's nothing you can do to prevent her from going - but if she's headed into the house to get Mai, isn't that kind of what you wanted? Assuming, of course, that you trust the hopefully no longer crazy-in-a-bad way Nine-tails with the safety of a girl she's already kidnapped once...

Actually, maybe you'd better stop her. Or at least tag along, to make sure nothing goes wrong.

---

Quick as a striking snake, you reach out to grab Lady Akemi's free right hand.

Gained Reflexes C (Plus)

The spirit has barely had time to jolt in surprise when the Nine-tails finishes her spell, and the lot of you - Briar included - vanish from the sidewalk and reappear inside a nicely-appointed, warm, cozy-feeling house.

You can clearly sense Gyokuro, the Nine-tails' Mad Self, and Elder Mitsuki fighting a short distance behind you and to your left- no, directly behi- no, left aga- to the RIGHT-

The point is, you're definitely inside the Nine-tails' house. The central hall, to be precise, some distance away from the front door. And nothing is trying to kill you! Evidently, being taken inside the wards by means of a spell cast by the lady of the house is sufficent to count as an "invitation," as far as the magic protecting the place is concerned.

You also can't help but notice that the Nine-tails' teleport spell was perfectly smooth. It's honestly becoming a trend, and you have to wonder if EVERY individual you meet with the ability to bend the fabric of space-time into new and interesting shapes is going to be better at it than you are, with absolutely no odd side-effects.

Speaking of Summoning Magic, you let the Spell of Dimension Door lapse. There's no point in maintaining it, now that you and the ladies you were keeping it open for are inside the house.

Lady Akemi sends a quick, startled glance at you, and when she tries to pull her hand free of yours, you let go, making a wordless gesture of apology. You know enough about the Japanese to know that they're a bit guarded about physical contact, and that would probably go double - or triple - for an ancient noblewoman.

The Nine-tails shoots you a look of pure annoyance - and spares another for your feet that has you feeling like your mother just caught you tracking mud into the house - then shakes her head and turns away from you.

"Mai?" she calls out.

"...Auntie?" comes a cautious voice from... somewhere. Your ears alone can't pin it down, but when you reflexively glance about, trying to locate the source, part of the wall blurs and fades from existence, revealing Mai ducked into a little niche over on your right, close to the exact center of the house.

A heavily-warded little niche, you realize, as portions of the glowing, humming array laid over and around it melt into view through the Illusion that covered the whole thing. It's almost pure Abjuration.

"What's going on?" Mai continues worriedly. "The first alarm went off, and I heard you go outside for a while, but then I thought I heard singing, and the SECOND alarm went off and there was a lot of screaming, so I grabbed the bag and went for the back door like you said to, but there was this strange boy with a fairy, and what are they doing here with you-"

"Have to admit, I'm wondering that myself," Briar mutters.

"-and who's the pretty lady and why is she kind of see-through and is someone fighting on your lawn, because they're being loud and scary and that's just mean-"

"Breathe, Mai," the Nine-tails says patiently.

There is a pause, and the girl does that.

"Good girl. Now, the pretty lady is one of my daughters. Her name is Akemi, and the reason you can see through her is because she's a spirit."

"Hello, little one," Lady Akemi says, with a smile and a bow in the direction of the little safety room. "Please treat me kindly. I hope we can be friends."

There's a pause, and then Mai returns the bow, leaning forward far enough that someone without True Sight would likely think she was a ghost coming through the wall.

"I-I'd like that, too."

"The singing you heard was Akemi proving to me that it was her," the Nine-tails goes on. "I used to sing it just for her, and nobody else would have known."

"Oh. Like a password?"

"Sort of like that, yes. As for the fighting..." The Nine-tails pauses, and looks over her shoulder in the general direction of the continuing battle. "I'm... honestly not entirely sure what's going on, except that we have a lot of uninvited guests all of a sudden, some of whom are being extremely rude."

Her gaze turns to you, silently seeking an explanation.

Akemi starts to speak, but falls silent when her foster-mother raises a hand, gesturing for quiet. She clearly expects YOU to answer.

You'll admit that you owe her that much. Even if you were trying to help the Nine-tails, your party has still trespassed on her domain, assaulted her, and put her and two of her daughters in danger.

The full story might be a bit much at the moment, though, whether for some of the details - namely, the madness you pulled out of the Nine-tails and gave a body of its own - or because, building walls and magic wards or no, you're all entirely too close to that fight going on in the front yard.

---

Facing a nine-tailed fox in her own home, after you've effectively sneak-attacked her, snuck inside, and tracked dirt on her floor, you summon up all your civility and decorum.

"First, on behalf of myself and my companions, I'd like to apologize for any distress our intrusion has caused," you say with a formal bow.

"Raise your head," the kitsune says promptly. "I prefer to look people in the eye when I speak with them."

You do as requested, and meet her gaze.

The Nine-tails nods. "Now, then. I hope you don't expect me to have failed to notice that, while you offered an apology for the consequences of your trespass, you did not actually apologize for the intrusion itself."

"No, ma'am. Our reasons for coming here were, and are, fairly compelling."

"He talks like an old man," Mai observes from her hidden space.

"Strange, isn't it?" Akemi agrees.

You give your summoned "ally" a flat look.

She merely shrugs, unapologetic.

...you have to admit, you can't really blame her. You're well aware that you DON'T talk like a person your (physical) age, and it's not just because you use a mature vocabulary and phrasing to try and make yourself seem more like an equal to all the adults you spend so much time with.

Ganondorf's influence has left all kinds of marks. In some respects, the magic isn't even the most obvious one.

"And what would those reasons be?" the kitsune asks, ignoring that whole exchange.

You take a breath.

"If you want to hear the full details, I'm perfectly willing to tell you. However," you add, before she can speak, "I think I should say up-front that some of what we'd be discussing may be very upsetting, whether for you personally, or for those listening."

You don't look in Mai's direction, but you do incline your head very slightly in the direction of her warded closet.

The Nine-tails doesn't look towards the girl, either, but she does spare a questioning glance for Akemi.

The lady nods, her expression serious.

Before an answer can be given, there is a crash and a *CRUNCH* from somewhere behind you, as wood, plaster, and siding along the front of the house give way under a heavy impact. Even as you instinctively start and turn to face the sudden noise and potential danger, you're reaching out with your senses.

You can't see any obvious damage to the interior of the building from where you're standing, but judging by the auras involved, it seems like the Nine-tails' Mad Self just collided with the patch of wall between the front door and the sitting room window.

Speaking of auras, the impact and whatever damage it's done to the exterior of the house appears to have been enough to trigger the third layer of the Nine-tails' wards, because a low-pitched warbling alarm is going off, while the wards themselves, which you previously needed to use Power Sight to even pick up, have just become apparent to your Mage Sight. Elemental- and Illusion-aspected mana are moving and concentrating, and an instant later, you hear a chorus of mystical violence erupt in the front yard - burning, zapping, crackling, hissing, and half a dozen other noises besides, blended together in a song of violence.

Gyokuro's aura HAD been on a course for the incarnate insanity, but now, she's moving to avoid a barrage of attacks not unlike the ones the Nine-tails and her Shadow-spawned copy sent your way.

In light of your own experience, you're not too worried by the prospect of Kahlua's mother getting hit by the pre-programmed attacks. If YOU could dodge something of that nature without having to go fully on the defensive, she certainly can.

What DOES concern you is that it's not just the elemental projectiles Gyokuro has to deal with. Between her own sensory powers and the Spell of True Seeing you cast, any Illusions that house tries to throw at her are going to fall flat, but the Mad Self is another story.

Avoiding the attacks of a "dumb" opponent like a simple ward is one thing. Trying to do that while fighting a creature on the level of a nine-tailed fox is another story.

Then there's the rest of the party to think about. Elder Mitsuki isn't moving as fast as Gyokuro, and appears instead to be using her own magic to defend herself from the elemental attacks. Her uncle is farther back, and working another spell - a mix of Abjuration and Elemental Magic by the feel of things, probably meant as a counter for the wards.

The Hakubas' purely human auras are too faint for you to get a clear reading on through the walls, the wards, and the stormcloud-intensity of the youki flooding the front yard, but some of their divinely-touched spiritual energy is still active, and strongly enough that you think both of them should still be on their feet.

How long is that going to last, though?

"There's something to what you say," the Nine-tails' voice interrupts your thoughts. When you turn back to her, you see that she's looking towards the warded niche. "Mai, we're going out the back."

"Yes, Auntie!"

As Mai emerges from the illusion-wreathed mini-room, bag in her arms once more, you cast another look towards the front of the house and the yard beyond. You find yourself wondering if you should ask the Nine-tails to turn off her wards, or at least adjust the more aggressive components - preferably so that they're only targetting her Mad Self.

Another part of you just wants to look out a window. There's one hell of a fight going on out there, and you're MISSING it.

The rest of you says you should stay quiet and follow the ladies out the back.

---

Wall or not, wards or not, personal array of defensive spells or not, you're still too close to the brawl going on in the Nine-tails' front yard for comfort. Your adult companions seem to have that particular matter in hand - more or less - but the situation could change very quickly if the Nine-tails' Mad Self gets blown THROUGH the front wall of the house, and realizes that you're within striking distance.

Or the house could just fall in on you. That tends to happen when walls and support beams start getting smashed. And while being trapped in a collapsing building would be hazardous enough from a purely mundane standpoint, you'd really rather not be in a position to re-enact a particular scene from the Wizard of Oz.

After all, you know enough about witchcraft to qualify as a witch by most standards, and Frank Baum's story has been in the public consciousness long enough that there's a good chance dropping a house on a witch now counts as a conceptual attack.

Granted, you're not PRIMARILY a witch, you're certainly not FEMALE, and you've been making a lot of effort to not be EVIL, either, but why take the risk?

Besides, if YOU'RE too close to the ongoing battle for comfort, Mai DEFINITELY is. And getting her out of harm's way was the original point of this entire exercise, so...

As you follow the ladies to the back door of the house, you consider telling the Nine-tails about the nature of the battle taking place on her property - in particular, the nature of the entity that makes up one entire side of the fight - in the hope that she'll turn off or at least re-target her defensive wards.

However, Mai is staying right next to her "Auntie" the entire time, casting you and the violence going on behind you wary glances in about equal measure. Not only are you still personally uncertain whether or not to talk about delicate subjects like Mai's abduction and the Nine-tails' previous mental state while in the girl's hearing, you don't know whether the Nine-tails wants her to hear about such things, either.

Erring on the side of caution - and not further upsetting the ancient youkai - you opt to stay quiet.

Everyone gets out the back door without incident, but the Nine-tails stops on the porch, and restrains Mai with a light hand on one shoulder.

"Auntie?" the girl asks, looking up.

The Nine-tails' attention is on the sky- make that, on Uncle Hayashi's barrier, which ripples into plain sight after the Nine-tails extends a tendril of her own power to give it a poke.

"I wasn't paying attention before," the vixen notes, "but that's kitsune work. Akemi, who aside from the boy and the fairy did you bring with you?"

"Two elders of the Hayashi Clan, two Shinto priests, and a vampire lady, Mother," the lady replies. "But I didn't bring anyone with me; it was very much the other way around."

"...yes, of course." For some reason, the Nine-tails sounds a little embarrassed, and she covers it by quickly turning her attention back to the barrier. "Well, then, Hayashi? Are you going to come out on your own, or must I chase you out?"

"I suppose it would be impolite for me to stay hidden while we talk," Uncle replies, as he steps out from behind the cherry tree. "It seems a shame, though. It's been a while since a pretty lady chased me."

"If you dress like that all the time, it's no wonder."

While Uncle mimes being shot through the heart, you frown. You can definitely sense the old fox's presence in front of you, but at the same time, you're equally certain that he's still in the front yard, working magic against the manifest madness.

Focusing the Spell of True Seeing, you notice a flicker of Illusion Magic about the bipedal canine figure in front of you, and once you've seen that, "Uncle's" entire form shimmers and is revealed to be nothing more than a bundle of mana attached to a single floating leaf, given focus through a small, brightly-burning wisp of spiritual power.

You recognize this from your readings on kitsune. It's one of their classic tricks, similar in some respects to the Spell of the Simulacrum, though much less powerful.

"Why are you here, Hayashi?" the Nine-tails says. "I've done your clan no harm, so why are you helping others to hunt me?"

"Oh, all the usual excuses," Uncle answers easily. "Obligations owed, a chance to curry favor, it seemed like a good idea at the time..." He pauses, and adds, "Lady Tamamo appeared to be in favor of it."

Both kitsune take a second to shiver at that.

"Mainly, though, we're helping because the others aren't here to hunt you. They're actually trying to help you."

There is another explosion from the front yard, this time accompanied by the sound of splintering wood and breaking glass. Mai lets out a brief shriek and leaps for the Nine-tails, burying her face against one of the kitsune's tails.

Gathering the child close, the Nine-tails strokes her hair, makes soothing noises, and shoots Uncle a scathing glare over Mai's head. The look speaks VOLUMES.

The male fox shrugs. "I did say they were TRYING. Success is proving... a bit elusive."

"What do you mean?"

Uncle opens his mouth to answer, and pauses, looking first at Mai, and then at you. "Did the boy get a chance to explain what's going on?" he asks.

"No, he didn't." The Nine-tails turns and looks at you.

You glance at Mai, and send a questioning look back at the Nine-tails.

In response, a couple more tails wrap around Mai, looking like a big, fluffy hug, but also covering her ears.

That's your cue.

Speaking quickly, and not too loudly, you sum up the function of the Mirror of Shadows.

Color drains from the Nine-tails' face as you describe just WHAT is in her front yard.

"It can die, correct?" she asks, in a voice that strains for calm, but is too fast and high-pitched to hit the mark. "That's why you created it, yes? To kill it?"

"That WAS the theory," Uncle says, "but it's proving hard to put into practice. Despite its unusual origins, that thing is still youkai enough to be vulnerable to the Hakubas' prayers, but it's too powerful for the two of them to purify entirely. Weakening it seems to be the best that they can do, and they have to keep praying to maintain the effect. I'm throwing every element I can at it, but it seems to be at least as resistant to them as the lad's spells make the rest of us. And while the ladies are keeping the thing away from us poor, delicate males, and pressing it too closely for it to use anything besides tooth, claw, and tail, it heals almost as fast as Gyokuro does. I shudder to imagine how much power it must be burning up to DO that, and yet I daresay WE'RE the ones who are going to run out of steam first."

Well, that's not good.

---

It occurs to you that the reason your allies are having such difficulty putting down the Nine-tails' Mad Self may not simply be a consequence of its raw power. You've been told that the ancient Sages of Hyrule devised the Spell of the Dark Self after studying the Mirror of Shadows, and THAT magic was originally intended to serve as a test of personal character, self-knowledge, and self-acceptance.

You're not clear on the origins of the Mirror itself, but if this particular application of its power functions anything like the Hyrulean spell that it inspired, then the current situation WOULD make a certain amount of sense.

After all, it's one thing for a person to confront their issues alone, and another for them to get help confronting them - and both of those are a world apart from ignoring your problems while leaving other people to deal with the fallout.

If nothing else, getting the Nine-tails to join in the fight would swing the balance of power firmly onto your side. From everything you can see and sense, the Mirror's power didn't INJURE her in any way; at worst, it was a shock, and somewhat tiring.

You have ways of dealing with both.

Turning first to Uncle, you quickly summarize your suspicion about how the Mirror's magical nature may be making the Mad Self harder to kill than normal.

He nods. "I had a hunch that might be the case. Which is why I came to ask for aid - if you're willing to give it, great lady?" he adds, turning to the Nine-tails.

Still clearly frightened, the Nine-tails dons a mask of offended dignity. "You spy on me, enter my domain uninvited, attack me, create a monster you can't control, and endanger TWO children in the process - and NOW you have the temerity to ask for my HELP in cleaning up your mess?"

Uncle frowns, and lowers his monk's staff to point at the Nine-tails in a manner that has your Enlightenment-trained instincts cringing in recognition.

"None of that, now, madam," the eldest Hayashi says firmly. "We're all well aware that you are NOT the innocent party, here, and you haven't been for a very long time."

The Nine-tails growls at the younger fox, but she's the one who looks away first.

"Besides, I'm not asking for your aid solely for OUR sake," Uncle continues. "The lad's got the word of a Great Fairy AND the Lady Tamamo that this will heal you. Are you going to let such a chance pass you by?"

It may be a measure of how shaken she already is that the Nine-tails doesn't flinch at the mention of Tamamo's name. Instead, she looks at Akemi - who returns an earnest, hopeful nod - and then down at Mai.

Slowly, she unfurls her tails from around the girl, and gently pushes her away.

"Auntie?" Mai asks, looking up.

"Will you be brave for me, little one?"

Mai's lip quivers, but she nods. "What do you need me to do?"

"Stay here with Akemi, while I go talk to the people being rude out front."

Mai nods again.

"Good girl."

Without a word or a glance for the rest of you, the Nine-tails turns and begins walking towards the right side of the house. Her aura begins radiating out from her form as she goes, intensifying rapidly with every step, until you have to force your extrasensory powers off to keep from being dazzled by the energies involved.

Even then, the nine-tailed fox is giving off so much power that it bleeds into the mundane spectrum with an almost painful intensity.

All thought of offering magical support flees your mind. There is NO way you're getting a spell through THAT kind of interference. Even if you did, you doubt it'd have a noticable effect.

Still moving at that casual pace, the Nine-tails pauses at the corner of her house and looks back at her two stolen children, her eyes shining like tiny suns.

Then she disappears.

A moment later, you FEEL the roar as a new participant enters the fray.

---

The Nine-tails told Mai - and by extension, Lady Akemi - to stay here. You suspect that, even with the clear and present danger in the front yard, they're going to stay right where they are.

You COULD just grab them and try to cast a Spell of Teleportation anyway, but that sort of magic is remarkably finicky when it comes to the question of free will. There's a lot of speculation as to why this is the case, but leaving all that aside, the fact of the matter is that it's a lot harder to teleport someone against their will, even by surprise, than it is to relocate them with their agreement.

Not impossible, mind you, just more difficult.

Why go to that trouble, and risk upsetting not only the two ladies but the Nine-tails as well, when you can just fortify your current location? A Resilient Sphere will cover all three of you, and provide enough of a barrier that, if the fight DOES spill over, around, or through the house and into the backyard, you'll have enough time to get Mai and Akemi's agreement that you need to leave.

"Lady Akemi?" you ask. "I'd like to create a protective barrier around us while we wait, but it needs to be centered on a person. Would you mind?"

"I have no objection to that," the spirit replies.

"Thank you."

You quickly cast the spell, and a transparent globe of force shimmers into view around you. The not-quite-solid, not-quite-energy construct is about twelve feet across, and since it's anchored to Lady Akemi, there's plenty of room inside for everyone, without you having to get too close to Mai - who might not be entirely comfortable with your presence.

It helps that Uncle's Simulacrum/Clone/Doppelganger/whatever disappeared at some point while you were distracted by the Nine-tails' exit.

You also added a couple of spell levels' worth of mana to the magic, as much as you could without resorting to a drawn-out ritual, as much for the practice as for the added - ahem - resilience it proved the barrier.

Safe haven created, you immediately start casting another spell, because there is No Way On Earth you are going to miss all of that fight going on out font.

Gained Warrior Born C (Plus) (Plus)

You were going to use the Spell of Prying Eyes, but it's a minor ritual that takes a full minute to complete: the battle could well be over by the time you finished it; casting it first would have left your little group exposed if something went wrong with the fight; and now that the Resilient Sphere is up, you can't exactly send the Eye-constructs out THROUGH it.

Instead, you go with another Greater Spell of Scrying. It worked earlier, after all, and provided a view for the entire group besides.

This time, instead of a free-floating globe, the spell in question manifests along the inner surface of your Resilient Sphere, forming what looks like nothing so much as a warped, overlarge television screen.

On that screen, two foxes as big as draft horses, with a vertiable forest of tails between them, are doing their level best to kill each other. One fox is mostly black, a visibly unkempt and sickly specimen that nonetheless fights with relentless ferocity, ignoring its own wounds - from which leak a black, foul tar-like substance rather than anything so common as blood - to strike at its opponent. This one is a red fox, by far the healthier-looking of the two, and yet visibly struggling with the crazed assault of its foe.

The almost sun-bright aura around the red fox is matched by a dark shadow emanating from the black fox, and every move they make seems to release a burst of elemental power. The tangle of tails is throwing out a storm of foxfire and lightning in clashing shades of ghostly blue and corpse-pale, and where claws hit the devastated lawn rather than their intended target, the earth beneath splits open, rises up as jagged spurs of stone, or simply explodes. Even the breath that escapes snarling and snapping jaws does so as howling wind and crashing thunder.

The level of power the Nine-tails and her Mad Self are throwing around is clearly conveyed by your scrying spell, and you find yourself relieved that you didn't try to send any Prying Eyes into that mess. The little probes are fragile; even at a "safe" distance, they'd have been in danger of being shattered by an errant discharge.

Hell, the front of the Nine-tails' HOUSE has been shattered. The windows are gone, the door MIGHT be that heap of splinters blown to the far end of the front hall - on a side note, you're profoundly glad you're no longer in there - you could drive a pickup truck into the living room, and as for the CONTENTS of said room... gah. The second floor is a bit better off, but the way the roof over where the door used to be is sagging says it hasn't escaped entirely scathed.

And the fight's not over yet.

Gyokuro and Elder Mitsuki - the latter having assumed her own overiszed canine form, you note in passing - have both fallen back and left the tooth-and-claw aspect of the battle to the Nine-tails. It's hard to say for certain through the interference being thrown around, but you think their auras are lacking some of the defensive magics you added just minutes earlier.

If the ladies are taking a well-deserved breather, your male allies are still keeping up the mystical end of things. With the scrying spell focused on the Nine-tails, you can't actually see any of the men, but for all the snarling intensity and purely physical effort the Mad Self is putting into this fight, its aura is visibly smaller than the Nine-tails. The dark shadow almost seems to be burning at the edges, even in places where it's not directly in conflict with the Nine-tails' unleashed youki - which isn't so much "burning" the other energy on contact as trying to overwhelm it.

That'll be the Hakubas' purification at work, then.

As for Uncle Hayashi, every so often the raging elements will be punched through by a more focused blast of some sort of power - the latest being a lightning bolt that hit the Mad Self in the flank, singeing the matted fur and the diseased flesh beneath, and left you blinking away an afterimage.

"Eeep," Mai says in a small voice.

"I second that," Akemi admits.

"Thirded," Briar agrees.

From what you can see, the Nine-tails and your allies have the fight in hand. They haven't won yet, but unless the Mad Self pulls off something very impressive very soon, it's going to be all over.

It occurs to you that, given the nature of the major combatants - never mind the animal forms the two most powerful entities on the field have assumed - this fight is likely to end in a very messy fashion.

Is that really the kind of thing Mai should see?

You're inclined to think not. But maybe there's a reason she should?

---

Yeah, no. Mai doesn't need to see what's coming, Briar and Lady Akemi would probably be just as happy NOT to see it, and as for yourself, you're quite willing to pass on fresh material for another round of post-combat nightmares.

As things stand, you're looking at a sleepless night or two already, once that Spell to Remove Fear wears off and the nausea-inducing creation of the Nine-tails' Mad Self has a chance to sink in. To say nothing of what will happen once your brain really processes that you had something THAT powerful, crazy, crazy-powerful, and powerfully crazy trying to kill you.

You don't need to add a scene of bloody carnage on top of that.

With a wave of your hand that's more for show than practicality, you dismiss your spell.

The images laid over the inner layer of the Resilient Sphere vanish soundlessly.

"Awww," Mai complains. "I wanted to see how it ended!"

"I didn't," Briar retorts.

"Nor did I," Lady Akemi admits. "I've seen Mother fight in that manner several times before. It generally ends with her going for the throat and giving the enemy one hard shake. Then there's either a loud, unpleasant crack, or a great deal of struggling, bleeding, and gasping." The woman pauses, and adds, "Of course, that's also how she hunts, but when she's looking for food, she goes after things much weaker than she is. Factor in her illusions, and most of them are dead before they ever realize they were in danger, let alone fight back."

...

You find it disturbingly easy to picture the kind of scene your companion is describing. So much so, in fact, that you give the Ganondorf portions of your mind the equivalent of a suspicious sidelong glance, as you wonder if they're the source of the vivid imagery that's leapt into your mind. You can't recall ever seeing footage of a fox on the prowl in this life - you KNOW you've never seen one in person - but it seems like the kind of thing the King of Thieves could have run across in his time.

Shaking off the image in your mind, you open up your senses a little bit, trying to get a feel for the powerful auras on the far side of the house. The main reason you were even considering leaving your scrying spell active was the possibility of getting blind-sided by the Nine-tails' Mad Self, if it managed to break away from its assailants or just decided to take as many of you down with it as possible.

It takes no effort at all to pick up on the Nine-tails' presence. Her Shadow-spawned Mirror-clone is only slightly less obvious, while Uncle Hayashi's aura is significantly weaker. Gyokuro and Elder Mitsuki's auras are less so again, although Lady Shuzen's vampiric nature gives her power a "flavor" that distinguishes it from all the kitsune youki flying around. You can't say the same for Elder Mitsuki, whose presence is kind of drowned out by her seniors.

The Hakubas might as well not even BE there, as far as your senses are concerned.

The auras rage for another ten seconds, then twenty, then thirty, those of the Nine-tails and her dark twin predominant. Then Gyokuro's SURGES, and for a brief moment, everything else on the field is drowned out by a wave of darkness, blood, and violence that briefly paints everything inside Uncle Hayashi's barrier night-black, bone-white, and coppery crimson. Even the sun's light is stained.

Mai gives a little shriek of fright.

You've felt this before, back when Kahlua's birthday party was interrupted. It's much clearer this time, a consequence of the shorter distance between you and the lack of who knows how much ancient, magically-warded, youki-infused castle in the way.

As the excess energy unleashed by Gyokuro's removal of her seal disperses, you get a slightly more accurate sense of her power. It's roughly on par with the old male fox's right now, and judging by your own experiences sparring with Kahlua and Moka, probably considerably more focused. Uncle Hayashi has basically been fighting like a spellcaster, which means taking a little time to gather and shape power, followed by either a sudden, massive, all-in-one discharge OR a less-overwhelming, longer-lasting effect, and then a certain period of recovery.

Gyokuro's energy is just THERE, concentrated, constant, and seething with menace.

And by the feel of things, she just "menaced" her way into the Mad Self's face.

Under different circumstances, that kind of all-out assault would have been a mistake, even for a vampire. The black-furred nine-tails still has a clear advantage in terms of power, the sheer number of methods at its command for APPLYING that power, and reach - be it physical or otherwise.

Fortunately, Gyokuro isn't fighting alone.

Clearly seeing an opening, the Nine-tails' aura shifts, all traces of Elemental Magic falling away and leaving only pure youki behind. The phenomenon radiates focus, intent, and DEADLY THREAT more clearly than anything you've ever encountered, trumping even Gyokuro's unleashed power. Despite the distance between you and the source, the house in the way, and the Spell to Remove Fear you have up, you feel a momentary shock of alarm.

Most of your mind is busy reeling at the knowledge that the Nine-tails just blew through one of your defensive spells without even AIMING at you, but you have awareness enough to spare to realize that Mai and Akemi didn't so much as squeak.

In the next instant, all the auras seem to stop. The world itself grows quiet.

And in the distance, you think you hear a grisly snap.

A moment later, the Mad Self's aura collapses. It's followed in short order by the reduction of the other youki auras - Gyokuro's in particular suddenly compresses and collapses back to its original level, allowing the world within Uncle Hayashi's barrier to return to its normal, early morning appearance, instead of looking like something out of a horror movie.

Looks like the fight's over.

---

As the youki auras diminish and the atmosphere within this warded property returns to normal, you look to Lady Akemi.

"What do you think, ma'am?" you ask, nodding towards the house, and the yard on the far side. "Is it safe for us to proceed?"

"While I would not presume to tell you what to do, Alexander," Lady Akemi replies, "I think that Mai and I should remain here, as Mother requested." She glances briefly at your Resilient Sphere before she adds, "You could most likely dispense with this spell, however, now that the danger has passed."

"Yeah!" Mai chimes in. "Auntie beat the evil fox even though it used its super move, so everything's fine!"

That comment earns the girl odd looks from the rest of you.

"'Super Move'?" Lady Akemi asks.

"You know, that thing that made the world go all dark and scary?" Mai shivers.

...

You think she means what happened when Gyokuro removed her seal.

You're honestly not sure what to say to that.

Leaving that aside, you follow Lady Akemi's advice, bring down your barrier, and excuse yourself, jogging back around the house. You could go much faster than this, of course, but now that the fight is over, throwing ki around would give the wrong impression.

Besides, your still-active enhancement spells provide plenty of a speed-boost as it is.

As you round the corner at the front of the house, you come to a stop, taking in the scene before you.

The Nine-tails' front yard looks like something out of a disaster movie. The last you saw of it in person, her driveway was so much shattered, smoking rubble, and while you did get a brief look at the environmental impact of the fight through your Spell of Scrying, you were far more interested in the combatants rather than their field of battle. Now that the fight's over, though, you have a chance to really grasp how much damage the monsters did to this place.

It's... impressive, to say the least.

There's hardly a patch of green left within the stone walls. What hasn't been burnt to cinders is either buried under upturned earth, or else clinging precariously to those jagged spurs of rock you saw erupting from the soil. The property wall itself isn't without scars. Less than half of it is still standing, and that not all in one piece; great gaping rents have been blown through the wall in three different places, and the sections of masonry that still stand are marked with jagged stress fractures, dark streaks of ash, and slash marks from what could have been claws or youki-driven fox-tails.

The house itself looks even sadder than the damaged hulk your magic showed you barely a minute earlier. More of the ground level has been smashed, and the second story and a good portion of the roof are now sagging heavily, threatening to collapse. The protective wards either failed when their physical forms were smashed, or just couldn't keep up with the sheer output of two nine-tailed foxes, because fire and water damage are both abundantly evident, where you saw little if any of the kind before.

When you see the amount of dirt that's been thrown into the building, you can't help but recall the disapproving glance the Nine-tails spared for you walking around in her house in your shoes.

The good news is, the majority of the damage is confined to THINGS rather than people. Which isn't to say that your allies came out of this entirely unscathed.

Uncle Hayashi and the Hakubas are the best-off, as none of them were in the middle of the fight, and from what you can tell, the Mad Self was so focused on its female opposition, it never even got a direct attack off at the males. Despite that, the priests are visibly winded, their fine outfits askew, missing a few small pieces - like those neat little hats - and smeared with dirt and smoke in the bargain. Uncle Hayashi is much cleaner, but he's leaning on his staff and breathing every bit as hard as the two humans.

Elder Mitsuki has resumed her human form, and her clothing appears as immaculate as when you began this little adventure, but the lady herself looks positively wrung out. This makes for an interesting contrast with Gyokuro, whose movements are light, easy, and unhindered by pain or fatigue, even as she holds a tattered, darkly-stained thing that you recognize as the remains of her fancy coat shut around her body.

You suspect you don't want to inquire after the state of her little black dress.

As for the Nine-tails, she's back in her too-pretty-to-be-a-housewife human guise, kneeling near what used to be her front door without regard for the dirt she's getting on her blue pants. Her eyes are distant as her left hand trails idly over and through the darkly-stained soil beneath her - soil that positively REEKS of Shadow-stuff and fading youki.

...actually, that's not the only thing that reeks.

You can smell blood. Faintly, maybe, but it's definitely there.

"Does anybody need a healing spell?" you ask.

Heads turn in your direction.

"Ah, no, Alexander," Kojiro replies after a moment. "I believe everyone's in one piece... at least, physically." He pauses, glances at Gyokuro, and adds, "More or less."

The lady in question waves off the attention. "I'll be fine, priest. I may not have Akasha's ridiculous vitality, but I'm hardly about to keel over from a little thing like getting clawed through the gut, either. Really, childbirth was far worse."

"I don't even know where to begin replying to that," Kojiro admits.

"Men never do," Gyokuro notes absently. She's keeping one eye on the Nine-tails as she speaks, but appears to be more focused on the dark earth. "Alexander," she says next, "can you clean up this mess we've managed to make, or will I need to call in some specialists?"

You look around at the ruined yard again. Technically, you could fix a lot of this. The stone wall and the lawn would be easy. Cleaning up the residual essence of the Mad Self won't be much harder, nor will getting rid of any blood or youki left by the ladies on the other side of the fight. The house, though, may be a bit beyond your skills. You don't know all that much about electrical wiring, plumbing, or other bits of modern architecture as yet. You COULD take this as an opportunity to learn, but the Nine-tails would probably object.

Of course, that's assuming she even cares about what happens to this house now.

---

Seeing as how you can't think of anything constructive to say in this situation, you decide not to say anything at all.

"I can, Mrs. Shuzen," is your confident response to Gyokuro's question. "At least, I can restore the yard and patch up enough of the structural work to keep any random passers-by from noticing anything out of the ordinary. I don't trust myself with the electrical or plumbing, though - I'm nowhere near up to code yet, on either side of the Pacific."

Gyokuro blinks.

"That will be convenient," she says slowly, "but I was more immediately concerned with the blood and youki that's tainted the place."

...oh. Whoops.

"Not to worry, ma'am. I can handle that, too." You pause, and glance at the Nine-tails. "As long as the lady of the house doesn't have any objections."

In response to your words, the kitsune in question withdraws her hand from the dark earth with a sigh, and gracefully rises to her feet.

"You may do as you wish with this place," the Nine-tails says, as she dusts off her pant legs. "It was always my plan to abandon it if we were discovered. No one will be residing here after today."

It takes you a minute to process that statement.

While it does seem very wasteful to throw away an entire house - to say nothing of the property it's built on - the Nine-tails maintained half a dozen other houses besides this one. If the other decoy houses were anything like the place you scried on earlier, none of them are exactly small properties, which means all of them together would have a VERY high price tag on the open market.

The Nine-tails could be wealthy enough to afford that kind of expense, or she might have used her mastery of Illusion Magic to steal all these places - either way, discarding a residence that's become known to a powerful group of potentially-unfriendly beings is well within her means, and good strategy besides.

Gained Strategy F (Plus)

Besides, who's to say that the Nine-tails doesn't have ANOTHER half-dozen homes scattered around the country, all ready and waiting to be used as temporary boltholes or new long-term lairs? She's been living in hiding from the rest of the Moonlit World for centuries, now, and been hunted a time or ten before this. Nor was she ALWAYS a nine-tailed fox. If she hadn't learned how to plan ahead and prepare for the worst, back in the days before she commanded power like unto a god's, she'd have been killed by one of the many, MANY powerful and/or sneaky creatures that haunt Japan's dark nights and hidden places.

Gained Logistics F (Plus)

Still.

For all that you can intellectually-appreciate how and why a person might consider their residence expendable, part of you just rebels at the idea. You've lived in the same house your entire life, and the notion of leaving it- no, that's not right. Not leaving, but being DRIVEN OUT because someone had the GALL to attack you IN YOUR OWN HOME...

...

You find yourself feeling an odd sort of empathy for the Nine-tails, and a small amount of guilt for your role in the loss of her home.

But only a small amount. You DID have a very good reason for doing this.

Speaking of said reason, you have to wonder what Mai's reaction to changing houses is going to be.

Leaving that for now, you gather your power. Fixing up the structure of the house will be the work of a Spell to Make Whole, albeit with a massively increased area of effect. Righting the lawn will take a casting of the Spell to Move Earth, right after you get rid of the magically-created rocks. The Spell to Transmute Rock to Mud would work, although when you consider the state of the property wall, maybe you'd be better-served appropriating that new rock as raw material for repairs?

As for the supernatural contaminants Gyokuro is concerned about, an industrial-strength Spell of Purification ought to do the job for the lingering Shadow-essence, the residual youki, and the vampire and kitsune blood.

You'll admit that you WERE kind of hoping to acquire a bit of that Shadow-tainted soil as a reagent, but given the many and varied forms of energy and matter that were flying around in this fight, separating JUST the Elemental Shadow from all the other essences it's mixed with would take some seriously delicate work. You might not be able to do it.

Just taking a handful of the dark earth would be the easier route, but for that to work, you'd have to convince everybody here that you could be trusted with samples of their power - and in the case of the ladies, their life-blood.

That's the kind of resource NOBODY with any kind of knowledge of magic wants ANYBODY else to have, no matter how much they trust them. Not without getting magically-backed oaths as assurance, anyway. The risks are simply too great for any lesser precautions to fly.

---

You figure that the odds of all the adults agreeing to let you take a sample of youki-infused, monster blood-stained earth from the torn-up yard, WITHOUT resorting to binding magical oaths, are small enough as to be not worth mentioning.

And you'd really rather not have to deal with the hassle of having to uphold a magical oath, especially not one with as many as half a dozen different parties involved. From what little you recall from Ganondorf's experience with the subject, and the bits Briar has mentioned in your lessons, the only time that kind of magic is worthwhile is if you're in the position to dictate the terms of the oath to your own satisfaction and benefit.

In this instance, you're really not.

It might be a different story if you hadn't already secured the Essence of Shadow for use as a reagent, but as things stand, you don't truly NEED the residual essence of the Nine-tails' Mad Self.

That settled, you politely ask the Nine-tails to move, and once she's clear of the tainted ground, you cast a Spell of Abjuration, casting out and purifying the supernatural energies and substances that have gotten mixed up with the soil.

With a long, sighing hiss, a few short-lived plumes of dark smoke escape from the contaminated ground, before being blown away on a faint breeze.

With that out of the way, you cast a variation on the Spell to Make Whole, adding enough extra mana and bits of magical formula to accomodate a significant increase in the mass and volume of the potential target.

When you let the spell go a moment later, the effects are suitably dramatic. Pieces of wood, plaster, and other materials pick themselves up from all over the yard, as well as deeper inside the house, and begin flying back to their places of origin. The sagging second floor and roof of the house straighten themselves out as the gaping space beneath them is gradually filled in, first support beams and then entire walls reassembling from the floating debris.

The whole process takes less than a minute, and while it's happening, you can feel all eyes shifting between you and the evidence of your magic at work.

Gained Knowledge (Architecture) E (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Transformation C (Plus) (Plus)

The repair job isn't one hundred percent. As you said to Gyokuro, you're not up to speed on local wiring and plumbing codes, so you worked instructions into your spell to focus on purely structural work, and leave the rest of it alone. You also deliberately didn't attempt to repair the broken wards.

For all that the house is going to need a visit from the professionals if it's ever going to be inhabited again, that's entirely internal work. The exterior of the place looks just as it did in your scrying globe, before you and your party teleported here.

...okay, the driveway and the outer wall are still blasted ruins. But you were getting to those!

A second, less powerful Spell to Make Whole clears up the damage to the driveway. As for the property wall, you take a second to magically-probe the chunks of rock the Nine-tails and her Mad Self brought forth. Finding the stuff to be stable, you go ahead and cast the Spell of Fabrication, using the elementally-conjured stone as raw material to repair the damaged wall. This takes a bit longer than the work you did on the house, mostly because the stone is heavier, and requires more effort to move and shape than all the scattered bits of the house.

Gained Mana Concealment B (Plus) (Plus)

Finally, you cast the Spell to Move Earth, sealing the fissures in the soil, collapsing the holes where the stone had been, and generally smoothing everything out.

Your knowledge of Nature Magic isn't quite advanced enough to instantly re-grow the burned and uprooted grass, but an application of Wood Elementalism will at least help the lawn to recover. Eventually.

Gained Wood Elementalism E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

There's a momentary hush as the last of your spells resolves.

Then Kojiro chuckles. "At the rate you're going, Alexander, you have a bright future in the field of home repair ahead of you."

You were looking more at the field of automotive repair and restoration, but having more options certainly isn't a BAD thing. And who's to say you couldn't eventually do both, if you wanted to?

Leaving that aside, all the lesser distractions have been taken care of. You now have to face the question of what's going to happen to Mai and the Nine-tails.

---

"Repair and restoration work in general, really," you say to the eldest Hakuba. "Speaking of which, would anybody care to have me fix up their attire?"

You're polite enough not to call attention to Gyokuro's state of impending indecency, and nobody so much as glances at her. It helps slightly that the Hakubas are somewhat dishevelled themselves - nowhere near the state Lady Shuzen is in, but their fancy formal robes could still stand a good wash and a little reconstructive stitching.

"Please do," Gyokuro says, without a moment's hesitation.

You nod, and reply, "Ladies first."

As a general rule, whenever you're trying to directly affect something with magic, you need to be able to see or touch or otherwise have a direct and unbroken line of effect to your target. In this instance, the wreck of Gyokuro's coat has a silver lining - though the actual lining is black, ha ha - in that you can just aim the Spell of Mending through one of the gaps in the outer layer, patching up her dress first.

It takes no more than a minute for you to get everyone back to the way they looked when you arrived on the Nine-tails' proverbial doorstep, or near enough as to make little difference.

Ginta seems to have lost his little holy hat - he mentions last feeling its presence on his head right before the driveway exploded the first time - but he freely admits that if that's the worst lasting injury your party suffers on this outing, he'll take it and be glad of it.

You note from the younger priest's careful choice of phrasing that he hasn't assumed the adventure is yet over.

He's a wise man.

Now that her dignity is restored, Gyokuro has stepped up to face the Nine-tails directly.

"Amidst all the excitement," the vampire says, "I fear we neglected to introduce ourselves. I am Shuzen Gyokuro. May I have the pleasure of your name, madam?"

Your ears perk up. You've been curious about that particular detail for a while now, yourself.

"Takara," the Nine-tails replies. "Once of the Tsukuda Clan. And I know you, Lady Shuzen. Tell me: is it the Enemy Zero that brings you to my door, after all?"

You frown. The what, now?

Gyokuro, on the other hand, is smiling faintly. "You know about that?"

"I've made a point of keeping up to date on all supernatural entities in Japan that might be able to sense or see through my illusions," Takara - or should that be Lady Takara? - responds. "That rather terrifying ability of yours certainly qualifies."

"It's nice to have one's efforts acknowledged by a master," Gyokuro replies demurely. "Still, as much as I would love to take the credit for finding you, I have to admit that I only became aware of your existence due to the work of others."

"I'm pleased to hear my precautions against discovery weren't completely useless, then," the Nine-tails says wryly. "But if I did manage to avoid drawing your attention with my... activities... then why are you here?"

"Several of my family's associates requested our assistance in confronting you. As to why we agreed... you're aware of the upcoming eclipse, correct? Of its significance?"

Lady Takara frowns, but admits, "I am. Which of the doomsday prophecies associated with the event did you think I would have been a party to?"

"The one regarding the Dark Lord's revival."

The Nine-tails blinks, and considers that.

Ears and tails drooping, she simply says, "Oh dear."

"You understand our concern, then?"

"...yes, I believe I do." Lady Takara shudders. "Well. That could have been quite nasty all around."

"By all the accounts of the Demon Castle, it's STILL going to be quite nasty," Kojiro mutters, shaking his head. "But it should be a bit less so, this way."

There's that term, again: "Demon Castle." You heard Gyokuro use it before, when she, Issa, and Akasha were explaining what happened to the corpse of Dracula they supposedly had locked up and sealed away beneath Castle Shuzen, but you didn't think to ask about it at the time.

There were, admittedly, rather more pressing matters then, just like there are now. You do make a mental note to look into it later, though, because you can think of a few possible definitions of the phrase, some of which are scarier than others.

A castle that's home to a demon - or a being like Dracula, that technically isn't a demon, but might as well be - is one thing, and certainly bad news.

A castle that's inhabited by multiple demons, or demonic monsters, is also concerning.

A castle that's both of the above AND a demon in its own right, though?

Even Ganondorf didn't go quite that far.

---

"With the matter of the Dark Lord's potential influence resolved, Lady Takara," Gyokuro says then, "the Shuzen family's official interest in your affairs is ended."

"And unofficially?" the Nine-tails inquires.

"Unofficially, we would appreciate the prompt and safe return of the girl to her family - or failing that, your word that she'll be well taken care of."

You blink in surprise at the latter half of Gyokuro's statement, but when you stop and think about it, you're forced to conclude that it does make sense.

By all accounts that you've heard, Mai was an ordinary girl before the Nine-tails abducted her. Now, she's not. And while she's young enough that her family and the authorities might overlook tales of living with a kitsune for a year as the imagination of a child run wild, or a coping mechanism dreamed up to protect herself from the truth, her vivid new hair color is another matter. It's also far from the most serious.

Never having met Mai before she was kidnapped, you can't say with any real certainty what Lady Takara did or was in the process of doing to her, but from what you saw of the girl's aura, whatever it is was a lot more significant - not to mention permanent - than a really good dye job. The traces of youki and magic in Mai's aura COULD just be the residue of her "auntie's" power, picked up over months of living together, and no more malicious or remarkable than a common scent, but they could also have more significant origins.

Given the higher-than-average level of spiritual power you picked up once Mai was clear of the various wards on the house and the Nine-tails wasn't right there to "blind" your senses with her own radiant presence, you're inclined to suspect the worst-case scenario.

After all, while the girl doesn't register as any kind of powerhouse, she still has more than enough spiritual potential for it to be worth cultivating - and when Asamu asked if Mai had any outstanding mystical abilities, the Hakubas and Miss Suzuka were all quite clear that she didn't.

Emphasis on the past tense.

Long story short, it may not be possible for Mai to go back to her parents. At the very least, it's not going to be as simple a matter as getting Lady Takara to drop her off with an apology for taking her and a promise to never do it again.

"In other words," the kitsune in question says, "I'm the one who made this mess, so now I have to clean up after myself?"

Despite her words, she doesn't sound opposed to the idea. Not enthusiastic, by any means, but definitely willing to consider the idea.

"I've found that it helps if you try looking at it as a chance to start making amends for your past mistakes, rather than a punishment or an onerous responsibility," Uncle Hayashi advises with a bright smile. "The kami like that sort of positive-spin, glass half full kind of thinking."

The two priests in attendance frown at the old fox's remark, but he cheerfully ignores them.

...then again, he IS carrying a monk's staff. Maybe he's not being blasphemous, just irreverent?

You shake your head at that, and refocus on the situation at hand.

Whether it's because she shares a similar mentality as Uncle, likes the idea of continuing to be involved with Mai's life in some capacity, or wants to avoid future issues with the Shuzens, Lady Takara seems to have no objections to taking responsibility for her actions. Of course, while she's entirely capable of taking Mai straight back to her parents, nobody QUITE trusts her to do that. Not that there's a lot you could do to STOP her, if she really wanted to, but whatever her motives, the Nine-tails is willing to be concillatory and let your group take custody of her and Mai for the time being.

You don't leave right away, however. Lady Takara says there are a few arrangements she needs to make before she and Mai can leave, and since Gyokuro has calls of her own to make, the kitsune invites everyone inside the mostly-repaired house. As Gyokuro and Elder Mitsuki both take out cellphones, Lady Takara heads for the back door - with you, Briar, and Uncle Hayashi trailing unobtrusively along, just in case - to call Mai and Lady Akemi inside.

"Do you anticipate any problems telling the girl, Lady Takara?" Uncle asks, as you proceed down the front hall.

"I don't know," comes the reluctant reply from the lady of the house. "I originally told her that I was a relative on her father's side - she got her hair color from him, you see, which made my preferred appearance easier for her to believe - and that I was taking her in because her parents were going on a cruise."

"And she didn't want to go with them?"

Lady Takara laughs. "I don't know how closely you looked into her family, Hayashi-"

"Very little," he admits.

"-but when I found Mai, her parents were almost ridiculously affectionate towards one another, and towards her as well. Mai was honestly happy to have a few weeks away from all the 'can't breathe hugs and lovey-dovey silliness' - her words, not mine."

Uncle nods. "And then a few weeks turned into a few more, and then a few months..."

"...and by that point, I was familiar enough to be comfortable. Although finding out that I was a real kitsune who could teach her magic probably didn't hurt."

Your ears perk up at that.

"And it never occurred to her that you might be using that magic to trick her?" Uncle says. "Or had just taken her?"

"Have you SEEN some of the nonsense modern writers publish about us, Hayashi?" Lady Takara asks pointedly. "Especially in the stories meant for children Mai's age?"

From his groan, Uncle has. "So, completely innocent, then?"

"Well, not completely. I swear, once that girl picked up on how much some of her manga annoyed me with their depiction of kitsune, she made a POINT of picking out the silliest ones. Of course, I couldn't let that stand - 'terrible role models,' was my thinking, and you never let a kit get away with being clever at your expense - so I started telling her some of the more accurate stories. Nothing age-inappropriate, just... more serious. Which is probably going to come back to bite me, now," Lady Takara adds, as she waves out the kitchen window to Mai, who energetically waves back from outside, before taking Lady Akemi's hand and pulling her towards the door.

---

Lady Takara's remark about being able to teach Mai magic caught your attention, and you spend a few seconds trying to think of a way to inquire if she'd be interested in taking on another student, without coming across as a mercenary opportunist. Between her aptitude for Elemental and Illusion Magic, her spiritual energy, her overall level of power, and the sheer amount of experience she must have acquired over nine hundred years and more of life, there's all KINDS of things you could learn from the nine-tailed fox.

Unfortunately, the circumstances are working against you. Even if it literally was for her own good, you were still party to what amounted to an assault on Lady Takara, and all the associated emotional injury - and property damage. Neither she nor Mai are likely to be thinking of you in friendly terms right now, and while it's true that you don't need a teacher to be your friend in order to learn anything from them, starting off with said teacher thinking of you as a threat to her and hers just isn't going to work.

More so, when said teacher is also a monster. Monsters have very particular reactions to threats, especially where children they're positively inclined towards are involved.

And quite aside from that, when you set aside Lady Takara being a top-tier monster and look at her as a person who's just been through a mentally and emotionally-trying experience, you get the impression that she's leaning HARD on the role she's expected to play right now, rather than sit down and deal with everything she's been through - not just today, but over the last six centuries or so.

You decide to hold your tongue regarding requests for personal instruction from Lady Takara, at least until she's had a chance to come to terms with her experiences and actions, and is - hopefully - in a better frame of mind.

That being said, there IS another matter you feel the need to talk about, which shouldn't be left alone.

"Excuse me," you say, getting the attention of the two foxes, "but I was under the impression Mai didn't have magical talent when she was taken. Does that mean there's a safe way to grant magical potential?"

...you're surprised, and more than a little troubled, when the two kitsune trade glances, and then look anywhere but at you.

"It's not safe, is it?" Briar guesses.

"Nnnnot completely, no," Uncle admits.

"In my defense," Lady Takara says, "I WAS insane."

Before anyone can say anything more on the subject, the back door bangs open.

"Auntie!" Mai says as she charges inside, one arm busy with her emergency bag, and the other pulling Lady Akemi along in her wake.

You notice that the noblewoman's spirit doesn't seem nearly as uncomfortable about being dragged around by a little girl as she was when you grabbed her hand to hitchhike on her foster-mother's teleport. Is it the different circumstances, the fact that Mai's kind-of sort-of "family," or just that she's a girl?

"Is everything okay? You beat the bad fox, of course, everything stopped being dark and creepy, but are you okay? Were you hurt? Have you talked to these mean people about being mean?" She stops, and sends what's probably supposed to be a menacing look at you, Uncle, and Briar. "You'd better listen to her!"

"'Mean'?" Uncle says aloud, in wounded tones. "Me? I'm just a harmless little old fox!"

Mai's expression is disbelieving. "You're bigger than I am, and I can stomp on people's feet."

The male fox turns to his counterpart. "I see you've taught her the basics."

"No, she'd learned that one before we ever met," Lady Takara replies.

Mai nods, making a wordless noise of affirmation. "Mama said it doesn't matter how big and scary someone is, we all need to use our feet!"

Well, that's true to a point, but...

"But what if they're wearing boots?" Uncle points out, voicing a thought similar to your own.

"Then you kick them in the shins!"

"What if they're flying?"

"Go for the wings!"

"Flying with magic!"

"Cast a spell to interrupt their magic!" Mai pauses, frowns, and admits, "Though I can't do that very well yet. But Auntie says I'll get better, as long as I keep practicing!"

To your ears, that sounds like a good point for "Auntie" to speak up - and she does, opening with, "Speaking of your mother, Mai-"

"Oh!" And just like that, the little girl has crossed half the room, leaving Lady Akemi behind to bounce in place near Lady Takara. Beaming up at the taller woman, Mai asks, "Did she call? Are she and Daddy coming home? Are we going to meet them?"

Lady Takara doesn't flinch, but her gentle smile looks a little more strained with each question.

You could probably give her a few minutes to... discuss things with Mai. It'd be an opportunity to talk to Uncle about whatever "not entirely safe" thing was done to Mai to increase her magical potential, while the girl was distracted by something else.

On the other hand, do you want to take even that much of your attention off the nine-tailed fox?

---

You quietly step away from Lady Takara and Mai, heading for the doorway that leads back into the main hall. As you go, you gesture for Uncle Hayashi to accompany you.

He blinks and points at himself, as if confused.

You nod and repeat your original motion, more emphatically this time.

The old fox shrugs and follows in your wake, making little real effort at stealth - but given Mai's excited focus on her "Auntie," it hardly matters. Lady Takara ignores him as well, and Lady Akemi merely spares the two of you and Briar a brief glance.

"I'm going to take a shot in the dark, here," the eight-tailed fox says easily, as he exits the kitchen, "and guess that you wanted to know more about the topic we were discussing, before we got sidetracked by that little whirlwind on legs?"

"If you'd be so kind, sir," you reply. "Unless it's a secret?"

"Nothing like that, no. It used to be pretty common knowledge, actually." Uncle leans his staff against his shoulder, and sets himself against the wall next to the door. "All that Lady Takara did was perform a blood-adoption ritual."

You consider the name, but it doesn't ring any bells with your inherited memories, or the ones rooted in THIS lifetime. That said, between the name of the ritual and the current circumstances, your accumulated mystical knowledge is giving you a pretty good idea of what's involved.

Not wanting to make an assumption based on incomplete information, and consequently miss out on subtle but important details, you ask Uncle to explain it anyway.

"The precise details of the ritual vary depending on who's taking part and what their respective species are," he says, "but the universal factor is a transfer of blood. In this instance, Lady Takara gave Mai a little of her blood, probably after mixing it with some of the girl's own. As a result of that, Mai would have gradually taken on some of Lady Takara's traits, first of the body, then of the mind, and finally, the spirit."

...

The similarities between the ritual Uncle is describing and the siring process of corpse-vampires does not escape you.

"That sounds... familiar," you say carefully, while looking down the hall, to where Gyokuro is talking on a cell-phone. You weren't aware she'd brought something like that along, and have to wonder how it got through that fight intact, let alone functional - but trivial curiosities aside, you're not going to bet on the device or the call distracting Gyokuro from a conversation about the similarities between this blood ritual and the "traditional" method of vampiric reproduction.

You're honestly not sure if living vampires are capable of anything like that process, or if it's restricted to their undead counterparts, but speculating about it in Lady Shuzen's hearing is probably not a good idea.

"There may be a connection," Uncle admits, glancing at Gyokuro in turn. "And then again, there may not be. The use of blood as a medium for power and lineage is far from unique to one species or culture... which, in a way, is part of the problem."

As Uncle explains, the closer-related both sides of a blood-adoption are to begin with, and the younger the one being adopted is, the safer the ritual becomes. An uncle, grandparent, or other close relative taking in an orphaned child causes no harm, and seldom has significant effects on the adoptee's appearance or abilities. It might strengthen traits common to the side of the family that's performing the adoption, reduce traits inherited from the other parent, or awaken a dormant quality that initially skipped the child, but that's the limit. Humans blood-adopting unrelated humans is also safe, although as Uncle understands it, there can be issues when certain magical lineages are involved.

It's only when you start adding non-human blood to the process that things get genuinely hazardous. The more evolutionarily-distant the two parties are, and the greater the imbalance of native power between them, the more severe the strain the ritual imposes. Traditionally, hanyou and their more human descendants are more successful than full-blooded youkai when it comes to adopting human children. It helps if the youkai heritage in question is of an animal nature, rather than one of the more... exotic monstrous lineages, but even THOSE tend to be a better option for cross-species adoptions than something divine or demonic.

Mixing mortal and immortal blood rarely turns out well for anyone involved, as a great many demigods and half-demons fabled in story and song could attest.

"Which explains much about the individual tragedies we know occurred as a result of our hostess's prior condition," Uncle sighs. "Given that Mai hasn't taken on any of the distinctly non-human traits common to hanyou, I'd venture that Lady Takara was lucid enough to learn from her... past failures... and refined the adoption ritual so that its effects would be less pronounced, and less dangerous." He pauses, frowns, and then adds, "Or she might have slowed the process down, so that the child could grow into her new heritage at a more natural pace."

You suspect you'll have to ask the lady herself to be sure - but that may have to wait.

While you've been talking with Uncle, you've also been keeping one ear on the conversation taking place in the kitchen. You wouldn't exactly call it listening in, as you haven't bothered to use ki or magic to enhance your hearing, nor even to focus your attention in that particular way that lets you shut out distracting sounds to follow the one you want. As a result, while you're aware that there are people talking in the next room, you haven't been able to tell exactly what they're saying.

At least, not most of it.

Some of Mai's remarks have been... energetic.

Speaking of whom, the girl herself has just come running out of the kitchen, barely sparing you, Briar, or Uncle Hayashi a glance of acknowledgment as she whoops and thunders past, on course for the stairs.

About halfway there, the girl clatters to a halt, and stares down the hall.

"Mister Hakuba?" Mai asks, audibly startled. "Grandpa Koji?"

"Ah," Kojiro says. "Hello, Mai."

"What are you doing here? And why" - the girl adds, tilting her head to one side curiously - "are you dressed up all fancy? Is that a SWORD?"

---

The words leave your mouth before Kojiro has time to answer any part of Mai's question.

When the girl, the old priest, and most of the other people in the hall turn towards you in surprise, you forge ahead.

"Especially when he's dressing for a fight. You can't just turn up for the big event wearing any old thing, it sends the wrong message. You have to be" - and here, you straighten your own shirt - "sharp."

Behind you, Uncle snickers.

In front of you, Mai merely blinks. "I don't get it."

"I believe Alex was trying to make a joke," Kojiro says. "It lost something in the translation, though."

"Oh, so it's just more of his weird old man talk?" Mai nods. "Okay, then."

What REALLY stings about Mai's remark is that the eight hundred year old fox obviously thought you were funny - which really just goes to prove the eight year old girl's point.

Depressing implications about your sense of humor aside, your interjection did achieve one useful purpose, in that it bought Kojiro a few seconds to think about how he should respond to Mai's stream-of-consciousness inquiry. He explains that his current attire is the priestly equivalent of the fancy suits businessmen wear for formal occasions - not when it's just another day at the office, so to speak, but for the big presentations and important meetings that can make or break your career.

Only in this instance, there was a dangerous youkai that needed to be fought. Hence, the sword.

Mai nods her head in understanding, and thanks Kojiro and Ginta for coming to help her and her Auntie out - "Even though Auntie handled it."

Your respect for the two men increases slightly when neither of them so much as blinks at that remark.

Mai then excuses herself and hurries upstairs, saying something about needing to pack for the trip home.

Once the girl is out of earshot, Kojiro turns to you, his expression grave. "That's not just dye in her hair, is it?"

You shake your head, and quickly recount what you and Uncle just discussed.

When you've finished, the old priest sighs. "Well, that's certainly going to complicate matters. Not that I was expecting seeing Mai back to her family after all this time to be EASY, but..." He trails off, with a sort of resigned frustration.

Lady Takara emerges from the kitchen then, Lady Akemi close behind. She does the proper hostess bit, inquiring if any of her unexpected visitors would care for a minor refreshment while they wait, and then - after everyone has politely turned the offer down once for form's sake, and a second time for personal preference - advises you all that Mai will probably need half an hour or so to finish packing.

"Normally, I would offer you all seats," Lady Takara says. "However, given the circumstances..."

All eyes drift to the front rooms, where broken and burnt furniture is piled up against the back walls and in the corners.

Your repair magic WAS focused on the house and the grounds, rather than what was INSIDE the house.

Seeing as how you're going to end up playing magical taxicab for at least a few of the people here, you figure that this would be a good opportunity to work out the travel arrangements. Not that there's any question about who's going where: no one in your party is about to leave Mai and Lady Takara together without supervision; the pair in turn don't appear inclined to part ways just yet; the Nine-tails has already shown her willingness to play along with the polite fiction that any or all of you could do anything to stop her if she REALLY wanted to grab the girl and run; and while Gyokuro could certainly arrange for a car, why force the extra delay on the proceedings when you're perfectly capable of teleporting everybody back to the Hakuba Shrine?

No, it's not the destination which bothers you, it's the journey - or more correctly, the method of travel. The distance between Lady Takara's house and the Hakuba Shrine is just great enough for the issues that accompany your use of teleportation to present themselves, and while none of your passengers seemed to be troubled by it this time, you did have a few mind-protecting magics up on all of them. Not to mention that they were all adults with decades of experience - if not more - dealing with the Moonlit World, and the hazards therein.

You doubt Lady Takara would thank you if you teleported Mai into a panic attack like the one Cordelia suffered, months earlier. That CAN be easily avoided with an offer to cast a couple of protective spells, but then you'd have to explain WHY you think that some people shouldn't use your method of teleportation without mental defenses in place.

Maybe it'd be better if you split the party in two, with you handling the teleportation for one group, and Uncle managing the other? That is, if you trust the old fox that far. If you don't... teleportation isn't really a priestly power, but Kojiro might be able to manage a Word of Recall, if you took him back to the Hakuba Shrine first and let him speak with his kami about setting it up. And maybe gave him a few pointers.

Or you could just let Lady Takara handle the travel arrangements herself.

---

You raise one hand, and when Lady Takara turns her attention to you, offer, "I could fix up the furniture, too. If you don't mind?"

The Nine-tails blinks, and then gestures towards the wreckage in the room to your right. "Feel free."

Nodding your acknowledgment of her permission, you head into the room in question and look around. As you noted before, most of the room's original furnishings were shoved away from the front of the house by the violence that originally trashed the place. Said pile includes a few smashed wooden frames with attached strings and bits of upholstery, in the right proportions to account for a large couch and two chairs. You also pick out the remains of a table, four side tables, a torch lamp with a (now bent and and warped) metal stand, and enough scattered dirt, greenery, and pieces of fired clay to account for three vases.

Rather than spend ten minutes just patching up one chair, you cast a more powerful version of the Greater Spell to Make Whole, expanding the magic so that it can affect multiple targets. A single casting is enough to repair the couch, both chairs, all the tables, the lamp (though you're not completely sure it'll work), and the broken flowerpots. The flowers themselves, sadly, are beyond the reach of this particular spell.

You cast a cantrip to dust off the restored furniture and sweep up the former contents of the flowerpots, then head into the other room and repeat the process, getting two more chairs, three side-tables, as many lamps, and a bookshelf out of it.

Alas, your second casting of the repair spell does nothing for the books that used to occupy that shelf. You eye the tossed and torn remains and scattered pages sadly, and estimate that there were probably twenty individual texts. Some of them are in big enough pieces that you could repair them, but a few are mising enough of their original contents that you doubt your ability to fix anything beyond their physical forms - the information once contained in those particular volumes will likely be lost.

Lady Takara watches you work with mingled interest, envy, and embarrassment.

"Much as I hate to admit it, I'm not terribly good at repair spells," she says. "Normally, I would just shape an illusion to cover the damage, but with that truth-seeing spell you've cast on everyone..."

She's visibly put out by that. You're not sure if it's a master illusionist's professional distaste for the spell that is the singular bane of her art, or just the fact that your application of that spell was preventing her from doing her duty as a hostess.

In any case, now that seats are available, most of your party opts to make use of them. Elder Mitsuki claims one side of the couch in the right-hand room, Uncle Hayashi grabs one of the plush seats, and after a moment of discussion with his son, Kojiro takes the other. Ginta seems content to stay on his feet, as does Gyokuro, who actually remains out in the hall, talking on her phone to someone you believe to be Issa - at least, you can't think of anyone else she'd use that particular combination of endearments and commands towards. A bemused Lady Akemi is ushered to the unoccupied side of the couch by her foster-mother, who then stands beside her daughter, fussing over her elaborate robes.

Deciding that you can forego secrecy in this particular matter, you offer to cast a spell of mental protection on Mai before you teleport everyone back to the Hakuba Shrine.

As expected, the magically-capable individuals in the room - which is everyone, really; well, everyone except Briar - gives you startled looks.

"Why would you need to use that kind of defensive magic for teleportation?" Ginta asks.

"I think the boy is worried about teleportation psychosis," Uncle comments.

The Hakubas turn to him, blinking.

"What is that, exactly," Kojiro asks slowly, "and is it anywhere near as bad as it sounds?"

Uncle provides an explanation not terribly dissimilar to the one Briar gave to Lu-sensei, all those weeks ago, although rather than attributing the underlying cause to the strain of passing through dimensions, he credits it to people having different tolerance for "seeing the truth of the world." Perhaps because he's a kitsune, Uncle describes reality in terms akin to a many-layered illusion or a vast, collective dream, and notes that when you strip away the fantasies, incomplete truths, and outright lies people cling to and show them what the universe is REALLY like underneath it all, some of them simply handle it better than others.

"And some of those others go a little nuts," he sums up. "Ranting, raving, trying to choke the life out of the magic-user responsible - nothing that a quick enforced nap won't fix. But one does hear cautionary tales of attempts at suicide and homicide, or those who exhibit a newfound fascination with obscure and occult lore. And THOSE cases usually end in screaming, tentacles, and slime, and not in any of the good ways."

Uncle's chair and the side of the couch taken by Elder Mitsuki are close enough that she can easily reach out and smack her relative across the back of the head.

"Ow!"

"Behave," the female fox growls.

Uncle dons an expression of wounded innocence before continuing. "In any case, teleportation psychosis of any degree is fairly rare. I would venture that the young lady is familiar enough with the supernatural by now for it not to be a great concern."

"Take the spell anyway," Gyokuro comments, leaning in from the hall with her phone held to her chest. "The boy's teleportation is... weird."

Oh, yes. Gyokuro DID stumble on arrival, didn't she? You wonder what she saw...

...and once again, everyone is looking at you.

"We HAVE run into one mild case of teleportation psychosis because of it before," Briar admits. "And another where the person didn't QUITE freak out, but clearly didn't care for the experience."

She's referring to your mother's reaction, when you took her to meet Gen.

"I believe I will accept that offer on Mai's behalf," Lady Takara says after a moment.

With that settled, is there anything else you want to say or do while you're with this group?

---

Though it does offend your sensibilities to see perfectly good books ruined in this manner, you're not quite so outraged as to want to spend time and mana restoring them to legibility.

You'd probably feel different if these were your books, or belonged to somebody you were on better terms with. And you'd CERTAINLY be upset if you could sense magical auras about any of the damaged and destroyed volumes. But as it is, faced with a bunch of ruined writings that have no sentimental value to you, and which carry no auras beyond those they'd have picked up from being in this household or the violence that trashed them, you leave the tattered pages where they lie.

If you're not going to spend mana restoring books, why would you spend it conjuring up a temporary chair? Especially when you just got finished using a Greater Spell to Make Whole to restore an entire room's worth of furniture, including a couple of perfectly fine chairs.

You grab one of the seats and drag it across the hall to the sitting room where most of the rest of your party have gathered. There's enough space for you to fit into the right front corner, near Uncle Hayashi, without anybody feeling crowded.

Lady Takara's claim that Mai would need half an hour to get packed turns out to be a little off; it's only twenty minutes or so before the girl comes running downstairs, the thunder of her feet accompanied by the thumping of a single suitcase.

The adults don't spend that entire time in silence. There IS a fair stretch of relative quiet, when the only person actually speaking is Gyokuro, but eventually Lady Takara gets around to asking how, exactly, you managed to track her down. Although she's not exactly proud of her behavior over the last six centuries, she DOES take a certain satisfaction at how skilled she'd become at staying below the radar.

She's rather surprised to learn that, ultimately, it's all YOUR fault. Miss Suzuka might have been the one who originally brought Mai's disappearance to your attention, and it's unlikely in the extreme that you would have succeeded in this little quest without the aid of the adults in the room, but if not for the resources you brought to the table - the guidance of the Goddesses, Navi's advice, and the assistance of your spirit guide, to say nothing of your own talents - the adults are equally unlikely to have FOUND the Nine-tails in the first place.

It turns out that the Hayashi Clan weren't only wrong about which house Lady Takara was in, they were also wrong about her being in Misaki. The building you're all sitting in is actually somewhere called Kamakura.

Uncle Hayashi openly laughs at that.

In any event, by the time Mai has packed, everyone is ready and past ready to leave. Once Lady Takara has vouched to Mai for the magic you intend to perform, you cast the Spell to Calm Emotions over the girl, then have everyone form a circle, and cast an advanced Spell of Teleportation. The house around you disappears-

-F-

-and is replaced by the grounds of the Hakuba Shrine.

Nobody goes nuts, but Gyokuro is once again staggered by the trip, while Lady Takara's reaction is only slightly better. She keeps STARING at you after that.

Between the unnerving attention of the Nine-tails and the fact that your role in this event is basically concluded, you decide to make your departure. Before doing so, however, you converse with Lady Akemi, letting her know that you can either send her home immediately, or allow her to stay in this world for around a week. You're not surprised when the woman opts for the latter, agreeing to meet you back at the Hakuba Shrine in exactly one week's time, so that you can formally end the binding on her and let her return to her rightful place in the afterlife.

That done, you say your goodbyes and leave the shrine, heading home.

You had planned for a restful afternoon and evening at home, and that's mostly what you get. The anomaly comes towards sunset, when something that looks like a cross between an owl and a cat perches in the tree outside your bedroom window, and starts tapping on the glass. Its body is mostly feline, alternately furry and feathery, with wings rising above the shoulders, long feathers in place of a tail, and fixed talons rather than retractable claws. Its face is whiskery, huge-eyed, and crowned by tufted ears, but has a sharp-looking beak in place of teeth and jaws.

"Oh, goodie," Briar says, eyeing the hybrid critter distastefully. "Two of my least favorite predators, combined into one."

"I knew about the cats, but you don't like owls, either, Briar?"

"They're carnivores, they have sharp senses, they're very quiet in flight, and they're dumb enough to be attracted to glowy things," the luminous fairy says sourly.

"Well, dumb or not, this one appears to have a link to somebody," you muse, studying the magical signature that's linked to but quite distinct from the animal's own essence. "I think it's a familiar, or something in that nature... and it's carrying a pouch."

After exercising all due caution and confirming that there's nothing immediately or potentially dangerous about the owl-cat... cat-owl... thing... you open your window and retrieve the contents of the pouch. Though it's more like you're PERMITTED to do so.

Whatever its outward appearance, the creature's attitude is one hundred percent cat.

Inside the pouch are a few pages of material that Briar describes as similar to parchment, although she's pretty sure it's not made from sheep, goats, or cattle.

One page is a formal-sounding letter from Hakoda of the Southern Water Tribe, inviting you to a meeting with the tribal shaman.

The other two pages are from Sokka, who says hi, explains that his father talked to the shaman about possible magical ice reagents, like you asked back at the Shuzens, and that after a series of delays that includes particularly intense winter storms, a giant squid, and tap-dancing penguins - what? - the old lore-keeper finally had a chance to speak with the spirits about you.

Apparently, the spirits made some pretty wild claims.

"I'm certain that the creepy old guy knows where you can find what you were looking for," Sokka's letter says, "but I'm also pretty sure that he's going to make you go on a vision quest or a ritual hunt or something like that to earn it."

There's an addendum from Katara: "Ignore Sokka. Elder Tiriaq is a perfectly nice old man, and he is not going to send you on a hunt. He just wants to meet you in person."

Sokka has more to say on the subject: "His eyes stare off at angles from each other, he carries on entire conversations in his SLEEP, he doesn't make a sound when he walks, and every time he sees me, he starts laughing! How is that not creepy?"

There's no further commentary from Katara. Either she didn't manage to lay hands on the letter a second time, or she just didn't have anything to add.

Sokka also thought to provide extensive directions for how you could find their home, but another note from Katara says: "Or he could just use magic to find us."

Sokka had no response to that.

Aside from the obvious - scrying the location, casting spells to resist the cold and wet - are there any particular preparations you'd care to make before visiting the Southern Water Tribe tomorrow?

---

Before calling it a night, you do some magically-assisted reading on the subject of Antarctica, to get a better idea of what sort of difficulties you're going to face tomorrow, and what measures you need to take in order to deal with them.

The results of your research are mildly alarming.

Suffice it to say, Antarctica is COLD. Very, VERY cold. Cold in a way that would have even a desert-dwelling bandit, accustomed to facing the bitter chill of the night with too little, shivering and saying, "Damn, that's COLD."

The Snowpeak Mountains and curse-frozen Zora's Domain are barely a patch on that level of sheer frigidity. Hyrulean winters don't even come CLOSE.

Worse yet, because the continent is located at the extreme end of the southern hemisphere, it's currently in the middle of its winter season - which means not only is it EVEN COLDER than usual, it's also going to be dark. Like, entire WEEKS of NIGHT dark.

You're quite certain that your customary "winter clothing," designed as it is for a climate where water doesn't even FREEZE in some years, is NOT going to cut it.

Good thing you have magic.

Although you go to bed early that night, intent on facing the next day with your full strength, you take advantage of the presence of Ambrose's wards to do a little magical experimentation first, and tweak the Spell of the Flaming Aura so that it's less "flaming" and more "freezing." It takes multiple castings over the course of an hour for you to work out the necessary changes to the spell's formula, but you're quite satisfied with the end result.

Gained Ice Affinity F (Plus) (Plus)

That attended to, you perform your standard evening meditation - a practice that appears to have hit a developmental plateau recently, it must be said - and turn in.

The next day, you wake up, eat breakfast, then shower and dress. Following your mundane preparations, you retreat to your Mirror Hideaway and begin loading up on self-enhancement spells.

First, your newly-developed Spell of the Freezing Aura, boosted from fourth- to sixth-circle so that it will last for the next twelve hours or so.

Next, your usual assortment of physical and mental Augmentations, similarly adjusted for long duration.

After that comes a Spell of Darkvision, to compensate for the expected lack of light below the Southern Polar Circle.

You had considered casting the Spell of Cultural Adaptation to get yourself more in-tune with the Southern Water Tribe's way of thinking, but unfortunately, Sokka, Katara, and Hakoda were all considerate enough to write to you in English. As such, their letters don't satisfy the spell's requirements for a material component.

This wouldn't normally be an issue: as a sorcerer, you're perfectly capable of casting spells without the basic components other magic-users would require; and as the Heir to Power, you can substitute raw mana in place of more potent reagents. It's a bit of a sticking point in this particular instance, however, because you've only encountered members of the Southern Water Tribe the one time, at Kahlua's birthday, when they were acting with respect for their hosts and their hosts' culture. And even then, you spent most of your time with Sokka and Katara, who are your age.

People that young generally aren't the best cultural ambassadors.

It makes it very difficult for you to say what was specifically Southern Water Tribe behavior, what was general monster behavior, and what was just Sokka being himself.

On the other hand, after all the time you've spent with vampires, Water Tribesmen, part-oni, and kitsune, you have no problems casting the Spell of Cultural Adaptation to attune yourself to the general monstrous mindset.

So that's something.

Your last spell is a Greater Magic Aura, to conceal the enhancements you have running.

You'd considered loading up on defensive spells as well, but your sense of etiquette said that would have been a bad idea. It's one thing for you to turn up near Sokka and Katara's home with a range of ability-boosting magics going. You're a kid, venturing into unfamiliar territory that's located on the most remote and inhospitable continent on Earth; making yourself better-able to face the natural hazards of Antarctica is only sensible. But if you march into the Southern Water Tribe's domain with combat-grade shielding spells going, AFTER receiving a personal invitation from their chieftan, it'd be a blatant statement that you EXPECTED to be attacked.

Never mind that the spells would have gone unnoticed to casual detection methods, YOU'D know they were there. And even if they are more naturally aggressive than humans, you still don't want to get into the habit of thinking your monstrous acquaintances are ACTIVELY threatening your well-being.

There's sensible caution, and then there's paranoia.

With your magical preparations made, you leave your Mirror Hideaway and pack some granola bars into your dimensional pocket, while letting your mother know that you're going to go visit some of your friends - not in Japan, this time - and that you...

---

...definitely won't be back for lunch.

"I'll pack a lunch for you before you leave, then," your mother answers. "Where are you going, anyway? Not to Japan, I hope."

"It's around two in the morning in Japan right now," you answer, after doing some quick mental calculations, "so no, I'm definitely not going there."

"I'm glad to hear that," she says.

"I'm actually going south today, if that's okay with you," you continue.

"Oh, you know someone in Mexico?"

"Further south, Mom."

"...Central America?" she ventures after a moment.

"Even further."

Now she's starting to look bemused, and perhaps a touch concerned. "SOUTH America, then."

"Still not quite there."

Your mother stares at you.

You spend the next fifteen minutes explaining why you're going all the way to Antarctica, who you know that could possibly be living there, and repeatedly reassuring your mother that you've taken magical precautions against being frozen stiff on arrival - or even after being in the coldest place on Earth for half a day.

She appears to accept the rest of it, but your assurances don't stop her from trying to load you up with multiple layers of the heaviest clothes she can find in the house.

You COULD wear them, or at least stuff them in your dimensional pocket until you have need of them, but you'd really rather not. As an alternative, you could conjure a set of proper winter gear - it'd be the work of a few minutes to divine what sort of stuff the people who actually reside and work in Antarctica use, and another half-hour or so from there to put your own version together with the Spell of Creation.

It'd be superfluous to your needs with the Spell of the Freezing Aura being up and all, not to mention wasteful of mana, but you have yet to actually tap into any of your full reserve of magical energy, and it WOULD give your mother some peace of mind.

That settled, and some Tupperware-sealed peanut butter and jam sandwiches, a fresh apple, and a can of Coke stashed in your pocket for later, you leave the house and start making your way out of town.

Seeing as how you're going to spend a significant portion of the day in a land of eternal ice and snow where nothing grows, you decide to head north, into the forest, for today's teleportation. Once you've reached your usual "safe distance" from Sunnydale and left the road, you ponder which spell to lead off with.

Obviously, you're going to cast the Greater Spell of Scrying to find where the Southern Water Tribe makes their home, and then the Greater Spell of Teleport to get there. However, you're mildly concerned that the Tribe might have wards up over their homes to prevent uninvited outsiders from using exactly that combination of spells to drop in. Casting the Spell of Sending and getting in touch with a member of the Water Tribe first, to make sure they know you're coming, would probably be a good idea.

That just leaves the question of who to call. Chief Hakoda is the obvious answer, as he's both the leader of the group and the one who officially invited you, but you've only spoken to the man in passing a couple of times. You know Sokka and Katara rather better, and you could always do the formal greeting bit with their father after you'd arrived.

---

Although the so-called "winter" clothes your mother is trying to get you to wear would be completely useless at the South Pole, you're inclined to take them anyway, if only to ease her concerns about you wandering around the Antarctic ice.

Then you get an idea.

Snatching up the various garments, you tell your mother you'll be right back, return to the basement, call up your Mirror Hideaway again, and step inside. There, you cast a Spell of Divination, asking the question: "What do people wear at the South Pole?"

The answer comes in a series of images, displaying the heaviest and most concealing winter gear you've ever seen.

With those images as a guide, you cast a somewhat unusual Spell of Summoning, calling forth physical examples - albeit short-lived ones - of the sort of equipment you want. These, you magically-analyze, trying to form templates.

It's a bit tricky. First, you have to account for the strictly temporary nature of the Summoned items, and work around it - there'd be no point in using this information otherwise. That part isn't a huge obstacle, certainly not when compared to the materials used in some of these items. Try as you might, the complexity of the plastic that went into those snow goggles defies your attempted analysis. You have an easier time with the fabric of the heavy coat, insulated pants, gloves, and face-concealing hat.

It helps that you managed to analyze the Gohma webbing back at the Memorian Outpost, and thus knew what "silk" looks and feels like in the mystical sense going into this. The composition is different in a number of ways - the arctic weather gear wasn't woven from Conceptual Chaos and Evil, for starters - but you definitely saved yourself some time and effort.

Gained (Ant)Arctic Weather Gear Template

Using your and the shirts, pants, sweaters, coat, socks, and old shoes picked out by your mother as raw material, you cast the Spell of Fabrication. The garments before you shift, warp, and flow together, shape and color changing as the underlying materials unbind, reposition, and then re-weave themselves.

Gained Knowledge (Magesmithing) D (Plus)
Gained Tailoring E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

The end result of your magical crafting isn't too bad. Lack of snow goggles aside, you'll be covered head to toe, and when you put the put the outfit on, it proves surprisingly unrestrictive. There's no question that it's heavier and thicker than you're used to, and you certainly wouldn't want to wear it around Sunnydale, but your flexibility isn't impaired nearly as much as you might have worried.

Gained (Ant)Arctic Weather Gear

You even had enough material left over to transfigure a tiny copy of your outfit for Briar.

Just for that, she hugs you.

Still wearing your new heavy-duty winter outfit, you leave your Mirror Hideaway and march back upstairs to show your mother what you're going to be wearing on your trip to the South Pole.

Her approval rating is approximately one hundred and ten percent.

Also, she's giving you that considering look again, the one you've caught a time or two before when the subject of clothing, fabrics, and sewing has come up in relation to magic.

You take that as your cue to stash your gear in your dimensional pocket, say goodbye, and leave as quickly as possible.

Although you're tempted to get in touch with Sokka or Katara, you decide that a formal invitation to visit the Southern Water Tribe merits a formal response - and that means talking to Chief Hakoda first.

Minutes pass as you gather and shape the mana for the Spell of Sending. You aren't too worried about waking Hakoda up in the middle of the night, as Sokka's "directions" to his family home included a few references to latitude and longitude. Assuming that you read the coordinates right, the Water Tribe settlement is a few hours ahead of you, making for a nice change from Japan.

"Chief Hakoda," you say as the spell takes shape, "this is Alexander Harris. Would you prefer that I scry and teleport to your location, or the one mentioned in Sokka's letter?"

Because there was a "starting point," of sorts, for the directions Sokka gave you.

You wait a minute for the magic to resolve. Shortly, you hear Hakoda's voice.

"Glad to know I haven't started hearing spirits," the man chuckles. "I'd prefer the site Sokka gave you, Alexander. We can meet you there in... oh, twenty minutes?"

Well, that answers that. Twenty minutes isn't a bad time, either - enough for you to ritually scry the site in question, change into your new heavy-duty winter gear, and then ritually teleport.

You go ahead and do all that-

-flying/falling/sinking through a strange space/medium/awareness filled with familiar shapes/alien geometries and faint/loud chorus/discordance and a near/distant green energy/presence I see/hear/feel/sense you where/when are you going this time/space/probability that way?-

-and are promptly hit in the face by a blast of the coldest wind you've ever encountered. Not the strongest - the currents you faced inside that thunderstorm hold that title for the time being - but by far the most bitterly chill.

Even with your Spell of Freezing Aura rendering you immune to the cold, you find yourself glad you went ahead and added a layer of winter weather gear. It handles the gust MUCH better than the far lighter inner layer you're still wearing would have in its place.

"Wow," Briar says from your heavily-insulated shoulder. "Wrapped up like a yeti and under a spell that grants straight-up immunity to the cold, and I'm STILL getting a chill just looking at this place."

As you take in the scenery, you have to agree with her.

You're standing next to an ice-rimed stone formation that Sokka described as resembling a penguin - and to his credit, from the right angle, you can sort of see what he was talking about. It's a good thing that you cast that Spell of Darkvision, though, because without it, you'd have trouble telling the landmark rock from its surroundings.

It's darker out here than anywhere you've ever been in your LIFE. Even the Shuzen Estate at night doesn't compare - that place, at least, had electrical lighting. The only light in this winter wilderness is that of the moon and stars, and the former is waning. Everywhere you look, all you can see is snow, ice, and exposed rock - and not much of that last one.

Like Briar said, despite your multiple layers and methods of resisting the cold, you can't escape a chill.

"Feels like we're all alone in the night, doesn't it?" Briar observes.

"Yeah, it does."

Or at least, you HOPE you're alone. The way the wind moans as it passes over the frozen ground is... unsettling.

You find yourself craving a little honest light. Or maybe a fire? The latter WOULD be more useful if it turns out you really aren't as alone as you feel...

---

You never really suffered from a fear of the dark. Although you'd like to take credit for that particular trait, you have to admit that it probably arises from your past life's strong affinity for the Darkness. It's certainly true that, once you started delving into sorcery and increasing your familiarity with Dark Magic - among many, many other things - you went from simply not being afraid of the dark to actively enjoying it.

Antarctica is currently in the middle of the longest night in the world. Ice and snow aside, there's nothing out here right now that you haven't encountered before. You also don't think Sokka would have suggested meeting somewhere potentially dangerous - or at least, not anywhere that the danger would be beyond your ability to handle. Factor in your Spell of Darkvision, and your need for an active source of illumination is considerably reduced.

And now that you've stopped and thought about it, you can see how casting a Spell of Light or Fire would be a double-edged sword under these conditions. Dark as it is, the magical equivalent of a torch would mark your position to everything with eyes for miles around.

If you're genuinely worried about being stalked by things in the night, pinpointing your location like that would be amazingly counterproductive.

Having pushed down the lingering remnants of your concerns about the night, you decide to take advantage of the darkness to watch the stars. Leaning against the stone, you tilt your head back, and look up.

...

"Alex?" Briar asks. "Is something wrong?"

"...have there always been that many stars up there?" you ask.

Sweet Din, there a lot of them.

There is a pause as Briar shifts on your shoulder, no doubt looking from you, to the stars, and back again.

As you hasten to explain, you don't recall ever seeing so many stars in Sunnydale, let alone L.A. or Tokyo. The nights you slept over at Kahlua's place are a bit questionable, as the "sky" there was inside a barrier, and could have been real or projected images.

Your inherited memories include a fair number of nocturnal vistas, and when compared to Sunnydale, the night sky over Hyrule was practically bursting at the seams with stars, at least when the full moon wasn't blotting them out. You're not sure if that's because Hyrule is located on a different world, and simply has many more stars within visual range of the naked eye than Earth does, or if it's down to atmospheric conditions - light pollution, smog, and other issues which plague your current world of residence, but weren't much of a problem, if any, for the old one.

Briar's spent enough time on Earth for her to confidently state that if there IS a difference between the number of stars you can see from the surface of this planet and those you can see from Hyrule, it's not one that's obvious to the casual observer. Probably not to most of the professional observers, come to that. All those stars you're seeing right now really have been there all along, it's just that you just couldn't see them before, thanks to those "atmospheric conditions" you listed off.

"We're just far enough away from human population centers that most of those problems are either gone, or as minimized as they can get," Briar says. "Plus, for all the ice and snow around, have you noticed how dry the air feels? I'm pretty sure that the amount of water in the air would affect what you could see with a telescope, so you have to take that into account, too."

Gained Astronomy F (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Dark Affinity D (Plus) (Plus)

Although your eyes are on the heavens and your ears at least partly occupied listening to Briar, you've been careful to keep your other senses alert for movement closer to Earth. After four or five minutes of stargazing and chatting with your fairy companion, you start hearing something over the wind.

Barking?

Are there dogs in Antarctica?

...wait a minute.

Focusing, you mentally reach in the direction the noise seems to be coming from, and quickly notice a set of approaching presences. There's quite a few animals, all of a kind you don't immediately recognize, but which does feel enough like Moblin and the few other dogs you've met that you're willing to peg them as SOME sort of canine. You also pick out three auras that match to the Water Tribe. One of those is definitely Sokka, and you're pretty sure the second belongs to his father. The third presence is unfamiliar to you, but feels like an adult.

"Think that's our ride?" Briar asks.

"Halloooo, the rock!" Sokka's voice calls out, still a bit faint with distance and competing with the breeze. "Are you there, Alex?"

"I'd say yes," you answer, before cupping your gloved hands before your mouth and calling back...

---

..."Yes!"

The temptation to make a confusing (for Sokka) and amusing (for you) remark is there, but you force it down and just acknowledge your presence.

A few minutes later, you're sitting in the Southern Water Tribe's equivalent of a dogsled, being hauled across the icy plain by a team of barking creatures that Sokka introduced as "seal-dogs." Their appearance fits their name to a tee, or vice-versa, as they have the sleek, shiny fur and large, dark eyes you've seen in pictures of seals, combined with the familiar snouts and hard-clawed feet of canines. The closest they have to flippers are their tails, which more closely resemble the flukes of a seal or other aquatic mammal than a dog's fluffy tail.

Behind you on the sled, guiding the team, is a man Hakoda introduced to you as Bato. He seems okay, for a guy who looks like a human crossed with an orca, and is wearing a comparatively light layer of white, grey, and blue-dyed furs against the deadly cold.

Incidentally, Sokka and Hakoda are also in their natural forms. It seems that when it comes to getting by on land, the Water Tribe shifts between their human forms and their natural forms as the current need dictates. For trips like this, where the vast majority of the locomotion can be entrusted to seal-dogs, the increased tolerance to cold offered by the Tribe's natural forms is generally considered well-worth the difficulty of walking around on feet better-suited for life in the sea.

At least for those members of the Tribe who aren't descended from wolves or other land spirits. You're pretty sure you passed at least one guy like that on your way to the village, the very image of a werewolf in full half-man, half-beast form, from the top of his hairy canine muzzle to the tips of his massively-clawed hands and digitigrade feet. The only difference is that where a werewolf would be slavering mad - assuming it could appear at all under the waning moon - this fellow was perfectly sane, fully clothed, and wielding a spear, which he raised in brief salute as the two sleds went past.

A hunter? A guard, maybe? Just a guy out for a night stroll, with the privacy of his own thoughts?

The Water Tribe village is only about twenty-five minutes at seal-dog speeds from the penguin-shaped rock, and you get there by a fairly simple route, though one that's far from straight. Aside from that wolf-man, you also pass an upthrust heap of something that could be rock or ice, swing wide to avoid a patch of snow that looks perfectly smooth and unremarkable, and drive through a natural tunnel in a wall of ice, which you don't see until you're almost right on top of it.

The village itself is an interesting mix of mystical and mundane, ancient and modern. A wall of thick ice, twice as tall as a grown man, marks the perimeter, with easily a dozen figures standing watch atop it. Within the wall, you can see a score of buildings made of ice and wood, but almost a third as many that are clearly made of metal, ceramics, and other such materials - and not just bits and pieces scavenged from a shipwreck or some abandoned outpost, at that. No, it's pretty clear that somebody with access to Twentieth Century technology built those structures.

The radio antennas that rise over the settlement, and the electric lights shining through many of the windows, are evidence enough that the Southern Water Tribe is keeping up with the times, in their own way.

You wonder how they pay for that sort of thing. From what little you know of Antarctica, there's not a lot in the way of natural resources down here.

"Home again, home again," Sokka sighs, as he unstraps himself from the lead sled and gets to his feet in a long, exaggerated stretch. "Hey, Dad. Can the grown-up stuff wait for a bit? I'd like to show Alex around, and we should probably stop by the house and let Katara know he's here."

"Oh, I suppose the grown-up stuff can wait," Hakoda returns, grinning in a way that carefully doesn't expose his sharper-than-human teeth. "But help me with the dogs first, will you?"

"Sure!"

---

You raise a hand to catch your hosts' attention. "Would you mind if I helped out?"

"Do you know anything about seal-dogs?" Sokka asks.

"I have a dog at home," you answer. "Does that help?"

"Depends on what kind of dog it is," Sokka replies. "Seal-dog? Bear-dog? Bat-dog?" He pauses, and gives you a suspicious look. "It's not a cat-dog, is it? I've heard stories about those, and I'm not sure I believe that they even exist."

"No," you answer slowly. "He's just a dog."

Sokka blinks at you for a moment, and then shakes his head. "I keep forgetting that most of the rest of the world just has those... weird, kind-of... half-animals."

You spend the next ten minutes or so helping to unhitch the seal-dogs from the sleds, check them over for possible injuries sustained during their run, get them fed, and sneak in a little playing around. Despite their atypical appearance, the behavior of the hybrids has enough canine elements that you don't do too badly - for a new guy, Sokka adds. It probably helps that these are domesticated animals.

Also, they like belly rubs.

When you inquire, Sokka explains that seal-dogs aren't precisely native to the continent, their ancestors having been imported by the Southern Water Tribe many generations ago, when they migrated south to get away from - as Sokka puts it - "a bunch of smug, stuck-up, pushy jerks." The Water Tribe migrants brought a few other kinds of animals with them, and tamed or learned how to hunt others that were already local.

Once you've finished tending to the seal-dogs, Sokka gives you that tour. There isn't a huge amount to see, but he makes up for that by going into detail about the people and things you see. It quickly becomes clear that Sokka enjoys a level of comfortable familiarity with his hometown that completely eclipses your own knowledge of Sunnydale.

You wonder if you should do something about that in the future. They say ignorance is bliss, and there undoubtedly are people and things on the Hellmouth that you're happier not knowing anything about, but that doesn't mean it'll stop them from trying to eat you, given half a chance.

One thing that catches your attention as Sokka shows you around is the population. There are only a few dozen buildings within the perimeter wall, and it's clear that not all of them are homes - or at least, not ONLY that. Taking the number and size of the houses you can see into account, there probably shouldn't be more than a hundred and twenty people living in this village, but you can see at least twenty guys just manning the wall, and you've passed easily three times that many more in the streets - a mix of kids at play, adults moving to and from work, and several folks who give off a sense of being almost as foreign as you are.

Some of those "foreigners" are clearly Water Tribe, but wear clothes bearing colors, patterns, and symbols that are just a bit different from those worn by Sokka, Hakoda, and that Bato guy. They also don't quite match to what you recall Katara and her mother wearing, nor to the garments of the majority of the locals. While your Twentieth Century Californian mind would normally chalk this up to personal tastes and popular style and then ignore it, your inherited Gerudo sensibilities whisper of differences in social status, clan affiliation, and residence.

In short, Water Tribe or no, people who aren't dressed like the locals aren't from this village.

You also pick up a handful of youki signatures that don't feel like Water Tribe at all. Most of the people to whom these auras belong don't turn up in your line of sight, leaving you wondering as to who - and more precisely, what - they are, but you do lay eyes on one individual, a white giant who must be fifteen feet tall if he's an inch. He doesn't wear much besides a simple leather harness, but he hardly needs it: what little skin on his person isn't covered in shaggy fur - mostly about the face, hands, and feet - is thick with insulating fat; and more than that, his aura is strongly attuned to Elemental Ice, enough so that his physical insulation might as well be for show.

In fact, when you pass the huge fellow, his head turns to regard you for a moment in clear curiosity.

Gained Ice Affinity F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

Possibly even more remarkable than the non-Water Tribe youkai, however, are the human auras you notice. One man wearing cold weather gear like your own showed up while you were working with the dogs, wanting to speak with Hakoda. He not only felt completely human, but entirely mundane besides - and despite that, he was perfectly at ease with Hakoda, and the big bear-like guy that had been escorting him around.

Some of the other humans in the village are probably with that first guy, if their shared taste in winter outfitters is any indication, but you see one man wearing Water Tribe colors, and when a crowd of kids goes shrieking by, you'd swear there were at least two human children in the mix.

And all of these are just the folks that are outside on this brisk Antarctic... um, morning? You can pick up plenty of auras inside the buildings, and you know that there must be a significant portion of the village out fishing or hunting or otherwise engaged in obtaining food.

When you run the numbers in your head, you figure there must be more like two hundred and fifty people that call this village home. But unless they're crammed in seven or eight to a house, where are they all staying?

What questions do you ask Sokka during this tour?

---

The unexpectedly mixed population of the village has caught your interest, and after the third time somebody who doesn't appear to be strictly "local" or a natural-born member of the Water Tribe passes you in the street, you ask Sokka about it.

As it happens, your Gerudo instincts were correct. The Southern Water Tribe is made up of a number of villages that exist all along the continental coast, some on the mainland, some on the islands, and one or two further inland - although those are more like way-stations for long trips. While no one settlement is made up entirely of members of a single kin-group, as a rule, each one has a dominant clan that accounts for at least half of the entire population. This village is something of an exception in that regard, because it's in a fairly central location among half a dozen other settlements, as well as a couple of human outposts.

Because of that positioning, and some conveniently-placed geothermal vents that keep the harbor from freezing over in the winter - in addition to making the waters unusually rich with life - Sokka's village has a long history of being a center of trade and diplomacy. It's part of the reason why Hakoda is considered the Chief of the ENTIRE Southern Water Tribe, rather than just of his own village.

"The other part being that he thumped all the other guys who wanted the job, after Granddad stepped down," Sokka says with a grin.

That history of being willing to talk to people from different clans is also why there are humans and other non-Tribesmen in the village, to say nothing of the modern technology and construction you've seen. The Southern Water Tribe has a quiet, under-the-table arrangement with some of the governments that maintain research stations in this part of Antarctica. For some of the settlements, it amounts to "you leave us alone, and we leave you alone," but Sokka's village is one of several that actively engage in an exchange of goods and services with the humans.

Ironically, that contact with in-the-know humans is in large part responsible for the Southern Water Tribe's current level of involvement with the rest of the Moonlit World. Prior to the Twentieth Century, their interactions with outsiders had been spotty at best, mainly limited to small expeditions to (and from) the Northern Water Tribe's territory that might take place once a year at most, and more commonly, once every few years. The rapid development and spread of human technology over the last hundred years made it much easier to keep in contact across great distances - at least without resorting to magic and its quirks - and as far as a settlement of traders, diplomats, and just plain curious individuals was concerned, that was a GOOD thing.

These days, Sokka's village apparently sees more traffic and does more business in a single season than they used to for entire decades. Much of what they trade is manpower-based, rather than material - there isn't a lot of the latter to spare, after all, and the different kin-groups that make up the Tribe have enough of a diversity of talent to find work in all kinds of interesting places.

The topic of increased travel and custom naturally segues into your original puzzlement about where and how the villagers live, with so few houses to go around. When you inquire about that, Sokka nods.

"We DO get kind of crowded," he admits. "I mean, look at my family. There's me, Katara, Mom, Dad, and Gran-Gran, and the baby'll be along in late spring. We're not the biggest family in the village, and we're certainly not the biggest PEOPLE - even discounting that yeti merchant." He waves back in the direction you saw the white giant. "I tell you, when I try to imagine a family of those guys sharing living space like we do, all I see is a house with arms and legs busting through the walls, and heads popping up through the roof."

You have to take a moment to stop and consider that image.

"People who want some space of their own have a few choice," Sokka continues. "Some of them just spend as much time as possible outdoors, and only come back home to eat and sleep. Others live on the go, traveling around and either camping out or living on their boats - but even for the Water Tribe, that's really more of a summer thing. Winter storms are just too dangerous, and you can only carry or trade for so much food. Most people prefer the caves. We've got our own little network of tunnels built under and around the village proper, and the same vents that keep the habor from icing over run through there, so we've got a natural heat source AND a hot spring. If all else fails, you can always go full-on traditional and build your own ice-house. Most people don't do that anymore, though. Not unless they're Waterbenders."

When you broach the subject of using magic to learn the Southern Water Tribe's language, Sokka gives you a look of frank astonishment.

"You can DO that?"

By way of response, you cast the Spell of Tongues, and then say, "I can."

Gained Southern Water Tribe C (E without Tongues)

He stares. "That is so neat. And creepy, but mostly neat." Then, Sokka grins. "Come on. We have GOT to show Katara this."

Without further delay, he leads you to his house, which stands near the enter of the village. It's a bit larger than most of the other buildings, but part of the structure has a formal, office-building sort of look to it.

"That's where Dad keeps the computer, holds meetings, and does all his other official hat-wearing stuff," Sokka explains briefly, before directing you around to the back yard, where you can hear someone moving about, and quite a lot of... splashing?

Sokka's just gone around the corner of the house when he's hit by a spray of water.

"Sorry, Sokka!" Katara's voice calls out. "I didn't see you."

Sokka sighs the put-upon sigh of big brothers everywhere, and wipes as much of the rapidly-cooling water off himself as he can, before it freezes up.

"Why is it, every time you play with magic water, I end up getting soaked?" he asks, shaking off his hands.

"It's not magic," Katara retorts, "and you should know better than to come out here when I'm practicing."

"I still say you need to be more careful," Sokka mutters, before casting you a glance. "Back me up here, Alex."

"I am careful, and- wait, who are you talking to?"

---

"I don't know, Sokka," you say, as you follow him around the corner of the house. "This sounds like a family argument, which makes me think I ought to stay out of it."

Sokka considers that, and nods. "Yeah, I can see where you're coming from."

You return his nod, and then wave to Katara. "Hey."

"Hello, Alex," she says, before gesturing downwards with a sweep of her hands. "What do you think?"

Clad in a simpler and more visibly worn-in version of the fur-lined dress you saw her wearing back at Kahlua's birthday party, Katara stands in the middle of a circular pool of unfrozen water about five feet across - just a little wider than the span of her arms. The water is only a few inches deep, and it's crystal clear, giving you a perfect view of not only the unmelted layer of ice that lies below, but also the fact that Katara's webbed feet aren't touching the bottom of her practice area. She's floating in place, by means of an application of ki focused on manipulating the water. Her leg-fins - flukes, maybe? - trail along as she moves her feet back and forth in a slow, repetitive pattern that reminds you of treading water, and is shaping her ki besides.

"It's definitely not magic," you agree. "I mean, when I use magic to manipulate water, it's... well, Sokka, would you like some help getting dry?"

Sokka looks up from wringing out his coat. "Please and thank you."

You quickly cast the Spell of Prestidigitation, and will the excess water seeping into Sokka's clothes to pull away from him and gather above your hand instead. It does so, forming a large, wobbly globe that you gesture at with your free hand.

"See the difference?"

"Well, you didn't do the swoopy-arm thing Katara and the other Waterbenders usually do," Sokka admits, demonstrating the thing in question, to a huff and a rolling of eyes from his sister. "And they don't chant like you did."

"I'm also using a completely different type of energy," you note. "What do you think, Katara?"

The girl regards you, and then the ball of water your magic is holding together.

"...I think I'd like to try something," she says. "Would you mind just keeping that water there?"

You have no problem with this, and focus on holding the sphere together as Katara raises her hands towards it, fingers spread outwards. When she flexes her digits a moment later, you instantly register a pull on the water, tentative but strong, which causes the globe to deform as about a third of its mass flows away from you.

You immediately try to pull the water back, but the Spell of Prestidigitation isn't really designed to do fancy tricks with liquids, certainly not with the kind of force behind them that you can feel Katara mustering. The globe comes apart entirely, flies through the air between you, and reforms between Katara's palms, which she turns over and around it as she catches the spray and returns it to a spherical shape.

"That was so odd," she murmurs, looking at the shimmering sphere. "It really didn't feel like you were Bending at all. More like... you'd made a container, and put the water inside it?"

That's not a bad analogy, really.

"You don't do that, then?" you ask curiously.

"No, nothing like that. I put my energy into the water, and move it directly. Or, I try to," Katara adds. "Water's heavier than it looks, so getting it to move at all can take a lot of effort, and getting it to move the way you WANT it to, instead of having it splatter everywhere, snap back into ice, or fracture to bits is kind of frustrating sometimes."

"Show me," you say.

She does, dropping the water-ball back into the pool and then demonstrating a dozen little maneuvers that raise tiny waves and waterspouts from her reserve, swirl them around, and then solidify them into small walls and snowball barrages.

Watching through your active senses, you pick up on some significant differences between how you manipulate water, and how Katara does it. Where you use mana, she uses her youki, but in a way which channels more spiritual energy than most other adepts you've seen - spiritual energy that carries an innate affinity for Elemental Water. Where you try to form containers and channels for water, Katara infuses her energy into the liquid, making it into something that's almost an extension of her being, and then moving that much as she would an arm or a leg. And where you turn Water into Ice by means of conceptual effects, Katara seems to do it by slowing the water molecules right down.

It's interesting to see, and it gives you ideas for refining this aspect of your Elemental Magic.

Gained Ice Affinity E
Gained Ice Elementalism E (Plus)
Gained Southern Water Tribe E (Plus)
Gained Water Affinity E (Plus)
Gained Water Elementalism D

Is there anything in particular you'd like to talk to one or the other of the siblings about?

---

Always eager to expand your suite of abilities, you spend a few minutes trying to use your ki to manipulate the water, snow, and ice around you the way Katara is doing with her youki.

It would be incorrect to say that your efforts amount to nothing, as you have no trouble infusing your ki into the water, regardless of its current state, and you certainly manage to produce a few splashes. The problem is that unlike Katara, there's no link between the two things when you do them.

Infusing your ki into the water doesn't suddenly bring it under your control, or even give you that much of an awareness of it - certainly not when compared to items you've tried this trick on in the past. You're not sure if it's because the bodies you're trying to extend your energy into are not singular "items" as such, because traces of Katara's youki are already scattered about and interfering with your ki, or because your ki lacks the raw strength or elemental nature required for what you're attempting. Regardless of the reason, attempts to sense the local water through your ki simply aren't working.

As for the splashing, that only works because you're hitting the water somehow, whether with a Ki Shot or a Wind Palm. You do work out how to strike the water with your fist, and use that direct physical contact to more precisely transmit your ki into the liquid so that more of the resulting splash is aimed forward than out to the sides, but it's really just your Wind Palm technique, adapted for a different, heavier medium.

It's not Waterbending. It's just moving water.

Gained Southern Water Tribe E (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Water Palm F (Plus) (F without Heart Container)
Gained Wind Palm F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus) (F (Plus) (Plus) without Heart Container)

Katara is perfectly happy to help you experiment with your ability to manipulate water - she objects when Sokka calls it "playing" - but you get the impression that she had already concluded you weren't a Waterbender before you even began. You ask about that.

"You're not Water Tribe," she says matter-of-factly. "Our Bending was a gift from the Spirits of the Moon and the Ocean. Without their blessing, you can't Waterbend. That's just how it is."

You think of that streak of Elemental Water in Katara's aura. Although a pale shadow of the presence of a true elemental spirit, that essence is woven into the girl's being on a fundamental level, from the soul outwards. If that's the "blessing" Katara refers to, and it truly is a prerequisite for the ability to Waterbend, there's no way for you to safely replicate it. Not without vastly more knowledge of and experience in the spiritual arts than you currently have.

You're certainly not about to try using Necromancy to open up your soul so you can shove a sliver of Elemental Magic inside, just to see what happens. Nor are you about to try calling up primordial spirits like the ones Katara named - they're major powers in their own right, and not only beyond your ability to summon, but mind-numbingly dangerous.

Sure, you've called up powerful and dangerous beings before - Archer, that one suspicious kami, and Tamamo-no-Mae immediately come to mind - but the Ocean? The spirit of not just the Atlantic or the Pacific, but ALL the oceans of the WORLD?

That's the kind of power that even Ganondorf would treat with respect and caution. At least until he had the Triforce in his corner.

While splashing about with the water in Katara's practice pool, you ask Sokka about hunting. You're giving some thought to the idea of accompanying him on a hunting trip, more for the sake of male bonding and getting a better feel for the Water Tribe's culture than anything else, but Sokka inadvertently shoots that idea down before you even ask the question.

Apparently, the Southern Water Tribe has some fairly strict requirements would-be hunters need to meet before they're allowed to join on an expedition. Sokka's the best of his age in the village - not only by his account, but Katara's ungrudging agreement - and even he wasn't allowed to tag along with his father until he was eight. In addition to that, hunting and fishing trips seem to be extended affairs, meant to last two or three days, if not even longer.

You don't have that much time to spare just now, even if you had the necessary skills.

After spending about twenty minutes or so with the siblings, you ask them if they think you should go see their father about meeting with the shaman now.

"Wait here while I go check," Sokka says, before heading around to the front of the house.

"He couldn't just go in the back door and call?" Briar wonders.

"Mom and Gran-Gran don't like it when we yell in the house," Katara explains. "Especially not when Dad's doing Chief things."

That makes sense.

When Sokka returns a minute later, his father is with him.

"Before I show you to Elder Tiriaq, Alexander, would you prefer to meet him with a familiar face or two present, or by yourself? I only ask because Tiriaq is a stranger to you, and can be a little... intimidating."

You consider that.

---

You thank Hakoda for his offer of company while talking to the shaman, but assure him that you'll be fine.

Besides, you're not really going into this alone. You have Briar.

Hakoda and Katara both nod at that.

"Not sure how much help a tiny invisible girl could be," Sokka notes, glancing in Briar's general direction, "but I guess it's your call."

"Thanks ever so much for that ringing endorsement," Briar snarks.

"Anytime," Sokka replies. Then he does a double-take. "Wait, who said that?"

Leaving Sokka with his head whipping back and forth as he peers suspiciously at empty air, while Katara snickers at him, you excuse yourself and follow Hakoda away from the house. You notice that he's leading you to a part of the village that Sokka avoided during your tour, a little corner where the outer wall loops around a natural rock formation. It's not much more than a single upthrust spur of dark stone, perhaps thirty feet from base to tip and about half again as thick at the base, rising from the snow-covered ground at an angle of roughly eighty degrees.

Two things set this stone hill apart from the other crags and rock-piles you've seen since arriving on the southern continent. First, it appears to be completely devoid of a clinging layer of snow or ice. If not for the ice-walls providing contrast on both sides, and the way the dim light of the waning moon reflects off the slick-looking surface, you could easily have mistaken the black stone for a starless patch of the night sky.

Second, and not immediately apparent until you've gotten closer, is the thin haze of mist that hangs around and above the mass. Although there isn't much of it, the fact that water vapor can exist at all in the frigid environment tells you the rock pillar is considerably warmer than its surroundings - which would explain the absence of snow, the slickness of the stone, and the rather respectable distance between the volcanic mass and the defensive wall of ice.

In fact, there's a rather wide area around the black stone mass that the Southern Water Tribe seems to have gone to some lengths to avoid intruding on in any way. The perimeter wall maintains a distance of a good thirty feet from the base of the hill on either side, and there's at least forty feet - probably closer to fifty - of space between the side facing the village and the nearest of the modern-construction buildings. None of the villagers are going anywhere near the black stone, and even the animals appear to be avoiding it, though you detect no fear or distaste in this behavior.

It's respect that has the intelligent beings keeping their distance. As for the beasts, you can pick up a faint aura of spiritual energy hanging about the volcanic spur. It doesn't feel like the power has been given shape or purpose by any conscious will, but there's enough of it that most animals would be just as happy to steer clear.

The sole exception to the general air of avoidant sanctity takes the form of a modest-sized tent that's been pitched in the shadow of the spire. Although it's covered by painted animal skins, dyed furs, and bits of polished bone that should give it a primitive, even savage air, you can clearly make out the lines and materials of a modern tent underneath - one of those heavy-duty winter jobs you'd expect to see in a film about crazy mountaineers or survival in the Arctic. All the patterns and symbols that the villagers were wearing are represented here in some form, and there are larger and more complex images as well, as many of them carved into stone and bone as are done in colored pigments.

Hakoda leads you to a spot ten feet from the entrance to the tent, and then halts, gesturing for you to do the same.

As you do so, your ears perk up at the faint noise coming from inside the tent - an electronic chorus of beeps, whistles, and other synthesized sounds, with a music track playing in the background.

It almost sounds like the shaman you've come all this way to meet has a Gameboy or something in there.

---

A soft huff of laughter escapes you at the thought of a non-human tribal wise man type sitting in his tent, playing a handheld gaming system. It's just not the kind of thing that comes to mind when you think "shaman," whether you're looking at it from a modern point of view or through the lens of your past-life experience.

There's probably a story behind it.

You glance at Hakoda, who either doesn't hear the electronic tones, or is deliberately ignoring them.

"Elder Tiriaq," he calls out.

The noises in the tent stop. "Yes, Chieftan?"

"I've brought our guests to speak with you."

"Ah, good. One moment, if you please."

You hear several quick movements from within the tent, as of something being put away in a case, and then comes a slithery rustling, as two thin arms in blue fur garments push through the entrance of the tent, parting the twisted fabric of the weather-seal enough for the body behind them to follow along.

Elder Tiriaq makes for an interesting sight. At first glance, he appears to be a dark-skinned, grey-bearded human of advanced years, one who, while not especially tall or broad-shouldered to begin with, remains undiminished by age. The shaman's dressed much the same as the other members of the Water Tribe you've seen today, but with a great many small pouches, pendants, and other items hanging off his belt and the attached shoulder strap, while an assortment of beaded necklaces compete with one another for space around his neck. On his head, the old man wears a fur-lined headdress that's distinctly different from the hats and hoods donned by his neighbors, and carries a sense of ceremony about it.

He is also very light on his feet, his soft boots - or is it mukluks? - making no sound at all on the bare stone as he walks over to join you, Hakoda, and Briar.

Despite first impressions, it quickly becomes clear that Tiriaq's features aren't quite right for human. That grey hair and beard are at least partly fur, and the shape of the face beneath is off, especially around the nose and mouth, which extend in a short muzzle. More short grey fur covers the backs of the shaman's ungloved hands, and his fingernails are darker and thicker than any you've seen on a human being - though unlike various youkai of your acquaintance, they're not sharp. Part of what you thought was Tiriaq's headdress twitches, making you realize that it's actually a very wolf-like ear, suggesting that he's what you've heard described as "wolf-kin."

When you consider the shaman's aura, you realize he might only be PART wolf-kin, or part Water Tribe. His youki is fainter than Hakoda's and most of the other adult members of the tribe you've looked at so far, but not in a way that makes you think the old man is at all unwell. Combined with his facial features, that has you suspecting that one of the Tiriaq's parents was human.

Incidentally, while his spiritual presence is quite strong, Tiriaq doesn't have that streak of Elemental Water in his soul that Katara did. Not to say that he hasn't been touched by Water, but the influence is entirely external, rather than something that flows naturally from the core of his being.

As Sokka mentioned in his letter, one of the shaman's pale blue eyes looks off at an angle from the other, a good forty-five degrees or more out of alignment. Its partner, however, is straight and clear, and fixed intently on you, and when you meet that bright, focused gaze, you know instantly that Tiriaq isn't just looking at you with his eyes. The shaman is not actively using his powers to study you, he merely sees more than most, even among the supernatural set.

Not unlike yourself.

On that note, you feel a touch of honest sympathy for everyone you've ever used Mage Sight and the like on.

"Elder," Hakoda says, gesturing to you, "this is Alexander Harris, and his companion, Briar. Alex, Briar, this Elder Tiriaq, our village shaman."

Tiriaq's good eye shifted over to Briar when Hakoda introduced her. Now it returns to you.

"Welcome to Antarctica, boy," the shaman says. "I'm told you're interested in a piece of ice...?"

"Yes, sir," you reply.

You wonder if you should mention the other reagent you're hoping to find in this cold, dark land. It might seem odd for something that comes from outer space, but meteorites make for excellent Earth reagents. Born of the same cosmic nurseries that birth stars and planets, the extraplanetary rocks drift around the void for billions of years after their formation, unchanged and unchanging, until gravity finally drags them into meeting their big brothers and sisters. It's that sheer age, that aeons-long history of stasis, that gives a meteorite its quality in magical rituals. It's potent enough that even the heat and violence of re-entry don't diminish its worth, instead just adding a Fire aspect to the rock - the fresher, the stronger.

For obvious reasons, meteorites are also valuable as Time reagents, and have a strong affinity with Darkness besides. But you have those elements covered already.

Then again, now that you're here, you find yourself wondering if Tiriaq would object to letting you have one of the rocks scattered about the black spire. The volcanic origins of such a stone would make it a bit less valuable than a meteorite initially, but the latent spiritual energy would quite likely make up for that.

And even if it didn't, you'd have another reagent for later use.

On the other hand, you're just meeting the man. This could be a little too soon. You don't want to seem greedy or anything.