The next day, Eda leaves the house early to head to the market, to stock up on the essentials leaving you with King and Hooty. Today is supposed to be a lazy day so you don't have a summon with you, but nonetheless, you're being kept busy with King rolling around on the floor with a 'ducky sock' on his muzzle as you go through a pile of the trash from the trash slug the day before. This behavior reminds you of the kittens that you would play with in the Pride so you watch with slight amusement as King scratches and kicks the sock until he manages to shred it to bits.

You dutifully clap your hands at his 'victory' before he turns his attention toward you. He has you turn your attention to a covered board attached to the wall. King walks over to it while monologing before pausing in front of the board. He says, "Prepare yourself because today we are learning about... DEMONS!" and with that, you watch as he rips the cover off the board to show a corkboard filled to the brim with pictures of 'demons', or demons of the Boiling Isles at the very least.

For a moment you feel something sink in your stomach before you mentally shake yourself. Now isn't the time to dwell on the Bijū, so you try to focus on what King is explaining to you. King tells you that there are three classifications of demons, or as the Boiling Isles know them, The Three B's. Otherwise known as Bugs, Bipedes, and Beasts. He even shows you several pictures of the Demons in question. For Bug Demons a picture of a demonic butterfly is shown alongside a flesh pixie. Hooty pipes in from his position in the door that he was a Bug Demon while he tried to eat a fly that had landed on the door, somehow forgetting that he could pop his head out of there and eat it that way.

The pictures of the Bipede Demons you vaguely recognize as students from Hexside or your trip into Bonesborough. King explains that Bipede Demons are descendants from the union between demon and witch, which makes you blink as that thought spins within the confines of your mind, 'Does this mean that before there were only Bugs and Beasts... and if so which Witch took that particular plunge... on second thought I really don't want to know.' You also find out that Bipedes have something called a bile sack, which you make a mental note to ask Eda about.

Finally, Beast Demons are the animalistic-looking ones, sometimes even having intelligence rivaling Bipedes, with a few then possessing the ability to speak. This makes you wonder if all your talking summons would be classified as Beast Demons before turning your attention back to King. As he explains a few different beast demons, something called a ratworm and a slitherbeast, you're momentarily distracted by something within the trash pile. You take your eyes off King for a moment to carefully pull out what you have found. You only have to stare at it for a mere moment before you realize the goldmine you have found.

A Polaroid camera, something only the daimyos had access to on a daily basis. In your four years of service in Konoha, your picture had only been taken five times, Shinobi Registration, 1st team photo, Shinobi Registration Update, updated team photo, and the Allied Shinobi Forces. Your picture had never been taken for fun or pleasure, not many of the shinobi had their pictures taken more than you, most of the clans had a few more photos, but most shinobi only had their marriage photo alongside their team photo. You hesitantly pop open the back of the camera expecting this thing to be empty, but to your surprise, you find a mostly full roll still lodged into it. After making sure it has no obvious water damage or the like you close it back up.

You gaze upon the board that King had set up and gaze upon all the photos and wonder how common photos were here in the Boiling Isles. Then you decide to take a test photo using King as your subject. With a bright flash and a startled 'WEH?!' you take his photo. After a few seconds, the camera spits out the stereotypical black Polaroid picture that slowly develops before your eyes. You take the photo carefully from the camera and set it down on the coffee table as King scrambles onto the table next to it. As the photo is almost completely developed you hear the distant sound of thunder sound off in the distance.

King looks upon the picture of himself before looking toward you, and more importantly the camera in your hands. Before he can get a word out a flash of lightning splits the sky outside the window alongside the sound of thunder. King gains a look of displeasure or something similar as he gazes out the window and utters the words, "Uh-oh looks like rain."

You gaze out the window as well trying to figure out why he doesn't like the rain, but you can't think of a decent answer so you ask, "What's wrong with rain?" What he says shocks you, "You know boiling rain." For a moment all you can do is stare at the small demon in shock as words slowly penetrate your mind. 'Of course, the Boiling Isles has bloody boiling rain.'

"Soooo... what's the protocol for boiling rain here?" You ask the tiny demon hoping that they have something in place to combat this natural disaster. Unfortunately, King quickly dashes those hopes by stating, "Eda puts up a barrier around the house." You stare at him hoping for more but you clarify, "Eda activates a barrier using magic?" to which he nods his head. Internally you start to scream before you book it to the door where you ease it open to gaze out it. Just a few feet beyond the front door where Hooty resides you see a flower... correction the remains of a flower as a large drop of the aforementioned boiling rain lands on it making it shrivel up into a wet burnt husk (you never thought you'd say a sentence with that combination before).

You can hear more drops make contact with the dirt just as you hear the quick steps making their way closer to the house. From around a bend comes Eda as she barrels for the house shouting about boiling rain. Your eyes widen as you realize she isn't stopping or slowing down and your instincts take over. You lean to the left away from the door and tuck into a roll just in time for Eda to come into the house. She gazes around the room and sees King still standing on the coffee table before her eyes filter over to you staring up at her from your spot on the floor barely two feet from the door.

You give her a deadpan look and snarkily ask whose job was it to mention the boiling rain because you sure as hell didn't get that memo. She at the very least looks sheepish as a chuckle escapes her lips. Your eyes drift to her bare arms and find them riddled with burn marks and you wince in sympathy, if it weren't for Kuruma's passive healing and your Uzumaki heritage your hands, forearms, and around your mouth would be covered in burn scars from your shinobi carrier (which incidentally was only three or four years). You offer to go grab her a burn cream or healing potion or something but she waves you off as she summons Owlbert to her hands.

You and King watch from the doorway as Eda first puts a small portable barrier around her before she steps out into the rain. From there the barrier shifts above her head for several moments as you hear Hooty tell her to hurry it up because 'the rain is getting closer to his precious stucco' You just blankly stare at him wondering what is wrong with that creature before you remember that you sure don't want to find out what.

You turn your attention back to Eda just in time to watch her spread her hands apart with the barrier following her directions before she 'throws' it in the direction of the house. The barrier rapidly expands and engulfs the house, forming a tight seal around it. Something then crosses your mind and you decide to pipe up and ask "If this is your average rainstorm then what do you call abnormal weather?" At this Eda lightly grimaces as if remembering something, before she replies, "We don't have weather. We have plagues, gorenados, knife season, shale hail, painbows." Here King interrupts Eda, "It's like a rainbow but looking at it turns you inside out." You just stare at the two with a rising amount of horror as they mention more and more disasters that apparently befall the Boiling Isles.

Eda makes her way back into the house, mentioning that today will be an indoor day which you accept at face value because you are not going out into that storm anytime soon (not that you would be wounded for long, an injury is still an injury no matter how long it sticks around). You settle down in front of the coffee table as Eda messes around with a screen in the corner. You pick up a hand-drawn picture of a creature with a green shell and pink flesh, scrawled across the picture is the name Snaggleback. You place it aside along with the picture you had taken of King after making sure that it developed well enough.

Behind you, you hear the sofa creek as something lands on it, and turning your head you see Eda curling up with a small blanket. She lets out a jaw-shattering yawn that has you yawning in sympathy before she remarks that the barrier spell took a lot out of her. You're not surprised, in fuinjutsu maintaining a barrier is very chakra intensive, and Eda does not appear to be anywhere close to being a spring chicken. You ask her if she would be up for some magic theory or something while the three of you are stuck in the house. Eda just replies that she is a 'sleepy little owl' before rolling over and pulling the blanket over her head, exposing her slipper-clad feet.

You shrug your shoulders seeing that she is truly tired and instead turn your attention back to the 'Encyclopspedia' on the table. You grab a notebook from your storage seal scoop up the pen King had been using as a pointer and click it. You don't notice it at first but eventually, you become uncomfortably aware of something hovering above you. You mechanically look up to find Eda staring at the pen in your hand like it was the best thing since sliced bread. You freeze waiting for something to happen. For several seconds the two of you are still before she speaks in an off tone, "It sparkles and shimmers. It shines and delights. I must have it for my nest..." before leaping for it.

You leap to the side but don't quite manage to get completely out of her way. Eda just manages to clip you sending the two of you sprawling on the living room floor, you just manage to lodge the pen underneath you as you land on it, with Eda across your calves. You both let out a groan of pain, but that just manages to knock the sense back into Eda. You raise an eyebrow at her silently asking what the heck that was about, which gets a bashful smile and laugh out of her, which makes that eyebrow turn into a small glare.

"I'll forget this ever happened if you pass along some knowledge Owl Lady." At this, she sighs before standing and nodding her head. You make sure to remain on the pen that started this mess as you push yourself into a sitting position. You pull out your discarded notebook and grab a pencil instead of another pen. And then she starts her lecture. "A witch's staff is not only considered a weapon but it is also a coming of age ritual amongst the old crowd or the wild witches. Witch staffs are carved out of Palisman wood which has become rarer in recent years, however, most witches must master the basics of magic before a staff even becomes a possibility. Today I will show you how to create light" You watch as she slowly forms a wobblely circle in the air, and you fumble around behind you for your poloroid and just barely snag it before she completes the circle. You hastily whip it around and click the shutter just in time to catch the moment the circle just barely condenses before it transforms into a ball of light.

You look at the light for a moment before Eda pops it with her nail before she starts to speak again. "Now let me ask ya kid, where do you think magic comes from?" You pause and think about what King had mentioned earlier. "According to King witches have something called a 'Bile Sack' but he didn't say anything else on what it was or what it did." Eda looks pleasantly surprised that you answered her before she brings out a picture showing off a medical diagram of something attached to a heart. Your face shows disgust at the sack, which at first glance looks to be twice the size of the heart it's attached to.

Your eyes fly across the page before you realize something... if that was scaled to size, how the heck were witches able to breathe? When you mention that to Eda she just shrugs and mentions that witch organs are different than human ones. You take a second look and gain an incredulous look on your face before you blurt out, "Why do you only have one lung... where the heck is the spleen... and why do you have two stomaches?!"

You both stare at one another before the staring contest is broken as Eda lets out another yawn that has you yawning in sympathy. You watch as Eda slowly tips over and you scramble to catch her before she face-plants onto the floor, and just barely manages it. You let out a sigh before carefully standing up holding Eda close before making your way up the stairs to her room. To your surprise, Eda isn't that heavy, in fact, if you didn't know better you would say that she was nothing but skin and bones.

You find her room at the very top of the house, appearing as if the attic was the master bedroom in this place. Smack dab in the middle of the room was a giant nest and you can't help but shoot Eda a deadpan look at her for the blatant owl theme that she is seemingly attached to before carefully setting her down in the nest, after kicking aside a rodent-like skeleton that you would rather not think about. On your way out you can't help but gaze upon the potion bottle filled with glowing gold liquid but don't think much about it, after all, potions are like medicine here, if Eda had a medical condition that she would rather keep under wraps than you were about to tug the rug out from under her until she was either ready to talk about it or it caused a medical problem (famous last words).

You head back downstairs after a quick pitstop to pick up one of your storage scrolls used in the Conformatorium. You settle in beside King as he works on the 'Snaggleback' entry in his Encyclopspedia and get to work unsealing various items and resealing them in more organized storage seals. The two of you work in near silence for about an hour before King's stomach growls in hunger. You pick him up on the way to the kitchen where you unseal a Yakitori skewer for both of you and pour him a glass of Apple Blood. You eye what was left in the fridge wondering what you should make for dinner when the sound of thunder reaches your ears. You gaze at the window just in time to see the outside world flash briefly as lightning strikes.

You quickly shut the door, already expecting it when the lights inside the kitchen flicker and die. You look at King with a raised eyebrow, and he tells you that Hooty controls the lights. As if waiting for the most opportune time, Hooty lets out a 'Hoot Hoot' as a crash echoes through the front room. You both stare at the door leading to the living room before you make slow even paced steps toward the doorway. King lets out his usual 'Weh?!' before climbing onto your bed using the back of your leg as you pull out a kunai from your pouch on your thigh.

You freeze at the sight that awaits you. Standing above Hooty's prone door/body is a shadowed-covered creature. The thing slowly drags its claws through the door leaving gouges in the wood beneath Hooty's face when it notices you. It lets out a growl that you subconsciously return shocking not only it but King too. It stares at you for a moment before it turns to leave.

You dash toward Hooty the moment it is no longer in view and crouch down next to him as you try to peer through the rain and shield. You try the obvious first aid on the door but to your surprise, not, that knowledge does not pertain to house demons. Instead, all you can figure out is that Hooty is still somehow alive despite his injuries. You figure that he can't bleed to death and decide to deal with him in a moment just as the sound of shattering glass reverberates through the house.

Your face pales as you remember that Eda is still in her nest upstairs, before you bolt for the stairs, using your wall-walking abilities to get there just a bit faster than you would have without it. You only pause outside Eda's door before you softly open it hoping that if the beast is in there you won't startle it.

Thankfully as you ease open the door you find the room without any beasties inside it... though it now lacks Eda as well. You tiptoe over to the nest and gaze into it hoping that you're just seeing things and Eda will pop out it like it was a swimming pool, but that was just wishful thinking. You notice the claw marks in the nest, but there is a distinct lack of blood that is throwing you off here. King says that this must be the work of the Snaggleback and tries to run off to get his book, but you snatch him out of the air and stuff him into your hanten as you do with Senna. There was no way you were going to allow him to separate from you like in those bloody horror films, you know you're at the top of the kill order just based on your sexuality never mind you absolutely hated horror/slasher films.

As you roam the room searching for clues you eventually hear the clinking sound of nails on the floorboards. You spin around and gaze upon the creature as a growl slowly forms in your throat. You can feel your eyes faintly itch along with your cheeks as Kuruma's chakra slowly propagates within your coils. You lower yourself into a pouncing position as the growl reaches an audible level that makes King flinch within the confines of your hanten. The beast on the other hand answers your growl with a yowl of their own before it rushes you.

You barely think about your actions before you rush toward it on all fours. At the last possible second, you jump up above it and plant your feet into the back of its head before using it as a springboard to flip over the rest of it to land in the doorway as the force of your kick makes it skid across the room and almost out the broken window. With one final look at the creature, you race down the hall not wanting to fight it within the confines of Eda's room. From behind you, you can hear it follow you down the stairs, not quite able to keep up with you since you got a head start.

You skid into the living room and spin around to face the beast as King scrambles out of your hanten. You don't pay him any attention as the beast prowls into the room. You size each other up for a moment before you both rush toward one another. Your first swipe with your chakra-infused nails bounces off the tough... feathers? but your second slash strikes true, drawing a bit of blood and squawk from the creature. While you're close to it, it tries to bite and scratch you. It bites a chunk out of your side while the claws glance off the chainmail under your hanten.

You can feel the outside of the bite burn slightly as Kuruma tries to heal you as you strike at it twice more along its flank. Two more claw marks join the first one which is when you notice something. The beast turns its head toward you just in time for lightning to flash outside illuminating the creature for the first time. You realize with a sinking feeling that you recognize the face before you... somehow, someway this creature has Eda's face.

You're unable to react fast enough that as the wings burst away from the beast's body you're sent carrening away from it(her?). The good news is that you're batted out of the way faster than her claws can find purchase in your body... the bad news is that you land on the coffee table with a loud crack. You pull yourself out of the wreckage of the table as a loud snap echoes through the room as your arm snaps back into place. Not paying attention to the wreckage you're pleasantly surprised to find the polaroid fall to the ground.

The camera lands on top of its shutter button making a bright flash, flash through the room. making both you and Eda blind for several moments. You take several steps back trying to rub the dark spots from your eyes as you run into the couch. You climb over the top of it as you hear the beast crying out in pain before the sound of claws on floorboards reaches your ears. You wait with batted breath, listening for more cues from the beast as the claw wound finally scabs over. From under the couch comes movement before King sticks his out from his hiding spot with wide eyes.

After several more moments, you let yourself relax slightly realizing that Beast Eda has left the vicinity. Just to make sure you slowly peer around the couch to find the living room empty beside Hooty's door. You carefully get to your feet shuffle over to where the Polaroid was, and pick it up. You take the developing picture of Beast Eda and hand it to King as you inspect the camera. From the looks of it, most of the damage is superficial, but there is a crack running along one side of it.

As you do this you feel a slight tugging on your pants and looking down you find King looking at the picture you had given him. You pick him up as he tells you that 'Demons with black eyes like this one are super sensitive to lights'. Your mind goes back to the lesson Eda gave you earlier and you pick up the other picture. As you flip it over your eyebrow raises in confusion as what appears to be fuinjutsu's weird circily cousin appears within Eda's spell circle. For a moment you just stare at the strange figure before you shift King to your shoulder and pull over a pen and a looseleaf sheet of paper. You carefully trace over the symbol and find that you'll need to improve your freehand circles if you survive this. But besides the wonky circle, everything is near perfect.

You absentmindedly give the paper a tap with the pen. You and King both watch as the paper crinkles up into a ball of light and you stare in disbelief at the magic light ball. This might not be the first time you have summoned a ball of light in your many lives but this is the first of this life... with a unique creation as well. Slowly a plan begins to form in your head before you turn your attention toward King and explain it.

Ten minutes later you're scratching a circle into the wall at the end of a hallway, cursing mentally and wishing for a compass to draw this thing neater. You can hear the sound of crashing happening behind you and as you inscribe the last line you turn around and lock eyes with the beast before you. You give it a smirk as a witty "Let there be light" escapes your lips as you slam a palm into the wall.

A large, bright light engulfs the hallway catching both of you off guard. You had closed your eyes expecting this but the light was so bright that you could see the light through your eyelids. From Eda, you hear a shriek of pain before it abruptly cuts off that initially concerns you until the light finally dissipates and you see she passed out beside you. You slowly and carefully pick up the owl beast in a fireman carry and King slowly leads the way up the stairs.

Once back into Eda's room, you gingerly lower her into the large nest, that you now realize is proportionate to the larger form. You take a look around the room and your eyes land on the golden potion, the dots slowly connect. You take a few steps to the bedside table, pick up the bottle, and peer at the label. An elixir a day, keeps the curse at bay.

With a sigh, you turn back to the beast form of Eda and walk around to her head while holding the potion bottle. You kneel down and prop her head up using your knee before popping open the bottle. You have King help you open the beast's mouth before you dump the entire bottle into her mouth. She automatically closes her mouth and swallows the liquid. You lower her head back down and back away as you watch her body twitch and jerk around as the transformation. This honestly reminds you of those movie scenes with werewolves during the full moon.

Eventually, the beast form is no more, and Eda is back in her humanoid (witchoid?) form. You wait a moment looking to see if she will awaken anytime soon but she seems to be out of it. You and King settle in to wait for Eda to wake up King has his book with him while you are scribbling on looseleaf trying to perfect your circles, and with each one you get more and more angry that you can not make a circle to save your life. It takes almost an hour before Eda awakens with a startling gasp.

You wait for Eda to wave you over not wanting to overwhelm her after waking up from the transformation, as you're not quite sure whether or not she remembers what she went through during her time as the beast. King on the other hand rushes toward her the moment he sees her up. Your lips quirk up into a small smile as you watch Eda cradle him in her arms after she realizes that he seems shaken then her attention toward you. At first, she just looks at you before her eyes widen as shock covers her face. As you realize something is wrong you look down and find that you have forgotten that you and the owl beast got into a fight in the living room. Your clothes are ripped all over and the side of your shirt is covered in blood.

By now all the wounds have healed leaving you looking like the victim of a slasher film. You look back up just in time to watch her start to hyperventilate seeing the state you're in. You almost leave an afterimage with how fast you move toward her. You force her to look you in the eyes without making direct contact with her not knowing how she would react in her panicked state. After a few seconds, you realize that you have her attention and slowly work toward getting her calmed down. Every time she tries to look down at where you were injured you cough slightly to get her to look back up.

It takes almost a half hour and another elixir to completely settle her, at which point you leave her briefly in the paws of King before heading to your room and changing your clothes, leaving the blood-covered ones in a pile out of sight from the door, you'll deal with them later. You return to Eda's room in your usual black combat pants and a black shirt with a red swirl on it, the only thing missing is your usual hanten. You settle in beside Eda without a word offering your shoulder if she needs it.

It takes a few false stops but Eda eventually tells you and King that when she was slightly younger than you are now she had been cursed into what you had seen, the Owl Beast. Since then she has had to live with the thing taking over her body and ruining her life. The longer Eda talks and explains, you begin to feel as if you had heard this story before... multiple times in fact. It takes a few moments before the mouse in the wheel that is your brain starts spinning again, but you finally realize what this reminds you of. Jinchūriki and the Bijū.

Most Jinchūriki had their Bijū sealed within them in their childhoods or early teens, very rarely would they be sealed within adults, and even rarer would they be sealed in either babies or unborn children. Most would see the Bijū as the beings that ruined their lives or the beings they were cursed to live with for the rest of their days. In fact, you can only think of B and yourself to have actually communicated with your Bijū, and even then it took from when you were thirteen to up until a few months ago to even learn Kuruma's name, and even then if it weren't for the war you don't think you would be as close as you were now.

So all things considered you can understand where Eda is coming from, but you can't help but wonder if there was some way to help Eda communicate with the beast. Eventually, you all hear Hooty screaming from the floor of the living room which is when you remember the state of that room and how the front door has been off its hinges for who knows how long. You tell Eda not to worry, that you'll take care of it, and that she should relax while you start dinner. You leave her and King, though you can hear the clinking of claws on wood the further you make it down the stairs.

It takes a bit of finagling but you manage to get Hooty's door back on its hinges. You don't have any idea how to fix the claw marks though so you ask him how he heals himself, to which he answers through the food he eats. You blink at that before shrugging magic realm, video game logic maybe. So as you start on dinner you go through all of the things in the fridge as thoughts wander through your head. Thoughts of your past, Kuruma, the owl beast, and even your own 'curse' pass through it.

But that is a thought for another day, for now, you just have to figure out what to eat for the night and feed Hooty... and maybe fix the living room before Eda sees it.