Regardless of the tradition they originate from, magical arrays like the one Akua has set up on the wall include a certain amount of Divination Magic by default. Unless the creator is willing to provide their constant and direct input, or has another pre-existing consciousness to offload that task on, the inclusion of such magic is the only way for wards to be able to do their jobs. Without the level of analytical ability necessary to distinguish their targets from the rest of the world, things can go... poorly.

It's the difference between a ward that prevents poisonous gas from crossing it, and a ward that stops ALL gasses - including breathable air.

The Divination-based portions of an array such as this typically do not have anything in the way of proper memory. They're programmed with the necessary information about their intended targets, they look specifically for those, and they summarily ignore everything else; they don't even bother to record what happens during their operation.

But it would be a simple matter for a practitioner of any meaningful level of skill to expand on an array, and grant it the means to make a lasting record of what it encounters during its operation.

Given that Akua is able to apply a power-restricting seal to a living being considerably older and stronger than she is, she undoubtedly has the necessary skill. And since she outright said she was hoping to learn more about what your Power is and how it works, the odds that she has put in the extra effort of giving her ward a recording function are pretty good.

A more cautious soul might take that as an excuse to hold a few tricks in reserve, just in case they turn out to be needed in the future, but it is not the way of Din to hold back, or to lack confidence in your ability to overcome future challenges. Nor is it the way of Farore to fear the unknown future, or to envision treachery from one who has done you no wrong.

As such, you go ahead and channel some of your pure mental and spiritual power into the ward, before following it up with a small surge of Power.

As the array subsequently burns out before your eyes, you idly wonder if you could get away with claiming to have anticipated such a reaction, as a sign of good judgment and foresight.

What do you think?

...eh, it was a longshot.

Two of three isn't bad.

You've fought with all three of Akua's younger siblings before. For all the force they're capable of bringing to bear and the reputation their kind has when it comes to pride and sheer violence, not once has any of the vampire sisters pulled out a potentially deadly attack that you hadn't previously demonstrated you were capable of dealing with.

You don't think that's going to change with the oldest of the Shuzen girls.

Before the match begins, you cast the Spell to Summon A Weapon, bringing forth a simple practice blade in your preferred hand-and-a-half style. In deference to the sheer physical strength both you and your opponent are capable of bringing to bear, the weapon is made of steel rather than wood, but it lacks a cutting edge or sharpened tip.

You hand over the blade to let Akua examine it, and she gives it a quick visual inspection and a couple of experimental swings; the weight is obviously no issue for her, but the length and balance of the sword seem to make her frown before she hands it back to you.

The two of you take your places on opposite sides of the room, and Miss Hanabi asks if you are both prepared.

"I am," Akua replies.

JET-BLACK DIVA: SHUZEN AKUA

"I am," you answer.

As the kitsune's hand comes up, you reach for your ki and burgeoning psychic power, and as soon as the word, "Begin!" leaves her lips, you activate your Ki Enhancement and Mental Enhancement, reasoning that maxing out your reflexes, movement speed, and awareness of the battlefield will be the most advantageous opening move you can make against an older vampire who has grown into more of her race's natural strength and speed.

It almost isn't enough.

As soon as the match begins, Akua MOVES, surging forward at a speed your eyes can't track.

Thank Lu-sensei for Ki Sight.

*PING*

The sound produced when you get the flat of your sword up to parry Akua's knife-hand thrust is almost musical.

It is also completely unsuitable for the sheer amount of force behind the strike, which forces the blade back against your chest, even as you stagger back a step.

It seems that when it comes to vampires, a few extra years of growth make a LOT of difference.

Akua presses forward, clearly intent on denying you the room you need to use your blade, and one hand moving to seize or shove the weapon aside.

In response, you focus your ki for a Body Flicker, while also activating Spiritual Enhancement-

Akua's eyes narrow slightly, and you see her lips move in the Chinese equivalent of, "What-?"

-and then you're standing behind her, sword moving in to strike-

!

-except she's spun on her heel to face you, and slaps your weapon aside with another lightly-ringing blow, while her other hand comes up, fist clenched!

Your Body Flicker wasn't entirely expended from that first maneuver, so you blur out again, dodging the strike and giving yourself enough space to use your sword properly, once you get it back in position-

!

-except in the time it takes you to do THAT, Akua has shifted her striking stance, leaned forward, and brought her right leg up in a back kick that forces you to take a non-Flickering defensive step backwards.

In that moment, with your ki still cycling, you reach for your spiritual energy, shape a volley of Spirit Shots, and let them fly.

Even off-balance as she is while recovering from her kick, Akua dodges half of them, and gets an arm up to block a fourth as she spins around to face you.

The last two Spirit Shots connect, one on the left shoulder, the other on the right hip, and while this isn't a technique you've used much - either in practice or in actual fact - the sheer weight of your soul should make up for a lot.

And it does.

Akua flinches under the hits, but the look of surprise that crosses her face immediately afterwards tells you that she wasn't hurt - which isn't that surprising, seeing as how she's a living, physical entity, and Spirit Shots are really meant for the incorporeal set.

What IS surprising is the faint gasp of pain you hear, not with your ears, but with your Spiritual Sense - a cry that didn't come from any of the living people in the room.

Wait, what the-?

From the divine exclamation, the flicker of shock through your familiar bond, and how - glimpsed out of the corner of your eye - the Castle-spirit just did a double-take in Akua's direction, you weren't the only one who heard that.

Akua, however, appears to have heard nothing, and is already coming at you again-!

Against another opponent, you might consider lowering your guard enough to make a T-sign with your hands.

Doing so against Akua when she's already coming at you seems like a really bad idea, so instead you shift into a fully defensive stance as you call for a pause-

!

-once again narrowly blocking the older girl's strike with your blade, and getting shoved backwards by it.

"You want to stop? ALREADY?" Akua demands, looking at you over the dull edge of your weapon with amazed disappointment. "We've hardly even gotten started!"

"I think we have a third party mixed up in this!" you reply quickly.

Akua frowns, and the pressure on your guard eases slightly. "...what do you mean?"

"When I shot at you just now, you weren't hurt, right?"

"I barely felt those hits," Akua replies dismissively. "What were they, anyway? Not magic or ki, obviously."

"Weaponized spiritual energy," you tell her. "I call it the Spirit Shot. Something I came up with a while ago, as sort of a sideline to my ki training, but haven't really had much use for."

"And you used it now?" the eldest Shuzen daughter asks with a faint smirk. "Do I really seem that much like an evil spirit to you?"

"Yes!" Kokoa cries out.

"Kokoa," Akasha chides the youngest.

Akua's smirk just widens at that, hinting at older-sisterly retribution in Kokoa's future.

"I needed a quick distraction," you say, doing your best to ignore the comments from the gallery. "The Spirit Shot was available and has a wide enough spread that I thought it stood a chance of connecting." You shake your head. "Anyway, it didn't hurt you. But I heard SOMEBODY gasp in pain at those impacts, and considering that I plugged a divine relic into my soul last week and have been more keenly aware of spiritual forces ever since, that kind of worries me. Particularly when the Castle noticed something strange at the same time."

You leave Briar's reaction unmentioned, since you're not clear if she heard what you did, or if she was just reacting to Farore's sudden and vocal interest.

Finally letting the last of the pressure she was putting on you die, Akua relaxes from her striking stance and glances towards the place-spirit, who has descended from where he was looking through the wall and now stands on the floor, fully separated from the vertical surface behind him.

In response to the attention, the little elemental nods once, firmly.

"...so you think I'm being haunted," Akua says after a moment. Her tone is not one of disbelief or denial; rather, she seems to consider it a genuine possibility.

"Can you say for certain that you aren't?"

"I would like to, but that would be a lie." Akua sighs once, and then her expression turns slightly grim. "However weak they might be, I would prefer not to be weighed down by petty grudges any longer than I absolutely must. So, as the more experienced in spiritual matters of the two of us, I ask: how would you suggest we proceed?"

Well, obviously, the first thing you're going to do is run an active spiritual scan of Akua's person, to confirm whether or not she really is being haunted, possessed, or otherwise unknowingly accompanied by some kind of spirit - and if she is, to get an idea of what sort of spirit you're dealing with. If that fails to reveal anything useful, the next step will be Divination Magic, possibly with a side order of Necromancy if you're dealing with a ghost or "grudges" of the sort that Akua mentioned.

Backing up a few steps so you can examine Akua all at once, you focus the power of your soul and prepare to trigger your Spiritual Sight. In light of the fact that your passive spiritual senses hadn't spotted anything out of the ordinary about Akua - at least for a vampire - until now, you devote more than the usual amount of energy to the task, Overloading the technique.

Akua straightens up sharply as pale white light surges from your eyes.

Gained Spiritual Overload E

And then, you recoil.

When viewed on the spiritual plane, Akua is wreathed in a nimbus of darkness, a malignant black cloud that writhes over and around her slender body, like tentacles seeking purchase, or a viper a place to strike. Yet the dark mist is thin, and its every roiling motion is accompanied by a flash of bloodstained energy - the spiritual element of vampiric youki, biting and tearing at the miasma that dares attempt to stain its mistress.

Without needing to ask, without even a vision such as you once shared with Kahlua to offer a hint, you KNOW that living beings have died at Akua's hand - beings intelligent enough to fear and hate their killer, and to spit their last breath at her for the sake of that hatred alone. The dark cloud that clings to her so desperately is the accumulated spite of her victims, motes of untrained magical and spiritual potential catalyzed by sheer intensity of emotion at the moment of death.

In short, dying curses - or rather, the stuff of which those curses are made.

But that's not why you flinch.

Hovering over Akua, pressed to her back and with both arms wrapped around her as if hugging or being carried by her, is the spirit of a girl somewhere around Kokoa's age. Her head lolls on Akua's right shoulder as if in slumber, trailing long, light brown hair that hides her face, and she wears a simple, well-worn, and much-patched Chinese dress of faded green.

It would be a sweet, even tender image, if not for the dark red staining both hair and dress, or the horrendous reek of blood and gore that suddenly assails you.

Gained Spiritual Sense A (Plus)

Through the sudden nausea, part of your mind absently notes that the girl's left arm is draped over Akua's left shoulder, right where your Spirit Shot connected.

Almost directly on top of the near-black bloodstain below the spirit's shoulder, in fact.

Nayru. You're going to tell me who did that, and where I can find them.

After seeing THAT, and picking up on the spiritual impressions that come with it...

...yeah, you definitely need a minute.

Closing your physical eyes and restraining your spiritual awareness, you turn away from Akua and focus on your breathing - and on keeping your last meal where it is.

"...Alex?" Kahlua asks with concern.

You hold up a hand, wordlessly asking for time, as you don't quite trust yourself to open your mouth just yet.

Fortunately, you have a partner.

"Just... give us a minute, here, Kahlua," Briar says for you.

"That bad, huh?" Akua sighs.

"Feels like it," Briar agrees. "I don't know what he just saw, but the emotional impact was just... yeah."

The ensuing silence is broken only by the sound of footsteps on the hidden stair that connects the balcony and the floor, and the swish of fabric - the drapery that covers the stairwell being pushed aside. A moment later, you're patted on the back, the hand hesitant and yet trying to be reassuring.

When you open your eyes, Kahlua's uncertain face greets you. Beyond her you see Akasha and the other girls.

"Welcome back, Alex," Akasha says. "Do you think you can talk about what you saw?"

You pause, carefully opening your mouth and taking a few seconds to gauge your physical reaction.

"...yeah," you finally reply. "I can. But whether or not I should is up to you," you add, turning back to Akua, still keeping your Spiritual Sight turned down. "What I saw... I think it's pretty personal. If you'd rather no one else know..."

Akua considers that, looking from you to her sisters - half-sisters, really - and step-mother.

"I believe this is my cue to excuse myself," Miss Hanabi observes.

"Take Kokoa and Thistle with you, if you would, Hanabi," Akasha tells her.

"Of course, madam."

"But I wanna hear!" Kokoa protests.

"I kind of don't," Thistle says, fidgeting nervously in mid-air near her partner.

Briar speaks up then. "Kokoa, I'd take it as a big favor if you took my little sister somewhere she didn't have to hear this next bit."

At that, Kokoa visibly struggles, curiosity warring with the urge to do her (now) second-favorite fairy in the whole wide world a favor. Eventually, friendship wins out; with a huffed, "Fine," and grumbling, "You so owe me for this," the youngest Shuzen and her fairy partner join the kitsune governness and leave the sparring chamber.

As Kokoa leaves, Kahlua and Moka exchange glances with Akua, Akasha, and each other. Lady Bloodriver would clearly prefer it if the two younger girls were to exit the room as well, but she's leaving the choice up to the three of them. Kahlua appears divided in her opinion, while Moka is obviously determined to stay.

Akua smiles faintly at that, before turning and nodding for you to go ahead.

...okay, then.

You start with the lesser bit of nastiness, the accumulated grudges of the people Akua has killed. You can't be sure how many of them there were, and you don't especially want to know, but the collective "weight" of their spite isn't enough at this point to have more than a minimal impact on Akua's well-being. That said, even a minimal effect is still an effect, and the girl DID say she'd like to be rid of the grudges regardless.

Normally, you'd recommend a purification to clear this up, but the usual approach may be counter-productive in this case. Akua IS a vampire, after all, and such an application of positive energy would react with her youki in a rather painful manner. On the other hand, the accumulated malice is weak enough right now that cleansing it wouldn't require a particularly great investment of time and energy; Akua might well consider a bit of pain and a temporary loss of power to be worth getting rid of those grudges, particularly if it prevents the taint from building further and requiring a more intense and painful cleansing in the future.

Considering their racial reputation for violence, you can't help but wonder if vampires don't have their own method for managing this sort of negative energy - one which doesn't involve periodically shorting themselves out, much less leaving themselves temporarily vulnerable in front of non-vampires.

That just seems like the kind of thing most vampires wouldn't care for.

"As a matter of fact," Akasha says, "we do have a technique for that. Unless the grudge is demonic in origin, that is - at that point, there's really no other choice but to call in outside assistance for a purification."

With the comparatively minor matter out of the way, you take a deep breath, and explain what ELSE you saw clinging to Akua.

As you describe the spirit, Kahlua flinches, Moka looks like she's starting to regret her insistence on staying put, and Akasha appears to be wishing that she'd insisted the two girls left. Briar says nothing, but hovers closer to you - which really, says it all.

Akua just STARES at you, eyes slowly going wide with shocked recognition. Her mouth moves, but no words escape, and she has to stop and take a deep breath of her own, eyes closed, head bowed, and fists clenched.

From behind a curtain of dark hair, you hear a small voice: "...can i see her?"

...technically, yes, she could. The girl's spirit is already here, imperceptible to the naked eye by dint of its ethereal nature. Modifying the Spell to See Invisibility to affect another person, or just casting Invisibility Purge, would be all it took - though given the girl's location, Akua wouldn't be able to see much of her, and she'd still be intangible.

A Spell of Summoning might work a bit better; Planar Binding would move the girl somewhere Akua could properly view her. You're hesitant about doing that, though, as despite the truly awful state she's in, the spirit appears to be at rest, as close to peace as a lingering soul can be. Separating her from Akua, even temporarily, would likely wake her up, and that has the potential to go badly.

The thing is, you're not sure if any of those are really good ideas. Kahlua and Moka reacted badly enough to hearing about the state the ghost is in; do they really need to see it, too? And Akua knows or at least strongly suspects who the girl is; is seeing the girl in her current condition really going to do either of them any good?

"What would be involved in this 'alternative method,' Miss Akasha?" you inquire, succumbing to your intellectual curiosity. Hastily, you add, "That is, if you don't mind me asking?"

Akasha doesn't mind, and neither do any of the girls; in fact, Akua looks about as curious as you feel, while Kahlua and Moka are both obviously interested.

Akasha explains that the technique takes advantage of the fact that vampiric youki is already on a similar mystical wavelength as the negative energy that powers grudges. Rather than applying the positive energy of a purification in sufficient quantity to cancel out a curse, vampires instead turn it into a case of "like poles repelling."

It's more complicated than the electromagnetic analogy makes it sound, of course. You know that, in mystical terms, like tends to ATTRACT like; Miss Akasha herself was the one who warned you how careless use of your Power would bring trouble your way, and there's the whole principle of sympathy besides.

A better comparison might be made between how priests of benevolent deities are able to turn and destroy undead and other manifestations of negative energy, whereas followers of darker powers can instead rebuke and command such unquiet spirits. This example isn't without its own shortcomings - vampires obviously don't have divine power, and the method Akasha describes certainly doesn't make the curses work for the one they're attached to, it merely suppresses them - but it works well enough for you to wrap your head around.

There is one problem with the vampire method for suppressing grudges - well, one problem besides Akasha's prior admission that this method doesn't work against demonic taint - and that's the fact that it doesn't actually REMOVE them. Moreover, while it's possible to "calm" this sort of curse, it's far easier to "awaken" one again. Exposure to the same sort of feelings that originally catalyzed the dying curse is all it takes; like rain falling into a body of standing water, the ripples spread, churning up the surface and overflowing the banks. And since vampires are naturally violent and drawn TO violence, with all the consequences such behavior entails, they have to learn how to keep their suppression technique running almost constantly to keep the ill-will of their enemies in check.

Depending on how powerful the individual is, and just how many fights they get into on a regular basis, this can result in a rather large effective loss of power.

"And that's not healthy for a girl your age," Akasha tells Akua firmly. "Our youki isn't just tied into our healing, it affects our growth, as well." She smiles. "Not that you aren't a perfectly lovely young girl, but I don't think you want to be this short forever."

Akua glances at her sisters - both of whom are pretty close to her height despite the years of age AND early adolescence that lie between them - and bows her head to hide a blush.

"Maybe I SHOULD visit those priests," she mumbles.

Carefully, you explain that you do, in fact, have a few options for allowing Akua to see the spirit, but all of them have some sort of drawback.

"You're... basically carrying her on your back," you say. "If I were to give you the ability to see invisible things, or cast a spell that forced everything in its area of effect to become visible, you wouldn't really be able to see her - and I can't give people the ability to touch ghosts, so we couldn't just move her around." You grimace. "And even if I could do that, I wouldn't recommend it. She's... hurt."

Akua nods once, stiffly.

"The next option would be to set up a summoning circle, and call her into it. I don't recommend that one, either, because she appears to be asleep right now, and calling her forth like that would almost certainly wake her-"

"No!" Akua interrupts sharply, looking up with sudden alarm. "No," she repeats. "Don't... don't do that. Please. Let her sleep."

Looking downright worried, now, Moka reaches out and gently lays her right hand on her oldest sister's arm. Akua's own right moves across her body to cover her sister's.

Neither of them say anything.

"That leaves an illusion," you say quickly, wanting to get this whole uncomfortable mess over with. "I can just show you an image of who this is."

"Please do," Akua says. "I-I need to... be sure..."

Part of you still thinks this isn't a good idea. But you push that unease aside, and shape your spell as requested.

The Silent Image flickers into existence a few feet away, a life-sized translucent recreation of not only the sleeping spirit, but Akua as well.

You cleaned up the image, removing the bloodstains on the dress and hair, but Akua takes one look at the young face nestled against her image's shoulder and simply crumbles, letting out a single cry of grief.

And then Akasha is there. Putting herself directly between Akua and the illusion, she catches her step-daughter before her legs fail her and gathers her close, along with the child of her body, holding them both to her in a gentle embrace.

Without looking at you, the Dark Lady quietly says, "I think that's enough, Alex."

You've already cut off the illusion.

Without a word, you quietly slip out of the room.

You don't think there's going to be any more fighting today.

Not unless Issa comes home and tries to kill you for making one of his little girls cry.

You don't want to give the impression that you're eavesdropping on what is obviously an intensely personal and private moment, but you realize that you can't just wander off, either. While you aren't responsible for the source of Akua's trauma, you ARE the one who brought it up; that gives you a certain responsibility to see this mess through.

With this in mind, you make sure the door is firmly closed behind you, cutting off as much of the sound as is practical, and then walk a short distance down the hall, until even your keen ears can no longer make out anything from the other room.

Then you walk a bit further, to one of those little alcoves that are scattered all over the castle, and which have a chair or two set aside for the convenience of lost guests and weary staff alike. You take one of the seats, rest one elbow on the nearby table and your chin on the back of that hand, and ponder your options.

The standard course of action in a situation like this is to try and get the lingering spirit to move on to the afterlife. Even if the little girl's presence is entirely benign - which is a big "if," given the obviously violent manner of her death and the impact it clearly had on Akua - having her soul hanging around in the world of the living like this is not doing her or Akua any favors. Without a living body wrapped around it, a soul is exposed and vulnerable to all kinds of danger, from demonic corruption to ambitious necromancers to hungry Hollows.

...and it just occurred to you that you don't know if turning into a Hollow is a potential fate unique to human souls, or if it can happen to other ensouled species as well.

Something to ask the Karakura group in the not-too-distant future, along with how in the world a psychopomp could MISS a little girl's soul hanging off of another person like that. You're willing to give Isshin a partial pass, on account of the messed-up and sealed state of his powers, but JERMAFENCER has no such excuse. You may need to summon the Knight of the Shadowed Mire for a little chat on the subject, and not only for that reason.

He is, after all, the Master of the Death Coach. Ferrying departed souls safely to their final destinations is more than his job, it's a core part of his very being, and while this particular soul may not be in his usual jurisdiction, whoever WAS responsible for her has clearly dropped the ball. If you were to bring her to Jermafencer's attention in an official capacity, he would be honor-bound to take action...

...

...hmmm. Could THAT be the reason why Jermafencer didn't say anything about the girl's presence? You know that the Golden Goddesses are regarded warily by some of Earth's native Powers, and as their agent, the Knight of the Shadowed Mire would be tarred with the same brush. If he took charge of this girl's soul, he would inevitably come into contact with the branch of the local celestial bureaucracy that failed to see to the safe passage of her immortal soul, and they might not appreciate having an outsider treading upon their territory and pointing out one of their mistakes.

And since YOU were the one who summoned Jermafencer to Earth in the first place, you hold a degree of responsibility for his actions here, and would be similarly at fault in the eyes of the "offended" party.

But the dullahan-descended knight IS of Fae blood, and has made no oath to the local Powers. You did not hire him and his team in their official capacity, but in the lesser role of a taxi service; as such, Jermafencer was under no obligation to report the presence of a lost soul, or to take steps to see her to the other side. He merely had to ensure that all members of the Shuzen party safely made the trip to Bali Ha'i, and then returned to Castle Shuzen a few days later.

Which he did.

...you're going to need to think on this carefully.

Getting back on topic, the traditional method for laying a spirit to rest is to find out what anchors it to this world and then take action that settles the ghost's grudge, allowing it to dissipate. That approach is complicated by the girl's state of dormancy, which makes it difficult to say what, exactly, tied her to the physical plane in the first place, let alone how to go about breaking the hold it has on her spirit. It could be the trauma of her violent death keeping her here, it could be the strength of her emotional attachment to Akua, or it could be something else entirely; with her sleeping like that, you can't really be sure, and you can't be sure that Akua knows, either.

The girl's spiritual slumber also complicates the use of magic, as any spell that targets her directly could potentially wake her up, which is something you've already said you'd prefer to avoid. You haven't written the idea off completely, but you'd much rather get a trained spiritualist's advice or active participation in this matter before you go poking at the girl.

Your theoretical knowledge of souls is pretty good, but it's just that: theory. When it comes to practical application, you've mostly gotten through by hiding from ghosts, punching them with your soul, or blasting them with magic until they wised up and stopped coming back.

None of that is really helpful right now.

The Spell of Literary Vision would probably be safe to use, since it doesn't truly affect the target, merely uses them as a reference point. Unfortunately, you recognize that the spell is unlikely to help in this case; it's meant to find information about legendary individuals, objects, and locations, and however important she may be to Akua, the odds of the girl having had a similar impact on the world stage are slim to none.

Honestly, when you run through your mental spellbook, the only Spells of Divination that strike you as likely to return anything useful are the ones that call on the Goddesses directly. Considering Farore's reaction when you revealed the girl's presence, you think you can count on getting some answers there - provided nothing and no one interferes this time.

That leaves Summoning Magic. Calling in one (or all) of your tutors for advice on how to deal with a quiet ghost strikes you as a not-bad idea, though given what you now suspect about Jermafencer's lack of comment on the girl's presence, you might want to put it to them as a purely theoretical exercise. Alternately, you could try another random summoning, ask for a spiritual expert who isn't affiliated with the Golden Goddesses, and see who or what the tides of magic bring you.

It must be said that none of this would be necessary if you could simply snap your fingers and return the girl to life, but it's not nearly that easy. The one magic you currently have any grasp of that MIGHT be able to breach the gap between life and death is Limited Wish, and you have yet to master that one. Even when you do get a handle on it - which shouldn't take more than a few weeks, you think - you know that the magic would effectively emulate the Ritual to Raise the Dead, down to the limits on its effectiveness.

...well, it might also replicate the Ritual of Reincarnation, but either way, even if you weren't well outside the time limit for revivification allowed by both spells - and you're quite certain that you are - you'd still need the girl's body. And you know that cremation is pretty popular in this part of the world, which would make that impossible.

After those two spells, the next level of magic that involves restoring life to the dead is the Ritual of Resurrection. Limited Wish can't copy that, and you're years away from learning the true Wishing Spell. Your studies as a cleric might actually make Resurrection available to you sooner, depending on what you chose to focus on, but even then, having access to the girl's soul wouldn't be enough to make it work. Resurrection is much more forgiving than Raise Dead when it comes to the state of the deceased's remains, but you still need part of their original body to anchor the magic to, even if it's just the dust left behind by a successful Spell of Disintegration - or, as is likely to be the case here, the ashes of a cremation.

The Ritual of True Resurrection dispenses with the need for material remains at all, but even THEN, there are limits, the most immediately applicable of which is the fact that, as long as a soul is caught in a state of undeath, it can't be returned to life. Before you could bring the girl BACK to life, you'd have to ensure that she moved ON, one way or another.

And once she did that, she'd be in the hands of the gods, who might not want to allow her to go back.

That is the ultimate stumbling block with any form of resurrection. If the gods don't agree to support it, or at least to stand aside and let you succeed or fail entirely on your own merits, then it just isn't happening. Even in Hyrule, successful resurrections are incredibly rare; the only ones you're aware of are Twinrova - who may "merely" have reincarnated with their memories intact - and Ganondorf himself. Here on Earth, the only case you can confirm outside of myth and legend is Dracula.

That's... honestly depressing when you stop and think about it.

Your train of thought is interrupted when Kahlua emerges from the sparring room and looks around. When she spots you, she closes the door behind her, walks over to your little alcove, and takes the unoccupied seat. She's been crying-

And doesn't that just make you feel like even more of a heel?

-and her eyes shimmer with as-yet unshed tears.

She doesn't speak.

The three of you sit there in silence for a time before you speak.

"Would a hug help at all?"

Kahlua lets out a weak laugh at your offer. "I wouldn't say no to one. But don't try to hug Akua; despite what... what you saw... Moka's the only one who can really get away with that."

Nodding, you get up from your chair, walk over, and give her a hug.

Then - because you can, and she sort of needs it - you pull back a bit and cast the Spell of Prestidigitation, conjuring a handkerchief covered with cutesy little bat patterns. You pluck it from the air with a showman's flourish, and wordlessly present it to your friend.

She accepts it with quiet thanks and dabs at the corners of her eyes.

Absently, you reflect that, in the hands of a lesser caster, such a use of Prestidigitation might not have been possible. Objects produced by the spell typically look fake and flawed, useless for any purpose you care to name and easily broken in the bargain; it's only your considerable skill in the field that makes the handkerchief appear genuine, much less stable enough to withstand use by an emotional young vampire.

"I'm sorry to make you see me like this, Alex," Kahlua apologizes with clear embarrassment.

"I think you had good cause," you reply. "Your sister was hurting, and that's partly my fault, or at least my responsibility."

Not that you're in any way culpable for what happened to that poor girl, but you ARE the one who revealed she was still hanging around Akua, setting off this whole... event.

Annoyingly enough, you're hard pressed to think of a better way you could have handled things. If you didn't stop the spar when you did, you could have ended up hurting the girl's soul: even if you'd abandoned pure spiritual techniques, ki still has a spiritual element to it; magic can still affect spirits (sometimes); and not only does Power combine those energies, you've seen it has additional effects against living vampires and undead entities alike. And this girl is both, not to mention already carrying a degree of damage from whatever killed her.

Trying to fight Akua without any form of enhancement wouldn't have helped, as everyone would have wanted to know why you were doing such a silly thing. You're too honest to come up with a believable lie on the spot like that, at least for people who know you as well as the Shuzens do and have the same sort of enhanced senses.

Forfeiting the bout would have carried the same problems, and you're honestly not sure you could have brought yourself to DO it, based solely on what you suspected at the time. Yielding specifically to protect a little girl who wasn't even aware she'd ended up in the ring would have been fine, but throwing a match because a spirit of undefined nature was hanging around your opponent? If it were almost any other kind of spirit, you'd have said it could take its lumps and live with them, and called that a fair price for intruding where it wasn't invited.

Shaking your head, you put the 'what ifs' aside and instead ask, "What now?"

"Well, the spar is definitely called off," Kahlua admits with a faint, wry smile, echoing your earlier thoughts on the matter. "And I think I can safely say that Miss Akasha, Akua, and Moka are going to be otherwise occupied for the next little while. They are going to want to talk to you about this, just... not right now."

You nod, and consult your internal clock. It's about half past seven, local time, making it three-thirty-ish back in Sunnydale, so you've got three hours and change before you're expected to return home. You don't think it'll take too long for Akua to recover her composure and start asking questions - make it half an hour, at the outside - so that begs the question of what to do in the interim.

Part of you is tempted to get a head start on casting the spells you considered earlier, whether that's summoning up your tutors for a theoretical consult or going straight to the Goddesses for answers and guidance, but another part considers that Akua would probably appreciate being present for that. You could just get the preparations out of the way, and wait for her before casting the actual spells...

After some thought, you decided that the best way to use the time you have before Akua comes seeking answers is to make the necessary preparations for the spells you'll need to cast to get that information.

Given what happened the last time you tried to contact the Goddesses on (or near) the Shuzen domain, you figure it would be best to start out by summoning your tutors, which means you'll need to set up a magic circle or two. Preferably outside, so the wards on Castle Shuzen don't interfere with your magic.

You are an invited guest, and the spirit of the place does like you, but it's best not to go borrowing trouble when you can avoid it with a reasonable effort.

...on that note, you check with Kahlua to make sure she's on board with the idea. With both of her parents away, her status as heir gives her a greater degree of authority over the magic of the Castle and the surrounding demiplane than even Akasha can rightly claim, at least without invoking Dark Lord privileges. As such, getting Kahlua's official permission to work your magic in "her" territory will make the upcoming summonings that little extra bit easier for you.

A few minutes later, you're pacing off a circle just south of the castle gates, on the same patch of rocky ground where you put on an impromptu magic show most of a year ago. You've been gathering and shaping mana since discussing things with Kahlua in the alcove, and your heightened signature has drawn some attention: the Castle-spirit popped up while you were still navigating the halls; some of the staff you passed along the way spared you curious and mildly disapproving looks, before they saw Kahlua with you and seemed to find that satisfactory; and now a few of the guards are hanging around, nonchalantly looking on to see what you'll do next.

As the Spell of Creation takes shape, you walk the circle again, this time leaving a trail of sparkling silver powder in your wake. With much-practiced care, you add lines, angles, and glyphs to the central circle, until a completed formal summoning array shimmers on the ground at your feet.

And then you go ahead and create another summoning diagram, this one with a rather larger circle.

You could have just blazed the arrays into being with mana, but the physical medium of the silver - even if it is conjured - will help to anchor the magic, providing another safeguard against possible interference.

Plus, the extra work gives you something to do, distracting your mind from unpleasant thoughts.

...not that this stops it entirely.

Case in point: you wonder which of your tutors you ought to call first. Batreaux is by far the most personally powerful of the four, and being a Hyrulean sorcerer, that power goes almost hand-in-hand with extensive knowledge - particularly of the DARK ART OF NECROMANCY, which is one of the cornerstones of DARKEST SORCERY, and highly relevant to your current concern. For all of that, though, the Risen Demon is not a priest, and hence cannot cannot speak for the Goddesses in the way that Elder Terok, Madam Lanora, or Koron can.

Seeing as how Farore has apparently taken a personal interest in this matter, that part seems like it could be important.

Quite aside from that, priests are traditionally the ones people go to for advice and counseling about death, the hereafter, and the disposition of their immortal souls. Having a team of them on hand to talk with Akua could be very helpful, even if she isn't a member of the Hyrulean faith.

On a tangentially-related note, you haven't seen or spoken to Lanora since she sailed off on the shell of Ghido the Island Turtle, three weeks past. The Spell of Planar Binding you used to bring her to Earth that time would have worn out a few days ago, so there's no risk of yanking her away from a philosophical debate with the ancient one if you call her now, and you're curious as to how the Zoran priestess's sojourn at sea worked out for her.

You waver back and forth for a minute, honestly torn between which of your tutors to call for advice. Ultimately, however, you decide to summon the priestly trio first.

Some of what informs your choice is simple practicality. There ARE three of them - four, counting Koron's fairy companion - and you've seen for yourself that each has his or her own opinion on any given topic, and moreover, that they're all like as not to be different from one another. Sometimes you wonder if they're just disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing; Elder Terok, in particular, strikes you as enough of curmudgeon to enjoy that sort of thing.

Beyond that, though, there's the simple fact that whatever happened to the ghostly little girl seems to have ticked off Farore. You'd be a poor follower indeed if you ignored that.

Castle Shuzen's gates creak open once more, allowing Akua, Moka, and Akasha to exit. Whatever tears were shed earlier, there's no evidence of them now; Akua's expression and posture radiate pure determination. Moka is a little less composed, casting concerned glances at her oldest half-sister as they approach you, and Akasha doesn't bother to hide her worried little frown.

Once she's close enough to see the ritual work laid out on the ground before you, Akua slows her implacable advance long enough to study the arrays. Her mask eases, flickers of curiosity, a reluctant respect, and - after she turns to the second array and sees how big you made the receiving circle - faint wariness.

"What exactly are you planning to summon?" she asks, looking up at you.

"Elder Terok, Madam Lanora, and Koron and Vert, for starters," you reply, indicating the larger circle.

"...the priests, huh?" Akua sighs, mild wariness shifting to resignation.

Not quite the reaction you were hoping for, but you press on.

"Wayward souls DO kind of fall into their area of expertise, and I can get all three of them here at once to give you different takes on what can be done about... the situation. It'll take about ten minutes to get them here, after which I'm planning to call up Batreaux over there." You nod towards the smaller circle.

That seems to catch Akua's interest. Akasha's as well, though it's the former who exclaims, "Oh?"

You smile wryly. "Like you said, the first bunch ARE priests, and a priest's fairy partner-"

"Thank you," Briar notes.

"-so there are certain courses of action they wouldn't consider appropriate or recommend. Batreaux's a sorcerer, and he's a lot more personally powerful than the rest of them; at the very least, he'll offer a different point of view, and I wouldn't put it past him to know some things that the priests don't."

Knowing things is almost as much stock and trade for Hyrulean sorcerers as it is for Earthly wizards, and you have firsthand evidence of just how expansive Batreaux's knowledge of the arcane arts is.

Your explanation seems to have reassured Akua, who simply nods for you to get on with it. A quick glance at Akasha earns you a quiet sigh and a similar nod, though this one is more reluctant.

You enter the summoner's side of the larger circle, and begin the Ritual of Planar Binding.

At first, you go slowly, feeling out the interactions between your magic and the energies of the demiplane, but as active interference from the Shuzens' defenses fails to manifest, you start picking up the pace of the invocation.

About five minutes on, you finally start to notice some resistance. It doesn't feel like wards waking up grumpy, you think, just a kind of barrier that you don't encounter when using Summoning Magic in the clear. It's similar to the resistance you feel when calling your allies from your Mirror Hideaway, only more pronounced; most likely it's the dimensional boundary that surrounds the Shuzen Estate, making an issue because you had no hand in the magic that created or maintains it, and hence can't reach across it as casually as one of its makers could have.

Which isn't to say you can't DO it, just that it's taking a little more effort than you're used to.

As you continue to shape the spell, the resistance builds proportionately - but very slowly, and after the eight minute mark, it seems to level off entirely.

Seems like getting permission from Kahlua was a good idea after all.

A couple of minutes later, you finish you spell with a flourish, and four diverse figures appear in the large circle before you.

Madam Lanora, you note, is wearing some kind of tropical wrap that you've never seen her in before. It's a very light material, just heavy enough not to appear translucent, and is mostly the deep blue of the open seas, save for the brightly-colored fish. Her scales are a different hue than you recall, the blue portions darker and the white parts closer to a cream. She's also wearing sunglasses, and has a tropical flower perched atop one of her head-fins.

"What the heck happened to you?" Briar exclaims.

"She's been like this ever since she got back from talking with that turtle you introduced her to," Elder Terok grumbles.

"Isn't it great?" Koron laughs.

Combo.

You look from Koron to Lanora, and admit, "I was not aware Zoras could tan." You follow that with a thumbs-up. "Looking good, Lanora."

The priestess preens. "Thank you, Alex."

Kahlua chooses that moment to giggle. When you spare a glance in her direction, you see that she has one hand covering her mouth - but not quite hiding the blush of her dusky cheeks.

Akua and Moka are also looking at their sister, the former with open surprise, the latter in resignation. Then, almost as one, they turn to regard you. And smirk, in a way that leaves no doubt about their shared paternity, despite their otherwise completely differing features.

"...anyway," you say slowly, as you fight down a sudden sense of danger and force yourself to turn away from the vampire sisterhood, "the reason I called is that I have a purely theoretical problem I'd like to hear your takes on."

You can just make out the sound of Akua's breath hitching behind you when you describe her spectral hanger-on as a "purely theoretical problem." You asked Briar to explain this to her while you were working the summoning spell, and your partner laid out your concerns about how openly involving agents of the Goddesses might draw some official attention, whether today or somewhere down the line, whereas keeping things strictly academic would give you a reasonable cover.

Akua wasn't exactly thrilled to hear that, but Akasha grasped the issue very quickly and took over the task of convincing the girls to avoid directly mentioning or naming the ghost - for her safety, and their own.

The former seemed to be all the reason Akua needed to stay quiet, but it clearly still stings to have her... friend?... described as such.

"I also want Batreaux's input, though, so I'll let Briar explain things while I call him up."

"Okay," Briar says, fluttering forward to face the priests and her fellow fairy. "So, hypothetically speaking-"

"This has something to do with Farore suddenly acting like a bee-stung Bullbo a little while ago, doesn't it?" Koron asks warily.

"PURELY HYPOTHETICALLY SPEAKING," your partner emphasizes.

"Oh, boy."

It only takes Briar a couple of minutes to present the situation, without once acknowledging that the "theoretical" soul in question is actually right there with you. There's a pretty good chance that the priests, being departed and ascended souls themselves, are either aware of the girl's spirit or could see her if they tried, but aside from the nervous fidgeting of the Kokiri/fairy duo and a worried glance from the tropically-attired Zora, they don't admit to any of that.

When Briar finishes speaking, two out of three priests and a fairy exchange glances.

Elder Terok just hunches over his stick, grumbling about people not doing their jobs, standards falling all around, and how back in HIS lifetime, psychopomps made an extra effort to keep track of the most innocent and vulnerable souls.

Even though the bulk of your attention is focused on the ritual you're perform, you keep one ear open for the flow of the conversation.

As you and probably Akua expected, Koron and Madam Lanora are both in the camp that says helping an injured, innocent soul cross over to the rest and healing of the hereafter is the right and proper course of action. That said, they also agree that if the ghost in question were to be sleeping, it would be best not to wake her.

"A lingering soul that's in a dormant state is one that hasn't quite slipped into undeath," Koron explains, his childlike voice and features both eerily serious. "It's still on the safe side of the line that separates being a normal soul that just hasn't moved on yet from being a proper ghost, which either can't or won't move on. Waking it up would push it right ON the line, and if its death was as bad as you describe... yeah, that would be enough to push it right over the edge."

Now THAT'S an interesting tidbit.

Gained Parazoology B

The state of the girl's soul complicates the issue of how to get her to pass on without hurting her just as much for the priests as it does for you - more, really. Your priestly tutors were selected for their knowledge rather than their power, and even with the inflated mana cost you experience when faking true divine magic, you're capable of producing much greater effects than any of them can on their own.

Creating the Ring of Trials was a group effort that took an extended ritual, not to mention your own involvement.

Back on topic, a sleeping soul is basically harmless to be around, which would - in theory - explain why even someone who had such a soul attached to them wasn't experiencing any health problems. The same can't be said for a true ghost; without magical intervention, even the weakest and most benign specter would unavoidably do harm to a living being it was in such close and constant proximity to, just as a consequence of the clash between their conflicting energies.

"And that's where a lot of the really tragic ghost stories come from," Koron sighs, rubbing his eyes and sounding, incongruously, like a tired old man. "A ghost comes back to be with someone it loves, but the living sicken from its presence, so it comes back more often to protect them, and then there's a death and the ghost just LOSES it."

The part of you that's been paying attention to the conversation winces at this. Given what you know about Earthly ghosts, it's all too easy to see how the scenario Koron describes could produce a Hollow. The information you got from the Kurosakis states that Hollows preferentially target their friends and family, but what if they got that backwards? What if those Hollows arise from ghosts whose unfinished business WAS their friends and family, that were inadvertently responsible for the death of a loved one, and then got hit with a massive dose of grief, guilt, and abandonment?

The rest of you doubles-down on casting, as the Ritual of Planar Binding reaches its peak.

"I AM HERE!"

*CRACK-A-THOOM*

You glance upwards, and blink, wondering when the stormcloud formed.

Within his circle, Batreaux takes a deep breath through his nose, and then exhales gustily. "Ahhh! What a DELIGHTFUL atmosphere of DARKNESS! It's been much too long since I had such a pleasure! And this castle! MAGNIFICENT!" He turns to the vampires. "Your home, ladies?"

"It is," Akasha manages to reply levelly, while the girls around her stare blankly or are overcome by giggles. "Please, be welcome."

"My thanks, and my compliments! Now, then," he says, facing you, "your summons indicated a desire for an out-of-schedule lesson in DARKEST SORCERY. I certainly do not object, but may I ask what brought this on?"

You quickly catch Batreaux up with the rest of the group.

"SUCH TRAGEDY!" he wails, leaning back with the back of one hand pressed to his forehead.

...oh, boy.

Well, now that everyone is here, do you have any particular questions to ask or insights to offer, that you didn't before?

With all your experts assembled and up to speed on the purely theoretical problem before you, you start asking questions.

First, and least objectionably, you want to know what could be done - hypothetically speaking, of course - to heal a soul with the sort of injuries you've described.

The priests promptly explain that healing spiritual wounds incurred in life is one of the roles of the good and "neutral" afterlives. The bad ones range from the harsh-but-necessary cleansing you've been told goes on in Hell, to the unthinkable levels of corruption and mutilation that take place in most of the demonic realms. That said, they also admit that, as long as the soul in question wasn't undead, application of the Spell of Restoration - or one of its greater versions - should be able to heal the damage.

The three priests can't do it. The Lesser Spell of Restoration is the only one within their means to cast, and it wouldn't suffice for the kind of damage you're talking about. The standard Spell of Restoration is the minimum required to treat soul-deep wounds, and even that spell might end up requiring several castings over the course of a few weeks - which, as your advisers tell you, is not necessarily a bad thing. Healing all the damage done to the soul in one shot, as per the Greater Spell of Restoration, would be very likely to wake it up; spacing things out and healing just a little at a time would pose less risk.

Restoration is within your ability to cast; even with the (now-reduced) level of inflation, you treat it as a fifth-tier spell, provided of course you can get the necessary diamonds. Without those, it becomes the equivalent of an eighth-tier spell - at least for the purposes you're talking about - which is scraping the outermost edge of your mastery of Conjuration Magic. In theory, it's doable. In practice, you'd rather have the material components.

And you would MUCH rather hold off on attempting it until you have a better idea of what a vampire's soul is SUPPOSED to look like, and particularly how it reacts to direct applications of this kind of positive energy. Your knowledge of spirits in general is very good for your age, but when it comes to SOULS, your information is a bit biased towards humans and Hyruleans.

You'll have to check with Rho and Navi to see if they can do any better.

There's also the comparatively minor but still-present issue of getting a spell cast by a creature on the physical plane to work properly on one that exists wholly on the spiritual plane. While it's technically possible to just spam the spell until it works, that could get unnecessarily expensive; the easier approach would be to put the caster ON the spiritual plane, and THEN have them work their magic. You're sort of capable of doing this, via the Spell of Blinking, but that one's a bit... unstable.

When you ask Batreaux if he can help, he admits that the best he could do would be to "make a wish" - specifically, a Limited Wish. It would WORK, but it would also crank up the cost of the endeavor significantly. The Risen Demon's only other option would be to take you along when he casts the Spell of Plane Shift, which has its own issues.

"That spell drops travelers MILES off-target," he sighs, shaking his head. "If you're lucky, you end up within a day's walk of wherever you MEANT to go. If not? Showing up HUNDREDS of miles away isn't unheard of. Quite aside from that, it requires a special focus attuned to the plane in question. I DO have one for the Ethereal Plane, but... well, it's attuned to a location that borders Hyrule."

Of COURSE it is.

Well, then; scratch THAT one off as a Bad Idea.

Once again, you make a note to check with Navi. She's had basically pinpoint accuracy with plane-shifting ever since you first met her; whether that's by dint of sheer practice or just a Great Fairy thing, it's a potential asset.

Still, in the balance, it appears that you DO have options for healing Akua's friend. They're going to take some additional investigation and prep time, but they ARE there.

The next "hypothetical" question that comes to mind is whether or not it's possible to determine which afterlife a soul would end up in after crossing over, but this one has no sooner occurred to you than you realize, yes, it is.

You know this because, in a way, you can already do so.

The Spell of Early Judgment is one you've picked up from your memories-slash-studies of Witchcraft. It's a first-circle spell - second-circle in your hands - that shows the target a brief glimpse of the place they've earned for themselves in the hereafter. The spell doesn't reveal this information to any but the target, save by how they react to what they see: people who are destined for good places have positive responses; those with less than ideal but not truly bad fates awaiting them are more confused; and the damned generally react with horror.

It's true that no names are provided, and that the glimpse of the afterlife is too brief and indistinct to identify specific realms, divine or otherwise. But the point remains: if a first-circle spell can do that much, more powerful magic can certainly provide the knowledge you seek.

Just to be sure, you go ahead and ask your advisers.

As expected, the answer is yes - though the priests add that working out WHICH of Earth's afterlives the theoretical soul in question would be bound for would require a level of familiarity with the local system that they just don't have. Neither do you, really.

Madam Lanora recommends that if you're really curious, you should ask the Goddesses.

Finally, there's the big one.

As before, a part of you isn't sure if you should bring this up in front of Akua. That feeling is more pronounced, now that you've seen - even if only for a moment - just how strongly she feels about this girl's fate.

Taking a deep breath, you forge ahead and ask: "What, if anything, could be done to restore such a soul to life?"

Akua's head snaps around so fast, you're amazed you don't hear something crack.

"Hypothetically speaking?" Madam Lanora asks mildly.

"Yes."

"It would depend on how long she's been dead, and what state her remains are in," the Zora woman says levelly.

There is a pause, during which no one says a word.

"Assume several years," Akasha interjects, when it becomes clear that Akua either won't or simply CAN'T speak up. "And cremation."

Lanora winces, and then confirms - as you already knew - that the Ritual to Raise the Dead is out.

Koron chimes in that the Ritual of Reincarnation wouldn't work, either.

The Ritual of Resurrection would be viable, provided some remnant piece of the girl's body - even the ashes - was still available to serve as the necessary focus, and assuming anyone was capable of casting the spell. Even Reincarnation is far enough beyond these three priests that the odds of them completing it without mishap were small, to say nothing of whether or not it would actually WORK. Resurrection is as far beyond Reincarnation as Reincarnation is beyond the priests.

Batreaux can't help, either. As he told you when you first summoned him, priestly magic is not his forte, and for all his mastery of DARKEST SORCERY, brute-forcing a Ritual of Resurrection are beyond him.

The priests regard him suspiciously at that.

Your sorcery tutor blinks, then sighs. "...oh, very well. Say, rather, that brute-forcing a Ritual of Resurrection is beyond me without resorting to methods that I find APPALLING, and frankly refuse to countenance under ANY circumstances, short of preventing the end of the world. And even THEN, I would prefer to seek another solution." He shudders. "Some prices are TOO dreadful."

And when you consider Navi, Briar tells you to forget it.

"It's a fairy thing," your partner says. "Healing the injured and curing diseases or other afflictions is great. Reviving someone who just dropped dead? As long as you've got the power to put everything back where it should be, fine. Bringing back someone who's dead, passed on, and decaying? Ick, and no. Just... no. Life cycles ONE way, and the most you're going to convince a Great Fairy to do is make things turn a bit faster."

"Meaning Reincarnation?" you guess, after a moment's thought.

"Yeah. I mean, don't get me wrong; Mom and I aren't going to stop YOU from trying to violate the natural order, 'cause we know that doesn't bother most of you non-Fae the way it does us. Plus, duh, sorcerer; violating the natural order is kind of a given, and occasionally has entertaining consequences. Just... don't expect us to help."

In short, if you want to resurrect this girl, you're going to have to do it yourself. Which, as you already knew, will take years.

On the other hand, if you're willing to consider alternative modes of animation, Batreaux has a few suggestions of a more... timely nature.

"One possibility would be to create a Lesser Simulacrum of the spirit's original form, and set up a Magic Jar within it to house the soul," your tutor explains. "Some adjustments would be necessary to get both spells working together as needed, and the result would be... somewhat awkward, due to the innate limits and non-living nature of the body, but there would be none of the trauma a possession inflicts. Various constructs might also serve in this role, but they would be extremely costly, and there would be some risk of the soul coming into conflict with the motive spirit such things require - or even of it getting dragged into SERVING as such, which would be stressful." Batreaux pauses and then bares his fang-like canines in a grimace. "Somewhat more questionably, if one were to obtain a living body with no soul of its own-"

There are shudders all around at that.

"-a device of similar nature to a Magic Jar could be placed on or even within it. Polymorphing the flesh to resemble the spirit's original form would then be possible, though perhaps with some shortcomings."

"What kind of shortcomings?" Akua asks.

"Reproducing mere appearance is easy enough," Batreaux tells her frankly. "Reproducing inherent qualities and abilities is harder, and gets more so as the power of the being one is attempting to mimic grows. Transforming into a human is easy. Transforming into a dragon is very hard. And making such changes LAST..." He shakes his head. "Getting back to the topic at hand, for the sake of thoroughness, I feel compelled to mention the Greater Spell to Create Undead, but-"

"No," Akua says firmly.

"-that is my general opinion of the notion as well," Batreaux agrees, making a face. "Even in the theoretical."

Yeah, you're not even going to consider that last one as a serious option. Especially not when Batreaux's REASONABLE suggestions have turned your thoughts back to Karakura yet again.

Based on what you've been told, and keeping in mind that the Shuzens don't know the details about the Karakura residents, and likely don't even know that Urahara Shop and its inhabitants exist, what are your thoughts and recommendations?

You think over the options that have been suggested, and reach a decision.

"Ladies," you say to the vampires, "if I could have a moment of your time?"

This and your waving for them to come forward gets you some curious looks, but Akasha and the three girls do as requested.

Turning to the priests and Batreaux, you ask, "If you'll excuse us?"

And once they've all nodded or otherwise indicated their agreement, you cast a Spell of Silence on your tutors to give them plausible deniability, then turn your back to them and make your pitch to the vampires.

Your recommendation to the Shuzens is that you gradually heal the damage to the girl's soul, using once-per-week applications of the Ritual of Restoration. During that time, you mean to investigate your options for acquiring a body that the girl can safely and ethically inhabit.

"A proper resurrection just isn't on the table right now," you tell Akua firmly. You're not going to apologize for not being able to pull that particular rabbit out of your hat yet. "It's going to be at least a couple of years before it becomes an option at all, and problems may crop up along the way."

"But you actually think you can do it," Akua returns, her tone a mixture of disbelief, hope, and something that sounds like envy.

You nod. Whether you get there by forging ahead in your arcane studies with Batreaux until you're able to invoke a proper Wish, or by hiring a more powerful clerical tutor than the trio to show you how it's done the normal way, learning the Ritual of Resurrection is just a matter of time and focus.

"I do, but like I said, not for a couple of years at least - and every day your... friend?"

"...sister," Akua says quietly.

You close your eyes for a moment, letting out a slow breath.

"Right. Every day she's drifting around without a body, much less while she's HURT, she's in danger, so getting her safe and healed, and making sure there won't be any long-term consequences for it, have to come first. On that note, I know someone who might be able to provide a higher-quality construct body than Batreaux and I could provide. MIGHT," you repeat firmly, at Akua's intent expression. "But they're looking to stay low-profile, so I'm going to have to check in with them personally to see if it's doable, much less what it would cost. One thing, though: I have no reason to expect that this person's work was intended to house a vampire's soul, so I'm going to need to ask about that to make sure it CAN, much less safely and comfortably."

Akasha regards you keenly. "Is this person someone we would have met? Recently, even?"

Ah, she suspects.

"No to both," you answer honestly. "But they do know some people that I know you have met. Recently, even."

The Dark Lady nods. "Well, then. I would hope that client confidentiality can be observed."

You consider that, and Urahara's shady appearance and behavior.

...um.

"That... should be okay," you say tentatively. "I only met this person fairly recently, myself, but they definitely seem to understand the value of keeping their customers' secrets."

Certainly, you haven't met anybody in Karakura who treats Ichigo differently because his dad is a spiritual entity running around in a fake body. A couple of kids who've teased him because his father's crazy, yes, but nothing worse than that.

Thinking of Urahara and his Science Face, though, you reluctantly add, "But even assuming all goes well, you might want to be ready for a request to participate in or at least observe the whole... embodiment process."

Because you really can't see a man like Urahara passing up the opportunity to see how a vampire's soul takes to one of those fake bodies that he, Isshin, and Tessai use.

"I'll keep that in mind," Akasha says.

With that settled, you dismiss the Spell of Silence and turn back to your tutors, thanking them for their input on this "thought exercise."

Is there anything else you want to bring up, while you've got your Hyrulean associates here?

Before sending your tutors on their way, you ask a few final questions, the first of which is - once again speaking entirely hypothetically - if there would be a way to change the afterlife destination of a dormant soul.

"That really depends on where the soul was already going," Lanora replies. "Some afterlives are either possessive or protective of their charges, and won't stand for being 'stolen' from if they can possibly help it. Other places don't really care, or figure that if you're capable of stealing a soul, you're entitled to keep it."

"Of course," Koron chimes in, "that assumes the authorities in the afterlife in question notice the absence to begin with. Which they may not, in this situation."

Vert flies over and rams his tiny elbow into his partner's flank.

"I mean, the situation that you've described," Koron adds quickly. "Not reality. Because we're not talking about a real situation. Obviously."

"It's easiest for a lingering soul to change its final destination by its actions AFTER death," Elder Terok adds, shaking his head at the antics of his tiniest companions, "but that wouldn't really be an option if the soul were dormant. Failing that... direct a sympathetic psychopomp its way, and pray for the best."

Batreaux scowls. "There are some spells that could force the issue, but the ones I have even a passing awareness of all call upon the nastier sort of spirit realms. I will NOT be discussing those, even in a theoretical scenario."

You don't blame him for that stance. You've been avoiding looking at the nastier sections of Ganondorf's sorcerous repertoire pretty much since day one, and a Spell to Cast Thine Enemy Into the Burning Maw of Hell just SOUNDS horrible. The reality's probably even worse.

Since the bulk of your sorcery tutor's "alternative options" involved false bodies of one sort or another, you decide to go ahead and ask about what is arguably the ultimate false body: the Spell of Cloning.

It's a rare and rather niche eight-circle spell that you haven't studied yourself, and which Ganondorf either never knew, never used, or just didn't pass on to you in your dreams. That said, the spell is unusually well-known because of the various powerful necromancers, witches, and even certain alchemists down through the ages who've used it - or variants of it - to cheat death, and the cautionary tales their (typically gruesome) fates have inspired. And the "niche" it occupies is extremely relevant to your current situation.

Now, from your admittedly imperfect understanding, it's far too late to simply create a clone of the girl's original body, which is, as you've been told, long since dead and cremated. But Batreaux was just talking about finding an "unoccupied" living body and using magic to reshape its features and basic nature to better suit the soul within. And if you were to clone, say, a vampire...

"...that could work," Batreaux muses, thoughtfully tapping his goatee'd chin with one claw-like fingernail. "Unfortunately, I don't know the spell myself. I suppose I could try to hunt down someone who does know it, or at least a written copy, but... well, as you said, it's magic best-known for the necromancers, witches, and alchemists who used it to try and cheat death. Most of those didn't make it into the Goddesses' realms, and the ones that DID are well aware of that fact, and would cheerfully exploit it to drive up the price for their assistance." He hesitates, and then adds, "I... COULD look outside the sacred lands...?"

You consider that. Limiting the search for assistance to souls in the care of the Goddesses would grant you certain character assurances for whomever you ended up dealing with. At the very least, you don't think anyone who made it into the Hyrulean heaven is going to try to screw you over just because they could - and no, as much as it annoys you, it must be said that charging extra for a rare service doesn't count as screwing you over. Taking advantage, yes, but not doing you a wrong; that's reserved for acts like selling you a ritual that requires demonic assistance, or one that would open up a path for the soul you bargained with to sneak back into the world of the living. Which is the sort of thing you'd expect from Hyrule's intelligent monsters, such as they are, or the souls of the damned.

On the flip side, the larger number of outcasts in the... darker parts of Hyrule's hereafter who knew and had experience using the Clone Spell would drive the price down, and possibly reveal some interesting variations on the magic. After all, THESE would be the guys who NEEDED to use the spell the most, to avoid their final judgment. Odds are some of them got very good at it.

And then of course, there's the fact that - unless Batreaux has the remarkable fortune to find a LIVING magic-user with knowledge of this spell - the payment you're going to be asked to provide will most certainly not be in anything so affordable as gold or Rupees.

You glance at the Shuzens. No objections appear to be forthcoming...

And as for the parameters of the search:

At last, there is the matter of possible side-effects from binding a soul to a temporary vessel in the world of the living for a period of time before attempting to resurrect it, as opposed to letting the soul pass on to a safe, pleasant afterlife for the same period of time.

"The afterlife would be safe from spiritual predators, for one," Lanora tells you. "Aside from that and the potential for a lingering soul's personal conduct during a period of physical re-embodiment to change its final fate, the soul would also be subject to a lot of the same stresses and potential dangers that the living themselves have to worry about."

Batreaux nods. "Yes, in a sufficiently life-like body, it's almost like being alive again - for ill, as well as for good. But then," he states with a philosophical shrug, "you can't have one without the other. That's just life."

The cheapest method of getting access to the Clone Spell is likely to be to hire someone capable of casting it to do so on your behalf. However, that's only if this is a strictly one-time affair, which is something you honestly can't say for certain. You live in a dangerous world, as do your friends and family, and practically everyone you're close to is in some way close to danger on a regular basis: some, like the Shuzens and Drakes, actively seek out violent encounters with the supernatural; others just live in hazardous locations like Karakura and Sunnydale.

Frankly speaking, the odds of somebody you know suffering a tragic and untimely death are depressingly high. So why not be prepared to deal with such an outcome before it happens?

...plus, a part of you just wants to learn a new spell.

Gained Scholar's Soul C (Plus)

Between the choice of obtaining a written copy of the Clone Spell or getting a tutor, you decide to go with the latter. You're perfectly capable of learning spells from books and scrolls, and you've done it before with certain tomes obtained from Gen's, or that time you traded spells with Akkiko. That said, you honestly prefer having a teacher to talk with and bounce ideas off of.

There's also the long term to think of. You can only learn so many spells out of a book or scroll before it becomes effectively or entirely worthless to you. A teacher has a lot more to offer, if you can just get a good working relationship going.

That said, you're not going to take any chances with this. The Clone Spell is high-level Necromancy, and high-level necromancers tend to be... odd, at best. It takes an uncommon sort of mind to willingly delve into the secrets of death and the dead, and an even rarer sort to manage it without cracking under the strain. This isn't to say that practitioners of other schools of magic don't have their worldviews altered from the sheer potential and possibilities their powers open up, much less by the knowledge of the underlying mechanics that make it so - because they do. Necromancy just seems to be especially trying for most mortal minds to come to grips with.

The popular stereotype of the cackling madman leading an undead horde on an omnicidal campaign of annihilation exists for a reason, and that reason is that every once in a while, it actually happens.

You speak from personal experience.

With that in mind, you're not going to test your luck and ask Batreaux to seek out the sort of lunatics who actually DID that sort of thing in life or undeath, or the ones who might be considering doing it right now. No, you're going to limit your requests for assistance to those necromancers who managed to master their shadowy art while staying in the light of the Goddesses.

It might trim down your options a bit and end up costing a little more, but you'll lose less sleep in the process.

Batreaux accepts your choice with an exclamation of relief.

With that, you dismiss your tutors.

As your spell ends, the stormclouds that have been present and rumbling ominously ever since the Risen Demon made his appearance give one last crackling flash, and then start to break up.

You cast a glance at the castle-spirit, trying to determine just how much of the thematically-appropriate weather it was responsible for.

The little elemental blinks golden eyes back at you.

"...what now?" Moka asks.

It's on the tip of your tongue to request some diamonds so you can perform the first Ritual of Restoration on Akua's other sister, but it has occurred to you that Akasha isn't really the lady of the house, and probably can't give you permission for that kind of expense without speaking to Issa and/or Gyokuro first. It's a given that none of the girls can, and after the concerns that were raised about disturbing and potentially awakening the soul, you're reluctant to try brute-forcing the spell.

Unless one of Kahlua's parents comes home in the next hour or two, you're probably going to have to put that spell on hold for another week, while they sort out the supply issue.

That does leave you a few options, though.

You take a minute to discuss the terms of the Spell of Restoration with the Shuzens. When you mention that the spell requires a quantity of precious gems, a look of vindication flashes across Akasha's face, and she reaches up and plucks out her earrings.

"Will these do?" she asks, holding out the diamond studs with her right hand. They're little flower-shaped things, each golden head bearing a single stone of modest size and dazzling cut, nestled in a bed of perhaps a dozen much smaller gems.

Blinking slowly, you reach out with your own right hand, holding it above Akasha's as you focus your senses on the two pieces of jewelry, trying to get a sense of their mystical rather than material value.

...

Um.

"I think these might be worth a bit TOO much, actually," you say, starting to draw your hand back.

Akasha's other hand snakes out to catch yours and gently turns it over.

"Use what you need," she tells you firmly, as she deposits the studs in your palm, and closes your fingers over them.

"Are you sure about this, Miss Akasha?" you ask her seriously. "Once they're gone, there's no getting them back."

"They're mine to dispose of as I like," she replies in the same tone. "They're just about the only diamonds in the entire castle I can say that of."

Well, then. As long as she's sure.

With one major obstacle removed, you turn your attention to the other, and start casting the Spell of Blinking.

A troublesome factor of dealing with spirits of any nature is that they can't be affected by most purely physical forces. There are exceptions to that general rule, of course - spirits of water and ice obviously dislike fire; spirits of "cold" are repelled by heat in any form; and various lower-order spirits can be scared off by sounds like firecrackers, ringing bells, or even laughter - but on the whole, it takes the addition of one or more exotic energies to stand a chance of affecting them.

Of those energies, you're best with magic, but barring certain spells purpose-built to interact with spiritual beings, magic's success rate against incorporeal entities is a dicey prospect. And while you have been learning how to utilize spiritual energy together with mana, that's been more in the vein of a fuel additive than as a means of reinforcing your spellcasting.

With that in mind, your best bet of making the Ritual of Restoration work the first time, and so not wasting any of Miss Akasha's thoughtfully-donated diamonds, is to be on the same plane of existence that the girl's spirit is when you invoke your magic.

Fortunately, you can do that.

...at least, kind of.

As the spell takes hold, the world around you shifts in a most peculiar manner. Instead of standing before an eerie castle atop a jagged cliff at the heart of a dark domain, under a bloody sky, you find yourself... actually in pretty much the same position, only with a heavy mist overlaying everything. The great dark mass of Castle Shuzen is still visible, even if its edges have been blurred by the grey vapors that now wreathe it, but smaller or more distant forms are much less clear. You can see Akasha and the girls well enough, but Briar is a blotch of light in a world of shadows, much of her natural color washed out; farther on, the guards are faceless shadows before the greater mass of the castle's outer wall.

Three exceptions to this trend present themselves. One is the spirit of the castle, whose presence on this level of reality is a BLAZE of energy - and not all of it golden, though there is a distinct core of that hue. Your little friend stares at you in shock, and then does a funny little dance of triumph before running towards you, arms outstretched.

As you brace for impact - which you'll probably feel regardless of your magic, given the spirit's coterminous existence in the physical and spiritual realms - your attention shifts briefly upwards, to three distant lights that are NOT bleached out by the mists, but whose combined red-, blue-, and green-bleeding-into-gold aura does not extend to anything beyond themselves.

It crosses your mind to utter your own take on Shepard's Prayer, but given the situation and your desire to avoid divine intervention, you resist the impulse.

Then you turn to Akua, and more precisely, to the figure hanging off her back.

You can't suppress a wince. The girl's soul hasn't moved or changed since you looked at her upstairs, but now that you're within the Border Ethereal yourself instead of peering into it from the physical plane, she appears almost solid. Such a thing does the poor child's ghastly appearance no favors at all, and you have to look away, one hand coming up to cover your nose and mouth against the reek of gore that clings to her.

Then the little genius loci hits you-

*Blink*

-and you're back in the physical realm.

"Aww," Kahlua croons. "So cute!"

"That was fast," Moka observes.

Akua frowns. "You can't possibly be done-"

*Blink*

"-alrea- aiya, not even going to let a girl finish talking? How rude."

"Is that spell supposed to do that?" Moka wonders.

The sisters' voices are faintly muffled, as if you're hearing them through a thin wall, and there is a bizarre echoey quality unlike anything you've encountered in the real world. Despite that, they're still intelligible.

Shaking off that peculiarity - and at the same, physically disentangling yourself from your affectionate little friend - you get on with your work, and begin performing the Ritual of Restoration.

*Blink*

At about twenty seconds of focus and chanting, it's far from the longest ritual you know, and easily fits within the duration of your Blink Spell, which should be somewhere past a minute and a half. You flicker back and forth between the two planes twice more before you finish, a clear white light surrounding the hand that holds Akasha's diamond earrings.

Taking a deep breath of the youki-tainted but otherwise clear morning air, you grit your teeth and step forward-

*Blink*

-wincing anew as you draw to within arm's length of the source of the stomach-turning stench.

And there, you stop, and wait.

*Blink*

Your sudden appearance in her personal space causes Akua's eyes to widen and the rest of her to lean back slightly in reflex, but she doesn't move beyond that, clearly having guessed your purpose.

"Is she-"

"Give me a minute," you say. "And try not to move her."

Issa's oldest daughter nods.

*Blink*

You spend a couple of shifts just standing there, holding the charge of one completed spell as you count the time between blinks of the other. You couldn't do this in the middle of a combat situation, especially not the sort of rocket tag that you've gotten used to, but here and now, when all parties involved are standing still and there are no distractions, it's just about the simplest thing in the world. Once you have the timing down, you reach out slowly-

*Blink*

-still holding the charge.

"Here we go," you murmur-

*Blink*

-as you touch your hand to the spirit's...

Several possibilities came to mind as ideal targets to receive your Spell of Restoration: the brain; either arm; or the heart.

Skipping the brain was, well, a no-brainer. Not only was there little real damage to the girl's head - at least that you could see - and hence less reason to focus your healing efforts there, the brain is the seat of consciousness, that very state which you're trying to AVOID invoking. Better to direct your magic elsewhere.

The arms, now, would have been a good place to start; judging by the size and darkness of the bloodstains on the girl's worn and patched sleeves, there was considerable damage there when she died - or rather, when she was still alive enough to register it, and you're carefully not thinking about the implications of THAT. They're also limbs, further out from the core of the soul and hence a bit less important; as such, what happens to them is less likely to have unintended secondary effects on the greater whole.

But the blood soaked through the memory of that simple dress below the level of the chest is, if anything, even darker than the stains on the sleeves, and the shape of the small body under that ethereal fabric is just... wrong, somehow.

You're trying not to think too hard about THAT, either, but you can't deny it's a factor in your decision-making.

And so it is that, still clutching Akasha's earrings between thumb and two trailing fingers, your right hand touches the girl's back, the tips of your extended forefingers pressing against the fabric of her dress with just enough force to feel the spectral echo of flesh and bone beneath. The moment that you register the resistance of a body under your fingertips, you release your mental hold over your waiting spell, and the white light surrounding your hand flashes along your fingers and into the girl's torso, just over the heart.

The little soul jolts as if from a sudden shock, and there is a gasp as air that isn't precisely real is sucked into the spectral memory of lungs that no longer need it.

Belatedly, it occurs to you that linking the brain to consciousness is a relatively new concept, in the big scheme of things; from your reading assignments in history class and as part of your studies into spiritual matters, you vaguely recall that some of Earth's oldest and most influential societies - among them Greece, Egypt, and China - believed that it was the HEART that served as the core of one's self-identity, emotion, will... and soul.

...whoops?

As you begin internally panicking, the girl lets out a sigh, arms shifting position.

"Aaaahhhhkua," she yawns, as she snuggles a bit closer to her older sister.

Even through the fog of the Ethereal, the shock and recognition on the face of Issa's oldest are unmistakable.

*Blink*

And then you're back in the physical world, face-to-frantic-face with the vampire in question.

Quick as a wink, her hand seizes the fabric of your shirt.

"What did you DO?" she hisses urgently.

"Not so loud, keep your aura calm, don't disturb her-!" you hiss right back at her, one hand held before your mouth in a classic shushing gesture, while the other waves frantically at the rest of the group not to do anything.

Even as you're doing that, your mind races, trying to find a way to put the girl's stirring soul back to sleep, or at least to ensure she doesn't get any closer to waking up, because you are SO not ready for her-!

"If you know any lullabies she liked, now would be a good time to sing one."

In your moment of desperate worry, you get an idea.

It's not something you'd planned for, nor is it something you're all that well suited to do. You can't even say for sure if it'll work.

But there's a CHANCE that it could help, nothing else is coming to mind, and the longer you stand around dithering, the more likely it is that the girl's soul will wake up and render the whole point moot.

You look Akua square in the eye and say, "If you know any lullabies she liked, now-"

*Blink*

"-would be- Din BLAST it!" you groan in frustration, as your magic yanks you back into the mists.

And, incidentally, out of Akua's grasp. In spite of everything, you take the opportunity this presents to get out of arm's reach of the upset young vampire, even as your own hand reaches into your pocket.

"A lullaby!?" the girl in question hisses, and quite admirably so for an exclamation that lacks any sibilants. "How is that supposed to-"

"She's waking up too early, isn't she?" Akasha interrupts swiftly. "So, put her back to sleep!"

*Blink*

"Exactly!" you chime in.

Really, trust the mother to figure it out first.

"What is that?" Moka asks, frowning at the device in your hand.

"The Fairy Ocarina?" Briar exclaims. "Alex, are you SERIOUSLY going to-"

"Do you have a better idea?"

*Blink*

"...not really, no," your partner admits to physically-empty air.

"Is it a magic instrument?" Kahlua asks.

"Might help that it isn't," Briar replies absently, as she turns to Akua. "Well, you heard the boy; if you've got a song, sing!"

Akua hesitates, confusion, frustration, and worry clashing for control of her expression and what you can perceive of her aura.

Then, taking a deep breath, she stills her features and her energies alike, and begins to sing.

*Blink*

A few notes make it clear that, for all their innate advantages over humanity, singing ISN'T one of the things vampires are better at just by dint of existing. Not that there's anything wrong with Akua's voice per se, but she's obviously never had any sort of formal training at the art, and no more practice than any other young girl for whom it isn't a hobby or regular pastime. For all of that, though, her voice is young, clear, and commendably steady, given the situation.

You don't recognize the tune, which hardly surprises you; Chinese lullabies are not something you've ever studied before. You don't catch all the words - something about the moon being bright? - but that's fine, too; you don't need to know them.

Gained Chinese F (Plus) (Plus)

*Blink*

Snapping off an overcharged Spell of Guidance that is at least half a prayer to the Goddesses to help you through this, you raise the Fairy Ocarina to your lips, and begin to play along.

You probably have less experience playing this style of musical instrument than Akua does singing. Your familiarity with this SPECIFIC Ocarina is even less impressive than that; it's been four weeks almost to the day since it was presented to you, and with all your other projects and obligations, the amount of time you've actually spent practicing with it doesn't even add up to an hour.

Gained Ocarina F (Plus) (Plus)

With that in mind, if your mouth wasn't occupied with providing air, you would be the first to express surprised at the quality of the accompaniment you're able to crank out from the fairy-made woodwind.

...is it your imagination, or is the green portion of that distant divine aura glowing a little brighter?

*Blink*

You force your mind to ignore what you did or didn't see, and focus on the magic you're trying to kludge together. You don't know any spells that can put the dead to rest, save in a violent and final manner, and while you do know the Spell of Sleep, that only works on LIVING targets; the girl's soul doesn't qualify. But she's not exactly "awake" in her current condition, and if you leverage that fact along with the slow, soft, sleepy tune you and Akua are providing, then maybe...

You're not sure if it's your magic, Akua's familiar voice, or one of the Goddesses taking a risk and trying to sneak some added assistance. Maybe it's just dumb luck.

Whatever the reason, the soul clinging to Akua's shoulders makes a happy, drowsy little sound of recognition, turns her head as if shifting on a pillow, and then quietly settles down.

*Blink*

At a mere two verses, Akua's lullaby is not very long, but you signal for her to repeat it, while continuing to play yourself. All the while, you keep your spiritually-enhanced eyes on her other sister, whose form is slowly settling back into the faded-out state of dormancy you first observed.

After half a dozen repetitions, you let Akua stop singing, and lower the Fairy Ocarina.

"We-" Akua stops in mid-word to clear her throat. "...well?" she repeats.

"I think that's got it," you sigh. "But I would really recommend against any more magic or fighting around her..."

"...for the rest of the week, if you can manage it."

Gained Watchful B (Plus)

You know the Shuzens well enough by this point to have a pretty good idea of the level of self-restraint and personal sacrifice you're asking Akua to observe in the coming days. Physical and magical training, experimenting with new designs for that warding array she set up in the sparring room, even just roughhousing with her sisters - all of that and more will have to be set aside, if she's to take your request seriously.

Even so, you aren't surprised when Akua just nods once in response.

"The whole week?" Moka asks with a hint of disappointment.

"I might be overreacting," you admit, as you tuck the Fairy Ocarina away, "but better safe than sorry, especially after that latest bit of unplanned excitement. Besides, now that your other sister-"

"Jasmine," Akua interjects. "Her name is Jasmine."

"-now that Jasmine is... less hurt than she was..." You trail off for a moment as you glance in the not-yet-and-hopefully-never-to-be-a-ghost's direction. Her dress is still threadbare, patched, and dark with old blood, but the former are things you never expected any amount of Restoration to fix. It wouldn't even if Jasmine were alive and corporeal, not unless her dress was something VERY peculiar indeed, and as a soul, her appearance is a matter of memory and self-image rather than physical condition - which is honestly good news, as otherwise the girl would be a cloud of spectral ash right now.

Wardrobe issues aside, the body underneath that memory of material garments looks better than it did a minute ago, the lines of her lower torso smoother and more... whole... than before. Her dress still doesn't hang quite right in some places, particularly about her upper arms, where the phantom fabric sort of... hangs...

The point is, there was definite improvement from your spell, and you'd like to see how Jasmine reacts to that going forward. Whether from the potency and foreign nature of your mana intruding on her soul, or just from the sudden change of state you caused, your spell almost woke her up, but it's possible that in the long term, being healed of so much damage will allow Jasmine to sleep more deeply than she was before, making her less likely to react this way at her next treatment.

Provided, of course, she has time to adapt to her partially-restored state, and isn't further disturbed in the process.

You explain your thoughts to the Shuzen ladies, who generally agree.

"But a week?" Moka repeats, now looking honestly downcast.

"He didn't say WE had to stop sparring, Moka," Kahlua points out helpfully.

"...no, he didn't," the silver-haired sister admits. "But... if Akua is going to have to miss out on a whole week, then it's only fair we do the same."

Everybody stops and stares at her for a moment.

Blushing, Moka continues, "Besides, wouldn't it be safer for Jasmine if nobody was throwing youki around?"

"...technically, yes," you say slowly. The actual benefit would be minor compared to not having monsters fighting right on top of her or even in the same room - pennies on the dollar, as they say - but giving the ambient energies in and around Castle Shuzen a chance to settle would honestly help.

Now Kahlua looks reluctant. "Not that I'm objecting to the idea, Moka, it's just... um... well, Mother..."

"I'll talk to her and your father about it," Akasha assures your friend with a gentle smile. It takes on shades of a smirk as she adds, "But you have to get Kokoa on board with the plan."

Kahlua blinks, and turns to stare in the general direction of the castle and the hot-tempered little redhead somewhere inside of it. Her sisters join her.

"...tricky," Kahlua admits.

While they're plotting, you pull Akasha's earrings out of your pocket and examine them. The gold wasn't touched by your magic, and all of the diamonds are still present on one of the studs; the other, however, is missing its central jewel, plus one of the dozen smaller stones that were mounted around it. None of the remaining diamonds appear to be shrunken, misshapen, cracked, or discolored, suggesting the spell ignored them.

You mystically weigh the earrings again, and compare what you sense from them now to your previous measure of their "worth," as well as the requirements of the Spell of Restoration. You can definitely get one more casting of the spell out of the earrings, and it feels like the smaller diamonds are numerous enough and valuable enough to power a third casting, should you happen to need it. You definitely won't get a fourth, though.

Good to know.

You hold the earrings out to their owner, but Akasha raises a hand.

"Are you going to need to cast that spell on Jasmine again?"

"At least once more, Miss Akasha," you admit.

"And can the earrings cover the cost of that?"

You say that they can, once more for certain, and very likely twice.

Akasha nods. "Then you may as well hold on to them until this is done."

There's not much you can say to that except to thank Akasha, and pocket the earrings.

Gained Akasha's Earrings

After that, you bring up the matter of the Spell of Divination you'd like to cast, to figure out where Jasmine is "supposed" to go if she moves on at this point.

The last time you tried to speak directly with the Goddesses on the Shuzen's property, you got interrupted by demonic forces. While Lord Raiden burned away the worst of the contamination directly and Akkiko took additional measures to clean up the area, you'd still prefer not to try contacting the Goddesses from that spot again. Even with all the taint purged, the magical sympathy of repeating the same action on the same ground means you would be pressing your luck in a big way. Better to pick another spot.

And since the land immediately outside the Shuzen's private demiplane is still owned by the family, you ask them if there's a spot they'd prefer you to perform the spell at, or if they'd rather you not attempt it on their territory at all.

"I think it would be better for you NOT to try this near the estate, Alex," Akasha says.

Akua looks at her sharply.

"Sorry, Akua," the older woman apologizes, "but the last time Alex tried to talk to his Goddesses directly while on your father's property, it got... messy. Unless Issa or Gyokuro give Alex their permission otherwise, that's one spell I don't think he should be casting around here."

"...how messy?" Akua asks after a moment.

You explain about the interference, which began with the equivalent of a bad signal, escalated to what was apparently a fight on the other end, and finally resulted in some hideous inhuman voice taking over the connection and starting an unholy fire in the middle of the shrine you'd built.

"And then Lord Raiden blew it away with a thunderbolt," you finish.

Akua blinks.

Twice.

"...so, VERY messy," she concludes, turning back to Akasha.

The woman nods with a wry smile. "Yeah. Although that said, Alex? If you want to borrow that incense-burner we loaned you the last time to cast the spell somewhere else, that would be fine. You only used about a third of the incense we ordered for that, and the rest has just sort of been sitting in storage."

Oh. Well, in that case, you certainly have no objections to accepting this offer. Being able to provide the incense would cover most of the material cost of the spell, and save you some time and mana.

With Communing with the Goddesses put temporarily on hold, and further sparring voluntarily prohibited for Jasmine's sake, is there anything else important you feel the need to do on this trip to Castle Shuzen?

The morning's events have taken their toll, and while you don't leave Castle Shuzen right away, you find it difficult to muster any enthusiasm for the various non-sparring activities you normally take part in when visiting. The Game Room feels too bright and too loud for the occasion, none of the shows or movies appeal, and attempts to start a conversation seem to inevitably cycle back around to Jasmine's condition. Even the simple pleasure of playing with the young spirit of the domain feels muted.

After about half an hour of this, you decide to cut your visit short and head home, though you pick up the burner and the incense Akasha offered before leaving.

Gained Black Turtle Incense
Gained Incense Burner

As the car takes you down the hill towards the border, you consider where it would be best to set up to speak with the Goddesses.

One possibility that comes to mind is to make use of your Mirror Hideaway. The Mirror Plane isn't Earth, and so, like Faerie, it doesn't fall under the injunction against mortal/divine interactions. You should be perfectly capable of communing with the Goddesses there without being interrupted.

Key word, "should."

While you don't expect a repeat of the demonic interruption that occurred the last time you cast the Spell of Communion, you can't say with complete certainty that such a thing WON'T happen again - and if it does so while you're in your Mirror Hideaway, you'd be stuck in a small room with no real space to maneuver, as well as only one exit. On top of that, when the spell holding your extra-dimensional chamber lapsed, there would be a chance for some of the corruption contained within to spill over into the physical world.

Ambrose's wards or no, you'd much prefer not to take any chance of introducing an unholy black fire into your home, or really, anywhere in town. Sunnydale is bad enough with ambient Hellmouth vibes to contend with; it DOESN'T need a direct infusion of whatever the heck that stuff was.

You suppose you could grab the mirror you need as a focus and head into the desert to work your magic. You're more than capable of concealing the casting of the Spell of the Mirror Hideaway, every spell after that would be cast in another dimension, and if something went wrong, you'd be in the middle of the desert. As long as you got out of the pocket plane at the first sign of trouble, grabbed your mirror, and ran, the damage would be minimal.

...it might cost you the mirror in that case, so maybe you should just conjure a suitable one? You don't need anything fancy, just a mirror big enough for you to walk through. The Spell of Major Creation can easily provide that, and you can cast it before you leave the Shuzens' domain, so you won't have to worry about suppressing your signature.

You turn that idea over in your head a couple of times, and then nod. It's a reasonable compromise.

When the car comes to a stop, you exit and let the guards - and the elemental, who's popped up again - know of your plan. One of the monsters takes out a radio and signals up to whoever's in charge, and after several minutes, a reply comes that Miss Akasha and "Mistress Kahlua" have both given their approval.

Ten minutes later, you have a tall mirror in a plain, freestanding metal frame, which will persist for hours and is more than stable enough to anchor the Spell of the Mirror Hideaway. Two minutes after that, you have a shrunken mirror, which you tuck into your pocket. Then you hug the elemental goodbye - several times - and step across the border of the demiplane, back into the "real" world.

And seven minutes after that, you're back in California, behind the abandoned gas station. You turn and start running away from the station and the highway, keeping a nice ki-assisted pace for twenty minutes or so, until you're far enough away that the potential fall-out of your next set of spells is very unlikely to affect or draw attention to one of your favorite teleportation sites.

You take the conjured mirror out of your pocket and set it on the ground, being mindful to position it so that it isn't directly reflecting the light of the late afternoon sun. Once you're satisfied, you cancel the Spell to Shrink an Item, follow that up with a suppressed, ritual casting of the Spell of the Mirror Hideaway, and then step inside your temporary new spellcasting chamber.

Given the minor but potential risks of the situation, Briar agrees to remain outside the mirror. Not only will this let her keep watch, but if worse comes to worst and you need to abandon your pocket plane, you can do so as quickly as possible and without worrying about your partner getting left behind.

Once across the threshold of the mirror, you pull out the incense burner and fill it with half of the remaining incense. You also take out your Hylian Glass Bottle, fill it with conjured water, and then spend a minute imbuing it with spiritually-charged magic energy, creating the holy water required for the greater ritual.

Once that's done, a quick cantrip ignites the incense, and after several minutes of allowing the fragrant smoke to rise, you begin.

The only information you strictly NEED to ask the Goddesses is the name of the afterlife Jasmine is currently destined for, but your mastery of Divination Magic entitles you to ask as many as fifteen questions, if you can get them in quickly enough. Of course, the longer you spend talking to the Goddesses, the more opportunity there is for another interruption to take place...

You've got around three-quarters of your maximum mana reserves still in the tank, a couple more hours before you're expected to be home, and a conjured mirror that could endure far longer than that if you really needed it to. As such, you see no reason not to go all-in setting up for the Spell of Communion, as you did the last time you cast it.

And so, for the second time in a quarter-hour or so, you cast the Spell of Major Creation, summoning a large block of pure white marble into existence at the back of your Mirror Hideaway. Next, you cast the Spell of Fabrication, magically carving the stone into a shape more pleasing to the Goddesses.

The end result depicts a trio of female figures wearing similar yet different styles of formal, flowing gowns. The one that stands to the right is visibly taller and more muscular, with ornaments that evoke fire adorning her hair, ears, and throat, and both hands raised to her left, as if holding or balancing something. The one that stands to the left is shorter and more traditionally ladylike, bears emblems of water, and the position of her arms mirrors her opposite number. Between them stands a shorter figure, child-sized compared to their "adult" stature, arms raised over her head as if holding something up, and leaning slightly towards the right, as if struggling not to tip over.

...that, is adorable.

I do not look like that.

No, Din's right. Tiny Farore doing her best is adorable.

Traitor!

As the finishing touch, you conjure three golden triangles in the space between the Goddesses' hands. Din's effigy holds steady the uppermost, Nayru's figure balances the lower left triangle, and the statue of Farore "struggles" not to "drop" the lower right one.

This is payback for Link, isn't it?

It's not the greatest example of statuary you've ever seen. The tallest is only about two feet high, there's a certain cartoonishness to the figures rather than truly life-like proportions, and the faces in particular are pretty vague - although from what you've seen in the Holy Books and can vaguely recall from the various temples Ganondorf visited (and usually ransacked), that last detail actually fits with Hyrulean traditions. The Golden Goddesses are either presented as largely faceless individuals or a trio of identical forms, as a kind of acknowledgement of the fact that no mortal has ever seen them in their true appearances, to say nothing of their ability to take on different guises at will.

All in all, though, you're pleased with the result.

Gained Stoneworking E (Plus) (Plus)

You also make a mental note to do more stone-carving, magical or mundane, before the time comes to raise that temple to the Goddesses you've been planning.

With the statues to serve as the focus of your temporary shrine, you set about consecrating them and the area, splashing a bit of your homemade holy water at the feet of the statues and on the glassy floor around them as you pray. Even with your spiritual studies, you don't yet have the proper authority to really hallow an area, and even if you did, you're lacking the rather pricy material components necessary to make such a thing last. But a temporary blessing upon a room this small is within your means.

By the time that's done, the smell of the burning incense has grown strong, the limited air of the room intensifying the scent beyond what it's really meant to be. You take that as a warning to get on with business, and sit down, legs crossed, as you begin the ritual meditation that will open your mind and soul to the words of the Goddesses.

After some thought, you decide that it would be a shame to waste this opportunity to ask the Goddesses for some additional information regarding Jasmine's current circumstances, as well as their thoughts on your plans to address the matter.

The first question you ask is, of course, which afterlife Jasmine is headed to.

"Diyu."

You don't recognize that name, but you make a note to investigate it when you get home.

Your second request is for the name of the psychopomp who SHOULD have been responsible for Jasmine.

I would also like to know this.

"Unknown-"

Damn.

Hmmm. Well, you were asking for pretty specific information about a "local" power structure, and for a pretty low level of it, at that. It's kind of like asking a corporate C.E.O. for the name of a random mailroom worker in a different company.

"-try again later."

I'm going to hold you to that, Wise Girl.

...okay, then. You'll do that.

Idly, you wonder if you should feel sorry for the entity in question.

For your third question, you simply ask the Goddesses what they think of Jasmine.

"Wasted potential," Din rumbles.

"Tragic innocence," Nayru sighs sadly.

"It should NOT have happened," Farore snarls.

A little spooked by that last one, you quickly follow up by asking their opinion of your plan to create a cloned body for Jasmine's soul to inhabit.

"Go for it!"

"Messy, but practical."

"Approved!"

And you follow that up by asking for their thoughts about your long-term plan to properly resurrect the girl.

"There will be trouble," Nayru cautions.

"Bring it on," her sisters chorus.

You swear you hear a groan.

Nayru's frustration with her sisters aside, you don't sense any of the interference that occurred the last time you cast this spell. Whether that's because of your current location, the outcome of the previous incident, or simply because you haven't asked for anything that Earth's ruling Powers consider sensitive information, you don't know.

You got answers to most of your pressing questions involving Jasmine's condition and fate; you see no reason to press your luck any further.

"Thank you for your time, ladies," you intone, bowing towards the shrine.

"You're welcome."

With that, the Spell of Communion ends.

You rise from your meditative pose, stretch, and mystically reach out and extinguish the incense smoldering in the burner. A mental twist of the Spell of Prestidigitation begins cycling hot, smoky air out of the device and cooler, less-smoky air back in, speeding up its cooling-off; after a minute of that, you reach out and gingerly touch a finger to the side of the bowl, which proves to be still warm, but not so hot you can't pick it up safely.

Pocketing the brazier - and reminding yourself as you do so to take it out and clean it when you get home - you turn to your conjured shrine and speak the words of dismissal, sending the statues of the Goddesses and the effigy of the Triforce back into the formless ether.

There is a slight, sighing chime as the golden triangles vanish.

You glance at the back of your hand, but no, the mark of the Triforce that sometimes shows up there is not to be seen.

Shaking your head, you turn and exit the extradimensional room.

By way of greeting, Briar says, "From the fact that you're walking out instead of running, I take it things went well?"

"Pretty well, yes," you agree, as you end the Spell of the Mirror Hideaway, and then dismiss the conjured mirror. "Anything out here I should be aware of?"

"Not unless you think that lizard over there is an agent of evil," your partner says, directing your attention to a horned lizard sitting on the sand a short distance away, regarding you indifferently.

All things considered, you take a moment to examine the animal with your enhanced visual senses - but no, it's really just a lizard. Probably attracted by the big shiny thing that appeared out of thin air in the middle of its territory, or maybe you're just mixing that up with dragons...?

"So what did the Goddesses have to say?" Briar asks.

"I'll tell you when we get home. Come on."

As it happens, you're back before dinner, and with time enough to add your vote for what tonight's meal will be.

While your father heads out to the car to make a take-out run, you get to work cleaning out the brazier. You're not quite certain if you're expected to return this to the Shuzens or keep it, but either way, best to clean the sweet-smelling ash and char out. While you work on scrubbing the interior of the urn, you catch Briar up on your little talk with the Goddesses.

After that's done, you take a minute to cast the Spell of the Page-Bound Epiphany, seeking information on what Diyu is.

...

"...Alex," Briar says, looking at the illustrations that appeared along with the text, "why does it look like you're reading up on the Underworld? The BAD parts, at that?"

"This is Diyu."

"...the place where Jasmine was supposed to be going."

"Yeah."

"...so, it's Hell?"

"Actually," you note, turning the page to find a list of titles, "it looks like it's a LOT of Hells."

Briar pauses, then admits, "I find that I suddenly have MUCH less of a problem with your plan to violate the natural order on her behalf."

Really, what more needs to be said?

Gained Chinese F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained History (Chinese) F (Plus)
Gained Theology (Buddhism) E
Gained Theology (Chinese) E

That evening, rather than try to work your way through the possibly intentionally difficult Vampyr, you crack open the written portion of Lu-sensei's gift and read through it. It's an interesting mix of topics, blending tips on gardening and a small botanical index with theory on and practical applications of ki use. You don't manage to finish it in a single sitting - mostly because you want to get in a couple of hours of work on Kahlua's Gauntlets before calling it a day - but what you take away from the first two-thirds or so of the book is quite useful.

Gained Herbalism E (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Knowledge (Ki) D (Plus)
Gained Meditation C (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

Following school, Lu-sensei's Monday afternoon class, and dinner, you finish reading the book, and on Tuesday, you take some time after school to put the information to good use. Picking out a spot in the-

-you take out the kunai, dig a small hole, and plant one of the Maple Seeds given to you by Akasha and the spirit of Castle Shuzen.

Gained Ki Gardening F (Plus)

And speaking of Lu-sensei, there was an interesting development after Wednesday's class...

The choice between planting the Maple Seed in a front yard that's open to the street or a back yard that's about twice as large and has a fence around it is fairly easy to make. You'll simply have more privacy in the back, which will spare you having to explain to people why you're sitting on the grass going all zen. Not to mention, if Ki Gardening turns out to cause plants to grow faster than normal, you'll have time to notice and do something to keep other people from noticing.

You don't think there's too much chance of that happening, though; at the very least, Lu-sensei's book doesn't mention the use of ki in gardening causing plants to shoot up overnight or anything like that. It just helps them grow better than they normally would, whether that's in an environment that isn't really suited for the species in question, when they're in competition with other plants, or under ideal conditions to begin with.

But then, you aren't your teacher, the Maple Seed you're testing this skill out on came from the Shuzens' demiplane (at the behest of the incarnate spirit of the place) instead of somewhere perfectly mundane, and you'll be using the technique on your Hyrulean garden going forward. There's plenty of potential in there for something weird to happen.

Really, better to take precautions from the outset, and hope you never need them.

You also make a point of checking with your parents about planting the Seed. They didn't object to you starting up your garden, but growing a tree is a rather different prospect.

As it happens, neither of your parents have a problem with you expanding your botanical interests, though your mother does suggest that you plant the Seed a good distance away from both your garden and the tree that's already established itself out back.

After school the next day, you return home to drop off your books and change into your training gear, then head out to Lu-sensei's for lessons. You and "Cousin Briar" arrive at the Five Elements Dojo about ten minutes early, but Cordelia and Amy are both there already, and Larry shows up only a minute later, chatting with two of the other students, John and Hank, the latter of whom has shed the "new kid" title. The last member of your class, Mike, gets in a bit late, apologizing to your teacher.

You take the time before lessons to let Lu-sensei know you've started making using of his gift. He nods at that, smiling, and asks you to stay after class for a few minutes.

The day's lesson is nothing special: reviewing the principles of the school; practicing stances and kata; and towards the end of the hour, a few rounds of sparring. It's all good and necessary practice, but even keeping ki use out of things, you can't help but notice that you aren't being pushed by this level of exercise.

As a matter of fact, when you and Briar follow Lu-sensei into his "office" after class, he comments on that.

"I'm thinking of moving you to the middle-school and advanced classes full-time, starting next year, Alex," your teacher says without preamble. "I'm sure you've noticed by now that the beginner-level classes aren't doing anything for you anymore; Cordelia's the only one your own age who can really keep up with you, skill-wise, and you've got enough of a pure physical advantage over her to make that a moot point."

"And Briar?" you ask.

"Has enough of a handle on the skills she gained from you that I could move her into class with the older students as well," the old man agrees. He turns to Briar and adds, "I don't think it would be a good idea to move you to the ki-using class, though."

Briar nods. "Yeah. Even if I could shoot energy blasts from my hands, they'd notice it wasn't human energy."

Your current classes with Lu Tze take place on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, from four to five-fifteen, with two hours in the advanced classes on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Shifting over to the physically-oriented weekly sessions with the middle-school group would have you training on Tuesdays and Thursdays; normally, there would also be a weekend class in there, but Lu-sensei is willing to count your attendance in the advanced classes against that.

One reason that you might consider NOT taking this offer is because you'd see your current training partners less often, but that's not much of a hardship when you go to school with all of them. Slightly more concerning is the fact that, if you "skip grades" like this, word will get around, and there will be certain expectations - both within the school and from outside of it - for you to keep on with the whole "martial arts prodigy" thing, and start attending other tournaments. Lu-sensei knows enough of your busy schedule and desire to keep your head down that he's held off on suggesting such a move before now, but your growth has hit the point where sticking to the kiddie leagues is going to start actively hindering your training before too much longer.

Taking all of that into account, what's your call?

While you've got a few minutes to speak with your teacher, is there anything you'd like to ask him?

You competed in the World Martial Arts Tournament at age eight, and placed first in your age division on the same trip.

You've spent a significant portion of your weekends and vacation time since then visiting friends who enjoy trying to bounce you off the walls with their fists or training weapons, while you return the favor in kind.

You've even relied on your training for your own survival and that of others, as far back as the Tournament and on several subsequent occasions.

From the moment you first set foot in Lu Tze's dojo three years ago, you've been climbing ever-higher up the mountain of martial ability and achievement.

Why would you stop now?

Final approval lies with your parents - who are, after all, the ones paying for these lessons - but after everything they saw at your birthday party, you don't think they'll have any objections to you continuing to advance your skills at hand-to-hand combat.

Back at your birthday party, you had a chat with Lu Tze about his grand-niece, Yumiko, and how things had been going with his efforts to find the mystically multitalented teenage girl reliable tutors. At the time, it was going well, but for certain practical constraints on your teacher's ability to travel to and from Japan to visit his sister's daughter's family.

Being the dutiful student that you are, you had no problem offering to provide transportation free of cost, but Lu-sensei hasn't taken advantage of that offer as yet. Considering that it's currently the middle of the Golden Week in Japan, and hence would have been an ideal time for him to visit, that lack of activity has you slightly concerned - and so, you ask if there's been a change in his family matters over the last month.

"Hm? No, nothing like that. I did think about paying Yumi's family a visit for a couple of days, but her husband managed to book them a three-day stay at a nice hot springs resort. It covered the only days I could arrange to be out of town this week, and he'd arranged it months in advance - as a Christmas present, as a matter of fact - so I didn't have the heart to spoil things for them." He pauses. "I should definitely like to visit them this summer, though."

That will be fine by you, as long as you get that trip to the other School(s) of the Five Elements in as well. Speaking of which, you wonder if the master(s) of the other School(s) would be interested in providing training in the spiritual side of the school - which your teacher is self-admittedly poor in - in exchange for you using your magic on their behalf.

Lu Tze frowns. "Which spells were you thinking of offering to trade?"

You don't even know yet which of the other branches of the School of Five Elements you'll be visiting this summer, much less what sort of condition their dojos and related buildings are in, or even what architectural styles were used. That said, you have the spells - and some of the experience - necessary to do quite a lot of different jobs, and to get them done in a hurry, so you see no problem in taking advantage of any fixer-upper opportunities that present themselves. The money and time saved on such work should make for an attractive offer, assuming Lu-sensei's peers are earning the same sort of money from teaching that he seems to.

...not that you know what your master's income is like, but based on what your parents pay him for your lessons and the number of students you know he has, it's not a particularly large amount.

Similarly, your studies have reached the point - not only in depth of power, but breadth of styles - where you are capable of laying down some interesting wards. Nothing like the one Ambrose set up around your house, admittedly, but even a common Magic Circle Against Evil, scaled up to affect an entire property, would be extremely useful.

While you are a little concerned about the idea of leaving active traces of your magical signature laying around, it's a risk that you're going to have to get used to if you mean to do business as a manufacturer of magic items. There are precautions you can and have taken to reduce the likelihood that someone will be able to ID your handiwork, like working the Spell of the Magic Aura, the Spell of Nondetection, or the Spell to Mask Dweomers into your products to obscure their energies, but nothing that can eliminate the danger entirely.

In the end, it's simply one of the costs of doing business.

Speaking of costs, the other reason you're slightly hesitant about offering your services as a warder is the pricetag such projects would carry. You blew through thousands of dollars' worth of reagents this year, just making things for the people you know now, and your remaining funds are... well, they're better than they were last week at this time, thanks to the Shuzens' down-payment on Kahlua's Gauntlets, but they're still not great. And permanent structural wards won't come cheap.

But they're something that is within your power to provide, which people in the know can be reasonably expected to be interested in, and so you don't dismiss the idea out of hand.

After all, (re)construction and magical warding are both skills you could stand to practice more, since you're going to need them when you finally build that permanent shrine-slash-temple to the Goddesses you've had on your long-term "To Do" list.

You inform Lu-sensei of the options you're willing to trade, and he strokes his chin.

"I can see either working, though it will depend on the state of affairs at the schools we visit."

"Speaking of other schools, Lu-sensei," you add, "how are things going with Grandmaster Wen?"

"He is currently giving me a refresher course in the spiritual side of the school, in exchange for chili and other exotic foods," your master replies dryly. "I've also gotten him to agree to start as a 'guest speaker' this fall; in exchange, he wants me to summon him to speak with the heads of the other branches of the School. Incidentally, it turns out that I can only do that for an hour a day, each day. Is that normal?"

Considering that your master's minimal level of magical talent means he'd be powering each use of the Heart of Wen entirely off of the Heart itself, and that he's doing so in an environment like Sunnydale, which not only lacks the welcoming spiritual ambiance of Bali Ha'i, but also has a Hellmouth to press down on guests from other realms? Yeah, an hour a day sounds about right.

That's going to limit how many people Wen can offer instruction to, though. Especially with the matter of finding time for his "payment."

Your mind flashes back to Bali Ha'i, and the tale the Grandmaster spun for you and Lu-sensei about his own life and the founding of the School of Five Elements, over a bowl of curry.

...why do you have the feeling you're going to be seeing a lot more of that in the future?

Part of you wants to ask Lu-sensei if he has any more books on ki he would be willing to lend you. The rest of you reminds that part that you're barely halfway through the books you got for your birthday - less so than that, really, considering you've got a fair number of Vampyr's dry, dense pages left to work through - and that you really ought to read all of your presents at least once before you go asking for more.

Besides, now that you've been commissioned to enchant Kahlua's Gauntlets, your already-limited free time has shrunk even further.

On that note, you ask Lu-sensei if there's anything else he wishes to discuss, and when he replies in the negative, you and Briar excuse yourselves and head home. As you anticipated, when you tell your parents about Lu-sensei's offer to advance your training and your own desire to do so, they don't have any real objections. In another lifetime, or even just earlier in this one, your mother might have worried about you getting hurt from sparring with older kids, but after seeing the sort of opponents you routinely face for fun and friendship, much less the kind of enemies you can take on when you REALLY get going, she's a lot less concerned.

As for your father, he's all for it, and even more so when you inform him that the fees won't change.

Zelda makes adorable kung fu noises and asks when she can start taking classes. Your parents tell her that if she behaves herself until her next birthday-

"But that's forever!"

-then she can start going. Lu-sensei only teaches the under six class once a week, so there won't be any real problems with it.

Do you tell your friends about your impending promotion from the beginners' class, or would you rather let them find out when it happens?

With typical nine-year-olds, one member of the group receiving preferential treatment from a well-liked authority figure is almost guaranteed to inspire feelings of envy or anger among the rest.

"Well, it's about time," Cordelia huffs.

Amy nods in agreement. "Yeah, I was starting to wonder if Lu-sensei was holding you back as a punishment or something."

"Congrats, man," Larry adds, giving you a pat on the back.

You and your friends are not exactly typical.

The four of you - plus Briar - are taking your lunch break out on the front steps of the school. This is one of the prime spots on the grounds for those who want to eat outdoors, being convenient to reach from pretty much any class and granting a similar ease of access to most places, and normally, a bunch of fourth-graders would have claimed it.

That your little band can do so without argument, even from those of your seniors who will be moving on to middle school this coming fall, is a testament to the level of respect the lot of you have come to command among your peers. Cordelia is without question the Queen Bee of the school, and can dissuade most of the girls and a fair number of the more timid or just polite boys with little more than a glance. You and Larry get along pretty well with a significant number of the guys: honesty compels you to admit Larry is more personally involved with your peers on the various school and community teams than you are; but at the same time, you have a better rapport with the bookworms.

As for the odd would-be troublemaker, the most it takes to convince them to look elsewhere to make nuisances of themselves is a stern look, a bit of harmless looming, and maybe a word or two.

"What about you, Briar?" Amy asks your partner. "Are you changing classes, too, or staying with us?"

"I'm going to keep an eye on this guy," Briar replies. "At least when he's sparring with the older kids who are still figuring out what ki is."

"And the reason you're not joining the advanced class yourself to watch him full-time is...?" Cordelia trails off.

"A little too much chance somebody would notice I'm not human and jump straight to 'shoot it with energy blasts' for my tastes," Briar explains wryly. "If we lived somewhere nicer, where 'non-human' didn't automatically mean 'demon' for most people in the know, it'd be a different story-"

"Unless they knew enough to recognize you as Fae, but not enough to distinguish between one of the Fair Folk and one of the Little Folk using a magical disguise," you point out, before taking a bite of your sandwich.

"-unless that happened," Briar concedes with a mid-air bob. "Which is really just another reason not to tempt Fate."

"Speaking of tempting Fate," Cordelia pipes up, "what are you up to this weekend, Alex?"

You make a sound of acknowledgment, but hold up one hand to ask for time while you finish chewing, swallow, and take a quick sip from your thermos. "I have a trip to Karakura on Saturday, and another appointment with the Shuzens' on Sunday."

Cordy frowns. "Didn't you just visit Vampire Princess Barbie last weekend?"

Despite the name-calling, she's more puzzled than annoyed. It's true that you don't usually drop in on the same group of friends two weekends in a row, unless circumstances arrange for everyone else to be busy those days - which has happened a few times since you started hopping continents.

This time is an exception, even to the normal exceptions. You don't feel that it's necessary or even wise to bring up either the Fuyuki Grail War or the business with Akua's dead little sister with your friends, but Cordy has that look on her face that says she'll push for answers if she thinks you're being evasive.

While you do wish that Cordelia would stop referring to Kahlua this way, you already discussed the matter with her back at your party, and you don't really feel like rehashing it now. Rather than get into it, you explain that you're not going to Castle Shuzen this weekend to hang out with Kahlua, but rather because you have a meeting scheduled with her parents and Miss Akasha.

And also Ambrose, Lu-sensei, and possibly Akkiko, though you don't mention their participation.

Cordelia regards you suspiciously. "Did you break something of theirs?"

"Why is that the first thing that comes to your mind?" you demand.

You are met by three dry looks.

"...no respect," you mutter. "And no, I didn't break any of their stuff."

This is completely true. You overloaded Akua's ward, and you used Akasha's Earrings as a spell component with her consent; neither counts as breaking the property of any of the three adult vampires.

"Are you doing some work for them, then?" Cordelia ventures.

"...actually, yes," you reply, after taking a moment to feel around with your exotic senses and be sure there are no potential eavesdroppers in your immediate vicinity. "I started enchanting Kahlua's Gauntlets a couple of weeks ago."

Now that you think of it, the Shuzens would probably appreciate a progress report, just to be sure your work is on schedule - which it is - and that you aren't wasting their money - which you aren't.

Cordelia's frown returns at the mention of your gift to Kahlua, but before she can say anything, Amy speaks up.

"To do what, exactly?" the young witch asks with eager curiosity. "And can I watch? Or help?"

While it is entirely possible for two or practitioners to combine their efforts in item-crafting, you'd prefer for you and Amy both to get some actual practice at cooperative crafting before you tried applying it to a project you're doing on commission, much less one that you've already sunk a couple of weeks' worth of time and materials into.

As for Amy watching, though...

That aside, your explanation of the features you're adding to the Warrior-Princess Gauntlets leads into a technical discussion of item-crafting that quickly leaves Cordelia and Larry in the dust, and eats up most of your remaining lunch hour.

That evening and the Friday following, you split your time between the aforementioned crafting, struggling through another chapter of Vampyr, and getting a start on the book of Kitsune Legends that Hayashi Asamu gave you. As the name suggests, it's a collection of stories involving fox youkai, and it's been written in a rather interesting manner.

Each chapter of the book is devoted to a single legend, and divided into three parts: the first of these tells the story from a human perspective; the second recounts the kitsune version of the tale; and the last third provides historical references and a purely academic analysis of the matter.

Gained Cryptozoology B (kitsune only)
Gained History (Japanese) F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

It'll take you a few more days to get through the entire book, but it makes for interesting reading.

Come Saturday, you attend the advanced class at Lu-sensei's, and afterwards head home for a shower and a change of clothes before you leave for Karakura.

You caution Amy that, in light of your busy schedule, you've been working on Kahlua's Gauntlets at very odd hours, a state of affairs that simply isn't going to change. This means that unless she starts staying over at your place constantly for the next few weeks - something you can't see your parents or hers going for - she's going to miss a lot of the work, on top of what you've already got done that she didn't see.

That said, if she's willing and able to make the time, and keeps in mind that she IS missing large parts of the project - and hence, shouldn't try to emulate it without further instruction and practice - then you don't have any real issue with her sitting in on your crafting sessions.

Amy nods. "I'll ask Mom when I get home."

You make a note to speak to your parents about it after school as well... and then you pause, wondering if you should invite your mother to join Amy for the impromptu lessons in item crafting.

...on second thought, that wouldn't be a very productive use of anyone's time. Your mother's made some progress in tapping her limited magical talent, thanks to those twice-a-month study session sleepovers you and Amy have been having, as well as the odd "workshop" with Mrs. Madison, but even after several months, her sense for magic is limited, and she can only manage a simple Spell of Light two attempts out of five - and then only through ritual casting.

It's going to take a lot more time and effort before your mother will have the skills to gain anything useful from watching you enchant something.

As it happens, Mrs. Madison is all for the idea of Amy getting a look at crafting methods beyond simple potion-brewing and the like - in fact, she calls and asks if you'd have room for one more.

While the idea of an expanded sleepover is vaguely amusing, you don't have the guest beds for it. Instead, you end up agreeing to shift your schedule around a bit over the next few days, so that you have a few hours free to craft on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

This actually leads to your mother joining the group on Saturday, but as you expected, she's pretty much lost within the first few minutes of watching you work. Even with input from you, Briar, and the Madisons, she just doesn't have the necessary foundation skills or knowledge to follow the work, and ends up excusing herself before much longer.

You call a break towards lunchtime, after which the Madisons leave, and you head off to Lu-sensei's.

Later that afternoon, you return to Karakura. Seeing as how your last arrival spooked a passing local, you spoke with the Kurosakis and got permission to use their backyard as a landing zone. No one is out here, and the back fence-wall-whatever is high enough to obscure your emergence from thin air, though it definitely helps that your teleportation spells don't include any flashy light shows.

After a quick look around to make sure neither of the neighbors are looking over the fence - they aren't - you relax, walk up to the rear door, and knock.

There's a brief pause, and you see a few curious faces appear in various rear windows before someone - Masaki, to be specific - opens the back door.

"Sorry about that, Alex," the lady of the house apologizes sheepishly. "We sort of forgot you were planning to come in through the back."

You wave it off as a completely understandable response; you certainly don't expect the people that you know to knock on your back door. Putting that aside as you kick off your shoes and enter the house, you ask Masaki how she's been feeling since absorbing the Heart of Spirit.

"Better, but also frustrated," she sighs. "Daily check-ups at Kisuke's get old, fast, and then there was Ryuuken's reaction..." She trails off, shaking her head. "Long story short, I'm getting just a bit tired of being poked and prodded by doctors and scientists."

You're not sure how to respond to that.

Actually, you do know what you want to say.

"Who's Ryuuken, ma'am?" you ask, not recognizing the name.

"Do you remember my mentioning my Uncle Souken during your last visit?"

"Yes."

"Ryuuken is his son."

...which, given that Quincy powers are hereditary, means he would also be one of them. And Masaki did say that she was going to get in touch with her uncle regarding the unexpected discoveries made on your last visit, so it makes sense that she might have run into his son in the process, or sought him out independently.

Speaking of those discoveries, as you enter the Kurosaki kitchen, you ask Masaki if there's been any new information about that Sealed King character.

Her wince does not bode well, and her reply - accompanied by a glance at her children - is a hushed, terse, "We'll talk about that later."

Ominous.

There isn't time for further discussion of the matter, as the younger Kurosakis immediately call out to Briar, while Ichigo waves you over to join him. You politely pass on Masaki's offer of breakfast, but accept a glass of water as you take a seat next to Ichigo.

A few minutes pass in idle conversation and the chatter of little girls - the twins are looking forward to seeing Navi again - before the doorbell rings and announces the arrival of Akkiko and Tatsuki... and three unexpected extras.

Ishida Souken is a visibly old man, albeit one who can still move easily enough. His hair, thick mustache, and the patch of beard on his chin are all solidly grey, while the eyes behind his thin-framed glasses are a darker shade of the same color. The lines on his face suggest a man who laughed much in his lifetime, a trait emphasized by the way he smiles as he greets Masaki, but you don't miss the distinct aura of spiritual power hanging around him. Where Masaki's power is muddled by her links to the rest of her family, Urahara's complex bindings, and now the essence of the Heart Container as well, Souken's is completely clear. He's wearing a white uniform that instantly reminds you of Ichigo's costume from last Halloween, though Souken has a brown tunic pulled on over it.

Behind and to one side of Souken is a woman around Masaki's age, with long black hair and a violet kimono. She is introduced as Ishida Kanae, Souken's daughter-in-law, and she, too, has that mark of Quincy power - though once again, it's distinct from either Masaki's or Souken's. Mrs. Ishida's spiritual energies aren't as strong as theirs, but more than that, while she lacks the comparatively muddled feeling of Masaki's power, she's also without the clarity of Souken's. It gives her aura a slightly washed-out feeling, closer to that of an ordinary spiritually-aware human.

Finally, standing proudly at the old man's side, is a boy Ichigo's age, with neatly-combed black hair, glasses, and that same white uniform, only without the "overcoat" his grandfather wears. This is Ishida Uryuu, Souken's grandson and Kanae's son, and a second cousin to the Kurosaki children, if you're tracking the overall relationship correctly.

The way Uryuu glares at Ichigo from behind his glasses and gets scowled at in return suggests that all is not well between the branches of this family tree, or at least between certain twigs on said branches. Uryuu doesn't seem to have a problem with the twins, who wave happily at him, or with Masaki, whose smiling greeting he accepts with the stiff-backed, not-meeting-the-eyes, slightly red-cheeked manner of a boy trying not to let on that a certain person has him terribly flustered.

Ichigo's uncharacteristic scowl intensifies.

In spiritual terms, the impression you get of Uryuu's power is much closer to his grandfather's aura than his mother's, though he is quite a bit weaker than either of them - certainly not a patch on Ichigo's ridiculous reserves. That said, the young Quincy's clearly been training to control his abilities, and for quite a bit longer than Ichigo has if you're any authority on the subject.

As the introductions are made, Souken apologizes to you for his family's intrusion, explaining that the matter you stumbled across is something that concerns all of them: him because he knows who and what the Sealed King actually is, as well as the details of that eerie song; and his daughter-in-law and grandson because they, like Masaki and the Kurosaki children, are potentially affected by it.

"Ryuuken not coming after all?" Isshin asks idly.

"Unfortunately, there was a situation at the hospital that required his attention," Souken replies.

Isshin's nonverbal grunt doesn't sound entirely convinced, but he doesn't pursue the matter.

Incidentally, during all of this, the youngest Ishida has been regarding you with a mix of curiosity, suspicion, and disbelief. At least some of that, you think, is due to Briar's presence, but the bulk of it is aimed at you personally.

The youngest Ishida isn't the first person you've met who was bewildered by or suspicious of whatever he can sense in your aura, and you honestly doubt he'll be the last. As such, you let his not-so-guarded looks in your direction pass without comment.

You also forebear to comment on the low-level animosity that exists between Uryuu and Ichigo. They're allowed to feel and think whatever they want towards each other, and they don't owe you any explanations - at least not until their issues start getting in the way of your business. If that happens, you'll most certainly demand some answers, but until then.

Besides, you can always ask Ichigo about it some other time.

Not too long after that, the Kurosakis start cleaning up the remains of breakfast, with Isshin and Ichigo being tapped for dishwasher duty, while Briar and Tatsuki join Masaki in bustling the twins upstairs to clean up and change out of their pajamas. Akkiko takes over making idle talk with the older Ishidas, while Uryuu remains silent and continues to regard everyone else in the room as vaguely suspect.

Nice guy.

In due course, your expanded group sets out for the Urahara Shop. A little surprisingly, the newcomers don't make the trip any slower than it was the last time. Souken proves very spritely for a man of his obvious years, his movements eased by a form of Spiritual Enhancement that you have to look rather closely to catch a glimpse of; considering how staring at the old man would probably set off his prickly grandson, you content yourself with the one glance, and thereafter rely on what your non-visual Spiritual Sense tells you.

Gained Spiritual Concealment C (Plus)
Gained Spiritual Enhancement D (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

Mrs. Ishida similarly has no trouble keeping the pace despite her traditional Japanese attire. She spends most of the walk chatting amicably with Akkiko and Masaki about people, places, and events that don't mean a great deal to you, although you do pick out a tidbit or two here and there.

Gained Local Knowledge (Karakura) E (Plus) (Plus)

To all appearances, the ladies seem to be nothing more than three ordinary housewives who've met up for a chance to trade gossip, herding the children along before them - the others' as well as their own - with a collective ease that is both impressive and mildly unsettling to behold.

For your part, you make a point of hanging back with Isshin and Souken, so as not to get wrangled into that.

Ichigo and Tatsuki join Uryuu in shooting unfriendly looks your way.

You arrive at Urahara Shop to find the manager waiting outside to greet you, all but vibrating in place with excitement and/or impatience. Despite his obvious wish to get on with the day's SCIENCE, Urahara still takes the time to greet Souken with a certain air of familiarity, and also to introduce himself to Ishida Kanae and Uryuu, neither of whom appears to have met him before.

While Kanae is amicable enough, Uryuu takes one look at the man in the bucket hat and cranks his suspicion levels up to eleven.

Honestly, you can't blame him for it. Suspicious shady shopkeeper is suspicious and shady.

Once again, everyone gradually makes their way down into the hidden underground chamber, where Tessai, the two resident kids, and Yoruichi are already waiting. You're surprised to see the big man down here, but when you inquire about his presence, Tessai adjusts his glasses and says there was no way he could miss out on the opportunity to get in first-hand observations of a completely foreign system of spiritual magic twice in a row.

"I also took the precaution of re-wiring the system a bit when we replaced the burned out warding elements," he adds, proudly patting the top of the computer console that is just sort of sitting there on one of the rocks. "I can monitor the entire shop from here."

"At least until the next time something explodes," Yoruichi notes.

Uryuu does a double-take. "Did that cat just talk?"

"I'm sure you're just hearing things," the black cat assures the boy.

"The cat is talking," Uryuu says blankly. "Just... what."

"Yeah," Ichigo sighs, abandoning mutual dislike for a moment in the face of a universe that doesn't make sense. "He does that."

Souken laughs heartily and gives his grandson a pat on the back. "Best get used to it, Uryuu," he advises. "It's a wide and wondrous world out there, and talking cats are honestly among the least of the strange things you'll encounter in it."

"You mean there's MORE of them?"

Man, if he's having trouble with that, you wonder how he'll react when you summon Rho?

On that note, you get on with setting up for your summoning ritual, once again conjuring an array out of pure mana.

Uryuu stares as the glowing lines and symbols form on the ground. "That, is NOT spirit power," he says.

His mother seems almost as startled, and Souken starts talking to the two of them calmly about magic. You listen with one ear as you get on with summoning the firebird, who appears in his usual burst of divine birdsong.

"That time again, is it?" Rho inquires, looking around.

You swear one of the combed-down hairs on Uryuu's head goes "toing" at this point.

While Briar takes over for you in introducing Rho to the Ishidas, you work the Sending to alert Navi that you're ready for her to join you. When the Great Fairy materializes ten minutes later, she has a large book tucked under one arm - not a bundle of scrolls made from tree-bark, a sheaf of giant leaves, or anything else of the sort, but an actual book with off-white paper pages and leather binding. Navi hands the heavy-looking tome off to Urahara, who visibly has to fight down an urge to crack it open and start reading right then and there.

Even Souken is startled by Navi's arrival, but he manages to set aside his surprise and politely introduce himself and his family to the Great Fairy.

Once that's done, Urahara and Tessai bring you, Rho, and Navi up to speed on their observations of Masaki's condition and its progress since she absorbed the Heart of Spirit. The report is good: her soul's healing has picked up a bit, both in rate and in terms of quality, with some of the damaged areas showing signs of improvement; there's been no undue stress on the various binds and wards on her soul; and while the sudden power-boost to her spiritual abilities has resulted in a need for some re-training, Masaki has that well in hand, with Souken, Kanae, and the absent Ryuuken lending their assistance in the matter.

All of that being said, Urahara's best long-term projections are that the Heart of Spirit, by itself, won't be enough to fully repair the damage to Masaki's soul.

But you'd already expected that, and the question now becomes what decisions the Kurosakis have made regarding paying Navi for her help healing the remaining damage...

On your last visit to Karakura, you presented the Kurosakis with a number of options for paying Navi for her assistance, most of which involved some degree of magical assistance on your part. One of the ones that didn't was acquiring a suitable offering from Gen's to trade for the Great Fairy's help, and they finally managed to make the time to look into that, taking a day-trip into Tokyo last Wednesday to visit the shop. They (somewhat reluctantly) dragged Akkiko along with them, since she actually buys the sort of stuff Gen deals in on a regular basis, through local and nearby merchants of various levels of reliability and supernatural awareness, and hence could provide advice on quality and pricing.

As it happens, you last stopped by Gen's the day before the Kurosakis and Akkiko visited. His business has been slow enough of late - and your own schedule sufficiently-packed, especially now that you're enchanting Kahlua's Gauntlets - that you hadn't planned on going back until some time next week. You also hadn't mentioned the possibility of the Karakura residents turning up to your partner, due to the whole mystical obligation business.

It may seem counterproductive, but the more the Kurosakis lean on your name, the more they'll end up owing you for your help finding a suitable payment for Navi. Things are touchy enough on that front, given that you're the one who directed them to Gen's in the first place, to say nothing of how a non-trivial portion of the old man's current stock is there entirely because of your summoning efforts. Rather than letting your business partner know that the Kurosakis are associates of yours and risk biasing him in their favor, you let their introduction - and the possibility of your name being dropped - happen entirely naturally.

From what Masaki says, your name did come up, but only after they explained that they were looking for a way to pay a Great Fairy. As you'd expected, Gen became VERY interested in hearing how the Kurosakis met Navi, which was when they admitted that the "helpful young sorcerer" who introduced them was you.

"There was some, uh, histrionic wailing and shouting about the unfairness of the universe at that point," Isshin admits sheepishly. "Is that guy always that dramatic, or does he just like fairies that much?"

"A little from Column A, a little from Column B," you admit.

You spoke with Gen about your birthday on your very first visit to his shop after the party, later in the week that it took place, and explained the reasoning behind your decision not to invite him. He was quite understanding about it, agreeing that if he'd been in your place, he wouldn't have invited a man of his advanced years, either, particularly when he wasn't needed to chaperone a much younger relative. Gen also admitted that even if you had asked him to attend, he probably would have sent his regrets and stayed home. He's old enough to be set in his ways and habits, which do not include long-distance travel to the forgotten magical corners of the world, much less the possibility of catching a ride with the land-going equivalent of a ferryman.

"There is tempting Fate," the old man said sagely, "and then there is smacking Fate across the face with a wet fish and claiming it hasn't got the guts."

Of course, that was before you broached the subject of your guest list, and just how much of it was composed of fairies.

Gen was... mildly put out to have missed out on the chance to meet another Great Fairy, which is one of the reasons why you were sure he'd ask to meet Navi for helping out the Kurosakis - which, as predicted, he did.

The good news is that Gen was able to round up a few of his top-shelf items that he, the Kurosakis, and Akkiko all agreed would be worthy of Navi's consideration. Knowing the stock of the shop as you do, you aren't surprised by the selections that are now named, such as the baby's laugh one of Gen's clients bartered with a couple of months back-

Verified as coming from the firstborn child of that family, though not as said child's first laugh.

-the sealed and "frozen" cherry blossom harvested from the first tree to bloom this spring-

But not the FIRST blossom from that particular tree; it's labeled as #108, which Gen considered lucky.

-or a flask of water from a certain underground pool, where another Great Fairy once resided. This one wasn't actually in stock, but Gen said he would personally go and fetch it.

Incidentally, Gen's last Great Fairy's Tear isn't among the items named. This only makes sense, because while it's easily the most potent and precious item in the entire shop, it's also tremendously undervalued in trade with an individual capable of making more of the things whenever she feels the need.

The bad news is that, even if the Kurosakis were to go all-in and purchase all of the items Gen suggested - which they could do - it wouldn't be quite enough to cover Navi's asking price. For that reason, they're considering undertaking a quest or a Trial to make up the difference.

You've already said your piece in the matters of transportation and/or combat assistance, and see no need to rehash things; you simply remind Isshin and Masaki that your offers stand.

Do you have any questions or thoughts at this point?

By this point in the proceedings, the younger kids have wandered off and started playing a game of hopscotch, and it is against this backdrop of skipping, rhyming, and chatter that Souken steps forward to share what he knows about the song your magic called up in connection to the marks on Masaki's soul.

The old man begins by saying that the song is indeed the one Masaki vaguely remembered, and that your translation from the old language is accurate. As to what it actually MEANS, that takes some context.

The Sealed King is a figure who appears in the oldest Quincy lore, which credits him as being the progenitor of their bloodline and the source of their powers. The story goes that he was born into a small village in some remote, forgotten corner of Europe, a blind, deaf, mute, paralyzed child that possessed the power to heal the wounds of those that touched him, which also granted them the earliest forms of Quincy abilities. The people quickly came to worship the boy as an incarnation of their god, and gave him the same name: Yhwach.

And now we have a Name.

Even with Yhwach's miraculous healing powers, life was difficult in that place and time - which Souken states is recorded as "a thousand years ago," to your complete lack of surprise - and even those healed by the young incarnation died sooner rather than later. As this happened, the spiritual power that Yhwach had shared out returned to him, taking some of his beneficiaries' energy with it and so making him stronger; over time, he began to hear, see, and move like any other child, his powers growing ever greater. In due course, he became the leader of his village and started to conquer and rule the surrounding lands, forming an "Empire of Light."

Centuries later, still ruled by the seemingly-immortal, ever more powerful Yhwach, this "Lichtreich" went to war with the Soul Society, only for Yhwach to fall in battle with the enemy commander and be carried from the field by his surviving elite guards, who disappeared with his body. With their god-king's apparent death and the vanishing of his inner circle, the morale of the remaining Quincies shattered, and the Empire was destroyed.

"Yet it was not a war of extermination," Souken muses. "Not then. Yhwach's death and the breaking of the Lichtreich as a military threat was enough to satisfy the Shinigami; they allowed our ancestors to survive, and returned to their tasks of shepherding lost souls and slaying Hollows. Many Quincy abandoned and forgot their heritage out of fear and grief, while others held on to their skills and ways, rejecting only the king who had first created and then failed them. But some - the most fiercely loyal, the most embittered by the loss of the war - claimed that Yhwach and his Sternritter yet lived, somewhere, and would one day return to overthrow the Soul Society and restore the Quincy to greatness."

"And that's where the song came from," Masaki concludes.

Souken nods. "A legacy of hatred and violence past, an omen of future suffering to come... and we turned it into a children's song." The old man shakes his head with a wry smile.

Gained History (Ancient Earth) E (Plus)

The elder Ishida adds that, following the war, the surviving Quincies came under threat from other enemies that had previously been kept at bay by Yhwach's personal power and the vigilance of the Lichtreich's armed forces - most notably, the Hollows. With Yhwach gone and his proud armies reduced to scattered bands of ragged survivors, many of the weaker and untrained Quincy civilians fell to the cannibalistic phantoms, giving rise to the culture that trained all its members to fight and kill Hollows, and to fear, mistrust, and hate the Shinigami.

"In hindsight, that was a mistake," Souken sighs. "I can hardly blame our ancestors for wishing to protect themselves and seek vengeance for their fallen loved ones, but devoting our entire way of life to hunting and killing Hollows... well, as my son is fond of reminding me, it is no way to make a proper living."

Kanae frowns slightly at that. "Father," she murmurs.

Souken holds up one hand, forestalling his daughter-in-law's disapproval as he states, "I did not say he was wrong, Kanae. If anything, history proves him correct. Our ancestors dedicated themselves wholly to a new war, when they should have been recovering and rebuilding from the previous one... and so, we never truly did recover as a people, only spiralled further into decline."

Has this rather depressing tale prompted any thoughts or questions in you?

As you listen to Souken's tale, several pieces of this spiritual puzzle fall into place. The common markings on the souls of the various Quincy and Quincy-descendants gathered here are obviously Yhwach's doing, and that unexpected flash when Masaki absorbed the Heart of Spirit Isshin won was just as clearly Yhwach's power reacting - and possibly about to DO something, given that Din felt the need to warn it to behave.

Combine that with the prophetic verses your Divination Magic pulled up that foretold the revival of the Sealed King, Souken's earlier statement that the song affects the lives of the women and children in the Kurosaki and Ishida families, and the account of the Quincy progenitor being healed and empowered by the spiritual energies he absorbed, and one fact seems clear: Yhwach isn't truly dead.

You even have a nasty suspicion as to why that might be so.

Spiritual powers arise from the soul, so from a certain point of view, every time the young Yhwach healed and empowered someone, he was handing out a bit of his own soul. You can't explain how an INFANT managed to pull off something like that, much less without killing or permanently maiming himself in the process - unless of course Yhwach was a conscious reincarnation like yourself - but it would account for Yhwach's ability to take those powers back after the recipient's death, as the smaller fragments of his soul would naturally be drawn towards the greater whole. At the same time, you know that Quincy powers are hereditary, which means that Yhwach's soul-fragments were self-replicating - though clearly not perfectly so, or else the marks on the Kurosaki children's souls would be far more developed than they are - and that every Quincy alive has a direct spiritual connection to their King.

If that's the case, and there were enough Quincy still alive when Yhwach fell in battle, his soul wouldn't have moved on. The collective pull of all the other fragments of his essence still attached to living souls would have been enough to anchor the King to the mortal plane - not unlike a certain young vampire girl whose not-quite-ghost you've been looking into reviving, except that Yhwach's body apparently survived. Given his proclaimed ability to use the power of his soul to repair damage to his body, all his followers would have had to do was get his spirit back into its mortal shell, and then keep it somewhere safe while it healed. Failing that, Yhwach's soul sounds like it ought to be able to manifest without a body, whether as a pure spiritual entity or one seriously overpowered ghost.

Honestly, the whole set-up reminds you of certain deeply unpleasant theories in the field of Necromantic Magic, specifically those that relate to the creation and revivification of the mighty undead spellcasters known as liches. Ganondorf was aware of the mechanics of the process - probably even more so than you can consciously recall, without digging into those memories you've chosen to wall off - but he never bothered performing it on himself, having Power enough to employ superior methods of immortality and revival.

You voice your theory to the group, leaving out the personally-sensitive and just plain nasty details.

"That is a disturbing train of thought you're on, Alex," Urahara notes with a look of discomfort.

"All the more so because of how probable it is," Tessai rumbles uneasily.

The man with the bucket hat makes a sound of unhappy agreement.

Isshin shakes his head. "I don't buy it. If this guy was such bad news that the Soul Society actually had to go to war against him, they wouldn't have been sloppy enough to let his soul just slip away to do who knows what."

"It was a thousand years ago," Urahara reminds his friend. "Methods of monitoring the flow of souls back then were limited mostly to individual spiritual senses, and a few tracking kido. Using those to follow the passage of a single soul between the realms, particularly in the middle of a battle where multiple high-level Shinigami were throwing reiatsu around and powerful Quincies were ripping reishi from the air?" He shakes his head. "I wouldn't want to try it."

"Okay, but what about today? If there really is a super-powerful Quincy sleeping away the centuries and absorbing the power of other Quincies whenever they die, why hasn't the modern Soul Society found him?"

"Well, first of all, they'd have to know that there was something to look for. Considering this is the first time we're hearing about this 'Yhwach' character," Urahara says, as he gestures at himself, Tessai, Yoruichi, and Isshin, "I think we can safely say that knowledge of him is pretty heavily restricted. Senior Captains and up, at least, possibly even Captain-Commander's eyes only. And they aren't the people running the scans."

"There is also the matter of modern Quincies being... rare," Tessai points out delicately. "Unless they were being monitored constantly-"

"Which you're not," Urahara says firmly, to the assembled Quincies.

"-it would be quite easy to miss any anomalous readings when they pass on."

As Isshin chews on that, you raise your hand.

"Speaking of which," you say, once again prompted by some of Ganondorf's past actions. "If Yhwach had enough of a connection to the power he gifted to others to reclaim it when they died, couldn't he also have taken it back earlier?"

Inherited memories flash before your mind's eye: a ghostly horse and rider, banished to oblivion for their failure to defeat a young Hero; a shadowy usurper, boasting of a resurrection that would never be granted. You don't THINK Ganondorf ever had a minion that he empowered and then punished for failure by ripping the power back out of them, but the guy lived a long time and had a lot of minions, so it's possible you're just forgetting. The point is, it certainly FEELS like something the King of Evil would have done.

"...it would have required an active effort on his part," Urahara says slowly, "but yes, that should be possible."

"What would that do a person?" you ask.

"Nothing good," the scientist-shopkeeper answers you grimly. "I'd expect to see an immediate weakening or outright loss of Quincy-specific abilities, possibly of all spiritual power, and there'd definitely be trauma. Depending on how strong the individual soul was, it could easily be fatal."

Yeah, that's about what you were expecting to hear.

"Just to be clear," Akkiko interrupts. "You're suggesting that there's a Quincy version of King Arthur out there, somewhere, and that if and when he wakes up, he could eat the souls of every living Quincy."

...he probably wouldn't actually EAT the souls, but on the whole, that's more or less how it works out.

"...right." Akkiko balls up a fist, and smacks it into her palm. "So, how do we find this guy and make sure he never wakes up?"

Akkiko's proposal to effectively hunt down and kill a man in a coma draws a wince from you.

"Is that... really necessary?" you ask. "I mean, I don't like the idea of someone out there being able to drain the souls of unsuspecting innocents, much less people I actually KNOW, but so far, the only 'crime' we know this guy has committed is being the monarch of a people at odds with agents of one part of the Spirit World. Killing him because he has the POTENTIAL to be dangerous, without checking to see if he MEANS to be, seems a bit... rude."

Really, that's understating it. Your mind casts back to the seal to prevent you from calling upon external powers that Ambrose placed on you at your first meeting, simply because you were a sorcerer who lived on the Hellmouth. THAT was rude, and it didn't even have a real impact on you; what Akkiko's suggesting with regards to Yhwach is whole orders of magnitude more severe.

"I have issues with the notion of summary conviction, myself," Urahara admits wryly. "On the other hand, this may be the only shot we have at preventing Yhwach from hurting anyone."

"You can't think of a way to cut off or restrict his ability to drain living Quincies?"

"More like I can't be sure that any of the ones I come up with would work. Too many unknowns about the scope and scale of this guy's powers."

"Regrettably, I cannot say much of those," Souken interjects with a sigh. "There are few reliable accounts of Yhwach's capabilities. The old stories claim he possessed all the native powers of the Quincy, as well as all the skills we had developed by the time of his defeat, only taken to levels of sheer power no other could match; those, I think, we would have to assume to be accurate. Other tales credit him with knowing events that transpired in entirely different countries, seeing the future, and thwarting the most cunning and skilled assassins and infiltrators - and of course, being immortal. As to the truth of those claims?" The old man shrugs. "The only ones who might know for certain are the Sternritter that fought alongside him, all those years ago, and they would never betray his secrets."

The way Souken says that strikes you as odd, and from the look of things, you're not the only one who feels that way; most of the other adults are regarding him strangely.

"Met them, have you?" Urahara asks lightly.

"I have," Souken replies with a nod. "Years and years ago."

He proceeds to explain that Yhwach had anticipated the possibility of his defeat, and arranged a safe haven - unknown and unknowable to the Shinigami - where his revival could be carried out and the survival of his most loyal followers assured. It was to this hidden stronghold that his fallen body was conveyed, and it is there, even to this day, where an army of Quincy remains, having spent the last millennium building their numbers and gathering power as they await their king's prophesied return.

Souken calls it Wandenreich, the Hidden Empire, and describes it as a vast but largely abandoned city, half-covered in ice, and centered around a single fortress, Silbern.

"It is not the most hospitable realm, and so, from time to time, its agents must venture forth into the wider world to gather supplies. They would also seek out surviving Quincies, and evaluate the members as potential recruits - though being staunch traditionalists, only the Echt bloodlines were ever considered for such an honor." Souken's mustache wrinkles distastefully.

"The what, now?" Ichigo wonders.

Masaki explains that some Quincy believed they should only marry other Quincy. Families that practiced this custom formed the Echt, or "pure-blooded" lines, while those who had one regular human parent or were descended from such a person were labeled as Gemischt, or "mixed-blood." There were a lot of what she labels as stupid customs and prejudices wrapped up in all of it, but she doesn't go into detail.

Ishida Kanae points out that the old beliefs weren't ENTIRELY without merit, as Quincy women almost always give birth to Quincy children, whereas Quincy men had no such guarantee - unless their wives were also Quincy.

Masaki mutters something under her breath, but doesn't argue the point.

Thinking on it, you can see how that works. Yhwach's soul-imprints have the ability to replicate themselves, and the constant prenatal exposure of an unborn child's soul to the mother's would maximize the strength of a new imprint. If the mother was a non-Quincy, however, such an inheritance would be reliant on exposure to the father's spiritual power, which the child would be buffered against to some degree by the mother's soul.

After that little divergence, Souken continues with his tale, recounting how his family were approached by one of the Wandenreich's expeditionary squads.

"At the time, I was a young man, with all of a young man's foolish pride and absolute certainty in my beliefs. Our distant kin were not strangers to be suspected, but honored guests, emissaries of the last true bastion of our ancient power. They spoke of the Sealed King, and how the time of his reawakening was coming closer - perhaps within my very lifetime! They said that he would restore our people, eliminate the Hollow scourge, and free us from the oppressive eyes of the Soul Society. They told me that I was worthy to stand with them, to be a part of that coming victory." He laughs, humorlessly. "What an ego I had back then!"

"So they took you to their headquarters?" Isshin asks with a frown. "Just like that?"

"Oh, no, nothing of the sort. The Wandenreich maintains scattered outposts for training and vetting their recruits. I spent some months at one here in Japan, then another somewhere in Russia, and then a third that was in a contested part of Europe. But after a year and more to break me down, rebuild me into one of their loyal Soldats, and test me again and again until they knew the depth of my convictions? Yes, then they took me to the frozen city."

"And where is that, exactly? Above the Arctic Circle? Down in Antarctica? Or just somewhere high up?"

"None of the above. Yhwach was clever, and bold. He hid his last retreat in the one place the Shinigami would never think to look, never consider a threat- heh. Not even in a thousand years."

Urahara abruptly straightens up, looking alarmed.

"The Wandenreich lies within the Spirit Plane," Souken says, and if he's not taking a little enjoyment from this dramatic revelation, you're a Chuu. "Hidden in the shadow of the Soul Society itself."

...

Three out of four Shinigami look like someone just hit them over the back of the head.

"Damn," Akkiko says with reluctant admiration. "That took some serious balls."

"Ahhh," you say with a sagacious nod. "The old 'summoning your army from the shadows' ploy. A classic."

One that Ganondorf himself indulged in on a couple of occasions, albeit in what you're sure are alternate timelines from the one currently established over Hyrule.

Tatsuki scoffs. "When have you ever had an army?"

"Not in this lifetime," you admit with complete honesty, earning yourself a suspicious and slightly-worried look from Isshin. "But I've heard about the trick in my studies, and if I DID have an army, I could probably pull it off myself. Though only if it was a very small army," you add. "I'm definitely not up to emulating Dracula's rebirth-day party."

At least, not YET.

"Dracula's what?"

You wave that off, telling Tatsuki you'll explain later.

"You'd better, buster."

Turning to Souken, you say, "So, you were once a trusted member of the Wandenreich, sir?"

The elder Ishida smiles. "For a given value of 'trust.' Before you ask, I was never allowed to see Yhwach, or even to know where in Silbern his body lay - if, indeed, he was even in the fortress, and not stashed away in another part of the city."

Darn.

"But you WERE part of their organization," you continue. "And now, you're not. What changed?"

"At first, nothing. I was too blinded by awe and pride to see anything other than the strength of the Hidden Empire, and my own place in it. Here was the validation of everything my family, our people, had fought and died for over centuries. The Sealed King would awaken and take back the world for the Quincy, and I would have the honor of aiding him... or so I believed." Souken sighs. "But over time, I came to understand my error. My family had taught me to respect the ways of our ancestors, to be loyal to the living, and to seek justice for those taken before their time by the Hollows; those were the foundations of the honor of the Quincy. And yet, in Wandenreich City, where the old ways should have been preserved, tradition was paid only lip service, tossed aside in the name of expediency, vengeance, or pure, petty self-interest. Justice? Those of the greatest strength and the purest lineage did as they would, and so long as it was done in the King's name, none could speak against them. And as for loyalty..." This time, Souken finishes with a snort.

"If the Wandenreich were loyal to their living kin," Isshin observes, "why didn't they intervene when the Quincies were being hunted to extinction?"

At that, Souken nods. "Exactly. It took FAR too long for me to ask that question, even in my own head. But once I had, I found that I could not STOP asking it. I lived each day surrounded by perhaps the single greatest concentration of military power the Quincy had ever possessed: hundreds upon hundreds of Soldats, powerful enough to outmatch unranked Shinigami, and contest with their seated officers; the Sternritter, capable of facing lieutenants and captains; and among them, tools and techniques developed in centuries of seclusion that no Shinigami had ever seen, much less would know how to counter. And yet, they did nothing. They were content to let us die to preserve the secret of their existence, not even lifting a finger to save our children." The old man shakes his head. "In the eyes of the Wandenreich, all Quincy who are not born and bred OF the Wandenreich are inferior. Our Echt bloodlines are as Gemischt, and our Gemischt, lesser still. Ordinary humans? Hardly worth acknowledging. Once I understood that contempt, I could not remain."

"And they let you go?" Urahara asks mildly. "Even knowing their location?"

"Ah, but I was a mere Soldat, and one of lower birth. I was never trusted with the secret of how to reach the Wandenreich, nor how to perform their superior techniques, and if I spoke of such things, well, who would believe me without proof? Proof they took steps to remove when I was exiled, I assure you," Souken adds with a wince of pained memory. "I was permitted to take nothing with me that could betray their existence, and when I revisited the facility in Japan where I first trained to join the Wandenreich, I found that the building itself had been quietly leveled, the land sold off to mundane interests. To all appearances, I had nothing but my word, which even my family, so disappointed in me for my perceived failure and disrespect to our betters, would not accept. Fortunately," the old Quincy adds, as he fishes something out of a pocket hidden under his tunic, "appearances can be deceiving."

What he produces is a small silver medallion, which bears an unremarkable sunburst symbol centered on a thumbnail-sized red crystal or gem. At first glance, it seems mundane, but when you focus your spiritual senses, the energy woven through the medallion speaks to you of rather potent Summoning Magic.

"That's a key," Briar observes.

"So it is," Souken agrees. "A key to the Gates of the Sun, the portals by which the Wandenreich remains connected to the outside world. It is one of two that I, ah, 'acquired' some time before my banishment, and learned how to use by paying attention to certain officers, who were not so careful with their assigned keys as they should have been. This one, I smuggled out and hid; the other, I quietly returned to its owner after confirming how they work. The Gates are monitored, you see, and records kept of which keys have been used to open them, and when, and what the destination was. They can also be tracked, which is why I left this one where I hid it for a number of years, before I ever dared to retrieve it. Even then, I have never tried to use it."

Considering that there's an entire army of Quincies on the other side of those Gates, who wouldn't be happy to see him? Yeah, you can see why Souken wouldn't want to risk drawing attention. At least, not until he had help to do... something. And if the Quincy still in the mortal world are so few in number and mostly supportive of the Wandenreich, while the Shinigami are in such opposition to them, he obviously never got that help, and hence, never had a reason to reveal the key to others.

At least, not until today.

Kanae regards her father-in-law sternly, inclining her head towards the medallion in his hand. "Is Ryuuken aware that you have such a thing, Father-in-law?"

"I told him how to use it when he came of age," Souken replies. "Just in case."

"...I see."

The lady's frown suggests things are going to get interesting at the Ishida home later on.

Setting that aside, you run through everything that's been said about or in relation to Yhwach. The beliefs and organizational structure of Quincy society, particularly this Wandenreich, have some ugly implications, one of which is that line from the song about "power recovered from impure lives." Previously, you weren't sure what that meant, but now that you know of the division between Echt and Gemischt, it suggests that Yhwach will reclaim his power from the Gemischt Quincy - possibly even from all those Quincy not part of the Wandenreich.

You ask Souken if he believes that to be the case.

"I can't take the chance that it isn't," he replies. "By the standards of my former comrades, the only members of my family that would be seen as Echt Quincy are myself and my son. Kanae is Gemischt, and while Masaki was born Echt, after her injury, they would consider her tainted. And such judgment would almost certainly pass to their children."

And with that, your previous objections to tracking down Yhwach and making sure he STAYS down are decidedly lessened.

Before you get started on setting up to scry for Yhwach's location, there's one detail to address: the key. Seeing as how it's attuned to the plane or sub-realm where the Wandenreich exists, you could use it as an added focus to help direct your magic. There's no risk of accidentally activating the thing, but there is a chance that its inclusion in your spell would make you easier for the Hidden Empire's security measures to track.

You figure that whatever targeting assistance the "Key of the Sun" provides, it isn't worth the increased odds of your spell being back-tracked. That's particularly true when the Key is both the only physical evidence of the Wandenreich's existence that Souken has, and the only means of getting into the Quincies' hidden realm. Lose it, and the chances of getting help from the Soul Society in this matter, much less directing that help where it needs to go, will go down considerably.

With that out of the way, you start setting up for the spell. You consider asking to borrow Urahara's mirror again, but when you think back to the appearance and construction of the thing, you realize that despite being an acceptable focus for the Spell of the Mirror Hideaway, it's not suitable as a focus for Spells of Scrying.

That's fine, though. You just use the Spell of Major Creation to conjure a temporary mirror of sufficient quality.

Once that's done, you cast Obscure Object on the mirror, followed by the Communal Spell of Nondetection on everyone in the room. You have to devote some additional mana to the latter spell, not only to cover its material cost, but also because you don't have quite enough power for a standard casting to cover everyone in the room. Since you've got enough energy left over once all the people present have been warded against scrying, you go ahead and apply Nondetection to the mirror as well, double-layering its defenses.

And then, for good measure, you cast the Spell of the Mage's Private Sanctum over the entire area. Not only does this further increase the security of the mirror and the people present, it will also make it extremely unlikely that any attempts to trace your scrying spell will get a look at Urahara's underground room.

Three layers of magic on top of Urahara's own spiritually-based wards are enough to make you feel fairly secure. But just in case, you go ahead and utter a prayer to the Goddesses before you start.

"Mighty Din, may my Power be sufficient for the task at hand."

Seems like a safe bet.

"Valiant Farore, grant me the Courage to accept what I discover."

Done. I want to see this creep's mug, too.

"Patient Nayru, I know this act is not the Wisest, but I ask your favor anyway, so that my friends and their families might know who threatens them, and where he can be found."

Just make sure they don't hare off and get themselves killed with that information.

With all your preparations made, you begin the Greater Spell of Scrying. As you shape the magic, you extend parts of its matrix to the Quincies present, touching the similar spots in their souls and using those to aim your efforts at the ultimate origin of them all.

Fog seems to fill the mirror-glass, and for a moment, you wonder if you've finally run up against anti-scrying wards that even you can't penetrate. But then, slowly, the mists part, and an image comes into view.

The room is large, and appears to have been fashioned entirely from pure white stone - marble, perhaps, or something else entirely. It is devoid of almost all decoration, save for the thick red carpeting and long banners of similar make, the latter of which bear a single runic emblem, as of a star with six arms. There are no torches, mage-globes, or even electrical lights that you can see from your angle, just a low, pale glow that seems to emanate from the central feature of the room, leaving the rest in shadow.

Said feature is a long white bier, covered with lush red cushions. Atop those lies the figure of a tall man with long, shaggy black hair, worn in a curious style that blends mutton-chops and a thick mustache - though he is otherwise clean-shaven. His sole garment is a plain white robe, of which only the shoulders and sleeves are visible, thanks to the manner in which the wearer's arms have been folded over his chest; the rest of the garment and the one who wears it are hidden beneath red sheets.

The man's eyes are closed, and a casual observer could be forgiven for thinking him dead. Your eyes, on the other hand, catch the slow, steady rise and fall of his chest.

"Seriously," Briar says into the sudden silence, "who does his hair?"

"Well," you say, ignoring Briar's remark about Yhwach's barber. "He exists. That's step one finished."

"What's step two?" Isshin wonders.

"Trying to get a better view of the target area," you reply. "Hang on a second."

While keeping the current Spell of Scrying going, you cast it a second time, reducing the duration to a minimum while aiming for a location half a kilometer straight up from Yhwach's slumbering form. In response, the image before you shrinks until it occupies only the lower half of the standing mirror you conjured, while the upper half of the glass once again fills with fog.

Fog, you note with a frown, that isn't fading away.

"No good?" Briar asks.

"Looks like it," you admit. "I'm not sure if it's because I don't have a clear enough image of or connection to the area I'm trying to look at, because I'm trying to scry across planar boundaries, or because I'm getting interference from the wards on that place."

Honestly, you suspect it's a mix of all those factors. As skilled as you are at Divination Magic, there are ultimately limits, and you appear to have run into at least one of them.

Frustrating, but it is what it is... and it doesn't automatically mean you can't get a better image of Wandenreich City. It'll just take a few more steps.

Letting the failed casting lapse, you take another look at Yhwach's chamber and cast Greater Scrying again, this time programming a specific orientation for the sensor. When the fog within the glass clears up this time, you're looking at Yhwach from one of the corners of his bier, which gives you a reasonable view not only of the Sealed King, but of two of the three shadowed walls of his chamber that your first spell didn't let you see. The wall adjacent to the one you saw before is decorated in the same manner, and has neither door nor corridor that you can see, but the other wall - directly opposite to the first - features a huge double door, which currently stands closed. No light is visible around the edges of the frame, so you can't try to peek out that way, and you don't know the Spell of X-Ray Vision - assuming such a thing even exists, or would function through the medium of a scrying spell.

Seeing as how you're not the only spellcaster in the room, you ask if anyone knows a spell for looking through solid objects, that might work under these conditions.

Urahara and Tessai both shake their heads, seeming rather chagrined by this lack, but Navi says she knows something that might work.

"Or it could just let you look through the walls and floor of this place," she adds, stepping forward. "But nothing ventured, nothing gained, and I think Farore would like to know the layout of that place."

Darn right I would.

The druidic-style magic the Great Fairy casts on you is called the Spell to See Through Stone, and she says it was originally developed by a Goron druid to assist his brothers in the mines.

You imagine there must be quite a story behind how a Goron became an adherent of Farore over Din, but you refrain from asking about it for the time being.

As Navi's magic settles over you, the sandy floor beneath your feet and the nearby rocks Urahara decorated his secret underground bunker with take on the appearance of transparent glass. In some places, you can see through the stone for a good twenty feet; in others, your vision is blocked by metallic objects, ranging from support beams to pipes to electrical conduits.

Turning your attention to the mirror and the magic within it, you squint at the door, trying to focus the fairy magic through the scrying sensor.

Ever so slowly, elements of Yhwach's room start to take on a glassy hue.

It turns out that the door is mostly stone, with metal reinforcement, so you're able to look straight through it and into the hall beyond.

The GUARDED hall beyond, you note with some concern. Two tall figures in almost painfully white trenchcoats, trousers, and trench boots stand at attention to either side of the door, their white-caped backs to you. Since Navi's spell only affected you, the rest of the audience can't see them, so you quickly describe them to Souken, right down to their black belts and white berets.

"Soldats," the old Quincy replies firmly. "Probably high-ranking and in favor with the Sternritter, to be entrusted with guarding the King's sleeping quarters."

You ask him if it's likely they could sense your magic at work, if you cast a spell in that corridor.

"If it were spiritual energy, I would say yes," Souken answers after a moment. "But for all my time with the Wandenreich, I never encountered evidence of magic within Silbern. It's possible these two might miss your spell."

Souken's estimate is not as reassuring as it could be. Saying that the common soldiery of this Quincy army might miss the traces of your magic at work admits that they might NOT miss it; worse, it implies that their more powerful and skilled commanders could still notice that something was amiss.

It doesn't take magical power to detect a scrying sensor, after all. That helps, especially when it comes to the matter of blocking them, but all that's really needed is a keen awareness of one's surroundings.

And Quincy, as you have been told, are ghost-hunting archers. Keen awareness is pretty much a given.

Even if two of the practicing members of the bloodline with you in Urahara's bunker ARE wearing corrective lenses.

Right now, you have the advantage of being a complete unknown with the ability to penetrate whatever defenses against scrying the Wandenreich have over their city and stronghold, or wherever it is that they've stashed their sleeping king. The moment someone detects your scrying sensor, you'll lose that valuable anonymity; even if they can't backtrack your spell and identify you in person, the Wandenreich will know that SOMEBODY was poking around their secret headquarters, and then who knows what they'll do.

But then, just as you're about to call an end the scrying session, you mentally smack yourself over the back of the head.

You can SEE through stone right now, and to a depth of about twenty feet - so why aren't you investigating the walls and ceiling of Yhwach's chamber? Even if you don't find any hidden passages, the stonework around the doors is only about two feet thick; the rest of it can't be THAT much deeper, right?

The next few minutes see you casting and re-casting your modified Spell of Scrying multiple times, with Navi periodically renewing the remarkably short-lived Spell to See Through Stone. Scrying normally only reveals a spherical area twenty feet across, centered on the designated target of the spell, but at your level of proficiency in Divination Magic, you're able to tweak that a bit, making the area of effect larger and shifting your perspective so that you're seeing from one side rather than the center.

Yhwach's chamber proves to be devoid of hidden passages or the like, but peeking through the walls as you are does reveal complex metalwork running over and through the stone in a manner that doesn't have anything to do with structural support, and instead has your mystical senses tingling with warning from the sheer amount of spiritual energy flowing around and through the silvery metal.

Forget being warded; this room is FORTIFIED.

You don't know enough about Quincy techniques to say what these defenses are supposed to do, but the fact that you've been able to scry right into the (presumable) heart of their stronghold suggests that anti-scrying wards aren't a significant part of the arrays you're seeing. Some of the energy flows bear similarities to more physically-oriented Abjuration and Divination effects, there's a Summoning effect that resembles the Key of the Sun on each wall, and virtually the entire chamber glows with the pale hues of pure Necromancy.

It seems like this system is set up to detect intruders that bypassed or eliminated the guards, summon immediate reinforcements, and keep the Sealed King safe from the ensuing violence.

The lack of serious scrying wards strikes you as a major oversight, but if the entire fortress is already warded well enough that the Shinigami have gone a millennium without realizing it even exists, you suppose the Wandenreich's architects could be forgiven for thinking that level of redunancy to be excessive.

You're certainly not complaining.

In any case, the walls are only about five feet thick, so you can see through them with space to spare, if not enough to see through the walls and ceilings of the chambers beyond - the aforementioned architects seem to have had a love affair with Really Big Rooms. This forces you to re-cast the Greater Spell of Scrying for each new level of the fortress you peer into, but eventually you reach what appears to be the top level of the structure.

And here, once again, you pause, as looking through the glassy transparency of the stone architecture reveals another massive set of wards, this time with HEAVY elements of Divination-defeating Abjuration - heavy enough that your sensor's field of vision cuts off abruptly at the level of the buried warding arrays.

Something tells you that trying to jump a scrying spell beyond that roof has Bad Idea written all over it.

Gained Spiritual Knowledge B (Plus)

Stymied by this new barrier, you pause to consider your options. Souken has confirmed that the building you've been leapfrogging these short-lived Spells of Scrying through is indeed the Quincies' central fortress, Silbern, and he has joined Urahara in putting together a rough map of the place, drawing upon the partial images you've been able to provide and his own faded memories of the place. It's far from complete - the place seems to have an internal volume comparable to Castle Shuzen's, if not greater - but Souken says he has an idea of where Yhwach's chamber must lie, relative to the physical entrances and the rooms where the Gates of the Sun are located.

You've burned a solid third of your available mana getting this far, and if Silbern is as big as you think, you're not going to be able to scan the entire place before your reserves run dry. Ritual-casting is out; it would simply take too long. Then, too, there's the ongoing risk of detection. Being able to see through the walls has been a big help in avoiding the Quincy scattered about the fortress, and the walls are thick enough to prevent your sensors from being spotted by those on different floors or in different rooms, but you know that your good fortune is going to run out eventually.

The information you've collected about the layout of Silbern is a start, but it's also not enough. As it stands, Navi might be able to open a Gate to Yhwach's room, but it's also possible that there are wards on the fortress to interfere with transplanar travel.

...actually, there pretty much HAS to be something like that. After all, the Shinigami are able to travel from the Soul Society to Earth; if they can bridge the gap between the Spirit and Material Planes, crossing the border between two adjacent spiritual realms would be a relatively simple task. It's not all that different an arrangement from the one the Shuzens have with their private domain, and you can pretty much just walk across the border of that pocket realm.

The Wandenreich is undoubtedly more segregated from the Soul Society than that, given its thousand years of continued secrecy, but that just means that somebody put the added effort into making hard to reach to begin with. If that's the case, trying to enter via an unauthorized portal could have any number of results, ranging from success, to being no-sold, to having the destination randomized - whether that was for the Gate itself or for each individual who stepped through - to just sending uninvited guests to a secure holding area, where the resident Quincy army can deal with them later.

Basically, of the likely outcomes of Gating into Silbern that aren't immediate failure, most would leave the travelers in need of a better map than the one you've got so far, and in a sub-optimal position to gather the necessary information themselves.

With that in mind, you start working with Souken to try and find one of the Gates of the Sun, and from there, to map out a route to Yhwach's chamber that doesn't require blowing holes in the walls. Not that it isn't a valid means of getting around, but even Link generally used preexisting passageways first, and only resorted to explosive renovation when he was running into dead-ends.

Ideally, you'd do this for all of the Quincy portals, so that multiple paths of attack and exit would be available if an armed raid turns out to be necessary, but too many factors are in play that make that untenable: your mana is running down; Silbern is huge; Souken's information on the place is decades out of date; and there are Quincy everywhere - you expect to find the Gates at least as well guarded as Yhwach's sleeping chamber.

Still, you mean to do what you can.

By this point, you've been working magic for three-quarters of an hour. Tatsuki's given up on following what you're doing and wandered off to see how the younger kids are taking the "boring wait." Ichigo's still paying attention, but you suspect that's largely because Uryuu has been taking in everything you've done without letting so much as a hint of boredom cross his features.

Surprise and incomprehension, yes, but not boredom.

In that, the youngest Ishida takes after his mother, whose outward calm does a much better job of concealing her feelings about everything she's seen so far, but not a perfect one. The other adults, already familiar with the kind of things you're capable of, are keeping up better, though Souken is an interesting outlier: like his daughter-in-law, he's never had a prior opportunity to see what your magic can do; and yet, he's taking it in stride almost as casually as the Kurosakis or Akkiko.

It makes you wonder if the old Quincy has past experience with improbably gifted kids, or powerful beings that just happen to look like kids.

In any event, following Souken's directions, you backtrack to one of the lower levels, about three floors up from Yhwach's chamber. Materializing your scrying sensor in one of the upper corners of the room, where any passing individuals should be unlikely to look, you spend a few seconds checking on the level of foot traffic in this chamber and the hallway beyond, before resuming your sequential spellcasting.

The hallway is long enough that you need to scry it four separate times to reach the destination Souken describes, this being a large stairwell. Along the way, you pass a dozen rooms on each side of the corridor, two intersections, several tall, faceless statues that are too spiritually-charged to be mere decorations, and a group of five Quincy whose relaxed postures and easy conversation makes you think they're not currently on duty.

You can't understand what they're saying, and don't really have the time or energy to slip in a translation spell, but when Souken requests that you hold the spell a little longer than usual so he can listen in, you catch enough of the tone and pronunciation that you should be able to recognize the language in question if you hear it again later.

Gained German F

After a minute or so, one of the white-clad men says something that has his compatriots roaring in laughter, two Unimpressed Mom Looks, and Uryuu suddenly sputtering and red-faced.

"Uryuu," Kanae says flatly, "you are never to use such language."

"I wouldn't!"

"Ichigo," Masaki adds, "the same."

"I don't even know what he said!"

"Good."

Point in favor of not speaking German, you suppose, as you quickly end that spell, and scry further ahead.

Getting down the stairs costs you two more uses of Scrying, and the route Souken guides you along eats up another ten, half of which come when the old man realizes he's sent you down the wrong path. Fortunately, you don't need to cast extra spells to back up, you can just cut back to a familiar chamber - but it does cost you energy.

The gleaming white passages of Silbern grow more and more populated as you move along, and while you've seen only Soldats of various ranks so far, it's gotten to the point where you're finding a dozen of them per stretch of hallway, coming or going on unknown errands.

Some of them are also talking...

Your mana is starting to get concerningly low when you finally come to a large arched gateway, which looks like something taken off the front of a castle. Four times as tall as a man and bearing the six-pointed star symbol you assume must be the emblem of the Wandenreich, the double-doors stand closed, with a steely portcullis lowered before them. Four Quincies stand guard, wearing the cloak-and-coat version of the standard uniform that the guards on Yhwach's room did; fortunately, none are looking towards the ceiling. Also present are two of the blank-faced warrior-statues.

Navi re-casts the Spell to See Through Stone, and as it takes effect, you can see just far enough inside the room on the other side of that huge door to make out another guard of Quincies and statues, standing at the top of a broad, shallow stair that leads down to a large patch of floor, devoid of the thick red carpets that have covered most every other hall so far. There's a large circular array built into the floor, spiritually-charged silvery metal and red crystals standing out against the stark, unrelieved white of the stones.

The aura is almost exactly like that of the Key of the Sun, only much, much more potent.

So that's what a Gate powered by spiritual energy looks like, huh? Interesting...

You decide that the possibility for added intel is worth the increased time, and slow your advance through the Quincy citadel to listen in on the various conversations your Scrying Spell passes close enough to hear. You also make a point of casting the Spell to Comprehend Languages, and not just because you're curious about what's being said - though you are.

If one of these guys says something like, "It feels like we're being watched," you'd REALLY like to know about it as quickly as possible, so you can cancel your spell and prevent it from being traced back to you.

That's your story, if either of the moms present ask, and you're sticking to it.

Gained German F (Plus) (Plus)

Of course, since you'd previously chosen to trim the duration of your Scrying Spells, you only have so much time to listen in. It proves not to be an issue for the first discussion you eavesdrop upon, as the Quincy quartet are once again just making idle talk, but when their conversation suddenly cuts out as your spell lapses, you take it as your cue to extend the duration of subsequent castings ever so slightly, just in case you come across people having a more productive chat.

Over the next quarter-hour, you hear a dozen snippets of bored gossip that don't really mean anything to you, Souken, or anyone else who happens to understand the Quincy dialect. However, hidden among the idle talk are a few nuggets of some value.

Two Soldat officers talk quietly about members of the Sternritter, dropping five different names. Souken's expression shifts with recognition when the name "Grandmaster Haschwalth" is spoken, and likewise seems to recognize someone known as... Buzzby? Did you hear that right?

Anyway, the other three names don't appear to strike a chord with the old man. As he explains after you stop listening to that talk, this isn't surprising. The rank of Sternritter can only be bestowed by Yhwach himself, and involves some sort of formal ceremony in which the Quincy King bestows a unique power and special title upon the newly-promoted warrior. Many of the original Sternritter have died in the centuries since their war with the Soul Society, and because Yhwach's been comatose for most of a millennium, there haven't been any proper replacements for them. Before Souken abandoned the Wandenreich, only seven Sternritter remained, but there were a number of especially skilled and powerful Quincies who'd been selected by this Grandmaster as potential promotion material, once Yhwach recovered his powers. They effectively acted as lower-ranking Sternritter - squires, perhaps, to their proper knights - and hence held considerable authority within the Wandenreich; from what you overhear, that's still the case, but it seems that some of the potential Sternritter are not terribly well-liked by the rank and file.

You make a mental note to be very careful around any girls wearing all white that go by any variations on the name "Bambi," just in case. The one the two Soldats talk about sounds like a nasty piece of work.

Another discussion, between several Quincy hauling white-on-white crates and two on guard duty at one of the many doors you've passed, reveal that a supply run to Earth just took place, and some of the acquisitions are being distributed. The goods in question were acquired from somewhere in Germany, and the next few such expeditions will be to other countries all over the world, including Brazil, South Korea, Canada, and Russia.

If nothing else, it supports Souken's claims about the extent of the Wandenreich's territory on Earth.

One of the Quincy hauling the crates has a lot of bandages wrapped around half his head, and when a guard asks him what happened, he says something extremely unflattering about "filthy blood-sucking corpse-demons," before explaining that a nest of them had set up shop in the small town where the Wandenreich's German outpost was located, and were helping themselves to the contents - right under the noses of the assigned caretakers.

"Stupidity, corruption, or treachery?" one of the Soldat guardsmen asks.

"What's the difference?" the injured man returns. "Either way, the lot of them were detained and will be answering to the Grandmaster. As for the parasites, we tracked them to their nest, burned it down after dawn, and then cleared and abandoned the facility."

"Ah, hell," a different guard grumbles. "There goes the good beer."

His compatriots assure him that Logistics is looking into reorganizing the supply chain to prevent such a tragedy, but they're forced to admit it'll take weeks to sort out, maybe months. It would seem that there are enough thirsty throats and a sufficiently limited supply of "the good stuff" in Silbern for this timeframe to be a concern, and a lot of heartfelt curses are heaped upon the tainted ashes already twisting in the wind.

Masaki, you note, looks reluctantly sympathetic with the plight of her distant kinsmen.

In any case, you eventually make your way to the room Souken identifies as containing one of the Gates of the Sun. Here, you let your scrying lapse for a bit, while you join Souken and Urahara in going over the partial map of Silbern that you already have, trying to plot out a course between the Gate-room and Yhwach's chamber. Souken can't give you an exact route, because the security around the "Royal Chambers" is tight enough that he was never allowed anywhere near them, but he is able to sketch out a rough course that should take you from the Gate to one of the security checkpoints that cover the potential approaches to the Sealed King.

With this information in mind, you resume scrying.

Souken's recall is good; you only get lost once along this route, and only for a duration of two scrying spells before he realizes the error and has you double-back. In all, it takes only about five minutes more for you to reach the security station - but there, your good fortune finally comes to an end. The passage leading to the Royal Chambers proves to be almost as heavily warded as the outer wall of the fortress, to the point where you can't see through the closed door or the walls around it. This area is being actively patrolled by squads of high-ranking Soldats, and even as one such five-man band passes beneath your hovering invisible sensor without so much as a twitch of suspicion, you spot a man in a very different uniform coming around the far corner. He's wearing a long cloak rather than a cape, and the white trench coat beneath it has been modified to a significant degree from the standard Wandenreich uniform. He's also not wearing one of those berets all the Soldats seem to have.

Souken takes one look at the man and warns you: "Sternritter."

As you debate whether or not it's worth trying to spy on one of the Quincy elites, you check your mana reserve, and restrain a wince. You're not quite running on fumes, but it's close enough to make little difference, given the estimated distance that still lies between you and Yhwach's resting place, and Souken's complete lack of information on the area. Maybe, if you hadn't stopped to listen to all the gossip... but you did, and now you have to deal with the consequences of that choice.

Deciding that you've pressed your luck enough for one day, you will your magic to end before the confirmed Sternritter gets close enough that he might notice your scrying sensor hanging about.

The image of the halls of Silbern is immediately swallowed up by the featureless fog from earlier, which rapidly fills the entire face of the mirror and then hangs there for a moment more before fading away, leaving behind only the normal sheen of clear glass, polished silver, and reflected images of you, your companions, and the room around you.

"That's about the limit of what I can manage today," you say to the group at large, as you start dispelling your other magics. The conjured mirror disappears with a crystalline note, while the shell of the Private Sanctum disperses in a manner not unlike the mists in the mirror.

Privately, you wonder if you ought to consider researching a variant of the Spell of Scrying where the sensor can move around independently of its original target. This little scouting mission would have been a lot less costly for you if you hadn't had to cancel and re-cast that one spell so many times...

"Would you be able to try again tomorrow?" Souken asks frankly.

Based on your prior experience with recovering from periods of prolonged spellcasting, your reserves will be back to about half-strength by this time tomorrow, assuming that you don't cast anything more than the Rituals of Teleportation you'll need to return home from this trip, or dip into your supply of restoratives. That would certainly be enough for another extended session of scrying, but you shake your head anyway, explaining that you have a prior commitment tomorrow that you can't miss.

"Yeah, boyo's got to see a wizard and some vampires," Akkiko pipes up helpfully. "Something about making sure Dracula doesn't rise from his grave and try to destroy the world, again."

Everybody in earshot other than Navi and Rho turns and stares at the woman, and then at you.

"She's not wrong," you admit with a sigh.

"Forgive my ignorance," Rho interjects, "but who or what is Dracula?"

"The local King of Evil," you sum up.

The firebird squawks in alarm.

After taking a minute to mentally adjust to this new information, Souken inquires when you would be available next.

"I don't mean to pressure you, young man," he says, "but this does involve my family's safety, and I would like to resolve it as quickly as possible."

You definitely get where he's coming from, as a certain non-Ganondorf voice in the back of your head has been plotting scenarios for getting your family out of Sunnydale for years now. That said, you are VERY busy right now, and with the difference in time zones added in...

The absolute soonest you could come back is Monday afternoon. Your mana would be completely restored by then, and while you would have to miss that day's class with Lu-sensei, you really doubt your master would object to you take time off to help some people in need, as long as you let him know before you took off. Wednesday and Friday would also be available in this manner, if you needed more than the one session to finish mapping a route to Yhwach's chamber; again, provided you asked permission first, Lu-sensei probably wouldn't mind.

Tuesday afternoon is completely open. You'd just have to push back some of the work you were planning on doing on Kahlua's Gauntlets for later in the evening, and miss out on a day's reading. Thursday would likewise be available.

Alternately, you could come back next Saturday. You'd have to cancel your next round of visiting friends to make time for it, though; on the positive side, you were going to visit Altria this weekend, so you know she wouldn't mind if you had to skip out to help someone in trouble.

There's also the option of just doing the scrying on your own time and reporting your findings the next time you visit Karakura, but that approach feels a bit risky. While you could easily reproduce the precautions you took today, you wouldn't have the benefit of casting from Urahara's basement, which you know is specifically warded against detection by spirits and users of spiritual power - which Quincies are. You're not sure how Ambrose's ward on your house compares to that, but casting the Spell of Private Sanctum in your house would strain the limits of that ward anyway, while if you set up to scry from your Mirror Hideaway, you'd be limited to your own defenses.

What's your preference?

With the scrying session over, the Kurosakis needing a few more weeks of recovery and re-training before they're ready to take on one of Navi's challenges, and your magic reserves basically tapped out, is there anything else you wish to do in Karakura today?

You see no reason to delay until next weekend to resume spying on the Wandenreich, particularly not when the life of a friend and the extended family thereof are at risk from them. That said, you would much prefer to perform your arcane espionage with a full tank of gas, in case another extended scrying session is required, and also with the same sort of layered defenses you had going today, should something go wrong.

You'll most likely be back at full strength by Monday morning, but while you could skip out on that afternoon's lesson at Lu Tze's, you don't think the situation is quite that urgent.

Pushing things back to Tuesday afternoon wouldn't represent any kind of serious delay, and it's easy enough to work into your schedule. Your only existing commitments that day are to get in some work on Kahlua's Gauntlets and do some reading; you can delay the former until after supper, and skip the latter entirely.

And if you have to do it again on Thursday, so be it.

Souken hears you out, and nods. "I will see you on Tuesday, then."

As the three Karakura families begin making their way out of Urahara's basement, you hang back to talk with the shopkeeper himself.

"Something more I can help you with?" Urahara inquires.

"Possibly," you reply. "I have a few questions that I'd like to ask you, on behalf of a third party."

"Oh?"

"Well, first of all, would it be possible to acquire one of these artificial bodies?"

Beneath the brim of the bucket, one blond eyebrow ratchets up in clear surprise. Evidently, that wasn't what the Shinigami scientist-slash-shopkeeper was expecting to hear.

"The technical term is 'gigai,'" Urahara replies slowly, "and yes, I do keep a few spares in stock, though those are just standard models. They'll host a soul just fine, as long as it has enough spiritual power to interface with the control mechanisms, but they're meant for short-term use, and have a number of limitations, particularly when it comes to operational endurance. A model similar to the one Isshin uses has much higher performance, to the point of being indistinguishable from a normal human body, and can function more or less indefinitely."

You nod, unsurprised that these false- sorry, that these "gigai" have different grades of quality.

"Okay, second question: do you think a gigai, of either level of quality, would be able to safely house the soul of a vampire?"

Urahara blinks.

"...the soul of a vampire," he repeats.

You nod.

"I... don't think that's ever been tried," Urahara tells you, as an eerie gleam enters his gaze. "Actually, I'm not sure it was ever EVEN theorized... Tessai!"

In a sudden, silent blur of motion, the big man appears at his employer's side. "Yes, manager?"

"Gigai theoreticals, as applied to non-human sapients - specifically, vampires."

"My word." Tessai's mustache quivers as he adjusts his glasses. "It's been ages since I gave any thought to those. Which breed? Surely not the demonic..."

You quickly describe the general traits of the Shuzens' species - alive, human form, powerful youki, advanced sense and control thereof, inherent capacity for shapeshifting, uncomfortable in but capable of tolerating sunlight, significantly weakened by water - and soon have Urahara and Tessai nodding in recognition.

Evidently, the traditional and technical name for this particular type of vampire is "strigoi." Urahara's surprised you didn't know that.

To that, you can only say that it never came up. The Shuzens always identified themselves as vampires, and never indicated that there was a more specific name for their kind.

You wonder why.

In any case, now that they know which type of vampire they would be dealing with, Urahara is able to tell you that the standard gigai definitely wouldn't work. An advanced model could probably do it, with the right adjustments, but as he said, it's never been attempted before.

He's smiling eagerly as he says this, and so you're not surprised when he quotes you a price - over a million yen, or about $10,000 American - and then says he'll gladly give your third party a fifty percent discount if they'll allow him to observe and assist with the process of "installing" the soul in question.

As expected.

You say that you'll let your associates know about his terms, and get back to him. Before you end the conversation, you also inquire if it would be safe to install a "sleeping" soul into a gigai.

Urahara shoots you a keen glance. "Define 'sleeping.'"

Cautiously, you describe the state of Jasmine's soul before you cast the Spell of Restoration on her: the complete lack of activity; the nigh-imperceptibility, not just to your senses, but to those of other ghosts and even a psychopomp; and - after some prodding from the shopkeeper for further details - how she has apparently been hanging around one particular person for several years now.

With every word, more and more of the visage of a mad scientist creeps over Urahara's previously placid features.

"The possessive spirit of a strigoi, in a state of torpor," the man breathes in delight. "And it isn't even my birthday."

"Oi, Kisuke," Isshin calls out from the base of the ladder. "Whatever line of scientific inquiry led to that slasher smile, drop it already. You'll freak out the kids."

This argument falls rather flat, considering that the only kids still down here are you and Tatsuki. Jinta is riding that open-aired elevator platform up to the ground floor with the Ishidas - keeping as far away from Uryuu as he can, you note - and Masaki must have taken the rest of the underage squad up with her.

You take a moment to look from the elevator, to Isshin, and to Kisuke. Then you turn back to the Kurosaki patriarch and shrug. "I've seen scarier."

"Me, too," the youngest Arisawa chimes in. "In the mirror, even." She punctuates that remark by flashing her teeth, and for a moment, the illusion of human-normal dentition blurs, revealing small but fierce fangs.

Isshin huffs at two of you. "Fine, it's freaking ME out. So quit it!"

"Ruin a man's scientific anticipation, why don't you?" Urahara mutters. Then, with a more normal expression, he tells you that as long as he's careful when moving the soul into the gigai, the experience won't be any more stressful than being woken up by an unexpected alarm clock going off.

And he WILL be careful, he assures you.

"After all-"

Out comes the fan.

"-it would never do to tarnish the name of Urahara with substandard merchandise or services!"

...you can't help but notice that Urahara seems to have concluded that you'll be going with his work. True, you didn't mention the alternatives you considered, let alone Batreaux's search for a Spell of Cloning, but still, for Urahara to just ASSUME that he was your only option... that's a bit arrogant of him, isn't it?

Then again, as of right now, Urahara IS the only person you know with a potential, workable solution for Jasmine's condition. So he may be entitled to some pride.

You find that you can't resist the temptation to take a pin to Urahara's ego.

"I'll be sure to keep that in mind, provided my associates don't end up choosing to go with one of the alternative options."

The waving of that little white and green fan pauses.

"Oh?" Urahara asks. "What sort of alternatves might those be?"

"Well, I called in my sorcery tutor for some advice on the topic, and he had some ideas. We ruled out the nastier stuff out of hand, but-"

"What kind of nasty stuff?" Akkiko interrupts.

"The kind that involves finding a soulless living body for the spirit to possess, and using Transformation Magic to change its features to suit," you reply frankly. "Or just turning the soul into a full-blown undead nightmare."

The priestess seems somewhere between disturbed and impressed. "...and BATREAUX suggested those ideas?"

"He only brought them up as possibilities, not as GOOD ones," you answer. "He ruled out the idea of creating a golem or something and putting the soul in that, too."

Tatsuki frowns. "Golem. Like in Dragon Quest? Sort of a big magical robot made of stone?"

"They can be made out of other stuff, but yeah, stone golems are one of the classics."

"...that sounds like it could actually be kind of cool."

"Maybe, but it wouldn't FEEL anything like a living body, and Batreaux said it would risk putting stress on the soul besides, so..." You wave one hand, dismissing the notion. "Anyway, with those ruled out, we settled on two possibilities. The one we currently have the means for is to create a Simulacrum - that's a false body," you say, for the benefit of the non-sorcerers and non-geniuses, "and fit it with a Magic Jar to house the soul."

"Basically, a different approach to the standard gigai," Urahara sums up.

You have to nod in agreement.

"And the other possibility?" he asks.

"My teacher's trying to hunt down someone willing to teach me the Spell to Create a Clone," you tell him. "The vampire's original body was destroyed, but she has a sister who'd be entirely willing to donate the material needed to create a new body for her."

Isshin looks flabbergasted.

"In other words," Urahara says, "you're hoping to get around the practical and ethical difficulties of acquiring a soulless living body and magically giving it the nature and powers of a vampire, by CREATING the soulless body of a vampire from scratch, and giving it the magical equivalent of cosmetic surgery. Does that about sum it up?"

It does.

The shopkeeper scientist grins. "Would you be at all opposed to a collaborative effort?"

You eventually manage to extricate yourself from the mad scientist's clutches, and head off with the three families. Tatsuki insists on you explaining what you meant about "Dracula's rebirth day," and the ensuing discussion about the events of last summer's doomsday eclipse last all the way back to the Kurosaki residence.

You're not sure if it's ironic or not that Akkiko and Isshin believe every word you say, while everyone else visibly struggles with the information. The Ishidas, even Souken, seem stuck on the idea that Dracula actually existed as anything other than Bram Stoker's literary creation or Vlad Tepes's bad publicity. Having met the Shuzens, Tatsuki and the Kurosakis are able to deal with that much - Tatsuki's actually seen the Dark Lord's portrait in the Shuzens' Hall of Enemies - but they're having trouble wrapping their heads around the idea that Dracula came back from the dead to try and destroy the world on multiple occasions, much less that the most recent of those involved the simultaneous invasion of many of Europe's major cities.

As Ichigo puts it, "It's like something out of a manga or a video game."

While you could spend a couple of hours hanging out, you decide to head home instead. You've got numerous projects to work on, homework to review, and an important meeting to rest up and prepare for.

You borrow the Kurosaki's backyard to teleport home, with the kids watching, and the last image you have of Karakura that day is Uryuu's eyes bugging out as space and time shift around you, in the instant before your spell whisks you away.

You spend most of that evening working on the Warrior-Princess Gauntlets, reasoning that, with your mana as low as it is and its rate of recovery accordingly reduced, you aren't really losing much on your recovery time by going through the extended ritual casting that's required to shape and empower magic items. It's getting on towards midnight when you finally call a halt to your labors and sneak upstairs to bed, where your Restful Blankets enable you to get ten hours' worth of recovery in just four.

Annoyingly, this is just barely enough to double your mana level.

You spend the rest of the pre-dawn hours reading and checking over your school work, the dry contents of Vampyr warring with your latest English assignment for sheer dullness. After breakfast, the Madisons arrive for another Sunday morning of Alex's Magical Arts and Crafts Seminar, and you're just cleaning up from that when you find that Catherine Madison has talked your parents into going out to a new restaurant that serves brunch, which she's heard good things about. As a timesaver, you change into your workout gear before leaving the house, and after a pretty tasty meal, hike from the restaurant to Lu-sensei's for your Sunday class - only a half-lesson today, since your master will be accompanying you to the meeting at Castle Shuzen later.

Previously, Lu-sensei admitted that there really wasn't anything he could add to the discussion of the Fuyuki Grail War, and he was really only going along because he wanted to hear more about a possible end-of-the-world scenario, as well as to keep you from getting in over your head. Again.

However, now that he possesses the Heart of Wen, your master may actually have something to contribute.

With the Grandmaster of the School of Five Elements as Lu-sensei's effective "plus one" for this event, is there someone you'd like to bring along, provided you can clear it with the Shuzens?

"I'll have to talk to my associates first," you tell Urahara frankly. "It's their relative, and their decision. If they say they don't want you involved..."

You trail off meaningfully, and Urahara nods.

"But if they say yes?" he adds with a keen look.

"Then I've got no problem with it."

Although you could probably convince the Shuzens to let one or more of your Hyrulean contacts sit in on the discussion of the Grail Wars, in all honesty, there isn't much you can see any of them contributing to the meeting. The Holy Grail is an Earthly concept that doesn't have any direct parallel in Hyrule's culture or history you can identify, unless it's the Triforce itself - and even then, there are differences aplenty between the two relics. The Grail WARS, meanwhile, lack anything with even that passing similarity; some might point to the cycle of reincarnation that the Hero, the Goddess, and the Incarnation of Hatred are caught up in, but it's really nothing like the summoning of Servants.

Batreaux and the three priests are perfectly capable within their fields of expertise, but the Grail Wars simply aren't something they would have any familiarity with. Navi might know a few things about King Arthur, given the Once and Future King's popularity with the Fae, but considering what you know about Ambrose, it seems redundant to invite her - not to mention once again pushing the limits on mortal and divine interactions.

On a related note, you're looking forward to the day when you master the Gate Spell and can call Navi under your own power.

That said, there is a person you have the power to summon who has a unique insight into the Fuyuki Grail Wars. The only question is whether or not the Shuzens will change their stance about letting you summon a weakened incarnation of a Heroic Spirit into their home.

You lose nothing by asking.

"I am still not comfortable with this idea," Gyokuro declares, arms folded and foot tapping on a flagstone as you lay out a summoning circle in the castle courtyard.

"And considering the mechanics of it gives me a headache," Ambrose replies, keeping one eye on your progress. "But the boy's annoyingly right; being able to talk to a Heroic Spirit with access to the memories of a Grail War is an advantage we'd be daft to ignore."

"Even if it's a war from four years in the future, and another timeline besides?" Briar asks the wizard.

"Yes, even then," Ambrose agrees with a nod. "If nothing else, he can give us a breakdown on the capabilities of the Master and Servants he faced, and how best to fight them. Those individuals might not appear when our version of the Fifth War rolls around, but if they do, we'll be far better prepared to deal with them. And I DEFINITELY want to hear what he has to say about Gilgamesh," the wizard adds grimly. "Young Lord El-Melloi had some hair-raising things to say about that one."

Several minutes later, Archer's tall, broad-shouldered figure appears within the confines of your circle of mana.

"Hello again, Sorcerer," he greets you, as he looks around. A wizard and a fairy that he's met before, three vampires and a part-oni priestess that he hasn't, an even split of martial arts masters, and of course, Castle Shuzen itself - both the physical shell and the embodied spirit. Archer makes a good show of remaining indifferent in the face of the crowd, but you see his eyes widen in surprise a couple of times. "This is certainly a more... interesting setting than our usual meetings."

"Ambrose managed to get his hands on information about Grail Wars past, and the current state of affairs in Fuyuki," you sum up, nodding to the wizard and the briefcase he showed up with. "I was wondering if you'd care to sit in as he presents it all, and then offer your thoughts."

"...I'm honestly curious to hear this," Archer admits.

"One thing, though," you say then. "Our hosts, the Shuzens, have some reservations about inviting a powerful unknown warrior into their home."

Archer smirks wryly. "I'm more skilled than powerful, especially summoned like this, but I take your meaning. What are their terms?"

"That you conduct yourself as a guest, and not attack anyone that doesn't offer you violence first," you say, repeating the words Issa laid down before you started the summoning, and which you worked into the circle. If Archer doesn't accept them, the barrier won't release him.

"I can agree to that," the Spirit of the Forge says easily, and your magic confirms that his statement is genuine, as the unseen barrier surrounding Archer falls away and the glowing array of pure mana fades into non-existence.

With that sorted, you make the introductions, and your expanded group relocates to a larger version of the sitting room where the non-summoned members originally sat down to talk about Dark Lords, Grail Wars, and other impossible things last year. While most of you take seats on the chairs or couches available, Ambrose proceeds to the lectern at the front of the room, sets down his briefcase, and starts sorting out the files within - which quickly prove to be more numerous than the physical dimensions of the case would allow. A word and a gesture has manilla folders floating towards the assembled audience, including a tiny equivalent for Briar and extras for Wen and Archer.

"Right, then," Ambrose says, once everyone has their copy of the documents. "The Holy Grail War of Fuyuki City, or 'How Three Magus Families Cocked Up a Mystical Battle Royal Badly Enough to Potentially Doom the World.'"

Ambrose begins by quickly recounting the official purpose and history of the Fuyuki Grail Wars, as the general population of the Clock Tower would know it. This amounts to a surprisingly small amount of information, and not simply because there have only been four Grail Wars over a period of about 210 years. The Clock Tower as a whole simply doesn't care much about a single ritual held in a "backwater nation" that has yet to achieve its stated purpose, or indeed to accomplish much of anything beyond a minor recurring cull of impatient, ambitious fools.

When the wizard moves on to the actual recorded DATA, there's more - although again, surprisingly little compared to what you were expecting. As Ambrose explains, the First War took place around 1800, and was conducted with much the same level of secrecy that any other major ritual would have been, and in a place and time that made outside observation difficult, even for magi. Japan's two-hundred year period of isolation was still half a century away from being ended, and few foreigners were permitted to enter the nation at all, much less move around outside of particular trade enclaves.

Gained Japanese History E

That can't have been helpful for the Einzberns or the then-Makiri, now-Matou, as what scant information Ambrose was able to dig up implies that they were in Fuyuki for years setting up the Grail System, and spent a whole decade after that just gathering the power needed to make the ritual work. Given that the Makiri were Russian, while the Einzbern are both German and famous - deservedly so, the wizard assures you - for the universal albinism and beauty of their homunculi...

"They must have been throwing illusions and hypnotic suggestions around like Mardi Gras beads," Ambrose sighs, shaking his head. "I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that the Grail System includes an array for mass suggestion - telling the locals to go home before dark, not leave before dawn, and ignore any strange sights or sounds they notice in between. It's anyone's guess if that part of the system still works, or how effective it would be against a couple centuries' worth of population growth."

"Huh," Archer exclaims with faint surprise. When the rest of the audience turn his way, the tall man explains, "If you leave out the times someone actively targets civilians, almost every version of the Fifth War I'm familiar with has zero non-magical witnesses. I'd wondered about that; I'm usually not so lucky."

Among the many things Ambrose wasn't able to confirm about the First War are the identities of the Masters and Servants that took part. If that information is recorded anywhere, it must be in the private collections - or heads - of various lords and older families, and hence, beyond his means to acquire without revealing his interest in the topic.

"I did consider going to Zelretch," he adds. "But it took several months for the dearth of information to become clear, and by then the old man had gone on one of his 'enthusiastic walks.' God only knows when he'll turn up again."

"Good," the three vampires and the Heroic Spirit in the room say in unison.

If information on the First Grail War is scant, information about the Second is effectively non-existent, due to the fact that the parties involved killed each other off in a whirlwind of violence and treachery. It was bad enough that Ambrose couldn't find any dates more accurate than "the 1860's" for the actual event.

"Magus cooperation at its finest," Archer notes sardonically.

"Stop stealing my lines," the wizard snarks back.

The Third War, held in 1938, was slightly less bad, but still pretty terrible. Archer had already informed you and Lu-sensei about the involvement of the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese Army, but Ambrose surprisingly credits the bulk of the disaster to one Darnic Prestone Yggdmillennia, a formerly respected magus who was on the outs with the Clock Tower's aristocracy, due to someone foretelling the impending demise of his family.

"Yggdmillennia went all-in on proving his naysayers wrong," Ambrose states. "About a decade before the Third Grail War began, he joined the Thule Society, an occult organization whose membership included a few future leaders of the Nazi party, and taught them just enough about magecraft and the Moonlit World to make himself not only indispensable, but trusted - and thereby contributed to their becoming the perpetual pain in the posterior that the rest of the world has been dealing with ever since." The wizard shakes his head in disgust. "He later leveraged his influence to bring a number of his apprentices and their cohorts to Japan with him, ostensibly as one of the diplomatic envoys the German and Japanese governments were exchanging at the time. While there's no direct evidence that Darnic informed the I.J.A. of the Grail's existence, the official record blames him for their presence, as well as an attempt to steal the Greater Grail outright."

Archer actually looks impressed by that.

The good news about the Third War is that, since the Church had officially gotten involved, there were actual records of the identities of the Masters and Servants. Hardly COMPLETE records, mind you - the Church's involvement was too recent, the mistrust between them and the Mages' Association too strong - but Ambrose actually knows which members of the Three Families took part, as well as the names of a few other Masters, and was able to identify about half of the Servants involved.

Finally, there's the Fourth War, held in 1994. Ambrose was able to assemble a nearly perfect roster for this one, lacking only the identity of the cultist who summoned Dracula. He's even got a reasonable timeline of events, though he holds off on presenting that for the moment.

One of the big details that Ambrose was hoping to nail down in his search for information was records of the mana levels in and around Fuyuki before, during, and after the previous Grail Wars, to see if current trends matched up well enough to confirm that another War was in the making despite the incredibly shortened timeline.

Fortune and the obsessive-compulsive data-hoarding of magi smiled upon him, because such records not only existed, but were accessible with a minimum of fuss and bother. The Tohsaka Family, it seems, have been punctual and consistent in turning over regular reports on the magical energies and activities in their territory, right back to the beginning of their time as the Second Owners.

There are still some gaps. The years prior to the First War are patchy, at best, reflecting the Tohsaka's then-new control over and limited ability to monitor the land. The Second War proper is one big blank spot, undoubtedly a result of the Tohsaka representative dying along with all the other participants, and his family being too busy first surviving and then cleaning up the aftermath of the disaster to maintain their usual high standards of record-keeping. Things likewise got spotty in the Third War, and there's an extended period of silence that started late in the Fourth War, and continued on for most of two years before the reports returned to their original level of completeness and punctuality.

But what Ambrose has is enough to make it clear that magical activity in Fuyuki has not followed the trend of rapid decline and long dormancy observed after each of the three prior Grail Wars. The patterns have far more in common with those observed near the middle of the sixty-year recharge periods, when the land ticks over from "resting and recovering" to "recharging and preparing."

"Based on the existing reports, energy levels in Fuyuki are increasing approximately six times faster than normal, and continuing to rise," Ambrose says. "That kind of change ought to be impossible without some blatantly obvious cause, like a dragon taking up residence or a volcano erupting."

"I take it, then, that Fuyuki hasn't burned down or fallen off the map?" Archer inquires of the room at large.

Gyokuro shakes her head. "If anything, it's the opposite. Business, industry, and population have all been booming since the late Eighties, and they don't show any signs of slowing down - which is suspicious, given the economic recession most of the nation's been dealing with for the past decade. It gets more so when you realize most of the success stories tie back to one company."

"That would be Apex Enterprises, correct?" Ambrose speaks up.

"...as a matter of fact, yes." Gyokuro frowns at the wizard. "What do you know about them?"

"Their founder and C.E.O. is a Servant."

Here we go.

"Gilgamesh, Ramesses, Dracula, or Medusa?"

"The second," Ambrose answers with a nod. "Though there are a few reports of a young man matching the description of the King of Heroes associating with him."

"In what sense?" Archer inquires.

Ambrose checks his notes. "Walking into his office without an appointment, showing up to fancy dinner parties uninvited, ordering Apex employees around on a whim - that sort of thing."

"...yeah, that sounds like the Golden Bastard." Archer shakes his head.

"Titanic ego?" Gyokuro inquires dryly.

"I suspect the Titans would find him overbearing."

After that brief diversion, Ambrose gets back on topic.

The available evidence has basically confirmed that a new Grail War is coming within the next few years; the only thing that would make it more certain is if someone were to manifest Command Seals. For the sake of most of the audience other than Archer and your little band from Sunnydale, Ambrose digresses again to explain what those are, with Archer chiming in about the practical limitations of the so-called "absolute commands."

"Command Seals only contain so much energy, so specific, temporary orders that can focus their power tend to be far more effective than general, persistent orders which spread it out over time," the Servant says. "A Master ordering her Servant to 'do as I say' might force him to listen to her, but he could still argue with her, take actions she hadn't specifically forbidden, intentionally underperform, or any number of other little acts of rebellion." And the way he says that, half-frustrated, half-fond... "On the other hand, burning a Command Seal to order a Servant to 'come to my side' could teleport the Servant straight to the Master with no regard for distance or barriers between them, even if the Servant's Class wasn't one that allowed for that kind of magic."

"One part goad, one part tactical asset," Issa muses.

In any case, based on past records, Ambrose doesn't expect Command Seals to start appearing for a couple more years yet.

"The earliest confirmed selection of a Master was about three years prior to the War," he explains. "If we're looking at a timetable shortened to ten years compared to the usual average of sixty, Command Seals shouldn't start to materialize until the last six months."

The wizard also doesn't expect you to find out when the Masters are chosen based on the appearance of the Command Seals, unless someone in your little group or extended circle of acquaintances happens to be one of those selected. The average magus might not know what the Grail War is, but when arcane symbols of unknown origin carrying massive amounts of magical potential appear from out of nowhere - let alone on one's person - standard operating procedure would be to hide the evidence from all parties and research the heck out of it.

Still, to make sure you all know what to keep an eye out for, Ambrose has a few images of past Command Seals. Each one is different, and about the only things they have in common is that they're collections of at-best loosely-connected lines, with a certain tendency towards tripartite designs. Most are a distinctive shade of red, but some are partially or even entirely faded, looking more like old bruises or faint scars - a consequence of their having been used, Ambrose explains.

"It's traditional for the crest to appear on the back of the Master's right hand." Even as the wizard says that, he's pulling up a picture of a man's back and shoulders, which are absolutely COVERED in glowing lines. "However, where each human Master gets three Command Seals, the Ruler-Class Servant gets eighteen - ostensibly two for every other Servant in the War, but given that Ruler's purpose is to maintain order, I doubt that the Class is limited to USING any two Command Seals per Servant."

Eyes turn to Archer, who can only shrug. "I can neither confirm nor deny, but I tend to agree with the wizard. Magi may seem to lack common sense at times, but they're generally fairly good about addressing obvious threats to their own lives."

"If only because Darwin periodically winnows out the complete imbeciles," Ambrose agrees.

Since you're getting onto the topic of specific Servants, Ambrose moves on to the next part of his little lecture, which is a who's-who of Grail Wars past.

"These are people who we can largely expect NOT to turn up for the Fifth War," he says, as everyone turns to the relevant section of their handouts. "The Masters that survived the Third War have since passed on, and the Servants have all been confirmed as killed in action or faded in the aftermath. Leaving aside Zouken and Old Acht, neither of whom are likely to have the good graces to keel over and die until somebody makes them, the only Third War veterans that might turn up are the Church's representative, one Kotomine Risei, who's now in his mid-eighties, and of course, our problematic friend, Avenger."

Speaking of whom, Ambrose couldn't find any confirmation of the irregular Servant's identity. He simply died too early in the War for any of the other competitors to discover it, and the Einzberns have kept the truth to themselves.

That said, the Third War's Savior-Class Servant was Zoroaster, the prophet of the religion which identifies Angra Mainyu as the God of Evil. He was summoned by one of the "guest" Masters, who hailed from the same region of the Middle East where Zoroastrianism originated and is still practiced, albeit by a small and diminishing body of adherents. Seeing as how the Avenger and Savior of the Fourth War were effectively diametric opposites to one another, Ambrose considers this good evidence that the Avenger of the Third War was indeed Angra Mainyu.

"So the world really is potentially doomed," Akkiko sighs. "Again."

"I'm afraid so," Ambrose admits.

"...well, at least I brought my booze."

"Do you ever not?" Gyokuro asks.

"Um..." Akkiko thinks back. "That'd be a no."

You already knew that the Ruler of the Third War was Hammurabi, but other confirmed Servants include Fionn mac Cumhaill as the Lancer summoned by Yggdmillennia, and the so-called "Dwarf Hassan" as Assassin, under an unidentified Master who utilized magically-animated puppets in combat. Rather peculiarly, the Third War featured two Servants of the Saber Class - for a total of ELEVEN Servants - due to a joint summoning by twin sisters of the Edelfelt Magus lineage.

Issa makes a sound of recognition at that.

Out of the corner of your eye, you notice Archer twitch.

Hailing from Finland, the Edelfelts' lineage as Magi dates back to the Renaissance Era, which would be old enough to make them "respectable" in the eyes of the Clock Tower, if not for their tendency to work as mercenaries - high-class, highly professional, uncommongly successful, and hence abnormally wealthy mercenaries, but still, killers for hire. Their representatives' dual summoning in the Third War is credited to the family's hereditary Sorcery Trait, Ore Scales, which is known to allow the Edelfelts to have two successors for their Magic Crest, where any other Magus bloodline would have only one. Just as they had two successors for their Crest and two representatives for the War, the Edelfelts gained two Servants, both of which were aspects of the same legendary individual.

"Sir Gawain," Ambrose says. "His manifestation into two vessels appears to have 'divided' him between two aspects of his being: one as the Knight of the Sun, dedicated to serving his Master's will in the name of being the perfect knight; and the other as the bitter warrior who sought to claim the Grail for himself, in order to take revenge against Sir Lancelot for the murder of his brothers and the wound that Sir Mordred later exploited to kill Sir Gawain, before going on to kill the king." The old meddler frowns deeply, looking about as un-pranksterish as you've ever seen him. "The second Gawain appears to have intended to wish for Sir Lancelot to have died before his affair with Queen Guinevere could be exposed, believing it would avert the disasters that followed."

"'Before it was exposed,'" Gyokuro repeats with some disbelief. "Why not before it happened? Or for that matter, why not just wish that Lancelot never joined the Round Table, or never existed to begin with?"

"Sir Lancelot both begat and later knighted Sir Galahad, without whom the Grail Quest would have failed," Ambrose states. "Moreover, if the Queen would break her vows of matrimony for one heroic knight, who's to say that in his absence, another might not have caught her eye? Believe me, there was no shortage of dashing figures at the Round Table."

He'd know.

"But if she took a paramour who later died," the wizard formerly known as Merlin continues, "Guinevere would have been wracked with grief and guilt, and possibly even seen the loss as a judgment. That would have been more likely to head off any further indiscretions on her part."

That's the big names of the Third War. Ambrose's handouts have a more detailed breakdown of the known Servants' abilities, as well as the skills and identities - suspected or confirmed - of the remaining Servants and the human Masters, but that's stuff you can go over on your own time.

Do you have any questions for Ambrose, before he gets into the Fourth War?

Moving on, Ambrose begins to identify the Servants and Masters of the Fourth Holy Grail War of Fuyuki.

The first on this list is Ramesses II, summoned as the Servant Ruler by the Grail almost ten years prior to the commencement of the War. There's actually a detailed breakdown of WHY Ramesses was called so early, and what he was up to for a good portion of that time, because he made contact with the Tohsaka and Matou families shortly after his manifestation specifically to explain what was going on, and to ensure the information made it to the Mages' Association.

Ruler's early summoning was a direct consequence of the level of rule-breaking and attendant disaster that took place before and during the Third War, from the mass involvement of non-Master participants (read, the Nazis and I.J.A.) to the destruction of the Lesser Grail before it could reach completion. The Greater Grail's safeties kicked in and summoned the new Ruler early to deter further attempts at such egregious cheating, but also so that there would be an impartial party to oversee an investigation of the state of the Grail System and the surrounding area, for any lingering issues or potential future problems.

"From Ramesses's account, that investigation was originally planned by Hammurabi during the Third War, once it was clear that things had gotten entirely out of hand," Ambrose tells you. "However, the Third War's Caster was already dead by that point, and the King of Law didn't have enough Command Seals left to be sure of his ability to force and keep a cease-fire long enough for the investigation to be carried out by representatives of the Three Families. Instead, he spent one Command Seal to order the Grail to alert the next Ruler to the problem, and then used a second one on himself, so that any Command Seals he had left at the end of the War or at the time of his own death would be preserved and passed to his 'heir.'"

Leveraging the threat of an unknown number of additional Command Seals, Ramesses was able to browbeat Tohsaka, Matou, and even Einzbern into once again pooling their resources and taking a serious look at the Grail System. To their credit, several problems were identified and resolved, among them the lingering energies from certain battlefields of the Third War-

"Gawain's two sides had it out in the penultimate round," Ambrose says, wincing.

"...ouch," Archer breathes.

-the replacement of certain overstressed components within the system for sustaining Servants-

"It was originally designed to support seven Servants per War," Ambrose acknowledges, "so it's not really surprising that the sudden addition of four more Servants broke something."

-and a minor infestation of Nazis.

"One last present left behind by Yggdmillennia's idiocy," Ambrose notes with disgust. "It seems one of his apprentices survived the Third Grail War, got through World War Two more or less intact, and spent the next half a century building his knowledge and power any way he could, while waiting for the Fourth Grail War to come around. He wasn't based in Fuyuki - too much chance of being found out by Tohsaka or Matou - but he had agents and holdings there, and more in nearby cities. Mostly mundanes, albeit worryingly well-armed, with some petty spellcasters, corpse-demons, and two or three more potent individuals mixed in for flavor."

"But they missed Avenger?" Archer inquires.

"There's no mention of anything being wrong with the Greater Grail itself," Ambrose agrees. "But given some of the characters that turned up when the Fourth War got going..."

It's quite the list.

King Arthur Pendragon, the King of Knights, summoned in the Class of Saber by Emiya Kiritsugu, Magus Killer, on behalf of the Einzbern Clan.

Gilgamesh of Uruk, the King of Heroes, summoned in the Class of Archer by Tohsaka Tokiomi, Head of Tohsaka and Second Owner of Fuyuki.

Diarmuid Ua Duibhne, Knight of Fianna, summoned in the Class of Lancer by Kayneth Archibald, the Lord El-Melloi, a prodigy of the Clock Tower.

Alexander III of Macedon, the King of Conquerors, summoned in the Class of Rider by Waver Velvet, a third-generation Magus and student at the Clock Tower - under Lord El-Melloi, no less.

Hassan-i-Sabbah, Hassan of the Hundred Faces, summoned in the Class of Assassin by Kotomine Kirei, former Executor of the Holy Church, son of Kotomine Risei - the Church's representative of the Third and Fourth Wars; curious, that - and student in magecraft of Tohsaka Tokiomi.

Lancelot du Lac, the Knight of the Lake, summoned in the Class of Berserker by Matou Kariya.

Gilles de Rais, summoned in the Class of Caster by Uryuu Ryuunosuke, a non-Magus and serial killer.

Matthias Cronquist, who later became the Dark Lord Dracula, summoned in the Class of Avenger by a cultist whose identity remains unknown, even five years after the fact.

Simon Belmont, vampire hunter and twice-vanquisher of Dracula, summoned in the Class of Savior by his own distant descendant, Julius Belmont, at the tender age of 14.

...

"What about Medusa?" you ask after a moment. The Goddesses identified the legendary Gorgon as one of the four Servants active in Fuyuki in the wake of the Fourth War, but Ambrose's information shows that only ten Servants were summoned, and Medusa wasn't one of them.

"She was a late addition to the festivities," the wizard says, before beginning a summary of events.

Assassin's "death" while infiltrating the Tohsaka Estate, as the opening act of the Fourth War.

Lancer and Saber's duel at the docks, and the subsequent arrivals of every other Servant, save for Caster and Avenger - both of whom, as Ruler revealed at the time, were observing the event remotely.

The bombing of the Fuyuki City Hyatt Hotel by the Magus Killer, in a failed attempt to eliminate Lord El-Melloi and Lancer.

The truce agreed upon by Ruler and Risei for the sake of hunting down and eliminating Caster and his Master, before their ongoing and escalating string of abductions and horrific murders could reveal the existence of the War and magic to the world.

Caster's attack on Einzbern Castle, the brief alliance between Lancer and Saber against the child-killing magic-user, and the simultaneous duel between El-Melloi and Emiya, which ended prematurely when Ruler intervend and warned both Masters against further violation of his truce.

The discovery and destruction of Caster's lair by Rider and young Waver, and Caster and Uryuu's subsequent disappearance.

The Banquet of Kings, wherein the Einzbern Castle hosted a diplomatic dialogue-slash-drinking party between Saber, Rider, Archer, and Ruler, with Avenger and Savior being granted honorary admission - one as the "King of Vampires," the other as his greatest nemesis, a veritable "King of Hunters" - while Assassin turned up as a gatecrasher, and was eliminated by Rider.

And then came the Battle of the Mion River, one of the major turning points of the Fourth War, where Caster summoned and fused with a gigantic, seemingly invincible demon, and the rest of the Servants took it in turns to try and destroy him.

"The source of Caster's magic was his grimoire, so Lancer tried to stab it with his magic-cancelling spear, Gae Buidhe; unfortunately, Caster just sank himself deeper into the monster's body, out of reach. Avenger tried burning the aquatic demon with hellfire, but since he'd been summoned in his human state, his powers were too weak. Savior's Vampire Killer might have been able to do the job, but lacked the range to hit the demon before it made landfall - which was what they were trying to prevent - and would have needed a lot of time to get the job done even then. And while Archer took a few shots from aboard a Vimana he had in storage, he refused to bring out his strongest attack for a demon. Not that it mattered much," Ambrose adds, "since he got into an aerial duel with Berserker."

Archer frowns. "I'm not really surprised that Gilgamesh had a chariot of the gods in his treasury, but since when could Sir Lancelot fly?"

"Since he hijacked an F-15."

"...what."

"It's in the packet."

You look down and flip ahead a couple of pages.

...Knight of Owner, huh?

Can use any weapon as his Noble Phantasm, verified to work on modern weapons and weapons systems...

Now that is just cheating.

Any questions or comments on the data thus far?

When Ambrose brings up this "Banquet of Kings," you find yourself curious enough about what the Servants involved could have discussed to ask about it.

The wizard flips a page, reads, and says, "Well, first, there appears to have been a brief argument about who brought the best booze-"

"Warriors after my own heart," Akkiko declares, raising her sake bowl in a toast.

"-with Rider having knocked over a local wine store, Saber putting up some of the Einzberns' collection, and Avenger summoning a bottle of blood as a joke-"

Akasha facepalms at this.

"-before he switched in some thousand year-old French vintage. Ruler brought out the Egyptian beer after that, and Archer finally topped them all with what he called 'the finest wine of Uruk.' After that, they got into a discussion of different styles of kingship, which tied in with their desires for the Grail."

Gilgamesh appears to have had no real desire to use the Grail, instead viewing it as a treasure that was already his, and wishing to secure it so that it would not fall into unworthy hands. By the same token, however, the Golden King decreed that if the other Servants amused him enough, he might allow them to "drink from the cup"; this was part of his way of kingship, where his word was law and his judgment absolute.

Ramesses, too, was uninterested in possessing the Grail - he would not have been summoned as Ruler were it otherwise. The Pharaoh freely admitted that, had he incarnated in a younger form, he would have pursued the chalice without fail, in order to have his beloved Queen Nefertari at his side once more; as it stood, even with full awareness that the Fuyuki Grail was not the Cup of Christ, Ramesses refused to entrust any wish of his to a device that bore the name of a relic of the God of Abraham, whose power had ravaged his people, overcome the gods of Egypt, and forever separated him from his friend and brother, Moses.

As far as kingship went, Ramesses was not unlike Gilgamesh in that he embraced the concept of absolute rule. Indeed, as Pharaoh, he considered himself a benevolent god, loving and beloved by the people, whose duty it was to obey his commandments for the betterment of all. "Good" and "evil" did not factor into his rule: there was the right order of the world, as defined by the gods (and so, by the king); and there was the black chaos that sought to consume it all.

In contrast to the first two kings, Alexander sought to claim the Grail and use its power to reincarnate himself, that he might set out to conquer the world anew - and this time, to not be halted by a mundane ocean, but to take the world in its entirety. Though hailed as the King of Conquerors, it was not blood or gold that Alexander sought to claim, but the hearts and minds of his enemies - for in his view, a king's role was to be greater and greedier and grander than any other man, to take what he desired from the world, and so inspire others to follow him and his example, and pursue the same heights of success with all their strength.

King Arthur embraced a very different mindset from her predecessors, seeing it as the king's duty to dedicate one's self to the country and the people: to protect them from danger; to administer them justly and fairly; and in the end, to leave them better than they were at the beginning. Honor and obligation, glory and duty, justice and mercy; the core of chivalry, and so the core of the legend of Knights of the Round Table. Given Camelot's fall at the end of her life, Saber's wish for the Grail was to prevent that tragedy - to go back, all the way to the moment when she drew Caliburn from the Stone if need be, and do things over, correcting the mistakes and unaddressed pressures that ultimately destroyed her nation.

Arthur's stance was curiously echoed by Mathias Cronqvist, who had, after all, lived his mortal life according to the same tenets of knighthood that Saber was held to be the champion of. Even after his transition to undeath and eventual ascension to the role of Dark Lord, the man who became Dracula held to a dark reflection of the code of chivalry: taking no more than he needed from the people under his rule; saving his savagery for acknowledged enemies; limiting the overt use of his unholy powers until an opponent proved worthy of them; and even showing a twisted hospitality to those hunters who sought his endless life, by allowing them to roam the halls of his castle as long as they proved able to survive, even going so far as to provide safe havens where mortal men and women could find water, food, and rest before resuming the hunt.

But running through Mathias's code was that which qualified him as a Servant of the Avenger Class: his sheer spiteful rejection of an uncaring God that seemed to only and ever take from men, and never gave back anything but cold platitudes and empty promises; his contempt for and abandonment of humanity; and the bitter knowledge - however dimmed by his incarnation as the 11th Century Mathias rather than the 15th Century Vlad Dracula Tepes - that his true self had sworn vengeance upon all mankind for the destruction of his country, the genocide of his people, and the murder of his wife, and then spent the next five centuries trapped in a cycle of resurrection and death.

Mathias's desire for the Grail was to break that cycle. He would claim the Grail, and then he would wait for the scant few years until Dracula's foretold resurrection, at which time he would use the Grail's accumulated power to call the Dark Lord's spirit into the waiting vessel of his Servant body. The result would be something greater and more terrible than the sum of its parts, neither the resurrection of a Dark Lord or the summoning of a Servant, but the true physical embodiment of the Heroic Spirit Dracula, finally and fully able to bring half a millennium's thwarted vengeance down upon the world.

Simon Belmont merely wanted to make sure that didn't happen, though the opportunity to train young Julius and get him some real-world experience was a nice side-benefit.

All of these differing opinions and desires stir up your own thoughts.