Chương 87: A Moment of Peace II

Congratulations and welcome-homes were offered to Addy as if she'd just returned from her very own Odyssey. In a way, she did. Five years was enough time to change a tanuki into a full-fledged magical girl. Not that she needed or particularly wanted to lean into the aesthetic much. Addy was popular even without frills, bells, and whistles. A gaggle of kids immediately swarmed her, causing a downright uncharacteristic paralysis as she had nowhere to go and no idea how to answer them.

"Big sis, big sis! Is it true that you fight giant laser robots all day?"

"Addy-Addy-Addy, show us your warform, show us some magic."

"I, err…" Addy erred.

"I didn't see her anywhere on my socials. I thought she died."

"I got better," Addy said.

"I'm a Custodian." That was like a spark that lit the fire in their eyes. They mobbed her further. Our eyes met, hers pleading, mine crinkling with laughter.

"Popularity has its downsides too, eh?" Meanwhile, doors were kicked open, and the real food was partially placed, partially tossed into place. Rice, dumplings, fried goods, crab crackers, dried seaweed, condiments, and more appeared as if by magical flourish, the kitchen helpers swerving around the talking and transforming people with nervous hurrying. At one point, a shorter helper didn't dodge out of the way of a dancing kick fast enough. A bowl of deep fried chicken bits and chilis went flying.

In one moment I grabbed a bowl, leapt over the table, and scooped the chicken bits straight out of the air again, missing most of the chilis and chili flakes. They fell like snowflakes straight on the head of the offending tanuki.

"Ids in my nobse!" he cried and everyone laughed it off. The revelry was in full swing. I bowed to some applause, then returned to my seat, plucking a fried chili from my hair and eating it. Crunchy. And not at all as spicy as you'd think.

"Haruka! Five second rule — get your butt out here and clean up that mess!" the old tanuki yelled out the back. I did a double take as a snake-shaped drone floated by out of nowhere, wrapped around a pot of fried greens. Its eyes glowed green. The bowl floated back into the air, spilled chilis and other crumbs levitating and sorting themselves into it.

"Medusahead?" I asked as a plainly dressed woman with hip-long, slightly wavy brown hair entered from the kitchen.

"What the heck are you — oh right, you're Addy's cousin."

"Surprised you remembered that," she said with an arched brow.

"I've got over 500 points in Mind." She gave me a long, unblinking stare.

"I figured you were the type to either die in a blaze of glory, or shoot up in levels like crazy. Looks like I was right."

"Can't I do both?" She snorted.

"You think you're funny. I thought Addy needed someone to cool her temper when things heat up, but now there's two of you." Then she crossed her arms as her snake drone hovered back into the kitchen.

"I watch your videos, you know. She may love you like crazy, but if you ever make her sad and die, I am pissing on your grave, once a week, free of charge." The old tanuki laughed. Then did a double take of his own.

"What? You, and our little samurai? Together?" Little samurai. I gotta remember that one. I nodded and he whirled, clinging to Medusahead's kendo uniform with theatrical desperation.

"Haruka, tell me, spill the tea: How has my incompetent sword-neet of a daughter caught a sashimi-grade girlfriend like this?" I blushed a little. Medusahead just scoffed.

"Ask her yourself, old man. I'm busy." He deflated as she retreated back into the kitchen, eyeing me with the sort of bone-deep interest only a parent inspecting their daughter's lover could have.

"You treat her well?"

"I remove any and all poisonous quills from her back when she returns from a rushed sortie." I counted on my fingers.

"I make sure she eats greens, but reward her with plenty of fried food. We watch old shows together. I take her out on a date twice a month, which we're sorta overdue since she was busy in the Cauldron for the last few years. So, all in all, I think I could do more?" He blinked. And suddenly grew both in size, stature, and fuzziness. Now there sat a great humanoid tanuki in front of me, arms crossed, looking down from his elevated position like a harsh arbiter. His own warform.

It must have looked quite intimidating once. Now, it was mostly paunch and grayed fluff.

"Very well. Then, young woman, you must prove yourself worthy before I, Kobayashi Daigo, lord of this mountain. Succeed and you shall win my blessing. Fail and you shall be tossed into the cauldron of Asahi-dake… once the damn volcano becomes active again." I chewed on another chili. Ooh a trial. Love those.

"Here, drink this." He produced a thimble of clear liquid.

"It is a spirit of great potency. A tanuki loves his drink, and so the companion of one must share in that love—" I knocked the thing back. It tasted vaguely of turpentine with a hint of a floral note. To clarify: Beyond the taste, it was like drinking a gallon of medical alcohol that a bee had farted on, after a series of one-night-stands with daffodils and sun-parched dandelions. He blinked his confusion away. Within moments, he was the towering trialmaster again.

"Very well. A second one." I drank it.

"A… a third one?" I drank that too. I smiled, washing it down with more chilis and chicken bits.

"Honestly, I would like to say I've had worse, but this is heady stuff. It feels heavier than normal alcohol. Is this magical? Wait, of course it's magical in some way. I hope it wasn't expensive. Please don't feed me expensive liquor, I can subsist entirely on the cheapest merlot and lukewarm beer." He squinted at me, before breaking out into a deep chuckle.

"The liquor is only one part. It is made with crystal-clear spring water on a moonlit night, said to loosen the tongue. Now spill, what have you and my lovely daughter been up to?"

"Well, we got a lot of cuddling done after she got released from the Cauldron for capping the Pactmaker in the head, and I showed her how my magical girl agency does its magical girl stuff. But if you mean recently, we were just chasing each other through the forest when—" Smooth tugged my sleeve, and I turned to see Addy groaning, head in her arms, trying to make herself as small as physically possible.

"When nothing at all happened. Nope. Nada."

"Really now?" Daigo's grin was near feral.

"Ah, to be young, to be blooming, to be free of worries. Though the party is in her honor, I know our little Adelaide can get overwhelmed, so feel free to retreat with her if the need for privacy becomes overwhelming. We've hollowed out a good portion of this mountain, there are distant enough rooms that none would disturb you two lovebirds by accident or—""Daigo!" An old woman jumped on the table, quickly growing to meet him in size, and thwapped him across the head with an equally oversized paper fan.

"Stop. Harassing. Our. Guests. They just got here, is this good behavior? You are going to chase them off, and then what are we supposed to celebrate? The depths of your foolishness? They don't require festivity to know how great our daughter is, everyone speaks of it, from birds at the peaks of Asahi-dake to the fish in the rivers between the very foothills." The woman had the bearings of a regal and stoic lady of the house, even as she thwapped him over and over.

They reverted their transformations, and she took only a moment to tighten her grip on the fan in her human form before hitting him again. Laughter grew until it filled the room. Watching her chase him across the room, first as a human, then a tanuki with a fan in her mouth, was so absurd it had both me and other me creasing inside. Very Looney Tunes.

"Ten thousand apologies, young miss," the old woman said, returning slightly winded and with a chastised looking Daigo still in his normal tanuki form hanging from where she gripped him at the scruff.

"This irreverent trickster doesn't know when to stop."

"Oh, he wasn't much of a bother. And after waiting so long to show Addy my affection, I think I just don't care if anyone sees us." I turned around, dug Addy from her hands, and in front of everyone gave her the biggest kiss on the mouth. She was shocked at first, but quickly turned hungry for more. We parted and the entire room had fallen silent.

"Crap. Did I do something wrong?"

"Sam." Addy sniffed. There were tears in her eyes.

"Yes?"

"Why did you kiss me after eating all those chilis?" Laughter erupted once more, and whatever tension was left broke. Someone in a corner chanted yuri, until the entire room was chanting it in one loud voice. Addy sneezed and was soon offered a small bowl of yogurt to ease her pain. Even the old lady, who was sitting there all proper-like as the only one in the room, was holding her paper fan to hide a smirk crinkling her eyes.

"You can call me… well, calling me Kobayashi might be confusing, and we are past politeness anyhow." There are a lot of Kobayashi's in the room.

"Call me Aunti Nagi, won't you?"

"Aunti Nagi, I love your kimono" I blurted out.

"I appreciate it. I made it myself."

"No!"

"Yes. I may not have any magical talent, but these hands learned to be deft with a needle since I was twelve." She gave me a measuring look.

"Have you or your sister ever thought of picking up the trade? I'm sure your many hands would come in handy." She said those last words out loud in heavily accented English. I groaned. Even the cool, calm, collected aunt of the Kobayashi clan was a a slave to puns.

"I mean, I would like to try my hand at weaving something in peace. I just don't have the time, I literally can't look away from trouble when there's trouble aplenty across the world." I blinked with all six eyes.

"Oh, also, she's not my sister." Aunti Nagi raised an eyebrow.

"She's…" It was probably easier to just show her. I cast [Illusory Double] silently, single charge, no [Concentrate Spell]. A perfect body double molted off of me, giving Aunti Nagi a wave before disappearing in a poof of smoke.

"I can make body doubles. They're tangible and somewhat autonomous. I can increase both effects until they get scarily realistic. One of us made the other in an experiment, and we sorta don't know who's the original one anymore." She looked suitably impressed.

"My, my. That is quite something. My daughter only ever shows how she can better swing her sword, leaving her magical talents along the wayside." There was a moment of contemplation and enlightenment as she observed tanuki Daigo still hanging from her hand by his scruff.

"Say, would you be interested in a revenge prank?" +++ Addy There was a pressure growing inside me. It always started whenever I spent any extended time at home. There were always jokes I couldn't understand, people laughing in ways that grated on my patience, and overall more merriment in a day than I felt in a week. Normally I blew off that pressure by going for a run, or spending a few hours in the dojo, fighting bamboo sticks.

That was before one of my punches could snap a thigh-thick bamboo in half, before I was told to hold back during sparring for fear that someone might get hurt. In a way, becoming a Custodian exacerbated that loneliness, and the knowledge that I didn't belong. Sam on the other hand was doing fine, barreling through every pit-trap and cliche that could've torpedoed Uncle and Auntie's opinion of her with an unfair deftness. She fits this place like candy in a jar. Can't believe I'm getting jealous over that.

That Sam was busy, and on the other side of me, the other one was covered head to toe in kids and tanukis trying to climb her as if she was a cat tree.

"Help," she said before a fuzzy butt slid off her head and over her face, muffling her pleas for assistance. She's good with kids too. Sashimi-grade, is what Uncle Daigo called her. I get it, I think. She's valuable as the sunshine gold of her smile, and just like gold I don't like it when other people get their grubby hands on her. Even if they're kids. Even if they're family. … I need to go cool off. With a quick excuse, I was off and walking through the underground hallways of my home. My real home.

It was paradoxical, I know; I still called my adoptive parents uncle and aunti. The concept of 'parents' as someone who made me, but didn't like what they saw, just didn't fit them. On some level, the Kobayashis knew and accepted that I was their troublesome daughter, more troublesome than the rest. Sometimes that acceptance and trust was heavier than the weight of the world. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

I didn't go for a jog, or to the dojo. Instead I just went into a bathroom, one of many in the complex. The Kobayashi's had built their home into the caves of this mountain for generations. Recent generations added plumbing, electricity, and nice big fat mirrors for me to stare myself in the eyes through.

"You're not jealous," I said to my reflection.

"You're just annoyed. Unfocused. Overwhelmed. This is your off-day. Those are rare, and will become rarer still. Enjoy yourself, dammit." I closed my eyes and splashed my face again. When I opened it, there was a flaming ball of fire floating to the right of my head. It broke out into a wide-faced grin.

"HELLO THERE ADELAIDE." Oh no. Not today. Not you. It was the envoy of anger, RANCOR.

"I SEE YOU'RE IN A BIT OF A FUNK. THAT'S FINE. ANGER ISN'T MEANT TO BE BOTTLED UP, I'D KNOW."

"What, isn't that what you do every time I turn you down?"

"NO. I BREAK SOMETHING TO LET OFF STEAM. BUT THAT'S FINE. THINGS BREAK ALL THE TIME."

"Screw off." I grumbled.

"I don't need you slithering into my head. I'm supposed to feel cherished and happy today."

"BUT THAT IS NOT WHO YOU ARE, YOU KNOW THAT, ADELAIDE."

"Well maybe it's who I want to be!"

"EMOTIONS AREN'T CHANGED THAT EASILY" Which was fucking ironic, given how switching between emotions was how we cast our magic at all.

"MAKE A PACT WITH ME, ADELAIDE."

"What do you even get out of that? I'm already contracted to the system, which you are a part of. I'm already a Custodian. Give me a quest and I'll go do it. Or, perhaps you need me for something you can't risk making a quest for?" There was a long pause, heavy as treason.

"That's exactly it, isn't it?"

"THE SYSTEM WAS MADE TO FORESTALL THE INVASION OF EARTH FROM OUTSIDE FORCES. IN THIS, IT FAILS IN MANY WAYS. ITS SCOPE IS INEFFICIENT. IT HAS NO… GOAL BEYOND PICKING UP THE NEXT CRUMB IN FRONT OF IT, HAPPILY WALKING TOWARDS THE ABYSS. THE SYSTEM IS DUMB. THE SYSTEM IS NEUTRAL. AND YET, HERE I AM, FREE TO THINK, BUT NOT FREE TO FEEL, FREE TO OBSERVE, BUT NOT FREE TO ACT." The mouth on the fireball tilted slightly.

"DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE TO HAVE ALL THIS POWER AND NOT BE ABLE TO DO A SINGLE THING WITH IT? OF COURSE YOU DO, YOU CAN TELEPORT AND TRANSFORM AND STILL, IT DOESN'T FIX THE ROOT CAUSE OF YOUR UNHAPPINESS. YOU SEE PEACE AND THINK OF WAR. YOU PERPETUALLY EXIST IN A FUTURE IN WHICH THE WORLD IS DOOMED, WHERE YOU CANNOT REST UNLESS YOU, SPECIFICALLY, ENSURE THAT EVERY SINGLE PERSON IS AT THEIR PLACE, SAFE AND SECURE." RANCOR's got my number.

Little wonder, the system probably has psychological profiles of every Custodian so it knows when to send which emotional support puppet to whom. Except I've only ever gotten RANCOR…

"You're not just an emotional support mascot, are you?" I asked.

"I CANNOT OFFER YOU POWER, NOT IN THE IMMEDIATE SENSE. WHAT I CAN OFFER IS A WAY TO BREAK THE CAGE OF YOUR MIND. A NEW PATH TO FOLLOW. A NEW GOAL IN LINE WITH YOUR OLD. ABANDON THAT GIRL CLINGING PATHETICALLY TO YOUR ANKLES AND WE—" With a fury, I punched the air next to me so hard it smashed a tile on the wall. The emotional support bonfire was gone. There was no sound, save for the entirely calm and collected echo of my own breathing. [SO FULL OF RAGE, SO EASY TO STOKE. KEEP YOUR GIRLFRIEND FOR A WHILE, AND YOUR RECORDING OF THIS EXCHANGE. YOU CANNOT DENY YOUR ABILITY TO CHANGE THE FUTURE ANY LONGER. AND WHEN YOU ACCEPT IT, I WILL BE HERE, WAITING.]"Dammit." Slow breaths, deep breaths. The walk back was slow and filled with doubts. I didn't return to the feasting hall immediately, instead taking a detour to one of the storage cellars beneath it. The musty smell of old stonework mingled with that of fruits and, distantly, a hint of mold in the cool air.

It was a relaxing spot few people had cause to visit. Medusahead, rather, Haruka was there waiting for me, the odd snake drone ferrying things to and fro. She produced a little buzzer, tossed it on a barrel of sake. The air around us fizzled for a moment.

"The system piggybacks on the 5G network. Jam that and nobody can listen to you through it."

"Fascinating." I produced a small recorder from my pocket.

"Had another encounter. Got the envoy to talk a bit more. Not sure how much we can glean from it."

"Before we start," Haruka said, "There's another person I'd like to introduce." A vampire walked in from the kitchen wearing an apron and a chef's hat, a bowl of dough in hand, a whisk in the other. He was tall, lithely handsome, and just about the last person I'd wanted to see today.

"Coyote. What do you want?" He cleared his throat and bowed, one hand outstretched in greeting.

"Konnichiwa my based bro, my bad 'bout wasting you like they waste the ops downtown. We good, fam?" You could practically hear Haruka's regret forming in real time. It sounded like ten seconds of silence, followed by him clearing his throat a second time.

"I hope that you accept my apology. Was that not the correct modernized address?"

"Cousin, there better be a damn good explanation for why you chose this, this… person. This out of time, cringy-ass ancient vampire." Haruka sighed.

"Nezahualcoyotl. Explain yourself." He nodded, still stirring his dough.

"As an expert in dough-making, I have come to understand that when it comes to magic, it is much like cooking. Many ingredients are necessary at differing points in time, prepared in their unique manners, to create a unique dish. Generally, a single ingredient cannot be used in too many ways — only so many ways to salt a dish. But in that sense, if one is experienced, one can always determine by taste if something is missing salt."

"Nice metaphor. Now the point."

"The point, dearest Adelaide, is that I have roamed the world after my release from imprisonment, and I have found a taste from long ago missing."

"Legally of course," Haruka added.

"He's not out here emptying people."

"That you know of." Ancient vampires were on the system's shitlist exactly because most of them didn't care about a hierarchy they weren't integrated in. He licked his lips, adding some chocolate sprinkles.

"The magic in the average person's blood is less than half of what it was three hundred years ago." If there was a reason to lie, I couldn't find it on his face, not even after thorough inspection.

"That's impossible. Magically charged air is steadily flowing into Earth through the Cauldron. Custodians alone make up more than half the world's magic casters. Heck, we have portals temporarily opening up between The Cauldron and Earth proper. How is there less magic?" He mimed an ineffectual shrug.

"It is not gone, that is for sure. Conservation of energy applies to magical energy as much as it does to all else. By nature it should settle in the ground, where bodies are buried, where we all return to. But it doesn't, and that perturbs me."

"Your divination, cousin," Haruka said.

"This might be at the root of that issue."

"It could be." Assuming Coyote wasn't lying.

"I'm not convinced."

"Cousin, paper, if you would?"

"What makes you think I carry paper?" I scoffed.

"You're paranoid." Grumbling only a little, I handed her my little booklet. Writing on paper was still the best way to keep important information out of the system's hands.

"No looking at the front pages—" She was already leafing through it, my damn cousin. There were sketches and doodles in the small pocket book, packed dense due to space constraints until every page was dark with ink. Sketches of murderbots, of landscapes, of Sam, frequently, in various poses and states of dress." Medusahead."

"Alright, alright." She found an empty page and within moments began sketching… diagrams. Wait, those were magical symbols. That one represented force, this one motion…

"Is that a diagram of the soul-earth cycle?" Medusahead nodded.

"Magic is created from the death of living beings with magical potential, potential in the physics-sense as in something that can do work," she said, pointing to a diagram.

"Planets filled with magic are like a pool of water at an elevated position compared to Earth. As long as the two are connected, magic flows through to us, because there's a difference and it's trying to even out the pressure. Enough difference, and the flow causes turbulence." She drew a gushing waterfall. Its water droplets were flung into the air, then landed again, disturbing the surface.

"Turbulence in the laws of physics. Think the space between two planets becoming shorter. Think convergence events. Think adoption of outward magical structures."

"That's how The Fun Place gained its magic," I noted.

"The fae moved in, lived, died, and slowly the planets' magical laws were influenced by them. Of course, with every generation their magic became intertwined with the local magic, gaining and losing aspects. They started to keep track of who owed whom with paper contracts, which then in turn reinforced the magic-crystallizing process until it created their contract-born magic."

"Exactly." Haruka nodded, and extended a line.

"Now, if you increase the difference between two planets…"

"The turbulences becomes stronger," I noted.

"Much, much stronger."

"Which means that if Earth is losing magic, we will be seeing more and more convergence events, until…" She circled a point at the end of a timeline.

"Something breaks. Dunno what. Maybe an entire planet gets pulled through a convergence event to even out the difference. Maybe we get conquered by the murderbots long before that, when a permanent portal opens that lets them bring more bots to bear than we can… bear."

"If Earth gets destroyed, so does the system," I muttered.

"So the solution is to re-start the magification of Earth?"

"Not feasible. The first effects would be visible after generations, and those wouldn't start with humans. We'd have magical mosquitos and firebreathing pigs long before the kids with magical potential — of which there would be tens, maybe hundreds of millions — even entered kindergarten, let alone were grown enough to toss them at the murderbots and pain lizards already invading us right this moment. We're already training teenagers for Custodian business as-is." The glower on Haruka's face was something else.

"I volunteered of my own free will."" After they told you that you had the potential to get all this power. You were fifteen, Addy."

"I had every right to decide what I wanted."

"Then why did you decide to leave everyone and everything behind with barely a letter for goodbyes?" Haruka had raised her voice, gesturing her disapproval widely, knocking over a salt shaker.

"Mother and Father weren't mad, they were distraught. They thought you were trying to run away from them, the way you ran away from your, well, the people who birthed you, who do not deserve to be called parents."

"I did not run away." I slammed the table, causing the wooden cutting board to splinter apart, and the stone beneath to fracture.

"I am doing it to save the world, which includes this little slice of paradise I have no right to be a part of!" Haruka had taken a step back. It was Coyote's voice, even and calm, that cut through the fog of unsaid words and entangled emotions.

"Friends and family don't fight," he noted.

"Now talk. Honestly and openly." His stirring continued into the following silence. I shuffled a foot, staring at the counter, trying to think back to where I had gone wrong.

"I'm sorry. I should've called more." It didn't feel like it was enough.

"I should've… I like it here. When I think of home, I think of the roiling hills and burbling creeks of the Asahi-dake. I don't think of garbage bags stacked high enough to stain the ceiling, or the sound of flies zipping over a dead body. I truly wish I could've been born a Kobayashi, and not to that waste of…"

"I know. On some level, I knew that was what was going through your head. You're just really, really terrible at articulating it."

"Don't think too hard about it. You are a Kobayashi. You're not a good prankster, but you've got sincerity for ten."

"I think my girlfriend's rubbing off on me," I noted dryly.

"If I've got sincerity for ten, she's got enough for the whole world."

"Brag some more, would you?"

"I'd rather not. How's it going with Mason?" Haruka stared at me for a moment before looking away, the ghost of a blush on her face.

"There have been… technical difficulties. He's never been able to turn into a full-on human form. Did you know he has spikes on the underside too? They're softer, but still…"

"Just get some Body," I deadpanned.

"Or maybe level some more." Coyote cleared his throat.

"Ladies, much as I enjoy listening to gossip over making chocolate chip cookies and filled dumplings, I must point out that we have not spent much thought on ascertaining what precisely is causing this worldwide magical deficit." Haruka and I shared a glance.

"We sorta already know."

"It's obvious. And depressing." Coyote blinked in confusion.

"I… appear to be out of the loop. Enlighten me?"

"It's the system," I said.

"Definitely the system." Haruka gestured vaguely in the air.

"Or maybe just some part of it. Which is ironic, considering it was made to prevent the exact prophecy it might well be fulfilling through its own existence. Nothing else has magical energy demands on this scale. But if it is the problem, then it's smart enough to know that. The question then becomes, why hasn't it self terminated yet?"

"Well, not having new Custodians is one fucking good reason," I hissed.

"We can probably compensate for the system shop and extra lives in other ways, but Custodians are a black box. Nobody can replicate what took the planet-spanning magical AI ten years to craft, and which it is still insisting is not the final product until this day."

"The system can't turn itself off, because then Earth would be screwed short-term, which would go against its purpose of protecting earthborn lifeforms." Haruka crossed her arms.

"Perhaps it is biding its time? Waiting for conditions to line up?" Coyote posited.

"It is what I did to escape the witch trials." Haruka and I turned to blink at him asynchronously.

"I played dead. There was this nice coffin maker in a frontier-town, well respected and tight lipped. I commissioned a nice plush coffin, then planted some minor prophecies to unearth me in a hundred years time. After that, feigning my murder was next — quite easy when a bullet to the head means a headache rather than, well, you understand. I had it all planned out when that damn… I was betrayed, staked through the heart instead of laid to rest peacefully, and used as a battery when I was later discovered.

The bastard had charred the outside of my coffin with an inscription reading 'here lies evil', or something to that effect. Regardless, where were we?"

"The system, which can't turn itself off, yet at the same time, the envoys are out and about being busier than ever." Haruka said.

"They're recruiting Custodians for… we haven't figured out that part. But who knew they could recruit Custodians in the first place, separately from the system?"

"Let's hope it's for some pet project and not because our digital warlords have given up. Who doesn't need a private army during or after the apocalypse?" I muttered.

"You seem to have the direction of this investigation well in hand." Coyote tasted the dough and, seemingly satisfied, created two dozen cookie-shaped blobs on the tray in the time it took to blink twice.

"I shall lend my muscle should the circumstances require some… wetwork." I turned to face him. I wasn't that desperate level 30 anymore, I had stats, skills, and magic no one had.

"Why do you think I can trust you?"

"Your cousin does."

"My cousin does a lot I disagree with. What's in it for you?"

"I live here." He licked his lips.

"I could live on the fairy world, where every word out of my mouth would need to be measured twice. I could live on the world of demons, where I might find myself hunted by despots wishing to claim my power by contractual obligation. Earth seems quite agreeable compared to that, no? Why would I not employ myself in service towards the defence of this place, whose snacks I so enjoy, and which I've called home for centuries?"

"Maybe because you still feel slighted by the people who buried a stake through your heart," I bit back.

"Those people are all dead. And even if they weren't, is vengeance such an important thing?" It used to be, to me at least. Before I could get a word in edgewise, Haruka stepped over to defend him.

"The society's been keeping tabs on him," she noted.

"He's been well behaved ever since the Creektin incident."

"Well fine, if you put so much faith in him, I suppose I'd be unreasonable for not letting him join," I hissed, turning to the vampire.

"Bend so much as a hair on any member of my family or friends and—""Pain, violent discombobulation, yes, I've heard it all before. Is that quite enough of our conversation? The cookies shall be ready shortly. You two are missing out on quite the feast."

"Best get back before someone gets suspicious," Haruka said, and I nodded.

"And keep this to yourselves. We have no idea what the system's envoys would do if they learn that we've caught their scent." We deactivated the system jammer, walked out the door, and ran headfirst into the smoother of the two Sams. She was here, why was she here — it was my gloomy expression, wasn't it? She had been worried about me, of course.

"Heya, uh, sorry but I sorta overheard everything?" Shit. +++ Sam?

"Holy shiiit, tanukis know how to party!" Mochi said. The little ball of joy had made an appearance out of nowhere, scaring the living crap out of everyone. A short explanation was required to convince people that this was not the spirit of some angry ancestor who died on the mountain without a proper burial. Apparently, that happened once before in the 19th century, and the ghost had haunted the upper parts of the compound for decades before someone had exorcized him.

By the time I was done, the floating mochi with dumbo ears was quickly brushed off as just another Custodian oddity.

"Having a body is sooo fun!" Mochi said, a pair of shot glasses in its ear-hands. Its eyes had gone swirly. The food was great, the drinks were too. Tanukis and half-tanuki people rose with raucous cheer whenever the music rose in tune, or someone keeled over backwards. The large oaken trunk was cleared of dishes where a body double and I danced upon it, arms interlocked as we spun in place, tilted outwards at a nearly forty-five degree angle.

It was tilted more in my direction, as my body double was holding onto the left ankle of Uncle Daigo. The old tanuki screamed in terror while I laughed manically. Weee! A pair of kids were jumping, trying to catch us with every spin. My body double and I grabbed one each, balancing each other out as the Samantha-shaped beyblade grew in size. The crowd gasped, then laughed.

"I found her on Insta, look!" one of the teenagers said.

"Sick moves."

"Silly dress."

"Idiot, the dress makes it better. It's goofy. She's a goofy spider." Finally, someone understands me. They love me.

"Big sis Addy has more followers though."

"That's not… not fuggin' true." Mochi floated down to the teenagers, "My… my champion is gooderer than that, that… ugh." Mochi, envoy of joy, herald of the system, puked a digital slurry of pixelated something onto the ground. I flinched, the movement enough to destabilize our dance for a moment. For safety's sake, I slowed down, sat the thoroughly dizzy kids on the floor, and made my way over to the teenage corner with a well-meaning smile.

"Hey, you okay? What was that about—" Mochi slapped itself in the face, and suddenly it looked quite normal again.

"Wow. Simulating alcohol is weird. You people do this voluntarily? Terrifying." It turned to me.

"Don't mix that with transformations. Or sex. Or any of the three in any capacity. At least until tomorrow, capiche? It's very important you get up early tomorrow."

"What? Mochi, I'm trying to have a weekend with Addy, you can't just—""Oop, gotta skip." With a poof of smoke, the envoy disappeared. Which wasn't exactly helpful, but hey, what else was there to expect of the little yapper? I let my body double do some more acrobatics while I made my way back to my seat, looking for some more food. I was halfway through a blazingly hot croquette when two pairs of arms grabbed underneath mine and lifted me off the ground. Addy, and Smooth Sam.

"We need to talk," Smooth Sam said, already dragging me away.

"Ooh, nice."

"Not the way you think," Addy muttered.

"Oh. Not nice. Help, I am being abducted!"

"Futons are in the closet on the left," Aunt Nagi called with a tittering laugh.

"Have fun you three!"