Iruka was not overtly happy as he barged in on the Great God-on-Earth's office, interrupting a semi-formal meeting with several of the Upper Demigod Guides. "What's this I'm hearing about sending those kids into the Rank Exams? I know all of them, and they are not ready."

"They have shown great improvement, Iruka," the Great God-on-Earth replied, "and their Guides think that they're ready for an opportunity to show how much they've grown and potentially see a promotion…"

"That is not what these exams are about and you know it!" Iruka snapped. "We could promote on merit and Ichor growth; these Exams are about seeing who would make a good advertisement to show off our next generation to potential clients, and I really don't see why you want to risk these kids' lives for the world's deadliest commercial!"

Sarutobi sighed. "The Rank Exams have many purposes. Yes, advertising is one of them, but there are other callings, other, greater purposes to send these children there…"

"like gambling," the younger Sarutobi interjected unhelpfully.

Kakashi joined in, "yeah, I'm planning to get rich off of those kids."

Iruka, the elder Sarutobi, Kurenai, and Gai all looked in disgust at the two, but they merely faked indignation.

"Fine, if you have no confidence in your student's ability to succeed, then…" Kakashi tried to say before Gai immediately rose to the bait.

"Hah, my rival, my students are far more prepared than yours! I will bet you a month's worth of meals at a restaurant of the winner's choice that Rock Lee, Tenten and Neji will surpass anyone you send into that Examination!"

The Great God-on-Earth placed his hand against his forehead in frustration.

"You two are missing the point! Iruka, the students have a choice, they can back out of this if they want to, and they know the risks, but I seriously doubt that they even want to. This is an opportunity for them to prove themselves, to see how far they can go. As their teacher, can you truly deny them that opportunity?"

Iruka was taken aback, but started to reply when Kakashi, taking this more seriously than before, informed him, "Iruka, there is something that you really need to realize here. They are not your students anymore. They've fought under us, we know what they're like on the actual field, and I can say calmly and confidently that we know their capabilities far more than you do, and we think they're ready."

Iruka, not having much to say and realizing that their minds were not going to be changed, left the room, not particularly happy but not as infuriated as before.

When he left, the Great God-on-Earth continued to discuss the important matter he had summoned all of the Upper Demigods presenting rookie examines to inform him about. "What do you think are their actual odds for the betting stacks, and what odds do you think we can get away with based on how they look and their records? Come on, people, hosting these Exams is expensive and I would like it if they paid for themselves."

"I still object to this," Kurenai noted.

"What we get from others' bad bets will go into the Village budget, not my personal pocketbook," he reminded her again.

"Rock Lee's strength in Strength, Dexterity, and Stamina Knacks are so impressive that I wouldn't bet against him in any one-on-one fight with another Hero, but being dead last in his year and his lack of Purviews means everyone else will," Gai supplied. "Plus, I think everyone betting against him will motivate him to work harder to prove them wrong."

"Good," Kakashi noted, "you can bet on him, and use the money for my dinners in the following month."

And thus the conversation continued.

--

Sasuke was enjoying his time back in the Village more than he would have expected. Things were safe here, nothing stopping him from failing his goal prematurely. The goal that he had told Naruto about, before said boy managed to stop Haku when he failed…somehow. He had been given vague non-answers when questioned about what happened after he lost consciousness, but from what he gathered, Naruto had been able to gain the upper hand until the Angel went to protect Zabuza from Kakashi and died for his efforts. The question of how Naruto managed to do that remained frustratingly elusive. Such thoughts soured his good mood, a feeling that only continued when he walked up to what was once the Amatsukami Clan Compound.

A few outborn had moved in, children of the Amatsukami who claimed that rightfully made them Clan members, but he refused to acknowledge them as such. He wouldn't stop them from living there, at least as long as they kept away from where he slept, but they weren't of his Clan. The only ones of the proper mortal blood left were himself and a man who had lost his connection to the Clan through deeds, and that other would pay one day.

Yes, the Village was safe, but it also allowed him to get stronger, the perfect combination for his needs. He would become stronger than…Naruto? And Sakura, as he was forced to think on their Knacks training?

He had entered this Band assuming it would be a hindrance, and it largely was at first, but in that last fight, he was the only one to fall. Sakura didn't really fight, but she had looked after their client as someone needed to, and Naruto ultimately beat the man that he couldn't…Sasuke turned the thoughts into frustration, and then channeled the frustration into motivation to train harder.

--

Hinata had always had dreams about the day she would come out of her shell, shattering her anxieties and knowing that from then on out she would be among the brave and outgoing. In many of her fantasies, it happened right after a battle, where she found the confidence to move forward and face her foe and from said confidence see a permanent shift in herself, becoming the girl she always knew she could be, the social butterfly, the warrior, the one who was popular with the boys but didn't care because she only had eyes for one…the fight had happened.

She had, just as she always fantasized, stepped up when it really counted, showing her strength and skill and defeating what she later learned to be a mid-ranked Fae. So why didn't the next part happen?

Talking to people was still terrifying. Her father's disapproving glare still shut her down and crushed her internally. That same, inexplicable oppressive atmosphere that no one else seemed to be able to feel was still there, making it feel like her voice had to push against a steel wall to get a word out, making her feel that every action was under intense scrutiny by those surrounding her, making her think of every tone and twitch in every little word before she could say anything, which then made her realize that she had taken too long to say it and now the timing was one of the things they'd be judging.

Why was battle so much easier than people? She thought as she slammed her Xiphos into a training dummy far harder than she needed to.

Speaking of people, Sakura of all individuals appeared in her general visual range, seeming to want to ask her something. Hinata fought off a blush as she dismissed the idea as stupid, as no one wanted to ask her anything, until Sakura proceeded to ask her something.

"Hinata, I was wondering. You know that I was adopted by Athena, and am basically an outborn Dodekatheon child, right?"

Hinata hesitated to find the right answer; what was offensive, what was clever, would just saying yes be too generic?

"Yes," she finally blurted out, probably a bit too forcefully, which Sakura did nothing to indicate judgement about even if Hinata's inner voice was certain that the other girl definitely was.

"Well, I was wondering if you could teach me to use Arete? I have the natural Ichor for it, but I never got an opportunity to learn it." Sakura looked down sheepishly. "I don't feel like I was as useful as my other bandmates on our last mission, and maybe this could help me?"

A perfectly reasonable request, about something she knew well enough, and could describe without thinking about it too much. Why weren't all requests like this?

"Absolutely. Which skill do you want to perfect?"

And so the two girls went on to have a surprisingly pleasant conversation.

--

While enjoying a bowl of ramen, Naruto was accosted by a group of children. Rather than the tormenters he was used to, these kids looked on him like some sort of older brother that was fun to mess with. Feigning anger when their ball was kicked into his back, he shouted "get over here," and then made a good show of chasing them when they did literally the exact opposite of what he had ordered.

Grabbing their ball and throwing it their way, he found himself in a rather different mood when he managed to smack it into Sakura's face (who had coincidentally been walking through the area when this all happened), which caused her to chase all of them in anger that was definitely not feigned.

All of their terror, complete with their lives flashing before their eyes and external demands for mercy, was put to a rapid halt outside the Pesedjet temples, where the oldest of the children ran into a man wearing strange, black clothing staring at the temple artwork.

"Watch where you're going, brat," the man growled, grabbing the boy and holding him by his neck.

"Hey, what do you think you're doing?" Naruto shouted at the weird man, indignant that he would bully a child in such a way.

"I'm teaching this kid some manners," was the response.

"Oh, yeah, well maybe I should teach you…"

"There is no need for this. Kankuro, let the boy down," a blonde girl who had been kneeling in front of the temple in what seemed to be prayer interrupted.

Sakura took the opportunity to look them over; a man in black clothing that seemed more suited for the desert than the Village's climate, with something strung over his back and a necklace made of miniaturized weapons and tools around his neck, with a sandy blonde girl wearing less clothing, though certainly clothing meant for a hot environment, with mismatched fishnets and oversized scrolls tied to her back.

Most notably, they were wearing headbands, but not the ones that Scions wore. Theirs had the same eye that marked Clan Pesedjet, but it was in a disk held up by a scarab beetle. Moreover, the man's held a staff under it, while the girl's had an elaborate symbol that Sakura found difficult to describe, maybe an abstract sarcophagus?

"You guys are Mummies, a Spirit Scepter and a Night Sun. What are you doing here?"

"Temari wanted to pay her respects to Osiris while we were in the area. You know, I never believed that the real Osiris was the one you guys claim adopted children here, but you do definitely have the masonry right," Kankuro answered, seeming to find joy in how he had evaded her question.

Temari interjected before Sakura could get mad, much to his annoyance. "We're here for the Rank Exams. It's surprising that you didn't know that, considering that you're Village is hosting them. What idiocy. If these are the real Gods, then I guess we can assume that neither of you are Thoth's children."

While she had been initially glad for the she-Mummy's intervention, Sakura found her frustration with these two growing rapidly.

Naruto, not really getting the insult, still understood that he had just been insulted and got mad accordingly. "What do you two know? You wanna go?"

Kankuro reached for the wrapped up thing on his back. "You know, maybe I do," and even though Temari looked like she wanted to stop the incident that she had just escalated, she did nothing until a voice called out, utterly calm yet disturbing.

"Kankuro, you're embarrassing yourself."

The two Mummies took on expressions of terror as a sickly looking child stepped out from seemingly nowhere. He was red-haired, had some Heiroglyph that Sakura didn't recognize tattooed on his head, and weirdly his headband didn't specify a Tem-Akh.

"Gaara, I-"

"Let's leave," the boy shut Kankuro down.

That would have been the end of that, had Gaara not turned around and stared at Naruto. As he stared, Naruto started to feel something within himself, something similar to what he felt against Haku, but this was more controlled. Do not test me, Flint-Scaled Serpent. Having no idea what that thought could possibly have meant, Gaara simply nodded at the boy and led the other two Mummies away.

--

Kakashi had a surprise for his students when they next met for training. "Tah-dah!" He shouted as he handed them pieces of paper.

"What's this?" Naruto asked.

"Paperwork, of course, the hallmark of any great Scion. My, I can remember the first day I was truly buried in paperwork, all dealing with tax write-offs and mission expenses. Thinking of the way I signed in triplicate, it just brings a tear to my eye."

Sakura and Sasuke had both taken the time to read the paper before asking questions about it, so they were too excited to express their frustration at either Naruto's foolish question or their teacher's frustrating habits.

"These are applications for the Rank Exams!" Sakura squealed.

Sasuke silently exuded his pleasure.

Naruto took a second to process her words.

"Wait, we get to become Demigods?"

"You get to be tested, and if you do well enough you'll become Upper Heroes or Lesser Demigods, or possibly Effective Demigods, depending on your Ichor levels."

"Uh-huh," Naruto nodded in response, very clearly trying to hide the fact that he didn't know what those were exactly.

Deciding to spare his student a little bit of embarrassment, "as everyone knows, but I just like to say for no reason, especially not to help Naruto," the other two snickered (he did think a little bit of embarrassment), "Demigod is a spiritual and sort of biological term, not merely a political rank. It means that you have enough Ichor in your body to overcome your human blood, not so much in physical amount of either, but, well, it means that you're more God than human. Effective Demigod means that you've earned all the political privileges of a Demigod even though you technically aren't, Upper Hero is a non-Demigod who's recognized as above his peers, and Lesser Demigod is exactly what it sounds like."

Nodding again in mostly genuine understanding, Naruto noted, "so we're going to taking the same test as those foreigners from earlier?"

"Not explicitly knowing who you're talking about, probably. Most Villages at peace send at least one Band or Brood or Wu or Coterie or Posse or whatever their Village calls it, so you'll be meeting a lot of people you wouldn't otherwise, and you'll be competing against them in three challenges. The first two change each year, and the last one is a series of duels between everyone who didn't fail the first two. I should warn you that these tests are rather dangerous, and all three of you are younger than most of the people there, so if you want to back out, I won't stop you…"

"There is no way in the coldest depths of the Underworld that I am backing out of this," Naruto responded, and his other bandmates seemed to agree.

"Good, I already bet money that you'd make it further than Gai's team. I am so proud of you for not letting my wallet down!" He let a false tear run down his face.

--

While Tenten and Neji were both heading towards the examination room with professionally tempered eagerness (and a lot of nervousness on Tenten's part), Rock Lee chose this moment to tell the world that the glory of his youth would finally have its moment to shine. They were pretty sure it was the world that he meant to tell, for it was certainly loud enough for all of it to hear.

Neji's new pet wolf whined in annoyance, prompting its master to let it know that it would get used to it, but things unfortunately weren't likely to get better with his bandmate.

"Lee," Tenten politely but firmly tried to tell him, "I know that you're excited, but-"

Tenten's admonition was interrupted by, unexpectedly, Lee shutting up of his own volition. Shocked at what could have caused such a shift in attitude, his two bandmates looked to see a group of three, one a girl with pink hair that Lee happened to staring at. Before they could inquire as to what this could possibly be about, Lee rushed forward and prostrated himself before the girl.

"Sakura, I, Rock Lee, humbly beseech you. Please go out with me!"

--

Sakura had spent large parts of her childhood thinking she was ugly and most of her adolescence desperate to get the attention of one specific boy who had shown no interest. Only one boy had actually shown romantic desire, and she had always found him an annoying pest.

Even acknowledging that Naruto's character had been of higher quality than expected once seen out on the field, she still held no real interest, and doubted his own feelings were genuine anyways. Thus, she wasn't actually certain how to deal with genuine male attention of this sort.

"Uh, I don't know you well enough," she tried to be polite about it. Naruto looked a little miffed, possibly thinking about how she was never that nice when turning him down, but said nothing.

"Very well, then I shall aid you in getting to know me! My name is Rock "Osiris" Lee, outborn Scion adopted by Osiris, given a surname by an orphanage as some type of 'reference joke,' which is apparently something of meaning to the World-That-Was. I enjoy training, working hard, perseverance, curry, and absorbing the wisdom of the great Guide Maito "John Henry" Gai. Some of my dislikes…"

"Lee, she rejected you! Take a hint!" Neji shouted, very clearly wanting to get on with the test.

Tenten was holding on to Lee's arm and trying to get him to come along. "We're really sorry about this."

Lee, oblivious, continued. "These are my bandmates, Neji and Tenten. I was put with them because Neji had the best scores of my graduating class while I had the worst, which has strengthened my resolve and made me determined to overcome him and prove myself as a Hero!"

"Hey, me too!" Naruto said, impressed by the boy that everyone else was cringing in second-hand embarrassment toward.

"Really, does that mean Sakura was the best in her graduating class! Oh, beautiful and talented! I see my love was not so misplaced, though I hoped that none of Neji's arrogance for having been placed into a similar situation has rubbed off on you…"

"Um, I had the best written scores, but Sasuke was actually the best overall."

Rock Lee looked to the taller of the two boys in Band 7. "Hmm, you have the cool bearing of someone born into greatness and fully aware of it, so you flaunt your greatness and look down on others rather than using it to lift them up!"

"I like this guy," Naruto noted.

Continuing with his tirade as Tenten's face and palm made a deeper connection, Rock Lee announced, "Sasuke, I challenge you to a fight, outborn failure who works hard versus genius with natural talent, we shall see what happens!"

"We don't have time for this!" Neji and Tenten simultaneously screamed.

Sasuke was somewhat affronted at this Lee weirdo's accusations, as while his natural talents were something he was proud of he worked hard to hone and perfect them, so, he agreed, preparing himself for a brief duel with this annoying upstart…where did that come from?

There were no visual cues that forewarned him of Rock Lee's fist before it struck into his face, impossibly fast…well, not impossible for a Scion, but impressive even by those standards.

"Any more fighting outside of approved areas will result in disqualification," someone shouted from above, which finally got through to Lee that he was partaking in an important Exam and really should listen when his bandmates asked him to go.

"Very well, we shall settle this at a more appropriate venue." Rock Lee ran off with his group, and Band 7 realized that they should probably follow them.

--

"Go in one group at a time," someone, presumably a proctor, was instructing the massive group of young (relatively speaking, in some cases) Supernatural Men, of a variety of kinds, all excited, nervous, and somewhat dangerous.

They all stood at the end of a hallway, in front of a massive set of doors. People came in. If one looked out the windows, one could see many of them going out, looking dejected or being escorted by proctors as they screamed and raged. Enough were evidently failing that it was disconcerting to look through said window, which is probably why they put it there. There weren't any other windows.

"Village Hidden in Masks, Coterie 4, go through." Sakura was mildly curious about checking out the Vampires, as she had never seen one before, but decided instead to focus on seeing who was here that she did know about. Reconnaissance on the others could wait. She did see the Mummies from before, and in fact they were called in not long after 'Coterie 4.'

"Village Hidden in Hekau, Affiliation 1, go through." The red-headed boy still creeped her out, so she was not sorry to see him go. Looking around further, she found that a lot of the people from her graduating class were there. Ino (with all the emotional baggage that that entailed between them),Shikamaru, Choji, Hinata, Kiba, Shino, it was exciting and disappointing.

She had thought that their encounter with Zabuza had been something notable that pushed them into this earlier than most, but apparently coming into the exams this soon after graduation was normal.

"Village Hidden in Legends, Band 7, go through."

Steeling herself, she stood side-by-side with Naruto and Sasuke, and pushed through the imposing doors. On the other side, after all that drama, was an old woman writing something on a desk.

"Sakura "Athena" Haruno, Sasuke "Amaterasu" Amatsukami, Naruto "Izanami"" her list of their names sounded like a question.

"Yes," they all answered somewhat uncertainly.

"After reviewing your applications and looking back over your qualifications, I don't think you should be given the first test. You fail. Better luck next time, take the doors to the side on your way out."

Naruto, of course, was furious. "What in the cold depths of the Underworld? You think you can just kick us out like that? Fail us, after 'reading our qualifications' and not bothering to see what we can do? Listen here, lady, I'm the strongest person, supernatural or otherwise, in this exam room, believe it, and I'm not about to sit here and let you say that some stupid piece of paper makes me have to leave!"

The woman looked up and repeated the same words verbatim. This made Naruto even madder and rant even harder, but it made Sakura look at her.

The way that she had said it didn't feel natural. Focusing on her pen, she saw that the woman was writing the exact thing over and over, not going further down the page. Looking at the room around them, she noticed that the wall opposite to where the doors they had been told to go through were located didn't cast a proper shadow, or any shadow at all, actually.

Ignoring Naruto's rants, who was getting up into the lady's face at this point, Sakura casually walked over and touched the wall without a shadow, only to find her hand going straight through it.

Sasuke followed her example, grunted, and then told Naruto, "come on, you idiot, before you get us kicked out. We have an Exam to finish."

--

Neither Kiba nor Shino's animals were fooled by the illusion, and Hinata noticed several oddities right away.

Choji and Ino panicked, the latter far more so than the former, as all their hopes of showing what they could do and possibly get a promotion were dashed before Shikamaru noted the improbability of them going through all of this just to let them know they'd failed, something they could have told them outside without bothering to bring them in as separate groups. Sure enough, the Band looked around for anything strange in the room, and quickly found the fake wall.

Lee's caustic rants of fury made Naruto look like he had gone through the whole experience calmly, with Tenten focusing on calming him down to suppress her own feelings of disappointment and Neji furious that they would waste his time when he simply could have been told outside, which made him wonder why they did choose to waste his time rather than simply telling him outside, which prompted him to listen to Remus Bane pointing him in the direction of a nearby wall.

--

The room past the illusory wall looked much closer to what one would expect of a testing area, which was bizarrely surprising in some ways, as they had all been looking forward to something shocking and threatening. In spite of the easy jokes one might make about academic testing, this was most definitely not what they were afraid of.

Sakura, one of the few excited by this prospect, stared around the room to see if anyone else was like her, but all she found were glares, not necessarily at the testing conditions but at the competition.

The Fae, whom she had always been led to believe were whimsical and fun-loving, were represented by one bitter young girl staring at the ground with disinterest and two much older looking Changelings staring at her in terror.

The several groups of Vampires, whom she had always slightly feared yet had an interest in, just stared at everyone, either bored or angry.

The Kue-Jin stood off on their own, keeping themselves sequestered from the rest of the room.

The only Mummies were the group she had run into earlier.

There were no Dragons or Demons at all, and the Angels somehow managed to look more bitter than the Vampires. Not being able to identify any of the Minor Villages besides Dreams, she had no idea of what several of them were, and so couldn't even begin to guess what powers lie behind those glares.

She did notice the Cowboys, who seemed far more self-assured than the others, the ones with the weird hats and blue pants smirking at the others and the red-skinned ones in the leather clothes and wearing feather headbands standing professionally. They were a bit relieving.

Far more relieving than most of the rest of her own Village, who were all older Heroes that seemed to resent the young pup among them.

"This is…uncomfortable," she noted to her bandmates.

Sasuke snorted. "They can glare all they want, it won't stop us from showing our superiority."

Naruto seemed to agree with the other boy's sentiment, but chose to express it to a far larger audience. "Heck yeah! Listen up, you, my name is Naruto "Izanami" and I'm going to be Great Kunitsokami one day, so all of you better get ready, because you haven't experienced anything like me!"

Many of the older ones looked at him with a mixture of disgust and contempt. A few of them started taking bets on 'when the idiot who just shouted at everyone' would fail, but there were too few putting money on anything past the first part for it to go anywhere. One of the Cowboys, for what it was worth, gave him a thumbs up.

While most of the other examinees quickly returned to whatever they were doing before Naruto interrupted them, one silver-haired Scion whose headband had the jaguar paw glowing walked up to them, a smile on his face. An Aztlanti?

Sakura had never met one before, and the history books had always been vague about them. Once one of the more powerful Clans, one of their Heads betrayed the Village and a lot of them left with him, but their teachers had always been vague about any details after that. He looked friendly enough, she supposed.

Holding out his hand in introduction, the cheerful man said, "Hello, Kabuto "Xipe Totec," real veteran of these exams after having failed them so many times I lost count. I'm always ready to help out some determined rookies."

Sasuke narrowed his eyes. "What could we possibly learn from a failure like you?"

Kabuto laughed. "A little here. A little there." His eyes narrowed. "I don't suppose any of you are familiar with Mystery or Prophecy?"

Sakura could practically recite the one paragraph the Academy textbooks dedicated to them, Sasuke had heard of them, and Naruto was utterly clueless. None of them had the slightest idea of how to use them.

"Well, Prophecy's a little dangerous to mess with, but just to make sure you don't end up a failure like me, why don't I read you a little Mystery?" He pulled out shards of what looked like a blackened mirror. "Some pieces of the Smoky Mirror itself, and before you ask, let's just say I can use it to gather some information on the people surrounding us. Who do you want to know about? What person sparks your interest? Maybe you just want to hear about the most dangerous member of an opposing Village, or someone you only know by nickname? I like to challenge myself with only the most obscure questions, you see…"

"Rock "Orisis" Lee," Sasuke interrupted. "Gaara, from the Village Hidden in Hekau," Sakura added on.

Kabuto frowned. "You know their names? That's no fun."

"And the weird girl with the Fairy Headband," Naruto pointed to the bitter looking Fae girl. "She gives me a weird feeling."

"Well, that's a little more fun."

--

Naruto would insist to himself that the rest of the room's response to his hasty admonition was not intimidating. However much a teenage boy's ego would lie, he was right in that it wasn't the primary thing intimidating him; that honor went to the weird feeling in his gut that reacted negatively to that Gaara kid and that weird 'Fay(?)' girl. In the very back of his mind, he could feel Mikaboshi getting annoyed. Flintscale and the White Maggot, together in the same room.

That was all Naruto could make out from the Titan Lord's thoughts, and they bothered him. Considering that the seal on his stomach had kept that creature quiet and docile for all of his life until recently, the prospect of anything getting it to talk had him on edge.

Thus, he was somewhat impatient when the weird guy with the weirder mirrors started shouting in a strange language that sounded like he was asking questions, especially when he started with the nice guy from earlier who bruised Sasuke's nose, and far more importantly his ego.

"An adopted child, technically the son of Osiris, never given a Birthright during his Visitation or trained in the Hekau Purview, so he is stuck to using Knacks, something which he's apparently invested in trying, as his skill with Knacks rivals that of some Upper Demigods."

Kabuto returned to his weird language before saying something that Naruto found himself far more interested in. "Gaara, not a Mummy but one in the eyes of the Law, relies entirely on supernatural energy, terrible at physical prowess, but his skill in said energy is enough that he's already gained fame for never being injured."

All three of them wanted more details, but Kabuto had already gone back to question the mirror. "Fuu, a Winter Person. That probably means something to the Fae, but the Mystery Purview is annoying about giving those kinds of answers. Incredibly powerful at Cantrips and not too shabby at power in combat, she apparently lacks finesse in either. She can blast you with her strongest stuff, but sucks with the weak things. Oh, and apparently the 'Kept' is watching over her, whatever that means."

Kabuto stood up, picking up the pieces of the Mirror. "Well, that's all the questions I could get out of this use. I wish you luck, oh, and watch out for that new Village, the Village Hidden in Sacrifice. Something tells me that they might be a little more dangerous than they appear."

--

Terms:

Mummy-someone who, upon their death, was given an offer to come back to life with a piece of an ancient soul to alter their flaws

Spirit Scepter-mummy with the 'artistic and creative' piece of an ancient soul

Night Sun-mummy with the 'spiritual and dedicated' piece of an ancient soul

Tem-Ahk: division of Mummies based on which part of an ancient soul was added to them

Cowboy-a person exposed to a Manitou, granting them either unnatural skill with a specific weapon, to physics-defying levels, or one of various forms of folk magic

Kue-Jin: someone who would have reincarnated or entered a few specific Underworlds upon their death, but instead chose to come back as a semi-immortal walking corpse living off others' qi

Coterie/Affiliation/Wu/Posse/Flock-team of Vampires/Mummies/Kue-Jin/Cowboys/Angels

Aztlanti- the "Aztec" Gods

Mystery Purview-allows the user to invest Ichor in order to ask a question into the void and receive an accurate, though rarely detailed or informative, answer

Smoky Mirror-device that supposedly allows the Aztlanti in the Overworld to see all