The ride to the Conformatorium doesn't last longer than a half hour. the entire time you gaze out upon the landmass that you hope will be a decent enough home in the future. On the way there you make sure to catch Senna up to speed with what you'll be doing. When you mention that you plan on living here for the foreseeable future they perk up knowing how lonely you were living in Uzu's ruins. Several times throughout the flight you catch sight of King peering over Eda's shoulder and gazing at Senna, making you wonder how often King got to play around with another his size or age.
As you get closer and closer to it, you feel the nature chakra seemingly darken with each passing second. The moment the staff gets within landing distance the sky bursts into light, eerily similar to a lightning flash. You gaze upon the building that is the Conformatorium. A tall wall, maybe three or four stories tall, surrounds a cylindrical tower with what appears to be steps around the outside. Adorning the outside are what you are starting to assume to be the norm here on the Isles, horn/bones and what appears to be an eye right smack dab in the middle of the tower.
You quickly compare the Conformatorium and the very brief look at the Hozuki Castle, or as it was more commonly known The Blood Prison. Same dark aura, a giant tower, and government-approved. You're beginning to wonder if all sketchy government systems had a prison just like this one.
You realize that there is a smaller wall, maybe twelve feet, that you have landed past, right before the taller wall. Along the wall are many different bounty posters, you look at the bounties on the few that you see. One reads 40,000, another reads 700,000, and you even see one with a bounty of 600. None ever breach a million making you wonder what the hell Eda could have done to earn a bounty of one trillion.
You gather up the lone poster of Eda that you can see along the outside wall of the taller wall. And wonder aloud what she had even done to get this large of a bounty which she brushes aside before stating that the guards had never caught the two of them. To which King chimes in that you should try to catch him when he was covered in grease, that he was a greasy little fella, which makes you slightly disgusted with the thought of King's fur being a greasy mess but also slightly hilarious thinking about multiple guards trying and failing to catch him.
Eda tells you that you and King will be sneaking into the tower by one of the upper-level windows. You quickly eye several of the windows as you lean down to scoop up King. You make sure that he is securely anchored to your hanten before you take a running start to the wall. You hear Eda start to try and stop you right before you 'hit' the wall. You send your chakra into your feet and pull a Spider-man. King lets out another cute sounding 'Weh?!' as he realizes what exactly you're doing.
You reach the top of the wall with little trouble. You take a look back over the wall and see Eda looking up at you with slight shock before shaking it off. You give her a thumbs up before turning back to the open space between the wall and the tower. You briefly estimate the length before taking a chakra-infused jump and clear the distance without a problem. With a little more time you scramble up the remaining three stories.
Once you reach the window you allow King to slip in first before you crawl to settle in the window 'hole' and only briefly pause to ensure that your hood is secured in place. You slowly lower yourself into the hallway alcove and gaze upon the inside of the prison. Lining all the walls are cell after cell maybe eighteen per floor. Your gaze floats upward to find that the floors continue going up in a spiral pattern with the cells slowly decreasing as the floors get smaller.
As you get closer to the ledge and carefully peer over the edge to gaze at the lower floors, you hear someone in one of the cells speak up, "Hey, what are you doing out of your cage?" Turning around you gaze upon the cell, and take a good look at the occupant. Dressed in a dark violet dress, with an olive skin tone is a witch with eye-catching fangs. You carefully approach the cell, in case they decide to attack.
"I regret to inform you of this but I was never in one of these cells. But I guess, why are you in here... pardon my assumptions but you don't appear to belong here." They sigh and you think based on a few outliers you believe this witch to be female. She begins to speak, "Well most locked within these cells aren't actually criminals. That stupid warden likes to lock up people who don't fit in with his ideals. Like, I write fanfics of food falling in love." Here she pulls out what appears to be a composition notebook filled with pages upon pages of drabbles, one-shots, and fanart that would not look out of place in some of your godfather's novels... if they weren't all about food. "I like food, I like love... Just let me write about it."
The two prisoners on either side of the witch pipe up, On your left, is a demon witch with many eyeballs all over their face states that they're in there for eating their own eyeballs and then eats one of them, only for it to reappear seconds later in the same eye socket. The other small demon on your right with a large nose starts to spew out their 'transgressions', "We are agents of fwee expwession! They will never siwence us! The world is a simulation! We are but playthings for higher beings!"
The witch in front of you states that the demon to your right is really into conspiracy theories. You began to realize that even if this world doesn't have homophobia and the like it does seem to have a bunch of higher than thou have gained power here. Moments later you start to hear the faint sound of footsteps slowly increasing in volume. You make eye contact with the witch and harshly whisper that someone is coming before grabbing ahold of King and leaping over the edge to the floor below. You stick to the ceiling, holding King to your chest where Senna's head is. They carefully nudge King hoping to keep him calm as you hear the door above you slam open.
You hear voices exchange words above you, a new masculine voice that you can only assume to be Warden Wrath. Eventually, you hear the nose demon let out a squeak of pain as Warden Wrath walks away. Once the footsteps get far away enough you grab the lip of the floor edge and pull yourself back up to the original floor. You make sure that King is secure on his feet before you make your way back over to the cells. Casting a quick glance around the cells your eyes land on the cell door lever. You grab the lever and with a bit of effort, you pull the rusty lever to free the remaining two prisoners.
You tell the witch to free whatever prisoners they wish to and wish them good luck before you ask King if he has any idea where to go next. King states that he can feel his crown's presence which you have some doubts about but follow him down the hall. Eventually, you run into Eda right outside a door that has the word 'Contraband' scrolled across it. You stare at the door briefly in exasperation before you stroll up to it and push it open, which turns out slightly harder than it looks. You had assumed that the door was made out of a sturdy otherworldly wood but turns out the door is made up of stylized stone instead.
The moment you open the door more than a crack King is rushing in crackling about his crown. Eda walks into the room with you beside her and you ask her about Warden Wrath's ridiculous rules and the prisoners within these walls. She sighs but before she can do much more you both hear King let out a loud 'ow!' further into the room. You turn your attention to the barrier that is pulsating in the middle of the room. As Eda lightly scolds the young demon you circle the barrier looking for any apparent weak spots before you try anything else.
After a complete circuit, you stop beside Eda and King as you gaze upon the wall of light. You give them a slight nod before approaching the wall. You stop right before it and try to push your hand through the barrier. Only the barrier holds without any give whatsoever. Your forehead tightens slightly before you apply more pressure on it but it still holds. Your anger gets the best of you for a moment before you slap the wall with a chakra-infused slap. As your red-tinted blue chakra-lined slap makes contact, the whole wall seemingly shivers.
As you gaze at the ripples you have created you remember that Kuruma is considered a demon in the human realm and wonder if their presence within you is causing a reaction in the 'human' only barrier. You decide to up the ante so to speak and gather more chakra into your fist this time an equal amount of both your own and Kuruma's. Pulling back your fist you can just make out Eda asking what you're doing before you let your fist fly.
Your hand shatters the barrier around the impact point which immediately tries to regenerate around it. You huff slightly before forcing your chakra into the barrier from the inside out and setting it aflame. You step back as the three of you in here watch as the wall of light darkens. Slowly at first but like a dry bit of kindling surrounding a campfire the barrier quickly turns brown and then black before the barrier falls completely.
You look on in interest as piles upon piles of various items reveal themselves as their protector is taken down for good. King quickly scrambles one of the piles that appears to have a crown on the very top of it while Eda eyes some of the more occult items around the base of the piles. You on the other hand pull out a new sealing scroll and start going to town sealing item upon item into it.
When Eda sees what you're doing she starts to toss you items that you assume will either be resold at her stand at a later date or ones that just catch her fancy. King just gathers up all the stuffies that he can find, including a small pink bunny with one eye that he names Francois, which you can't help but smile at. You focus on the weapons and whatever books you can find which Eda lightly ribs you for being, in her words, a nerd to which you shoot back that you're interested in why these books were tossed here in the first place and not say... burned as kindling.
Before long you catch sight of the 'crown' that King is wearing and realize that it's actually made out of wood and wouldn't look out of place in a Lord of the Rings movie. When you ask Eda about it as you slide up beside her as you stash away the sealing scroll, she tells you that she had made most of King's crowns over the years as he slowly outgrew them. You raise an eyebrow and ask why she hadn't just made him a new one then in a low voice, rather than break into here.
She gives you a small smile, "Sam, while the crowns I make for him can be replaced, that doesn't change that crown holds memories for him. Didn't you ever have something like that?" You cast back your memories to not only your life in Konoha but your first life back on Earth. In Konoha you were never allowed anything of your own growing up, you were lucky to have clothes that could be considered yours, and even then those clothes were obvious hand-me-downs on their last legs.
On Earth, you unfortunately lived with a minimalistic mother and a very absent-minded father. Since it was your first life you never thought too much about it until you were in high school. You only had one toy that you kept for the first few years of your life, a white cat that you took almost everywhere. That was until your mother decided to give it away without your knowhow when you were eight, which caused a massive meltdown. Since then you had never been allowed any kind of toy, even in your few adult years living on your own you never thought to indulge in your fascination with stuffed animals.
You hesitantly shake your head at Eda and quietly mention that as an unwanted orphan with very little spending money, you could never let yourself buy a much-wanted toy when you had to pay for food. She lightly places a hand on your shoulder as Senna softly yips at you. "Well kid, once we get back we'll settle you in a room that you can decorate to your heart's content, after all we weirdos have to stick together," before lightly pushing you towards King.
You head over to where King is trying to pull free a much too large plushy and help him get it loose as you hear Eda speak up somewhere behind you, "Now let's get out of here before the Warden loses his head" with a small haughty laugh. Your blood almost instantly freezes as you hear The Warden speak up with a "Too Late" before a blade is slicing through the air. You yank King into your arms as you twist around into a crouched position and watch in horror as the Warden cuts off Eda's head with a sickle-shaped hand.
You subconsciously shift King to one hand and catch Eda's head with the other, faintly wondering where the blood and gore are considering you are now holding onto a severed head. You jerk back slightly as the head in your arm starts to move and you wonder if you have a snake situation before Eda's head comes to life, state that she hates it when this happens, to which you ask how often this happens to her, which she ignores in favor of glaring at Warden Wrath.
From behind the Warden two guards come and flank you as he approaches the four of you. You side-eye the guards already planning an escape route as the warden speaks, "I finally have you cornered Eda, the Owl Lady." He reaches out a hand toward you but you're not having it quickly backing away from this brutish man. He scoffs as he fails to grab King's crown before continuing his little monologue, all the while you try to keep a decent distance between you and him. "I knew if I stole your pet's little toy you would come running." Which makes all of you glare at him for his little comment.
Eda chooses this moment to pipe up, "What do you want with me? I've never actually broken any of your stupid laws... in front of you." At this, you almost break out in laughter but manage to stifle it into a snort. You had barely met this woman two hours ago and already you can tell that your sense of humor is going to mesh well with hers. The warden pulls out an object from behind him and you tense wondering what the hell it might be... only to sweatdrop as he brings out a bouquet. You all stare at him as he gets down on one knee and holds out the bouquet towards Eda, making you want to punt the masked maggot.
As the warden tries to ask Eda out you try to tune out the creepy words spewing out of his mouth as his lackeys encourage his behavior. You glare at him until he seems to remember your presence and tries to swipe Eda's head out of your arm, which you're not having. Without much thinking, you hop up onto his arm and he freezes as he tries to compute what you're doing giving you just enough time to use his mask-claddened face as a springboard to reach Eda's body that is just wandering around by the door.
You only pause long enough to orientate Eda's head before plopping it onto her neck which looks as if nothing had ever been attached to it in the first place, eerily similar to an amputation wound after it had completely healed. Eda riffles through her hair for a moment before pulling out her staff and you all scramble onto it trying to get away from Warden Wrath.
Eda flys you down the corridors as fast as the owl can go, somewhere behind you can just faintly hear the sound of the warden scrambling after you and as you look back you find him moving in a motion that faintly reminds you of gorillas before you fly out into the courtyard. Which is the moment that Wrath catches up. He just manages to clip the end of the staff which sends all of you flying off of it onto the cobble floor. You all go end over end and as you do so you just manage to curl around King, as you don't have time to do much more, before taking most of the momentum directly against your back making you gasp as sharp pain shoots up your spine.
You slide to a stop next to Eda, King thankfully still bundled safely in your arms as you try to catch your breath. Eda stands to take on Wrath as King slides off of you and you flop onto your front without squishing Senna. You, King, and Senna watch as Eda and Wrath engage in battle. You carefully get to your feet and wince in pain as your lower back and spine protest. As you reach your full height King hands you Eda's staff which you hesitantly take carefully. Once he sees you leaning on the staff King takes off after Eda stating that you should see her last boyfriend if you think this one is bad which you hear Eda protest at.
Behind them near the door leading into the Conformatorium you see the three prisoners you had talked to previously. You eye the staff in your hands before you softly ask if he would be willing to bring you over to the entrance. You take the opening of his wings as a silent yes and carefully position yourself on the staff and the two(three with Senna) drift over to the door. You set down beside the witch as Senna pops out their head and eyes the three as you hear the faint sounds of more cell doors being opened deeper inside the prison.
You ask them what they are waiting for as out of the corner of your eye you watch as Wrath takes off his mask to show off a face filled with teeth as he breathes fire at King and Eda, who thankfully pulls off a Magic Cylinder and sends the attack right back at him. As the prisoners laminate that the Warden will find them, that he always does you can almost see the depression almost waft off them.
You can't help but speak up as the little nose demon, now sporting a black eye, says that self-doubt is a prison you can never escape from. "It doesn't matter what he thinks about you. It doesn't matter if you do things differently than how someone else wants you to. Individuality is the one thing that keeps society from sliding back onto itself. If we all acted the same, all thought the same would anyone ever come up with something new? No, they would not. We need people like you, people like us, willing and able to lead the revolution for new ideas no matter what." The three exchange glances before the witch asks you why you're trying to help them.
You gaze at your feet briefly as you recall some of your memories. You recall all the times that the villagers turned their backs on you, and then you remember the way they reacted as you turned your back on them in the aftermath of your godfather's killer's death. "I know what it's like being on the outside looking in. I know what it is like being looked down upon for something you had no control over. But that didn't make me turn my back on the ones I cared for or what I cared about. As life became harder it did not mean I rolled over and let life choose for me, no I trained to match life's punches and kept going onwards. This made me fight harder, and stronger, and I promise you that as long as you keep moving forward nothing can hold you down for long. So what say you guys?"
This is probably the longest thing you have ever said, talking has never come easy for you, and you almost have to take large gulps of air as you finish your speech but thankfully the three don't seem to realize that. You turn the staff around and shout 'Charge!' as you lead the three against the warden. You allow the three to take the lead knowing that anything that you end up doing will probably end this battle right in its tracks. So once they have taken out their aggressions on Wrath you land right before him and hold out a hand toward him. Taking the cue from Eda you form a circle in the air as you prime a paper bomb seal in front of you. Once the circle is complete you pull back your hand before bringing it forward as you let loose a large explosive but pull back on the actual fire part of it making it more percussive than fiery.
The warden ends up flying backward into the wall of the Conformatorium and stays there in a heap as more prisoners make their way out of the building. You give the three you gave a pep talk to a quick two-finger salute before hobbling your way over to King and Eda using her staff as a walking stick once more. Eda meets you halfway and all but pushes you to sit on the staff when she realizes what is wrong with you. As you all make your way into the sky you can't help but lean slightly against Eda somewhat similar to how one would when riding a motorcycle you assume. Your eyes drift into slits as you lightly doze against her as you all make your way back to her home.