Xander Quest Chapter 334: Another Magical Summer 6, a private fanfic

There can be only one response to such a presentation, and that is applause.

So you give it: not one of those half-hearted little golf claps; but also not an over-the-top ovation accompanied by cheers and whistles and calls for an encore. You simply pay Boris the acclaim he earned with his entrance.

The old vampire bows. "Fang you, lad. Fang you very much."

Kahlua hangs her head in secondhand shame.

"On the whole," you note then, "I give that performance a seven-point-nine out of ten."

Boris nods as he considers that. "I see, I see. Any pointers?"

"I mean, it was a good use of and a solid tribute to the classics, and the special effects were fine," you begin. "I also liked how you emerged from a cloud of fog instead of from an assembly of bats. If I could ask about the reasoning behind that...?"

"You've seen me exit stage left as a cloud of bats a couple of times now," the elderly vampire replies, "most recently as breakfast this morning. Doing the reverse would have been the expected thing, so I decided to mix it up a bit, try to keep the act fresh."

"Good choice," you agree and approve. "Still, I HAVE seen the vampiric youki release and shrieking bats combo quite a few times at this point, and I've ALSO seen the 'cloud of bats literally darkening the sky' trick, done on a much larger scale that had the greater contrast of a sunny day turning to night."

Boris raises a gnarled old fist to the sky, and calls up into the gloom, "Curse you, Vlad! Why must you be such a difficult act to follow?"

"Oh, were you in Europe last year?" you ask.

"No, that would have been too much excitement for this old man's heart... but, we're getting sidetracked, and leaving a pair of ladies waiting in the process."

Introductions ensue, as do explanations - although Kahlua is looking like she's having second thoughts, and third ones besides, about the wisdom of calling on Uncle Boris - and Madam Lanora proves quite willing to accept a discussion about vampire views on religion and magic in exchange for her advice.

On that subject, Lanora explains that dreams are actually not part of Nayru's divine portfolio - in fact, none of the three Golden Goddesses can truly claim authority over dreams, created and contained as they are by mortal minds and souls. Any of the divine trio can send a dream or a nightmare when she wants to convey a message, that simply requires a certain amount of power and the knowledge of how to apply it, and Nayru and Farore both have certain advantages in the dream-realm when compared to their more physically focused sister, but they also have their own... incompatibilities... with that plane. A proper God of Dreams would outmatch any of the Golden Goddesses in his or her domain, but Hyrule has no such deity, unless it is the mythical Wind Fish - and that one has not been seen since the era of the great king.

Gained Hyrulean History E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

That said, Nayru's faithful have studied dreams just as they have so many other subjects, and so, while it is not an area that Madam Lanora has personally devoted much attention to, she can confirm what Koron told you.

Uncle Boris's presence also proves helpful, as he confirms that dreamwalking isn't a skill that living vampires excel at just by existing. There are other kinds of "vampires" who DO enjoy that kind of attunement to the dream-realm, or just to psychic phenomenon in general - usually because their feeding methods involve draining thoughts, memories, emotions, or just raw mental energy - but it's not a gift that turns up in the Shuzen bloodline, or Boris's own.

The two of them make it seem much less likely that Kahlua was solely or mostly responsible for Merlot turning up in or near her dreams, and Madam Lanora confirms that Kahlua's display of unconscious and untrained dream control really isn't all that unusual, especially when you asked her for permission to enter her dreamscape.

You make a mental note to be VERY careful about asking questions like that of other dreamers you may encounter going forward.

Gained Local Knowledge (Dream Plane) F (Plus)

With most of the potential explanations that Koron gave you ruled out, you're left with the "something we're missing" option - and Lanora has a suggestion there.

"There is a possibility that the cause was environmental," she says, while looking at the castle-spirit. "This little one was recently awakened, correct?"

"Within the last year," you confirm, glancing down at the spirit.

Glowing eyes look back up at you, blinking innocently.

"All spirits, mortal and immortal alike, have some degree of presence within and impact upon the realm of dreams," the Nayrian priestess states. "When a new mind awakens for the first time, it's mirrored in the dream plane, and while the reaction is usually very small, a place-spirit such as this has a much more widespread mind than most of us - not necessarily more powerful, but certainly capable of affecting a larger area than most who aren't naturally strong or well-trained psychics."

You are reminded of that castle corridor dreamscape that Shadow Briar was briefly trapped in. You'd speculated that it might have belonged to Miss Akasha, given the Castle Dracula-esque overtones and lurking menace, but now you have to wonder...

"That said," Lanora goes on, interrupting your thoughts, "the spirit's awakening alone wouldn't have been enough to make unintentional contact between untrained dreamers as easy as you're describing. It's more that the spirit gaining consciousness was like the last rain that overflowed the banks of a river whose water levels were already high."

"You're saying there was something off about the local dreamspace even before the castle started opening and closing its own doors," Boris sums up.

"I am, yes. As to what that might be..." Lanora trails off with a shrug.

You think back.

You remember a couple of dark and restless dreams.

You remember Arisawa Akkiko griping about needing to drink herself unconscious to get any sleep.

"I am... pretty sure that I know what the cause of all this is, now," you sigh. "But it ties into a secret that isn't mine to tell. Sorry, Madam Lanora."

"Can you alert the people who need to know?" the Zora priestess asks seriously.

"Yes, and I will be doing that later," you assure her.

"Then there's no need to apologize." She claps her webbed hands together as if for added emphasis, and then changes the topic, turning to Uncle Boris. "With that out of the way, perhaps we should find a pair of comfortable seats somewhere?"

The old vampire grins, revealing a smile with fangs that has you briefly wondering just how long a vampire's teeth can last, and whether Boris's current, complete set are his original adult teeth (or even just his original teeth, period), if he's regrown some or all of them over the centuries, or if there is outright magic at work - or just a thousand years' worth of really good dental hygiene.

That last one strikes you as unlikely, but you never know.

Half-bowing as he extends an arm, Boris says, "I believe I know just the place, my good priestess. If, that is, it won't offend your lady goddess for you to accept the hospitality of a bloodthirsty old monster of the night?"

I'll allow it.

She wants to hear the stories.

Hush, you.

I'm not teasing, I want to hear them, too!

...all right, then.

"It is through the endurance of such trials that we gain the wisdom we were not born with," Lanora replies to Boris, as she takes his arm.

"...that's a good answer, right?"

And they're off, the calling spell holding Madam Lanora on this plane having gone into that "standby" state where the task she was summoned for has been completed, and only the final confirmation of the terms remains before she's sent back from whence she came. Normally, this is the phase of the spell that a far-ranging spirit will spend returning to its caller across many miles of distance and perhaps weeks of time, but it's also convenient for situations like this, where full receipt of the summonee's "payment" takes a while.

Leaving the really old people to their business, you clean up the summoning circle and head back inside with Kahlua.

You, Kahlua, and the castle's spirit walk across the courtyard, Merlot having flown on ahead to wait for you above the main door.

"Going to find one of my parents or Miss Akasha?" Kahlua asks.

"Yup," you reply.

"Going to talk with them about what you think we found out about?"

"Yup."

"Going to try and chase me out of the room before you talk?"

You consider that question, and the false cheer with which it was delivered. "I won't," you offer, "but I can't speak for the adults."

There is an annoyed huff at that.

Kahlua, you suspect, is a little irked about not being allowed in on the secret that you are avoiding sharing with her. Whether she's annoyed with you, her parents, both, or just at the situation itself, you're not sure.

Your first impulse was to look for Gyokuro, as you did promise that you'd try to do better about informing her of situations that you might need her family's assistance in dealing with ahead of time. Between Dracula's involvement - however passive and long-ago - and the potential safety hazard to the Shuzen family, this counts on two different fronts.

Fortunately, speaking with the staff reveals that Gyokuro finished her own breakfast while you were getting your questions answered. You're once again directed to her office, which is actually empty when you arrive, leaving you to grab a chair while Kahlua stands before the desk, waiting reasonably patiently for her mother to show up.

Gyokuro does that only a couple of minutes later, frowning as she enters the office. "What's happened NOW?" she sighs.

You start to answer, then stop and glance at Kahlua, asking her if she would like to speak first.

Kahlua gestures for you to go ahead.

You nod, and then explain to Gyokuro that you took the opportunity to practice your dreamwalking skills for a little while last night, and that you found Merlot hanging out just outside of Kahlua's dreamscape.

"He can do that?" Gyokuro asks with some surprise. "YOU can do that?"

"In reverse order," you answer, "I can, but not very well. I basically cribbed some notes from a little succubus I met back at the World Tournament-"

That gets you a startled look.

"-and I've been building on the skill from there, but none of my teachers are skilled in the technique, and I've been busy enough this last year that I didn't have the time to look for another tutor, or even practice that much on my own."

She nods. "And the bat?"

You give Gyokuro a quick summary of today's investigation and inquiries, concluding with, "I think I know what the source of the problem is, but it involves that secret Mrs. Arisawa, Ambrose and I found out about-"

"Because of course it does," the lady groans.

"-so I figured I should end that discussion and inform you as soon as possible."

"Thank you for that, Alex." Taking a moment to make sure the door is firmly closed behind her, Gyokuro turns and looks at her eldest, saying nothing, but clearly evaluating her.

Kahlua meets her mother's gaze steadily.

"If I tell you this, Kahlua," Gyokuro says, "you will not talk about it unless you're with me, your father, or Akasha - and no one else except Alex or Briar, until further notice. Am I understood?"

Kahlua nods. "Yes, Mother."

"Alright, then. The short version is that we used to have Dracula locked up in the basement-"

"WHAT?!"

This will take a few minutes.

Is there anything in particular that you feel needs to be brought up?

It takes Kahlua somewhat longer to get over the revelation that her family used to keep a then-mostly-dead, now-entirely-dead Dark Lord's body underneath the castle than the last couple of people you saw getting hit with the news. Being fair to her, those people were adults, and if two out of three of them weren't - and still aren't - always as mature in their behavior as that title would normally suggest, they at least have a lot more experience in rolling with the metaphorical punches than your friend does.

Possibly the literal punches, too, now that you think about it. Akkiko and Ambrose are both spellcasters by training and preference, but the half-oni woman is just that, with all that it implies, whereas the wizard hangs out with a bunch of knights, has a habit of getting into trouble, and is just eminently punchable.

Anyway, once Kahlua has gotten over her surprise, you and her mother take it in turns to explain the rest of the situation: how you originally found hints of Dracula's influence upon Castle Shuzen in your dreams; how Akkiko proved to have a similar degree of spiritual awareness, as well as her own family's records about the battle that saw the Dark Lord's gigantic form sealed; and how the body was inadvertently destroyed when someone managed to temporarily resurrect Dracula several years ago.

The Grail War is a long story that Gyokuro clearly doesn't wish to get into talking about at this time, as she simply states that, "The matter was resolved and that incarnation of the Dark Lord destroyed in a timely manner, with minimal casualties, and we are still keeping an eye on the area where it happened, just in case."

Kahlua doesn't appear satisfied with that brief answer, but she says nothing about it, evidently recognizing her mother's desire to leave it for later.

Gyokuro then DOESN'T bring up your latest visit to the Hakuba Shrine, instead telling Kahlua that you have an agreement to let the Shuzens know if you uncover any other issues relating to Dracula...

Kahlua nods at that. "Because even a dead man can be dangerous," she says, sounding like she's repeating something. The next part is less rehearsed. "And since this is a dead Dark Lord, he's even more dangerous than that."

"Exactly," her mother approves.

"...so Dracula's in our dreams?" Kahlua asks with clear discomfort, glancing your way.

"It's more like he was 'dreaming' in a nearby room, and might have been able to visit or influence your dreams," you clarify. "From what Mrs. Arisawa said back then, the seals on Dracula's body weren't protecting the portion of the dream-realm that overlaps with the castle as well as they could have, so some of his energy was able to leak out over time. I don't know enough about the Dream Plane to say what sort of impact that might have had, but I DID encounter a dreamscape that looked more like Castle Dracula than Castle Shuzen, which tried to trap the Shadows when they got near it."

Mother and daughter don't look at ALL happy to hear that.

"On that note," you say quickly, "if there's anything I could help with further, regarding this situation..."

"Not unless you know how to chase away bad dreams, or have the name of a specialist in the field," Gyokuro replies. "Do you?"

"Unfortunately, no," you admit. You might know a few people with more general knowledge of the workings of the dream realm, and even a couple who are already read in on the whole Dracula business and could be consulted or outright hired to lend a hand without further compromising the secret, but not any avowed specialists - and the Shuzens hardly need your help to get in touch with Akkiko or Ambrose if they decide they want to.

"Then for now, all I want to ask is that you not go walking around in other people's dreams, or this dream-realm, while you're visiting," the lady of the castle concludes. "At least not until we have this matter looked into by someone who can be trusted to know what they're doing."

You nod.

You and Kahlua turn to leave, and you're halfway out the door when a thought occurs that has you stopping and looking back at Gyokuro.

"Oh, and before I forget, Elder Boris has wandered off with one of my summoned tutors to have a religious discussion."

Halfway to sitting down, Gyokuro stares at you, blinking once, slowly. "Which tutor?"

"Madam Lanora."

"...the fish woman?"

"The blue lady with the fins and scales and such, yes. I don't know how long they'll be talking, but if it happens to run longer than I'm here, she's capable of dismissing herself at any time."

"I will keep that in mind."

With that, you're off.

"If we do happen to find someone that qualifies, I'll let you know," Gyokuro replies. "I hope you'll understand that teaching skills won't be a top priority in our search."

You think that's fair, and say as much before you leave her to her morning's work.

At breakfast, Urahara said he and Tessai might be done making adjustments to Jasmine's gigai in as little as an hour, and it's been close to an hour and a half since then. Since the rest of your plans for the day are fairly dependent on the Shinigami scientists' schedule, you decide to go check on them.

The improvised spiritual surgical suite turned recovery room proves to be unoccupied when you arrive, with the arm-mounted scanners of the bedside array having been swung back and down against their supporting frame, and most of the handheld gadgets placed back in their respective containers. The things Urahara and Tessai brought with them are by no means packed and ready to go, but at a glance, you'd say they're almost halfway there.

A quick check over the intercom redirects you to the sparring room-

"Whaa-!"

"Sorry!"

-where you arrive just as Kokoa goes flying across the chamber, while Jasmine - dressed in a surprisingly well-fitting Chinese-style green dress - stands near the point of launch, looking rather embarrassed.

"It's fine," Akua assures her friend. "Look, she's not even going to hit the wall this time."

"Yeah!" Kokoa says, as she touches down on all fours and skids to a halt with a good foot of space to spare. The moment she stops, she pops back up on her feet, grinning. "Let's try again!"

"Alright...?"

You take in the four vampire girls and three fairies already in the room, and turn to the Shinigami and your Shadow. "Stress-testing the gigai?" you guess.

"That was how it started," Urahara agrees, "but it turned into re-training her youki control after that big surge outside a few minutes ago." Sleepy eyes glance your way. "Would you happen to know what that was about?"

"Uncle Boris was showing off for another guest," Kahlua sighs.

"Ah." Showing some tact, Urahara doesn't pursue that line of inquiry any further. "Well, at this point, I think we can safely declare the fitting to have been a success-"

"Aaaa-!"

"-and since we used a model rated for light combat as the basis, I'm not even worried about it failing to live up to the warranty," he adds with a cheerful smile, as Jasmine gets to take a turn on the Vampire Air Express. "On that note, we should probably start packing."

"Ah, wait!" Jasmine hurries over, stops short with a squeak when both of you and the two Shinigami turn her way all at once, and looks like she's considering ducking behind Akua for cover for a moment, before taking a deep breath to firm her resolve. "Before you go, I wanted to say thank you for helping me. So... thank you, for helping me." And she bows, deeply.

"Yes," Akua agrees, bowing just as deeply. "Thank you."

"You're welc-"

Urahara is interrupted by one of his gadgets suddenly buzzing, as something in your own pocket activates.

Gained 10 Gratitude Crystals

"-hm?"

"You're welcome," you say, trying not to glance down at your pocket, and wondering if you just "stole" some of the gratitude directed at Urahara and Tessai, or if what the Crystallizer just solidified was merely your fair share.

"Okay, stop that and stand up straight!" Kokoa interrupts. "It's your turn!"

It is with an expression of some reluctance that Jasmine straightens from her bow, glancing first at the impatient redhead and then at Akua, the latter of whose firm expression prompts a sigh of resignation.

As the vampire girls go back to their exercise - with Kahlua wandering over to Moka to ask what the "rules" are and what the results have been like - you turn to Urahara.

"Did you actually create a sensor that could pick up gratitude?" you ask evenly. "Or did it just detect the Crystallizer in action?"

"The latter," Urahara confirms. "Give me some time to do more tests on those Crystals you left us, though, and I'll get it down. Not entirely sure what I'll DO with a Gratitude Sensor, although if I could use that as a reference for detecting other emotional states..." He trails off in thought for a moment, before shaking his head and coming back to the present. "Anyway, mind answering a question for a question?"

"Shoot."

Urahara dons an expression of hurt and places one hand over his heart for a moment, and then waves at Tessai, all while saying, "Did you just steal some of our hard-earned gratitude?"

You resist the urge to snort dismissively, because it's not like they could have DONE anything with the gratitude on their own, however heartfelt it might be.

"Honestly? I'm not entirely sure, but..." You pause to fish the Crystallizer out of your pocket, and quickly check the contents. "Based on how much it just netted, for something as big as giving someone a new lease on life - even with the attached limits - I'm leaning towards 'probably not'." Tucking the device away again, you add, "Still, if it makes you feel better, consider your share of the Gratitude to be a down-payment on a pair of front-row seats for the next time I transform a demon into a human."

"Done," Urahara agrees at once.

"And done," Tessai chimes in.

And then the two of them excuse themselves and head out to start packing their stuff.

A couple of hours later, you're back in the castle courtyard, where the Youkai Academy Bus and its Driver have returned to see Urahara, Tessai, and their equipment back to the shop. You'll be taking your leave at this time as well, although you won't be going on the Bus, at least not beyond the outer gatehouse.

On a side note, while Madam Lanora and Uncle Boris have come down to see you off, the priestess will be staying to continue her talk with the elder vampire for some time yet.

"Give us half an hour to an hour to get everything put back where it belongs, and then bring your dog by," Urahara says to you, as the last of the bags and boxes are placed aboard the vehicle. "We can have the exam done before lunch, and you back home... probably by sunset."

You take a second to compare the time zones and conclude that you might be cutting things a little close, especially if you wait too long or use a lot of rituals when traveling.

Then again, it's only been a couple of days since your Shadow introduced Sunnydale's blood-rat infestation to Fire Magic (among other forces). The corpse-demons will likely be keeping their heads down for the next little while, just in case their unseen doom makes a sudden reappearance - so this is probably a reasonably safe time to be out at night on the Hellmouth.

Goodbyes are said, passengers climb aboard the Bus, and the Driver steers you out of Castle Shuzen and down the road to the border of the domain.

"You know," the Bus Driver observes, as you're rattling down the hill, "in another time and place, a kid who wanted to get off of a vehicle full of monsters before reaching an official destination would have to fight his way to freedom, or just jump off."

"Counterpoint," you return, "I fight with magic. I mean, unless you WANT me to start throwing Fireballs on your bus..."

"I was thinking more along the lines of opening the door and having you fly out while we go roaring by," the Bus Driver quickly interrupts. "Maybe with a nice long scream to get the guards worried..."

"...up for a prank, Briar?"

The dark, youki-rich environment of the Shuzen demiplane normally dulls any source of mundane light brought within its perimeter, and adds a reddish hue to the illumination besides - but to call the Youkai Academy Bus "mundane" would be stretching the term, and any part of the vehicle singled out from the whole still shares its uncanny nature.

Thus it is that the bus's headlights blaze like torches of bloody, unholy flame, giving the machine the aspect of some massive monstrosity as it comes roaring and banging down the side of the rocky hill upon which Castle Shuzen stands.

Monsters almost to a one, and with years of experience dealing with and adapting to monsters for those that are not, the sight bothers the security personnel not a whit. Their counterparts at the main house have already called ahead to let it be known that the Bus Driver and his passengers are cleared to leave, and that the gates are to be opened so as not to delay them.

It's a sign of respect... but it's also done because nobody is entirely certain that the Bus Driver wouldn't just ram through the barriers anyway, if they weren't opened when he reached them. There's no actual RECORD of such a thing happening, and the Driver is known to be fairly protective of his vehicle besides, but he's still a monster, and one who takes his job seriously, at that.

Down the central tor and through the wooded hills comes the terrible bus-beast, passing through the midway checkpoint in a roar of engine and slipstream and inhuman laughter. There are some grins among the guards as they recognize one of their own in a really good mood, and speculations as to what could have so amused the Bus Driver.

Those down at the main gate find out a few minutes later.

Along comes the bus, bloody lights burning away the night before them, wheels devouring the road at a frenetic pace, and air howling around it - and with the gate already swung wide, all seems well.

Then, one of the security men frowns, keener-than-human eyesight catching movement from the side of the oncoming vehicle.

"Why is the door-?"

He doesn't get a chance to finish that statement, as a smaller-than-adult-sized body comes flying out the door-

"AAAAAaaa!"

-accompanied by an oddly familiar-sounding scream, which none of the guards have time to place, stunned and/or scrambling as they are. No one is close enough or fast enough to try and catch the falling form-

"BWAHAHAHAHAHA!" roar the Bus Driver and most of his passengers, as they and the Bus go thundering through the opened checkpoint.

-and a moment later, it turns out not to be necessary, as the "body" never actually finishes falling, catching itself in mid-air and flying along at a low but level altitude.

And then the Shuzen guards register just who got "thrown" off the bus, with a few of them registering fey laughter from a small, glowing source that their fellows can't clearly perceive, and there is a lot of groaning, a certain amount of sighing, and at least some wry chuckling.

"Good one, kid," one of the guards admits. "You got us."

Gained King of Monsters B

After a quick check to make sure you actually are in one piece after leaping from a fast-moving bus, the guards send you on your way. You step off of the Shuzen property, work a ritual of teleportation while walking a bit further away, and return to the environs of Sunnydale.

When you get home, it's a quarter to seven, and your parents have finished doing the dishes from supper. There are leftovers - tonight was pizza - which you might look at when you get back from Moblin's checkup, but that breakfast with the vampires will tide you over for the time being.

On that note, you lead your dog into the basement, call up your Mirror Hideaway, and urge him through - which results in no small amount of flinching and whining when he sticks his nose through, before almost instantly pulling it back.

"'Cold! Sharp! Scary!' he says," Briar advises you.

Also, while you'll be disguising yourself - since it's still a school day in Japan - do you want to disguise Moblin as well?

In light of Moblin's bad reaction to passing through the mirror, you give serious thought to taking the long route out of town - but then you consider the distances to your usual long-range teleportation spots, contrast those numbers against how far you usually take Moblin on his walks, and then factor in the time it would take to make the trip.

The results are not the most favorable.

Plus, you've worked with animals enough at this point that you know that sometimes, you need to be firm.

"Through the mirror, Moblin."

Moblin whines.

"Come on, boy," Briar says encouragingly, floating forward. "Look, I'll go into the big nasty mirror with you..."

Between the two of you and Moblin's general good nature, you manage to get him into the Mirror Hideaway. He shivers, gives himself a couple of shakes, and edges away from the portal - and then he catches sight of his reflections in all the other glassy surfaces, and starts barking eagerly.

"'Strange dogs!'" Briar informs you. "'Why can't I smell you or hear you- oh! They're me! Look, Alex, there's a whole bunch of me!'"

You have a good partner, and a good dog.

You get out the Haunted Ball, give it a light toss-

"Waaaa!"

"Ball!"

-and start making with the magic while Moblin is occupied.

Since you're taking Moblin to Karakura, you figure it's probably for the best that you disguise him, just to avoid giving anyone that might be watching a potential clue to your own identity.

While you do have a leash to prevent Moblin from running around too freely as he explores an exciting new location, he may still end up physically interacting with people and things, so a disguise powered by Transformation Magic makes more sense than one based on the School of Illusion. With that in mind-

"'Strange dogs! Where did I go, and why can't I smell you or hear you? Look, Alex, there's a whole bunch of strange dogs! And they have my Ball! ...wait, I still have my Ball- THERE ARE MORE BALLS?'"

-you change your dog's appearance, and then get out the leash and fit it to his collar. Fortunately, you knew better than to make your already reasonably large and energetic pet any bigger than he was to begin with, so it's no more of a wrestling match to get him ready for his walk than usual.

Once that's done, you don a somewhat different disguise than usual-

"'New Alex!'" Briar translates again, before eyeing the yardstick you brought along and adding, "What's with the dark glasses and walking stick?"

"They're to help sell the image of Moblin as my Arcane Eye Dog."

Briar snorts. "That's awful. Let's do it."

-and then ritually open a Gate to the Tokyo Tower. As you're doing that, Briar tells Moblin to be on his best behavior, because you're going to a place where most dogs aren't normally allowed, and it would be easy to get in trouble.

Moblin huffs at that and then straightens up, making his current form look about as professional a pup as possible as he proceeds through the portal after Briar, guided by her quiet murmurs. You follow suit, walking a little slower than you otherwise might and tapping your transmuted cane against the floor to help sell the image.

The three of you must be doing something right, because nobody stops you or calls you out, even when you sense a couple of people with active magical auras moving past you in the direction of your now-closed Gate.

While you do have an appointment to keep, you're not in a tearing hurry; taking a few minutes to check in with the little god of the Tower won't change that. Besides, it's kind of becoming a tradition for you to stop in at the shrine and say hi when you pass through, and one should respect tradition, shouldn't they?

To help preserve your disguise, you silently send a message to Briar through the familiar bond, asking her to guide Moblin towards the shrine.

The reply you get back is wordless puzzlement, with a single intelligible "Really?" and a dash of amused resignation, followed by a quietly spoken, "This way, boy."

Moblin makes a sound of interest and follows Briar's lead.

A few minutes of light crowd navigation pass without incident-

"Dog!" a child just old enough to be discovering words declares triumphantly from a young man's arms, pointing at Moblin.

"Yes, that is a dog," the probable-father congratulates the child.

"Dog play?"

"No, no, the dog is working..."

"Dog!" the child repeats insistently. "Play!"

Fortunately, Moblin does not recognize the Japanese word for dog, and so is not distracted from his course; he acknowledges the initial outburst with a brief swivel of one ear, keeps that ear aimed in that direction as the noise starts to increase, and finally loses interest as you leave the scene behind.

-at least, without incident for you, and then you come to the shrine.

For once, you've arrived at a time when the miko is present, a woman you would venture to be a couple of years older than Miss Suzuka of the Hakuba Shrine. She's currently engaged in a quiet conversation with a couple of visitors over by one of the informational plaques, while a trio are lined up before the main shrine, praying silently - another first, as it happens. You can sense the kami hovering near the latter group, wisps of spiritual energy flowing back and forth between them, but you try not to look - or for that matter, to LISTEN - too closely at the phenomenon.

One of the downsides of keen spiritual awareness and supernatural senses in general is how easy it is to unintentionally witness things you aren't expected or invited to.

Speaking of witnesses, Moblin is regarding the shrine with curiosity. He's never seen this sort of thing before, and while there are fortunately no socks or shoes on display to really get his interest, he's still visibly intent on the unfamiliar decor. Briar is murmuring softly, urging your dog to stay "in-character," but you aren't sure how long that will last.

"Moblin, heel," you say, as you reach into your pocket and pull out a couple of sticks of Gold Incense.

Moblin huffs and sits down next to you, still looking intently at the shrine decor.

It doesn't take long for the three visitors ahead of you to finish their prayers, and you are just considering how to make things look right-

"Ah, sir?"

-when the miko takes care of that for you.

"The shrine is available, if you would care to make a prayer or a donation," she offers, coming forward from where she had been speaking with the shrine's other two guests, who you can hear walking off with the prayerful trio.

"Thank you, miss. I would like to do both - that is, if you feel this incense would be a good offering?" You hold up the sticks for her to inspect, doing your best to be in line with the sound of her voice, but still a little off-target.

"One moment... oh. Oh, I recognize this!" she exclaims. For a second you think she's going to grab the incense from your hand, but the miko gets control of herself, clears her throat, and clasps her hands together before her in an attempt to restore her poise as a dutiful servant of the divine. "Forgive me for asking, sir, but would you happen to have visited the shrine before? I only ask because I've found this particular brand left for the kami in the past, at times when I wasn't on-shift yet, and none of my co-workers were entirely sure who the visitor had been."

...whoops?

You stand a little straighter, do your best to not-quite face the direction the miko's voice is coming from, and say in a level tone, "Miss, I've never seen this place before in my life."

From Briar's direction comes the sound of a tiny facepalm.

"Well, no, I wo-ooohhhh," the miko begins to say, changing to a groan in mid-word as she fully registers what you just said. "That was terrible, sir," she continues.

And yet, from the sound of her voice, she's having to fight not to laugh, even if it's just once. Too undignified for a shrine attendant? Too rude towards a guest of said shrine? Who knows.

"It was," Briar sighs in agreement with the woman's remark.

"And yet," you reply to both of them, "it sounds like it entertained you."

"Well, I mean- that is to say-"

You raise one hand, as if to swear an oath. "I won't tell anyone if you don't?"

"...please, and thank you."

You nod. "Now, in all honesty, miss, I have visited the Tower in the past, and I have left incense of this type as an offering at this shrine. I hope that hasn't been an issue?"

"It was... unexpected," the miko replies after a moment. "We do have a few small incense burners for the use of our visitors, but the guests aren't supposed to light them without myself or another member of the Tower staff present."

"Fire safety regulations and liability issues, I suppose?"

"Basically, yes."

You have to wonder if the kami counts as one of the Tower's employees. Mystically speaking, he's rather more than that, and fully qualified to stand in for any sort of mortal authority you might name over this place and the activities carried out here, but the mundane regulations the staff have to comply with almost certainly don't account for input from the Tower's spirit.

That said, at this distance it's fairly simple for you to determine that the miko DOES have an above-average spiritual aura about herself, strong enough that she's most likely aware her patron genuinely exists - though perhaps not with the strength or attunement to invoke the small god.

Of course, if the miko is able to perceive the kami, she could probably hear it, too, and that might cause you other issues if the Tower-spirit lets slip that you're not wearing your usual appearance, or that you aren't really blind.

"...I'm sorry, what?"

Even if you really were blind, you think you'd be able to sense the dull stare the young woman is directing at you right now.

"I said, the kami can vouch for me," you repeat easily. "I asked his permission before offering the incense the first time, and that wasn't the first or last time we spoke."

Granted, the first time "you" spoke with the kami, your Shadow was the one who was actually present, but it's the same thing for most intents and purposes.

...actually, now that you think about it, you're pretty sure you have another tradition going here, that being to never visit this shrine using the same appearance twice. Shadow Alex's idealized adult form was first, then you came through under a Spell of Invisibility, and NOW you're here as a blind man.

"Y-you... you asked... you mean you GOT... but you don't have-" The disbelieving miko manages to catch herself there and force out an attempt to preserve the masquerade: "I mean, that's just silly, hahaha, the kami don't ACTUALLY talk to people anymore!"

The flatness of her forced laughter and the alarmed haste with which her excuse is delivered kind of completely ruin the cover story, but even without those, the miko took way too long stumbling over her shock to really be credible.

She seems to have read your reaction and realized that fact, because she sighs and slumps in place. "You're not buying it, are you."

It's not a question.

"Considering that I genuinely HAVE spoken to the kami of the Tower, and moreover, that I'm under a couple of spells of my own casting at this very moment?" To make sure the point sticks, you cast a simple cantrip and create a small flame in the palm of your empty hand, which you cup so that nobody else but the miko is likely to see it. "I'm really not."

"...how are you doing that?" she wonders. Her tone lacks the shock of someone seeing magic for the first time; it's more like someone who's seen a familiar face that they can't quite attach a name to. "You don't FEEL like you have any magic, and while good control could explain SOME of that... also, even if you do have good control of your magic, please don't light fires in the Tower."

"I do have good control," you admit modestly, as you close your hand to extinguish the flame, "but more importantly, I'm under a spell that prevents me from being detected or examined by supernatural means."

"Oh. Oh! You mean like, what was it called, 'Nonuditekkushun'?"

Ouch. That was painful to hear in two languages.

"...something like that one," you reply, trying not to wince.

"Ha! And Hoshi made fun of me for re-reading the orientation booklet. Shows what she knoooohhhh, wait a second!" It's an effort not to flinch as she suddenly points at you. "Are YOU the person that's been driving security crazy lately, breaking in from other dimensions?"

Her voice isn't raised, and doesn't sound upset; quite the opposite, in fact.

"I was told this is a designated point of arrival for long-range magical travel. Was that wrong?"

"Well, no, it's not wrong," the miko admits, "but the majority of our magical traffic consists of individuals coming from the nearer parts of the country, or parties using group-cast rituals to travel from more remote regions, or even internationally - and those are nearly always scheduled in advance. We don't normally get visitors from other dimensions more than once every few months, and quite often less than that, or so I'm told."

"New job, is it?"

"Nine weeks, now," she replies casually, before continuing. "But in the time I've been here, the number of other-planar visitations has gone up very sharply, to the point where we're getting multiple arrivals of that nature per week, sometimes per day."

You can't stop yourself from arching an eyebrow at that. Except for the time that your Shadow opened up a couple of portals to convey the Shinigami invasion force and most of Ambrose's squad of knightly Simulacra out of Silbern, you haven't made multiple trips to the Tokyo Tower in a single twenty-four hour period. Is somebody else out there suddenly making use of the place as a landing zone for inter-planar travel? And if so, why did they only start now, when-

Wait.

Did... did you unintentionally convince the Shinigami to start using the Tower as a deployment site for the Senkaimon?

...huh.

Wait, what?

"And if that weren't enough to make security jumpy and grumpy," the miko goes on, "they're having an awful time trying to TRACK whoever it is that keeps coming and going. Half the time, the cameras don't see anyone; the other half of the time, security's tracking spells don't give them anything, whether they're trying to figure out where the travelers came from or where they headed after getting here-"

Okay, THAT is probably you.

"-and while it was kind of funny to see them frustrated and running around in confusion at first, it got less amusing when the chief had the idea to ask the kami for advice." She grimaces. "The answers were... not the most reassuring."

Considering how the kami was hiding from the small army of Shinigami until you gave him the all-clear that one time, and what he had to say about them and Hollows afterwards, you can just imagine what he would have told the staff. Assuming it IS the Shinigami, anyway, and not some other, other-planar agency.

In any case, you should probably talk to the spirit of the Tower, if only to make it clear that you're only (directly) responsible for SOME of the recent planar traffic, and the mysteriously appearing offerings of incense.

You repeat your earlier statement about getting the kami to vouch for you, only this time phrasing it with more emphasis.

The miko nods, then winces and says out loud, "That sounds like a good idea. This way, please..."

Once again being guided by Briar, Moblin stands up and "leads" the way to the shrine, pausing at one point to scent the air and sneeze lightly. The incense already in place doesn't seem to appeal to him, but your boy keeps up his support dog act until you are standing before the altar, at which point you let him put a little distance between himself and the already-lit burners.

"Hello again, divine one," you greet the kami's floating orb of consciousness.

"Hello again, yourself," the kami greets you. "What's with the dog?"

"He has an appointment."

That answer gets both the kami and the miko looking at you strangely.

"An appointment," the divine spirit repeats, sounding slightly confused. "With... someone in the Tower, perhaps?"

"No, we're just passing through, as usual - and as usual, I thought I might stop by and make an offering of fresh incense. That is," you add, holding the sticks forth again, "if you don't mind?"

"Not at all! By all means. Miss Iwasaki, if you would?"

"Of course, sir."

You hand over the incense to the miko, with a bit of awkwardness both faked and real, and wait patiently as she sets them up in one of the spare burners. While she works, you wonder at the kami's use of that particular form of address towards his priestess, and hers to him, and whether or not they're being professional in front of a guest, or if they just don't know each other well enough to be more familiar.

Miss Iwasaki did say she's only been working here for a couple of months, after all. That's not nothing, but compared to the forty years of the Tower's existence and the kami's residence... or however long he's been properly enshrined here, anyway.

"Would you like to request a particular prayer?" the miko offers, gesturing at the nearby rack of pre-made paper strips. "While the shrine is most popular among those seeking luck in relationships or tests, I can assure you, prayers for other sorts of good fortune are perfectly welcome. ...though it might take me a minute to prepare one," she adds.

Once that is over, you speak: "I noticed upon my arrival that my comings and goings seem to have started attracting attention, and conversing with Miss Iwasaki confirmed that. Would you have happened to overhear anything regarding what the staff at large think is going on with my visits, that you wouldn't mind sharing?"

"Well, you'll understand that I can't give away specifics on what the security guards are doing to address these mysterious comings and goings," the kami begins.

"Of course."

"That said, there was a rather amusing argument on the subject a few days ago..."

The kami recounts a meeting between the head of overall security for the Tower, leading members of the different shifts and sections, and a few advisors and "outside experts" from the magical side, including the most senior miko for this shrine and a representative from the Zojoji Temple that stands near the Tower's foot. Not everyone in the group was magical, but all were well aware of and experienced in dealing with the on-site supernatural traffic, and had at least heard rumors of security's recent issues.

The meeting was intended to get everyone on the same page regarding the "otherworldly visitors," and to discuss what could, should, and would be done in response to their sudden and unexpected increase in activity, but from what the kami says - and hints at - the so-called organized debate quickly fell apart into an exchange of some honestly wild stories about who and what people THINK has been coming and going.

Aliens were one popular theory, the argument being put forward that sufficiently advanced technology or psychic powers would be indistinguishable from magic.

Another group held that a gateway to the realm of the dead had somehow been opened in the Tower, and that restless spirits had been coming and going ever since. One of the louder voices among those promoting this theory was the senior miko, who'd swore up and down that she'd seen a "large group of ghostly figures" moving through the Main Observatory on a certain day, just a couple of weeks earlier.

No, claimed a third party, it hadn't been an army of the dead that invaded the Tower, but a group of foreign-looking men who were CLEARLY the harem of some enchantress, fairy queen, or other supernatural creature of particular tastes, because there was no way it was natural for THAT many men to be THAT pretty and THAT buff!

Briar laughs so hard at that last one, you're a little worried she may choke.

You think on the offer for a moment.

"In that case," you say slowly, "I would like to offer a prayer for my dog's health. If that's acceptable?"

There is a quiet pause as the miko turns in her kami's general direction. You have the sense of wordless glances being exchanged.

"That should be fine," Miss Iwasaki replies.

"It's been a while since someone asked me to look after one of their pets, though," the kami adds. "I may be a little rusty at that sort of thing."

"That's fine," you answer.

"Well, as long as you're sure..."

Miss Iwasaki makes a quick search through the rack of pre-made prayers, and to no one's great surprise, doesn't find one wishing for a dog's well-being. She shrugs, pulls out a blank card and a pen, and quickly writes down the request in really rather impressive characters, before praying over it.

The whole process does, in fact, take her about one minute, after which she asks you to hold out your hand, and places the completed prayer in it. She then guides your aim as you offer a yen coin-

Spent 100 yen/$1

-because you hadn't intended the incense as part of an exchange for a prayer, and besides which, this is simply how the ritual is done.

Your own spiritual power surges slightly as you pray, and is echoed by a similarly short, faint thrum of divine energy.

Moblin doesn't seem to notice anything.

Really, it's too amusing to keep to yourself.

The kami goes on to say that the chief of security eventually managed to wrangle the proceedings back into some sense of order, due in part to his idea to ask the Tower's spirit for guidance about what was going on, and what the hapless mortal staff ought to do in response to it.

"Which is when you told them about the march of the death gods," you conclude.

"And their ongoing arrivals and departures, yes."

"Is that allowed?" you wonder. "Telling people, I mean."

"My territory, my people, my call," the kami says firmly. Then he sighs. "Besides, there really isn't much we can actually DO about the Shinigami. All they've done so far is pass through here on their own business, like any other magical traveler, and aside from that one day, it's all been individual reapers going out on patrol or coming back from the same. They're upholding their duties and protecting the community in the process, and they haven't gotten into any fights or otherwise made a nuisance of themselves in my domain, which doesn't give us any cause for complaint - and even if we DID have cause, I'm not sure we could ward the Tower against Shinigami travel without cutting everyone else off, too."

You can see the issue. The first - and really, ONLY - spell that comes to your mind for stopping an inter-planar portal like the Senkaimon from opening up inside the Tower is Dimensional Lock, and just as the kami said, that magic would unavoidably shut down all the teleportation spells other people use to come and go from this place. That's not even getting into the fact that a single casting of an eighth-circle spell is beyond most Earthly casters these days, to say nothing of just how many times the spell would need to be invoked to cover the Tower's interior in its entirety - and then to KEEP that protection going in the long term.

The only other option you can see the kami having is to lodge a complaint, send it up the divine hierarchy, and hope that it reaches somebody who has the authority to tell the Shinigami to stop dropping in on a national landmark, the means to make it stick, and the will to actually do so.

Considering how minor an issue this is in the big scheme of things, you have your doubts that such a protest would accomplish anything.

Likewise, you can't see that there is much you can personally do about it, at least not without more time and effort than you can afford to spend right now. Though you suppose you COULD take a few minutes to talk to one of the security staff, to let them see for themselves that ONE of the "dimensional portals" is actually just a person from Earth taking a slightly roundabout route to the Tower for reasons of personal security.

It wouldn't solve their ongoing Shinigami issue, but it might at least ease their minds that they aren't being invaded from the afterlife AND a whole other plane at the same time.

You have an appointment to keep, and while taking a few minutes out of your time to keep up good relations with the kami of the Tower was one thing, an extended meeting with Tower security is quite another - and you're fairly certain any such encounter WOULD be an extended one.

Your meetings with the guards at the Shuzen and Drake estates, the behavior of the security personnel at the World Martial Arts Tournament, and your more recent work with Mr. Pritchard's employees - specifically, Ms. Griffiths and her section - have all given you an idea of how security professionals behave in various situations, and when it comes to incidents that expose weaknesses in existing security arrangements, those in your experience have tended to want to make sure said shortcomings are covered and/or removed as quickly and as thoroughly as possible, so that said incidents don't (easily) reoccur.

You aren't unsympathetic, but you really don't have time to be questioned in detail on such a topic. Maybe some other day?

With that in mind, you set about extricating yourself from the shrine and the Tower as a whole. Miss Iwasaki and the kami both wish you a good day and let you go on your way without hindrance, and while Moblin is a bit reluctant to depart without being able to thoroughly investigate the shrine's decorations - which is to say, sniffing and tasting them, before chewing them to pieces - Briar is able to coax him into leading the way without too much trouble.

Fortunately, that kid from before is nowhere to be seen or heard, possibly having gone up to the Special Observatory or back down to ground level while you were tied up at the shrine.

As an additional bonus, security still hasn't noticed you, or at least hasn't tried to approach you.

In short order, Briar has led Moblin to an out-of-the-way corner with nobody else around, where you're able to trigger the Spell of Teleportation you'd been quietly gathering power for since exiting the shrine.

The next thing you know, you're in Karakura Park, and Moblin is barking eagerly.

"'Park!' he says," Briar reports. "'New dogs! New people! But should it smell this cool in the middle of summer?'" There is a note of genuine curiosity in your partner's voice as she finishes that statement, which you suspect reflects her own puzzlement at Moblin's "words."

Cautiously, you probe about with your spiritual senses, but you detect no Hollows or Shinigami. The only "chill" you sense is that of the town's abundant spiritual energy, linked as so much of it is to the denizens of the two interconnected afterlives.

And speaking of "denizens," there's four kids about the Kurosaki twins' age playing on the nearby jungle gym, who've stopped in the middle of whatever they were doing to stare at you in amazement. You can just make out some adults on the far side of the set-up, two or possibly three in number, one of whom is just getting to his feet to look past the playground equipment to see what the source of the sudden barking - and the accompanying hush of the kids - actually is.

While you are disguised as a blind man, "blind" doesn't automatically mean "COMPLETELY unable to see," and so you raise your hand and wave at the younger kids. You momentarily consider waving in the wrong direction, but decide against that thought almost as soon as it comes, since if your current character can see the kids well enough at this distance to register and react to their presence, it would just look strange for you to aim your attention elsewhere.

It might be a different story if they'd been yelling, whether that was to you or in surprise at your sudden appearance from thin air, but the only one making a sound right now is Moblin, so that's out.

In response to your gesture of greeting, one of the kids ducks out of sight behind a panel, while two others continue to stare. The last raises a hand and waves back, albeit with considerable uncertainly.

Leaving them to their fun, you wrangle your dog and head out, abandoning the visually impaired persona once you're out of sight of the kids and their caretakers - you don't really feel like trying to keep up the act in mid-day traffic.

Walking stick stowed in your pocket and Moblin's leash shortened a bit to keep him close, you make good time through the streets of Karakura. There's actually less traffic than you were expecting, until you remember that school is still in session for a couple more weeks here in Japan; not only that, but it's still most of an hour until noon, so the lunch rush hasn't quite kicked off yet.

Urahara Shop still has its "Closed" sign up when you arrive, but the security shutters have been raised, there's no sign of the Youkai Academy Bus, and when you're close enough to try the door, it proves to be open.

As your presence is expected, you go ahead and enter, the ringing of the little bell above the door setting Moblin to barking.

"Is that a customer I hear?" Urahara calls from the back, a moment before he appears. He takes in your disguise and your dog's presence with a glance, and adds, "That's a new look for you."

"Tokyo Tower only allows service dogs," you reply.

"Playing blind, I see."

"Ha," you exclaim dryly, while wondering if you should mention how the Tower is now hosting regular Shinigami traffic, let alone that the mortal security has been made aware of it.

"Well, don't just stand there, come in, come in," the shopkeeper continues, waving you in. "Tessai and I are still unpacking from our little overnight trip, but we prioritized what we'd need for a spiritual checkup. If I could get that medical history from you to start with...?"

Fortunately, he requested this in advance, and with some assistance from your parents, you were able to put together a list of Moblin's visits to the vet and what they involved. On top of that, you included your dog's history of encounters with the supernatural, with an extended commentary by Briar about various little treatments she's snuck in, and your own assessment of the effects the Hellmouth has had, and how you've done your best to counteract them. You hand over the copy you brought along.

"Thank you."

As Urahara is looking over the information, Moblin is looking at him and scenting the air. Whatever your dog picks up seems to put him a little on edge, and he looks around at the shop, still sniffing and on guard.

"What's the matter, boy?"

Moblin whines.

"'A suspicious man and a strange cat'," Briar translates.

You consider that, and nod. Urahara IS a shady character, and a cat that talks IS pretty strange.

That said, Yoruichi doesn't actually seem to be in the Shop at the moment, or at least doesn't make an appearance as you follow Urahara into the back of the building...

As you proceed through the Shop, you say, "I know you prefer to handle old business first, Urahara, but on my way here, I happened to learn a few things that might be of interest to you."

The shopkeeper looks up from his reading. "Oh? Something in Karakura?"

"No."

"The Tokyo Tower, then," he guesses, to which you merely nod. "Does this have something to do with their magical security?"

"You're aware that they have that, then?"

He nods. "Yoruichi happened to find out about them about thirty years back. We've all kept a distance since then, to avoid stirring up any trouble."

You briefly picture the Tower's security and shrine attendants - all dressed like it's the Seventies, bell bottoms, wildly patterned shirts, platform shoes and all - chasing a startled black cat. The image strikes you as all the more amusing because it's not impossible that something like it occurred, not to mention how it could explain why they don't allow pets...

Shaking that off for the moment, you start explaining the situation as you know it, starting with the day of the Silbern Raid and moving up to the present day's developments.

Urahara winces when you describe the kami's fear of having so many Shinigami in the Tower at one time, but doesn't seem remotely surprised to hear of that reaction.

He sighs and nods when you move on to the fact that the Thirteen Divisions are now using the place as a relay point for the Senkaimon. Once again, there is a distinct lack of surprise.

And when you tell him that the security division and the leaders of the other departments of the Tower's staff have been briefed on the Shinigami by the kami himself-

*Slap*

-Urahara facepalms.

"I know that sound," Tessai rumbles, leaning out of one of the rooms to regard the four of you. "Bad news, Manager?"

"Nothing that would register on the World-Is-Doomed-ometer," the man in the bucket hat replies wearily. "Just Soul Society making a mess of things again."

"...it says something about our lives that I'm having trouble parsing those two phrases together," Tessai admits, after a moment's thought and a mustache-wrinkle.

"It does, doesn't it?" And then Urahara fills in his compatriot.

A minute later, Tessai sighs. "And to think, for once, they were actually acting in accordance with human customs."

"Yeah, it's almost impressive, in a depressing sort of way." Urahara shakes his head. "Still, we can worry about that later. Right now, I believe we have a dog to examine. Alex, if you could drop whatever spells you have on him...?"

You do that, Moblin barking in surprise at suddenly being back to normal.
With a little encouragement, your dog hops up onto the same adjustable reclining bed you've been laid out on for exams of your own - and which is currently set up to be level with the floor, and a few inches lower than you recall - and makes himself as comfortable as he can be in the face of an impending exam-

"'Strange smells! Funny sounds! Blinky lights! This place is weird!'" Briar once again translates.

-which isn't terribly comfortable, admittedly, but at least Moblin isn't barking at or cringing from every strange thing in sight.

As the Illusion surrounding you fades away and reveals your normal features, you ask Urahara and Tessai if they'd like you to cast the Spell to Speak With Animals on them for the duration of this examination.

"Tempting," Urahara muses, "but considering that such a spell would need to interact with him at least peripherally, I'd just as soon forego the possibility of contaminating the scans. At least until we've established a baseline."

Seems like reasonable science to you.

"Also," Briar adds cheekily, "this way, he doesn't have to hear Moblin saying he's suspicious."

Urahara slumps. "Even your dog, now...?"

"There, there, Manager," Tessai offers, lightly patting Urahara on one shoulder, even as his mustache quivers with repressed amusement.

The spiritual checkup begins shortly thereafter. It's quite un-invasive, which is a good thing, as Moblin is wary enough of the two odd men and their collection of beeping, whirring, and buzzing gadgets as it is. After about ten minutes, Urahara asks you to cast a Spell to Dispel Magic to purge Moblin of any energies that happen to be clinging to him. You do so, and the scans are repeated. The data from all of this is compiled and displayed on a nearby screen, which the manager walks you through.

"First off, we found signs of long-term exposure to elevated levels of demonic energy in the general environment, coupled with periodic, focused purification of the same," Urahara starts, pointing at one section. "Our findings there confirm yours."

Which is to say, it's not great, and a long way from ideal, but it's also not going to kill Moblin in and of itself.

"Next," the shopkeeper continues, "we have lesser levels of exposure to assorted mystical and spiritual forces, such as you'd expect to see in any mundane being cohabitating with a powerful practitioner - and one not-so-powerful practitioner."

"Thank you," Briar says.

Once again, there's nothing new there. Getting to see how a Shinigami researcher views and categorizes the residual traces of your magic and other abilities is enlightening in and of itself, of course, but this isn't the first time you've encountered that sort of information, either.

"Third," the scientist goes on, a distinct note of eagerness creeping into his tone, "we have the divinely-wrought energies of this 'Heart of the Old Dog' you say your pet won in ritual trial by combat. The similarities to the readings we've previously taken off of you and Masaki are self-evident, as are the differences." He shakes his head, his expression a mix of admiration and bafflement. "I have to say, even with you having informed us about it in advance, I still wasn't really expecting to see a divine artifact holding an aspect of Time, however minor, let alone for it to be in the possession of a dog."

You nod, because it IS kind of ridiculous. Then again, Moblin's entire run through the Ring of Trials was plenty bizarre to begin with, and Hyrule and things related to it can be kind of nuts on top of that, so... yeah. It just kind of follows.

"Have you been able to tell what effect it's had on him?" you ask.

"Maybe not definitively, but I think so. That ties into the last set of data" - Urahara gestures at another part of the screen - "which is the dog himself. Based on his age, breed, and size, he should be showing the early signs of old age, maybe a bit more, but there's no real indication of that, or at least not that we noticed."

"Mind you," Tessai interjects, "we are not practicing veterinarians, so we could be missing something."

"We could," Urahara agrees. "It's possible that your dog's good condition at this age IS the result of that Heart, but it could ALSO be down to him just being naturally youthful. We'd need to monitor him over the long term to be sure."

You nod.

"Even if the Heart isn't responsible for your dog's current good condition, I'm sure that it will protect him from spells or forces that would normally cause or mimic the effects of old age. Maybe not TOTALLY, but definitely significantly. It doesn't seem likely to interfere with other aspects of temporal manipulation, though, so things like spells meant to speed him up or slow him down wouldn't be affected."

"So it probably wouldn't let him avoid a Time Stop, either," you muse.

"Definitely not," Urahara agrees, "but how often do you run into something that can do that?"

"ZA WARUDO!"

When you were briefing the Kurosakis on the nature of the timeless demiplane where you hid them and the various Earthly Quincy families from Auswahlen, the subject of stopping time led to Ichigo mentioning that he wanted to get you up to speed on Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. The two of you did find some time for that discussion in the aftermath of the Silbern Raid, though it mostly consisted of Ichigo talking and posing while you leafed through a few manga chapters on the subject - not including the ones that actually involved time-stopping.

For that, you had to go to Kahlua, who had copies of the OVAs based on the series, and was able to show you the big scene.

It was memorable, to say the least, even if it wasn't quite how the Spell of Time Stopping is supposed to play out, and since it was relatively recent besides, the scene is still fresh in your memory.

"ZA WARUDO!" you declare.

Urahara chuckles-

-and then your spell takes effect, and everyone else in the room STOPS.

You look around, nod in satisfaction, and declare, "Time has now stopped."

It's a frankly ridiculous use for a ninth-circle spell, but Din damn it, you feel like you've been studying those temporal formulas for years; if you've mastered them well enough to actually stop time under your own power - read: accelerate yourself to the point where everyone else appears to be immobile - you think you're entitled to have some fun with it!

I agree.

Depends on the "fun," really...

I'm just happy that the spell doesn't ACTUALLY stop time.

Learned Time Stop

As this is your first time casting the spell outside of laboratory or testing ground conditions, you aren't completely sure how long it will last. With that in mind, you decide to-

-go all in on an homage to that one scene.

As you cast a Spell to Create a Silent Image, you consider creating the image of a steamroller hanging in the air above Urahara and Tessai, completely with a version of yourself riding on top of it. Or, for maximum verisimilitude, you could make that the image of your ADULT self, dragging the construction vehicle along as if throwing it at them.

But then you consider the likely reaction of a couple of Shinigami - even research-focused exiled ones - to having a huge, weaponized mass of steel suddenly appear to crush them under its uncaring drum. You'd rather not see the roof of Urahara Shop blown open, and you certainly don't want to accidentally traumatize Moblin for the sake of playing a joke on these guys.

Also, the ceiling in here isn't high enough to provide clearance for a steamroller, even a small one.

So instead, you place your illusion in front of the door, massively shortening the range to free up some energy so you can conjure two "separate" images at once. Space is once again an issue, and you have to create a rather smaller machine than the one Dio tried to crush Jotaro with, but you figure it'll do for a prank - and be less likely to startle Urahara or Tessai into doing something rash when (from their perspective) it appears out of nowhere.

On that note, you move yourself out of their field of view, try to strike a pose worthy of Jojo-

-and find that Time has resumed.

"I mean," Urahara says, still speaking to the you that just quoted Dio, "aside fro- WHAT THE-?!"

"My word!" Tessai says, as he, too, registers the presence of a few tons of heavy metal.

"Woof?"

"What he said," Briar adds.

"Road roller," you declare in a calm, smug tone.

Everyone stops, turns, and stares at you.

Urahara then looks back at the illusionary you, seated atop the steamroller.

You have Illusionary Alex pose as well.

"...did you just stop time?" the scientist asks, as he turns your way once more. "As a joke?"

"Be very careful not to use that spell in front of other Shinigami, Alex," Tessai cautions you then.

"Oh?"

"Kido techniques that manipulate space-time are forbidden," the big man explains gravely, "to the extent that even the highest-ranking members of the Thirteen Divisions can be imprisoned for life or even executed for using them. And while you are not using kido-"

"Someone might decide that the same principle applies," you conclude.

Tessai nods.

"Duly noted, and thank you for the warning."

"You are welcome."

In light of this new information, it occurs to you that it's rather fortunate Time Stop works by speeding up its caster, rather than doing something to the surrounding region of space-time, as an effect of the former sort can at least be obscured by your Spell of Mind Blank, while the latter sort of effect would not have been. Some beings may still have noticed SOMETHING - you can't conceal the casting of a ninth-circle spell, after all, and speeding up your own time may have created "ripples" or a "wake" of some sort that expanded beyond your person - but unless the theoretical observers were inside Urahara Shop or "looking" at it at the time, they'd most likely be left with nothing more than a vague feeling that something was off in Karakura.

"Did your dog keep moving with you?" Urahara asks then.

You admit that he didn't, and Urahara adds a quick note to his readings.

You meet Urahara's disbelieving stare and reply, "Temporal humor is very advanced; it can only be understood in the right moment."

Briar groans.

Tessai's mustache quivers.

The shopkeeper blinks, and then grins. "I will keep that in mind."

...wait, what?

Tessai sighs. "You cannot use high-level kido to prank a customer, Manager."

What.

"Be fair, Tessai, it's less 'can't' than 'shouldn't'-"

"And no," the big man goes on, "I will not help you."

"-okay, maybe it's a LITTLE bit 'can't'," Urahara candidly admits, "but there's still the mid-level stuff..."

...

You may have a problem.

That's when Tessai gives you his warning on using temporal manipulation magic around the Shinigami. Afterwards, you dismiss your road roller and try and get things back on track.

While not standing too close to Urahara, or letting him get out of your sight.

Just in case.

Anyway, as Urahara was saying before the sudden Diogression, Moblin's spiritual exam hasn't turned up any problems that you weren't already aware of and dealing with. As far as beneficial results go, the two Shinigami have a theory about what the Heart of the Old Dog is doing to your dog, but not enough evidence to confirm or disprove it.

Naturally, this means they'd like to examine Moblin again in the future.

As you're not opposed to the idea - indeed, you would much prefer to make sure your good boy is in good health and stays that way - the only real questions are how often such checkups should be held, and how long to keep them up. This one you got as a free consultation, partly out of goodwill, partly for the value of the opportunity to study the Heart in action, but future visits would cost a bit - around fifty bucks, after converting yen to dollars, which is about as much as your parents pay each time you take Moblin to the vet, unless he's due for a vaccination. As this is very much the spiritual equivalent of such a service, it seems reasonable.

Of course, you'll also have to deal with getting your dog through "customs" and working around the time zone difference every time, but those are really minor issues. You're entirely capable of NOT Gating or Teleporting to the Tokyo Tower, if you must, you could disguise Moblin as a human (via Illusion OR Transformation), and there are other options besides.

Like actually checking in through customs.

So, how often do you want to bring Moblin around, and for how long?

Regular exams over an extended period of time will let Urahara and Tessai gather the most information, which you think would be for the best in ensuring Moblin's continued good health.

As you're working out a tentative schedule for those future visits, Urahara notes that a single year of observation may turn out not to be enough to determine the full effect the Heart of the Old Dog is having on Moblin's aging and spiritual health. Dogs may have shorter lifespans than humans, but they don't age so quickly that one year will make THAT much difference, and that's without taking the Heart's influence into consideration. If Moblin's aging more like a human now, it could take several years for that to become apparent, but there's little point in setting up appointments that far in advance at this time.

You make a mental note to convert some of your available funds to yen the next chance you get.

With the major exam out of the way, there's one other test Urahara would like to run on Moblin.

Having been warned of this in advance along with the need for a copy of Moblin's medical history, you reach into your pocket once again-

Moblin sits up on the bed and barks eagerly, needing no fairy translation for you to understand: "Ball!"

-producing the Haunted Ball, which you hold out-

"My ball!"

-to be seized with a happy growl.

There may have been a tiny, spectral sigh somewhere in there.

All the while, the Shinigami have scanners going.

"No change in spiritual pressure from either subject," Urahara notes.

"Reishi levels read as unchanged, as well," Tessai affirms. "I am also not seeing any special reaction between the Ball and the dog's teeth."

"So he's not going to suddenly gain the ability to bite ghosts in the real world," you conclude.

"At least not from this alone," the big man agrees. "Though that still begs the question of just how he managed it in these Trials you mentioned."

You're inclined to chalk that one up to the fact that the Trials effectively recreated pieces of Hyrule's environment, complete with the much higher levels of ambient magic. Things that would be considered strange and occasionally even impossible by Earthly standards, even among the supernatural community, just kind of HAPPEN in that kingdom.

Urahara and Tessai keep scanning as you wrestle the Ball back from Moblin, but the readings they're getting don't change, even when the trapped Poe wails and waves its soul-lantern around frantically in protest.

Checking the time, you find that it's coming up on eight o'clock back in Sunnydale. Sunset will be in another quarter-hour or so, and proper darkness should fall half an hour after that, so factoring in your travel time, you probably shouldn't linger too much longer.

But you could still spare a few minutes, if there's something else you really wanted to talk to these two about.

Spent $600
Gained Moblin's Checkups

Something about the combination of canine growling - however happy - and the wailing of an unhappy ghost stirs a memory, and after you pocket the Haunted Ball and gesture for Moblin to get down off of the bed, you turn to Urahara with one last question.

"Before I go, did you have a few minutes to consider an unrelated matter?"

...well, more of an extended inquiry.

Urahara regards you warily over the rim of his fan. "Is this something I'm going to need tea for?"

"...I mean, I've already talked to you about it once, by proxy, and I'm pretty sure you didn't need tea then, so...?"

Looking curious at the mention that this concerns a subject he knows about, Urahara nods and says, "Then yes, I have time."

You crouch to latch Moblin's leash to his Collar once again. "So, if you remember that phonecall my Shadow made to you a while back, about using the image of a Shinigami to purify mutated spectral undead in Germany...?"

"I do now," Urahara replies easily.

"Well, since the reason it didn't work seems to have been because I've never actually SEEN a Shinigami purifying a Hollow-"

"-you were wondering if we could arrange to do something about that," the shopkeeper says, finishing your sentence for you.

You just nod.

"Not impossible," Urahara answers slowly.

"But?" you venture.

"But, a little tricky. I mean, if all you wanted was to see a Soul Burial, there are lingering spirits all over town. We could track one down in a few minutes" - he glances at Moblin, and adds - "or maybe half an hour, depending on how fast your dog can run and how far away they are, and it wouldn't take more than a minute after that to send them on their way."

"And Hollows aren't that easy to find," you state, guessing the direction Urahara's about to take the conversation.

"Not the ones that last for any length of time, anyway," he agrees. "Between Shinigami patrols or mortal spiritualists looking to fight them and Menos-class Hollows or various other spiritual predators looking to eat them, even the most confident Hollow learns some degree of stealth and threat-recognition pretty quick, or else ends up dead again. Drawing them out can be tricky, more so during the day."

That tracks. You've been in and out of Karakura many times over the last few months, and you've only encountered evidence of Hollow activity in the day once - though ironically enough, that was also the one time you've actually SEEN a Hollow in person, as opposed to hearing them howl and stalk the nights in the distance (and occasionally get hunted down themselves).

It's still shy of noon in Karakura right now, and you'll be racing twilight to be home before dark as it is. That said, you have an easy answer, if you care to use it.

You ask Urahara if he'd object to you sending your Shadow around in, say, nine hours or so, and he agrees that should be doable.

"Two things, though," he adds. "First, I feel the need to warn you not to get your hopes up. We honestly might not find any Hollows with just one night's searching, even if we stayed out until dawn - which I'm not planning on doing."

You nod. "That's fair. A couple of hours, then, maybe throw in a regular Soul Burial, and call it a night?"

"Very doable," the Shinigami agrees. "The other thing is that the Soul Society still hasn't stood down from that heightened security level finding out about the Quincy sent them into."

"They're still running those extra-strength patrols in town, then?" you guess.

"Which is part of the reason why we might not find any Hollows, and also a reason for us to not be seen - or at least not as ourselves."

"I'll make sure my Shadow wears a different disguise, then," you agree.

(Will eventually have) Spent $100

On that note, you wrap yourself and Moblin in Illusion Magic, leave Urahara Shop, and walk some distance away before completing the long-range teleportation that will bring you back to California.

The sun hasn't set when you arrive, but even sharing an Extended Spell of Haste with Moblin to help him cover the distance - and a Spell of Bear's Endurance to help ward off fatigue - it takes you long enough to get back to town for the twilight to have taken over the sky. The usual cheerful energy with which Moblin carries himself is absent, and not just because he's tired from a good run; there is a wariness in your dog's posture and movements that you don't often see, something beyond his usual "Zelda is nearby and I can't see her" caution.

At one point, he stops to sniff an unseen trail, looks down a side-street with a rumble of warning, and is visibly relieved when you lead him past it.

While you do see some of the night-life, it's only at a distance, and they seem to be trying to keep their heads down while moving along quickly.

Fallout from Shadow Alex's efforts on Independence Day, perhaps?

Whatever the case, you make it home without incident.

"So what's the doctor's report?" your father asks, ruffling Moblin's head after you're back in the house.

"Everything looks good, but he wanted to monitor Moblin over time to see if there were any changes," you answer. "So I'll be taking him back monthly. On that note, I'm going to need to exchange some money..."

Your parents don't have too much problem with you paying for Moblin's non-standard medical needs out of your own money. It actually seems to reassure them on some level, probably because spending said money to take care of a pet is so much more normal than most of the other things you could have used those funds for.

You spend the last couple of hours of the day doing some reading, finishing Volume Seven of Twentieth Century Sorcery and getting a bit into the next book before calling it a night.

As your head hits the pillow, you give some sleepy thought to dreamwalking again, but given that your psychic reserves haven't fully recovered - and by your estimate, won't have until late tomorrow morning, even if you do nothing - you decide to take a pass on that for now.

Besides, you have no idea if Ambrose's wards extend to the dream-realm, and you have NO desire whatsoever to see what sort of nightmares the Hellmouth could spawn.

You wake up around five in the morning, a little earlier than your usual, and head downstairs to call up Shadow Alex and ward yourself for the day.

While he's putting his own Mind Blank spell in place, you remind your Shadow to use a different disguise than usual for this outing. He waves that off with a distracted, "Yeah, yeah," before casting Adjustable Polymorph and transforming into a variation on a form you've used in the past - that of a generic Japanese salaryman, but one whose work clothes are visibly rumpled as if from a long day's work, overtime, and then one of those after-hours outings with the co-workers you've heard are a thing.

Then he opens up a Gate to the Tokyo Tower and hops through, Shadow Briar trailing after him.

You feel a moment's sympathy for the kami and Tower security, even as you are satisfied to see a tradition continuing.

It's getting on towards eight in the morning before you see your Shadow again, knocking on the front door while using the form of a morning jogger almost as unremarkable as the salaryman he departed as. You're the one who answers the door, and while the presence of a stranger whose aura is undetectable to you might cause you concern under different circumstances, Shadow Briar is present to resolve those worries before they can truly form.

Stepping inside, your Shadow changes back to his normal appearance, gathers the energy necessary to pass on his experiences, and pokes you in the forehead to engage the transfer.

You see him leaving the Tower almost as soon as he arrives, teleporting right out. A vague sense of "no crowds" carries through there, explaining his apparent haste to leave.

The arrival in Karakura puts him not in the park or near any of the residences you can by now consider familiar, but in a side-street along the route you usually take to Urahara Shop. The downtown area proves more lively than you were expecting, and the pulse of surprise that runs through the memories tells you your Shadow hadn't been prepared for it either.

Sunnydale-trained instincts working against both of you, it seems.

On the positive side, there's enough other grown men walking and staggering around for your Dark Self to fit right in, although at one point, you see him being approached by three guys walking arm-in-arm, singing an unfamiliar song off-key, and gesturing for him to join them.

The memory blurs a bit there, so you aren't quite sure what happened, but after that is Urahara Shop, and your Shadow going through a quick form-shift - to his usual adult guise - to verify his identity with Urahara before they set out.

The shopkeeper then pulls some kind of invisibility cloak over himself, takes that device that looks like a Ghostbusters' PKE Meter out of a pocket, and leads the way - unseen except for his face and arm - in search of lingering souls.

As the man said earlier, finding a regular ghost for a Soul Burial takes very little time; they pass three in the first ten minutes of their walk, two of whom appear to be a couple on a date, while the third is haranguing an officious-looking managerial sort who evidently can't perceive the insults and complaints being directed his way, much less the one sending them.

You're a little surprised when Urahara leaves these and several subsequent souls be, explaining that, "Soul Society can get kind of cranky if it looks like an exile is trying to do their job for them, but they'll let things slide if there's good reason."

"Like, say, a Hollow that was about to attack someone?" your Shadow guesses. "Or maybe that had been purified after attacking a Plus, but before it could feed on them?"

"Or at least a situation where a Plus and a purified Hollow arrive in Soul Society close enough to LOOK like such a thing," Urahara agrees with a half-hidden grin. "There's also instances like Earthbound Spirits, which are enough of a pain to find before they Hollow that it's less trouble for everyone if they're sent across, no matter who does it."

Maybe an hour into their patrol, Urahara stops near a quintet of ghosts who appear to have found themselves a supply of beer - somehow - with three of their number egging the other two on in an impromptu wrestling match. Ignoring the ruckus, Urahara double-checks his meter, and then puts it away and takes out a small black ball.

"My own version of a Quincy creation that Souken was willing to share," he explains, noticing your Shadow's attention. "Hollow Bait."

The name is pretty descriptive, but your Shadow seeks clarification: "How well does it do what it claims?"

"The standard formulation is potent enough to call in every Hollow from here to the Karasu River," Urahara tells you with a serious look. "Maybe as far as the Onose, depending on the wind."

You think that the three of them were somewhere in the Mashiba area when this memory was formed, so that's anywhere from a quarter to half of the way across town. This strikes you as rather worrying.

"And this variation?" Shadow Alex asks.

"Has a much smaller effective radius," Urahara declares cheerfully, right before he flings the black pellet at the ground.

There is a sudden surge of spiritual particles, and the yelling and cheering pauses as Shadow Alex registers a faint, sweet scent-

"ThAt SmElL..."

-and then a Hollow phases into view about twenty feet away, which is MUCH closer than the first and only other of the monsters you've ever seen in person!

"DeLiCiOuS," the ten-foot-tall, vaguely reptillian, hunchbacked spirit declares, ropes of drool spilling from its mouth.

There are screams from the souls-

"Watch closely, now," Urahara advises.

*Whoosh*

"...HuH?"

-and then, with a single flicker of movement that your Shadow has to squint to track, Urahara goes from standing in front and slightly to the right of the Hollow, cane in hand, to standing BEHIND it, SWORD in hand, with the Hollow's masked head split down the middle behind him.

Then the giant corpse dissolves into a cloud of spirit particles, which fade away even as they disperse.

"Because I can only do that once per customer," the Shinigami concludes, as he slides his zanpakuto back into its disguised sheathe.

Urahara gives your Shadow a minute to sort through and commit to memory the information he just grabbed with his active Mage Sight and Spirit Sight, and you do are careful to do the same.

Then he grabs one of the five souls by the shoulder-

"Oh please don't kill me!"

"Calm down," Urahara says.

-and taps him on the forehead with what you think is the hilt of his soul-cutting sword. When Urahara withdraws the weapon, an unfamiliar glowing seal is left behind on the Plus, who blinks in astonishment and then smiles faintly as he closes his eyes, sinking into a circle of light and vanishing, leaving only a hell butterfly to mark his passing.

"Any other takers?" Urahara offers to the remaining quartet.

"NOPE!"

"NO THANK YOU!"

"ALIENS! ALIENS HAVE COME FOR OUR SOULS!"

"I SHOULD HAVE PRAYED AT THE SHRINE MORE!"

"THAT'S A GREAT IDEA! WE SHOULD GO DO THAT RIGHT NOW!"

"RUN, YOU FOOLS! RUN, AND PRAY!"

...

Well, on the positive side, you have the information you wanted. Whether it's enough to make a proper Shadow Shinigami is another question, one that Shadow Alex didn't get a chance to test out before Urahara called it a night. Your Dark Self didn't feel like going ghost-hunting on his own to test a modified spell was entirely a good idea, given the possibility of the Shinigami actually on patrol in the area turning up, and the somewhat lesser chance of a Hollow getting lucky. Better to make sure the information he was carrying got back to you, and hunt some other time.

When you come out of the memory, Shadow Alex asks, "Got it all?"

While you are a little curious about what happened in the "missing" section of memory between Shadow Alex encountering those three drunken office drones and walking into Urahara Shop, you can't see how whatever took place would be relevant to the purpose of the after-dark trip - which is undoubtedly part of the reason your ever-practical Shadow cut it from the playback.

But you ask anyway: "Actually, what DID happen between your meeting those guys that tried to get you to sing with them, and your arrival at Urahara Shop?"

"I thought I cut that part out," Shadow Alex grumbles.

"You mostly did, but the part where you actually MET them was still in there."

"...we'll have to remember to work on that. And you can stop giving me that look," he adds. "I didn't do anything permanent to them, I just cast Deep Slumber, made sure they didn't hurt themselves falling down, and then asked someone to call the police to come pick them up."

"Why didn't you use your own pho- oh, wait, dumb question." You had your Magic Cellphone in your dimensional pocket when you called up your Shadow, and the Spell of the Dark Self only copies stuff that the target is holding, wearing, or physically carrying at the time it's cast. "So they're fine, then?"

He nods. "I hung around until a van showed up to collect them, gave a quick statement, and that was that. Wasn't even asked to come down to the station." Shadow Alex frowns. "Now that I think about it, that's a little odd."

Yeah, three grown men passing out all at once? You'd think that officers of the law would take some interest in such an incident, even with alcohol as a contributing factor - or maybe BECAUSE of its involvement.

Does Karakura have a history of people just passing out for no mundanely apparent reason? With all the Shinigami and Hollow activity in town, and the effects that exposure to strong spiritual energies can have on weaker souls, it's not impossible, and even fairly probable.

Might be something to ask one of your friends and associates there about, next time you're in town.

Anyway, with no further questions, Shadow Alex vanishes in a puff of magic, and you go about your business. There's nothing too unusual on your schedule for most of the day: playing with Zelda and Moblin; watching some TV; hanging out with Larry and Amy - Cordy having once again left town for the summer, after Independence Day; and doing some further crafting work in your basement lair.

Incidentally, your psychic reserves recover to full capacity in that time.

Gained Mental Recovery F

This EVENING, on the other hand, you have another meeting to attend in Japan, where you will be summoning Lady Akemi to the Hakuba Shrine, so she can meet Yoshida Mai's parents and, hopefully, reassure them that her association with and supernatural blood-adoption by Lady Takara isn't and doesn't have to be a bad thing.

While you're in your Mirror Hideaway, you offer up a prayer to the Golden Goddesses that the impending meeting goes well, or at least not terribly.

Not a whole lot we can do in this case...

Not without being rude, at any rate.

What's your point?

I'll rephrase: not without being rude to somebody who doesn't deserve it.

Okay, fair.

Anyway... good luck?

...

It's probably just as well that you were already planning to pray for the Hakuba kami's help anyway.

You see no reason to break with tradition, but you do spend a minute considering which spell to use to disguise yourself and, just as importantly - because Tradition! - what false appearance to give yourself. Just last night, Shadow Alex used the appearance of a generic salaryman, out to socialize after a long day's work, so you shouldn't re-use that one. Your own use of the form of a blind man with an Arcane Eye dog is likewise best not revisited so soon after its previous appearance, if ever, and if you're serious about taking on a different shape every time you pass through the Tokyo Tower, then your usual well-dressed adult form is also out.

For a moment, you consider disguising yourself as a shrine maiden - but then you put that idea away and go with a generic tourist.

This isn't the first time of late that you've contemplated concealing your identity behind the robes of a member of the Shinto faith, and the arguments that applied against it then still hold true.

You're not entirely sure where the impulse to turn into a girl came from, unless it's the amount of time you've spent hanging out with all your female friends...?

Anyway, you keep things simple and inoffensive, and pass through the Gate in a form that blends right in with the groups taking the late morning tour of the Tower.

And once again, a couple of people with active magical auras pass you without giving you more than a passing glance. Having come into this anticipating the possibility of meeting such a security sweep, you have your Mage Sense ready in advance - passively, of course; there's no need to stir things up with an active scan, even if your Spell of Mind Blank would shut down their attempts to trace the exact source - and are able to get a better idea of what they're doing and what they might be capable of.

From the feel of it, both men are under Spells of Nondetection or similar low-end anti-Divination magic, a defense which wouldn't pose much of a barrier to you to begin with, and which isn't made any more effective by their own ongoing use of Divination Magic - innate Mage Sight, the Spell of Arcane Sight, or something comparable is your guess.

Comparing the auras of those active spells with what you can make out of the guards' own energies from a passive scan, you don't think that they're the ones who cast Nondetection, or at least that they aren't the ones who powered the magic. You doubt they're relying on magic items, either, as fully reproducing the effects of the Spell of Nondetection would cost no less five thousand dollars, which seems like it might be a bit too pricey for them to be handing out Amulets of Proof Against Detection and Location to every member of the Tower's security personnel.

And then again, maybe it isn't too much. This IS a major national landmark, as well as a nexus of mystical travel, so the expense could be well worth it in the eyes of whoever signs the paychecks for this place. Alternately, they could be getting their gear from someone who's figured out the trick you use to craft magic items that will only function for trained magic-users.

You can't really be sure without breaking your "cover," and you don't have time for that right now.

You go on your way, sparing a greeting for the kami in passing-

Miss Iwasaki isn't the miko on duty today, as it happens, and the lady that IS seems just as startled by your informal acknowledgement of the little god as her co-worker was by your calling on him.

-before teleporting to the Hakuba Shrine.

Since it's the middle of the day and there is likely to be traffic, you aim your spell at a side-street about halfway down the block from the shrine grounds. While it adds several minutes of walking, there are enough people moving around on the main street that you feel it was a good call.

Nobody passes you on your way up the stairs, and when you reach the top and look around, you don't see any visitors beyond the shrine's open gates. As it's still most of an hour before noon, the Yoshidas are likely not here yet; Mai may actually be at school, attending one of those Saturday half-days, depending on which institute of learning she attends.

All things considered, it's probably for the best if you appear as yourself for the upcoming meeting. Most of what you've heard about Mai's return to her family and mundane society suggests that the Yoshidas have been handling their daughter's supernaturally-caused absence and its long-term consequences pretty well, to the point of allowing Mai to stay in touch with Lady Takara - though admittedly, that's partly a concession to the fact that Mai refuses to stop writing to the kitsune.

And since Mr. Mai's Dad and Mrs. Mai's Mom ARE aware that a kitsune was responsible for whisking their only daughter away, revealing yourself to be a shapechanger in your first face-to-face meeting with them might not go over well.

Doubly so, considering that you're already planning to spring the truth of Lady Akemi's ghostly status on them as a potential prank.

So, yeah. Normal Alex-form it is. And if any other shrine visitors ask, you're an American tourist.

Melting back into your usual appearance, you enter the shrine grounds and look for the nearest Hakuba and/or shrine maiden.

Almost immediately, you spot Hakuba Kojiro talking to an unfamiliar couple over by the shrine proper. For a second you wonder if they're Mai's parents, but looking closer makes it clear they're about the same age as Hakuba Ichirou, maybe a couple of years older - so not enough to be the Yoshidas. Best to leave him to that, then.

Miss Suzuka is also in plain sight, arranging pre-made prayer cards on a rack similar to the one you saw up in the Tokyo Tower yesterday.

There doesn't seem to- wait, no, Ginta and Ichirou are in the back of the grounds, carrying something between them that looks like a fairly tall but not overly thick piece of wood. From the gesturing at different locations, they seem to be debating where to set it up, whatever it is.

While you are curious as to what the two younger generations of priests are up to, it does seem likely that you'll find the answer to that in due course regardless of what else you do. With that in mind, and since standing around waiting does not appeal in the slightest, you walk towards Miss Suzuka.

Mind Blank aside, you make no particular effort to hide your approach, and the miko sees you coming. "Good morning, Alex," she greets you, once you're close enough for a slightly quieter than normal speaking voice to be sufficient.

"Good morning, Miss Suzuka. Have there been any last-minute developments with the Yoshidas that I should be aware of?"

"I spoke with them over the phone about an hour ago," she informs you, "and they were still planning to get here sometime after twelve - twelve-thirty at the latest."

You nod at that, idly reflecting that if Mai DOES have a half-day of classes today, that schedule suggests that her folks are picking her up right after it's over and either going straight to lunch or skipping the meal entirely. Hopefully it's not the latter - even while comfortably digesting dinner, your own stomach rumbles in sympathy at the very notion.

You also consider that the Yoshidas could be planning to have a polite meal with "Cousin Akemi," which under different circumstances, would have made it a toss-up as to whether the possible incoming prank would work out to be funnier, or kind of mean.

But since you developed the Spell of Ghost Food, you think it should still fall on the funny side of things.

In any case, fifty to eighty minutes is plenty of time for you to set up the ritual circle you'll need to call Lady Akemi, get the actual summoning done, and get in a prayer to the kami for things to go smoothly. Given the possibility of spectators - you glance at the young couple that Kojiro is talking to - taking the time to add some concealment for the meeting so that passersby don't end up staring at the semi-transparent lady in period dress would probably be a good idea...

Pausing at that thought, you look in Ginta and Ichirou's direction, but your current position denies you line of sight to them or that wooden object they were carrying. Even so, when you consider the size and shape of the thing, you think that it COULD be one of those fold-up privacy screens - the outdoor variety, rather than the lighter and more colorful fabric sort that people use in their rooms.

You'll check on that in a moment, but first, do you have any further questions for Miss Suzuka about today's "family reunion"?

Leaving Miss Suzuka to her work, you wander around to the back of the property to see what Ginta and Ichirou are up to.

The moment you come far enough around the side of the main shrine to see them, you're able to see that your guess about the priests' cargo was correct: the wooden object is an outdoor privacy screen, consisting of three joined frames about five feet tall and twenty inches across - that number's a bit of a guesstimate, admittedly, but the whole thing looks like it'd be pretty close to a proper square if fully straightened out. Each separate frame holds about dozen, horizontally-oriented slats, fitted so that each isn't quite flush to the ones directly above and/or below it.

"-off of the tamagaki," Ichirou says.

"We are not having a summoning circle set up right next to the house of the kami," Ginta says flatly.

"But what if he wants to observe?" the younger priest replies, gesturing from the fence surrounding the central shrine building to the patch of ground just outside it. "This would be the most convenient location for that."

"That is-!" Ginta begins with a raised voice, before catching himself, frowning thoughtfully, and lowering his voice. "Well, you're not wrong," he admits, "but something about that just feels vaguely sacrilegious..."

"Could you just ask the kami?" you offer, as you get closer.

"And speaking of things that feel vaguely sacrilegious," Ginta says with a huff that is at least half amusement. "Welcome back, Alex. Will this" - he gives his end of the screen a light shake - "be large enough for the circle you'll need to call up Lady Akemi?"

"The circle for her, yes," you confirm. You can and routinely do set up larger circles for larger creatures or group summons, but for a spirit like Lady Akemi, who's retained her mortal form's size and features, a three-foot-wide circle will do just fine. That said, "It might be a little small for the circle and half a dozen people, though. Do you have a second one?"

"We do," Ichirou confirms. "Give us a bit to finish setting this one up, and we'll have it."

"I still say this isn't entirely respectful," Ginta grumbles. "Move it a bit the left, Ichirou."

Ichirou lifts his end of the screen off the cobblestoned surface and moves it a few inches-

"I mean MY left."

-and then back in the other direction.

While they're doing that, you take a minute to get a feel for the area that's being "fenced off" for your use, and nod at the conditions. The ground back here is a mix of pave stones and grass, which would be anything from annoying to dangerous for someone trying to draw a summoning array with chalk or the like, but your preference to use circles of condensed and shaped mana neatly bypasses most of those issues. There's also enough space that you won't be trampling any flowers or something similarly impolite, and the ambient mana is not unfavorable for your intended purpose.

You leave the priests to their labors for the moment and head back to the front of the shrine building, where you find the man and woman from before are just turning to go, exchanging bows with Kojiro and Suzuka. All but the older priest, you note, wear slightly abashed but hopeful smiles; Kojiro just seems amused, in the way of an old man getting a quiet laugh at the expense of his juniors.

With the shrine freed up, you decide to make that prayer - and since this is your first time actually offering a formal prayer at the Hakuba Shrine, you decide to go through the traditional routine.

When it comes to the offering...

"If it's not intruding on private matters," you say, as you come up to the old priest, "what was that about?"

"That, Alex, was a young married couple, still in the honeymoon phase of their relationship, who've been informed that they're going to be parents - to their absolute astonishment."

I THOUGHT that behavior looked familiar...

Still with that look of aged amusement, Kojiro regards you for a moment. "From your expression, I take it that you've never encountered the like before."

"Not that comes to mind, no," you admit, as you glance after the departing pair. This is one of those areas where Ganondorf's memories have basically nothing to offer you, beyond a sense of bemusement - though that might simply be an echo of your own reaction. "What about you, Briar?"

"I've seen a few people being silly about pregnancies since coming to Earth," your partner replies. "Those were all when the mother was far enough along for it to be obvious she was expecting, though."

And that woman definitely doesn't look the part yet.

You consider things a moment longer, and then mentally shrug. It's good news for the couple, if the way they, Miss Suzuka, and Kojiro are reacting, but it doesn't really concern you - at least not here and now. Maybe in the future, but that's for the future.

Here and now, you have an offering to make. With that in mind, you reach into your pocket and take out some of the Gold Incense.

"What's that?" Kojiro asks.

"A kind of incense I've been using to make offerings to my Goddesses," you reply, "and more recently, to the kami of the Tokyo Tower."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, considering I dropped an army of Shinigami on his domain and have been giving the security personnel a bit of a hard time, formal apologies seemed like a good idea." You clear your throat. "Anyway, do you think your kami would like some of this?"

"May I?" Kojiro inquires, half-extending one hand. You pass him the incense stick, and almost immediately, the old priest blinks. "Spiritually charged? That's uncommon."

"That's why I bought the original box," you agree.

"Only the original box?"

"I've been making it myself since then, using the original stuff as a template."

Kojiro gives you a startled look. "You're making incense by hand?"

"No, by magic," you correct.

"...right, what was I thinking?" Kojiro says, half to himself. Then he shakes his head. "In that case, I think the kami would be very pleased with such an offering."

You nod. "Do you mind if I borrow an incense burner?"

"Not at all."

You go through the customary prayer routine, cleansing yourself at the nearby basin, then setting up your material offering and making a small financial offering in keeping with the normal custom. You bow twice, clap twice, and silently thank the kami for hosting today's meeting, before praying for the event to go well. Then you bow a final time.

Nothing about the atmosphere of the Hakuba Shrine changes at any point in all of this, but then, you suspect you've had this particular kami's attention ever since your first visit resulted in a ceremonial sword stuck in the ceiling of one of the more public shrine buildings.

Regardless, with your prayers made, you head back to where Ginta and Ichirou set up the first privacy screen, step behind it - from the perspective of most of the shrine, as well as any visitors - and start gathering mana.

Do you want to add any particular safeguards of your own?

Since you have a full tank of magical gas and are being hosted on someone else's property, you decide to go ahead and spend your own mana on creating the summoning array. Suppressing your spellcasting signature for a third-circle spell is no issue for you at this point, and while the process does create some light - more so when you're substituting mana constructs for the powdered silver this spell normally calls for - your current position near the back of the shrine, as well as the screen that Ginta and Ichirou put up, does plenty to hide you from any theoretical observers.

Once the basic circle is in place, you start adding the enhanced diagram required for calling rituals. You could get this done in ten minutes or so, but you're in no hurry, so you take the time to double-check all the little bends, angles, and intersections of the luminous array as it takes shape under your hand and will. A few more arcane sigils here, here, and here, a final line to complete and "lock" the circle to its inward configuration, and you're done.

And then, you wait.

And wait.

And wait a bit more.

"This may be bad form for a priest," Ichirou begins, as the noon-hour approaches, "but could I tempt you with an offer of lunch?"

"Thank you for the offer," you reply, "but it's only been a couple of hours since I had supper."

At other times, you might have accepted anyway, but you haven't been very active over the last couple of hours, so the beast remains content with its last meal.

"On that note, though," you add, recalling something, "was there a plan to host the Yoshidas for lunch?"

"Mother may have had inclinations in that direction," Ichirou wryly admits.

The bentos from the other night HAD been giving you that impression of Mrs. Hakuba.

"Well, let her know that she can set one extra place NOT counting me."

"I don't... oh." Ichirou raises one hand, index finger half pointing at you, half raised in realization. "Lady Akemi WAS eating food at your birthday party, wasn't she? And you don't need a ghost or an entire magical mansion to prepare something like that?"

You shake your head.

"I'll let Mother know to make enough for one more." Ichirou turns to go, then stops and looks back to you, frowning. "Do you remember if Lady Akemi used Western utensils, or chopsticks?"

...

You don't, actually.

A few minutes later, you're informed by Miss Suzuka that the Yoshidas have called and are on their way.

You are tempted to begin the ritual right away, as much for the sake of not wasting anyone's time as for the puckish appeal of springing the surprise on the Yoshidas when they arrive, but in the end, as is so often the case, your sense of etiquette has you deciding otherwise.

There IS a limit to just how many unexpected developments you can intentionally drop on someone - whether in succession or all at once - before they stop taking things with good humor and start feeling attacked. After that point, said things stop feeling like jokes and start becoming more like bullying.

And so, once more, you wait.

And wait.

About fifteen minutes later, while you're running through a few light exercises to pass the time, a head of red hair comes into view over the top of the stairs at the front of the shrine. Once she's reached the top step, Mai stops, waves to Miss Suzuka, appears to miss your presence, and then turns and looks back down the way she came. A minute later, her parents appear, and the contrast between their hair and Mai's - light brown for Mr. Yoshida, black for Mrs. Yoshida - is immediate and considerable.

Introduced as Dan and Megumi, husband and wife are something of a study of contrasts in and of themselves. Where Mr. Yoshida is tall and spare of build, and thus looks a bit stretched as a result - save for the "padding" around his midsection - Mrs. Yoshida is just about average height for a Japanese woman, with the subtle muscles of someone who's made an effort to stay fit without it being a personal passion. Dan has short brown hair that hasn't started to recede or grey with age, while Megumi wears her hair long and is just starting to show some grey about the temples. He's a bit too good-looking to be called "plain," but likewise falls short of the mark to be considered "handsome"; she has the features of a classic beauty. He's dressed in a combination of slacks and a white t-shirt that could work as business-casual or for lazing about at home; she's wearing a classy dress and heels that are clearly meant for socializing.

One thing Mai's parents do have in common is an air of slight uncertainty, which eased a bit as Suzuka and Ichirou welcomed them to the Hakuba Shrine, and then cranked back up when they glanced at you afterwards.

"Oh, we couldn't possibly intrude," Mrs. Yoshida politely declines, when Ichirou mentions that his mother has been preparing lunch.

"Please," the young priest replies. "It's no trouble at all, and Mother has been looking forward to it."

"Well, if she's already cooked...?"

"She has."

"Then it would be a shame to waste her efforts." Mai's mother looks around. "Is the lady that Mai has talked about waiting inside? Or is she running late?"

Very late, a certain pun-prone part of your mind thinks with amusement.

"Lady Akemi hasn't arrived yet." Ichirou manages to say it without looking or sounding like he's trying to hide something.

The Yoshidas frown slightly, but interestingly, they don't look offended by the absence of the woman they came to meet - rather, there is some polite concern.

"Is she alright?" Mai's father asks.

"She is," you reply, silently wondering at that response. "The delay is actually my doing, rather than hers."

Both of the elder Yoshidas regard you with puzzlement, before Dan admits, "I don't follow."

You can't bring yourself to ruin the real surprise, so you don't.

Mai spares you a brief, mischievous grin, making sure to keep her back to her parents the entire time.

You don't think that Ichirou or Suzuka give anything away, either, because neither of the adult Yoshidas start looking suspicious of them.

"What sort of magical travel are we talking about, here?" Yoshida Dan asks curiously. "Some sort of flight, a doorway that opens to different locations, or something different?"

"In this case, it's a form of instantaneous travel between two separate locations" - you hold up your left hand, visibly locking it into place, and then mirror it with your right at a distance of about a foot - "without crossing the space in between."

Mrs. Yoshida frowns. "You couldn't just say teleportation?"

"It's related to teleportation," you admit, while lowering your hands, "but it's technically a different thing."

Calling and teleportation are both aspects of the School of Summoning Magic, and they both move the target creatures from their original location to a new one, but there are enough distinctions - both subtle and gross - that they really can't be considered the same thing.

"Ah, technicalities," Dan murmurs. "I have learned to respect and dread those."

"That makes two of us, then, sir. On that note, unless there are any questions or objections, I will go and start casting the spell."

"Can I watch?" Mai asks brightly.

"Mai," her mother chides.

There is a huff, followed by a put-upon, "Can I watch, please?"

"That's better."

"It's a ten-minute ritual, and I won't be able to answer questions while I'm performing it," you say in response. "If you can put up with that...?"

"Hmmm... probably not," comes the acknowledgment.

You consider that answer, grudgingly approve that Mai is at least aware of her own limitations, and then ask Briar if she'd be okay with fielding questions.

"Sure," your partner replies.

"Is there someone else here?" Mai's mother asks in confusion, as she peers at the space next to you.

Whoops.

"I've got this," Briar says, before taking her human form.

The Yoshidas visibly startle at a teenaged girl appearing as if from thin air.

"Hi, Miss Briar!" Mai greets her.

"Hi, Mai. Ready to see some magic?"

"Am I!?"

On that note, you relocate to the back of the shrine-

"Is this not disrespectful to the kami?" Mr. Yoshida wonders, glancing at the nearby honden.

"I had the same concerns," Ginta says. "Then my son pointed out that, not only were we setting up outside the tamagaki, but the kami himself might wish to observe the... ritual, in question, and this would provide a better view than most."

-and make with the magic.

For all the eager grinning and bouncing in place she does, it turns out that Mai isn't the first Yoshida to succumb to curiosity about what you're doing. Maybe forty seconds into your spellcasting, her mother asks just what is going on, prompting Briar to give the layman's explanation of calling rituals for bringing people and things from other worlds-

"Wait, she's an ALIEN?" Mai's father exclaims.

You actually pause mid-invocation, picturing Lady Akemi with little green antennae, or blue skin and head-tendrils.

Mai facepalms. "Oh, Daddy..."

"That's... not what 'other worlds' means in this context, sir," Briar manages to say, before getting into a discussion of the planes of existence which manages to side-step the matter of afterlives.

You send a pulse of mischievous approval down the familiar bond.

/ Fairy truths, / she sends back to you.

Indeed.

And none of the priests give you away.

Finally-

"Lady Akemi, daughter of Lady Takara, come forth!"

*Poof*

-she makes her entrance.

"Good afternoon, everyone," the semi-transparent young-looking lady in ancient dress greets you all with a polite bow.

...

Yoshida Megumi manages to find her voice and return the greeting. "Gho-! I mean, good afternoon!"

"Oh," Dan murmurs. "So it was THAT kind of other world..."

And then his wife yanks him into a hasty bow alongside her.

Mai giggles triumphantly, which gets a demurely knowing smile from "Cousin Akemi."

Prank: Successful!

Gained Pranking D

Is there anything in particular you want to say or do during this meeting?

After the introductions and necessary explanations are made, you bow out of the conversation and let the Yoshidas and Lady Akemi talk. At the insistence of Mrs. Hakuba, a fair bit of this discussion takes place over lunch-

"How are you eating that?" Dan wonders.

"With great appreciation to our hostess and young Alex," Akemi replies, nodding formally to Hakuba Atsuko, and then to you.

Also, yes, she is using chopsticks.

-with you having slipped into the kitchen at one point to cast the Spell of Ghost Food, and then help set the table.

Despite what you said half an hour ago about not being hungry... well, that WAS half an hour ago, and not only are you starting to feel a bit peckish, Briar mentions that she could eat a bit herself. Fortunately, Atsuko proves to possess that uncanny ability of experienced cooks to know when to prepare "a little extra" of whatever they're making, in case an extra mouth or two turn up - or if, as in this case, someone changes their minds about how much they want.

Around dainty bites of the meal, Lady Akemi presents an account of her life and relationship with Lady Takara. Having only heard a very brief summary of this, you listen as intently as anyone else at the table.

Akemi's earliest memories are of a small village on the outskirts of a wild, ancient forest, a nameless place inhabited by nameless people - runaways, outcasts, and survivors of the carnage and chaos of the Warring States Era, all of whom simply wanted to forget the rest of the nation and be forgotten by it. Her father was a peasant-turned-conscript spearman, who had escaped the destruction of his former lord's army and territory with an almost miraculous lack of injuries, an equally amazing amount of personal wealth by the standards of the time and his social class-

"Undoubtedly ill-gotten," Akemi admits without shame.

-and nightmares that he tried to forget by drinking. Her mother, Akemi describes more as warm memories of soft laughter and a gentle pair of arms than as a person, the lady in question having died of a sickness when her daughter was in her fifth year.

Akemi's father went downhill after burying his wife, climbing into the bottle and drinking away most of what spoils from his time as a soldier had remained. He also took to gambling and quarreling with some of the other villagers, a combination that ultimately led to his death and Akemi's first meeting with Takara.

"I don't remember their names, if I ever knew them," she says with a frown. "I recall only that there were five of them, that I had often seen them drinking, gaming, and arguing with my father, and that they were all armed. Clubs and sickles, mostly. They were arguing again that day, claiming that they had come to collect what my father owed them, and that if he could not or would not pay with money, then he should sell me. For that 'suggestion', he stabbed their leader on the spot and told me to run. I fled to the forest, and I did not see my father alive again."

Her father's creditors chased her, of course, though only three of them, and one of those with a bleeding arm crudely bandaged. Still, it took them some time to get past her sire's last stand, and Akemi recalls her younger self as "a quick little thing," so she covered a considerable distance before the angry men caught up with her - enough to be under the eaves of the forest, which, of course, is where Takara found them.

Given her history, the kitsune reacted VERY poorly to the sight of some human thugs attacking a child. Akemi didn't see what happened to them and never cared to ask Takara about it; thus, she simply says that, "Whatever Mother did to them, it was over quickly."

There is a small gap in Lady Akemi's memories at that point, after which she woke up in a building her younger self was convinced must have been a palace-

"It would have been a fine house for a town headman or a very minor noble," she admits, "provided that the noble was willing and able to cook and clean for himself."

"Ugh, the chores," Mai grumbles.

"What's this?" her mother asks, perking right up.

"Nothing!"

-and with a shade of red to hair that had previously been brown.

Mai absently twirls a lock of her own, unnaturally auburn hair about one finger. "...yeah," she says absently. "That was... a surprise." More clearly, she asks Akemi, "Does it mean anything that Auntie waited almost two months to do the fancy ritual with me, when she did it for you almost as soon as you met?"

"I suspect it was a matter of timing," the dead woman replies. "Mother told me that I'd been hurt badly enough that I needed help to heal, and I never thought to ask her about it again until very recently. When I did ask, she admitted that my injuries back then were nothing worse than the sort of bumps and bruises I might have gotten from a rough game. It just so happened that the day we met was a few days before conditions would have been ideal for her to perform her adoption ritual, which is a fairly involved piece of magic - especially these days. She can't cast it wherever and whenever she likes, she has to make certain preparations ahead of time, and there are particular times of the year where it is more likely to succeed, so the part of her mind that was aware of the danger in what she was doing always tried to aim for the most fortuitous days." Akemi winces. "She... wasn't always successful in that."

Everybody falls quiet for a time after that.

When Lady Akemi resumes her tale, she admits that her time with Takara was not instantly all joy and wonder. While the village of her birth hadn't had any stories specifically warning about a kitsune in the area, there had been plenty of cautionary tales about youkai in general, particularly in the deeper parts of the forest - which, after some investigation, the younger Akemi had been able to determine was where Takara's "palace" was located. Combine that with Takara seeing no need to conceal her nature in her own home, Akemi being clever enough to realize that her father must be dead, and the kitsune constantly referring to herself as Akemi's mother even though Akemi knew very well that she wasn't, and it made for an unhappy little girl and a dismayed fox-lady.

On the other hand, Akemi realized that Takara had saved her from the men that had killed her father and would have sold her off, she WAS providing the child with food, clothing, and accommodations "fit for a princess," and she consistently showed the girl the sort of care and affection that had been sparse in her life since her birth-mother's passing.

"Also, fox-tail hugs are wonderfully fluffy and absolutely cheating," Lady Akemi says firmly, her expression resolute.

Mai nods, wearing the exact same look.

...are they upset about that, or... not? You aren't quite sure.

And then there were the Lessons.

Mai "ughs" again. "She got you, too, huh?"

"Mother has always believed in the value of education," Lady Akemi admits. "'How can you call yourself the greatest trickster in the world-'"

"'-if you don't even know what the most famous tricks in history were?'" Mai concludes.

That is one of the more... interesting arguments you've heard in favor of school. You can see that it's striking a similar chord of puzzled curiosity with the two older Yoshidas.

In any case, learning to read, write, paint, play assorted musical instruments, plan out new tricks, and the other things that Takara considered to be essential parts of a young fox's upbringing in a world increasingly full of dangerous humans were much more agreeable to a young Akemi than the life she'd previously endured. Even learning how to hunt wasn't that bad, at least once Takara had "convinced" herself that the reason her daughter was initially so terrible at it was because her "fox instincts" were working against her "human disguise."

You try not to wince as you reflect on what a close shave THAT was for Akemi, or how many other such rationalizations and outright lies Takara must have been telling herself to avoid facing the truth.

Still, by some fluke of chance or quiet blessing from a sympathetic kami, the pair managed to avoid disaster. Bit by bit, day by day, Akemi grew more accustomed to and accepting of her circumstances, while Takara in turn adapted to the change in hers. One of those adaptations was a realization that, although her house in the woods sufficed as a "safe den" for a mother with a young kit, in the long term it was too small and remote to properly raise a child. Akemi needed other kitsune to play and learn with, and a steady supply of humans to practice her disguise and tricks on, do the occasional good deed for, accept tofu offerings from, and/or just torment.

"Out of curiosity," Ichirou interrupts, "which of those did she consider most important?"

"All of them," Lady Akemi replies.

The young priest nods, not seeming particularly surprised.

And so, after they'd lived together for about half a year and developed a degree of familiarity, trust, and even affection, Takara began to disappear from the house at times, leaving Akemi to her own devices for much longer periods than she ever had before - multiple hours at a time, even.

"Did you try to run?" Yoshida Megumi asks.

"Oh, yes. Not the first time I realized that she was away, mind you; it was late in the afternoon by the time I realized I was alone, with the movement of the sun and the shadows being the first thing that tipped me off as to how long it'd been since I'd seen or heard Mother. I wasn't even sure which way the village was, but I was quite certain it would be dark before I got there. No, instead I sat down and tried to be Clever, like Mother kept insisting I should..."

Young Akemi's cleverness amounted to waiting a few days, keeping track of when Takara disappeared and came back, checking around the house for signs she was just hiding, and - when those failed to turn up - hiding away some food and clothing.

About a week later, Akemi felt she was ready, and made a break for it.

"And then I got caught in a giant snare-plant Mother had left to keep the other local youkai away from the house in her absence," Akemi sighs. "The plant didn't hurt me, of course - it knew better - but I was stuck hanging upside-down for most of the day before Mother came home. Worse, a sparrow youkai who lived in the area came along, saw what had happened, and perched in a nearby tree so that she could laugh at me without falling out of the air."

"Rude," Mai huffs.

"It was, but youkai can be like that." Akemi shrugs. "And I got her back for it, anyway."

"Oh?" Briar asks, with a certain professional interest.

"I managed to pull myself up long enough to slip off a shoe," the lady explains. "Then I threw it at her. Youkai or not, she wasn't any bigger or older than I was, and I hit her right between the eyes. Even if it only stunned her, it still knocked her out of the tree and into some of the snare's vines."

"...so when your Mom got home," Briar begins with slow, dreadful delight.

"She found the two of us hanging there, side-by-side, shouting insults." Akemi sighs. "Naturally, she thought it was funny."

"Also out of curiosity," you say, right after Ichirou's question was answered, "what was the magical portion of your education like?"

Because while it only came up once before, you haven't forgotten that time you sat down and discussed everyone's favorite illusions with the various kitsune elders you'd invited to your birthday. Lady Akemi's mention of disguising one of her honored father-in-law's more annoying retainers as an ape for an entire day was amusingly memorable.

"Mother focused more on theory than practice in most fields," the lady replies. "Some of that was because young kitsune really aren't all that powerful, and she didn't want to overburden me with expectations I wouldn't be able to reach until I'd grown several additional tails-"

It's easier to hold back the wince this time.

"-but also, my arcane abilities proved to be quite modest in the greater scheme of things. I was best with illusions, of course, but even in that area, I relied mainly on simple cantrips and rituals."

"Auntie taught me some magic, too!" Mai says brightly as she raises one hand, fingers already flexing into an arcane sign.

"Not at the table," Megumi, Akemi, and every present member of the Hakuba family say at once.

Nobody's voice is raised or even particularly stern, but the number of people speaking makes Mai flinch, and has her parents looking at their hosts with surprise.

"...there is a story here," Miss Suzuka muses, looking closely at Ichirou.

"I may have thought to show off my 'amazing powers' when I was first granted use of the Light Spell," Ichirou admits with faint amusement. "Fortunately, nothing was broken, no one was injured, and the kami thought it was funny."

Always a consideration to keep in mind when wielding divinely-granted power, or indeed, any patron-backed form of mystical might.

As Lady Akemi moves on with her autobiography, you make a mental note to ask Mai if she knows about the Spells of Prestidigitation and Unseen Servant, after the meal is done.

Back to the story: Akemi's First Runaway Plan had ended in failure, but having lost nothing but time, dignity, and patience with a feathery annoyance in the attempt, she was able to try again a couple of days later, once she was confident Takara hadn't changed her own schedule. Being aware of the snare-plant, Akemi felt herself capable of sneaking past it, only for the sparrow youkai to show up again when she was halfway through the trapped area, and start insulting her.

The resulting argument ended with both girls trapped in the snare again.

A couple of days after that, Akemi tried going in a different direction, only for the sparrow to show up once more and start an argument about whose stupid fault it had been that they'd both ended up snared again the day before.

Neither girl realized until it was too late that they'd walked into another of Takara's defenses, this one a combination of Illusion and Enchantment that tricked people who entered it into wandering around in circles.

A few days after THAT, Akemi tried to convince the sparrow, whose name was Suzume - because of course it was - to carry her out of the forest, or at least over the area where Takara had set up her defenses. Some ego-stroking, a carefully phrased challenge, and a promise from Akemi to share her food saw the attempt actually being made, at which point both girls discovered that, youkai or not, a young sparrow wasn't a strong enough flier to carry a young human girl aloft for more than a minute.

Said discovery involved an emergency landing, right in the middle of ANOTHER of Takara's tricks.

"This went on for most of a month," Lady Akemi says, "and by the end, Suzume had dragged in several other young youkai to try and help, as it became more about defeating 'the terrible magic of the tyrant fox' than actually escaping or being paid with food. Although there was plenty of the latter."

"In other words," Briar guesses, "you made friends."

Akemi nods. "Several, some closer than others - and we ALL completely failed to realize that Mother was both aware of and encouraging everything that was going on, as it kept me entertained and mostly out of trouble while she was getting a new house built. At the end of the month, I went to bed in the house in the woods, and woke up in a house on the outskirts of my old village - while said house was 'under attack' by my friends, who had come to 'rescue' me from my 'kidnapper'."

Oh, the irony.

Good friends, though, or at least well-bribed with food.

From there, Akemi describes the remainder of her childhood as being lived half in the human world and half in the world of the youkai. She hadn't been particularly close to anyone in the village before her father's death, but neither had she been especially unfriendly, and while the violent circumstances of her disappearance and her subsequent return as the adopted daughter of a wealthy, powerful, and eccentric woman scared off some of the villagers, others saw it as a challenge or an opportunity.

More so, in both cases, as word started to spread about the strange girls that brave visitors might meet at Takara's house.

When Lady Akemi pauses in her story-telling to enjoy a bit more of lunch, you take the opportunity to see how Mai's parents are reacting to the tale in progress.

...

At a glance, you would say "patiently." They didn't precisely come here to hear the life's story of a dead woman, but Akemi's autobiography is giving them a degree of insight into Lady Takara's character, as she was while she still suffered from her particular form of madness. Building up a picture of who the nine-tailed fox was and how she thought and acted, even if it was centuries ago, will give them at least some idea of how she was likely to have behaved while Mai was in her custody.

It's one thing to have been told that Takara once raised a human daughter to adulthood and beyond, and managed to build and maintain a familial relationship in the process, and another to hear about the hows and whys of the entire process from the daughter herself. It also helps that Akemi hasn't been trying to hide some of the unpleasant implications of her history, like the fact that Takara kept her isolated for some months, or was willing to use magic on her without her consent or awareness.

Granted, the lady isn't going into details on those troubling points, but you think that's more out of concern for how young you and Mai are.

After a few mouthfuls and a drink to wash them down, Akemi resumes her narration, this time talking less about herself and more about the village, and how it changed with Takara's relocation. Akemi notes that, as a child, she gave no real thought to what her adoptive mother might have had to do to have a fine house built near a settlement of outcasts - much less at how a house of youkai, most of them children, managed to integrate into a predominantly human population so smoothly and with no actual fatalities. It was only years later, when she had to deal with the ignorance, prejudice, superstition, and simple fear of men and women in her father-in-law's court and the difficulties they created for her, her husband, and their children, that an older Akemi thought back to her childhood, wondered at the differences, and asked her mother about it.

"As I said earlier, the village was one of exiles and isolationists," the lady explains. "Even so, it was not completely cut off from the rest of the world, nor was it without leaders. When I left the first time, five men had been the heads of the village council, leveraging the strength of those whose loyalty they held, the worth of the resources they controlled, and various favors owed by and to the other residents to gain advantage for themselves. One of those five had claimed the loyalty of the men who tried to take me from my father, and their actions and deaths cost their master his position within the village, forcing him to flee within weeks of the incident. Another of the councilors, the merchant who handled what little trade the village conducted, loaded some of his former peer's abandoned property on his next caravan, to sell or trade. His son and apprentice returned with fewer men, one less wagon, and the story that his father had been greedy and foolish: he loaded too many heavy items onto a single wagon, which he insisted on driving himself; and when bandits came upon them and that wagon could not escape, the merchant refused to abandon his 'fortune' and was lost with it."

Ah, a moral lesson.

"The merchant's original decision to sell those spoils had not been entirely ill-considered, though," Akemi admits, "as his son was able to make some profit off the remaining goods. But if he was wiser in business than his father, he was not so skilled in politics, as with his father's passing, he visited the home of his sweetheart and asked her father's permission to take her as his bride - something his father had forbidden for years, as the girl in question was the only daughter of the third councilor. Their union put too much power in the hands of a single family, and stirred the anger and ambitions of the other councilors, all the more so considering how their number had been so quickly reduced from five to three, and how easily they could all see it going lower still."

In short, when Lady Takara returned to the village, she found a small-scale civil war in the making, and visited each of the three families under a different guise, testing the character and motives of their leaders and those they surrounded themselves with, to see where she might find the most benefit and the most danger.

One of the councilors, later described by Takara as a brute with no respect for women, died in a manner that was at once so terribly embarrassing that it could only be a message of intense disapproval, yet which was also so improbable that it could not have been the doing of any man.

The next councilor, who apparently considered himself as clever and charming as a fox - which, by Takara's estimate, was almost half true - challenged Takara to a battle of wits-

"'To the death?'" you inquire and quote on reflex.

Ichirou laughs once, softly.

"No," Lady Akemi replies, giving the two of you a curious glance, "or at least not to the death of anything other than his political ambitions."

-in which he was not victorious.

"Though he didn't quite lose, either," Akemi adds.

"What makes you say that?" Yoshida Megumi asks.

"I have reason to suspect that Mother found him more charming than she wanted to admit," the lady replies with a sly smile. "He was one of the few men in the village who ever dared to address her as a peer, much less to visit, and of course, he was the only one who ever proposed to her. Repeatedly, at that."

Huh. Lost the battle and lost his heart, then?

"Something like that, yes," Akemi agrees. "As for the other councilor, whose daughter had recently wedded the merchant's son, he'd seen one of his remaining peers destroyed by what some were calling divine retribution, after a mysterious woman had visited him one night, while the other began happily building a great house for another woman no one had ever heard of. So, when a strange beauty appeared at his home, he greeted her politely and asked that, if he had given offense, that the punishment be leveled upon him alone rather than his family. Mother approved and told him he was now the headman of the village, which she expected him to lead well."

"Did she pick him by process of elimination?" Hakuba Ginta wonders. "Or was there more to her selection?"

"She admitted to having favored the man who ultimately won," Akemi admits. "He had the better reputation of the three leaders among the villagers, as he was neither a brute like the man she killed, nor determined to show off his cleverness at others' expense like the one she let live - and his daughter was already expecting her first child, which made Mother empathetic towards her. Still, she gave them all their chances to change her mind."

One definitely failed, then. The other... well, as Akemi said, he didn't QUITE lose, and since he lived to make multiple proposals to Takara after the fact...

You suppose you could call it a consolation prize.

Of course, the changes in the village's political landscape didn't end simply because Takara said one man was now the leader. Various followers of the other former councilors were not best-pleased with the shift in their fortunes, and there were those even among the new headman's loyalists who were unhappy to find themselves neighbors to a woman who was clearly either a noble, a sorceress, or a youkai - if she wasn't all three.

From your somewhat scattershot studies of Japanese history and supernatural entities, you are aware that such a combination wouldn't be impossible, or even all that unlikely.

Throw in Akemi's return and the changes in her appearance, as well as the presence of her friends - whose human disguises it would be charitable to call "paper-thin" - and it isn't really surprising that there were consequences.

Some people tried to chase the youkai off by various methods, but with no local kami or priests to back their prayers, and the only source of arcane solutions being a tired old hedge witch - who knew better than to pick a fight with a kitsune - and her half-trained apprentice - who didn't know better, but ended up the "token human" in Akemi's circle of friends - most of those attempts fell flat.

"Though they did give us some amusing adventures in the process," Akemi reflects.

Certain brave, reckless, or drunk souls advocated violent solutions, but most of those were either convinced by their friends and neighbors to give up the notion, or embarrassed into abandoning it after they'd run into the defenses Takara had set up around the new house, gotten their butts handed to them by the youkai kids, or - perhaps most shameful of all - been RESCUED from a more permanent fate by the very children they'd set out to harm.

It is surprising to hear that Takara allowed this sort of thing to happen, but Akemi explains that her foster-mother always kept a watchful eye on those particular "adventures," slipping the kids some subtle assistance when they needed it, stepping in more overtly - but to all appearances entirely coincidentally - when that was called for, and making the worst offenders quietly disappear.

"She later admitted to hoping that we might make our first kills," Akemi states. "That never quite happened, although there were a few close calls, usually because of Hebi's venom or someone on either side panicking, and the number of people that Usagi left with concussions or cracked bones... well, we gave the old witch plenty of business."

Other people just up and left: some early on and of their own free will; others after suffering the disgrace of repeated failures; and more when they were informed by various parties that they were no longer welcome. The first wave of these emigrants were the least problematic in the short term, yet their departures weren't wholly painless for the village, as they diminished the limited pool of manpower, forcing the headman to bring in outside workers to replace them. On top of that, when the ex-villagers passed through other settlements looking for a new place to call home, questions were asked and stories told about why they were on the move. Those tales would then be repeated when subsequent travelers passed through in various states of fear, injury, and humiliation.

All of this brought attention to that little town of refugees, which in turn brought curious visitors. Some of these would find moderate welcome among the original settlers - after all, they might be strangers, but at least they weren't more youkai - and were permitted to stay. Others, who Akemi describes as "poor guests and troublemakers," were encouraged to leave, sometimes by force, and then there were those who had always intended to go back to where they'd come from after sating their curiosity about the local oddities.

And when those people left the village, they took new stories with them, stories that circulated, drew more interest and further visitors, and eventually - over the course of a number of years - came to official attention. Upon learning that an insignificant village of outcasts had so unexpectedly grown in size, population, and prosperity, a nearby lord decided to claim it, and mustered his forces accordingly.

"This was NOT your future father-in-law, I take it?" Yoshida Megumi guesses.

You'd had a similar thought. Lady Akemi has always spoken respectfully and fondly of her husband's sire, but for this would-be conqueror, she maintains a certain cool disdain.

"He was not," Akemi agrees in that same tone. "But he was, to some extent, responsible for how I met my husband..."

The region where Akemi's village had been built was several days' ride past the border of those lands claimed by the would-be conqueror, Kazuo, a trip that required passing through a rocky, not quite mountainous area. That distance and difficult terrain, combined with the smallness of the community and its lack of resources not more easily attained elsewhere, had always made it a poor option for conquest, and the proximity and rumored dangers of the youkai forest only increased that.

That having been said, the real reason the warlord had never attempted to invade before was because the village was also within riding distance of the domain of his neighbor and rival, Lord Jiro - Akemi's future father-in-law. The two territories kept a watchful eye on one another across their shared border, and it was generally understood that the first of them to attempt to seize and hold that outlying village would be opening himself and his forces up to a counterattack and subsequent raids. The potential gains of a new holding had simply not been worth the cost.

Even so, the day came that Lord Jiro's scouts and spies reported his enemy was amassing a force to subjugate the village of outcasts. Though he had heard the same stories as his rival, Jiro had not considered the town's growing prosperity to be temptation enough to try claiming it, and had thought Kazuo to be of a similar mind. Upon learning otherwise, he dispatched a small force to investigate the area and determine what, if anything, might be found there that was valuable enough to provoke his old enemy to seemingly rash action.

Given the need for accurate intelligence and quick decision-making on the scene, Jiro placed that band under the command of his second son, Takehiko, and gave the young man leave to act on his own authority and speak in his father's name, should the situation call for it.

It turned out to.

"At the advice of one of his bodyguards, Takehiko had his men disguise themselves as common soldiers, their heavier armor, second swords, and tokens of allegiance packed away, that they might slip into the village without unduly alarming the residents or alerting Kazuo's own spies that Lord Jiro was aware of their master's agenda," Akemi recounts. "They had not entirely believed or fully considered the claims that the village was tolerant of youkai, or that many youkai rely on scent and youki-sense as much or even more than sight to identify others, and would not have known the scents of these newcomers with or without the smell of their armor."

Aha! A mistake!

"Did you trap them?" Mai asks eagerly.

"They made it so easy, it would have been a shame not to," Akemi replies with a suitably vulpine grin. "They had spotted Mother's house, you see, larger and finer by far than any other in the village and enjoying considerably more privacy on top of that. For all the improvements that had been made to the rest of the settlement over the years, our home was still too obviously wealthy to fit in, and Takehiko and his advisors were immediately certain that this MUST be what Kazuo sought. And so they called on us."

Second mistake!

Being fair, it was one the young lord had no way to know to avoid making, but still!

"So you had a bunch of disguised soldiers, in what they would have been treating as unfriendly territory, riding up to the front door of a house owned by a kitsune who had very serious issues with armed men being around her children?" Briar asks with rising disbelief.

Akemi just nods.

"How did your future husband NOT get killed right there?"

From the looks on other faces around the table, Briar is hardly the only one wondering about that.

"It was an eventful afternoon..."

Akemi explains that, over the near-decade of their residence in the village, Takara's paranoia about her daughter's safety and standoffishness towards the human residents had both eased considerably, reaching the point where the lady of the house was willing to entertain guests, even unexpected and uninvited ones.

After all, her daughter was growing up, and needed to learn how to be a good hostess, both by human standards and by kitsune ones. In addition, after a period where Akemi's youkai friends kept sneaking into, spying on, and trying to disrupt her lessons and been punished by being forced to sit through and participate in them, Takara had inadvertently made herself into a tutor for the whole group - and later, for Akemi's human friends as well.

"She eventually came to teach most of the village's children," Akemi says, "though that was after my marriage."

As such, while the snare-plants, illusions, and other tricks and traps that Takara had placed around her town-house after having it built were all still there, they were less aggressive by default, especially during daylight hours and along the paths that her human pupils would take to and from the village proper. It was this that allowed Takehiko's party to ride up to the house without immediately being set upon by the security, but their approach was still noticed by the wards and reported to the residents.

"At that point, Mother declared a surprise test."

And so Takehiko and his men found themselves welcomed into what appeared to be a high-class inn, offering cuisine, music, poetry, and drinks as fine as any that had been seen in Lord Jiro's own castle - and of course, the company of a number of intriguing young ladies.

Some of the adults start to frown at that, but Akemi assures them that nothing untoward happened.

"The youkai girls were more than capable of looking after themselves by that point, as was Tsukiko, our witch friend," she explains. "We all kept an eye on the human girls, just in case, and Mother watched over all of us. It also helped that little Kuma had grown up to be such an intimidating-looking young man. Even in human guise, he was as big as two ordinary men put together, most of it muscle; he was also probably the sweetest man I ever met, of any species, but our guests rarely saw that."

The soldiers, of course, were suspicious of their good fortune. What was an inn of such quality doing in such a remote settlement, and where had so many exotic beauties come from to populate it? Surely one village of outcasts couldn't have produced them all? Their fine manners, speech, and other skills were clearly learned from the matron - whose looks also explained those of her daughter - but where had SHE learned such things? Where was all the food and wine coming from, or the materials for their fine clothes and musical instruments? Where was the money to pay for it all? Was this house what Kazuo sought to claim by seizing the town? And so on.

Akemi and her friends, in turn, quickly became suspicious of their guests, since - as she said previously - it was obvious that they were strangers, armed, and too clean, well-trained, and cultured to have been common bandits or mercenaries. These men were loyal to something bigger than just themselves, and some among them showed too much deference towards and not enough familiarity with Takehiko for him to have been the ultimate target of that loyalty.

As a result, that afternoon and evening saw soldiers and youkai wandering all over the house, the former trying to unearth the secrets of the place with as much subtlety as they could muster, the latter trying to keep those secrets, and members of both sides jumping for cover upon hearing unexpected squeaks or catching shadows of movement.

"Suzume got stuck in a snare-vine with one of Takehiko's men for half the night," Akemi recalls with affectionate exasperation. "Hebi accidentally bit a man when he surprised her, and she was hiding his unconscious body in one of the rooms when another soldier came upon them, at which point she bit HIM, too, and got buried under their weight just in time for a THIRD man to come along and completely misunderstand the situation. Usagi KICKED another soldier when he got a little too friendly-"

You're getting the impression that Akemi's most likely a rabbit-youkai friend was the violent type. Either that, or physically strong and very nervous.

"-which put that fellow right through a wall. Fortunately, Mother was able to conceal the damage to the wall, and the man had been drinking enough by then that it didn't look too odd for him to have passed out..."

And all the while, a certain young lord could not stop staring at one particular red-haired girl, to her great embarrassment-

"He was very distracting," Akemi protests mildly.

"I'll bet he said the same of you," Hakuba Atsuko laughs.

"...well, yes - but still!"

-the giggling amusement of her friends-

The adults seated around the table trade glances, all of them clearly recalling similar experiences, some with amusement, others with resignation.

-and the gradually growing annoyance of her still somewhat-overprotective foster-mother.

"Which ALSO became very distracting, as time went on," the lady sighs. "Mother eventually suggested that Takehiko should take a walk in the garden, to get some air, and when he agreed and turned around and asked me to accompany him..." Akemi shakes her head. "If she'd had just one more tail then, I think she might have managed to set him on fire with nothing more than a look."

"But you did go with him, didn't you?" Miss Suzuka inquires.

"I was fairly sure she'd set the plants on him if I didn't..."

Lady Akemi's comment about her mother setting the plants on her future husband suddenly has you envisioning a "garden" populated by Deku Babas, holding veeeery still as an unsuspecting visitor draws into biting range...

While you don't interrupt the story, you project the thought through your familiar bond to Briar, adding an inquisitive cast to it.

Briar's response is one of doubt. / She already mentioned snare-vines, / your partner reminds you.

But that wouldn't exactly make for much of a garden, would it?

/ Depends on what sort of flowers they had... /

While the two of you are trading thoughts, the tale continues.

Once in the garden, Takehiko did not do anything so foolishly dramatic as identify himself as Lord Jiro's son or propose to Akemi on the spot. Instead, like many a lovestruck young man before him, he offered clumsy yet heartfelt compliments on everything from the service provided by the house and the beauty of the garden to Akemi's own demonstrated skills and obvious beauty. The girl in turn didn't react like the composed, graceful pseudo-noblewoman she had spent years studying and striving to be, but like many another flustered young lady put on the spot by an earnest compliment.

It did not help that Akemi was constantly spotting her friends AND several of Takehiko's men trying to follow the two of them with varying degrees of stealth, and then running afoul of Lady Takara's security measures - which Akemi was ALSO having to regularly shoo away from her companion, whenever they inched too close for comfort-

"Creeping vines, alluring illusions, a few mechanical traps that were actually tsukumogami Mother had picked up somewhere because she thought they were cute..."

Mai looks very interested again.

"No, Mai," her father says simply.

"Awww..."

-and all of this while trying not to alert said young man that something supernatural was going on, and still carry on her side of the conversation!

The final straw came when Takehiko and Akemi crossed paths with, of all the possible souls, Lady Takara's would-be paramour, as he was making his way to the house on one of his ever-unsuccessful attempts to woo his lady fox.

"Kosuke was still one of our leading citizens, and he dressed and carried himself accordingly," Akemi says. "He was also the first man dressed to the standards of our 'inn' and not obviously employed there that Takehiko had seen since arriving, as well as being old enough to be my father - so perhaps it was not too strange that my young lord asked him if that was our relationship." The dead lady sighs. "Kosuke, being Kosuke, smirked like the fox he so resembled, and said that he would gladly claim such an honor, and would be delighted to give us his blessing - and thanks to the wards, Mother heard every word, and promptly screamed, 'Like hell you will, you idiot!' before tackling Kosuke and trying to strangle him. With her tails, mind you."

You consider that scenario.

"Outfoxed her, did he?"

"For once, yes," Lady Akemi agrees, smirking. "And we made sure not to let Mother forget it."

Anyway, while Akemi was able to talk Takara down from strangling Kosuke, no matter how much he may or may not have deserved it, the jig was still well and truly up. Takehiko was understandably concerned to learn that he and his men had been guests of a youkai household, but he was also reassured by the presence of a human visitor who was familiar enough with the family to joke and flirt and laugh off what at least looked like an attempt on his life-

"If Mother had been serious, she would have used her claws or foxfire," Akemi notes, still smirking. "Another thing we made sure to remind her of."

-and when it came out that some of the girls were also entirely human, and that none of his soldiers had been permanently harmed, the young captain sat down with Takara and Kosuke and came clean about the reason for his unit's presence in the village.

"We hadn't known Kazuo was planning to attack us," Akemi admits. "Why would he? We had nothing he should have wanted, that he couldn't get elsewhere for less trouble. Still, while we didn't immediately trust Takehiko's word on it, all it took to confirm his claim was for Suzume to take a quick flight into Kazuo's domain. She found an advance unit on the far side of the hills, clearing and shoring up the main pass for a larger force. Once she came back with that report, Mother and Kosuke took Takehiko to the headman, and they started planning."

What emerged from that meeting was a multi-layered plan to defend the village.

Firstly, a messenger would be dispatched to Lord Jiro with Takehiko's report on the situation, the details of their planned defense, and a request for reinforcements. There had been some debate as to whether or not Suzume should be the one to go, flight being as much of an advantage as it was, but the sparrow-girl was not particularly fast or enduring in the air, and a youkai turning up at Lord Jiro's purporting to have a message from his son would not have gone over terribly well. Instead, Takehiko selected his best rider and fastest horse and entrusted them to deliver the message, while he and the rest of his men stayed to help.

Secondly, several of the youkai, some of Takehiko's older followers, and a few of the villagers who knew the hills best would head up to see what progress Kazuo's men had made in securing the way, and then start undermining them. With the guidance of the experienced humans, periodic flights by Suzume to keep an eye on the enemy, Takara's skill with illusions, and the plain old spookiness that a group of eager young youkai could bring to bear, the next week or so became a slice of living hell for Kazuo's troops. None of them died, and serious injuries were rare, but every indignity, misfortune, and fright that could be visited on them in those conditions, was.

Hard-packed dirt trails became muddy bogs overnight, and a rock face that had seemed stable abruptly collapsed, blocking one pass entirely.

One of the anchors for a newly-made rope bridge pulled loose in the middle of a crossing, casting two full loads of precious supplies into the ravine below, and leaving several men with a mortal terror of heights that would likely never abate.

Vermin got into the food one night, and the meat from a deer that was "luckily" taken down the next morning made a dozen men too sick to work.

Creeping forms too strange to be men were glimpsed by day, unnatural lights that were neither torch nor campfire appeared at night, and all the while, eerie whispers could be heard in the distance, or from shadows that were all-too close - or even from right behind the listener, who would spin around in alarm and discover nothing at all, only hearing mocking laughter.

Men who ventured too far from their allies would suddenly find themselves alone in the wooded hills for what felt like hours at a time, unable to see or hear another human soul, and then they would suddenly emerge in the middle of their camp, to be told that they had only been missing for a few minutes - or that days had gone by.

And thirdly, the villagers prepared for the attack to come. Arrows, spears, axes, and the odd sword were cleaned and sharpened, and drills conducted under the guidance of the soldiers, "retired" campaigners refreshing old skills, and those unfamiliar with battle struggling to develop the skills needed to survive it. The smith worked overtime repairing old pieces of armor, while village matrons sewed together leather and cloth for new, simple suits. Water was gathered in quantities and flammables packed away or doused to prevent fires, and those unable to contribute to the defense took charge of the very young, the very old, and the ailing.

Tsukiko the witch spent most of that week in the workshop-hut she'd inherited from her late master, brewing potions for healing and preparing certain reagents in advance of the coming battle. She also distilled a fair quantity of venom donated by Hebi, producing not only a supply of anti-toxin, but also a nasty little advantage for those willing to employ less than honorable means against their enemy - and there were several among the villagers who fit that description.

Hebi herself kept watch over the village's younger children, who had been gathered in Takara's house with their mothers, and would be evacuating to the old home in the woods if things started looking dire.

Kuma did a great deal of carrying and hauling, when he wasn't cooking and making sure that everyone got fed.

Usagi of the bone- and wall-breaking kicks, already something of a mascot for the village militia, simply picked up a spear and a sword and joined in their training. There were some protests over this, but as nobody could beat the rabbit-youkai in a fight - much less win an argument on the matter - the practical advantage of having one more really good fighter in the ranks won out.

For her part, Akemi spent most of that week managing her friends and keeping morale up in general. Sometimes she would help Hebi by distracting the children with a game or a song, or by taking a nervous mother aside and reassuring her that, no, this was not some elaborate plot to steal the children away - though the children may have been plotting to steal the "Sleepy Snake Lady." At other times, Akemi assisted Kuma in distributing the food, although she also made sure that he more often than not ended up working with a certain older girl, who'd once thought that a fuzzy, shy little bear-boy was the cutest thing to tease...

She doesn't explain that part further, for some reason, instead saying that Usagi didn't really need any help settling issues on the training field-

"I mostly just cheered," Akemi admits.

-but that Tsukiko ABSOLUTELY needed someone to haul her out of her lab at meal-times and make sure she didn't try to work all night, every night.

"Of course," the lady sighs, "while I was trying to keep all of my friends safe, happy, and on-task, THEY were plotting dark treachery behind my back."

"I take it you had a lot of 'coincidental' meetings with the young lord that week?" Miss Suzuka guesses.

"Good friends are the WORST friends, sometimes."

Every cloud has its silver lining, and for Akemi, the arrival of Kazuo's main force marked the end of her friends' unsubtle attempts to help her hook up with Takehiko. From there, it was all business, and more than a little bloodshed.

By avoiding inflicting fatalities on the advance force, the defenders had accomplished three things. First, they'd made it appear that they didn't have the means or the stomach for bloodshed. Second, they'd maximized the number of voices that could go back and start spreading horror stories about their time in the passes. And third, they'd presented the enemy commander with the dilemma of how to deal with some thirty sickened, injured, and fearful soldiers who'd failed in their assigned mission to clear the passes.

Care for them in the camp? That would eat up additional manpower, as well as precious resources.

Send them back to the nearest town, to be tended to there? Another loss of manpower, as well as wagons to carry the ailing and horses to draw those.

Force them to fight or work in their current condition? Bad for morale, and risking the consequences of literally ill performance besides.

Execute them for failing their original mission? Even worse for morale.

With time a consideration and the eventual discovery of the army and its objective by Lord Jiro's spies assured, Kazuo's commander ordered his men to advance, clearing the way as they went. The most fit of the scouts were ordered to the head of the column as guides, while the invalids were left behind with a light guard and a single healer.

Strength of numbers managed in hours what the prior force had needed days to accomplish even before the youkai started sabotaging everything, and was helped along by the distinct lack of eerie phenomenon or inexplicable accidents. The "impassible mud" had dried into easily packed dirt, the broken rope-bridge was found and easily re-anchored to the rocks, men did NOT get lost wandering off by themselves, and even the rockfall that had choked off one pass proved to be just a few heavy stones and a greater amount of scree and soil, easily shoveled or swept aside. Not one eerie silhouette or will o' wisp was seen, nor so much as a murmur heard without its source being easily apparent.

And there WAS murmuring in the camp, grumbling accusations of clumsiness, laziness, and cowardice that grew louder as the army moved ever further into the passes and the guides protested that the way was not as it had been.

The commander ordered them all to cease and advance.

And then, in the middle of the crossing, the defenders made their move.

Two of the human villagers, one of Takehiko's veterans, and a youkai named Mogura had examined the area over the week prior, and identified a series of weak spots along one particular ridge. These, the mole youkai had carefully dug near, placing several "surprises" cooked up by the local alchemist.

"Your village had an alchemist?" Ichirou asks.

"He was a relatively recent addition," Lady Akemi explains. "He'd heard the rumors about our youkai neighbors, and came to investigate after getting run out of the last town he'd tried to set up shop in, about three years before Kazuo's attack."

"Too many explosions and weird smells?" the young priest guesses.

"Oh, he only ever blew things up on purpose," the dead woman answers with a shake of her head. "And he was habitually clean and well-kept, besides, which rather endeared him to those of my friends with keener senses of smell. No, the issue was that he was actively trying to turn himself into a youkai - or something non-human, at any rate - and his appearance kept changing as a result."

Most people WOULD find something like that unsettling, wouldn't they? Especially in ancient Japan, unless of course, you happened to live in a village regularly visited by habitual shapeshifters and a mistress of illusions...

In any case, the cliff was mined (twice over), and the defenders waited until Kazuo's army had begun to file past it, at which point Takehiko called out to the enemy leader, offering a warning and an opportunity for the invaders to surrender themselves to his custody, or at least to abandon their assault and turn back.

Kazuo's commander refused, and ordered the attack.

In response, Takara set off a few sparks of foxfire in the hollows Mogura had dug.

The resulting explosions brought down half of that cliff-face, took a solid fifth of Kazuo's men with it, trapped perhaps three dozen more on the village's side of the pass, and sealed off that particular route through the hills.

"Who came up with that plan?" someone asks.

"It was a group effort, but my young lord approved it - and when he asked her to bring down half the hill, Mother decided that his interest in me might be... tolerable."

Well, this story just got grim. Then again, compared to some Japanese myths and fairy tales you've read, it's not that extreme. Still...

Reluctantly, you interrupt Lady Akemi's story, as you feel a certain point needs some further explanation.

"Firearms and gunpowder have been known in Japan since the late Thirteenth Century," Kojiro informs you, after you've expressed your confusion about the apparent anachronism. "That said, they didn't see widespread use until the middle of the Sixteenth Century." He pauses and looks to Lady Akemi.

"That was still some decades away," she answers the unspoken question.

Gained Japanese History E (Plus)

"And while the explosives used in the pass that day did employ gunpowder, it had been mixed with 'additives' of a mystical nature. I honestly could not tell you what those were or how they affected the reaction; like any good alchemist, Tomomi guarded his secrets closely-"

As he should have!

"-and even mundane gunpowder might as well have been sorcery as far as the witnesses were concerned. I do know that Lord Jiro spent the next few years trying to convince Tomomi to supply more such weapons for his army, but it didn't work out as he'd hoped. Tomomi could manufacture gunpowder well enough, but he'd made no study of firearms, and his other compounds weren't practical for large-scale production - at least not with how much he'd focused on self-refinement and the mysteries of the body." The lady pauses, looking into memory, and then smiles. "Then again, my honored father-in-law DID greatly appreciate some of the medicines Tomomi was able to provide, especially that one cream for the joints..."

Kojiro winces at that, absently rubbing at the knuckles of one hand, and gets a sympathetic look from Akemi.

"I know EXACTLY how you feel," she tells him, reminding you and those others who know her story that she did die of old age. "Don't worry, it goes away after you've passed."

Everybody kind of stares at Akemi for a moment, distinctly less reassured by that statement than she probably intended... or, if that slight smirk at your collective expense is any indication, maybe EXACTLY as she intended.

She WAS raised by a fox, after all.

Still smiling, Akemi resumes her tale, covering the defense of the passes. Due to those issues she just mentioned with the manufacture of alchemical explosives, and because Kazuo's army was now aware of the danger and had a few magical talents of its own capable of searching out and suppressing the cause of the explosions, the village's defenders were only able to blast apart one more section of rock, and that claimed only a few enemy lives. Youkai strength and human ingenuity collapsed another route, Takara's illusions hiding those doing the dangerous work long enough for their efforts to cause some more real damage to the foe, but in the end, Kazuo's troops were still over three hundred strong and fighting-fit - and now they were angry.

Even so, the traps, tricks, and ambushes that Akemi describes had stalled the invaders for the next three days, and late in the evening on that third day, a very weary and a saddle-sore messenger entered the village - riding an entirely different horse than he'd left with - bringing news from Takehiko's father. Lord Jiro was on the move, leading a relief force that would reach the village in two more days.

Based on his son's report of the situation, Lord Jiro did not think that a conventional defense of the village was possible. Takehiko had less than twenty soldiers, perhaps twice that many old soldiers and mercenaries, and an untried militia some four-score in number. Against five hundred armed men and without the benefit of a fortified position, they would surely have been lost, but the presence of youkai friendly to the village changed things.

Thus, Lord Jiro had two plans. The first, which assumed the worst-case scenario of Kazuo's forces making it through the passes at or near full strength, called for Takehiko to withdraw his unit from the village and attempt to meet up with their incoming reinforcements. It was not explicitly stated that he should abandon the villagers, but it did not take a genius to understand that a lord would care more about the well-being of his own blood and sworn retainers than he would a village which held no ties of loyalty to him, and whose existence he had barely been aware of.

The second plan allowed for the possibility that Kazuo's army would suffer significant setbacks while crossing the hills. If the enemy could be held off long enough for Lord Jiro's army to arrive, and if their numbers could be whittled down far enough in the process, it would be possible to catch the invaders between Jiro's troops and the town; at that point, forcing a surrender or simply destroying them would be possible. Depriving his rival of five hundred fighting men would be a victory for Lord Jiro, one worth the risk to his son's life and associating with such... questionable individuals as youkai.

"Either plan would have resulted in great harm to our village, of course, so it was just as well that Mother had already put a plan of her own into motion," Akemi states. "Namely, she called my older brother."

...

"Oh!" you exclaim, snapping your fingers. "The sorcerer?"

"The same," the lady answers with a nod. "And while Junpei was getting old and had needed a while to make the trip, he reached us on the second day of the fighting in the passes, and had spent the third resting up, conferring with Mother, fussing over me, and making entirely needless threats towards Takehiko. After he and Mother heard Lord Jiro's message... well, they took it as a challenge."

Oh.

Oh, dear.

You frown as Kojiro flexes his fingers, and make a mental note to offer him a Spell of Restoration late-

-wait, no, you've tried doing that before. Not to Kojiro, specifically, but that Quincy Elder, what was her name...? Michiko, that was it. And while Restoration cleared up the symptoms of her senility, it didn't address the underlying cause, any more than it fixed her deafness.

Old age isn't the sort of "damage" that spell was designed to address, so there's no real point in offering it.

As for Regeneration... you don't actually know if it'll help or not, but it does seem likely. The spell can repair bone and organ damage, and while joints aren't what you immediately think of when you hear the word "organ," bones are definitely INVOLVED...

The point is, it seems like it might be worth offering to cast the spell to treat Kojiro's arthritis, or whatever it is that ails him.

Later, though. Spellcasting at the table has already been forbidden, and you're not about to interrupt the story, anyway.

In response to the doubtful and somewhat exploitative tone of the missive from Takehiko's father, Lady Takara and her foster-son decided that they had not been offended, per se, but that the good lord needed to be reminded of just who and what he was dealing with.

And so it was that, on the fourth day, Kazuo's army found themselves facing a multi-tailed kitsune in front of them and a cackling old man hovering above their rear lines, both supernatural beings having dispensed with the subtler mystical arts and gone straight to blasting.

Or at least, what LOOKED like blasting.

"Illusions are the kitsune stock and trade, after all," Akemi said mildly. "Or, as my elder brother put it, 'We don't need to set them all on fire, we just need to make it LOOK like they're on fire.'"

You nod wryly, knowing that a good Illusionist can absolutely do that, especially if they know the Spell of Shadow Evocation.

Confusion and terror rained down upon the army for much of the morning, phantom Fireballs and Lightning Bolts reaping a grim toll from massed troops caught in tight spaces. While some men died outright from the bombardment, the magically-backed CERTAINTY that they had just been consumed in flaming destruction triggering fatal shock, more merely fainted or were left bewildered by fire not as hot as it seemed - only to then be trampled upon, crushed against nearby rock walls, or pitched over a cliff by their panicking fellows.

In all, Takara and Junpei's rampage lasted no more than an hour, but accounted for another two-fifths of Kazuo's army as dead, incapacitated, or captured - for Takehiko had led his men and the village volunteers up into the passes, ambushing the foe in their confusion. Between that, the rain of doom, additional explosions-

"Tomomi had SOME volatile materials left."

-a bloodstained rabbit on a rampage-

"Usagi just started screaming and leaping around, taking heads off. It was honestly alarming."

-and a bear that basically ignored swords, spears, and arrows by dint of sheer size-

"When he resumed his human form, Kuma looked like he'd rolled in a thicket with inch-long thorns. Fortunately, his nurse was very happy to take care of him..."

-the horror stories their scouts had been whispering about seemed to have come alive, and morale collapsed. Here and there, pockets of order persisted, usually centered on senior officers or veteran units - and usually only until a shadowy fireball or a precise bolt of crackling foxfire picked off the source - but by and large, Kazuo's men simply lost all taste for the fight.

The following day, Lord Jiro arrived to find the village he'd expected to be under siege or a burnt-out ruin quite intact, with his son and most of his men no worse than tired and moderately injured, approximately half of Kazuo's broken army hunkered down in hiding on the far side of the pass, several dozen prisoners - including a few of his rival's direct vassals - under the watchful eye of angry peasant levies, and a somewhat worrying number of very smug youkai and mystically inclined humans making themselves known.

"Of course, Mother and Brother were both JUST this side of exhausted," Lady Akemi says, "but they knew how to hide it."

Fortunately, Lord Jiro grasped the fact that he'd underestimated the village's capacity to defend itself, and was rather more polite when speaking to the locals in person than he'd been when speaking of them in his letter to his son. He expressed his respect for their defeat of Kazuo's troops, his (somewhat grudging) thanks for the strategic advantage their victory had created for him, and his earnest desire to further better relations with such obviously capable people.

The villagers didn't object to the idea. For one thing, they'd used up just about every surprise and exotic resource available to them, and their victory had still been a near thing, as well as costly. There was hardly a man among the volunteers that hadn't been wounded, some of them severely or to the death, the youkai weren't without casualties of their own, and Tsukiko and Tomomi's stores of magical healing were nearly exhausted and would take weeks to replenish. If the enemy force HADN'T broken when it did, or if more of the mob had fled DOWN the hill rather than back through the passes, the town could have fallen - and that could still happen, if some officer managed to drag the survivors back into a semblance of unity, or if reinforcements arrived. Certainly, Kazuo would remember the insult of being defeated by peasants and outcasts and inhuman freaks, and seek to avenge himself at a later date.

Akemi's people also didn't want to fight Lord Jiro's men. Quite aside from such a conflict being an even surer loss than facing the remnants of Kazuo's battered force, they'd shed blood alongside Takehiko and his squad, and that was no small thing. So while the villagers prodded Lord Jiro's pride a bit to remind him of the importance of manners in dealing with youkai and witches and other such people, they didn't go so far as to offend him.

Besides, it was traditional for alliances to be sealed with marriages, and Lord Jiro had a second son, and Lady Takara a daughter...

If Lady Akemi's story were a Disney movie- actually, no, it'd probably have to be a television series to do justice to the story she's told to this point, and one with a more serious and cohesive plot than their usual kids' fare, like that Gargoyles show from a few years ago.

As you were thinking, if this WERE such a production, Takehiko and Akemi's wedding would either be the final two-part episode or the post-series direct-to-video movie, and it'd have a bunch of on-screen humor and hinted-at romantic developments for the other members of the cast whirling around the central theme of preparing for the big event.

Lady Akemi can't offer firsthand accounts of a lot of what was going on - as the bride-to-be, she was on a tight schedule and more than a little dazed - but she caught a few glimpses of the craziness and heard stories later.

Kosuke, of course, flirted outrageously with Takara, and for once, didn't get chewed out and chased off. Some of that was the spirit of the day(s), and a bit more the fact that the former councilor had taken part in the defense of the pass and was nursing injuries of his own, but there may have been something more to it. Then again, there might not have; as the mother of the bride, Takara was more than a little preoccupied herself.

Kuma spent a lot of time with that older girl Akemi mentioned before, and instead of the flustered blushing being entirely on one side or the other, it was a great deal more mutual. Nobody was too surprised when another wedding was announced a few weeks later.

Usagi apparently spent most of the lead-up to the nuptials being challenged to spars by members of Lord Jiro's army. The story of the "head-taking rabbit" had gotten around, and there were those who greatly doubted the claims - and then, after a few butts (and foreheads) got kicked, there were more who just really wanted a good fight.

Akemi sighs. "Then someone thought it would be a great idea to revive that old joke about how members of Usagi's clan would only marry those who could defeat them in single combat, and things got entirely out of hand for a while."

"Sounds like the sort of silliness you'd find in a martial arts comedy manga," Yoshida Megumi murmurs.

In any case, the wedding went through with a minimal amount of death and disaster, and Akemi moved out of her mother's house and into a new home that Takehiko had built with help from her friends - and there, the Disney version would have ended with everyone happy and celebrating.

Real life is rarely so accommodating.

While the newlyweds did live in the village for a time, Takehiko's responsibilities required him to spend much of the year elsewhere. If he was not attending his lord and father - and later, his elder brother - in their ancestral keep, he was patrolling the domain, making diplomatic visits, or attending religious ceremonies. Neither Takehiko nor Akemi wished to be parted any longer than they must, and so they moved to a new residence in the domain capital, maintaining the house in the village as an often-used retreat.

"In hindsight," the lady admits sadly, "that may not have been the best decision. It was one thing for me to no longer be living in Mother's house, as long as she could see and speak to me in person most days, and be assured I was happy, well, and safe. Having to go for weeks at a time without that reassurance, even with regular magical communication and periodic visits, was a degree of separation more difficult for her deal with. It didn't help that Lord Jiro's court was never entirely friendly towards me, especially at first, when there was some suspicion that Mother and I might have enchanted Takehiko and his father, and Mother and my youkai friends kept showing up to visit and deliberately ruffling certain people's sensibilities."

Despite a rough period of adjustment, Takara seemed to adapt to the physical distance that existed between her and her adopted daughter. She still practically moved in with the young couple when Akemi was with child for the first time and remained close at hand for the next couple of years, but eventually, as Akemi grew more into her roles as Lady, Wife, and Mother, Takara was able to take a step back and dial down her overprotective, possessive impulses.

It certainly helped that she had new students back in the village to keep her busy, but with time, other things happened that imposed new stresses on the kitsune.

First was Junpei's death, about eight years after the battle in the pass.

"He was killed in a fight with an oni," Akemi recounts, "and I can see now that this was a mixed blessing. Death at the hands of another youkai was relatively normal for a kitsune, and it allowed Mother to weave Junpei's passing into the story she was telling herself - a sad ending, but not one that forced Mother to confront the truth of her children and grandchildren's humanity. Had my brother died of old age, the truth would have been swiftly revealed, and my mother would have had more people who could help her deal with her grief or stand up to her and keep her from hurting others she cared about, if her madness took her."

Takara's next major loss was Kosuke, ten years after Junpei's passing. He'd been in his early sixties at the time, and though he'd never entirely lost his mischievous cheer, his injury in the defense of the village had robbed him of some of the energy he'd had as a younger man. This was somewhat addressed by the fact that he'd started living with Takara about five years after Akemi's marriage, but similarly, the kitsune's regular visits to her daughter and grandchildren took away time that could have been spent with her paramour. This likely contributed to the fact that the two of them had no children, which is another of those "mixed blessings."

A number of Takara's other human acquaintances, such as the village headman, had already died when Kosuke passed on, and more followed in the years after, as age, hardship, illness, and accident took their toll. Even Akemi's youkai friends weren't immune to such things, just more resistant - and not all youkai are long-lived.

Suzume died one winter when Akemi was just shy of forty, after an ill-advised flight in stormy conditions.

Kuma fell into deep mourning when his wife died a few years later, and never got over the loss. One day, not long after the last of his children was married, the bear youkai closed up his house in the village, walked into the woods, and never came back out.

It's evidently not uncommon for alchemists to come to particularly messy ends, whether because they blow themselves up, imbibe some concoction with drastically unintended side-effects, or just from decades of exposure to toxic chemicals. By that measure, Tomomi beat the odds - he was killed in an earthquake.

And so it went, one loss after another piling up, supports falling away, and Takara's mental state becoming that little bit more precarious every time.

"And then she grew her fifth tail," Lady Akemi says simply.

"Which means what, exactly?" you inquire. "I mean, I'm aware that kitsune with more tails are more powerful-"

You pause abruptly, recalling what Akemi said a minute ago about how it might have been better if Junpei's death hadn't fitted so neatly into Takara's internal narrative, because if she'd snapped at that time, there would have been people in place who might have been able to stop her, even if it meant using force - whereas when she DID finally go on a rampage, decades later, most of the people that could have opposed her were physically old or dead. And if Takara's power had meaningfully INCREASED on top of that...

Lady Akemi sees your realization and nods, but speaks anyway. "A kitsune continues to gain power for as long as she is alive, but most of that power exists as unrealized and inaccessible potential until it reaches a certain threshold - which is when a new tail grows in. When that happens, the kitsune's usable power increases explosively, and she frequently unlocks new abilities besides. In Mother's case, gaining her fifth tail granted her command over the Five Great Elements."

You recall the Japanese traditions. The element of Void doesn't have a single direct parallel in your own magical style - although Spirit covers some of the same territory - but the other four elements, allowing for differing cultural interpretations, match to what you think of as the first wheel.

Earth.

Water.

Wind.

And of course, Fire.

"There is also the fact that kitsune traditionally gain new tails at the end of each century of life," Akemi continues. "It's not the ONLY way - intense training, great triumphs of mind or magic or might, and services rendered unto the kami may all be rewarded with increased power - and there have always been arguments over which is the BEST way, whether for kitsune as a whole or for specific individuals. I do not doubt that Mother's contribution to the victory over Kazuo's army contributed to her gaining her fifth tail, but the time between the last battle and that tail actually growing out spanned much of MY lifetime, which was far too long a period for the victory to have been a determining factor, and Mother knew that."

"So she had hard proof that she'd gotten older," Ginta says, "and entirely too many tails for you to have been her m- original child."

You catch his brief, quickly corrected slip, as well as the glance at Mai, who has been listening to all of this with fascination, but also a growing sense of sadness.

"That is so," Akemi agrees. "I don't believe she had consciously acknowledged it, but Mother's behavior did start to become visibly erratic in the years after she became a five-tailed fox. At the time, I'd thought that was because my own health was declining, and of course the court physician was NO help at all, accusing Mother of preying on my life-force-"

Whoof. Bad call, doc.

"-I'm honestly still amazed that she only shocked the idiot unconscious for such an insult," the lady continues. "But even without a fatality or property damage, Mother's welcome in what was by then my brother-in-law's court was obviously wearing thin. Takehiko never had as much influence under his brother's rule as he did under their father's, and he was more concerned with seeing to my comfort than playing politics in any case. Not that it would have helped much, I fear, as Takehiko was the only man in his brother's entourage who had ever actually SEEN what Mother was capable of. Even those who'd beheld the state of Kazuo's army and the battlegrounds never gave her as much credit for the damage as they really should have, and they were entirely ignorant of how many tails she actually had." Akemi winces. "To be fair, that was because Mother's preferred form had only three tails at most, and not infrequently just the one."

Ah.

"Given the mood of the court," Akemi says then, her tone and phrasing indicating that she is coming to the end of the story, "Takehiko and I had been planning to retire to our house in the village that autumn. We were just waiting for the summer humidity to pass when I took ill for the final time. After that... well, was AFTER..."

After life.

After her mother went mad.

And after a considerable amount of death and destruction.

Lady Akemi doesn't go into detail about whatever happened in the afterlife-

"There are rules about that sort of thing."

-but she says that she's spoken with Lady Takara about the time after her passing, and what the now-nine-tailed fox has admitted to lines up reasonably well with information her daughter was able to obtain beyond the mortal coil.

For starters, Takara didn't immediately go stark raving mad and start burning everything that didn't run away fast enough. She screamed and raged and grieved, and it was certainly inhuman and alarming for those who witnessed it, but it was a contained, proportionate response.

It was Akemi's FUNERAL which was the straw that finally broke the camel's back - or caught in the fox's fire, as the case might be - for Takehiko's brother declared, with the backing of the priest who would conduct the ceremony, that no youkai would be permitted to taint the ceremony.

"Oh, they didn't," Asuka hisses in disgust.

"They did," Akemi sighs. "It was a near thing that my children and grandchildren were even permitted to attend, and honestly, I might have preferred that they hadn't gone. At least that way, they wouldn't have had to see what Mother did."

Because of course the scorned fox-woman would turn up where she was explicitly forbidden to go.

"I'll skip the messier details-"

"Why is always the GOOD stuff?" Mai complains quietly.

"-and just say that my mother made sure that the priest, Takehiko's foolish brother, and the ruder guests would not be running away," Akemi continues, ignoring the girl's soft remark. "She told everyone else to leave if they valued their lives, save for my poor husband, who she said would answer for his 'theft'. Takehiko agreed to stay, and Mother chased the rest of our family out - NOT gently, I am sad to say, though fortunately no one was permanently harmed - after which she set the room and everyone in it on fire. With real fire, this time."

Hayashi Asamu's claim from months back that Takara burned down the domain was exaggerated. The former keep of Lord Jiro was certainly a loss, as well as a large portion of the town that supported it, but that summer had been a fairly wet one, so few secondary fires really took, and none spread too far. The hyperbolic account seems to have arisen from the fact that the physical heart and political face of the domain had been destroyed, although the autumn leaves also apparently gave a spectacular showing.

As far as casualties went, Takara accounted for at least fifty people important enough to have their names and deaths noted, about half of those among the funeral guests. Another two hundred souls were recorded only as numbers - some too badly burned or mauled to be identified, others simply too unimportant - and dozens more had their fates unknown, having fled the disaster and never come back.

You know the rest of Akemi's story from there, although she takes a few minutes to catch up the Yoshidas on her times on Earth as a spirit-

"TAMAMO NO MAE?!"

-and then reassure them that she and her mother are NOT related to the legendary nightmare.

As she's attending to that, you lean back in your chair a bit to check the time on the Hakuba's microwave clock and find it just ticking to 1:00 pm. That would make it... huh, almost nine back in Sunnydale. You should probably be on your way soon.

Is there anything you'd like to say or do before that?

With story time having ended, the somewhat drawn-out lunch is also over. It has been for a while, in most cases, although there is a bit of a last-minute scramble to clean plates when the lady of the house rises from her chair with her own plate in hand.

As you follow suit, an idea occurs. "Hey, Mai?"

She looks up. "Mm?"

"Since you were complaining about chores earlier, I was wondering if Lady Takara ever told you about the Spell of Prestidigitation, or the Spell to Create an Unseen Servant?"

"Mm!" Mai nods. "She did! And I can do the first one! I mean, if that's okay with you, Auntie?" she adds, quickly looking to Mrs. Hakuba.

Halfway to the kitchen, "Auntie" Atsuko frowns slightly. "I believe I remember hearing about this 'Puresuti' spell," she says, thinking back.

"I mentioned that some of my classmates when I was studying in Rome made use of it," Ichirou reminds his mother. "Mostly for little household chores, like dusting, cleaning spills... doing the dishes," he adds, lifting his own plate.

Mrs. Hakuba isn't the only mom in the room who looks interested at that, and Mai ends up not only getting permission to show off her spell, but an attentive audience. After a quick reminder from you that Prestidigitation can only lift about a pound of weight at one time, the little group relocates to the kitchen, so that Mai can demonstrate THE AWESOME POWER TO CLEAN CUTLERY AND CROCKERY!

You take your own dishes out to the sink, of course.

Leaving the kitchen, you consider your next move, and then nod to yourself and walk over to Kojiro.

"Yes, lad?" the priest asks.

"Not to be intrusive, sir, but when you were rubbing your knuckles earlier, it occurred to me that I might be able to do something to help."

"Something involving that firebird friend of yours, perhaps?" Kojiro inquires.

"Actually, no. I mean, Ro could treat any IMMEDIATE pain or stiffness, but my understanding of his powers tells me that he wouldn't be able to cure the underlying problem."

"Meaning I'd just end up with an aching hand again somewhere down the road," Kojiro concludes.

You nod, and then pause. "Is it just your right hand?"

"Oh, the left gets a little stiff in bad weather," the old man admits easily, "and most of my other joints have complaints of their own, every so often. It's just that my right hand is my dominant hand, and I've used it a lot more over the years - particularly for supernatural events."

Ah. "Scars earned in the line of duty, then?"

"Some of them, yes," Kojiro agrees. "But I also broke a few bones in that hand getting into fights as a teenager, so..." He trails off with a shrug.

You make a mental note to keep an eye on your own hands going forward, and maybe look into using wraps more often when you spar. Ki reinforcement can help prevent such issues, but most of that benefit is spent protecting the hands (and the rest of the body) from the increased stresses put upon it by ki enhanced combat.

"Well, if not your feathered friend, what sort of treatment did you have in mind?" Kojiro asks.

You explain about the Spell of Regeneration-

"It can regrow WHAT?"

-emphasizing that it doesn't require any costly material components, just a little time and energy. You add that, since this would be the first time you've ever tried to use the spell to treat arthritis, you'd be able to take a chunk of your "payment" in the form of the information gained about the functionality of the magic. The rest, you can mystically write off as doing someone a good turn... and because, if recent history is any indication, you'll probably end up owing the Hakubas another favor in the not-too-distant future.

Kojiro snorts at that, acknowledging the troublesome tendencies of the world and your own bad habit of running into them. Still, he does appear more accepting of the idea of magical healing once he knows it won't cost a proverbial or literal arm and a leg.

"How powerful is this spell?" he asks then.

"Eighth circle," you reply.

"You said WHAT?"

You're curious to see what sort of differences there are between Mai's kitsune-taught approach to this spell and your own Hyrulean style, as well as other approaches to the arcane you're familiar with, and so after setting your plate, utensils, and cup on the counter next to the sink and making room for the next person, you do your best to unobtrusively linger in the kitchen and watch.

Mai squints and sticks out her tongue a little - merely as aids to concentration, unless you miss your guess - mana gathering... mostly externally, with a thread of slightly kitsune-aspected but still distinctly human energy expended to keep the spell linked to its caster. Fairly standard, then.

Following a couple of straightforward gestures and some simple words-

Mai points an imperious finger at the dishes and declares, "PRESTO!"

-a plate picks itself up, hovers over to the sink proper in a slightly wobbly fashion, and then hangs there as a faint raspy sound starts emanating from it. Before your eyes, the leftover crumbs and sauce of the meal rapidly fall away from the ceramic surface and into the waiting drain.

Of course, it's only happening about as fast as you could have scrubbed the plate with your bare hands, and it's only the one plate at a time.

Mrs. Hakuba makes a sound that is interested, but not quite impressed. "How clean does this get things?" she wonders.

"To about the same degree that a good scrubbing in warm, soapy water would," you reply. "I haven't actually compared how well it stacks up to a good dishwasher with the latest high-strength detergent, but what the spell is basically doing right now is physically separating the 'plate' from everything that is 'not the plate'."

Or at least, everything that the spell and its caster can IDENTIFY as 'not the plate'. You know that the Hyrulean version of the spell didn't cover germ theory, but you can't say that Mai's doesn't; Takara's been around for a very long time, and if what you saw of her now-abandoned house was any indication, she's also kept UP with the times - so she might well have modified her own magic and what she taught to Mai to take more recent discoveries into account.

"This is certainly much quieter than our dishwasher," Mrs. Yoshida murmurs thoughtfully. "And it's saving on electricity, water, and soap, though as for time..."

"You can get better at using this spell with practice, just like any other skill," you assure her. "If I may?"

The ladies gesture for you to go ahead, and you point at the dishes yourself-

"PRESTO!"

-causing three piled-up plates and the utensils resting on top of them to clatter momentarily as bits of leftover food flow out from between them and into the waiting sink.

Mai pauses in mid-spell to frown at your contribution, and then turns back to her work, the sound of scrubbing intensifying.

You figure that's a good point to bow out, so you go and see Kojiro.

Since eighth-circle magic is WELL beyond your ability to suppress, and the Hakubas don't exactly want or need a sudden flare of magic on that level drawing attention to their house, you start casting the Spell to Create a Mage's Sanctum in the dining room.

You're mostly done with the extended ritual when Hakuba Kanna walks in the front door-

"Hi, Nana Kanna!" Mai greets her with a wave.

"Hello, Little Mai," the old woman in the tracksuit greets her, even as she looks around at the rest of the crowd and your little lightshow with visible confusion, absently hefting the tote bag hanging from her right shoulder as if wondering whether she's going to need to swing it at somebody. "How's your morning been?"

"Pretty good," Mai replies. "Mom and Dad met Cousin Akemi, and they didn't even scream once!"

Kanna glances at the chagrined parents, and then at the semi-translucent spirit clad in the garments of a feudal noblewoman, who bows slightly, and nods slowly. "Good for them."

-and gets a brief explanation from her husband.

A keen light enters her eyes. "So if this works, I can get you back onto the court?"

Kojiro suddenly looks like he's having second thoughts about going through with the procedure.

You finish setting up the Sanctum-

"Wow, neat!"

-take a minute to reassure the Yoshidas that it will be QUITE a while before Mai can render her room mystically impenetrable to sight or hearing-

"Nuts!"

-and then set up the analytical spells you'll be using to monitor the process of Kojiro's regeneration.

Mage Sight and Ki Sight are definitely merited, but while there are healing spells that affect the spirit, the Spell of Regeneration is wholly focused on the physical body, so using Spiritual Sight would just be a distraction and a waste of effort.

You also Overload your Ki Sight for greater depth and detail. In passing, you reflect that it's unfortunate you can't really do the same thing for your Mage Sight... but then again, if you think about it, the difference between your "passive" Mage Sight and the "active" form of the technique is kind of like Overloading, isn't it? Use more power, get better result?

Eh, maybe not.

With your eyes now glowing with arcane and essential energies, you proceed to cast the Spell of Fox's Cunning to enhance your recall - and just because it's amusing, given the two adopted fox-ladies in the room - followed by the Spell of Owl's Wisdom for a matching sensory boost. The Spell of the Investigative Mind further increases your chances of making sense of what you see, and the Spell to Perceive Cues... most of what that spell does isn't really helpful here, but the boost to your mystical senses would be useful - and if you leave it running afterwards, the mundane benefits will help you to avoid trouble when you get back to Sunnydale.

Perhaps because of those memory-boosters, you recall how you used the Spell of Deathwatch to allow Kasumi to locate (and subsequently extract) pieces of cursed shrapnel from her father's body. The idea of using that spell again to monitor the effects of the Spell of Regeneration are tempting, but you have to admit, you have your doubts. Deathwatch works by reading the life auras of the targets and revealing places where it's stronger and weaker than normal; you and Kasumi weren't so much SEEING the metal fragments themselves as you were seeing those areas of Shiden's body where his life-force aura was directly disrupted - and even THAT was as much the result of the necrotic essence of the anti-healing curse as of the wounds themselves.

Arthritis is not a fun condition, but it's not a potentially fatal cursed wound either, so Deathwatch is probably not going to show you a lot - particularly not when you have Ki Sight up and running at the same time. Still, it's cheap, you have plenty of mana left to work with and enough mystical "space" about yourself to stand another enhancement spell, and the spell and the ki technique aren't exactly the same, so you cast it anyway.

You're just considering activating your Power Sight when the enhanced social instincts bestowed by Perceive Cues, which you just thought would be useless, prod you to pay more attention to the Yoshidas.

Mai is openly staring at your eyes, all but entranced by the intertwined glow of mana and ki, which generates the occasional brief glimmer of gold when the mostly separate forces touch in spite of your control.

Her parents, on the other hand, are visibly put off by the fact that you now appear to have pools of energy where your eyes should be, which suggests they might be even more disturbed if you were to call up your Power Sight.

Between that and the fact that you can't cast spells while using Power and would lose the first few seconds' worth of potential observation waiting for your mana to cycle after casting the Spell of Regeneration, you decide that it's probably not worth it to use Power Sight for this.

"If you're ready, sir?" you ask Kojiro.

"I suppose I am," he replies, stepping forward. "Do I need to do anything, or be aware of anything?"

"To the former, no. To the latter..." You glance at Briar.

"If the spell works like we're expecting, you shouldn't feel anything except an absence of pain," your partner says. "And if it doesn't work, then you won't feel any different... unless you've ever had any teeth removed?"

"As it happens, no. This would regrow them?"

"Most likely, yeah. But since you've still got all of yours, then you should be fine."

The old priest nods, breathes in and out once, and then waits.

You gather your mana and spiritual energy and begin the brief ritual, not quite twenty seconds of quiet chanting as you gesture with your left hand, while you hold your right hand before you as a clenched fist, its back facing Kojiro.

As your power builds, that hand begins to glow...

Then you reach out with your left hand and touch Kojiro on his right hand. The Spell of Regeneration affects the entire body of its target, but you don't see any particular harm in having the magic take effect on the hand that's actually causing the old man pain FIRST.

And so, you watch as the magic spreads.

Seeing as how Kojiro's body was physically intact to begin with, your spell runs its course VERY quickly. As you feared, Deathwatch doesn't really show you anything that Ki Sight couldn't: a certain reddish-purple discoloration of his aura focused most strongly about the joints of the old man's right hand is first all but drowned in and then washed away by the spreading tide of mana; duller marks of lesser discomfort likewise fade away; but you don't actually see what is being done to the tissues and bone underneath the skin.

Kojiro takes another of those deep breaths as the magic passes through him, visibly straightening up as his eyes widen. "I see what you meant," he says to you and Briar, as he raises his right hand and flexes the fingers once, slowly, before opening them wide and clenching them again, both much faster. "My goodness..."

Then the priest takes a step back and begins to go through some simple stretches. Arms first, then each leg, followed by the back...

"Koji?" Kanna asks. "How do you feel?"

"Better," Kojiro answers. "It would be a lie to say that I feel like a young man again, or even just a younger man, but I DO feel quite good."

"...good enough for a game of-?"

"Let's not be hasty, dear."

Between your visual readings, questioning of the patient, and some other follow-up tests, it would seem that while the Spell of Regeneration definitely repaired the lingering damage of Kojiro's old injuries, it was less effective against the results of pure age. Physical wear and tear were shored up, his eyesight and hearing are a bit better, and while you can't exactly confirm it, you would expect that all of his organs are functioning a little bit better. That said, Kojiro didn't regrow any of his lost hair or regain color in what's left, he's still got plenty of wrinkles, and for all that they've improved compared to just a minute ago, his senses still aren't quite at the level they were when he was young.

In short, he's a very healthy and well-preserved old man, but he is STILL an old man.

By the time you've finished Kojiro's post-treatment exam and satisfied your curiosity and (minor) concerns about the regeneration process, your Spell of Adjustable Polymorph has finally wound down.

In your defense, you weren't exactly expecting to hear Lady Akemi's life story when you cast the spell - and you HAD thought ahead and chosen to wear your normal appearance in the Yoshidas' presence, so the loss of the magic doesn't give them any shocks, or even get their attention.

You take that as your cue to power down your Mage Sight and Ki Sight, as you'd like to speak with Mai's parents before you go and would prefer not to spook them with the glowing eyes thing. The Spells of Fox's Cunning and Owl's Wisdom are significantly depleted by this point and will run out in the next five or six minutes, so you decide to just let them end on their own. You'll be keeping Perceive Cues going until you get home, and as for Deathwatch and Investigative Mind...

That done, and with the Private Sanctum still in place for a bit, you ask Dan and Megumi if they have any questions for you.

"Are you human?" Dan asks immediately.

"Dan," his wife scolds him.

"We were both thinking it..."

"Yes, but you still didn't have to SAY it..."

"I don't mind the question," you interrupt mildly, "and the answer is yes. The glowing eyes are a side-effect of the spells I was using to take a more accurate look at what the spell I used to heal Mr. Hakuba was actually doing. As I told him earlier, I've never cast it to treat arthritis before, so I wasn't sure how helpful it would be. Also," you add, raising your right hand to your slightly pointed ear, "if you're wondering about these...?"

"I was," Dan admits.

Megumi gives in and admits the same.

"They're a side-effect of another spell I cast a while back."

"Does that happen a lot?" Mrs. Yoshida inquires. "Side-effects, I mean."

"It depends on the style of magic you're practicing, and also on what exactly you're using it for," you reply. "As a rule, though, permanent side-effects only happen if someone tries to call upon more power than they can handle - whether that's casting one spell far beyond their means or casting a number of spells that are merely very difficult in relatively quick succession, without giving themselves a chance to rest and recover - or if they cast a spell that's MEANT to have permanent effects."

"So, you knew it could happen?" Megumi asks, seeking clarification.

"I knew the possibility of side-effects existed," you admit. "I wasn't specifically aware it'd be my ears" - or the sparkle in your eyes, but you're not going to mention that - "but this is pretty minor, very easy to hide, and entirely worth the actual benefits."

"Better hearing?" Dan ventures.

...yeah, why not? If nothing else, it's a potential opportunity to view the denizens of the Hellmouth in a whole new light, assuming you actually encounter any of them and get within thirty feet in the process.

You aren't exactly planning on the latter, unless it involves corpse-demons and Fire Magic - and even then, you're more likely to burn the parasites to ash before they can come that close, but who knows? Maybe one of them will be fast enough to enter Deathwatch's range before it finishes burning to ash!

Probably not, though.

"Improved hearing was actually kind of a side-effect in and of itself," you state. "The main point was to bond with a familiar, if you know what that is?"

They don't seem to recognize the term in context, and you give a short explanation, while trying to avoid the most well-known but somewhat incorrect example-

"Oh!" Mai exclaims. "You mean like a witch's cat!"

Briar doesn't QUITE growl in annoyance at the comparison.

-but alas, it is not to be.

"And this gave you pointed ears?" Megumi wonders.

"It's not uncommon for the master to take on a physical trait that resembles the familiar, and vice-versa, if they didn't already have some feature in common," you tell her. "My partner is a fairy that happens to have pointed ears, so that was a possibility, even if I wasn't really expecting it to happen."

"Could you have grown wings?" Mai asks eagerly.

"Not from that, no. Something like this" - you indicate your ears again - "is about the limit."

"Awww..."

"So, if somebody were to have a cat as a familiar," Megumi ventures, "they wouldn't grow ears or a tail to match?"

You consider that. "Ears MIGHT be possible," you allow, "if the ritual was designed with that outcome in mind. A less significant change of shape, closer to what I went through, would be more likely, and actually changing the location of the ears probably wouldn't be doable - although someone developing, say, tufts of hair that LOOKED like cat ears? That would be even MORE likely. But growing a tail would be right out."

You and the parents all pause at that point to look at Mai, who didn't protest the information.

"What?" she asks. "If I want cute ears and a fluffy tail, I can just cast an illusion."

She tries to do just that, calling up images of the extra body parts in question - fox style, naturally. The color of the fur matches her hair, but the add-ons are transparent, and hang limply in place instead of displaying life-like motion.

"See?" Mai poses proudly. Then she frowns. "I'm not sure I'd actually want REAL fox-ears or a fluffy tail, though, even if I was good enough at magic to change shape. Cute is cute, but Auntie said that being able to hear or smell as well as she can isn't always a good thing, her tail has gotten jammed in doors when she was in a hurry sometimes, and even just one tail is a lot of extra work to take care of."

Speaking as someone with better than average mundane senses, you kind of have to agree.

You can't speak to the bit about the tail but considering Lady Takara has NINE of the fluffy things, you have to imagine she knows what she's talking about.

Hearing that their daughter actually doesn't want to turn herself into something else seems to do more to settle her parents' nerves than what you've said. They still have a few questions for you after that, but it's lighter topics and easy answers.

Maybe ten minutes later, with those inquiries handled for the time being and one last explanation about how long Lady Akemi can hang around - and that she's able to return to the afterlife whenever she chooses - you say your goodbyes.

"Do you need a ride somewhere?" Yoshida Dan offers.

"Thank you for the offer, but my travel arrangements are already made."

Taking travel time into account, it's getting on towards ten at night when you cross the city limits and re-enter Sunnydale.

Invisibility is a no-brainer, and the greater version even more so. You also consider trying to pull elements of the matrix for the Spell to Create a Persistent Image and plugging them into the framework of the lesser Illusion for even greater stealth, but while they're part of the same school, they operate on different principles.

Persistent Image creates the appearance (as well as sound, smell, and warmth) of a thing in a place where it doesn't exist, whereas Greater Invisibility removes the appearance of a thing from the place where it does exist. The Image is anchored to an area that it can move around in according to a pre-determined script, but which it cannot leave; the Invisibility spell is anchored to a creature, unchanging in its effect but going where the target goes.

In short, there's enough dissimilarities that trying to directly fuse the spells wouldn't really work. Quite aside from that, long habit and a healthy sense of paranoia protest the idea of firing off a sixth- or seventh-circle spell on the Hellmouth after dark. Modifying Greater Invisibility to last you all the way home is going to push the limits of your mana concealment, even with ritual casting to mute the signature, but anything more than that will push past, and while your Spell of Mind Blank will keep anyone from tracing the spell to you, they could still pick up the emanations of its casting.

As you make your way home - double-checking at every crosswalk due to the complicating factor of your current undetectability - your previous impression that the ghouls and ghosts are still keeping their heads down after Shadow Alex's Independence Day rampage seems to hold true. The town is, for lack of a better term, dead.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

You're halfway from the town limits to the Harris house when your assessment is challenged by the sight of a lone vampire, coming down a side-street towards you. The corpse-demon is scurrying along with a decidedly nervous air, his head constantly turning this way and that as he looks all about, including back over his shoulder, bestial features already expressed in anticipation of an attack.

Although the possessed undead is still some distance away, your keen hearing, the lack of any other traffic, and the fact that he's coming closer allow you to catch some muttered complaints: "...get off, sending me to get all this crap myself AND not letting me use the damn car, going to give them a piece of my mind if I live through this..."

The mention of "getting crap" and the lack of any bags or obviously bulging pockets has your bandit senses tingling. Loot?

The words to the Spell of Searing Rays hover on your lips, but the siren song of spoils to be had has you holding your tongue and squinting at the undead thing with your Mage Sight.

It is with some disappointment, but no real surprise, that you fail to discern any magical auras on the corpse-demon.

Just for that, you decide, you're going to take whatever mundane loot you can find. And on that note-

You pause mid-scheme, adjusting your squint as the vampire enters range of your Deathwatch. Its aura is not entirely unlike that of a living human, but instead of life-force, the body is filled with and giving off wisps of necrotic essence, tainted by some kind of energy that this particular spell doesn't register except as threads and spots of darkness amid the foul-colored "light" of the vampire's undeath. That said, your Corruption Sense has no trouble identifying the "dark stuff" as demonic power.

This is one of the weaker corpse-demons that you've seen to date, whether in person or "secondhand", a fact that just reinforces your decision.

And so, you gather your mana, shape it accordingly-

Still about fifteen feet away from you, the vampire stops in his tracks, head snapping around to stare... not DIRECTLY at you, but pretty close to it. No doubt its enhanced hearing picked up on your chanting.

"Oh, shi-!"

-and declare, "Halt, Undead!"

And like that, the sorry excuse for a vampire freezes in his tracks, half-turning to flee. The sudden loss of his ability to move combined with the momentum of his hasty about-face has the corpse-demon toppling over on his right side, at which point he just lies there on the sidewalk, limbs stuck in the same position as when he was upright.

You hurry over and begin going through his pockets, coat first. The left side is empty, while the right contains a wallet, fat with bills and something papery that isn't cash - you don't stop to look closer just yet, knowing you're on the clock. The coat does not appear to have any inner pockets, and there's no shirt pocket that you can see, either. Also, ugh, when was the last time he washed that? The pants are fortunately not jeans or anything similarly tight, as you aren't completely sure that turning such out wouldn't disrupt the Spell to Halt Undead; as it is, the slacks are relaxed enough that you'd able to check the left and rear pockets - again, nothing. No rings or bracelets on the hands, just a cheap-looking watch-

-and looking up, no earrings or pendants, just the blank, unblinking stare of the petrified undead.

The vampire's posture makes it simple enough to roll him onto his back so you can get at the right pants pocket, but all you find for your trouble is some lint. Last are the shoes, which are a ratty old pair of sneakers several sizes too big for you.

While you did have some notion of letting the bloodrat survive this encounter so that you could track it back to its lair and the rest of its group, the absence of good loot annoys you enough that you just summon up a handful of flame and have done with it.

The unearthly howl as the corpse turns to dust under your burning invisible hand swallows the vampire's last profanity.

Walking away from the scene, you open up the rather beaten-up wallet - more of a billfold, now that you're really looking at it - and go through the contents in more detail. There are several twenty-dollar bills, more tens, and some fives and ones. The papery thing that wasn't money turns out to be a coupon for one of the local late-night delivery places, one of those "buy ten pizzas and get your next one free" promotional deals that is just two purchases from being filled.

Looks like you rolled a vampire on a snack run.

Gained Billfold
Gained Pizza Coupon
Gained Sleight of Hand E (Plus) (Plus)
Gained $135

How many pizzas was he supposed to get, anyway?

Shaking your head in bemusement, you pocket your plunder and head home.

You don't particularly need a new old watch, and even if you cleaned this one up with repair spells, maybe a Masterwork Transformation, you don't think it'd be particularly fitting of your overall style.

Then the thought occurs to you that by leaving the watch here, somebody else would eventually find it. If that somebody had access to the right magic and a reason to use it...

Your Spell of Mind Blank would make it impossible to connect Alex Harris to the fate of the watch's previous owner, but reading the last minute or so of said corpse-demon's existence and determining that he was paralyzed and pickpocketed by something he couldn't see and that used magic against him? That's entirely doable for the right spellcaster, and if the People and Things of Sunnydale are on the lookout for information about the Independence Night Vampire Exterminator, you can't entirely rule out the possibility that it would happen.

So, yeah, you should probably take the watch, if only to make sure that it's disposed of safely.

Gained Vampire's Watch

Just off the topic of your head, you can't think of anything that the remains of a demonic vampire would be useful for, but isn't that what research is for?

And so, you dig one of your remaining Clay Bottles out of your dimensional pocket, and carefully scoop up as much of the freshly spilled dust as you can without resorting to spells that could potentially contaminate the stuff.

Lost Empty Clay Bottle
Gained Clay Bottle (Corpse-Demon Dust)

Screwing the lid back in place, you use a quick cantrip to disperse the remaining dust and hide the last traces of the unfortunate pizza guy's passing, and then continue on your way.

As this is the latest you've come home, you get out your cellphone while you're still some way from the house and call to let your parents know you're coming. In the ensuing conversation, your mother raises a good point, asking whether an invitation extended over the phone would be enough to allow a vampire or other creature requiring permission to enter a human home to actually do so.

You aren't completely certain about the answer, your various sources of vampire lore either falling a bit short on the side of modern Earthly technology or lacking the mystical resources to keep a researcher safe when experimenting with the subject. Still, given that a phone call would still constitute a spoken invitation, that written invitations are known to be effective, and the universe's general habit of tending towards unfortunate outcomes, you would lean toward the answer being, "Yes."

It's with that cheerful thought still in mind that you knock on your front door.