Right, so, your first order of business is to figure out what this beast actually is, and what it wants. If it was just disturbed by your mystical noise-making, you might be able to lure it away from Bali Ha'i with more of the same (if it's effectively just an animal), get it to leave with an apology (if it's sapient), or work out something in the way of reparations (again, depending on its level of intelligence).
If hunger is the reason it's coming your way, then you can try to conjure food to sate its appetite enough to spare Bali Ha'i from any grazing.
And if it's got some other motivation, or just wouldn't be put off by any of the above methods... well, then you'll know that, too.
Worse comes to worst, knowing what the enemy is in advance will give you a better idea of how to fight it, and more time to prepare for the battle.
Running through your mental list of Divination Magic, you consider what spells to cast - or to have Shadow Alex cast, since you'd be a fool to waste the potential of having a peer caster on hand. Literary Vision is tempting, but while you've got some incense left, you don't have the ivory focuses required, and would need to spend ten minutes conjuring acceptable substitutes. Even if you have the time to spare before the sea monster makes landfall, using it would leave you much less time to plan or prepare, which kind of defeats the purpose. On top of that, while your personal twist on the standard Spell of the Vision does away with the mental and physical strain of its predecessor, it's otherwise bound by the same restrictions. The key one is that, to gain the best results, you either need to have the object or entity you mean to investigate at hand, or else have a great deal of information about them already.
The incoming monster is still miles away, and you don't even know what SPECIES it is yet; that is neither "at hand" nor "a great deal of information," implying the results of any Vision would be... sub-optimal, at best. And the idea of flying out there - or having Shadow Alex do it - to cast the spell would be unappealing enough without the travel time compounding the necessity of casting the Spell of Major Creation.
Once again reminding yourself to fashion or acquire some ivory figurines of suitable quality in the hopefully not-too-distant future, and to replenish your material stores of incense while you're at it, you move on to other spells.
With Vision ruled out, the next most powerful forms of Divination Magic you have access to that would be useful in this situation are the Spell of Communion and the Spell to Contact Another Plane - and you don't currently have the reagents for the former, the time to conjure them, and/or enough of a grasp on divine spellcasting to spend pure mana making up for the cost.
Contact Other Plane it is, then.
Before you ask Shadow Alex to cast his mind into the mists and risk potential brain-scramblage from making contact the Goddesses, you ask him to give you that copy of his memories of your Scientific Trials, and then to summon Madam Lanora.
Your logic is simple. You're about to face a giant aquatic entity, so who better to turn to for advice and assistance than a Zora?
Given the potential danger of the situation, as well as the time constraint, you and Shadow Alex agree to forego the Spell of Planar Binding, and instead use the Spell to Summon a Monster to call up Lanora's "shadow."
"This is different," Madam Lanora observes as she blinks into existence a moment later. "Hello again, Great Kahine," she adds, bowing gracefully.
"Welcome back, Madam Lanora," the volcano spirit observes with a nod.
"So, Alex, Briar... and Shadow Alex. What was urgent enough to summon me out of schedule, much less in this manner?"
Wordlessly, you, yourself, and your partner turn and point out to sea.
Lanora looks where you indicate, blinks slowly, and says, "I don't remember there being another island out there."
"It's not an island," Briar tells her.
"...dangerous, then," the Zora priestess concludes after a moment.
"Potentially, at least," you agree. "Enough so that we figured summoning a shadow of you, rather than the real you, was the better idea."
"Thank you for your consideration."
After a quick discussion of what questions he should ask, Shadow Alex casts the Spell to Share Memories, and then begins the ritual to speak with the divine trio.
It will take ten minutes for Shadow Alex to finish the ritual and contact the Goddesses. What will you do in the meantime?
As mana moves and power builds around Shadow Alex, you quietly ask Kahine if the islanders had any special methods for dealing with visits of this nature.
"They didn't come around too often," the volcano spirit replies in a low rumble. "We're not especially close to any of the major currents strong enough to move such monsters, or the feeding grounds they favor when they're awake. On top of that, in the early centuries, the barrier was strong enough to hide the island even from those leviathans that were just big hungry animals. A few of those HAD gotten through before I first woke, however, and the stories say that was quite a nasty shock to the people the first couple of times it happened: the first because it happened at all; the second because it proved the first time wasn't a fluke."
"The same thing has happened in Hyrule a few times over the ages," Lanora says wryly, shaking her head. "People just don't take it well when the world turns out to be different than they think it is, or ought to be."
Kahine nods. "Well, the third time we got a visit from one of the sea giants, the people knew what to be on the look-out for, and got lucky; one of the farther ranging fishermen caught sight of the beast a few days before it would have reached land, and brought word back as fast as he could. The shamans consulted the spirits, found out it was an island turtle, and convinced the people of every village on the island to gather up all the food they could find - from the jungle, from the sea, from their stores - and sail it out to the big fellow. They also hauled as many fallen trees as they could find down to the coast, and used the boats to tow them out as well."
You consider the size of the living landmass coming towards you, and compare that to what you know of traditional South Pacific boats.
"They must have had a lot of boats, to make that work," you say uncertainly.
"Over a hundred," Kahine agrees. "Though only half of those were carrying or towing food; the rest were fishing like everybody's lives depended on it, which was about right. They kept that up for a week straight, and even so, it probably wouldn't have been enough to sate the beast if the shamans hadn't thrown all the magic they could muster into improving the food - not just sheer quantity, but also quality-wise."
"So Keoni wasn't the first shaman to take up cooking as a profession?" you venture.
"Nope!"
While this is a legend rather than an eyewitness account, and so prone to certain embellishments, if it did indeed take the combined efforts of an entire island's worth of people over the course of a whole week to feed an island turtle, then you at least have a rough idea of what's involved in bribing creatures of that size.
Maybe if you and Shadow Alex created a few Magnificent Mansions in its path, and had the servants dump all the food...? Heck, that might be a good way to lure it away from Bali Ha'i altogether, assuming of course that food is what the monster is after.
Here we go, girls. Ready to break ugly faces if they try to interfere again?
Your conversation with Kahine peters out as you sense Shadow Alex's spell reaching completion.
Ready, willing, and able, Sis!
The very first question you needed answered is the one he asks: "What species is the being coming towards Bali Ha'i: island turtle; island whale; kraken; or other?"
All set.
You included that last one on the off-chance that there's some seagoing titan Kahine doesn't know about - because the way your luck runs, there's a non-zero chance such a thing would have uprooted itself from whatever trackless stretch of sea it normally called home, just to pay you a visit.
Nayru, it's your show.
The reply comes in choral stereo: "Turtle."
"Is it here because I disturbed it?" Shadow Alex asks.
"No."
Oh, that's go-
"Is it here because the REAL Alex disturbed it?"
Oi!
"Yes."
Oh, come on!
"Is it motivated by hunger?"
"Somewhat."
"Is it sapient?"
"Yes."
...oh, boy.
"Can it be reasoned with via conversation?"
"Perhaps."
Not the unambiguous "Yes" you might have liked to hear, but it's not a hard "No," either.
"If we baited it away from the island, would it become a threat to others because of that?"
"Unlikely."
"If we have to fight the island turtle, would Summon Bigger Fish be a wise idea?"
"Godzilla."
Heh.
Shadow Alex's eyes widen at that, but he holds back his shock long enough to get out one final question: "What is its weakness?"
"Sleep."
And with that, the spell ends.
Huh. Got through the full list of questions without being interrupted this time.
Kahine looks confused. "Who or what is 'Godzilla,' and is summoning it a good idea or a bad one?"
You're not even sure WHERE to start answering that. You are QUITE sure that Nayru wasn't suggesting that you attempt to summon the King of the Monsters, and more implying that he's the sort of thing that would constitute a "Bigger Fish" than the island turtle.
Still, concise though they might be, you have your answers.
According to Nayru, the island turtle is intelligent enough to communicate with. That means you have the opportunity - and some would say, the obligation - to try talking to it before you resort to deception, bribery, and/or violence.
You have no real problem with this. If nothing else, talking to the titanic terrapin will give you a better idea of what it wants, and hence of what form of bribery it would be most appreciative of.
Personally, you expect its answer will be "seafood," but given that these creatures will apparently strip islands when feeding, it's entirely possible the island turtle might have different tastes, or just appreciate a novelty.
Putting aside your speculations about the culinary interests of colossal chelonians, you think on how to make contact with the island turtle. You don't know if the Spell of Messages will work, but you're leaning towards "no." You can extend its range enough to reach your target, but the spell is meant to work in open air, not underwater. On top of that, the turtle's head is mostly submerged, to the point where its ears - or whatever turtles use in their stead - ought to be anywhere from several feet to tens of feet below the surface. A Message Spell can be blocked by a few feet of soil; a similar depth of seawater wouldn't be much less of an obstacle. Trying to pass the spell through the top of the monster's head isn't likely to work, either, as its hide must be at LEAST as thick, and probably has as much in common with the Gorons as it does mundane reptiles.
The Spell of Sending is also out, if only because by the time you or Shadow Alex could complete the ten-minute ritual, the island turtle would be worryingly close to the beach. It's already closed two-fifths of the distance you first saw it at.
It's looking like, if you want to stop the island turtle from getting any closer to Bali Ha'i, and still manage to talk with it, you're going to have to fly out there and meet it.
Shadow Alex spots you a Spell of Flight and a Spell of Tongues - because even Kahine can't tell you what language an island turtle might speak in - and then advises you that he's only got about a quarter of his mana left for spellcasting, that not counting the sixth or so that he needs to maintain his physical existence.
That's about as much as YOU have, and you have to stop and wonder what the heck he was DOING in the Ring by himself for the last hour.
Are there any instructions or suggestions you'd like to leave for Shadow Alex, or even Kahine, before you head out to meet the island turtle?
You turn and fly off the beach, Briar riding along on your shoulder and Madam Lanora keeping pace as she swims through the surf below, a little clerical magic increasing her already impressive natural speed. You still pull ahead, but not quickly, and not by much given the relatively short distance you have to travel.
The island turtle just keeps getting bigger as you approach, and when you finally come to a halt - thirty yards "offshore," as it were, and about half that distance above the waves - you just have to take a minute to stop and stare.
The shell is easily three hundred feet across, and the tallest point - a more or less centrally-located craggy mass of what appears to be greyish-brown stone - rises a good third that distance above the water. The "peak" is surrounded by a riot of life, much of it from no species you recognize: pale trees that look more like some form of mutant coral ring the summit, their upper branches trailing wispy "leaves" that look like they took a few evolutionary notes from seaweed; the long grass laying limply over much of the rest of the shell appears to have followed a similar course of development; and yet, there are tropical flowers blooming everywhere, delicate things which look like they'd be perfectly at home on Bali Ha'i or C-Island, or in an exotic greenhouse. More than that, you can see birds flying above and around the moving island, and others nesting in the strange trees; moving closer still, you'd swear that you glimpse something scurrying through the undergrowth.
The mist that you saw at a distance hangs heavy over much of the island turtle's back, making its precise dimensions difficult to determine. Some of the vapor is clearly spray kicked up by the slow, ponderous motion of the creature's immense flippers - which you can make out as discolorations beneath the surf - but just as much seems to rise in steamy plumes, leading you to wonder what kind of internal body temperature a monster like this possesses.
Shaking that off, you set about getting the island turtle's attention, gathering your Power in a particular form.
*PING*
As the golden wave and gong-like echo of your Power Sense radiate into the distance, the island turtle comes to a halt. It's not a quick affair, by any means: the immense lead flippers, each of them nearly as long as the shell is wide, do not immediately react to the sound; and when they DO start to move, their laborious, almost languid motions take a full minute and more to bring the creature's immense bulk to a complete stop.
But stop it finally does, and for a moment, you float there above what appears, for all intents and purposes, to be a small island paradise.
Then it starts to move again.
Dozens of birds take to the sky, squawking in alarm as their home tilts backwards at an angle, the rear section of the shell dipping deeper into the brine as the front rises from it. Hundreds of gallons of water pour off of heavy plates and thick hide - some places bare, others anchoring more traditional masses of coral and seaweed - as the island turtle's enormous head emerges from the waves, spray blasting from the crater-like nostrils at the end of its beak. Once most of the water has drained away, the stone skin to either side of that immense snout parts like a living landslide, revealing two sleepy eyes of a green so deep and dark it almost looks black - each orb as big as your freaking HOUSE - which blink slowly several times, shedding enough water to fill competition swimming pools.
Then the beaked mouth opens, and for one horrifying second, as you behold the cavernous darkness beyond, you fear you're about to be devoured whole. The way the monster sucks in enough air to float an ocean liner, nearly INHALING you before you will your Spell of Flight to carry you in the other direction, only reinforces that terrible moment of shock.
Then it promptly exhales, blasting you backwards and into a head-over-heels spin on a gale-force YAWN that reeks of brine, dead fish, and the Goddesses only know what else.
As you recover yet again, you say aloud, "This is what you feel like ALL THE TIME, isn't it, Briar?"
"Welcome. To. My world," the fairy groans.
Before you can say anything in response to that, your attention is called back to the island turtle, who - after smacking its thick, wrinkled lips a few times in the wake of its titanic yawn - is now peering bleary-eyed at you.
"Well, well, well," the BIGGEST and OLDEST voice you have EVER heard murmurs curiously. "What have we here?"
Three things strike you in rapid succession.
One is that, despite the island turtle's incredible size, its voice (somehow) maintains a pleasant level of volume, far from the deafening Thunderbird-esque BOOMING you might have expected.
Second is the fact that, somehow (again), the island turtle appears to speak English. There's an accent of some kind in there that you don't recognize, but it doesn't hinder your understanding in the least - it merely provides a bit of character.
Third, and most urgently, you aren't hearing the enormous and doubtlessly ancient creature's words with your ears.
You're hearing them in your MIND.
You leave Shadow Alex and Kahine to do as they will, saving everybody some time and energy.
You resist the brief impulse to raise your mental defenses from their "standby" state. You might have done so if you'd been warned ahead of time that the island turtle was telepathic, but suddenly going from unguarded to high alert in response to a simple, entirely non-hostile psychic greeting would be a poor way to start this meeting.
You do make use of one psychic ability, however, calling on your Mental Enhancement skill to try and augment those thoughts that you want the turtle to "hear."
Gained Mental Enhancement D
Gained Telepathy F
"My name is Alex Harris," you introduce yourself, speaking aloud out of habit, as an aid to your focus, and to keep Briar in the loop, just in case your crude effort at telepathy fails to reach her. "I'm from Sunnydale, California. This is my partner, Briar, of the Lost Woods in the Kingdom of Hyrule. And with us - well, slightly behind us - is Madam Lanora, Priestess of Nayru, Golden Goddess of Wisdom, late of the Zora's Domain, also in Hyrule."
The waters near the turtle seem to shudder as it - more likely he, if the tone of the telepathic projection is any indication - makes a deep rumbling sound that is very much NOT psychic in nature, as he squints in your direction.
"We did not quite catch what you just said, little one," the enormous mind-voice says. "Too much energy behind too little thought, without enough practice. Try to broaden your focus first; we promise not to tell anyone or take it badly if you mindspeak something you did not mean to. We are very patient."
...you were going to ask the turtle not to go rummaging through your head, but that statement implies he either can't read your thoughts without an active effort on YOUR part, or else is refraining from doing so of his own volition.
Mentally shrugging, you take the island turtle's suggestion and "unfocus" your mental energies a bit. Then you repeat your introduction.
The cliff-like brow above those two enormous eyes furrows for a long moment, as the island turtle rumbles like a thoughtful earthquake.
"We do not think we know those names," he finally says. "That is nothing new or unexpected where you little people are concerned, of course; we can go for decades at a time without talking to any of you at all, much less talking to the same one. But the names of your nations and cities usually last a bit longer than that, and we make a point of knowing the names of the sea-faring lands and their major ports."
...wow. Someone on the supernatural side who DOESN'T know that Sunnydale is the Hellmouth? That has to be a first.
"I would be very surprised if you recognized the name 'Hyrule,'" you admit. "It's in another world."
The great eyes widen, and despite the species gap, you have no trouble reading the look of INTEREST that's just entered them.
"There must be quite the story behind that... but we are forgetting our manners. Our name is-"
And then your mind fills with a sound akin to whalesong, a series of long, lowing notes interspersed with short, sharp clicks and basso profundo rumbling.
"-but we know that most of the land-dwelling little ones cannot understand it or say it, so you can call us Ghido," the island turtle finishes.
"Nice to meet you, Ghido."
You will, of course, be asking the island turtle what brought him to Bali Ha'i, and if you can talk or bribe him out of taking a bite out of the local ecosystem, but are there any other questions or topics you can think of that you'd like to slip into the conversation?
Before you begin speaking in earnest, you ask Ghido to let you know if your words/thoughts become difficult to understand again. After all, this is the first time you've communicated with anyone telepathically, and you're probably messing it up a bit.
The island turtle agrees to this easily enough.
With that out of the way, you go ahead and ask what brings him to Bali Ha'i.
Ghido explains that he was asleep and "talking" with several other "nearby" island turtles a few weeks ago, when they were interrupted by a faint and unfamiliar song coming from this part of the South Pacific. Since he was the closest of them to the strange new sound and among the more actively curious about it, Ghido volunteered to investigate, waking up - a process that apparently takes anywhere from a few minutes to few days, depending on how deeply asleep the island turtle is - and swimming slowly but steadily towards their best estimate of the source.
Island turtles, it should be noted, don't move especially fast. Briar was only flying around ten feet above you when she finally called your attention to the "moving island," and her usual altitude is closer to five or six feet above whatever surface happens to be available, so she couldn't have noticed Ghido until he was within several miles of the shore. It's been a quarter of an hour or so since then, and the big guy's still some distance out, suggesting a "cruising speed" in the single digits - and not very high single digits, at that.
Ghido mentions that, not counting his wake-up period or a couple of breaks he took when the opportunity for a snack presented itself, he spent the better part of twelve days swimming. All in all, he could not have been much more than a thousand miles out from Bali Ha'i when he first heard the "song," and it's quite likely that he was a fair bit closer.
The song had faded before Ghido was completely awake, but it lasted long enough for the island turtles to have a fairly good idea of which part of the ocean they needed to investigate, so Ghido kept going. They heard the song again just last week, and while it was much shorter this time, Ghido's greater proximity let the turtles triangulate its position to within what sounds like several dozen miles or so.
"And then this morning, we heard a sound that could have been taken from that song," Ghido continues. "One note, repeated several times at irregular intervals, with limited skill and a great deal of enthusiasm - rather like a hatchling echoing an elder."
Pfft.
...okay, is everybody you meet going to criticize your use of Power Sense?
The long and short of it seems to be that it wasn't your experiments with Power that originally drew Ghido to Bali Ha'i, but rather the creation and subsequent use of the Ring of Trials - meaning that it was the involvement of the Goddesses that REALLY got the island turtles' collective attention.
Our bad. Sorry.
That said, Ghido was still able to detect your use of Power Sense at a range of several miles. And while some of that distance is assuredly a consequence of the island turtle's own sensory abilities, the rest of it still lies with the sheer potency of your Power, and the "noise" created by that particular skill.
Seeing as how it was the power of the Goddesses the island turtles were originally drawn to, Madam Lanora's presence is (pardon the pun) a godsend. She's perfectly happy to talk with Ghido about her faith and divine patrons; in fact, she'd like you to summon her more permanently, so that she can spend a few days - maybe a couple of weeks? - doing just that. The island turtles are not scholars per se, but they are living repositories of vast amounts of knowledge, not to mention a race of aquatic sapients.
You don't see any real reason to object to this, since it IS technically part of your arrangement with Lanora. The mana cost will be minor, since you'll only be calling her by herself, instead of in company with one or both of her peers.
You're not yet at the point where you'd be comfortable drawing the necessary, fairly complex diagram for the ritual over moving water or in open air, though, so you'll need to land somewhere to perform the summoning.
As it happens, Ghido does not mind letting you borrow one of his flippers as a stable surface - if a damp one - to lay out a ritual summoning circle on. The island turtle raises his right front limb, brings it forward as far as it will go without destabilizing his position, and then lets it float, relaxed, atop the waves. It takes some experimentation to figure out where you need to stand so that Ghido can see you, but the unexpected length and flexibility of his neck make things somewhat easier.
Ghido is also perfectly content to wait the thirteen minutes you require to work your magic. While it's basically impossible for you not to notice his presence as you work, the island turtle does you the courtesy of not speaking up or making too many loud noises when you're in the middle of casting your spells - though he does make one sound of deep, crooning interest when you conjure the summoning diagram from pure mana, instead of taking the extra time to conjure up the powdered silver that would normally be required.
Madam Lanora's summoned self disappears partway the casting of your modified Spell of Planar Binding, and is replaced a few minutes later by her true form, which appears in the circle amid a dramatic flare of golden light that is, perhaps, not entirely necessary to the casting.
"We do not often get to see such magic being used up-close," Ghido says. "Thank you for the opportunity."
"You're welcome."
With Lanora as a source of information about the Goddesses, Ghido no longer needs to visit Bali Ha'i to satisfy his curiosity about "the song." He does admit that - even with the snacks he grabbed along the way - he still needs to eat to make up for the energy he spent swimming here, so you quickly make an offer to provide that food for him, in exchange for leaving the island be.
"We would not have any issue with such an arrangement," Ghido says, slower than usual, "but we normally make such agreements with the populations of entire islands. And while we mean no disparagement of your abilities, little one, we are having a difficult time seeing how you could feed us all by yourself."
You can't really blame the island turtle for his disbelief. On the face of it, the very idea that someone your size could even hope to feed someone HIS size is patently absurd.
But then, the idea that someone your age could arrange travel, food, and lodgings on an uninhabited South Pacific island for some sixty people gathered from all over the world was pretty ridiculous as well. And you made that work.
Shadow Alex's Spell of Flight lapsed while you were calling Lanora, leaving you "stranded" on Ghido's flipper. You take a moment to send a Message to your counterpart, and then re-cast the Spell of Flight in ritual form, extending the duration; by the time you're done, Shadow Alex has joined the rest of you.
Ghido's head turns as your counterpart approaches, and those enormous, ancient eyes once again narrow in thought.
"You... are not a twin," the island turtle says.
"I am the hidden and repressed parts of Alex's mind, given form by a relic granted to us by our Goddesses," Shadow Alex agrees. "I am also apparently his magical assistant and workhorse. I'd be more upset about that if it wasn't exactly what I'd do in his place."
Ghido honestly doesn't seem to know what to make of that.
In any case, you lay out your tentative plan to feed the island turtle, and get his agreement to at least allow you the chance to TRY to feed him. Shadow Alex flies overhead and creates one Magnificent Mansion, the "doorway" of which materializes in thin air and - after a few moments - begins expelling various foodstuffs at a moderate velocity. Four whole pigs, roasted in the island style, fall towards the upraised and waiting maw of the turtle below, with a flock's worth of dressed chickens right behind them, and a school of fish after that. An entire garden's worth of salad (both vegetable and fruit) scatters like rain alongside gallons of soup and stew, and whole wheels of cheese are just rolled over the edge of the portal and into empty air.
Even accounting for the greater-than-average appetites of certain individuals, enough food to serve your birthday guests twice over is simply thrown out the door by the ghostly, liveried servants.
Their aim is pretty good, or perhaps it's merely that Ghido's mouth is just that big; either way, nothing worse than a few droplets of windblown broth and some croutons get blown off-course by the morning ocean breeze, before vanishing down the island turtle's gullet.
"Well," Ghido says a moment later, as the rain of food comes to an end, and Shadow Alex dismisses the spell. "That was certainly a good effort, but-"
And then your doppelganger calls up another Mansion.
"-oh, never mind us."
It takes the food content of four Magnificent Mansions - the equivalent of serving a nine-course banquet to nearly seven hundred people! - before Ghido declares that the edge of his hunger has been taken off. While he certainly wouldn't be averse to more, this is enough that he could move on without troubling Bali Ha'i.
Shadow Alex says he has enough mana left to create four more Mansions, without dipping into ritual casting.
It may just be your recent experience as a party host telling you that a guest going hungry is unacceptable, but you're all for having Shadow Alex exhaust his available mana on conjuring additional Magnificent Mansions, and then moving on to rituals. On top of that, you decide to lend a hand to the effort, beginning a ritual-casting of the spell in question yourself.
You also play around with the parameters of the spell a bit in an attempt to maximize the quantity of food it can generate. Based on the amount of time Shadow Alex needs to empty his Mansions of their food, you can't reduce the duration more than two steps without effectively guaranteeing that the Mansion disappears with a large portion of its food still inside. This means you only get two spell levels' worth of mana out of the alterations, and given that the Spell to Create A Magnificent Mansion is already seventh-circle, that rebate pretty much maxes out the amount of mana you're able to handle when working Conjuration Magic, making any further attempts to add power fairly pointless.
Directing that freed-up mana into improving one of the secondary aspects of the Mansion's functionality is harder than it sounds. A working spell matrix is a dynamic balancing act of mathematical fact and philosophical belief. Certain aspects like "range to target," "duration of effect," and "number and type of targets" are relatively simple to recognize and switch around; others, the core functions of the matrix that define what the spell actually does - as opposed to where, when, and to whom it's done - are more complex and less flexible. Altering those isn't something you can do while casting in the field, any more than a regular mechanic could give a car a tune-up or full-body modifications while it's being driven through mid-day traffic. You have to bring the car into the shop, strip it down, figure out what everything is and does, and rebuild it to your personal satisfaction. And then hope it doesn't break down the first time you try to take it for a drive.
...you're not sure that metaphor is entirely accurate, or if you've just been spending too much time at the garage.
In any case, you don't manage to double the amount of food that the Mansion produces. You don't even increase it by half; you'd venture somewhere closer to a third. Still, a third of what was originally a nine-course banquet for close to a hundred and seventy people is no small improvement, and every little bit helps.
By the time you finish the ritual, Shadow Alex has emptied the contents of two more Mansions down Ghido's appreciative gullet. He goes ahead and creates the last two, holding off on ordering the servants to empty the places out until after you've finished taking your turn feeding Ghido.
One hour and twenty-one Mansions' worth of food later, you and your dark doppelganger finally cease your rituals, as Ghido advises you that he's quite satisfied with your offerings, and couldn't possibly presume upon your generosity any further than he already has.
Considering how far you've depleted the ambient mana over this part of the ocean, that is just as well.
Gained 4 Gratitude Crystals
At this point, you pause to check the time, and decide that you should probably start wrapping up this visit to Bali Ha'i. It's only eight-ish in Japan, which is still somewhat early for a visit, if not unacceptably so since you arranged it ahead of time; however, it's also about three in the afternoon in Sunnydale, and you're expected home no later than six, for supper. Factor in travel times and the usual social niceties, and those three hours are more like two, which is an amount of time that you know can and will rapidly disappear once you actually get there.
Dealing with Castle Shuzen's fondness for hugs alone takes up a couple of minutes every time you stop by, those friendly spars can easily go on for half an hour or more, and today's going to be your first visit since Akua came to live with her father's family; the resulting changes in the Shuzen family's internal social dynamics are undoubtedly going to make things even more interesting than usual, even if Akua decides she doesn't want to spar with you.
Such a decision seems unlikely to you, given all past evidence from friendly monsters in general, vampires in particular, and the daughters of Shuzen Issa in specific.
You say goodbye to Ghido and Madam Lanora, and then turn and make for the shore on the wings of your Spell of Flight, while behind you, the island turtle slowly settles back into the water and begins the long, laborious process of turning his bulk away from Bali Ha'i and swimming back out to open sea.
"Until we meet again," the terrapin titan's telepathic voice calls, before his head sinks beneath the waves.
Gained Telepathy F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
When you, Briar, and Shadow Alex touch down on the beach a couple of minutes later, Ghido once again resembles nothing so much as a small landmass.
"Do you think we could teleport to his shell in the future?" you muse aloud.
"It should be entirely possible, now that we've seen it in person," Shadow Alex says. "Might want to scry him out or send a Message ahead of time, though, to make sure he's above sea level at the time."
Hm, point. Being submerged is enough of a change to the "target destination" that it would throw off a normal Spell of Teleportation, potentially bouncing you to a different island turtle in range, or even just a regular little island that kind of looked like Ghido's shell. Greater Teleportation would just fail, and-
"YOU DID IT!"
-glargh! Air! Need air! Kahine, let go! Goddesses, you knew she was the avatar of a volcano, but you didn't think she was THIS strong!
Foolish Chosen! Never underestimate the power of molten earth in a female vessel!
"No giant turtle tromping all over the island, eating everything that can't move fast enough and isn't on fire! No earthquakes not of my own making! No decades of listening to the elementals complain about the mess in their homes! He's just gone! Hahahaha!"
And now she's swinging you around. Shadow Alex, help!
"Glargh!" comes the reply.
Oh, she's got him in her other arm. There will be no rescue from that quarter, then.
Briar, help!
Fairy laughter is the only response to the entreaty you send down the familiar bond.
Traitor!
It takes some time to convince the exuberant volcano spirit to stop accidentally choking the life out of you and your not-evil (but definitely having second thoughts about an alignment switch right now) twin from sheer gratitude that her island isn't about to be eaten by a giant hungry turtle, and a bit longer than that to get her to put you both down.
You'd be more annoyed by the bruises, but...
Gained Earth Resistance E
Gained Fire Resistance E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained 3 Gratitude Crystals
...you're willing to let them pass.
Because you're such a nice guy and all that.
With Bali Ha'i spared the fate of becoming breakfast for Ghido the Island Turtle, you say your goodbyes to Kahine, and begin working the Spell of Teleportation to take yourself, Briar, and the still-present Shadow Alex to the outer boundary of the Shuzen Estate.
Your darker self is running on magical fumes at the moment, but he can still help you perform the rituals you'll need to examine Kahlua's Gauntlets and determine their upgrade potential, which will save you some time.
The guards on duty at the outer gate do a double-take at the sight of two of you, and are reluctant to let you enter, at least until they've passed the circumstances of your arrival along to their superiors - and through them, their employers - and gotten the all-clear.
Even the sight of Castle Shuzen's child-sized avatar popping up at the border, crudely-shaped hands on its midsection and eyes narrowed into a sulky glare, doesn't sway them.
You're not sure if this is evidence of the Shuzens having past experience with doppelgangers or disguised intruders, or if the guards are just in a state of higher alert due to the recent new resident.
You suppose it's also possible that you've exceeded the guards' collective weirdness threshold, but given that they're a bunch of monsters and supernaturally-aware humans in the employ of a family of living vampires that own their own pocket dimension and count a Dark Lord among their number, you think that's unlikely.
...probably, anyway.
Eventually, word comes down that you've been vouched for, and the guards let you in. Castle Shuzen's avatar expresses its happiness to see you again, and then does the same for its first meeting with Shadow Alex, apparently completely untroubled by the idea of there being two of you. Once the hugs are out of the way, you climb into a waiting car and are taxied across the grounds, through the various checkpoints and up to the doors of the castle proper, where the little place-spirit reappears to greet you.
Kahlua is waiting just inside, and greets you, Shadow Alex, and Briar without missing a beat. She also asks Shadow Alex if he'd prefer being called "Shadow" or something else when he's manifested like this.
"Shadow works," he agrees.
One of the servants stands a little ways behind Kahlua, carrying the Warrior-Princess Gauntlets atop a simple red cushion. While you could do the examination right here, it's not really the done thing to just show up and work your craft in somebody's foyer; instead, Kahlua leads your little group to one of the side rooms, and has the servant set the Gauntlets down on the waiting table.
The spells you and Shadow Alex proceed to cast aren't terribly powerful, and hence only take a few minutes each in ritual format. That's because you aren't trying to do anything really significant here, just updating your intel on these as yet mundane items of your making, how nearly a year of ownership and regular use by Kahlua has affected them, and what impact that will have on your efforts to upgrade them.
You also have a few questions for Kahlua, about what she's been using the Gauntlets for, and what sort of upgrades she'd like. The minor metamorphic property is one you've already agreed on doing, at your own cost, but Kahlua inquires as to how far that ability extends, explaining that her shapechanging abilities are likely to improve in the future. The ability you've planned upon is a fairly minor one, as much due to the limits of your own abilities as to Kahlua's current needs, but you assure her that if she needs her Gauntlets to be even more malleable in the future, you'll be able to use the planned enhancement as a base for further improvements in that area.
Whether your grasp of Transformation Magic is up to the task is something you can't speak to with absolute certainty, but unless Kahlua unlocks the capacity for freeform full-body shapechanging in the next year or something similarly ridiculous, you think you'll be able to manage.
That aside, after her encounters with Morpha and Volvagia in the Ring of Trials, Kahlua is interested in getting a ward against extreme temperatures applied to the Gauntlets. You can do that easily enough, and could go as far to provide protection from thermal damage, though that would be more costly, and probably not worth the effort unless Kahlua expects a lot of fights involving ice and/or fire in her future. Straightforward enhancement of the Gauntlets' basic functionality as "armor" would probably be more practical, as would improving their performance as "weapons."
Your analysis concludes with no real surprises. For all the use they've seen over the last year, the Hylian steel you reforged to make the Warrior-Princess Gauntlets has proven up to the task of weathering a young vampire's strength and combat enthusiasm unmarred. Constant exposure to the ambient youki filling Castle Shuzen and the demiplane, as well as shorter but more intense bursts of Kahlua's own energies during combat, have left their mark on the material, but only in a very minor manner. Kahlua hasn't really done anything significant enough with the Gauntlets for there to be consequences, whether for good or for ill.
One other matter comes to mind: you'd been speculating about using some of Kahlua's blood to help enhance her Gauntlets, both as a natural reagent for the shape-shifting property, and also to form a bond between owner and item(s). Do you want to bring that up now, or would you rather leave it and track down a different reagent?
You decide that telling Kahlua all her options and then letting her - and most likely, her parents - make an informed decision is the best approach to this. As such, you explain that Briar's oldest brother Robin is a smith, and that you consulted with him about making improvements to your Blessed Blade - specifically, how to give it the power to transform into a sword that would be more compatible with the armed techniques of the School of Five Elements. You can easily adapt that information to give Kahlua's Gauntlets the more limited shape-altering power she requires to use them in tandem with her arm-blades.
The sticking point is that, of the various reagents Robin said you would need, the most important was several ounces of a shapeshifting monster's blood - preferably given of the monster's own free will, though that isn't mandatory.
The obvious solution here is for Kahlua to donate some of her own blood for you to upgrade the Warrior-Princess Gauntlets with. Not only would this give them the morphic ability and a solid foundation for future, greater transformative properties to be imbued into the Hylian steel handgear, it would also bind the Gauntlets to their mistress, making them natural channels for her youki, preventing others from using them without her permission, and even making them somewhat harder to remove from her person. The down side is that if someone did manage to get the Gauntlets away from Kahlua, the blood-bond would become a liability, allowing them to track and attack her magically in spite of distance or other defenses.
Kahlua was liking the whole idea, right up until you mentioned that part. She says she'll have to talk to her parents about that, to figure out whether the benefits would be worth the risk.
"And I'd definitely need their approval before I could give you any of my blood for your sword," she adds with a blushing smile. "That is, if you wanted it...?"
Aside from the matter of blood, you're inclined to suggest adding some sort of ranged attack to the Gauntlets, to make up for the fact that Kahlua's current combat abilities are entirely melee-range. Ideally, this would be something that channeled Kahlua's own youki, but you're not really sure how you'd go about doing that. You know only two spells that involve manipulating ki, neither of which provide the sort of functionality you'd need for such a task, and both of which are spells of Gerudo Witchcraft that you've never actually used. You also have only one serious attempt to create a "ki item" under your belt so far, and the Ki Gems are still very much a work in progress - and a rather basic one, at that.
For the time being, giving Kahlua the ability to shoot youki blasts from her Gauntlets is beyond you.
So is the idea of giving the Gauntlets freeform shapeshifting - there's a REASON you were planning to give your sword just one alternate form, after all, rather than turning it into Hyrule's answer to the Swiss Army knife right from the start.
Nothing else really calls to you, beyond the brief but amusing image of imbuing the Gauntlets with an Enchantment of Undead Disruption, which would allow Kahlua to obliterate any corpse-demon, skeleton, or other true undead with just one punch. At least in theory.
Unfortunately, you don't have the knowledge required to produce THAT enhancement, either.
This leaves you looking at adding the morphic upgrade you promised, a relatively minor temperature-based ward, and perhaps some armor and/or weapon enhancement. The former is simple enough; once you have the necessary blood, whether from Kahlua or from some other monster, it'll take you less than a week to finish. The ward can be derived directly from the Spell to Resist Fire, with some tweaking to confine the effect to the Gauntlets rather than extending it to cover their wearer, and the other two effects are straightforward applications of the Spell of Mage Armor and the Spell of Magic Weapons, respectively.
You already agreed to cover the $500 cost of the shapeshifting upgrade out of your own pocket. The thermal ward would cost about $2,000, as would the weapon enhancement, whereas the armor enhancement would only run about $1,000. So depending on Kahlua's decisions, that's anywhere from $2,000 to $5,000 and three to six weeks' worth of work.
Of course, you COULD try to charge the Shuzens more for your work...
The way Kahlua starts giggling after you affirm your interest is somewhat... unsettling.
You wonder if you haven't made a mistake with this particular "deal"...
The Shuzens are easily some of the wealthiest people you know, with only the Drakes potentially rivalling them. As such, you aren't particularly bothered by the prospect of marking up the price for the extra work on Kahlua's Gauntlets, instead of letting it go at cost.
Your time is valuable, after all.
That does leave the question of how much to charge them, and you cast back through your memories to try and find a reliable standard to price your work by.
From what you can recall, Ganondorf didn't have much experience with the buying and selling of magic items. When he saw Koume and Kotake making potions for members of the tribe as a boy, they never charged money: either they were brewing curatives and combat aids for the good of the tribe; or they would exchanging services with the individual recipients. Likewise, as a young King, he never had to buy the items he acquired, gaining them as his share of the latest raid or as gifts from the tribe's assorted "business partners."
Even during his visits to Hyrule proper, in the lead-up to his betrayal and murder of the Hylian King and theft of the Triforce of Power, Ganondorf never went shopping in the Castletown market. Not that they would have had magic items for sale even if he had - the kingdom WAS still recovering from a civil war at that time, and accordingly suffered from a significant dearth of magic-users, with only one active Sage and a handful of lesser spellcasters hidden away in the far-flung corners of the realm.
Really, half the reason why the Thief-King went ahead with his great scheme when and how he did was the lack of any significant mystical opposition. If there had been more Hylian sorcerers around, or a Sage that wasn't stuck in the Temple of Light... well, he still would have gone after the Triforce, but he might have taken a different approach.
In any case, your previous incarnation isn't a great deal of help here, and you quickly dismiss him as a source.
Your current business associations are more instructive. You've sat in on a few negotiations between Gen and his suppliers, and seen the aftermath of many more deals. On top of that, as a magical craftsman of some skill, you have a pretty good idea of how much work would go into the various minor magical items the old merchant has for sale.
As a rule, Gen tends to set the prices for such goods at about two to three times their production cost. Relatively rare items go for more, of course, as do special orders or those goods that have certain... questionable uses, but the common and "safe" objects generally fall into that range.
More important than how much your erstwhile partner charges for his wares is the fact that his clients pay the prices without complaint. Some good-natured haggling, yes, and the occasional barter or favor to be repaid later instead of cash, but you have yet to see anyone genuinely upset by the old man's pricing scheme, implying that it's considered "fair" or at least "standard" in this rather murky economy.
With that as a guideline, and bearing in mind that you're still very new in the business of item-crafting and so probably can't get away with charging the "full price" that a proven master could command, you decide to give Kahlua a friendly discount. A fifty percent markup on your work should be fine.
You pass on the final numbers, which come to a total of $3,000 to $7,500.
Kahlua blinks and asks you why the weapon enhancement costs twice that of the armor enhancement.
There's no great mystical secret to this. It's merely that the weapon "enhancement" is actually two spells passing as one: the first for improved accuracy; and the second for improved striking power. Both enhancements also make a weapon more resistant to damage, but that's more a side-effect of having magic energy running through the thing than a proper enchantment unto itself. Normally, binding two separate magical effects to a single object would require additional work and raise the final asking price beyond that of the spells alone, but since these effects are so directly related, it's easier and less costly to merge them, provided you do all the work at once.
Kahlua nods, thoughtfully, and then tells you that, after seeing her fights in the Trials, she has no doubt that her parents will agree to the temperature-based ward. The other enhancements will take some thinking about.
You tell her that's fine, and then go ahead and pocket the Gauntlets.
With that, the business portion of your visit is concluded - and in less than twenty minutes, at that.
After everything else that you've already been through today, you're running fairly low on mana, and are a little banged up physically besides. While both issues could be at least partially corrected - you have several Mana Gems and a Spring Dew potion in your pocket, and Briar has a full store of fairy dust for her healing efforts - you don't feel that doing so just for the sake of another round of sparring would be the best use of your resources.
Plus, strange as it may sound, you're kind of just not in the mood for a fight right now, however friendly.
That also makes the prospect of visiting the game room a little less tempting than it usually would be, and so you end up asking Kahlua if her home theater is free, and if so, whether or not she would care to join you for watching an episode or two of anime.
"Kokoa is probably watching one of her shows right now," Kahlua replies, after taking a moment to think, "but she should be half-done or more, so sure! Any thoughts about what you want to watch?"
The mention of Kokoa brings her new fairy partner to mind, and as your little group of four navigates the halls of Castle Shuzen to reach the theater, you ask Kahlua how Thistle, Merlot, Cinnamon, and Malbec are doing.
"Pretty well," she replies with a smile. "Merlot and Malbec haven't had any problems with the other bats in residence, and I asked Shinshi to show them around and help them settle in. They've really taken to the place!"
So a couple of Hyrulean monsters are comfortable living in the hereditary castle of a family of vampires, which also has a Dark Lord in residence? Gee, what a surprise.
"Cinnamon's been having a harder time," Kahlua continues, losing the smile. "Mostly on account of the other dogs. I think they're a bit jealous, to be honest; Moka used to play with them all the time, but now that she has a new puppy..." She trails off with a shrug. "Still, they're well-trained enough to behave themselves, and Moka's working with their handlers to cut down on the hurt feelings and get them used to having Cinnamon around."
"And Thistle?" Briar inquires, in the manner of a sister who totally isn't worried about a sibling, but would kind of like to hear how they're doing anyway, just because.
"Sheeee... kind of almost got eaten by one of the bats on the second day," Kahlua mumbles.
...
You have to stop and stare at your friend at this point.
With amazing calm, Briar asks, "Define 'almost got eaten' for me, Kahlua."
"Well, I wasn't there to see it happen, but from what Kokoa said, she was showing Thistle around the West Tower - they've been exploring the Castle together all week, you see, and they'd just gotten to where one of the colonies roosts. One of the larger members, about so big-" Kahlua spreads her hands a bit over two feet across, indicating a fair-sized bat. "-decided that Thistle looked tasty, and dropped down to try and bite her. She saw it coming in time to dodge, but when Kokoa started shouting at the bat, Thistle must have cast a spell, because the next thing Kokoa knew..."
"Poof?" you venture.
"Boom?" Briar guesses.
"You've never made anything go boom," you point out to your partner.
"I have a much sweeter disposition than my sister-"
Oh, REALLY?
"-and I saw you rolling your eyes, mister! ...besides, I have you for that sort of thing."
...okay, you'll grant her that much.
"It was more like 'squeak!'" Kahlua giggles. "Kokoa says the bat went from THIS big to THIS big" - she holds her hands apart again and then brings them closer together, indicating a halving of the target's wingspan - "and that there were a lot of confused bat noises from him and all the other members of the colony awake enough to notice what was going on. The bats have left Thistle alone since."
Yeah, you can see why.
"Now, the SPIDERS, on the other hand..."
Due to the need to stop visiting your friends for a few weeks while you got everything for your birthday party set up, it's been over a month since you last stopped by Castle Shuzen. Before that hiatus, you were able to watch the full Record of the Lodoss War series, as Gyokuro suggested when you were puzzled by her choice of Hallowe'en costume, so there wasn't any nagging sense of unfinished business to attend to; you weren't about to suggest re-watching any of the shows you'd already seen, what with the large number left to go through; and by the same token, there were enough titles in the library - with the possibility of more being added in your absence - that you were drawing a blank on what to watch next.
So you leave it up to Kahlua to decide.
When you reach the home theater room, Kokoa and Thistle are both there, watching a show you don't immediately recognize, but which looks like some kind of retro-futuristic Western...?
Thistle turns your way and raises a tiny hand. "Hi, sis!"
Briar returns the gesture. "Hi, sis! What's this I hear about bats and spiders?"
"Ugh, do you HAVE to bring that up?"
"Shhh!" Kokoa protests.
The fairies don't quite fall silent at that, instead fluttering over into a corner to talk with each other in hushed voices. Kahlua wanders over to the shelves and begins searching through the many titles available, and as for yourself, you just lean back against the wall next to the door and watch the last few minutes of the anime already playing. From what you can see, the protagonist appears to be a tall, spiky-haired blond guy in glasses and a long red coat, who answers to the name of Vash, waxes between goofball and badass, and is - despite the bullets flying every which way - determined almost to the point of insanity to defeat his opponents without killing anybody.
Kokoa seems to find it amusing.
When the closing credits and ending theme start to play, the youngest Shuzen sister stops the DVD player and gets up to remove the disc and put it away, saying, "You can have it now."
"Thank you, Kokoa," Kahlua says brightly.
Kokoa has already turned away from her sister and gone over to join the fairies.
Your friend sulks briefly at that, muttering, "She's been doing that all week," before holding up the case of the series she chose.
"Poltergeist Report," huh?
Well, you ARE going to Karakura next weekend, so it's not an inappropriate choice. You voice your agreement with the selection, and Kahlua goes to set up.
"Hey, Alex?" Briar says, zipping back over. "I'm going to hang out with Thistle and Kokoa for a while."
You nod, having no issue with your partner doing her own thing with her little sister for a while. Although...
After that, you grab a seat on the couch and settle in to watch the show, with Kahlua taking the spot next to you.
Is there anything you want to talk about that ISN'T related to the business of the Gauntlets?
"But don't do anything permanent," you add.
"Of course not!" Briar gasps. "We're guests!"
"So as long as they're polite hosts, you'll be polite right back?"
Leaving unsaid, of course, what she'll do if they AREN'T.
"Exactly."
And with that, the two fairies and the littlest vampire leave the room.
As the opening theme fires up, you ask Kahlua what the spirit of the Castle - who is "sitting" on the floor next to your feet - has been up to since you last spoke.
As it turns out, not too much. Akua appears to have secured a deal with the young genius loci that keeps it from interfering when she's practicing her Youjutsu, albeit at the cost of having to allow the curious little fellow to sit in on the training. Because of that, part of the arrangement is to keep it from talking about what it witnesses, unless Akua gives permission or the technique she's currently working with crosses certain thresholds: injuring her in a way that goes beyond the acceptable consequences of training; damaging the castle; accidentally creating one or more horrible mockeries of life; and so on.
Common-sense safety measure kind of things, in other words.
The conversation dies off as the show gets going, introducing you to one Urameshi Yusuke, street-fighting punk extraordinaire, who appears to be a normal human being - albeit violent and foul-mouthed - with no supernatural abilities whatsoever.
Then he gets hit by a car, in the process of pushing a kid out of the way, and becomes a wandering spirit.
Here we go.
By the end of the episode, Yusuke is still dead - or mostly dead - but has accepted an offer from the oar-wielding ferrrygirl of the dead, Botan, for a chance at returning to life.
As the end credits start to play-
"Son of a GUUUUNNNN!"
-you take the cue offered by the earlier thread of conversation to ask Kahlua about her older sister: what she's like to live with; how she's been settling in; is she taking care of her pet Keese; that sort of thing.
Your friend purses her lips and looks at you a bit oddly before she replies, "It's interesting that you should ask that, Alex."
"Oh?"
"Well, since she knew you would be visiting today, Akua has been dropping hints about wanting to spar with you."
Of course she did. You've fought all three of her sisters, why WOULDN'T Issa's oldest want to take a shot at you as well?
Though if she's interested in a match, why didn't she challenge you during your birthday party?
You ask as much, and Kahlua explains that Akua wants to fight you at your best, not when you're hampered by exhaustion or injury.
Well, you're at about one-quarter of your maximum mana and somewhat over half of your maximum ki right now, and you're still nursing a few bruises from exploding Power experiments and Kahine's overpowered hug. So, probably not the best time to go looking for the oldest of the Shuzen girls and offer her a bout.
Granted, if you called Briar back, you could get rid of the bruises and recover your ki, but even if you downed every restorative you're carrying, your mana still wouldn't be back to full without a good night's rest - and you'd lose what progress you made towards improving your natural mana recovery today, besides. On top of that, you'd be out a bottle of Gen's Spring Dew, two Mana Gems of similar potency, and a third stone of much lesser quality, which honestly just feels wasteful after the money, time, and/or effort you sank into obtaining them.
You don't, of course.
After all, you know how you'd feel if someone or something had tried to eat YOUR little sister. Briar's response to that sort of behavior is apt to involve fewer explosions and blunt force traumas, which means they're getting off LIGHTLY.
Yeah, you're just not feeling the impulse for a fight today. You'll check in with Akua later, and see about scheduling the sort of match she was interested in at some other time.
Right now, you've got a second episode of a new - to you - series to watch, and a friend to watch it with.
Kahlua appears pleased by your decision, so that's a bonus, there.
The second episode of Yu Yu Hakusho gets going, and has soon introduced the peculiarly infantile "prince" of the Spirit World, Koenma. As the pacifier-sucking figure lays out the plan to return the lead character to life, you wonder if any of the representatives of the local afterlife have seen this show, and if so, what their thoughts about their animated counterpart(s) are like.
You're also curious to know if Ichigo is at all familiar with the series. The production date in the credits tells you that it's eight years old, so he definitely wouldn't have seen it when it originally broadcast, and you don't recall seeing a big collection of video tapes at the Kurosaki household. Reruns or rentals, maybe?
You put those idle thoughts aside, and focus on the show, where Yusuke is informed that in order to return to life, he needs to... hatch the egg of a spirit animal, and also have an intact body to go back to?
The heck?
Oh, the part about the body makes perfect sense. A soul needs a physical vessel if it's going to interact with the physical world, and there's nothing more suitable for that purpose than the body the soul was born into and lived in. The link between the two is powerful, and is the entire reason why magic like the Spell to Speak With the Dead - let alone the Spell to Raise the Dead - can work in the first place.
It's the bit about being able to resurrect simply by hatching an egg that challenges your suspension of disbelief. Okay, yes, Koenma is a god of the afterlife and would certainly have the power and authority to pull something like this off, and yes, Yusuke did die before his time and in the sort of manner that might earn him divine mercy, but come ON. The first episode showed a kid who is in no way spiritual, much less a follower of Koenma, and after all the trouble YOU'VE had to go to, dancing around the boundaries of "accepted" interaction between gods and mortals in the modern world, it kind of grates to see someone else getting this sort of... freebie.
Your internal grumbling dies down a bit when Yusuke doesn't finish his quest to return to life in this episode. Looks like it's a whole story arc, rather than the sort of two-part pilot you're used to seeing. Kahlua confirms as much, saying that there are three more episodes before this introductory arc is finished - almost certainly with Yusuke's resurrection, and a few complications that leave him tied to or dealing with the spirit world in the aftermath. The name of the show hints at that much, at least, even if Kahlua is careful not to spoil the story for you.
As the second episode ends, Kahlua gets up from the couch and asks you to stop the tape and put it back on the shelf for now.
"Do I need to rewind it?" you ask.
"No, it's fine."
While you're doing that - with help from the castle's spirit, which waves its hands at the video cassette tape until you give in and hand it over - Kahlua heads over to the intercom, tastefully hidden in a little cabinet just off the door, and checks with the staff to find her older sister. After a brief pause, the response comes that Akua returned to her room after breakfast, and would the young miss care to have a message sent to her sister?
The young miss would, and after a quick conference with you, tells the person on the other end of the line to let Akua know that the two of you would like to speak with her, and will be waiting for her-
-somewhere else.
With the message sent, you and Kahlua leave the theater and head for the game room, which is just down the hall and around the corner - though it is a rather long hall.
While on your way to meet up with Kahlua's oldest sister, you ask about the youngest, and what Kahlua meant when she said Kokoa had been "doing that all week."
"Oh." Kahlua looks a bit embarrassed that you heard that, but gamely answers, "It's nothing, it's just that ever since we got back from your birthday party, Kokoa's been spending every spare minute with Thistle. If they're not exploring the castle, they're watching shows or movies" - she gestures back towards the theater - "if they're not doing that, they're out in the garden, and if they're not doing THAT, they're spending extra time with our tutors, catching Thistle up on basically everything about life on Earth."
That certainly doesn't sound like "nothing," but it doesn't sound too bad, either. More like one young girl who's still riding the happy rush of making a new friend and partner, and another one who's getting used to living in a strange and spooky place. Speaking as a fairy partner, you went through something similar when you first met Briar, but you didn't have a little sister at the time and hadn't met your friends yet, so it didn't have the same kind of impact that Kokoa's partnering with Thistle has had.
Kahlua seems to understand all of this, and while she's not exactly happy that her adorable little sister is neglecting and/or avoiding her in favor of hanging out with her new best friend, she's not actually hurt by it, either. At least not yet.
Can you think of anything you'd like to say, beyond a reassurance that the initial "do everything with my shiny new friend" rush will pass?
The game room is quiet and dark when you arrive, and Kahlua goes about turning on the power. You're just looking around, considering the various titles as they hum, whir, and bleep-bleep-bloop to life and pondering whether or not you want to play a quick round of King of Fighters or something, when Akua enters.
Issa's oldest daughter regards you with more than her eyes, and frowns at what she finds - not in displeasure, you note, but puzzlement.
"You look a bit worn," the older girl says after a moment. As she walks closer, her frown deepens, and you see her nostrils flare slightly. "And you smell of brine, fish, and... is that sulfur?"
You blink, raise one arm, and take a whiff.
*Sniff*
*Sniff*
...the scent of Ghido's breath does indeed linger. It's faint enough that you didn't really notice, though the fact that you got blasted head-on by the island turtle's titanic yawn probably had something to do with that, overloading your nose or the like. The other odor is even less obvious, but it does smell a bit like a volcanic fume.
Must have come from Kahine when she was swinging you around. Thinking back on it, was her human avatar glowing a bit more like the quasi-volcanic animated statue form you first met her in at the time? Emotional excitement bringing her true nature closer to the surface, as it were?
You glance at Kahlua, wondering why she didn't say anything.
"I thought it was just a magic thing, like showing up with Shadow," she says with a graceful shrug. "It certainly isn't strong enough to be offensive. It's not like you showed up reeking of blood or something."
To a house full of vampires? Ha ha, no. You have better survival instincts than that.
What is there to say, that Kahlua hasn't already figured out, or which won't come across as stating the obvious or just plain condescending?
Nothing springs to mind, and so, you say nothing more on the matter.
...though you do resolve to keep an eye on it, going forward. It's one thing if Kokoa is distracted by her shiny new friendship for a few days, or even a couple of weeks; it's another if she starts really neglecting her other relationships in favor of that one. That would be bad for her, Thistle, and anyone else involved, so if things start looking like they're moving in that direction, you'll revisit the situation.
Hopefully, you won't have to.
"It wasn't 'a magic thing,'" you say, echoing Kahlua's remark as you cast the overdue Spell of Prestidigitation and clear the air. "Or at least, it wasn't the USUAL sort of magic thing. I just got hugged by a volcano after feeding a turtle, is all."
The sisters blink, slowly.
Hesitantly, Akua says, "The volcano is obviously Lady Kahine-"
"Unless you've been making friends with other volcanoes," Kahlua interjects.
The elder sister pauses, gives a gracious nod of acceptance, and then blatantly doesn't follow up on the remark, instead continuing her original statement.
"-but why would she hug you for feeding a turtle?"
"Ah, now that is a tale..."
And so begins your account of the Tale of the Boy Who Fed the Turtle. You start with a quick explanation of the circumstances around your return to Bali Ha'i, glossing over the creation of the Stone Cellar and most of your experiments in the Ring, though you do go into a bit more detail about your tests of Power Sense because of their direct relevance to the narrative.
"I took a break after that and went for a swim in the lagoon, but then Briar noticed that a small island had just sort of appeared offshore-"
"Wait," Akua interrupts, red eyes widening as she puts the hints together. "Do you mean to say that the legend of the island turtle is TRUE?"
"There's a legend?" you ask.
"What's an island turtle?" Kahlua says in the same moment.
Akua explains that, according to a story she once heard from an old monster in China, certain monsters - and humans, she grudgingly admits - used to live in a city built atop the shell of the island turtle, wandering the seas in an age long passed.
You consider that, as well as the dimensions of Ghido's shell, and then say that calling it a "city" would have been overly generous. True, the island turtle was big enough to carry a regulation-length football field on his back, endzones included, and still have room left over, but that's really not all that much space in the grand scheme of things. Not to mention that most of it was already claimed by that submersible miniature ecosystem, leaving only enough room for a house or two - and that only on the most vertical and exposed parts of the shell.
Honestly, it just wouldn't be a viable site for any kind of large-scale habitation.
...not unless island turtles get a lot bigger than Ghido, anyway, but you're honestly having trouble wrapping your head around that possibility.
Shaking that off, you continue with your story, explaining how you consulted the Goddesses-
"Oh dear," Kahlua sighs. "I hope you didn't leave a burnt-out patch of corruption on Kahine's lovely island, Alex."
"No, nothing like the last time happened."
Akua looks back and forth between the two of you, clearly aware that she's missing some context.
-and learned that the island turtle was both intelligent enough to be reasoned with, and not so hungry that he would dismiss your request to leave Bali Ha'i uneaten out of hand. You flew out, got his attention by flaring your Power Sense, watched as he rose from the waves like a geological event-
"And then got sent flying when he yawned," you add, "which is where the fishy smell came from."
The girls make faces.
"Bad breath?" Akua ventures.
"Like a strong wind reeking of rotten seafood."
-and then introduced yourselves and spent a few minutes chatting, eventually convincing Ghido to let you attempt to feed him so that Bali Ha'i could be spared.
"And then my Shadow and I spent an hour conjuring up Magnificent Mansions, and having the servants inside dump ALL the food the spells could produce down Ghido's throat. It took about twenty Mansions, most of them tweaked to produce more food than usual, before he was finally completely satisfied."
"...how much food is that, exactly?" Kahlua asks.
"The equivalent of serving a nine-course banquet to-" You trail off for a moment, muttering and counting off on your fingers as you do the math. "-over four thousand people."
Akua's eyes bug out, and she chokes out something in Chinese that you don't catch, but which you're willing to bet was a bit impolite.
Gained Chinese F (Plus)
It's followed by, "That could feed an entire village for a MONTH!"
It'd depend on the size of the village, but yeah, probably.
"And you just- you just MADE all of it?! In an HOUR?!"
...yes?
"Aiya!"
Kahlua spares her shocked sibling a wry smile. "Alex does that sort of thing sometimes, Big Sister. You'll get used to it."
Once Akua gets over her shock at the revelation of how much food you're able to whistle up at a moment's notice, you get on with the matter that had you asking her to meet you.
As expected, the young vampire is somewhat disappointed at your admission that you aren't really up to a friendly spar with her today. She promptly suggests next weekend, but you have to decline that, as well, on the grounds of having that meeting scheduled in Karakura on the Sixteenth. Between meeting the guy who did and then re-did the sealing work on Isshin, Masaki, and Ichigo, the agreed-upon observation and analysis of Masaki absorbing the Heart Container that Isshin won in the Ring of Trials, and just the fact that you'll be in Karakura again, you'd kind of like to be at or near full strength across the board on that day.
You counter-suggest the weekend after that, and are told by Kahlua that the entire family will be busy then.
"Mother's birthday is on the Twenty-Second," she explains.
"Should I get her something?" you wonder.
"I think she's already counted the tea and the fights from your party as an early present," Kahlua replies.
Fair enough.
Prior experience tells you that if you were going to be invited to this party, you would have received an invitation already, or been asked directly by the lady herself. You're not exactly disappointed at the lack, as the guest list likely doesn't include any kids other than Issa's daughters - and possibly not even them - which would make the event a bit boring.
With the next couple of weeks already booked, you and Akua settle on the following weekend for your match.
Having sorted that out, Akua moves to excuse herself.
"Before you leave," you say, "would you like to go a few rounds at some of the games, to make up for the lack of a fight?"
Akua pauses, glancing at the lit and loud cabinets.
Is it your imagination, or did she just flinch away from the machines a little?
"Oh, that's probably not a good idea, Alex-"
"You're on," Akua says shortly.
"-but what do I know?" Kahlua concludes, shaking her head.
You end up in front of the Darkstalkers collection, picking the werewolf Jon Talbain - or "Garron," as the Japanese version of the console calls him - to face off against Akua's Hsien-Ko - aka "Lei-Lei." With a smile that doesn't seem quite as confident as you would expect, Akua warns you to prepare yourself, and the battle begins.
Unlike some other fighting games, this one eschews the round-based timed format, instead giving fighters two life bars. When one bar is depleted, the fighters break and resume their opening positions, with the victorious fighter's remaining life carrying over to the next phase of the battle.
It takes your kung fu werewolf about thirty seconds to rip through the jiang-shi's first life bar.
Akua's cheek twitches as her fighter falls.
Your warrior took a few hits to secure that win, and the reduced life bar that you start the second part of the match with is enough of a handicap for Akua to bring you down after about fifty seconds of more conservative play. You're not sure if you can really call it a win, however, as she exhausted almost three-quarters of Hsien-Ko's remaining life in the process.
From the flat expression now covering her face, Akua, at least, doesn't consider it a victory.
When you finish her off ten seconds later, she faces you. "Best two out of three."
It's not really a request.
A minute later, Talbain stands victorious once more, this time without having lost more than... hmmm... make it seven-eighths of his first life bar.
Akua stares at the screen for a moment, before she hangs her head over the controls.
"...again..."
"Are you-"
Her head snaps up to glare at you with dark eyes. "Again!"
As the lady wishes.
Fifty-six seconds later, Akua just slumps in despair.
...maybe if she changed fighters?
One minute and twenty seconds later, Talbain has shredded the vampire lord Demitri.
...okay, maybe if YOU changed fighters.
Sasquatch crushes Demitri.
...guess not.
By this point, it's pretty clear that for all her vampire reflexes, hand-eye coordination, and real-world fighting skill, Akua is just legitimately BAD at this game. It's also clear that she refuses to give up without scoring at least one victory.
You figure that sending Kahlua's mother a polite, tasteful birthday card is as much as you really need to do. You haven't been invited, so there's no expectation of a gift, and sending one anyway would be a bit... awkward.
Buying a cheap Hallmark card from the corner store probably won't cut it in the social circles Gyokuro moves through, though, so you make a mental note to try conjuring some fancier alternatives over the next few days.
While you're still getting to know Akua as an individual, it's pretty clear that she has the same pride in her abilities as all the other living vampires of your acquaintance. As such, you doubt that your bowing out or trying to throw a match would go over well at all. Instead, you decide to keep playing, and while you waver a bit between giving the older girl the same challenge you already were, or going all-out and crushing her, you decide to stick to your current level of performance.
Mostly.
As bad as Akua has proven to be, you really have to wonder about how much experience she has with fighting games in general, let alone this title in particular.
Rather than pry into the particulars, you wait until you're back at the character selection screen, and simply ask Akua if she'd like some pointers.
She turns and silently regards you with dead, dark eyes.
"...I should be offended by the implication that you thought me incapable of defeating you on my own," the vampire says slowly.
"Five straight losses make quite an implication," you venture calmly, without missing a beat.
There is a long pause. Off to one side, you sense Kahlua looking back and forth between the two of you, suddenly nervous, but you do not look her way or break eye contact with her sister.
Gained Cool B (Plus) (Plus)
And then, life and wry, resigned amusement return to Akua's expression.
"Indeed," she agrees. "Especially after the OTHER five hundred and seventy-three losses across a dozen different games."
...
...wow.
At this point, you DO turn and look at Kahlua. "No mercy for the new sister, I see."
Kahlua manages to look embarrassed and proudly unrepentant at the same time.
Shaking your head, you turn back to Akua and the game.
You spend the next thirty minutes or so playing slow matches, using mirrored characters so that you can demonstrate one move, giving Akua plenty of time to see how it's done, and then let her practice it. Basic attacks are easy enough to lay out, special moves only slightly less so, while combos are a bit trickier - for all the times that you've played this game over the last year, you're still only modestly familiar with it, and you have to get Kahlua involved several times to be sure that what you're telling her sister is correct, especially when it comes to the characters you don't normally use.
The lack of a timer on the matches is useful throughout all of this.
Gained Knowledge (Video Games) E (Plus)
Even if Akua had your kind of ridiculous learning curve, half an hour still wouldn't be nearly enough time to turn a rookie digital brawler into a master. Still, you do see some improvement.
She takes longer to lose, anyway. That's technically improvement.
Certain attacks on display in the game stir a curiosity, and as Akua starts to get more familiar with the controls and requires less verbal instruction, you take a minute to ask Kahlua if her own shapeshifting would allow her to do anything similar.
"Well, I can tell you right now that rocket boosters and missiles are out," she sighs regretfully. "I'd have to be a Shinso to make anything inorganic, and even Miss Akasha can't make machinery. Whether that's because it's impossible or because she just doesn't know enough about mechanics, though..." Kahlua shakes her head. "A lot of the rest would be entirely possible, though. Extendable limbs, hands-to-spears, even something as silly as legs becoming drills - about the only things I'm not sure of are full species transformation and dividing myself into two or more bodies, let alone both at the same time."
"No swarm of Kahlua-bats, then?" you say.
"Not any time soon, anyway. Miss Akasha says controlling multiple bodies is hard enough when they're identical to what you're used to and have all the brains necessary to operate themselves. Creating bodies with smaller, differently-shaped brains? That may take learning actual magic, even for a Shinso. At least, Miss Akasha's never been able to get it to work, and the only vampire she ever knew who could do it was Dracula. And, well..."
"He was Dracula," you and Akua say together.
"Exactly."
Nodding, you then ask Kahlua about the technical details of youki manipulation, stating that you're curious as to how it compares with Transformation Magic. You add that if there are parts she's not allowed to share, that's fine, but anything she could tell you would be appreciated.
As it happens, Kahlua hasn't been forbidden from talking about the technique known as Wealth of Power, largely because there's no reason to: no other monster species can use it; and other than Miss Akasha, who she's been learning it from, no other vampire is interested. When she starts describing it to you, however, you quickly realize that a) Kahlua doesn't have the best grasp on the mechanics herself, b) the technique relies on instincts, physiological traits, and energies which you don't have, and c) that your understanding of monstrous psychology, biology, and ontology are still insufficiently developed to bridge the gap.
Gained Cryptozoology C (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Akua's lesson in "how to video game" and your discussion about shapeshifting come to a close when Briar shows up - Thistle at her side and Kokoa just closing the door behind them - to advise you that it's starting to get late back in Sunnydale. A quick check of your mental clock confirms that it's coming up on nine-thirty here, and four-thirty back home; factor in the travel time, and you'd be getting home at about quarter-past five.
With that in mind, you play one final game-
Akua sighs as she loses yet again, but graciously thanks you for the instruction.
"But I will not be calling you 'Sifu Alex,'" she adds firmly.
-before Kahlua sees you to the door.
You say goodbye to Kahlua and the little place-spirit at the gates of Castle Shuzen, then enter the waiting car for the ride down to the border. There, you are greeted by the young genius loci again, and take a moment to spare it one more hug before you leave its domain and begin the ritual to teleport yourself back to Sunnydale.
It's close to twenty after five when the door of your own house closes behind you. Moblin and Zelda both appear to greet you, one barking excitedly and the other talking a mile a minute; over the sound of their voices, you hear the sizzle of meat in a frying pan, which comes in company with a familiar, delicious scent.
"Hey, Dad," you greet your father as you walk past the living room. "What's cooking, besides the obvious?"
"We're having breakfast for dinner," Tony replies with a shrug. "Your mom figured we should try to clear out some more of the bacon and pork we brought back from your party, before it gets freezer burned."
You think of the Island Pork Belly in your dimensional pocket, and the loads of pork products back in the Stone Cellar, and try not to laugh weakly.
There are many, many such meals in your near future, you know.
After a meal of bacon, eggs, and toast, you excuse yourself and head to your room to meditate on the lump of memories Shadow Alex stuck in your head.
Seeing the Scientific Trials from your Shadow's point of view is interesting. It's a superior experience to downloading data from a Prying Eye, not only because it includes both audio and mental commentary, but also for the fact that - as an intelligent entity - Shadow Alex isn't constrained by some magical "program," and can adjust the various sensory modes he's using to better suit the evolving situation before him.
That said, your Shadow's thoughts don't offer much in the way of revelatory insights into your experiments with Power and elemental affinities. Even with the differences in your respective mentalities, the two of you simply think too much alike.
It is nice to have confirmation of your own theories from another source, though.
As for the time he spent alone in the Ring, Shadow Alex was mostly experimenting with his non-Power abilities, testing out how his existence as a magically-conjured Shadow in the real world affected his magic, ki, spiritual abilities, and rudimentary psychic powers. Again, there were no great breakthroughs, but he did confirm that everything works more or less as expected.
He spent an unusual amount of time playing around with Illusion Magic, trying to see if being a creature of Shadow and hence a kind of illusion himself made him worse at the art, or better. As far as the two of you can see, it didn't have either effect, but then again, it can be tricky to judge the effectiveness of illusions when you don't have an outside party to test them on.
With that done, you spend the remainder of the evening taking it easy.
Over the next week, you go through your usual routine of school, afterschool training at Lu-sensei's on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and magical training with Batreaux, Elder Terok, and Koron in the evenings. Madam Lanora's absence doesn't really inconvenience you there, since Terok just takes the opportunity to talk longer about Dinnite philosophy. You go easy on your magic Monday evening, letting it fully recover from your expensive magical feats the previous day-
Gained Mana Recovery E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
-but starting on Tuesday afternoon, you use what free time you have available to begin upgrading Kahlua's Gauntlets. You can't start work on that morphic ability until you get a firm "yes" or "no" from the Shuzens about using Kahlua's blood in the process - not to mention the blood itself - but you can and do go ahead with the temperature-based ward Kahlua wanted. As far as reagents go, you:
At last, Sunday rolls around. You make sure to get a good night's sleep the evening before, waking fully-rested and ready for your trip to Karakura. Given the importance of this visit and the fact that you scheduled it most of a month in advance, you've managed to get permission from your parents to miss supper and stay out later than usual this evening. They still want you home before sunset, but that's getting fairly late at this time of year - around 7:20 pm the last few days - and you have a standing invitation from the Kurosakis for "any time after seven," so even with the troublesome time difference, you should have a good four and a half to work with.
Whether that will be enough for everything you're expecting to have to deal with today, only the Goddesses can say for sure.
And we're not telling.
Following a big lunch, you leave the house at a little after 1:30 pm, head north into the forest, and teleport to Japan. You land on the sidewalk in front of Ichigo's house-
"GYAAAH!"
-scaring the crap out of Tatsuki, who was barely five feet from where you materialized.
"Geeze, Alex! A little warning would be nice!" the part-oni girl snaps.
Behind her daughter, Akkiko shakes her head with a sigh. "You need to pay better attention to your surroundings, daughter mine. Long-range teleportation is pretty blatant."
It is an unfortunate downside to it being a seventh-tier spell. You're capable enough at Magic Concealment that, if you cast a standard fifth-tier Spell of Teleportation as a ritual and focused EXTRA hard on suppressing the energies involved, you might be able to hide its signature from casual notice. That said, even at your level of ability with Summoning Magic, the lesser Spell of Teleportation's maximum range still comes up short of two thousand miles; it wouldn't even be enough to get you all the way from Los Angeles to Hawaii, much less to Japan.
Putting that aside, you greet the Arisawas and cast an idle glance around.
Across the street, an unfamiliar older boy who looks like he's probably in high school is staring at you in open shock.
While you still have thousands of dollars' worth of credit with Gen, it just makes sense to outsource your magical reagents to Hyrule's markets when you can. And while your supply of Rupees, gold, and silver is limited, you're perfectly willing to dig into it for a worthy cause.
As far as you're concerned, improving your original present to Kahlua counts.
Spent 1 Red Rupee
When the day for your return to Karakura rolls around, you're a bit less than halfway done with the work of enchanting the Warrior-Princess Gauntlets to resist extremes of temperature. That's fine, though; as basic as the setup is, your workshop can still keep such a magical "work in progress" stable for extended periods of time, allowing you to break off and resume work in short shifts as needed. Ambrose's wards, meanwhile, deny the Hellmouth any input into the process, and the Spell to Speak With Animals - as well as his own dislike of some smelly or weird reagents - made it easy to convince Moblin to keep out of the lab altogether.
Zelda was harder to deal with. Fortunately, your workshop has a door, and you know the Spell of the Arcane Lock.
Your father laughed when he heard about that.
You meet the stranger's gaze, raise one hand, and give him a small wave and a smile. At the same time, you murmur, "Mrs. Arisawa, we have an audience."
Both Arisawas turn and look.
"Oh," Tatsuki says intelligently. Then she frowns. "Wait, don't I know you?"
"He's one of your brother's teammates," Akkiko chimes in. "Takeru, wasn't it?"
"Uh, yes, Mrs. Arisawa." The teenager's color doesn't improve, so much as it jumps from shocky pale to an embarrassed blush - before blanching again when he glances away from Akkiko and back in your direction.
"Ah, ah," the woman chides, snapping her fingers. "Eyes on me, Takeru."
For some reason, he turns red again and starts sputtering at that.
"Tatsuki, why don't you and Alex go on without me, while Takeru and I talk for a bit."
"Yeah, sure, whatever," Tatsuki sighs. "Come on, Alex."
You cast a puzzled glance at the older boy - who is clearly uncomfortable, albeit in a completely different way than the one prompted by seeing you appear out of thin air - and Tatsuki's mom, but then shrug and follow the girl into the Kurosakis' front yard.
She's muttering something about weird moms and weird boys every step of the way, only finally dropping it when she knocks on the door.
When it opens a moment later, Isshin's unshaven face appears above you. "Hey, kids. Huh, I thought Akkiko- oh, never mind," he adds, looking over your heads and catching sight of the woman. Suddenly raising his voice, Isshin calls out, "Oi, Akkiko! Quit harassing that poor kid! There are laws!"
You immediately turn to look, but whatever Akkiko was doing, she's broken off to shoot a look Isshin's way. Takeru, meanwhile, has taken the opportunity to make a break for it, and all you can see of him is his back as he hurries away.
What the heck was she DOING to him?
Whatever it was, Akkiko doesn't appear bothered when she notices that the boy has taken off running, merely shrugging and moving to join the rest of you at the door.
"What was that about?" Isshin asks, stepping out of the way to let you in.
"Takeru happened to be passing by on the other side of the street when the boya, here, stepped out of a teleport on your sidewalk."
Isshin stares at her. "So for that, you decided to-"
"Give him something else to think about," Akkiko interrupts smoothly, with a grin.
Tatsuki groans. "Mom, stop being weird and talking like a TV Yakuza."
At this, Mr. Kurosaki manages a halfhearted chuckle. "Oh, kiddo. If you only knew."
Tatsuki and Ichigo both blink at that, but the adults promptly refuse to talk about it any further.
Masaki is in the kitchen, making sure Karin and Yuzu finish their breakfast while she cleans up several other plates. She greets you, Briar, and the Arisawas and politely offers you something to drink or a bite of the leftovers, but you all pass, having already eaten very recently. In the subsequent conversation, it comes out that the whole Kurosaki family will be accompanying you to "Urahara Shoten," which is about a half-hour's walk.
Is there anything you want to discuss in that time, which you feel is safe to go over in public?
While the open streets of Karakura on a Sunday morning are nothing like the crowded rush of weekday foot traffic in other parts of Tokyo, they're still a long way from what you'd consider a truly secure environment. On top of that, a group of nine people walking around tends to attract attention - even if one of those people is invisible to most of the onlookers - and Isshin's presence just enhances things. Not for the reasons you would have expected, though; there are a lot of respectful nods of recognition and greetings among the pedestrians that you pass, and several of them either change pace or stop briefly to talk with "Dr. Kurosaki."
Isshin's professional (albeit still energetic) demeanor during these discussions would have struck you as uncharacteristic, if you hadn't seen it several times before. As it is, it takes you a second to get over seeing him treat a topic that has nothing to do with the supernatural with this degree of seriousness.
With the lack of security in mind, you restrict yourself to small talk for the duration of the Kurosaki-Arisawa-plus two walk.
Your first order of business is to pass on Zelda's greetings to the twins, which prompts them to say "Hi" to her through you right back.
After that moment of cuteness, your curiosity is drawn to Ichigo, who brought along the Wooden Sword he won facing the Trials and is resting the flat of the blade on his shoulder as he walks. It turns out that he's been practicing the very basics with his father and the sensei at Furin Hall for the last couple of weeks, mostly just getting his body used to swinging a heavy stick around - which is harder than it sounds, as you well know from your own training - learning how to take proper care of the training weapon, and getting people around town used to seeing him doing all of that.
Considering the Wooden Sword's origins, you personally encourage the first two factors. When a deity gives you something, they generally expect you to use it. On top of that, showing due respect and consideration for the gift is only polite, even if the god in question isn't one you worship - maybe even especially then.
Mention of Isshin teaching Ichigo how to sword tempts you to ask what Isshin has been doing about that flare-up of spiritual power that the Goddesses arranged via his participation in the Trials back on Bali Ha'i, but that feels like one of those topics better left for a more private setting.
Speaking of spiritual stuff, you've been keeping one eye and your Spiritual Sense open for signs of the black cat's presence, but after ten minutes have gone by without you seeing hide or hair of him, you conclude that Yoruichi isn't going to show up before you reach your destination, if even then. Just to be sure, you ask about the cat's absence, which leads Mrs. Kurosaki to tell you that he'll turn up eventually.
Akkiko gives the other woman an odd glance at that, then spares you the sort of look that tells you she's searching for something.
Whether she finds it or not, she grins.
This reminds you that you wanted to ask her about the possible identity of that godly guest who took a hand in Moblin's Trials. It slipped your mind to do so, that last day at the party, but since it's another of those topics a little too sensitive for public conversation, you make a mental note to bring it up later - either at this shop or when you head back to the Kurosaki residence afterwards.
That leaves what may be the most relevant question of all: "Just so I have some idea of what to expect, how would you say this Urahara guy compares to Ambrose?"
"Pains in the neck, the both of 'em," Isshin says promptly. "Personally, I think Kisuke's the worse of the two for well-intentioned meddling, but that might just be because I've known him a lot longer, and had to actually deal with the fallout of the explosions he's set off. And yes, I do mean literal explosions."
You think back over your year-long association with Ambrose, and the things you've witnessed the wizard do, whether in person or via proxy, plus the added stuff you know about or know enough to suspect he's had a hand in.
"You don't seem convinced," Akkiko notes.
You shrug. "I've only known Ambrose a year, but some of the stuff I've seen him do in that time has been... impressive. By MY standards," you add meaningfully.
"We may have to sit down and compare horror stories at some point," Isshin muses. "Just, not anywhere Kisuke can overhear it."
You nod, taking the cue not to bring the matter up within earshot of this man.
At length, you catch sight of a small shop tucked into a fenced-off, sandy little lot situated between the arms of an L-shaped apartment complex. The decor is decidedly underwhelming, almost drab, with a dark grey sloped roof atop walls of white and unpainted brown wood, and not a hint of the sort of brighter, eye-catching colors stores normally use to draw attention and drum up business - or so you're given to understand. The closest thing to that which you can see is the large black-and-white sign proclaiming the name of the store, which sits atop the roof covering the ground floor extension; if not for that, you might think that you were looking at somebody's house.
Standing in the adjacent driveway, ahead of a small grey van, is a six and a half foot tall, broad-shouldered man with a cornrowed hairstyle and handbar mustache, wearing square-shaped glasses and a dark blue apron over a white muscle shirt and plain dark pants. He has a broom in hand and appears to simply be sweeping dust off the approach to the shop, but pauses and looks up as your group approaches.
"Isshin, Masaki," the big man rumbles. "Good morning. And you, Mrs. Arisawa."
"Morning, Tessai," Isshin returns the greeting, with Masaki chiming in more politely, and Akkiko just waving. "You've already met our oldest, but these little angels are Karin and Yuzu, and the not-so-little angel is Akkiko's youngest, Tatsuki."
The twins say nothing as they stare up at the huge stranger, Karin slightly defiant and Yuzu half-hiding behind her mother's skirts.
Tatsuki just nods and says, "Hey."
"And this walking trouble magnet-"
Rude.
"-is Alex Harris."
Light flashes across those glasses as Tessei regards you intently.
"Kids," Isshin concludes, "this is Tsukabishi Tessai. He does a lot of the actual work keeping the store running, so don't give him a hard time."
"It's a pleasure to meet you all," Tessei rumbles. "Please be welcome in our humble establishment." And then, glancing at Briar, he adds, "That includes you, little lady."
"Thanks! My name is Briar, by the way."
Tessai nods, because of course he can see and hear her. At this range, you're able to faintly sense a spiritual aura akin to Isshin's or Yoruichi's - something close to human or ghost, but with a trace of divine power neither good nor evil.
Adjusting his glasses, the big man says, "The manager is expecting you. Come right this way."
Tessai opens up the large sliding double-door that fronts the Shop and leads your party inside. The front room looks like a cross between lower-budget, largely ad-free version of any convenience store you'd care to name and a storage warehouse, with several rows of candy dispensers and a couple of magazine racks up front, backed by a bunch of vending machines, with boxes of who-knows-what piled up behind those - some open at the top or sides, others still sealed shut.
Karin and Yuzu are immediately interested, and you'd be lying if you said you weren't curious yourself.
Your guide leads you through the room to a door at the back. On the other side of this, the decor takes a turn from "struggling commercial" to "modest residential," starting with a genkan with three sets of outdoor shoes - one sized for a grown man, the other two for kids - one set of indoor slippers that are clearly Tessai's, and half a dozen sets of guest shoes.
...actually, make that eight sets. In almost exactly the necessary sizes for everyone in your group apart from yourself and Briar, you realize, as everyone goes about exchanging their footwear. The pair of slippers you put on are a little big, and there's nothing at all for Briar - a fact that Tessai quietly apologizes to her for.
Briar assures him she's not bothered, and she'll stick to using you as her perch, rather than put her dusty feet all over his nice clean floors.
Tessai visibly brightens at that, to the point where you would swear he was about to burst into tears.
Once everyone is properly fitted, Tessai takes a few steps down the hall and slides open one of the doors, ushering you all into a sitting room with a single, low-lying table surrounded by cushions, with cabinets and cupboards along the walls. An offer of refreshments is made and accepted, and Tessai disappears for a moment before returning with a tray of child-friendly plastic cups and a pitcher of clear, cold water. He's in the middle of filling and handing those out when, following a series of clacking footsteps, another man appears in the doorway behind him.
The newcomer is not nearly so broadly built as his coworker, and is about six inches shorter, though this still leaves him an even six feet in height. He's dressed in a much more traditional style, wearing a black haori with white diamonds along the lower end over a dark green... you think the correct term is "shihakusho," but whatever it's called, it's rumpled. He's also got wooden sandals on his otherwise bare feet, a cane in one hand, and a peculiar green and white striped bucket hat rests atop his surprisingly blond, messy-haired head, the brim casting his sleepy-looking eyes into shadow. A day or two worth of stubble complements the overall impression of a man just roused from his bed.
Unsurprisingly, he has the same sort of presence as Tessai.
"Good morning, everyone!" the man in the hat and sandals says with unexpected energy and cheer, waving around a fan that just sort of appeared in his off-hand. "And welcome to Urahara Shop! For those of you who haven't met me before, my name is Urahara Kisuke, and I'll be your host this morning."
Tatsuki stares.
The twins inch closer to their parents.
"It's okay, girls," Isshin assures them. "He won't hurt you, he's a friend of Daddy's!"
"Didn't Daddy say he was the man who made explosions?" Yuzu questions.
"...er, well, yes..."
"The pain in the neck," Karin agrees with a nod.
"Hrk!"
"Why, Isshin," Urahara drawls, smiling at the other man. "Whatever have you been telling your children about me behind my back?"
"The truth?" Akkiko suggests dryly.
"Mrs. Arisawa," the man says, briefly holding fan and hand to his heart, "I haven't blown up anything in years."
"The testing ground," Tessai sighs. "Last month."
"I haven't ACCIDENTALLY blown up anything in years," Urahara corrects himself. "And I'm certainly not planning to blow anything up today." With that, he finally turns his attention to you. You can actually feel the spiritual weight behind the man's regard as he asks, "What about you, Mr. Harris?"
"You can never tell when you might need a good explosion."
Your mild reply hangs in the air for a moment, as numerous eyes turn your way.
"But no," you add, "I don't have any plans for anything to blow up today, either." You reach out and drum your knuckles on the table.
Isshin lets out a relieved sigh.
Urahara regards you in silence a moment longer, and then grins. "I like you. So," he says, as he takes the last unclaimed cushion, "how will we be proceeding with this little experiment? And is there any chance I could get some time to analyze this magical crystal heart beforehand? Because Masaki wouldn't let me do anything more than some surface scans before."
He shoots Mrs. Kurosaki a sulky look at that.
She is unmoved, as mothers confronted with such faces tend to be.
As for yourself, part of you is honestly curious as to what an avowed master in spiritual magic would make of a Heart Container, let alone a Heart of Spirit, as the one riding in your dimensional pocket and the second one in that little tote bag Masaki brought with her both are. On the other hand, you've studied with the priests enough by now to know that letting an outsider subject a gift from the Goddesses to a detailed analysis could be taken as an act of sacrilege in some quarters, whether because it's intruding upon "divine mysteries," or just for the implied mistrust of the trinity's works and motives.
There's also the fact that you were planning on inviting Navi and Rho to attend the proceedings and offer their own insights. Provided that Urahara agreed to their attendance, he'd have at least one expert on the subject of Hyrulean relics and the effects thereof to consult with.
You're perfectly willing to go first. It will give Urahara a chance to observe a Heart Container in action and get a better idea of how it would interact with Masaki's spiritual injuries and the spells he's placed on and around her, which was kind of the whole point of having the Kurosakis wait this long to use the Heart. Plus, you've been waiting just as long to make use of your own Heart of Spirit.
There is, however, the matter of additional observers yet to be determined. The Kurosakis have already spoken with Urahara about their meeting with Navi and Rho, and how the Great Fairy and little firebird were both willing to lend their advice and expertise in this matter, in exchange for Kisuke's own thoughts about it. The shady shopkeeper admits that it would be interesting to have a couple of new minds to bounce ideas off of, let alone to actually learn something NEW from.
But there's a catch.
"They mentioned how you'd need to borrow my little secret testing ground to summon this Great Fairy to Karakura, without setting off alarms from Hokkaido to Okinawa," he notes over a cup of the tea that Tessai has produced for the adults. You and the rest of the kids got some sort of fruit juice, after you'd finished off your glasses of water. "And while I'm normally confident in my own work, recent history has shown that when it comes to hiding from you and your magic, my wards are... less than completely effective." He sounds simultaneously annoyed and amused by this. "In light of that, and the fact that summoning even a minor goddess would be a pretty major magical undertaking, I have to concede that I'm not sure how well the wards would hold up."
"So we need to test them, first," you conclude.
"Preferably in a manner that won't prompt the Soul Society to come knocking on my door, if the wards should fail," Kisuke agrees dryly.
The solution to that is simple enough, you think. You can just go into the shielded room - whichever of these it is - and start casting spells, while someone with magical sensitivity waits outside. If you started with a suppressed cantrip followed by an unsuppressed cantrip, and then worked your way up through the tiers in that manner, checking with your "audience" after each spell, you'd quickly get an idea of how good Urahara's wards are or aren't at hiding your magic.
There IS the little matter of how it won't be YOUR magic that actually brings Navi to Earth, but honestly, what you've seen of Navi's high-level magic to date has been relatively "quiet" compared to your own endeavors. If Urahara's wards can hide the signature of a ninth-circle spell cast by you, they can almost certainly hide a Gate opened by Navi.
...you might want to test out how the room handles space-time warping shenanigans first, though. Summoning Rho would be a good start towards that, but you could add a higher-level summoning to make sure.
This just leaves the question of whether you want to cast the spells as quickly as possible, to save time, or go for the ritual method, to save energy. Though the latter would leave the Kurosakis and Arisawas cooling their heels for a while as you worked... maybe you should split the difference, instead?
After thinking on it, you state that you are inclined to allow Urahara to satisfy his curiosity to a reasonable degree, by letting him examine both Hearts.
"However," you add, as the man starts to smile, "there are three conditions I'd like you to agree to before that."
"Oh?"
"First, no invasive tests. Aside from the fact that the Goddesses might get annoyed if their gifts were damaged, it'd make this little get-together" - you gesture around the room at everyone present - "completely pointless."
Urahara nods. "Perfectly reasonable."
"Second," and here, you turn to Masaki and Isshin, "do the two of you mind letting him run some tests on your gift?"
The second Heart was awarded to Isshin, after all, and he opted to gift it to his wife. You can't rightly make decisions involving it without their consent.
The Kurosakis trade a speaking glance, and then turn back to you, Briar, and Urahara and nod.
"You two are the experts on these Hearts," Masaki says, looking between you and your partner. "If you think it's alright, then we've got no objections."
"Which brings me to my last condition," you continue, "that being that I'm going to want to check with the Goddesses for THEIR opinion on this. What they say, goes."
Urahara and Tessai both blink, though the shadow of the former's hat and the concealment provided by the latter's glasses make it a bit hard to see.
"This had better not end like that mess outside the Shuzens' place, boya," Akkiko warns you. "I do NOT want to have to clean up a demonic spill in the middle of Karakura."
Tatsuki and the Kurosakis join the shopkeepers in expressing their surprise.
"It won't, and you won't," you reply firmly. "I just need a quick 'yes' or 'no' answer to a single question, so I can use a lesser, much faster spell."
"...you're allowed to do that?" Urahara asks slowly. "Just... call up your gods for advice?"
"...yes?" You're puzzled as to why that would puzzle him. Although you come at it as a sorcerer aping the Gerudo witchcraft tradition, and hence have to treat it as a third-circle spell, the Spell of Augury is only second-circle for proper witches, priests, and shamans. While that doesn't quite make it a UNIVERSAL spell among practitioners of those magical paths, it's still a pretty common one, even by Earth's artificially-limited standards.
Shaking that off, you raise your glass and down the last of the juice. "So," you say, setting the glass back on the table, "if you could show me to this hidden room, I'll get started."
"...right this way."
Urahara leads the way out of the sitting room and back down the hall to the front of the store, where - after quickly making sure the windows are covered, and turning on a hidden device that gives off a faintly disconcerting spiritual pressure - he and Tessai move aside several boxes in the back of the room to reveal a trap door in the floor.
Shortly thereafter, you're standing in the middle of what looks like a desolate, dusty plain under a cloudy sky. Apart from the scattered rocks that range from pebble-sized to boulders several times as big as you and dead, leafless trees, the only feature of note is the tall, open-aired ladder that rises from the gritty floor to the trapdoor opening that appears to hang rather unsettlingly in the "sky," some forty feet above. Yuzu, Karin, Isshin, and Tessei can be seen looking through the opening, along with the cat and two other faces you don't recognize: a dark-haired, nigh-expressionless girl who you think might be a couple of years younger than you; and a red-haired boy about the same age as the twins.
Your big brother instincts STRONGLY question whether or not it's safe to just leave that trapdoor open like that, with a bunch of kids around, even WITH two grown men up there.
Particularly when one of the men is Isshin.
The rest of your group are gathered in the middle of the room.
"Woooowwww!" Urahara declares dramatically, waving his fan in front of his face and grinning like a loon. "Who would have thought that there'd be a huge, mysterious room buried underneath such a humble-looking shop, huh?"
"Eh," Tatsuki proclaims with an indifferent shrug. "I'm pretty sure those mansions Alex had us stay in at his party were bigger than this, at least all taken together. And those were on the other side of magic portals in space along the beach."
Urahara seems to stagger in place for a second, but swiftly recovers his panache. "Ah, but THIS room was created in just a day and a night!"
"How long did it take you to make those rooms, Alex?" Ichigo wonders.
"About ten minutes," you reply. "But I spent most of that time checking the interiors, and making sure everything turned out the way I wanted. The individual spells only took about six seconds each."
Urahara STARES. "What."
You hear a funny wheezing sound carrying down from the trapdoor, and when you look up, you notice that the cat has disappeared, and the rest of your "upstairs" audience are looking in its direction.
"Is the cat going to be alright, Daddy?" Yuzu asks.
"There's no need to worry, sweetie," Isshin assures her. "The cat's just laughing at Mister Urahara, is all."
"Oh. Okay, then."
Sighing something about "uncute kids" and "no respect," Urahara walks over to one of the nearby boulders and crouches to slip his fingers underneath the base. When he rises, the "boulder" peels away, revealing that it was actually some kind of camouflaged cover, underneath which is the sort of device you would have expected to find in a mad scientist's lab. There's definitely... part of a computer in there, plus half a dozen antennas: a pair of "rabbit ears" that look like they could have been pulled off a vintage TV; a couple more shaped like miniature satellite dishes; and two long prayer strips hanging from opposite sides of the device, shifting about from the sudden removal of the concealing cloth.
Urahara throws an unnecessarily large switch, and the machine whirs to life, a bunch of little lights blinking in patterns that mean nothing to you. The shady shopkeeper spends a minute checking readouts, adjusting dials, and punching in commands, before he nods to himself.
"Right, so that's the sensors up and running." Cupping one hand to his mouth, he calls up, "How's it looking on your end, Tessai?"
"One moment, if you please, manager." The big man disappears from the hole in the sky for a minute, and when he reappears, it's to silently raise a thumb.
"Okay, close it up, and let's see how this goes." As the hole in the sky disappears, Urahara turns to the rest of you. "Tessai and Yoruichi will be monitoring from that end, using their own senses and the detectors I've built into this room and the shop," he informs you frankly, the air of laid-back goofiness falling away. "If they detect your magic geting through, Tessai will hit the alarm; that'll be your cue to stop. As long as it doesn't come, feel free to keep casting."
You nod, and get to work.
For your first cantrip, you cast a suppressed Spell of Light. It's one of the most simple, straightforward, and common forms of magic, to the point where you know four different methods to invoke it, and are aware of at least two more.
You reach out with your foot and touch a rock that's in your shadow. This is just enough "darkness" for the glow that begins radiating from the small stone to be apparent, despite the overall bright conditions of the room.
You let your mana recover, and then wait a few seconds more, just in case. When no alarm goes off, you cast the Spell of the Acid Splash, sending a green glob of viscous liquid flying through the air, to spatter across and sizzle upon the face of a nearby boulder.
Again, you wait a little longer than necessary to recover, and again, there's no indication of problems.
From there, you gradually work your way up through the circles of magic, making a point to branch out and test spells of different schools as you go. When you arrive at the third circle without issue, you reach into your pocket for the Augury Sticks and some of the last of your Gold Incense, which you plant in the ground and light with an easy cantrip.
Urahara, who has been curiously quiet for the half-dozen spells you've cast so far, stirs at this. "Why the difference?"
"Hm?"
"The materials," he clarifies, nodding towards the Sticks and the Incense. "You didn't use anything like them for your previous spells, so why now?"
"I'm a sorcerer," you reply, as if that explains everything - and to Urahara, Akkiko, and Masaki, it certainly appears to.
"Why does that make a difference?" Ichigo asks, while Tatsuki looks on with a similar expression of confusion.
"There's a lot of different kinds of magic out there," you clarify for your friends. "Wizardry, witchcraft, druidism, shamanism, priestly stuff like your mom does," you add, nodding to Tatsuki.
"Somehow," she replies.
Akkiko rolls her eyes.
"And those are just some of the styles I know about. The thing they've all got in common, though, is that the magic comes from outside. Druids tap into the power of Nature, working with animals, plants, elemental spirits, and sometimes the Fae. Shamans deal with the Spirit World, both in the living world and the hereafter. Witches choose or are chosen by individual beings of power, who teach and protect them in exchange for information and services. Priests honor their gods, and are rewarded for their faith."
"And sorcerers?" Tatsuki asks.
"If all those other traditions PERFORM magic, sorcerers ARE magic. We can use the same external powers they do, but the core of our art" - you tap your chest - "comes from inside of us. And because it's OUR power, even if we're using just a little bit of it to tap into a greater, external source, it's a little easier for us to bend the rules. In this case, by leaving out simple material components other spellcasters would need to make certain spells work at all - sort of like special fuel additives."
"Okay..." Ichigo's frown says he's not quite following. "But then why are you using this stuff now?"
"For the Sticks, it's because they're not fuel, but more like parts for the spell's 'engine'; it was designed to work with them, and without them, it just won't."
"And the incense?"
"That's fuel," you admit, "but if I didn't use it, I'd have to spend more mana making up for the lack - almost twice as much as the spell normally needs."
Ichigo slowly nods. "And since you're trying to HIDE the magic..."
By Din, you think he's got it.
With that settled, you get on with the Augury, casting sticks and asking the Goddesses if you should let Urahara take a look at the Hearts of Spirit.
Signs point to "yes" - or at least that doing so probably won't lead to disaster.
Probably.
Having cleared the third tier of magic, you step into the fourth circle by laying down a Magic Circle formed from pure mana, and then follow up by casting the Spell of Planar Binding, calling out to Rho.
The firebird has barely materialized within your summoning array when you hear the alarm go off. Rather than the drawn-out wail of a firetruck or ambulance in a hurry, it's more like a Red Alert on Star Trek, a single siren blast that repeats three times before falling silent.
Urahara reluctantly pulls his attention away from your spellcraft to his instruments, and then looks up at the ceiling as the trapdoor reopens.
"Everything alright down there, Kisuke?" Isshin calls down.
"Everything's fine, Isshin. Did we have a breach?"
"I'm not actually sure," the Kurosaki patriarch admits. "Yoruichi hasn't so much as twitched a whisker, but Tessai almost jumped out of his skin just now."
"My apologies, manager," the big man calls down, sounding chagrined. "The wards are holding, and show no indications thus far of doing otherwise. I merely became... over-excited, when I saw the latest readings."
Urahara glances at the screen of his sensor device, the contents of which are so much gibberish to you. "That's... understandable."
"What do you mean by that?" you ask, looking at your host.
"Kind of curious to know that, myself," Akkiko says.
At your words, Urahara reluctantly pulls his eyes away from the screen. He opens his mouth to speak, then closes it and shakes his head.
"Before I answer that," he replies, walking towards you, "I have to ask you two questions about that spell."
"...go ahead."
"First of all, did you KNOW where your magic was reaching out to just now, or is summoning this fine feathery fellow something you stumbled into by accident, and have just been repeating each time since then?"
"A bit of both, if I'm being honest," you admit. "I do know the land that Rho calls home, but the first time I summoned him was honestly something of a random result. I needed a healer able to treat a certain type of injury, but I didn't SPECIFICALLY ask for a firebird. Not that I'm not happy with how that turned out," you add, glancing at Rho.
Urahara almost seems to vibrate in place with suppressed excitement. "Okay, I can work with that. As for the second question..." And here, the tall man kneels to look you square in the eye. His own gaze is so intent that for a moment, you fully expect him to reach out, grab you by the shoulders, and shake you as he asks, "How the heck did you FIND the place?"
Wordlessly, you point at Briar, who waves at Urahara.
"...the readings don't match to Faerie," the shopkeeper says, half to himself. "A spirit realm attached to Faerie, then?"
"Close," your partner replies. "It's actually a divine realm attached to a MORTAL realm that's attached to Faerie."
For some reason, the word "divine" elicits a wince from Urahara. "Ah. I take it that would be the domain of these goddesses Alex mentioned?"
"Got it in one."
Behind the man, you see Akkiko tapping her feet. "And this had the big guy setting off alarms by accident, because...?"
"He saw something new," Urahara says, as he stands up and turns to face the part-oni priestess. "We're not summoners ourselves, but Tessai and I both have extensive experience with magic that crosses planar boundaries. When it comes to the spirit realms on, around, or directly linked to Earth, things have kind of gotten to the point where we both thought we'd seen it all, or at least HEARD of it, but the spell Alex cast just now went somewhere we'd never even SUSPECTED to exist." He grins. "I haven't had this kind of genuinely NEW information to work with since... ever, I think."
Okay, you suppose that makes some sense. You do wonder, though, if that was Urahara's ONLY motivation. His behavior when he was questioning you a moment ago seemed a bit too intense for scientific curiosity.
Then again, you HAVE just met the man. That could be normal for him.
Dismissing that thought for now, you ask if you can proceed with your spellcasting. Urahara quickly gets control over himself and tells Tessai to close the trapdoor again, though before he does that, you let them both know that you're on the edge of your ability to suppress your magic.
As it happens, you think you do manage to at least partially-suppress the signature of your first fifth-circle spell. Neither it nor the unsuppressed follow-up prompt another outburst from the alarm, so you proceed with unsuppressed castings of sixth-tier spells and up.
You represent the sixth circle of magic by casting the third iteration of the Spell of the Elemental Body, turning yourself into an Earth Elemental again - mostly just because you can.
Dismissing that effect, you cast the Spell of the Magnificent Mansion. This causes the alarm to go off again, and this time it's for a more serious reason, as Tessai calls down to inform you that, while the wards DID hold, your magic was stressing them considerably more than before. It appears that the combination of Summoning Magic and sheer power is a concern, though as yet, it's not enough of one to make Navi's presence untenable.
Incidentally, before going further, you give Urahara a few minutes to investigate the interior of the luxuriously appointed extra-dimensional space.
He re-emerges grumbling that his room is bigger, and at least it's permanent.
You graciously decline to comment.
For the eighth tier, you turn away from the group and cast the Spell of the Greater Shout, unleashing a deafening cry that shatters the ground in front of you out to a distance of sixty feet, sending up a wall of dust in the process.
Finally, you cast a top-tier version of the Spell to Summon Monsters, getting a temporary shade of a Hyrulean fairy well advanced towards - but not quite having reached - the Great Fairy stage. The alarm goes off again, and this time Urahara spends a minute checking the readouts on his machine and consulting with Tessai.
The final verdict is that, while they're probably going to have to replace some burnt-out elements afterwards, the wards on this buried chamber should be able to hide Navi's presence.
"As long as she doesn't stay too long, and keeps the warping of space-time to a minimum," Urahara adds.
...so, you probably want her to show up via Plane Shift, rather than a Gate.
You make sure to clarify that in the Spell of Sending you dispatch to let the Great Fairy know you're ready to receive her.
While you're performing that ritual, most of the rest of your audience make their way down the ladder. The Kurosaki twins, the other two small children, and Yoruichi ride down on an elevator-like platform with a protective railing, which feels like a spiritual equivalent to your own Floating Disc. Isshin just climbs, while Tessai remains in the shop to monitor things - and handle any customers that might show up. Urahara is busily running an electronic wand with paper tags attached to it over your Heart of Spirit, which you pulled out of your pocket for him to look at, while Masaki is just taking her Heart out of its pouch and letting it resume its normal size. Rho and Briar have perched on top of the sensor array, and are speaking intently with the man in the bucket hat about the relic and the readings coming off of it.
Less than a minute after you get the Sending off, Navi appears in the chamber, to much beeping from Urahara's sensors and a wary yowl from the black cat, whose fur has suddenly gone straight up. Despite those reactions, the alarm siren doesn't go off again.
Urahara regards the readouts again, and sighs. "DEFINITELY going to have to replace some parts."
"Nice to meet you, too," Navi says dryly.
"Oh, don't get me wrong; it's completely worth the time and expense, just from what I've already been able to record. I'm just annoyed my work didn't hold up as well as I thought I would." Then he bows. "Urahara Kisuke, at your service, good lady."
"Navi of the Lost Woods, at yours. Now, what's this I hear about you analyzing a Heart Container?"
As Navi joins the meeting of minds, you look around at the little crowd. You expect that you've got some time before Urahara is done poking at the Heart Containers, so aside from summoning Shadow Alex, is there anything you want to do before the morning's main event gets started?
Cycling ki and psychic energy around and through your brain in an effort to enhance your mental capabilities, you follow Navi over to the examination-slash-discussion taking place over the Heart Containers.
Your reasoning is simple. Heart Containers are creations of the Goddesses, and hence, manifestations of their Golden Power, however infinitesimally small. The same can be said of your own Power - in both senses, even, much as it stings your pride to admit that - so comparing the two to see what traits they have in common, and which they DON'T, could be enlightening.
Given your recent efforts to cultivate your elemental affinities, you're particularly curious about the elementally-aspected nature of these Heart Containers, and what studying it might tell you.
Gained Brain Enhancement E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Making your mind work better doesn't change the actual information you possess, of course, which means that some of the terms that Urahara and Navi are using are unfamiliar to you. This particular problem is compound by the fact that the shopkeeper's knowledge is rooted in a tradition that evolved entirely separately from the Hyrulean one which you, the two fairies, and the firebird are familiar with; as a result, even Urahara's most basic technical terminology is different from yours, which forces everyone to break things down to the level of illustrative gestures, metaphor, and many small words, so that even a layman would stand a chance of following along.
You catch the rest of the crowd doing precisely that, in fact, or at least trying to. You very seriously doubt the twins and the other two kids really grasp what they're hearing, and Ichigo and Tatsuki are both clearly struggling to keep up, but Akkiko and Masaki seem to be doing fine, while Isshin goes one step further and makes a couple of observations of his own.
Yoruichi keeps his own counsel, but if you were a betting man, you'd wager all the gold and Rupees in your pocket that the cat is having less trouble following the conversation than anyone.
Your own understanding of spiritual mysteries is advanced enough that, once the dialogue issue is sorted, you're able to follow along at a decent level. The more advanced or simply obscure details still elude you even then, but you think you come out of it with a pretty solid idea of just what it is that a Heart Container does, and how.
The entire glittery, heart-shaped mass is a construct of crystallized spiritual energy, attuned in such a way as to stabilize, contain, and conceal that which lies at its very core: the barest mote of divine power. When the Heart Container is absorbed, that mote attaches itself to the user's soul in such a way as to amplify one specific aspect of their being, pushing it just beyond its previous capacity. It's too weak and too specialized to be used for any other than its designated purpose, and as it's incorporated into and through the person's living essence, it becomes too faint for anything but a detailed examination to detect. Plus, because it's anchored to the soul, it's not inheritable in and of itself, though it can still have an impact on the next generation - especially if it's the mother who held the Heart Container.
Nine months spent as part of a supernaturally-healthy or elementally-enhanced body WOULD have its perks.
The whole business goes on for a quarter of an hour, with Urahara talking, running scans, and reading data constantly the entire time. You get the distinct impression that he would happily spend the rest of the hour - and then some - doing what he's doing, but the younger kids lost interest after the first few minutes of magi-babble and wandered off to play a game. That's since resulted in the red-haired boy, Jinta, pulling the hair of his roommate, Ururu, getting scolded by Karin for it, and then - after he tried to push her around - being wrestled to the ground by Yuzu AND menaced by Ichigo and Isshin wearing the Faces of Fraternal and Paternal Disapproval.
If it were just the kids getting antsy, Urahara might have kept going anyway, but the other adults are starting to look a bit impatient to get on with the next step of things as well, and he DID imply earlier that Navi could only stay for so long without potential issues arising. As such, the man puts away the notepad he took out at... some point in the discussion, retrieves one of the sensor-wands attached to the pile of mystical electronics, and indicates a spot about seven feet away that would be "ideal for detailed scans of the assimilation process."
You step forward to retrieve your Heart Container, gathering mana to summon Shadow Alex as you go.
*POOF*
The oddball collection of sensors spits out a series of bleeps, bloops, and clicks, while Yoruichi makes another of those low, warbling cat noises. It lacks the outright shock that accompanied Navi's appearance, speaking instead of wariness.
Urahara looks from his machine, to you, and then to your dark-hued doppelganger. "Interesting," he finally drawls.
"I don't like that look on your face," Shadow Alex says. "That's the kind of expression that says 'I want to do Science to this thing.'"
"Hey, now," Urahara protests. "You've known me all of five seconds, you can't possibly know what my Science Face looks like."
"I have impeccable intuition," Shadow Alex retorts. "Besides," he adds, jabbing a thumb in your direction, "what he knows, I know."
...and now Urahara's Science Face is aimed at you.
Thanks, Shadow. Really.
It's not like Shadow Alex (or more correctly, the Heart of Courage) is going anywhere. Explaining his existence to Urahara can wait until after you've attended to the reason you came here, when Navi's presence doesn't threaten to potentially bring the Soul Society's direct attention down on everyone under or in the Urahara Shop.
You pick up your Heart of Spirit and step towards the designated target area. Shadow Alex falls back a bit and quickly casts a suite of buffs to augment his concentration, awareness, and comprehension of magical and spiritual forces. Once he's done, he nods to you. You glance around, making sure everyone is ready - Akkiko has pulled out her little elemental familiars, you note - and then raise the Goddess-given relic above your head and will it to bestow its blessing upon you.
With a sound like a thousand tiny, crystalline sighs - punctuated by a flurry of beeping from Urahara's computerized contraption - the Heart Container dissolves into a shower of silvery white sparkles, which rain down upon you and sink into your body.
Gained Corruption Resistance C (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Corruption Sense B
Gained Ki Generation D (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Ki Power D
Gained Ki Recovery D
Gained King of Spirits D (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Necromancy C (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Possession Resistance E (Plus)
Gained Spirit Affinity D (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Spirit Blast E (Plus)
Gained Spirit Resistance D (Plus)
Gained Spirit Shot E (Plus)
Gained Spiritual Armor E (Plus)
Gained Spiritual Attunement E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Spiritual Concealment C
Gained Spiritual Control B
Gained Spiritual Enhancement D (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Spiritual Imbuement D
Gained Spiritual Overload F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Spiritual Power C (Plus)
Gained Spiritual Prowess A
Gained Spiritual Sense A
Gained Spiritual Sight B (Plus) (Plus)
Oooo, tingly.
"Pretty," Yuzu sighs in delight.
...also that.
While Shadow Alex merely gives you a mystical once-over and then nods, Urahara sweeps that sensor wand at you repeatedly as he reviews the data scrolling along on his machine's screen. He's actually set his cane aside, leaning it against the frame of the device, so that he can make use of the keyboard with his free hand, and he's speaking to himself under his breath at a rapid clip.
Most of it sounds like more spiritual technobabble, but you think you catch a few words like "unbelievable" and "brilliant" in there.
You turn to the other adults in the room, and tilt your head in the direction of the possibly-going-mad scientist. "Is he going to be alright?"
"Give him a few minutes," Isshin advises.
You do that, checking with Shadow Alex about what he saw and sensed. He reports no surprises, though the possibility of using Power Sight to observe the absorption of another Heart Container (either Masaki's or the next one you eventually come into possession of) comes up in passing; after all, as you noted earlier, your Power carries a trace of divine potency within it just as the relics do, and the resulting sympathy might give your "golden vision" a new level of insight into the inner workings of the Heart Containers.
That said, you and your Shadow both agree that at your current level of skill, Power Sight is more likely to interfere with your ability to get useful readings than to improve it. You'll want to refine the ability some more before you go casting golden-glowing-eyed glances at such valuable and potentially delicate magical constructs, especially one that doesn't belong to you.
It's one thing if you break your own property - even if it was a gift from the Goddesses, you do have the right to dispose of it as you see fit - and quite another if you break a potential cure for somebody else's chronic spiritual condition.
Speaking of which...
"Well, Kisuke?" Isshin asks.
Urahara doesn't respond.
Isshin and Yoruichi trade glances, and that is a VERY strange thing to see between a grown man and a small cat.
"You've known him longer," Isshin states.
"And I know better than to mess with him when he gets like this," Yoruichi replies.
"Well, one of us has to snap him out of it, or we'll be here all morning."
The cat's tail waves dismissively. "I have nowhere I particularly need to be."
There is an explosive sigh from Akkiko. "Our valiant protectors. Honestly, bunch of babies..." Familiars trailing around and behind her, the plainclothes part-oni priestess strides towards Urahara. You almost expect her to reach out and physically turn him around, but it is perhaps telling that Akkiko instead comes up alongside the man, giving him plenty of time to see and hear her approach before she speaks. "What's the verdict, Bucket-Hat?"
"The infusion was the smoothest I've ever seen," Urahara reports. "No shock to the host system, which shouldn't be possible when we're talking about introducing a foreign element into the target's soul, much less when it's a divine element being added to a mortal one. I think they did it by attuning the construct's energies to the kid's ahead of time, so it was like he was getting a transfusion of his own blood - no chance of rejection that way - but they did it with divine power! Not even divine hybrid or ascendant human energy to mortal, it was one hundred percent nonhuman godly power! How did they DO that?"
"Brainstorm later," Akkiko tells him. "Answer now: is it SAFE for Masaki to use the other Heart? And will it HELP her?"
Urahara pauses, adjusts his hat, and replies, "I think so. And... maybe?"
Akkiko frowns.
"I know, I know!" Urahara throws up his hands. "But the kid's soul gives off the WEIRDEST readings I've ever seen! Even scrubbing out the residual demonic traces I'd expect from him living on a Hellmouth, I'm still picking up an internal taint which is, somehow, coexisting with what looks like FOUR of those Heart Containers, on TOP of some similar but distinct divine energy that's floating freely through his entire spiritual system. And THEN there's the magic, which, seriously, HOW is a nine-year-old human soul containing THAT kind of power without EXPLODING?"
He turns to you at that last one, as if seeking an answer.
"I'm just awesome like that."
Somebody snickers, but whether it's at your response or the blank expression that settles on Urahara's face after is open to debate.
"That's not helpful," the man says.
"It helps my ego," you counter, but even as you say the words, you're nodding. "But putting self-gratifying humor aside, I'm told that I have an old soul - what, still not helpful?"
Urahara was shaking his head before you even finished. "Doesn't work. Oh, a pre-existing soul passing through the cycle of reincarnation would explain the high spiritual density I'm seeing, but the corruption? If I take theses readings and calculate backwards, accounting for known conditions on the Hellmouth and regular low-level purification rituals, you would have been born with stains on your soul deep enough that Hell shouldn't have let you go for another half a century - AFTER scrubbing another layer or two off of your soul. And that's not even getting into the traces of divinity, or why they AREN'T burning the taint to ash and taking a chunk of your soul with it, never mind the sheer amount of mana."
Well, blast. You're having trouble thinking of way out of this that doesn't involve revealing your soul's extra-dimensional origins, or at least hinting at the fact that you know who your past life was. That's close enough to admitting that you're a conscious reincarnation to make you cautious, after Isshin specifically warned you against owning up to that; as a former Shinigami, he'd be in a position to know the risks better than most.
"Does it matter, Kisuke?" Isshin interrupts.
"What do you mean, 'does it matter?'" the shopkeeper exclaims. "Of course it MATTERS, it-"
"Does it matter RIGHT NOW, for what we're actually DOING?" the Kurosaki patriarch clarifies. "Or is it just that you've found a new mystery you want to poke at?"
There is a quiet pause as the two men regard each other.
"...you know something," Urahara says calmly.
"And you haven't answered my question," Isshin retorts. He waves one hand. "The kid's soul is weird, fine. I kind of figured that out last year, after he saw through your work on me and my son, and if I hadn't, the long weekend in the tropics with magical accommodations, travel arrangements via a dullahan's coach, and divine gladiatorial trials for entertainment would have clued me in. Right here and now, I'm asking you: Does. It. MATTER?"
Urahara looks like he wants to say yes.
He looks like he very, very badly wishes to say that it matters.
Instead...
"No," he admits with a sigh of clear frustration. "Right now, it doesn't." Then he snatches up his cane, points the end at Isshin, swings it over to you, and then back again, adding, "But we are going to talk about this later."
Not wanting to make the situation worse, you hold your tongue.
"So, final verdict?" Akkiko says.
"Like I said," Urahara tells her, "maybe. I'd be more confident if I could get scans of the old man, the Water Tribesman, and the dog you said won and used Heart Containers of their own, but if they could do that without ill effects-"
He pauses, glancing at you and Navi.
"I haven't spoken with Hakoda or his family since the party," you admit, "but Lu-sensei and Moblin are doing fine."
"In my own lifetime, I have neither seen nor heard of anyone EVER being harmed by possession of a Heart Container," Navi says firmly.
Urahara nods. "-then at the very least, this shouldn't do any harm. And if - IF - the results are the same, despite the massive and frustratingly unexplained differences in their soul structures, then it should help. At least a little."
"Thank you, Kisuke," Masaki says, before turning to her husband.
"It's your call, Masaki," Isshin tells her plainly. "Whatever you decide, I'll stand by it." He musters up a grin with a shadow of his usual manic cheer. "Like Yoruichi said, it's not as if I've got anywhere else I need to be."
The woman laughs at that, but falls silent and thoughtful for a moment afterwards, her gaze trailing over her children.
"...alright," she says at last. "Let's do it."
Unlike with you, it takes a minute to set up for Masaki's use of the Heart Container. Urahara has some little clip-backed sensors he wants all the members of the Kurosaki family to wear, so that he can monitor and record the direct and secondary effects that the process will have on the web of spiritual seals that exist between them. Ichigo regards his a bit warily, and Karin tries to take hers off a couple of times, complaining that it pinches her shirt uncomfortably.
You use this time to use the various spells and techniques Shadow Alex did a short time earlier, shoring up your sensory skills and information-retention in preparation for what you are about to witness.
When everyone's ready, Masaki moves into the same spot that you previously occupied, seven feet from Kisuke's device, Heart of Spirit in her hands.
"So I just, what, hold it up and will it to work?" she asks.
"They're very user-friendly," you agree. "I suppose it might help if you extended a little of your spiritual energy into- never mind, then," you say, as the relic in her upraised hands begins to dissolve into a rain of light.
As the infusion of spiritual energy passes into Masaki's soul, you see the edges of those spots where Isshin's power was used to "pack" her wounds glow faintly, while the energy moving through the bonds that link Masaki to her husband and children glitters a little more brightly.
Then, with a flash of gold, the speck of divine power at the core of the Heart makes contact.
And in response, that odd structure in Masaki's soul, the one you've never seen anywhere else except in Ichigo's soul - and then only in a less-developed, seemingly untrained form - flares a brilliant silvery blue.
Don't even THINK about it.
You blink. What the heck-?
Then the light show dies down.
You look around. Urahara once again has his eyes glued to his computer screen, his free hand waving a sensor wand in Masaki's direction as he types rapidly with the other. Everybody else is looking at Masaki, who appears a little dazed. There's no obvious indication that anyone heard those unexpected words.
You started sort-of-hearing not-so-mysterious whispers from definitely-not-nowhere after completing the Familiar Binding Ceremony last summer. As a consequence of that, clearly hearing what you're pretty sure was the Voice of Din is not something that strikes you as cause for great concern, in and of itself.
After all, you DID just get a boost to your inherent spiritual abilities, on top of months' worth of training with the Hyrulean priestly trio to learn how to wield divine magic in accordance with the will of the Goddesses. It only makes sense that hearing the voices of the Goddesses would follow, right?
What bothers you about this is the timing. The Goddesses have been remarkably quiet since you hit Karakura today, only "speaking" to you through your use of the Spell of Augury. For Din to abruptly cast aside that restraint, at PRECISELY the moment when a portion of Masaki's soul had a reaction to the assimilation of the Heart of Spirit that YOU, at least, weren't expecting to see, says there's something more going on here.
Particularly when Din felt the need to THREATEN something - or someONE.
Just to be sure, you turn to Briar and quietly ask if she heard the Goddess of Power speak just now.
"I did," your partner replies in a hushed tone. "Any idea what ticked her off?"
You explain the strange "flash" you saw, and ask if Briar has any idea what it might mean.
"Not a clue," she admits. "Let me ask Mom."
Before she flies off, you ask her to get the other adults in on it too - well, the other adults aside from Masaki.
"Yeah, probably best not to scare her right after the spiritual procedure these folks weren't entirely sure about," Briar agrees.
You nod.
While Briar flies towards her mother, you're approached by Shadow Alex, who noticed the silvery-blue flash, but - to some surprise on your part - doesn't mention hearing one of the Goddesses. This implies that the effects of absorbing the Heart of Spirit didn't carry over to your Shadow. Whether that's a permanent thing or just a side-effect of him being based on you as you WERE when you invoked the Heart of Courage, rather than as you ARE, you'll find out the next time you summon him.
So, like, tomorrow, at the latest.
In any case, the two of you join the crowd of spiritual "experts" that Briar has been pulling together around Urahara's machine. Everyone you asked for except Isshin is there, the man having joined his wife in assuring their kids that Mommy feels fine: even the twins haven't missed how much this entire outing has been like a trip to the doctor's, which you can probably thank their upbringing in a clinic for; and Ichigo is all but hanging off his mother's arm, as if reassuring himself that she won't suddenly fall over or disappear if he lets go. Tatsuki and the two Urahara Shop kids are over there as well, the former looking nearly as concerned as the Kurosaki siblings, the other two rather less so. Jinta is just sort of standing there with his arms crossed behind his head, looking unimpressed by the whole affair, while Ururu's expression is just kind of sad.
Urahara keeps up his air of "scientist doing Science for Science" as you approach, but you catch his eyes glancing your way under the shadow of his hat.
"What this about your goddess?" he asks quietly.
You repeat what you told Briar.
"Is that supposed to happen with these Heart things?" Akkiko asks.
"It didn't when Alex absorbed his," Shadow reports.
"It's not customary," Navi confirms. "The Goddesses have already given their blessing through the Heart Container. A second intervention on top of that wouldn't be appropriate, and shouldn't be necessary - unless something else tried to interfere with the process, which appears to have been the case." She looks at Akkiko, Urahara, and Yoruichi, who's wandered over out of feline curiosity. "So, the question then becomes, 'Who or what left those marks on Masaki's soul, and why?'"
Urahara doesn't react to that for a moment, but then expands one of the windows on the screen of his sensor-computer-thing, until a digital mirror of Masaki's soul fills the monitor. He looks at you and the fairies, face tightly controlled. "Where did the light come from?"
You step forward and point at that curious spiritual structure, which vaguely resembles an enclosed pentagram, though it's quite a bit more complex, with multiple layers. Honestly, it almost looks like somebody took a marker and doodled all over one side of Masaki's soul.
Urahara promptly sighs in relief. "Okay, not the obvious culprit, then."
"How so?"
"I was worried that you were going to point here" - he indicates the patched-over sections of Masaki's soul - "which would have meant that I missed something when I was treating her for the Hollow attack, and all these years since."
"And what I did point out?"
"...I'm not sure," Urahara admits.
He calls up several more images on the computer screen, showing four more soul-scans. One, overflowing with spiritual power to the point of absurdity, you immediately recognize as Ichigo's, while another is clearly Isshin's; the other two souls belong to the twins, and are almost completely ordinary in comparison to the rest of their family's, except for the vaguest hint of those odd marks.
"As you can see, that structure is a distinguishing trait of all Quincy souls, trained or latent," the scientist explains. "Size and complexity correlate directly with the power and training of the individual, respectively, which is why Masaki's is the largest and most complex, Ichigo's is large but comparatively simple, and the twins' are little more than small outlines. I've observed Masaki's soul when she's using her powers in the past, and the structure does 'light up' as spiritual energy passes through it. It doesn't normally 'flare' like this-"
A flick of a button shows the exact same flash you just witnessed, caught by the sensors.
"-but then, I've never monitored her absorbing a fragment of divine energy before," Urahara concludes. "It looked like the normal reaction, scaled up in response to the greater density of spiritual energy involved, but apparently something else was going on. I'm just not sure what."
"Not sure what about what?" Isshin asks, as he steps up. "Did you find a problem?"
"Actually, as near as I can tell, Masaki's soul is strengthened, stable, and safe," Urahara answers the other Shinigami with a cheerful smile, not missing a beat. "I'd like her to come back for daily follow-up scans over the next couple of weeks, so I can monitor the long-term effects and watch for complications, but right here and now, I see no reason why she can't go home."
Isshin nods. "Good to know. So what's got all of you putting your heads together, then?"
You glance at the other members of the crowd, unsure who should speak up, or what should be said.
You open your mouth to speak, then pause and raise one hand, signaling both for attention and that you need a moment to get your thoughts in order.
Briar and the gathered adults give you that time.
"Okay," you say, after thinking it through, "before I explain what I saw-"
Isshin groans. "Don't take this the wrong way, kid, but I'm kind of starting to hate your eyes."
"Oh, yes," Urahara agrees.
You wave the two of them off. "-I want to confirm something. I've heard the term 'Quincy' used a few times, but I still don't have an exact definition for what it MEANS, beyond 'some sort of monk with spiritual powers.' Could I get a quick explanation?"
Urahara states that Quincies are a particular group of humans with hereditary spiritual powers, who are the sworn enemies of Hollows. The foundation of their arts is the ability to gather and manipulate ambient spiritual particles, forming them into weapons and various spell-like effects. The signature weapon of the Quincy is the bow, a spiritual construct centered on and projected from a small silver "cross" - which is customarily actually a five-pointed star, rather than the four-armed variety that serves as the symbol of Christianity - and their traditional combat uniform is white.
Isshin adds that Quincy have a really bad history with Shinigami, due to a war about two centuries ago that ended with most of the Quincy dead.
"The problem was that, where Shinigami could purify Hollows and send their souls back into the cycle of reincarnation, Quincy destroyed them outright," Isshin sighs. "That reduced the natural flow of souls into the afterlife and kept large amounts of spiritual power from destroyed Hollows in the living world, while souls in the afterlife were still gradually getting reborn. It created an imbalance, and if it kept up long enough, Earth's spiritual mass would have eventually 'outweighed' that of the Soul Society and even Hueco Mundo, dragging them into itself."
Navi frowns at that, and you can understand why. The idea of an uncontrolled planar collapse is pretty terrifying, even when one of the worlds falling into the other(s) ISN'T a nightmare realm full of insanely angry cannibalistic ghosts.
"Of course, the Quincy couldn't simply STOP fighting the Hollows, either," the scruffy man adds. "It wasn't even a matter of tradition or centuries of built-up hate and fear; what happened to Masaki years ago proves that Hollow spiritual energy is actively toxic to Quincy souls, and that if they're injured by Hollows and don't get proper treatment, their souls eventually collapse. And the treatment Kisuke came up with didn't EXIST hundreds of years ago."
"Probably wouldn't have been possible, either," Urahara admits.
"And you're not just saying that because you're a genius," Akkiko says sarcastically.
"Well, I am," he replies shamelessly, face half-hidden behind his fan again, "but also, the state of spiritual research back then was... iffy. And Quincy-Shinigami relations were never the best even BEFORE the war, so the kind of collaboration it would have taken to even REALIZE the problem, much less develop the treatment, just wasn't happening." Urahara shakes his head and snaps the fan shut. "But we're getting off-topic."
"Right," you agree, before turning to Isshin. "So, that's what a Quincy is, and they all have some variation of that mark on their souls?"
"It is, and they do. And you bring this up, because...?"
"Because there was a reaction from that mark when Mrs. Masaki absorbed the Heart Container, and my Goddesses reacted to THAT as if something or someone was trying to interfere with the process, with Din warning them off loudly enough that I could her it."
"Us, too," Briar says, indicating herself and her mother.
"I, as well," Rho agrees, raising one wing.
Isshin blinks, twice. "Refresh my memory," he says slowly. "Din is...?"
"The Goddess of Power, Earth, Fire and Strength," you recount. "Also dancing and drums."
"...interesting portfolio," Urahara muses. "Why would she, ah, 'speak up' in response to a spiritual incident, though?"
"Farore would have been a more natural fit," you concede. "She's the Goddess of Courage, Wind, Life, and Spirit-"
"And wind instruments," Briar chimes in.
You nod. "-so this whole incident falls more into her territory than either of her sisters'. But the three of them ARE a trinity, they DO collaborate, and I'm personally more of a Dinnite than a Farorean, so it's possible I just didn't hear Farore's voice over the sound of Din's." You pause. "Also, Din's got a temper. Which isn't to say that Farore DOESN'T, 'cause, Goddess of Nature, and angry killing machines are kind of a thing in Hyrule-"
"We noticed," Isshin and Akkiko chorus.
"-but she's a bit less prone to acting on it the same instant something sets it off."
"Do these goddesses let all their followers talk about them like this?" Yoruichi wonders. "Or are you just special?"
"I mean, Navi got into a fistfight with them a while back..."
This remark provokes a dead silence from the majority of your audience - including the firebird Rho, you notice - who slowly turn to regard Navi with mingled looks of shock, disbelief, and dumbfounded amazement.
Briar and Navi, on the other hand, just sigh.
"Two punches hardly constitute a 'fistfight,'" Navi reminds you primly. "And it certainly wasn't with all of them."
"You said your first shot floored Nayru, and you managed to trade blows with Farore and walk away with nothing worse than a black eye," you rebutt. "One and a half out of three isn't bad."
Collective dumbfounded amazement intensifies.
"You did physical violence to your own patrons?" Akkiko breathes in pure, scandalized awe. She sounds like she's having a religious experience or something. "Kami or not, woman, how did you not get SMOTE for that?"
Navi waves that off. "There were extenuating circumstances."
"Like WHAT?"
"Are you aware of how and why Alex met Lady Takara?"
Akkiko blinks. "...oh. Your goddesses set that up, huh?"
"They dropped a minor prophecy on the boy that said he could find her and the girl, despite knowing full well how much of an irrepressible meddler he is."
Hey.
"...a bunch of allusions and metaphors that dance around the point without ever actually getting to it?" the priestess asks clinically.
The Great Fairy nods. "The usual sort of hero-bait, yes. And they didn't do me the courtesy of WARNING me about what my daughter and her partner were getting mixed up in."
"...yeah, I'd have been tempted to take a swing at them, too. Don't think I would have actually DONE it," Akkiko adds, "much less gotten AWAY with it if I really tried, but I definitely would have been tempted."
"...if it's all the same to everybody, I think I'm going to repress the last sixty seconds or so of this conversation," Isshin says, shaking his head. "For the sake of what little sanity I have left."
Seeing as how Isshin did you a solid earlier by not telling Urahara what he knows of your status as a conscious reincarnation, you have no problem returning the favor.
"Right, so, getting back to the point," you say, "the Goddesses warned something or someone connected to Mrs. Masaki's Quincy powers off of interfering with her absorption of the Heart Container. As her husband, do you have any idea who or what that might have been?"
Isshin gives it a moment of serious thought, but shakes his head.
And then, logically, he turns to his wife. "Masaki, love?"
"Yes, Isshin?"
"Please don't take this as a sign of jealousy or insecurity, but were there any other gods in your life before we met?"
Ichigo makes a gagging sound.
"Wow," Tatsuki laughs. "Humble, much?"
"I know, right?" Akkiko says, in exactly the same tone.
"Hush, you," Masaki chides, smiling at the kids. To her husband, she replies, "And the answer would be no, Isshin. Why do you ask?"
He points at you. "According to the kid, one of them just got scared off from trying something with your powers."
"...what."
It takes a minute to get her up to speed, and Masaki takes a minute more to cast back through her memories of Quincy myth and legend, which she admits she wasn't the best student of, seeking a name.
Ultimately, she shakes her head.
"I shouldn't be saying this in front of you kids," she sighs, "but learning how to fight was far more interesting and practical than learning about people, places, and old traditions that weren't part of my life. Random Hollow attacks made it hard enough to get a good night's sleep and keep my grades up as it was; I wasn't going to make things even harder on myself." She smiles wryly. "Auntie was always terribly disappointed in me for that. Uncle Souken would know, though, or at least know where to look to find out."
"Or," you venture, "I could cast a spell to find out."
"What sort of spell?" Urahara asks.
You explain the workings of the Spell of Literary Vision-
"It's the one Mom was grumbling about earlier," Briar adds.
-and add that while it's a powerful spell, it's not a powerful Summoning spell, so Urahara's wards should be able to handle it. Though you further suggest that, if they're really worried about it, you could ask Navi to transport you to another plane to cast the spell there.
"I vote we go to another plane," Urahara says immediately, raising one hand.
"I wouldn't actually be taking you to Hyrule, you know," Navi says.
"I still vote for it."
Is there a particular plane you'd like to request-slash-recommend for this?
Also, Navi can take along up to seven other people without augmenting the spell and risking stressing Urahara's wards. You and Masaki would both have to go, and Briar could come along with you as a freebie - or, alternately, you could get her to stay here and help mind the younger kids. Shadow Alex is separate enough from you to take up "space" as another passenger, unless you dismiss him before leaving and re-summon him at your destination - which would cost you some mana. Rho could likewise be summoned, and everybody else would have to go as part of the group or stay behind.
You've never been there before, but the first plane that comes to mind as a possible destination is the celestial realm of the Goddesses themselves - provided such a thing would be possible in the first place, and that you could be guaranteed not to be disturbed by any of the residents who might set off your sleeping Curse.
Rather than say that last part aloud, you instead emphasize the issues you've had with local Powers interfering with your attempts to commune with the Goddesses. While the Spell of Literary Vision isn't divine magic and wouldn't normally be subject to such meddling, the fact that you'd be using it to hunt for information on what appears to be a god or other divine entity would open the door to a certain amount of unfriendly resistance. Better to be somewhere the Goddesses have the home field advantage, in case it becomes necessary.
Navi hears you out, says it would be a good idea, except that it won't work in this situation.
"Mortals can't just enter a divine realm whenever they feel like it. Even if you're a dead member of the faith or a particularly highly-favored living follower, there are formalities that have to be observed, which only get more significant for outsiders. Tests of worthiness, offerings, getting permission from your own patrons - and considering what prompted this request, I think we have to discount that last one out of hand."
She has a point, there. Whatever was trying to act through that mark on Masaki's soul, it was able to do so without her knowledge or consent. To have that level of influence over another being's soul, the entity behind this has to be both personally powerful and in a position of authority over Masaki - something she owes an obligation to, even if she's not aware of what or why.
By definition, that's a patron. And since you mean to track this one down, the odds of it helping you to do so are basically nil.
Gained Hyrulean Theology C (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Well, if a trip to the Goddesses' realm is out, your next choice would be the Mirror Realm. It's familiar, and you have yet to have anything attack or blow up on you in there - you can't say the same of Faerie or Navi's Silent Realm, which are the only other two extraplanar destinations that really come to mind.
"The WHAT Realm?" Tatsuki asks.
You consider explaining, but then say it would be easier to just show her.
After checking with Urahara to see if the trapdoor entrance to this room can be opened without breaching its wards - it can, though ideally it shouldn't be left open any longer than absolutely necessary - you ask if he has a tall mirror upstairs he'd be willing to loan you for a bit.
"Oh, this I have to see."
Permission secured, you climb back up the ladder, signal Tessai to let you out, and then ask him to show you to a room Urahara mentioned. Forehead furrowing in puzzlement, the tall man checks with his employer to confirm your request, before closing the trapdoor again and leading you into the residential half of the building, up the stairs, and into one of the bedrooms. Judging by the two small futons, it's for the kids, and there's a free-standing mirror over in one corner. It's not as big as the reflective ceiling panel you took from the old gas station, and most adults would have to do a bit of maneuvering to fit through, but they COULD fit.
Satisfied that it will serve, you cast a shortened-duration version of the Spell to Shrink An Item, turning the mirror into a small cloth image of itself. Tucking that in your pocket, you thank Tessai and make your way back downstairs and into the hidden basement.
When you return, Shadow Alex is in the middle of casting the Spell of Major Creation to produce the ivory figurines you need as focuses for the Spell of Literary Vision. You observe for a moment to get an idea of where he is and how well it's going, but seeing nothing untoward, you turn, cast the cloth mirror on the dusty ground to return it to its normal size, and begin casting the Spell of the Mirror Hideaway.
A couple of minutes later, the front of the mirror gleams unnaturally as your magic takes effect. You give it a moment to settle, and then walk through.
One instant of icy razors sliding over your skin later, you look around, noting with satisfaction that the elements you cribbed from some of your other extra-dimensional space-creating spells - namely, the Spell of the Magnificent Mansion - did what you were hoping, and made the Mirror Hideaway bigger than the one you've been using as a spellcasting chamber for the last year. While it's nowhere near as big as a Mansion, the Hideaway is a good three times larger than you're used to, giving you plenty of room for everyone in the other room to enter if they wish.
You step back out, spare yourself a moment to shiver and shake off the skin-tingling sensation, and then declare, "Alex's Magical Mirror Hideaway is now open for visitors. Please keep avoid jarring the frame as you enter, and be advised that passing through a portal of enchanted glass is a very cold and sharp experience that may not be suitable for young participants. At least, my little sister refused to come back into the one I have at home, after her first visit."
In spite of your warning, Jinta and Karin are the first to try and pass through the Mirror. You carefully separate them and tell them to take it one at a time.
One by one, everyone present makes their way inside the Hideaway, with even the most reluctant succumbing to curiosity, or maybe just peer pressure.
Despite his obvious scientific excitement, Urahara is visibly dismayed by the size of the mirror, which clearly won't accommodate his sensor device. The man in the hat and geta does a complete one-eighty when you offer to shrink the machine for him, and just about hugs you in response.
Shadow Alex is the last to arrive, and he emerges from the glass entryway with three small ivory figurines, each one shaped to resemble a different Golden Goddess, as they are depicted in the Hyrulean Holy Books.
As you accept the figurines from your counterpart, you notice that the ivory is not white, but a smoky grey. Your magical senses register a tinge of Elemental Shadow that makes them feel weirdly insubstantial despite their physical solidity, but they should be stable enough for at least one use.
You set up for the spell, clearing the audience from the center of the chamber, then having Masaki stand there with all three of her kids around her. You set the ivory figurines on floor around them, forming the points of a triangle, and each mini-Goddess holding a stick of Golden Incense. In passing, you note that your supply of the stuff is running very low, with only three more sticks left - something of a shame, but then again, you managed to make this one box last for an entire year.
Lighting the Incense sticks, you take out your Conjured Book and begin the Spell of the Literary Vision, focusing on the soul-marks of the Kurosaki family. In order to minimize the chances of your ultimate target interfering with your magic, you cast the spell as quickly as possible.
You sense no reaction, and while it's possible you might have missed something with part of your attention on your magic, none of the others present report anything amiss. This includes Briar, Navi, and Shadow Alex, who were the most likely ones after yourself to spot a problem.
You give it a moment more to see if any response will manifest, and when nothing leaps out from the crystalline walls at you, you raise the Book and begin to read.
Hail! Hail! The Sealed King!
Hear the song the Quincy sing!
Praise to our Lord and Father, but oh,
curse the Reaper that laid him low.
Nine centuries will his body lie,
'til his pulse he regains, and breath to cry.
Nine decades more will he remain asleep,
'til intellect wakens, and heart to weep.
After nine years shall he open his eyes,
his power recovered from impure lives.
And after nine days, his throne he will take,
to recover the world, and his enemies, break.
Reaper and Hollow, his judgment shall know,
and vengeance at last for those they laid low.
Hear the song the Quincy sing!
Hail! Hail! The Sealed King!
...
"I'd just like to go on record as being completely unsurprised by these tidings of doom," Briar says from her spot on your shoulder. "Because this? Happens EVERY DAMN TIME you use that spell."
"Why?" Tatsuki wonders, leaning forward to look over- okay, AROUND your shoulder, to try and read the book. "What's it say?"
"Oh no?" Briar replies to your rebuttal. Then she starts listing events off. "How about that time at the entrance to the Memorian Outpost, where it warned us about Dark Link?"
"...okay, that time was bad."
"Or when you cast it at the Hakubas', to learn the history of that sword?"
"Hey, now, that was the Spell of Vision, not Literary Vision."
"They're the same spell! The only difference is that one version gets put on a page, while the other goes off in your head - and THAT one went off like a bomb!"
...she's not exactly WRONG, but...
You shake your head. "It was perfectly fine when I cast it on Bali Ha'i."
"Yeah, but you did it in response to Jermafencer and the Reinhardts getting jumped by a wannabe Knight of Winter; that's plenty of doom to be getting on with."
"The old man's puzzle box!" you declare triumphantly. "There were no tidings of doom at all that time!"
"Nothing except the ten-year countdown on whatever was inside - something, I'll remind you, that we didn't actually find out. Speaking of which," Briar adds in a less-confrontational tone, "the answer you got that time involved a bunch of nines, too. Do you suppose it's at all related to this one?"
You stop and think on that for a moment. The marks on the Kurosakis' souls don't remind you of the design of the puzzle-box in any way, and the "vision" you were given of the box's origins dated it to about ninety years ago, while this "Sealed King" character goes back almost an entire millennium. Based on those factors, the odds of a connection seem slim.
Even the common thread of having to wait nine years for the box to open or this "Sealed King" to awaken doesn't confirm the existence of a link. Neither of the little prophecies gave you any exact dates, which means the two events could end up happening years apart, and even if the box opened on the same day this avenging ruler opened his eyes, whatever was inside the box was supposed to need another nine months to grow, whereas the king would take over the world in just nine days.
Before you can think further on this, Tatsuki interrupts you.
Fending off the curious part-oni girl with only one hand is a bit of a task, but she's not fighting you very hard. Actually, you catch her glancing at the ceiling, trying to read the reflection, but frowning - either because of the distance or the way the image is reversed, you're not sure which.
Regardless, Tatsuki's distraction buys you time to clear your throat and raise your voice for the whole glass-walled chamber to hear. "It says..."
You recite the "song," doing your best to project a suitably ominous tone and pace your words to what feels like the best meter. No one interrupts, and when you've finished, you look around at your audience.
The four youngest individuals appear fairly well lost. Tatsuki and Ichigo are frowning in worry, and every one of the adults is either frowning or outright scowling. As for Yoruichi, well, cat faces aren't made for the same kind of expressiveness as humans, but the nervous twitch of his tail and low growl gives you some idea of how much he doesn't enjoy the implications.
You know the feeling. It's really starting to seem like every group of people you hang out with is, or has been, mixed up with another apocalyptic threat: the Shuzens are working on the upcoming Grail War with you; the Hakubas unintentionally led you to Lady Takara; both of those families AND the Drakes got dragged into Dracula's resurrection during last summer's eclipse; everybody in Sunnydale is living on top of the Hellmouth; and lest you forget, there's your own mess with the Curse of Demise. And now there's THIS.
You have to wonder what terrible force of destruction the Southern Water Tribe are going to get involved with.
"Well," Akkiko pipes up. "That was a charming little ditty. Any idea what it means, Masaki?"
"It reminds me of a song I heard a few times when I was little," the Kurosaki matriarch replies uncertainly. "That's only because of the mention of a king and all the nines, though. I can't swear to any of the rest."
"Not a favorite?"
"The lyrics were in old German. I told you, I didn't like studying old stuff that didn't involve fighting."
Akkiko shrugs. "Fair enough. But would this uncle of yours know it?"
"Or where to look it up," Masaki affirms.
While they're talking, you take out one of your three remaining sticks of Gold Incense and your Augury Sticks. Lighting the stick, you gather your mana and begin the short ritual, chanting quietly as you wave the sticks and smoking incense about. At the proper moment, you let the rune-carved wood fall from your hands to clatter on the reflective floor.
The answer to your query about using the Spell to Know the Enemy to probe for further information about this Sealed King character comes up as, "Nothing." So either the spell just failed - which isn't impossible even with your advanced grasp of Divination Magic; auguries are rather fickle that way - or it's telling you that using the second spell wouldn't have particularly good or particularly bad results.
At the very least, this seems to rule out the possibility of you getting zapped by an anti-scrying defense or something, though it also looks like your results won't be particularly helpful.
"Watcha doin'?" a young male voice asks. Turning, you find the redheaded Jinta regarding you with narrowed, suspicious eyes.
"Asking for advice," you say honestly, as you start picking up the scattered focuses.
"From a buncha sticks?" The younger boy's tone makes it clear what he thinks of that.
"From a bunch of Goddesses who are using the sticks to send me a message," you answer.
Jinta's still looking at you like you're crazy.
Well, you can't please everybody.
"Y-you sh-shouldn't bother our g-guest while he's working, Jinta," the sad-faced little Ururu murmurs.
"He was bein' a'spicious!" Jinta protests, pointing at you. "And don't tell me what to do!" he adds, off-hand moving as if to shove the girl.
As soon as you see Jinta winding up, you step forward and reach out.
His shove gets about three inches before your hand closes around his shoulder, gripping with just enough force to stop the younger, much smaller boy's attempt to shove the girl in its tracks.
"Wha-?" Jinta exclaims, as he lurches to a stop. An instant later, he starts wrenching at your hand, physical effort accompanied by fitful bursts of spiritual energy - not nearly enough to overpower you alone, and insufficient even in combination. "Hey, leggo!"
"Not until you explain what you thought you were doing," you tell the redhead firmly. You're not yelling, and you're doing your best not to appear threatening, but the sheer size difference makes that tricky even without the other intimidating aspects of your appearance and bearing.
"I didn't do nothin'!" Jinta protests, both accurately and grammatically-incorrectly.
Ah, denial. The classic first defense.
"That's not what it looked like to me," you say mildly. "To me, it looked like you were going to hit her."
"Shoving isn't hitting!"
You could debate that, but... "So you admit you tried to shove her?"
To his credit, Jinta realized his error almost as soon as he spoke. Instead of trying to take it back, he points accusingly at Ururu. "She was tryin' to boss me around!"
Shifting the blame. Another classic.
"And how does that make it okay for you to shove her?"
"But she was- but I- you can't tell me what to do, either!"
"No," Yoruichi agrees, appearing suddenly. "But I can."
Jinta pales, and quits struggling against you.
"Uh-um," Ururu speaks up then, if only just barely. "I-it's okay, Mister Yoruichi, Mister Harris. You don't have to worry. Jinta's like this all time, he doesn't mean anything by it."
...that just makes it worse.
"Oh, really?" Yoruichi all but purrs, gold eyes shifting slowly from the girl to the boy, who goes as still as a mouse would under the same circumstances. "'All the time,' you say?"
"Uh... yes?" Ururu looks like she suspects she's made some kind of a misstep, but isn't sure where.
"Hm."
There's a world of implications in that utterance, but what Yoruichi says next is merely to ask you to let Jinta go, and a promise that he'll make sure the kids behave themselves for the rest of your visit.
Despite the strangeness of it being the cat, having one of the "adults" step in feels like a good place for you to step back, and so you do.
A quick look around tells you that everyone else in the Mirror Hideaway is well aware of what just happened. Ichigo and his sisters are giving Jinta a distinctly unimpressed look, in stereo, whereas Masaki and Isshin are looking at Urahara, who has rather deliberately buried himself in his data.
Shaking your head, you get on with the spell you wanted to cast. The results of the prior augury have led you to suspect that the Spell to Know the Enemy won't give you the information you were interested in, but you can't completely rule that out - and checking it costs you nothing but a trivial amount of time and an entirely affordable bit of mana.
One minute later, divinely-granted insight floods your mind, calling forth everything you know about Quincies and comparing it against everything else you know, rapidly cross-checking confirmed data points to discern connections and make leaps of reasoning and intuition you otherwise wouldn't have.
But the precise identity of this "Sealed King" character remains a mystery to you.
"Find anything?" Urahara asks, as the faint aura of magic around you fades, taking the brief rush of enhanced cognition with it.
"Unfortunately, no," you admit with some disappointment, but little surprise. If a Divination spell of the seventh circle couldn't directly identify the power behind that mark on the Quincies' souls, a mere second-circle magic wasn't likely to do any better. Your own knowledge on the subject wasn't enough to make up the difference.
You consider your options. Recasting Literary Vision wouldn't accomplish anything right now; you have to track down the leads it's already given you, such as whatever Masaki's uncle knows or can find out, before you're likely to get new information from additional castings of the spell.
It occurs to you to wonder if the man in question is actually related to Masaki, or just an older man she's on friendly terms with, but you shake that idle thought off.
With your most powerful Spell of Divination ruled out for the time being, the only other ones that seem likely to provide timely results would be the Spell to Contact Another Plane or the Spell of Communion. Either would open you up to possible outside interference again, and the latter also requires enough expensive material components that you can't...
...
...actually, make that WOULDN'T have been able to cast it, once upon a time, but which you could manage now - just barely - thanks to your ongoing training with the priests.
Hooray for the fringe benefits of religious indoctrination?
Do you wish to cast the Spell to Commune With the Goddesses?
You decide to take a pass on further uses of Divination Magic for the day. Akkiko did warn you against it, and even with the modest expansion you managed to work, the Mirror Hideaway is small enough that you'd be uncomfortably and even dangerously close to the fallout, should another of those demonic interruptions take place. You also wouldn't particularly care to test Urahara's wards against such an incident, particularly not with all these other innocent bystanders present in the potential blast radius - and you don't yet know or trust the man enough to stay here on your own.
Plus, you know that Navi should be on her way sooner rather than later.
As such, you table the matter of the mark on Masaki's soul, the mysterious power behind it, and your latest encounter with prophetic verse, and instead bring up the topic of arranging further instances of soul healing for Masaki.
The first thing to be agreed upon by the adults is that if the Kurosakis do decide to go ahead and hire Navi to help them out, it won't be for a few weeks' time. Urahara has already said that he wants to see what the long-term effects of the Heart of Spirit look like, and it's not just to satisfy his own curiosity on the subject, but also so he'll be able to properly advise his friends in this matter. Having the Great Fairy provide further soul-based treatments at this time would potentially get in the way of that.
Also, if Navi's going to be visiting regularly, Urahara needs to repair and upgrade his wards.
On top of that, there's the question of payment. You warned Isshin and Masaki about this back on Bali Ha'i, and they've been looking over their finances, favors, and more exotic resources these last couple of weeks, to get an idea of what they have to potentially pay Navi for her services. They've even put some money away in preparation - just in case - but additional time would let them gather more funds, actually call in those markers owed to them (and give the people involved time to work out their end of the deal), and/or just go out and get whatever ends up being needed to pay the bills.
Navi doesn't object to the idea of taking a few weeks to let the Heart of Spirit "settle" before throwing more magic at Masaki's soul; in fact, she supports it. While spiritual damage and Heart Containers are both familiar ground for the Great Fairy, the complex set of wards and bindings surrounding Masaki are rather less so - and Quincy, Hollow, and Shinigami energies are something else again, both individually and mixed up like these. The time Urahara wants to take to confirm for himself what you, Briar, Navi, and Rho have said about the Heart Container's harmlessness, Navi could make good use of to study the Earth-native spiritual forces tied up in this mess.
Urahara is willing to provide her with notes and materials to help her catch up, and at no cost; between the new research opportunities opened up to him this morning and the chance to see a problem he was only able to ameliorate actually FIXED, the shopkeeper says he's already been well-compensated for his time and trouble.
"Even with the damage to your wards?" you question.
He waves that off with his fan. "It'll fit in the monthly maintenance budget."
"Barely," Yoruichi observes.
Navi is willing to take Urahara's information as a retainer on her services, and will be giving the Kurosakis a deal as well, less because they're friendly acquaintances of yours than because the damage done to Masaki's soul just seems to offend the Great Fairy on a fundamental level.
You're not sure if that's a magical healer thing, a fairy thing, or a minor goddess thing.
Probably all three, though.
After all of that, though, the question is raised - by Akkiko, to few beings' surprise - of just what the Kurosakis could offer that would be of interest to a Great Fairy.
"It's a given that modern currency is not going to cover this," the priestess notes. "I have no idea where we'd get enough gold without the cops or the government showing up to ask questions, and there'd be problems with the other traditional arrangement."
Tatsuki frowns at her mother. "What's that?"
"Giving up the firstborn child," you, Briar, and every adult in the room except Masaki answer her in rough chorus.
"...oh."
"Well, we certainly won't be doing that," Masaki agrees, hugging her son a little closer.
Ichigo, surprisingly, looks thoughtful and actually (slightly) disagrees with his mother for the first time you can recall. "I don't know, Mom; I mean, if it'd help..."
"That's very sweet of you to offer, Ichigo-"
"If not too bright," Yoruichi notes.
Isshin just sighs.
"-but no."
"Even if I was the type to treat kids as currency, I already have a hundred of my own to keep track of," Navi says bluntly. "I don't need or want another."
At this point, you wonder if you should offer your help. Sourcing stuff from Hyrule to help the Kurosakis pay Navi is probably out, if only because you can't think of anything there that she'd really want, not be able to get for herself, and wouldn't involve you going on a quest in the kingdom - which is completely out of the question. But even if Hyrule's resources are off the table, your magic still gives you access to... well, potentially anywhere on Earth, if you're being completely honest (and not concerned about consequences), making you exceptionally well-suited to track down and acquire the sort of items that Navi might take in trade. And you're perfectly willing to be paid with yen.
Summoning an Earth-native entity to trade with would normally be an option as well, but the Karakuran adults are pretty obviously trying to avoid notice by a certain higher spiritual authority. What you've learned about Quincy-Shinigami relations today gives you a reasonable idea as to why Masaki and Isshin would want to keep their family off of Soul Society's radar, and the others have "guilt by association" to worry about - even if you can't say what they'd be guilty OF - so the suggestion that they get in contact with some other aspect of Earth's spiritual community is likely to be rejected, just for the sake of maintaining their cover.
Leaving that aside, you have to admit that if you take too direct a role in paying off what is - or would be - the Kurosakis' debt, it would mystically-devalue whatever you managed to obtain, forcing you to go after more items or one of greater intrinsic worth, and so take more or just greater risks. And the Kurosakis might not be thrilled at the idea of sending a kid into harm's way regardless. A viable alternative, then, might be to rent out your services as diviner and teleportational taxi, and take one or more members of the family to retrieve what they'd need themselves.
Or you could put them in touch with Gen, who - given his past encounters with a Great Fairy - would likely be delighted to help out, and has the contacts to acquire a wide range of stuff through more or less mundane means. That would require bringing your business partner into the loop on this, which the various Karakura residents might prefer not to do, and you wouldn't be surprised if Gen asked to meet Navi in the process.
Not that you'd really object to that last part, it'd just be a bit tricky to arrange.
If all else fails, there's always the option of asking Navi to set up her Silent Realm for another Trial.
You get the adults' attention, ask for their patience, and then proceed to put your cards on the table, as it were, laying out all the options that came to mind, and their associated benefits and drawbacks. When it comes to mention of the Trials, you not only refer back to the events they witnessed - and in several cases, participated in - in the Ring of Trials on Bali Ha'i, but also your earlier experience in Navi's Silent Realm.
Personally, you think the most efficient option would be for the Kurosakis to hire you to act as taxi and emergency backup while they go and get whatever they need for themselves, as this would arguably get them the most bang for their buck. Paying you primarily to handle transportation would negate the risk of mystically-devaluing whatever prize they claim to settle things with Navi, even if you gave them a deal on your services - which, since you consider Ichigo a friend and have strong feelings about the importance of friendship and family, you're rather inclined to do - or took payment in a non-monetary fashion.
One such possible payment that comes to mind is the chance to learn about their forms of spiritual power. Even if you do lack the inherent spiritual... qualities necessary to actually use Shinigami or Quincy abilities, learning about them from actual practitioners would give you a lot more data to work with than the observations you've made to date, and make the development of your own spiritual abilities that much quicker and safer.
"You were going to say 'spiritual weirdness' or something like it there, weren't you?" Isshin guesses dryly.
The word DID come to mind, but you aren't exactly in a position where you can get away with calling other people's souls weird.
On a related note, Urahara wholly approves of your desire to learn more about the spiritual arts, and would be DELIGHTED to make an exchange in kind - not in place of the Kurosakis, as he's aware that entrusting someone else to pay their debt would end up costing them somewhat more than if they'd paid it directly, but he's willing to wait for his turn to pick your brain.
Seeing as how the man's Science Face is showing past his fan when he makes that offer, you politely decline. At least for now. Settling things with the Kurosakis and Navi will likely give you more opportunities to observe and interact with the shady shopkeeper, and when the deal before you is all said and done and you have a better idea of what he's like and likely to DO...
...well. You'll revisit that thought when and if the time comes.
As it stands, Navi gives the Kurosakis a few examples of how the cost of her services could be paid, and you hand over Gen's business information, so that someone from the Karakura group can stop by to check out his wares and prices, and maybe ask for a quote on the magical market cost of things like "the first breath of spring," "the seed of this land's oldest tree," or "a baby's first laugh."
Since there's nothing more that can realistically be done about the matter of Masaki's soul at the moment, the meeting officially breaks up. Everyone exits your Mirror Hideaway, you shrink Urahara's machine and move it back out for him, and then you dismiss both spells. Urahara prints out copies of the readings he got off of basically everything that's happened since you stepped foot in his oversized basement, and then dashes up the ladder, handing the notes off to Tessai before disappearing from view. Isshin went up ahead of him at a more sedate pace, while in his wake, Masaki and Yoruichi corral the four youngest members of the group onto that elevator-platform they rode down, sending them back up to the shop with the cat riding along.
Urahara descends the ladder right after that, holding on to it with one hand and sliding down like it's an oddly-shaped and unusually long fire-pole. You catch sight of several beige note-binders tucked under his other arm, which is also grasping his cane.
"Don't try that at home, kids," he declares to you, Ichigo, and Tatsuki after hitting the ground, before turning to Navi and handing over half the binders. "Ma'am. Notes on the structure of Shinigami, Hollow, and Quincy souls, the specific techniques I developed to treat Masaki's condition and bind Isshin and the kids, and a glossary of relevant kido terminology - and copies of the same," he adds, looking at Rho and holding up the remaining documents. "Just to be sure, can you carry these?"
"I can, though it would be easier if they were tied together, with a large, secure knot I could properly hold." The firebird stands on one foot and flexes his graceful talons as if grasping something.
Urahara nods, and pulls a length of rope out of a pocket in his robe.
...the man is well-prepared.
With their "payments" secured, and a promise from Navi to have a book of comparable information for Urahara when she next returns, the two Hyruleans says their goodbyes and vanish back into the aether.
All in all, it's been about an hour and a half since you entered Urahara Shop, making it somewhere past nine, local time, or four in the afternoon back home. You've got another two and a half hours before you absolutely need to leave, give or take.
"So, Mrs. Arisawa," you say.
"Yeah, boyo?"
"Back at my party, I asked you about a certain kami...?"
"I was starting to wonder if you'd forgotten about that," she says frankly. "Kind of surprised you didn't bring it up while we were on the way here, actually. I am a priestess, after all; talking about the kami in public wouldn't exactly be weird."
"Yeah, but talking about one that decided to reward my dog for fighting monsters during my birthday party might not have gone over so well."
"Eh, fair enough."
"Ah, excuse me," Urahara interrupts, "but I was under the impression that this party of yours was held on an island in the South Pacific. Is that correct?"
"It is," you say.
"...I believe I would like to hear about this kami myself."
"Sure." Akkiko nods, then tips her head towards the ladder. "But let's head topside before I explain this. Maybe get some more of Tessai's tea. It's pretty good stuff."
Several minutes later, everyone has re-taken their seats in the back room, with Jinta and Ururu squeezing in near the door. Tessai was pleased to make more tea, which he's just finished pouring out for those that were interested.
Akkiko takes a sip, and then begins. "Okay, so, the spiritual experts and ridiculous prodigies among us should already know this, but for the sake of the younger and less-educated members of the class, it's pretty unusual to have a kami show up anywhere outside of Japan. For one thing, a lot of their power is bound up in the land and its people - that's especially true for the earthbound kami, the spirits of physical objects and locations, but even the celestial kami have their shrines, favored bloodlines, and other things they like to keep a close watch on. That ties into the fact that not all kami are powerhouses; the lesser ones can only reliably project their power so far, and if they started traveling, they might fall out of contact with their priests, or just find it unreasonably difficult to answer their prayers. That would cost them face and faith, which would weaken them and make upholding their responsibilities even harder, costing them MORE - so they just don't leave home much, if ever."
She pauses to let all of that sink in, and drink more of the tea.
"That having been said, it's not like it's impossible for a kami to visit another part of the world - they're not PRISONERS or anything like that. It helps if they've been personally invited, have authority over a domain that would involve or allow for travel, or are just really powerful. Boyo here invited the Hakubas and the Higurashis, which is enough that one or both of the kami from their shrines were probably looking in on the festivities - I know OURS certainly was. But all of those three are strictly minor, local powers; they couldn't have gotten directly involved that far from home without one of their priests actively supporting them, and none of us were doing that."
"Meaning it was either a major power, one whose nature would somehow let them 'visit' the island OR gave them a personal interest in the event in question or the one participating in it, or a combination of the above," Urahara concludes.
Akkiko nods, and looks around at the audience. "Anyone care to guess?"
"...Hachiman, maybe?" Tatsuki ventures. "It was a trial by combat, and he's patron of warriors, so... no?" she adds, seeing her mother shake her head.
"Oh, there were enough Japanese participants that Lord Hachiman might have looked in on SOME of us" - the way she's looking directly at Isshin and Masaki makes it pretty clear who she's talking about - "but he wasn't the one who gave the dog a bone." Akkiko looks around again, but nobody else seems to want to venture a name. "How about you, boyo? Any theories?"
You shake your head. "Not unless there's a God of Dogs I missed in my readings."
"Heh. Not exactly..."
Setting her teacup down on its saucer and sliding both to one side, Akkiko reaches behind her back and produces a mid-sized scroll, which she unfurls on the table to reveal an old-fashioned ink painting. It shows a great white wolf with red markings along its face and flanks, curiously long and upright tufts of fur rising from its shoulders, and lesser ones jutting from the ankles. A string of beads hangs about the wolf's neck, and floating above its back is a disc of what appears to be stone, wreathed by a great multicolored mass that could be intended as a wild mane or a blazing aura.
"Behold, Shiranui," Akkiko intones. "The Great White Wolf, Guardian of Kamiki, and Protector of All Nippon."
"Never heard of him," Ichigo says.
Akkiko smirks. "I wouldn't be too sure about that if I were you. Granted, the legend of Shiranui is pretty obscure, but it makes reference to the wolf being an avatar of a much better-known power."
"And that is...?" Masaki asks patiently.
"Amaterasu."
...
"What," Isshin, Urahara, Yoruichi, AND Tessai say in unison.
Well, then; this certainly explains a few things. As the Goddess of the Sun, Amaterasu would technically be able to go wherever the Sun goes, and while you've never heard of her having a wolf for an avatar before, it would give her (or a part of her) a reason to look in on a fellow canine that was technically fighting evil. Plus, there's that whole thing with her and Farore knowing each other, which probably resulted in an invitation on the divine side of things.
You wonder if you should mention that part?
"That actually makes sense," you declare in the wake of that stunned exclamation.
As one, the Shinigami turn to you, wordlessly expressing various levels of confusion and disbelief. It's Isshin who manages to find his voice first, croaking, "How?"
You lay out your reasoning: how Amaterasu being the Sun Goddess would give her the means to look in on other parts of the world; and how the existence of Shiranui would provide at least some reason for her to pay attention to a dog that was fighting manifestations of evil. Your words draw thoughtful looks from some of your audience, and nods of agreement from other quarters - Urahara's somewhat slower than Akkiko's.
"But mostly," you continue, "it makes sense that Amaterasu would have shown up. She's met the Goddesses before in a social setting, and gets along with Farore well enough that her being invited to attend on their side of things wouldn't be a stretch."
"WHAT."
And like that, you've lost them again.
You explain that you only heard this from Navi - who in turn, heard it from a relative who had a friend who was present for the events in question - but APPARENTLY, months ago, the Goddesses end up at a celestial party. Din faced all challengers on the dance floor, Nayru got into a drinking contest, and Farore spent the night bouncing around talking to anyone who would listen. The three heads of the Shinto pantheon were also present, and there were... incidents.
"And by that I mean Susanoo got fresh with Din and got his butt kicked, Tsukuyomi got drunk under the table by Nayru, and Amaterasu and Farore just up and disappeared for a week - and when the Sun Goddess came back, the first thing she did was punch out her husband."
Akkiko - who rather wisely set her tea aside when you started talking - throws her head back in laughter at this.
Everyone else, including the actually living members of the audience who are old enough to follow what you're saying, is staring at you in flat disbelief. You can HEAR the unspoken refutals that some of them would like to make, and are only holding back because Masaki would get annoyed at them for swearing in front of the kids.
...actually, Masaki is one of the people who looks like she wants to say a few things not fit for little ears.
You raise your hands in a gesture of appeasement. "Like I said, I wasn't actually there; this is just what I was told."
There's also the fact that the kami you met that day when you made the return trip to the Memorian Outpost all seemed a bit twitchy whenever Din's name came up, but they didn't actually mention any of what you just said - you had to go to Navi for details afterwards.
Besides, you promised Lady Izumi that you wouldn't talk about them gossiping. You're not the sort to break your promise to a lady, whether she's a deity or not.
"No, no," Akkiko wheezes, waving her left hand while leaning on the table with her right arm. "It fits. Like... like you said, boyo, Lady Amaterasu... had the means to look in on the Trials. Shiranui had a reason to do something nice for your dog... once he proved himself worthy of it. A friendly invitation from one of the goddesses overseeing the event would have ensured that she was actually 'there' to witness everything, and that whole 'trial and reward' thing they had set up just made bestowing a blessing easier." She shakes her head. "Man, that's been bugging me for weeks. Nice to finally get it all cleared up." And then Akkiko chuckles. "Punched out her husband... oh, the girls are going to LOVE this..."
Um. Should you try to stop Akkiko from spreading this bit of divine gossip around?
Leaving that aside, is there anything else you feel the need to do on this visit to the Urahara Shop?
For all her colorful character traits, Akkiko IS still the lady in charge of taking care of a shrine, from a family that you've been told has been doing so for several centuries. There's a lot of personal and built-up institutional knowledge there, so if she feels it's fine to pass on this particular tidbit of divine gossip to some other people she knows, then it probably is.
Besides, being the one who told Akkiko this tale in the first place, you're really in no position to say that she shouldn't share the story with others.
Following the divine-related bombs that you and Akkiko dropped, the conversation rather quickly winds down. Urahara and Tessai have data to go over and wards to repair and replace, Akkiko has rumors to monger, and even Isshin admits he should be getting back to the clinic. The last of Tessai's tea is polished off, farewells exchanged, and last reminders handed out.
"See you again in a couple of weeks," Urahara says, tipping his hat as your extended party head out the front door. "Or sooner, if you happen to be in the mood for some candy."
Although it is something of a shame to leave Karakura when you've got parental permission to stay out later than usual, everyone is a bit emotionally wrung out from the morning's events. Ichigo pretty clearly wants to keep an eye on his mom, and your continued presence might send the wrong impression, like suggesting that you didn't actually trust the Heart of Spirit as much as you claimed, and were hanging around in case of emergency. Or maybe just to see what the effects were.
As such, once you've seen the Kurosakis home, you make your own farewells, ask if you can borrow their backyard, and - after getting approval from Isshin and Masaki, plus an agreement from Akkiko to hang around long enough to clean up the residual mana signature of your spellcasting - teleport yourself back to California.
The next week sees you spending a good portion of your free time investigating the pile of presents you received on Bali Ha'i. It's not as though you've just been letting all this stuff sit in your pocket for the last few weeks, but between the sheer number of gifts and the other recent demands on your time - sorting out the Island Pork situation, planning out the work on Kahlua's commission and getting the earliest touches done, and so on - you haven't made as much headway as you otherwise might have.
Even so, you did manage to get some reading done. You started with:
When you didn't have your nose in a book, you also did some poking at the more obviously mystical gifts. Your psychic abilities aren't yet advanced enough for you to grasp the intricate design of the Singing Stone that Grey Voice gave you, but you at least managed to figure out how to turn the thing on and off using your mind alone. A more in-depth magical probe than what you gave it on Bali Ha'i didn't reveal anything new, not even an aura of Enchantment Magic - it's purely a psychic construct, and for all that both forces deal with the mind, psychic energy is yet distinct from Enchantment.
Fascinating, that.
You've had better luck with Beryl's gift, which you dubbed "the Aries Crystal" on account of its deliberate resemblance to your astrological birth sign. After an extended analysis, you tested its functions in your Mirror Hideaway, and confirmed that if you channel the mana of a Spell of Summoning through the Crystal while you cast it - from start to finish, with no interruption - the Crystal will fuse with the creature you bring forth. What this ends up looking like can vary pretty widely, so that, among other things you've seen: a summoned dog with the Crystal fused to its forehead, like a ridge of bone; a skeleton with the Crystal lodged inside its ribcage, in the same place a heart would have gone; and one rat in the middle of a summoned swarm, bearing the purple-black stone on its back.
That last one was an "interesting" test, incidentally. The Spell to Summon a Swarm is one of the riskier forms of Summoning Magic, since it doesn't grant you any special control over the creatures it calls up - it just drops a mob of vicious little beasts on the target area, ready and willing to go after the nearest available target. Useful, in some situations, but when you're the ONLY other creature stuck in an enclosed space with them...
...well, let's just say that it's a good thing you thought to cast the Spell of Levitation ahead of time, and that you didn't summon bats or spiders.
All of these tests have confirmed that the Aries Crystal doubles the duration of Spells of Summoning meant to bring forth temporary creatures. The experiment with the rat swarm, and some later tests involving group-summoning, show that it works for multi-creature summons as well, and isn't canceled if the creature that's actually fused with the stone is killed or banished.
And while it does work on creatures other than the undead and fiends you've seen Beryl summon, you have to admit that such entities seem less bothered at the prospect of having a piece of dark crystal fused to their bodies - or at least less prone to complaining about it.
As a bonus, you think you might be able to recreate Beryl's work, and possibly even modify it for other uses.
Gained Item Crafting C (Plus) (Plus)
There are a few things about the Aries Crystal that you haven't been able to test to your own satisfaction, one of which is the "auto-return" function Beryl built into it. It works well enough in the confines of a single empty chamber, but you're going to have to see how it works outdoors, to make sure you can recover the stone in real-world conditions, before you think about using it in combat. There's also the question of just how powerful a creature (or group of creatures) the Crystal can support, which is something else you'll need to test outdoors - even an "enlarged" Mirror Hideaway would be cramped for some of the bigger things you can call up.
Speaking of which, you also haven't tested how long the Crystal can keep a "called" creature around, mostly because the magic you know in that vein - the Spell of Planar Binding and such - already lasts for a couple of weeks at a time. You have no current task that requires an extraplanar entity to hang around on Earth that long, and it would not only be terribly rude but actively dangerous to force a creature to show up and then just... sit around for a month or more. To both of you.
There were a couple of reasons behind your decision to read the Books of Monstrous Manners first.
For one thing, a large number of your friends ARE monsters, and for all that you've tried to behave yourself when you visit or otherwise interact with them, it doesn't change the fact that your actions have been guided by human, Hyrulean, and even Fae sensibilities, rather than monstrous ones. It's entirely possible and even likely that some of your actions have, if not insulted someone, then at least not had the impact you intended.
If nothing else, the simple fact that you are a human sorcerer would be all the excuse some monsters need to think less of you.
Granted, you're a kid. Reasonable adults will excuse a certain amount of graceless or unruly behavior from someone of your physical age and working-class origins, many kids won't care, and even the unreasonable ones will only go so far when their peers are in a position to notice. But the circles the Shuzens move in are the sort to hold themselves and their peers to a higher standard, which means that the grace period afforded to you by your youth and background is going to run out a lot sooner than it otherwise might. If you mean to keep hanging out with Kahlua in the future, much less making a serious go at doing business with her family, you need to step up your social game. You can't simply take cues from the people around you and hope for the best; you have to know the rules they're playing by, and what your place in the game is expected to be.
The better you know what the bigots expect, the easier it'll be to ram their biases down their throats - possibly even in a literal sense, knowing monsters.
Of course, the Books of Monstrous Manners were written with the objective of helping monsters blend in with human society, so they're not as good at helping a human make sense of monster society. They don't tell you, for example, how a suitable greeting for an ordinary kitsune you're on friendly terms with would differ from the proper way to introduce yourself to a clan-leader in a formal setting. But there are more general codes and customs you can take away from reading the Books, some of which are spelled out directly-
"Roaring in a human's face is only acceptable in certain venues, such as major sporting events, rock concerts, and of course, combat."
"As baffling as it may seem, given the inferior human sense of smell and the widespread use of perfumes, obviously testing another's scent is considered offensive. This is easily worked around by using one's superior olfactory sense to test the air in a subtle manner..."
"Biting is NOT considered a sign of close personal affection among most human cultures, at least not in public."
-while others can be reasonably intuited. It'll take more than a single reading for all the lessons to really sink in, of course, and there's probably a matching set of books out there to help humans make sense of monster society that you'll want to be on the lookout for.
The other main reason why you chose to make the Books of Monstrous Manners your first choice of reading is that you were planning to visit Castle Shuzen the weekend after your party. Being able to honestly tell the Shuzens that you were reading their gift, and demonstrating that you'd paid attention to its lessons, was just good sense - and even if you didn't run into any of the adults on that visit, Kahlua, Akua, and the servants could have noticed and mentioned to the lord and ladies of the house later.
Kokoa probably didn't, but she's younger, and was distracted by fairies besides.
Although you're reading the Books of Monstrous Manners in your free time - an hour here, a chapter there - they aren't the only books you started reading after you got home from Bali Ha'i. Pretty much every day after school when you don't have lessons at Lu-sensei's, Cordelia, Amy, and Larry come over to your place for the afterschool study sessions you proposed back on the island. You actually use some of this time to do your homework, but the bulk of it is spent reading your new copy of Vampyr.
Amelia's gift proves to be rather harder going than the Shuzens'. The Books of Monstrous Manners were written with fairly simple language, and convey an overall attitude that seems to say, "We're not trying to talk down to our readers, but humans are strange and alien beings, and we're writing this for a wide audience of monsters, so we've got to keep things as simple as possible to limit the number of misunderstandings and dead bodies." The authors of Vampyr, on the other hand, don't shy away from complex and even archaic terminology when it suits them. Combine that with the extensive number of footnotes and page references, the sheer size of the book, and the fact that you're reading for five instead of two, and it's little wonder that you're only halfway through the book when your scheduled spar with Akua rolls around.
It takes you about ten days to finish the Books of Monstrous Manners. Rather than read ahead in Vampyr, you opt to spend your time on something a bit lighter - namely, the literary portion of your gift from the Madisons. Traditional Reagents is an easy enough read, and short enough that you're able to finish it within a couple of days; for all of that, though, it's got a lot of useful tips on where and how to look for useful magical materials, and what to do with them once you've got them.
Three books and two weeks down, you spend a good portion of the third going through the book Ayane said was Kasumi's gift to you. Given the subject matter, Briar is very keen on this one, and makes you read it aloud - which somehow results in Zelda joining you on the living room couch, or in your room, whenever you read another chapter.
You're not exactly complaining.
Gained Faerie Lore D (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
On Saturday, April 29th, as the clock marches closer to three in the afternoon, Sunnydale time, you put away your books, give Zelda a hug, and scratch Moblin under the chin, before leaving the house and making your way out of town. Once again, you've been given permission from your folks to be out later than usual - a request that your parents likely found easier to grant after you ended up coming home at a regular hour the last time you asked to stay out.
The trip to the Shuzen estate is without incident, unless you count one of the guards covering a slightly unprofessional yawn.
You wonder if he's working the last leg of the night shift, or just not a morning person? Either way, it would be a bit of an embarrassment to him if you mentioned it, so you don't.
Hugging the Castle-spirit makes for a good cover.
When you step through the front door, Kahlua is once again there to greet you, with a servant blending into the background behind her, a suitcase in hand. Her mother is also present, wearing an outfit similar to the one she had on the day you faced Lady Takara.
Considering what happened that day...
"I'm not delaying you from anything important, am I, Mrs. Shuzen?" you venture, as the great doors close behind you.
"No, but I will have to be on my way momentarily," the lady of the house replies. "Before I leave, though, I thought I'd let you know that Issa and I discussed the matter of the Gauntlets with Kahlua, and we've decided to go with the full set of upgrades you offered her."
"Just to be clear," you say, "that's the thermal ward, the general purpose armor enhancement, and both aspects of the weapon enhancement - accuracy AND striking power - on top of the shape-adjustment I promised?"
Gyokuro nods and then glances at the servant, who walks down the stairs to you and opens the suitcase for your perusal. Inside, you find $3,750, half the asking price of your work.
There's also a small, cushioned section within the case, where a reinforced vial of dark red liquid is nestled - obviously, some of Kahlua's blood. At a glance, there's enough to complete the aforementioned morphic enhancement of the Warrior-Princess Gauntlets, with a little to spare in case of accidents, but there's definitely NOT enough to do the job you promised AND augment your sword.
Guess you know what the adults' answer to that request was.
"When can we expect delivery?" Gyokuro inquires.
"Four weeks," you answer, looking up from your down payment. You've already finished the temperature ward, which - at two weeks - was one of the bigger time-sinks; the weapon enhancement will take that long, and the armor enhancement only half the time. You could have finished adding the morphic property to the Gauntlets already, if you'd had Kahlua's blood or a suitable substitute, but as it stands, you'll require a few more days of work. "Provided that there aren't any sudden and unavoidable emergencies between now and then, of course."
"Of course." Gyokuro does a quick mental calculation. "May 27th, then?"
"I could have the Postman deliver the Gauntlets a few days earlier, if you'd prefer," you offer.
Gyokuro glances at Kahlua, smiles faintly, and says, "I think we can stand to wait a few days for receipt of your gift, don't you, Kahlua?"
"Yes, Mother!"
...she's going to ask to fight you with the newly-upgraded Gauntlets, isn't she?
Guess you know what you're doing that day.
Is there anything else you need to discuss with Gyokuro before she leaves?
When you were discussing Kahlua's options for upgrading her gear earlier in the month, the matter of how you would prefer to take your payment came up. Modern currencies aren't without their place in your plans, but when it comes to the matter of making magic items, they're simply the inferior option. Gold and silver are an accepted currency in Hyrule - if not the preferred one - and Hyrule can provide magical reagents of good quality at a fraction of the cost Earthly equivalents would demand, at least for common purposes. And if there's something you can't get through your contacts in Hyrule for whatever reason, precious metals still have plenty of purchasing power in Earth's supernatural markets.
There is also the fact that you won't be tempted to pay for any of your future mundane expenses with a fistful of gold and silver. You can't honestly make the same claim for the almighty dollar or the yen.
And quite aside from all of that, as Akasha noted most of a year ago, gold IS the traditional asking price for a sorcerer doing work for hire. It just feels right to take a crafting commission in that form, particularly when it's coming from the Shuzens.
Contrary to what a certain movie would have you believe - another of those titles which you still haven't been allowed to watch, and have only caught snippets of on TV - the contents of the small briefcase do not cast forth an otherworldly glow. Gold is pretty, and silver bright, but even in the youki-rich atmosphere of Castle Shuzen, they aren't luminescent. Still, the reflected glow of the lights does give the neat rows coins a certain appeal.
There's one coin that stands out, however. It's not pressed edge-down into the foam bedding like the rest, but instead lies on top of them, face up. It's clearly of a different design than the rest, slightly larger, of a faintly different hue, and lacking the ridged edges and identical faces of modern machine milling, though it looks no older for all that. On the upright face is a coat of arms consisting of a six-sectioned shield: in the center, a large "D"; two crowns flanking it to each side; and above them all, a bat, wings spread.
When you take up the coin and turn it over, you are greeted by the effigy of Dracula.
You glance at Gyokuro, wordlessly asking if they're serious.
She shrugs. "Akasha insisted."
Then the servant closes the case and presents it to you.
You take hold, and make the whole thing disappear into your pocket.
Gained 37 gold coins
Gained 30 silver coins
Gained Carrying Case (Small)
Gained Dracula Commemorative Coin
Gained Vial of Kahlua's Blood
With the formality of your payment out of the way and a delivery date for your work set, there's no further need to delay Gyokuro. She makes her farewells and heads out, saying something about having some stubborn heads to knock together.
With some people, that would be a figure of speech. In this particular instance, you strongly suspect otherwise.
After her mother has left, you and Kahlua head for the sparring room. You send the Castle's spirit on ahead to let Akua and whoever else is waiting know you're on your way, and after the little one has sunk into one of the walls, you ask Kahlua how he's been doing.
"Miss Akasha's been teaching him to read," she reports with a smile. "He's at the point where he can recognize the titles of the books in the library, and bring them to us if we ask nicely."
"That sounds like a useful skill for a place-spirit," you say with satisfaction.
"Of course," Briar notes, "the real trick will be to teach him not to THROW books at people, whether because it gets them what they wanted faster, or because they were being annoying."
Kahlua coughs and looks away, cheeks pink all of a sudden.
...oh, dear.
In the interests of not accusing your friend of anything without proof - at least, without proof more solid than a fleeting look of embarrassment - you take the words that are on your lips and rephrase them slightly, while trying for a tone of nonchalant curiosity.
"What happened, Kahlua?"
"Um... well... there may have been a game of catch in the library," she says slowly.
"Just the one?" Briar asks.
"Just the once," Kahlua agrees, before fidgeting. "Or... maybe twice. A day."
You can feel your partner quirking a tiny eyebrow at this.
You go ahead and mirror the reaction.
There is a sigh, followed by a rapid admission of guilt: "For most of a week, before Daddy caught us - and by 'caught us,' I mean 'caught a book to the back of the head.'"
...oh, boy.
"...was it a big book?" you wonder.
Kahlua nods helplessly and frames part of the air with her hands, indicating a volume about the size of the Yellow Pages. And if you correctly recall the contents of Castle Shuzen's library from past visits, the collection is almost universally hardcovers.
Even for a vampire, that would have left a mark. Only for a few seconds - half a minute at the outside - before it healed, but it's the principle of the thing: a man should not have to worry about being pegged by flying literature in his own home.
The conversation about the incident(s) in the library trails off as you approach the sparring room. You're not surprised to see Akasha, Moka, and Kokoa up in the balcony seats, or for Miss Hanabi to once again be present to act as referee. Likewise, the sight of the Castle-spirit peeking "through" the wall that separates the balcony from the mini-arena below is nothing unexpected - nor is the cheery little wave he sends your way when he notices you watching him.
As for Akua, the only thing that's odd about her presence is the fact that she's standing with her right hand on that same wall, within a magical array that you're very certain wasn't painted on the stones the last time you visited. Looking it over, you need only a few moments to confirm that it has several similarities to the sort of circles you'd use when laying down Abjuration Magic in ritual or ward form. At the same time, however, there are enough differences - starting with the youki that's infused into the "paint," and extending into the specific symbolism - that you can't be completely sure of the matrix's functions.
The overall purpose of the thing, on the other hand, is perfectly clear: to protect the audience, and quite possibly the room itself, from any attacks that end up going astray during this bout.
Akua's hand is within a circle that's a couple of feet to the left of the center of the entire array. There's an identical circle a couple of feet to the right, at the same height. It seems that you're meant to stand there, touching the wall as she does and channeling some of your energy into the array as she turns it on, so that the protective magic will know what forces to act against.
You consider your response.
"Shelving the question of who actually threw the book-"
Briar groans, and Kahlua shoots you a look that says you ought to be ashamed of that pun.
"-what happened after that? And did any of the books get damaged?"
For the latter, you're hoping the answer is, "No." But if it's not, someone may need a stern talking-to.
"No," Kahlua sighs, "none of the books were damaged-"
Oh, good.
"-at least not any worse than creasing a few pages."
...okay, less good, but still not terrible.
"Which was just as well," she continues, "because Daddy was annoyed enough as it was. There were words, and groundings... and then a lot of wondering about exactly how you're supposed to discipline a misbehaving place-spirit."
You can see the conundrum. "Go to your room" doesn't work very well as a punishment for an entity that doesn't actually have a room - or in this case, one that IS the room, the entire building the room is part of, and a good chunk of the surrounding landscape besides - and which can't really go anywhere anyway. And successfully denying it access to entertaining objects within its domain would be a considerable feat of magic, assuming that it was interested in such things to begin with; the Castle's spirit clearly enjoyed the books, but most of its fun thus far has come from the people walking its halls.
That's what led the Shuzens to their decision. Instead of physical isolation of questionable effectiveness that they couldn't honestly enforce, they went with the emotional equivalent; Miss Akasha had a talk with the little spirit, explaining what was going to happen and why, and then, for the rest of the day, the family and staff essentially shunned the entity whenever it made an appearance, either telling it to leave the room or ignoring its presence outright.
You frown. "How long did that go on for?"
"Daddy got hit around three in the afternoon, and there were some early bedtimes because of it, so about five hours - maybe closer to four, once everything was worked out and the word was given to the staff." Kahlua regards you for a moment, before adding, "I won't swear to it, but I think the spirit ended up spending most of the time hiding out in Kokoa's room. She and Thistle were pretty obviously trying to hide a secret the next day."
"...you do realize that if I channel Power into this ward, it's probably going to burn out, right?"
Akua glances your way without lifting her hand from the circle. "I have been told as much. I am hoping that the WAY the ward fails will help me figure out how to better shield against your... exotic energies."
Good luck with that.
For all your skill at self-control, you can't completely suppress the twitch at the Voice that emanates from nowhere, and everywhere.
When you absorbed the Heart of Spirit in Karakura last week, the resulting increase in your spiritual abilities had a particular impact on your ability to perceive the words of the Golden Goddesses. What were once whispers on the edge of conscious recognition have since become clear-spoken sentences - though at the same time, the words you hear seem to discuss fewer matters of substance than you'd previously imagined.
...or maybe the Goddesses were always just keeping up an idle commentary on your life, like a group of bored housewives watching their favorite TV show.
That's a somewhat depressing thought, not to mention one that's probably a little blasphemous, and you're careful not to voice it.
In any case, Divine Voices From Nowhere (and Everywhere) are a Thing that you're still trying to get used to, particularly the way they can speak up all of a sudden after being silent for days on end.
And while nobody else in the room comments on it, Akua appears to have noticed your not-quite-flinch. "Is something wrong?"
In any case, if Akua wants to test her skills against your raw strength, then as a devotee of Din, it is only proper that you step up and meet her challenge. As Kahlua heads up to the balcony, you go and stand next to the eldest Shuzen daughter, gathering your strength.
Thinking it over, you decide that the Shuzens have taken sufficient and proportionate disciplinary action in response to the incident, and that you don't need to add your two cents on the matter.
At least, not this time. If there's a repeat of the book-throwing offense, or the Castle-spirit starts misbehaving in another way, you may yet have to step in and be the responsible... um... older magical entity?
...
...well, whatever. You'll leave dealing with future issues to Future Alex; Present Alex has more than enough to be getting on with as it is.
"It's nothing."
Akua doesn't seem entirely convinced by your words, so you go ahead and add, "I just have a feeling that you won't be too happy with the results."
And then you place your-
-into the circle, mimicking the older vampire girl's stance as you begin to channel your energies into the ward.
First, you send ki - just a trace amount, just enough to tell the ward what to look for.
A moment later, you feel the energies of the array shift, and parts of it start to glow a pale red.
Next, you shift to mana, again keeping to the minimum necessary amount.
This, too, is taken in without issue, different symbols lighting up - white, although sufficiently tinted by the array's reaction to your ki and the ambient youki of Castle Shuzen itself that it looks kind of pink.
Finally, you prepare yourself for the main event.
Mana in one hand.
Ki in the other.
Bring them together, and-
Maybe the slow, formal, almost ritual manner in which you've been demonstrating your abilities is responsible. Maybe it's the challenge Akua has, knowingly or not, presented to you and the Goddesses by pitting her power against your own. And maybe it's another consequence of your efforts to bridge the gap between arcane sorcery and true Dinnite clerical magic.
Regardless of the reason why, as you begin to channel your Power, the Triforce emblem that sometimes appears on the back of your right hand does so again, its emanations briefly surrounding you like your own halo.
And where that golden light comes into contact with the luminous crimson of Akua's array, the two forces interact like flame and kindling.
Akua watches, wordlessly, as the magical diagram she must have spent at least a quarter of an hour putting together is consumed by a wave of gold.
To her credit, the girl doesn't move her hand from its position when your Power blazes around it, burning out the circle and briefly crackling against her fingertips as it chases the youki linking creation to creator. It is only after the rest of her work has been burned from the wall - leaving not so much as a hint of ash or scorching, you are relieved to see - that Akua pulls her arm back and regards her right hand, rubbing her fingertips together.
"...aiya," she finally sighs, shaking her head. "I cannot say I was not warned that something like this might happen. Still..."
"You'll figure it out, Sister," Moka says from the balcony above.
Akua smiles brightly at that, and then claps her hands together as she turns to face you.
"With that out of the way, shall we fight?"
That's why you're here - although, before you get started, are there any rules you'd like to suggest or insist on?
Because you haven't forgotten that move Akua used to tear through the Levoknuckle's shield and armor, back on Bali Ha'i. Watching it through the medium of the viewing globe in the Ring of Trials prevented you from getting a read on how it worked, but you would definitely rather not get hit by something that let her rip apart Hylian steel armor like it was so much tinfoil.
Not that you think Akua would disgrace herself or her family by pulling out such a hilariously lethal move in a friendly spar, but some added assurance to that effect would be very nice.
That said, if you're going to ask Akua to forego her ultimate technique, it would only be polite to offer to "seal" your own abilities in some proportionate manner. Giving up Power, maybe, or not using Water Magic.