The morning following the events with Piniet, you awaken in a cuddle pile with King, Senna, Eda, and Owlbert drapped over you is a blanket that you have no idea how it got there but until told otherwise you'll assume magic or Hooty. You, unfortunately, have to wait for the others to wake up since your foster mother had you bundled up tight against her, King was using your body as a mattress, and Senna had curled themself around Owlbert and was half on King. While you wait for them to awaken you summon a few clones to replace the ones currently down in the greenhouse under the tower. After that's settled you dooze some more waiting for the others, flinching slightly as the memories of the popped shadow clones send a brief sharp stab of pain to your head. You can't help but frown slightly as you realize that your clones have reached a point in the research where it's becoming difficult to find books or scrolls that contain information about space-time fuinjutsu.

Thankfully it doesn't take long for others to awaken, the first is King, though he doesn't stay awake long, he does manage to roll over, off of you and onto Eda, which in turn stirs her awake slightly. With Senna and Owlbert all you have to do is scoop them up and off of you and place them down beside you on the couch. Once you do this, Eda finally lets go of you to stretch, and you all but scramble to get out of her grip, and make a dash up the stairs to use the bathroom and get ready for the day before you.

When you come back downstairs you find that Eda has migrated into the kitchen and is currently preparing breakfast for the rest of the house. You take over for her so that she can also get ready for the day. After breakfast, you ask Eda about how you should go about getting a BI scroll, not knowing if they were exactly like cellphones and therefore different models, you also ask if you should bother setting up a bank account here in the Isles. Your foster mother thankfully tells you several things to look out for since you'll be using this scroll to contact Paige for work and to talk with Willow and Gus outside school hours. She also tells you not to bother setting up a bank account, the moment the Emporer's Coven finds out you have an account, they will close it through any means necessary since it was known that you were 'her kid'.

You ask Eda if there is a price range you should stick to when it comes to buying a scroll, and you notice Eda rolling her eyes before throwing a small bag at you. You fumble the bag slightly, juggling it for a moment before clutching it to your chest. Only then do you look up at your foster mother confusion swirling in your eyes. She chuckles slightly, before telling you to use the snails she gave you to pay for the device, and when you go to protest she waves you off, telling you this was your earnings for dealing with that horrid swapping incident, along with watching King for the day. You go back and forth between her and the bag before softly thanking her for the money and stashing it in one of your storage seals. Once that is done you ask if she needs anything from town and when she waves you off, you head out to head to town after applying your usual disguise.

The trip into town is quiet, and Senna has left their usual spot from inside your hanten to your shoulders, seemingly enjoying the wind in their fur. You head to the scroll shop that Eda said she always did business with, whether it was upgrading or replacing her scroll she could 'trust' that the bozos in the shop wouldn't rat her out to the Scouts. You take one step into the shop and realize that this wasn't just a scroll shop, but a scroll and crystal ball shop. Rather than interact with the employee behind the counter you head over to where the scrolls are kept. You pay attention to the price point, mostly so that you know what you can expect for your price range. Some claim to have been made with a material called Titan Bone and Lunar Gold. Others claim to have an impressive storage space attached to it, though if they mean that literally or for data you're not quite certain. A decently priced one claims to have the best camera, which is slightly interesting. Some scrolls come with custom 'cases' but that hardly matters to you, practicality over looks has always been your thing, it doesn't matter how something looks if it's the softest thing in the world you're getting it.

You take out the bag that Eda had tossed at you earlier and try to figure out how much she had actually given you. You quickly realize that the 'Snail' is similar to the Yen, in that there are no cents. One cent is one snail, one dollar is 100 snails, and so on and so forth. Snails also come in different values which you're thankful for, the coins that you have are 1s, 5s, 10s, and 25s valued, and once you have it all counted you have roughly 300 snails to spend. The cheapest scroll you find is roughly 50 snails, and the most expensive sits at an eye-watering 1500 snails. You decide to go for a more modestly priced scroll, priced around 200 snails and you thankfully don't have to deal with tax, which you're sure would end up in the Emporer's coffers if there were.

The employee tries to make small talk with you as they ring you up, but besides a near-quiet thank you as they hand you your new purchase you don't say a word. After that, you're quickly out the door. Before anyone can notice you, you're disappearing into a puff of smoke and reappear a few houses down on the roof of a home. From there you set up your Scroll, which turns out to be very similar to setting up a cell phone. Once you have the basics, you set up your dreaded Penstagram account. You flounder a bit trying to develop a user name, and eventually settle on fox_in_a_owls_nest, which was much harder to create than one would think. From there you start tracking down the accounts of people you know starting with your foster mother and Paige.

For Eda you send a 'hi mom' but for Paige, you send a more formal introduction, since this might be a long-lasting working relationship. After those two you manage to find Willow and Gus and send them each a message stating you had finally gotten your own scroll, since you were now going to be attending Hexside, connecting with other students through his app might make things slightly more bearable if you didn't have to deal with them face to face. Through their accounts, you find the Offical_Hexside account and follow that one. Scrolling through accounts you find one for Lilith and send her a 'hi Aunt Lily' to mess with her a bit, and to further the long game. After her, you find Mx. Raine's profile, which shows off their impressive collection of musical instruments. You send them and their students the same message, wanting to be nice to the four that put you in contact with Mx. Paige.

You think about trying to find some more profiles when Senna buts their head against your chin. You absentmindly scratch them thinking that was what they wanted when they let out a bark. For a moment you don't translate the words they spoke but when you do, your eyes widen as the words, "meet green female" finally connect. Your fingers fly to the search bar and you swiftly look for Amity's Penstagram account, and you know she has one since Willow mentioned it during the Midnight Conjuring nearly two human weeks ago. Eventually, you find it under the name witchchick714, and you make a mental note about the number before messaging Amity. 'Hey Amity, this is Sam, I'm currently at the Market is there a certain place you would like to meet up at?' As you send it, you can't help but feel thankful that you had sealed the book away when you had finished it a few nights ago, so you had it on you.

It takes Amity a few minutes to respond, which you think is fair considering that you had messaged her from a new account that she had no idea existed. After she asks you a verifing question that you answer correctly she tells you that she's currently near the Fangs n Thangs stall near Rot Alley. You don't recall a Fangs n Thangs stall, but you do remember a Rot Alley, and you remember how to get there. You tuck your scroll away into a spare storage seal, making a mental note to apply a new one on you somewhere for it before hoping your way over the rooftops. It takes a minute to find Rot Alley from above, and once you find a deserted area you drop down. From there you unseal Amity's book, not wanting to do so in front of her, and have her ask questions that could potentially through your carefully crafted background into disarray.

You end up having to backtrack down Rot Alley when you go down the wrong side, but you eventually find Fangs and Thangs before too much time has passed. You casually walk up to her waving a hand toward her as you do so, when you feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. You don't think about it, you act. With one solid swing, you land a strike against an invisible person. Your punch lands in the person's gut, catching them off guard, and breaking their concentration on their invisibility spell. You notice short green hair as the spell fades and you blush as you realize that you had just socked Amity's brother for sneaking up on you before you remember the mess they had tried to cause back during the Wailing Star.

You fold your arms glaring daggers at the male twin before you, when the other twin fades into existence with a sheepish smile on her face. Amity just smirks at her siblings as she approaches you. You easily slide up to her and hand over her book with a small smile. You thank her for allowing you to borrow her book, and based on the wear and tear on it, the book is a well-loved one. Then you ask about the twins. Your tentative friend sighs before telling you that they have been extra protective of her since you had beaten some sense into them, which is when the female twin pipes up and says that they regret their actions every day before she pays attention to her twin and helps him to his feet.

You glare at them, as you utter the words, "You better" under your breath. Amity asks how you enjoyed her book, and you answer her truthfully. You tell her that The Blood Mirror: The Begining of the End kept you on the edge of your seat the entire time you were reading it, between the author's ability to set the scene and to come up with a storyline that had so many twists and turns you could not wait to read book two, speaking of which could she tell you it so the next time you went to the library you could check it out. At this, Amity's cheeks get a bit flushed, and looks away from you for a moment before reaching into her bag and pulling out a different book. You take the book with both hands to find that your sneaking suspicion has been correct, in your hands is book 2, The Blood Mirror: Strangers of the North.

You look between the book and the witchling in front of you and softly ask if this means that she would be lending you the book. She gives you a small smile before her older siblings attach themselves to her, praising her. You glare at them, not entirely liking that they were trying to cozy up to her after they attempted to get her diary and post the contents around the school... the school that you would be attending after the entrance exam the following day. You decide to ask the current three students in front of you about the entrance exam, rather than contacting Willow or Gus about their entrance exams.

Amity stares at you in shock upon hearing that you will be attending Hexside alongside her, which you think is slightly strange. However, you figure that she considers you more of a friend outside of school than a friend to hang out with during school hours. Then she drops some information that you would have liked when you found out about the entrance exam... the fact you need two spells to be considered a student of Hexside. The twins try to downplay what is happening by saying that of course you have two spells, though you quickly shut that down by asking if any exceptions could be made for a witchling that had been born without a bile sack. The look the three give you tells you all you need to know about that.

You swallow, and tell Amity that you'll be in touch and to not be a stranger, before shooting the twins the stereotypical 'I'm watching you' gesture before turning around and bolting down the alley and out onto the main road. You duck and weave through the crowd, even using some of your ninja agility to jump and flip over an unmoving group. As you land you look up and lock eyes with Mx. Raine and their students as they stand at one of the produce stands. You can feel a blush settle across your cheeks as you half-heartedly raise a hand to wave at them before sprinting down the road again. It takes you maybe ten minutes to reach the forest edge, and once you do, you're springing up into the air jumping from tree branch to tree branch to reach the Owl House much quicker.

You touch down just outside the clearing, mostly to avoid Hooty trying to swallow you whole, thinking you were attacking the house, once was enough thank you very much. You open the front door while greeting Hooty and quickly shut it before he can get more out than a rather squeaky-sounding 'Hi Sam!' You call out into the house, "Eda?" and an answering "Kitchen" is called back. You jog over to the doorway leading to the kitchen and poke your head around the corner. You find your foster mother standing in front of a hotplate with a pot on it. Next to the hotplate is a singular tomato, squash, onion, and leek with a filled potion bottle. Then you notice that one of her hands has been removed to hold a book upright, you want to assume that it is a cookbook, but you distinctly remember going through all her cookbooks and recipes with her and that book does not look familiar.

You ask if you should come back later or if you should help, but Eda waves you off while grabbing the potion bottle with her remaining hand before stating that dinner is going to be cooking itself, before dumping the potion on the vegetables. You watch in mild interest and absolute horror as the vegetables come to life with limbs. As she says everybody in the pot the four now living beings scream before running off. You're honestly not that shocked to see this, since if you had just regained sentience then essentially committing suicide was not the first thing you would want to do especially if ordered, especially since you remember what it took to get you to that point in the first point.

You carefully slide into the room eyeing where the vegetables ran off to and make a mental note to aim Hooty in that direction later if they weren't already caught. You stand in front of Eda and ask her if she remembers anything important about the exam tomorrow. Your foster mother startles slightly, since she apparently forgotten about the exam like you had, before thinking for a moment. She eventually shrugs her shoulders seemingly not remembering. "Eda I need two spells to get into Hexside, and I don't have a Bile Sack. Would Bump even allow me in if we explained that, or we up a creek without a paddle?"

She looks at you for a moment before asking about your light spell. You dutifully pull out a pre-sketched glyph, hold it out, and tell her that was one spell, and while you could use your chakra to fake having a bile sack and therefore magic that probably wouldn't work in the long run. As she thinks about the mess that you're in, you point back and ask if you should even bother, it's not like you needed a formal education right, she had told you she was a Hexside dropout, why would you have to attend that place if she hadn't even graduated. Before you can ask more questions Eda cuts you off and tells you that she had dropped out due to her curse, and while she probably would have never graduated if she hadn't been cursed she would have attended school for a longer period of time, which shocks you slightly. You had never been a huge fan of schooling before college. Between your autism and ADHD symptoms popping up all over the place during high school, learning the same thing over and over again was like torture to you. But then again this was school in a magical world that you never encountered before, so this couldn't be that bad right?

Then Eda gets a large grin on her face, she tells you that she'll bring you up to the most magical place on the Isles, which piques your interest. She tells you to prepare for a boot camp, which makes you blink your eyes, before the back door opens to reveal King with a new stuffed animal, this one in the shape of a bear. The two of them converse about a boot camp, which makes you wonder if this will be a boot camp to your standards or Eda's. Your musings are cut short as the back door slams shut with a squeal. Your eyes lock on the door and watch as it slowly swings back opening making King angrier and angrier the longer it goes on. You slide up to the door as he slams it shut again and presses your foot against the bottom of the door, keeping it shut this time around.

You exchange a glance with your foster mother as a faint laugh tries to escape your lips, but you tamp it down. You then ask her how you're going to be getting to this magical place. With a grin, Eda pulls out Owlbert's staff and you realize you should have known that you'd be using Owlbert, how else was Eda getting anywhere on the Isles? Eda tells you to grab your warm clothes before heading upstairs, which confuses you slightly. You don't really own warm clothing. Konoha was smack dab in the middle of the Land of Fire which, considering the name, never had snow. The first time you encountered snow was on your trip to the Land of Snow. And even then you didn't get any special clothing for the trip. You had brought fully encased gloves for it just in case, but you and your teammates quickly learned how to regulate your inner temperature using your chakra, which you had it much easier since your chakra was naturally aligned with fire than the other elements. So wherever she was taking you couldn't be worse than the Land of Snow right? Even so, you went up to your room and scoured your scrolls to look for your gloves and a cloak, just in case.

When Eda comes back down wearing winter clothing to find you chilling on the couch wearing nothing but your usual clothes she becomes concerned. You spend a few minutes talking her down from trying to lend you clothes that would end up leaving you too hot, and unable to move around in properly. You try to wave away her worries by telling her you have been through worse temperatures while living in the Elemental Nations. This just raises her concerns more. After some more back and forth you tell her about your ability to regulate your internal temperature, which causes her to raise an eyebrow in slight disbelief. You just shrug your shoulders and tell her that ninjas are strange and unique creatures, some have swarms of insects living inside them, others can see all around them 360 degrees without a problem, and some can turn into water. With each example you put on the table you see her opinion on ninjas get a bit more depth until she cuts you off before you could mention the Explosion Clan and their freaky hands.

Your foster mother huffs before agreeing to let you decide when too cold was too cold, after all, you weren't a child to be coddled. You follow her out the door where she briefly stops to tell Hooty to be on guard while the two of you are gone, King is nowhere in sight. You and Eda get onto Owlbert and before you know it the two(3?4?) are flying through the air. Owlbert quickly gains height, and soon enough you can see more of the Boiling Isles. This is the first time you've been this high up. On your first trip with Eda, you barely brushed the tops of the trees, while it was high up, the trees here in the Boiling Isles were saplings when compared to Hashirama Trees, or the trees that Hashirama Senju, aka the first Hokage, had made around Konoha using his kekkei genkai, or bloodline limit. The second time you were in the sky was during the field trip with Gus and Willow and you were more focused on the two of them than the scenery.

It takes Owlbert roughly an hour for him to reach the place Eda wanted to take you to, which turns out to be The Knee. Owlbert doesn't set you down on the summit rather he sets down about halfway down the snow-capped knee. You land on the snow and immediately start using your chakra to not only regulate your body temperature but also to make sure that you don't disturb the snow and leave behind any footprints. Your foster mother seems concerned about you up until start casually exploring the area nearby. Eda has to pull you back when what she calls a slitherbeast appears nearby. You gaze upon it taking note of the thick fur, the eyes within the mouth of sharp teeth, which you believe denotes it being a predator more than anything else, and the four legs. You think you could take it in a fight, but with it being a 'wild animal' its instincts would be driving it not thought or logic meaning you'd have to think on your feet if you fought it.

You follow Eda as she walks one of the trails that litter the mountain top further up it. You have to admit, the scenery up here is quite beautiful, and if it weren't for having to regulate your temperature, you'd probably move up here. After maybe ten minutes Eda stops near some ruins that have seen better days. The old stones have age-old burn marks littering them as if an explosion had rippled through the area. You're so focused on the burn marks that you fail to notice the fireball flying toward you until your foster mother tackles you out of the way. When you both look over to where the fireball had come from you see the Blight siblings dressed in winter gear, Amity between the twins with a wand in hand, something you never thought you would see again.

You give the three a wave before you get to your feet and help Eda to hers, after almost falling when her hand comes off mid-pull which gives you a mini heart attack in the process. Once it was firmly back in place on her wrist you carefully approached the Blights, taking heed not to disturb the snow around you lest you accidentally cause an avalanche. When you get within arms reach Amity apologizes for almost hitting you with her spell, and you're quick to wave her off, even if she had hit you, one, it was an accident, and two, between Kurama (and now Isobu) and your Uzumaki bloodline a minor wound would be healed within an hour. You ask her what she was doing on the Knee, which is when the twins reveal that she was here training to try to beat their high score on her Exam tomorrow. You look at her with a bit of concern and ask if she has been getting plenty of sleep because the last thing she would need would be to pass out during her exam, and when she confirms that you push down your worries, choosing to believe that she was telling the truth and not a lie to make you feel better.

Then they ask what you were doing here you decide to tell them the 'public' truth. You tell them that your mother had brought you here to try and find a spell for you to use tomorrow for your placement exam since the Knee was a magically dense place, and if there was a spell to be found like your light glyph then the two of you believe that you'd find it here. At that moment your foster mother walks toward you with a basket filled with snowballs, and you realize that you hadn't even seen her leave to gather them. She hands you the basket and tells you that the first lesson she will teach you is how to identify different kinds of snow based on taste. You and the female Blights pull faces at that while Edric seems interested in what Eda is talking about.

You motion for them to leave quickly, and Emira grabs her twin before he can grab a snowball. Once they're out of sight you reluctantly take one of the snowballs and give it a hesitant sniff. Thankfully the only scent that comes off of it is the scent of freshly fallen snow. You close your eyes and take a small lick of the snowball. You immediately spit it out as the taste of mint fills your mouth making you gag; after Eda calms down after your freakout the two of you go through the basket of snowballs tasting each and every one of them, none smelling like urine or appearing yellow.

After that mess, Eda pulls out some moss and when she goes to stick it up her nose you smack it out of her hand. The two of you go back and forth trying to figure out a way to get another glyph. You eventually break for lunch, which ends up being a thick hardy soup with enough leftovers to invite the Blights to eat with the two of you. When they find out that you were the one to make the food, you notice out of the corner of your eye the twins make some sort of motion toward you, but when you look at them fully with filled bowl in hand neither is paying you any attention, which strikes you as sort of odd but you push that thought from your mind.

After lunch, Eda pulls you further up the mountain until you reach the summit, which is absolutely scattered with old ruins with burns on them just like the others down the mountain. She leads you to a rock and has you sit facing the Isles. With a hand on your shoulder, she tells you to meditate and focus on what the Isles are telling you, which both shocks you and makes sense in your mind. You're shocked that Eda would be the one to tell you to meditate since when you told her to meditate she gave you grief over it. But meditating does make a lick of sense.

You fold your legs under you and get comfortable on the hard rock as Eda walks back down the mountain. You take several deep breaths before slowing your breathing and closing your eyes. You focus, not on the sounds or the scents, but rather on the nature chakra floating around you. The air around you is thick with it, to the point that if this was a Looney Toons episode you'd be able to cut out a disc of it and eat it. You fall into an easy rhythm one that you had used before to find nature chakra back before the war. As you meditate, you begin to notice that the seal that once held Kurama and that now holds Isobu fluctuates alongside the nature chakra. You pull at some of the leaking chakra and find that it wasn't Kurama's but Isobu's. It seems as if your newest companion is also taking in the abundance of nature chakra and using it to help jumpstart their healing.

You meditate up there for nearly an hour just focusing on your breathing and the nature chakra before you move again. You can feel something settle on your shoulders, as if someone had just draped a cloth, or a blanket on you, and you know that you are on the precipice of figuring something out. You leave the summit, taking one last look at the ruins before leaving to find Eda or the Blights. The first thing you notice upon returning is that Eda is nowhere to be seen and the Blights are currently dealing with a one-eyed bat, not a bat who had lost an eye, but a Cyclops bat. You walk toward them wanting to help, even if minorly when you come across Amity's training wand and a book. You stoop down and pick them up, being careful with the wand, a wand is a dangerous weapon even if this was a 'training' one.

You take a look at where the Blights are dealing with the bat before focusing back on the book when you notice that Edric was trying to 'protect' the bat from his sisters instead of him or it trying to kill one another. You ease the book open to a random page to find that this book is a spell book or rather a book to help teach young witchlings how to cast certain spells, like the fireball that Amity was trying to cast. You read through the book and eventually find a light spell, the same light spell that Eda had shown you that you found the light glyph in during the Boiling Rainstorm. As you go to flick to another page, you stop as the page with the light spell flickers before your eyes. Like a holographic card, you flip the page slightly to reveal a light glyph on the page.

You stare at the glyph in disbelief and wonder to yourself how you never thought to look in Eda's spellbooks before now to see if you could find more glyphs. You flip the page to the next spell hoping to find something similar there. Only to find yourself mildly disappointed when the plant growth spell only has a holographic circle on the page but no internal glyph. A few more spells have the holographic circle, but not all of them do. You eventually find a spell for an icicle spell, similar to the fireball one but with ice. To your surprise, the glyph circle is half filled in, like you had the knowledge to know what it was, you just had to connect the dots. You take the training wand and carefully trace the glyph circle before moving the wand away from the book.

To your surprise, the wand actually forms a spell circle which you find mildly interesting... at least that is until the spell circle activates and shoots out a large icicle. Your ninja eyes tack the icicle and your blood freezes as you see the Blights are in the directory of the spike. You scream loudly, "Get Down! NOW!" Amity thankfully listens to you without a thought, maybe knowing you wouldn't joke about something like this, and the twins aren't that far behind their sister, either listening to you or following their sister's lead, you're not quite sure.

The icicle thankfully flies safely over their heads and into the surrounding forest. You run up to the Blights, book, and wand in hand. The moment Amity sees them in your grasp she all but rips them away from you, and you don't bother to put up a fight about it, knowing that you have done something stupid, this was like playing with a loaded gun in the house while your friends where in the next room unaware of what you were doing. You try to apologize when a roar fills the air. The four of you look where the icicle had gone to see the slitherbeast you had seen earlier, only now it had the icicle jabbed into its side. Your transformed witch's ears pull back, knowing that you had messed up, real bad.

The twins try to act tough by stating that they would tame it, but their illusioned lassos aren't strong enough to contain the creature. Just before the slitherbeast grabs them a fireball slams into its side, but unfortunately does little damage other than burning some fur. From the woods is your foster mother flying on Owlbert. As she sees the lack of damage Eda changes plans and twirls Owlbert around as a sickly green spell circle appears in front of her. A blast of acid flies at the slitherbeast, but it ducks underneath the spray before grabbing the twins in one hand. As the beast races toward Eda, it seems as if both you and Amity have the same idea.

Amity brings the wand up to bear at the slitherbeast and makes a purple spell circle. A ball of fire appears within the circle, and fizzles slightly, before being shot at the slitherbeast. The fireball slams into the lower back, and as you see that you decide to follow Amity's lead. You slam your hands together and pull some of Kurama's chakra into them before faking a spell circle. From your hands form three fire discs that shoot out at your opponent. Unfortunately, only one disc slams into it, burning the creature a decent amount but it continues forward. Without even stopping the beast grabs Eda in its remaining hand and starts huffing it to the woods.

A snarl forms on your lips as you see this and without even thinking about it you pull Amity into your arms before following in the slitherbeast's tracks. As you pass where Eda had been standing you notice a splotch of brown in the snow, and as you swipe it up, you realize that Owlbert had been left behind. You're quite thankful that your ninja training allowed for this sort of thing, otherwise, you don't think you would have been able to follow the trail at the speed that you were. Slowly but surely you're catching up to the beast when you find what it was running to, its den. As you stare at the giant maw-like opening, you're smacked across your shoulders, dragging your attention toward the witchling in your arms.

Almost immediately you know you have crossed several of Amity's boundaries, between the red face in apparent anger, the fwipping ears, and her staring at you waiting for you to realize what you have done. You carefully set Amity down on her feet, making sure that she was surefooted before stepping back. You shove your hands behind your back and face away from the witch, transformed ears pulled back, not too dissimilar to those of a scolded dog. This unfortunately gives the witchling enough time to spin a spell into being. Around you a lattice of ice and abomination sludge forms, leaving you in a cage.

As you gaze upon the cage, you start to feel slightly lightheaded. Your breathing starts to pick up slightly as your ears clog up, missing whatever Amity is saying as she walks into the den before you. You drop to your knees, your hands flying to your ears, as you start to hyperventilate. You can't fault Amity for causing this panic attack, it's not like you go around telling people you dislike being locked in a cage or small places. You can feel movement within your hanten before you feel fur settle along the back of your shoulders and neck, along with a small weight landing on the top of your head.

You can feel something start to preen your hair as a tongue licks the area around your pulse point, trying to give you something else to focus on. You force yourself to open your eyes and look past the top of the cage, trying to focus on the sky as the sun sets off in the distance. Then you notice something hidden within the stars themselves. The light glyph hangs in the sky made out of stars as if it were a constellation. You trace the glyph with your finger as snow begins to lightly fall.

You catch sight of one of the snowflakes as it drifts past, and you see something that shocks you out of your panic attack. A glyph, an ice glyph if you're guessing correctly. It takes multiple attempts to catch a snowflake, mostly due to your higher body temperature, but with each flake caught you scratch out a bit more of the glyph until you have the whole thing sketched out. You sketch out a sample of the glyph again on a piece of scrap paper and tuck it away before returning to the glyph before you.

You hover your hands above the glyph and imagine what you want to happen before slamming down your hands. The ice glyph fashes color before a storm of magical ice floods the ice and abomination cage. Your hands coated with chakra fling outward toward the ice of the cage, while the ice from the glyph coats the abomination goop forming the walls. You can see the moment the cage is about to explode, and with an instinct you didn't even know you had Isobu's chakra explodes out and around you, covering not only you but Senna and Owlbert who had been perched on your head.

From outside the shield you had made out of Isobu's chakra you can hear the sound of shattering ice before the sound of something splashing onto the ground hits your ears. You give it a couple of more seconds before allowing the shield of chakra to come down. Around you are the splattered remains of the ice and abomination cage, and once you realize that you're up and running into the slitherbeast den. At the first sight of bones, you slide to a stop and crouch down behind stalagmites. Once you're sure no one has seen you, you duck and weave between stalagmites scattered throughout the cave.

You have a bit of luck on your side, mostly because the cave system isn't particularly big. So you have no trouble finding the others within the cave. The only problem you find is that the twins and Eda are stuck on the wall with what you can only assume is slitherbeast spit. Beneath them are piles of slitherbeast spit with bones and rotten flesh, which almost makes you gag, making you internally curse your sensitive senses. At first, you don't see Amity, but you manage to catch sight of her green hair close to the others, seemingly having a hushed argument with the twins. Rather than potentially startle them and risk having the beast notice you, you send Owlbert ahead, and he is happy to return to his witch.

Once you're sure the group is aware that you're coming close you approach. You make sure that Amity can see you as you slide up beside her since she has a hand on a weapon, after all. When she asks how you got out of the cage you pull out your ice glyph card and in a deadpan tone say "Magic" before asking if she had a plan. With a slight blush, she tells you that the slitherbeast spit is highly flammable so one good fire spell will make it go up in flames, the only problem with that is that she still can't get the fireball spell down, and the magic wand is out of magical power. And if that wasn't all the moment they tried to even use the fire spell it would alert the slitherbeast that they were messing with its prey.

That does seem like a bit of a dilemma. Fortunately for everyone here, you are no stranger to playing bait. You tell them, "Well I can fix one of those problems," before bringing your hands together as if you were about to pray and gather your chakra. You're lucky that you could use the shadow clone jutsu without the proper hand signs, the only downside was the limited amount you could pop into existence. Five clones wavier into existence, and with yourself you had six bodies ready and willing to play mouse. The real you turn to the four in front of you, and with a smirk you say one thing before heading out with your clones, "You're really lucky I'm used to being the prey."

As one singular unit the six of you make a dash for the entrance. You all make plenty of noise as you do so, drawing the attention of the slitherbeast from where it was messing with some... herbs? One clone heads directly toward the beast and tries to punch it but all it does is piss it off further. The beast tries to take a swipe at the clone, but since they were expecting the attack, it harmlessly flies overhead allowing the clone to get away from the slitherbeast. Thankfully with its attention completely on you and the clones, it follows you out of the cave. You're a bit surprised that you and the slitherbeast move at roughly the same pace, but this just means that you stay the same distance apart the entire time. The moment you get out of the cave however you and the clones split up slightly heading in opposite directions for about a hundred feet before stopping and watching the entrance.

The beast flies out of the cave and eyes the lot of you, at seemingly random, before charging a clone. Before you or the clones could react the nails of the beast slam into the clone, digging into it painfully before it pops. The beast rears back slightly seemingly confused about where its prey had gone, allowing you and the other clones to attack it. The five of you take a deep breath before spewing out a large gout of fire, that quickly engulfs the beast where it stands. A loud, animalistic scream pierces the air, and as the flames die down you realize that you have burnt a good portion of fur off of it leaving first-degree burns across its body.

Unfortunately, this causes it to go off in a rage. Somehow it bypasses the clones and attacks you directly. Thankfully though, the pain that you had caused it has made it unable to land a hit on you, which you're quite thankful for considering the fleeting pain the clone had felt before dispersing. Thinking quickly you disengage from the beast and have the clones distract it as you draw a large ice glyph on the ground. You hear the familiar sounds of clones being popped behind you, and once you hear the fourth clone disperse you turn to face the beast head-on.

The slitherbeast starts to charge you as you notice movement from the entrance, but with it speeding toward you, you pay it no head. You wait and wait, waiting for it to get within pouncing range before you smirk and slam your foot on the glyph. As it lunges forward a large pillar of ice shoots up out of the ground, and with a bit of satisfaction you watch as it slams face-first into the pillar, making it shake and collapse as its base is destroyed. You take a couple of steps back, toward the cave, ready to throw yourself in front of the beast if it tries to get back to the others.

You watch the slitherbeast for almost a minute before a hand lands on your shoulder, making you flinch in surprise and you elbow the one who had just snuck up on you. Thankfully, you turn your head as you attack and upon noticing it was Eda behind you, you manage to angle your elbow just enough that you drive it into open air rather than Eda's gut. Once she was sure that you were relatively okay your foster mother approached the downed slitherbeast Owlbert, in staff form, twirling in her hands. Over her shoulder, Eda calls out if the four of you want to see something cool, which makes the twins from behind you yell a loud 'Yes!' shocking you slightly and making you jump as well.

With a twirl of Owlbert Eda forms a large spell circle that fluctuates between a light blue and a light purple color before it washes over the slowly rising slitherbeast. Then like a marionette with its strings cut it collapses, and after a moment loud snores fill the air. You collapse to your knees, as the adrenaline that had been rushing through your body slowly trickles to a stop within you, and within the seal, you swear you could feel Isobu and Kurama settle down now that the danger had passed. From behind you, you can hear very deliberate steps coming toward you, so when Amity ends up standing beside you, you don't react beyond flashing her a small grin. Eda makes her way back over to you and starts to fuss over you slightly but you tiredly wave her off, which she reluctantly accepts.

A slight throb begins to build within your head, which you attribute to the clones dispersing in rapid succession. With Eda's and Amity's help, you get back to your feet, and though you slightly sway on your feet toward Amity's direction, she is quick to slide closer to you and hold you in place, to your surprise you catch the slightest hint of a blush on her cheeks. With a small smile, you start to talk to her, "So with that ice glyph that means that we'll be classmates, right?" At her nod, you continue, "How bout we start up a book club, I would love to hear your opinions about other books besides the The Blood Mirror series." She tells you that as long as the two of you keep the whole book club thing a secret she will join you, and you readily agree to that, you know that humans would sometimes bully others for reading too much or for reading higher-level books, so it wouldn't surprise you if the same was true here, either for the Boiling Isles in general or for those of similar background as the Blights.

You turn to your foster mother and ask if the two of you could head home now before anything else could happen. Eda gives you a nod and swings Owlbert down so the two of you can get on. As you do you quietly ask Amity if she and the twins are fine with getting home and only after she confirms that they do, do you allow Eda to fly off. The sun was just starting to set at this point but once you got back to the Owl House, night had fallen. You really just want to head to bed, but unfortunately, that wasn't the case. The front door was wide open, and as you approached you realized it was because Hooty was inside the house talking with King. You watch as King hugs Hooty, which is when you realize that fluff is currently littering the ground and falling all around them.

Eda chooses this moment to interrupt and asks what the heck is going on here. Out of the corner of your eye, you notice movement within the forest surrounding the house. At first, you only notice the vegetables from earlier running around, and initially, you curse Eda for bringing about sentient food. But then further in the forest, you notice more movement, before something swipes up the leek and disappears. You blinked rapidly trying to comprehend what you had just seen, but by this point, you were too tired to think clearly. Instead, you push past Eda and the mounds of fluff in the living room and head upstairs. From behind you, you hear Hooty say something about 'being haunted by his actions forever,' but you pay it no mind. When you get to your room, you crawl into bed, and all but collapse falling asleep almost instantly for once.