Despite my wishes to just decompress after that mess, I only managed to rest for about ten minutes or so before Lara requested my help in recovering Captain Roth’s body.

When the rest of the survivors saw what we were doing, said retrieval turned into sweeping the entire island for friends or family. We looked for any living survivors, with suggestions from Luna and Dinah, but we ended up only finding a few corpses. I suspected that the problem was the undead Samurai who we had seen collecting corpses. Hell, even with Taylor’s ability to scan for bodies with her bug sense, we struggled to find anything. Even the three corpses of the cultists we had interrogated then disposed of were gone.

So in the end, after seven hours of looking, we ended up only finding three more alive expedition survivors, four hermits hiding away from everyone, and one more mostly innocent cultist. The reality of the situation was sobering.

Apparently, the ship had left port with 52 people, including 18 full-time crew members, 14 people who were part of Dr. Whitman’s Yamatai expedition, and an additional two research groups doing various ocean surveys with 20 people all together. That triple booking didn’t really surprise me, as the shipowners would have booked as many people as they could and the ocean survey could be done while Dr. Whitman searched for Yamatai.

In the end we had managed to save Lara, Angus, Captain Roth, and Sam plus 12 in the cave, 8 more from the Samurai, and three more in our final sweeps. Seeing as Captain Roth later died, we only managed to save 23 out of the 52 original expedition members. So less than half. Then again, the game implied it was just Lara and her three remaining friends that made it off the island, so I guess the bar was set pretty low.

Plus, we had also managed to rescue three from the coast guard rescue teams and the four hermits along with two redeemable cultists. So that was a success and we had done some good here…

Or, that was what I had to keep telling myself as I practiced the memory charm on two of the semi-sane cultists we found. Slowly wiping away parts of their mind felt pretty monstrous and I had to remind myself that they deserved it, and it was to keep my family safe.

The memory charm was interesting and actually had three possible effects. It also wasn’t as straightforward to perform as I had hoped. The actual wand motion was fairly easy, I only had to focus on what I wanted to erase and then perform a little swish and stab before saying ‘obliviate’. However, understanding exactly what I wanted to remove was often difficult unless it was erasing something I had seen as well.

For instance, short term memories of things that had just happened such as erasing the memories of meeting one of my girls a few minutes after they introduced themselves was actually fairly easy. Easy enough that all of my girls eventually tried it and were able to successfully cast it. That included Amy, despite her continued reluctance to do anything involved with the brain.

That actually was an interesting point as well. The fact that our memories had traveled with us when we had swapped bodies proved that consciousness and memories were somehow at least partially contained within the soul. That made me carefully watch the cultist’s soul as we memory charmed him. For the short term memories the magic just seemed to reach out and smooth the outer layer of the soul. Meanwhile Amy just noticed a small cluster of cells in the brain she said correlated to the short term memory going dark.

It made sense that the magic targeted both, but it did make me nervous about the long term memories.

My fear were justified, as erasing long term memories instantly proved to be significantly more difficult. In order to erase those memories, I still needed to know roughly what I wanted to erase which was tricky. That was on top of the fact that the required magic and mental focus jumped by an order of magnitude. Enough magic that erasing memories of the middle aged man’s high school girlfriend made me feel like I had just run a mile.

Well, a mile before Amy had improved our bodies to the point where a mile had become trivial.

It was actually a little surprising as the cultist could barely remember her in the first place. In fact he only vaguely remembered her face and name which wasn’t surprising as he had spent the last 20 years on this damn island.

When I tried to push further, I found that erasing his high school memories all together was apparently outright impossible for me at this point. It might be possible later, but I just didn’t have the magic yet.

Yet as I watched the effects in my soul sight I noticed the obliviate spell reach out and just tear out a small section of the outer layer of his soul then, for lack of a better term, the spell sanded down the edges as well. Amy confirmed that several tiny sections in his long term memory also went dark. She actually almost went into a fugue watching the neurons going blank. I didn’t understand it, but watching the pattern the memory had created in his brain had given her quite a bit more insight into how memories were stored as it wasn’t a continuous section. Instead it was small sections and connectors all over the place.

We also paid attention to the effects the memory spells had on the subjects. When erasing the short term memories, the cultist behaved like I expected. He became extremely suggestible as to what was going on and seemed to believe whatever we said even after several hours to think about it. We actually had got one of the two cultists to believe that Dinah, who was maybe 90 pounds, 40 kg, soaking wet, had managed to defeat him, in a one-on-one sword fight. It reminded me of an experiment where someone described a shared memory but then added in several details that weren’t true. Said person then added those details into their memory of the event and doubted even photographic evidence to the contrary.

On the other hand, erasing long term memories made the subject pass out. It was actually a little difficult to watch as we suspected that the brain and soul were trying to recover from the trauma. Plus when the cultist woke up they were obviously confused and distracted for several hours. However soon enough they devolved back into the murderous assholes they had been before the memory charms. There was a charm that detected that a memory charm had been cast on the subject, but it fizzled out fairly quickly as the mind wrote over the space where those memories previously were. I suspected that in a few days no one would be able to detect anything.

That reaction actually made us all feel a lot better. Memory charms were one of the ways we could effectively be killed despite all our protections. As we had unfortunately proved with Taylor, damage to our bodies was temporary at best. However, in most ways, wiping our minds would accomplish the same thing.

The knowledge that permanent removal of long term memories could be noticed and detected via soul sight meant we would at least know we were under attack. So, even without casting the detection charm constantly, as long as we watched each other’s back we could probably notice, pop away, then help the Family member in question regain their lost memories. It wasn’t a perfect plan and I was sure an expert would make the mental and soul trauma much less severe, but it didn’t look like it was possible to completely hide. We would just pay attention and cast the detection charm any time we were even slightly worried. However, I was still going to find a pensieve to store copies of some of our most important memories… just in case.

However, erasing short or long term memories was actually still just the first way that memory charms could be used. The second method didn’t erase the memories, just blocked them out so they couldn’t be accessed. This method was much, much simpler due to both the amount of magic required and how much trauma, or lack thereof, it produced. People hit with this charm were back on their feet within a few minutes and apparently no worse for wear. However, not only was it possible to unblock those memories. It could happen spontaneously if they were reminded of the event in question directly enough. In fact wizards and witches would often start gaining their memories back within a few months unless the caster was particularly powerful. However if they didn’t unblock those memories soon enough they would eventually forget the event in question, just like a normal memory. Plus the detection charm would work the entire time until it was completely gone.

I wasn’t sure, but I suspected that this was what Hermione had used to erase herself from her parent’s memories in the Harry Potter books. Don’t get me wrong, this version of the memory charm was still dangerous to their minds, but less so. The mental dissonance of suddenly remembering something you were sure hadn’t happened was stressful, but it gave Hermione the chance to go back and give them their memories again.

It still was kind of a dumb decision though as there were better ways like obliviating herself of where exactly they had hidden while they waited for some sort of all clear message. They would be just as safe and there was much less possible mental trauma.

The final thing I tried wasn't actually a memory charm at all. Instead it was a compulsion. Giving the man who believed he had lost a sword fight with a small girl a compulsion to flinch slightly each time he met her eyes was funny, but not particularly useful in most extreme cases. Apparently compulsions like this couldn’t completely override someone’s desires or morals, just make them do something they were already inclined to do. For instance, convincing one of them he was strong enough to do a backflip got him to try… and fail spectacularly… but he refused to kiss the other male cultist under any circumstances, much to Luna’s disappointment.

Still, that did explain why the Imperious Curse was considered one of the unforgivables since you could completely control someone rather than give strong suggestions to a person who was the magical equivalent of slightly inebriated.

While we were testing, we had moved everyone down to a defensible position on the beach. That way the survivors could protect the camp with a few of the scavenged rifles. The group even posted a rotating watch as night started to fall.

That allowed us to focus on searching out and putting down the remaining Samurai we came across. However that little bit of self-reliance also seemed to energize the survivors as they could, once again, do something to protect themselves.

That night I walked through the male tent while Ahri walked through the female tent and we removed the memories of each of the survivors except for Lara, Sam, Angus, and the Trio. The next morning, a health check confirmed that all memories of our special abilities were gone. Technically, the memories of our abilities were in the long term memory of most of the camp requiring the stronger version of the charm, but just barely. So instead of being knocked out and being disorientated for several hours, everyone just slept off the side effects and was fine the next day.

However, we didn’t actually remove the memory of magic altogether. In fact, we still let everyone use the magical wizarding tents. Not only did it give the survivors something strange to focus on, making anything strange we did a little less noticeable, but I was certain the international wizarding body would track these people down to erase any memories of magic. The island was covered in it and they would be surprised if the survivors in question hadn’t seen anything would be at least a little weird.

However, we treated Lara, Sam, and Angus a little differently. We pulled them aside and told them to tell the wizards in question that they were squibs. That would mean they wouldn’t need to have their memories erased. As we had discovered, Lara was already a strange type of squib, but surprising or not, Sam was actually a full witch, albeit a very weak one. Maybe that was why she had been chosen as a suitable host for Himiko. Angus, on the other hand, was completely mundane so we actually discreetly made him a squib, just in case they checked with some sort of Muggle repelling charm. (That was another charm I needed to figure out how to do as well)

Holly and especially Hermione were actually really surprised when I didn’t try to erase Angus’ memory, but after fighting for our lives, back to back, it felt like the wrong thing to do. Plus he swore on his mother’s grave that he wouldn’t tell a soul while Amy was discreetly touching him to confirm he was telling the truth so I felt fairly confident. It wasn’t like a wizard would randomly decide to track down and read a random muggle’s memory.

Now normally, I would have just jinxed myself there, but Luna and Dinah also confirmed it would be safe enough for everyone so I left it alone.

The second morning saw Lara and the other survivors managing to contact the coast guard. They had checked to find out if anyone was in life threatening condition and when they heard everyone was stable they had responded that they should be there by the next morning with a ship large enough to collect everyone. That made sense with how many people were here needing rescue. It also gave me time to pull the girls in question aside and give them a little more information along with our offer.

Yet, as we invited Lara, Sam, and the trio into our tent and then warded the door against eavesdropping I couldn’t help but notice the tense atmosphere. In fact, despite laying out a few snacks, everyone sat down in an uncomfortable silence.

Finally, I sighed while handing them a book on Occlumency. “This is a book to protect your minds. If you promise to study it, we will give you some of the answers now… What do you know about the multiverse?”

We didn’t explain everything. We didn’t explain exactly how we were bonded. We didn’t explain any weaknesses we had. We didn’t even explain everything about what we knew about their possible futures. Nor did we explain how we experienced their stories from another universe. Instead, we just said that some stories are strong enough to be seen and recorded by weak seers across the various universes, and both of theirs qualified.

That didn’t stop them from being incredibly confused and even a little shocked at the revelations.

I told Holly a little more about what would probably happen next year with Sirius Black. Again, she was pretty shaken by the story and was horrified to know she had come within inches of the betrayer of her parents for years, but understood our limitations and actually looked wistful at the thought of finding at least part of her family again.

Lara was disappointed that I didn’t know the rest of her story. Still she looked a little thoughtful upon hearing about the giant conspiracy that would target her if she got too involved.

She was always one to jump into things she felt strongly about after all.

Finally, as we wound down the talk of the future, Amy reiterated the offer to join us. “We are Family. Yeah, it is kinda unconventional, but knowing that we will back each other up. That our very souls are tied together so we can’t ever be separated. It feels like we finally belong. …Plus, with this many women to practice on…” She smirked wickedly. “well… let's just say that 20 minutes in, I usually can’t think straight and by the hour mark my legs are jelly.” Then she licked her lips. “And if you want to swing both ways, we can have a lot of fun together as well.”

I didn’t say anything but rolled my eyes even as I felt my cheeks blush slightly. I felt I was finally starting to get more comfortable with my relationships in the last 9 months since the compulsion had broken, but it still occasionally felt strange. Yet, I guess that all kinda made sense. Compulsions didn’t make you do something you didn’t want to do. Just encouraged you to do something you were already inclined to try and apparently I really wanted a family.

At that moment a felt a strange feeling, almost like dejavu. It felt like something I desperately wanted to avoid. Vague memories of when I had sat alone in rooms crossed my mind and I shivered. My memories were gone, but now that I understood memory charms better I was starting to wonder if these flashes were the residual edges of where the memories had been.

Shaking off the melancholy I tried to focus on the questions I was expecting. Especially as Amy was describing how she could upgrade or change anything the girls weren’t happy with. Yet surprisingly, not even Hermione seemed to have any questions or requests off the bat. Maybe they were just overwhelmed. Or maybe the fact that school started at 14 here gave Hermione longer to grow up and be less self conscious about her slightly oversized front teeth. Honestly I found the look a little cute, but it wasn’t my call to make.

Eventually it was actually Ginny that spoke up. “If we were to join you would we just leave and never see our family again?”

I shook my head. “No, we like this world and we will probably stay here or visit often. We will just be visiting other worlds as well.”

Lara was the next to speak up. “What are other worlds like?”

I gestured to Amy and Taylor who both shrugged. “We came from an alternate Earth where superpowers were real. Max just made sure we kept them as we left. However, surprisingly enough, there weren’t any wizards there.”

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Taylor continued where Amy left off, just a tad sullen. “Just a pair of cosmic beings that were giving us powers and watching us dance to their tune, like puppets. Plus, our endings were not good ones, so it wasn’t much of a hard decision to make when we got the opportunity to get away. In that respect we are much, much happier here with Max.”

I then looked at Ahri who shrugged. “My world was completely different, with various races and different sources of powers. There were even demigods that occasionally walked the land. Yet even among the ruins of ancient civilizations and in the most inhospitable places, people lived on with their own cultures, histories, and magic. I even sometimes miss it, so I plan on asking us to return occasionally even if I don’t have any close friendships or family to return for.”

I wasn’t sure if Ahri had just decided to get involved on the recruitment pitch, but mentioning new and unexplored ruins and civilizations along with unknown magic made not only Lara but also Hermione’s eyes gleam a little.

In the following contemplative silence, I blinked before I realized I had artifacts and a woman who would eventually become a world-famous archaeologist. So, turning around, I pulled out the sword, dagger, and Lockhart’s ring.

Lara frowned. “I don’t recognize the sword or the dagger.” she said running her gloved fingers down the flats of both blades. However she paused as she inspected the ring carefully.

Then suddenly she jumped in her seat and then sat forward, licking her lips excitedly. “Bloody Hell… That is Angelica’s ring… Angelica of Cathay. It was supposed to make the wearer immune to all enchantments and invisible if placed under the tongue!”

We all blinked bemused before I smiled and shrugged. Looking at Lara, I said, “Try it on, we might as well test it, I guess”.

Putting it on her finger didn’t seem to change anything. In fact we couldn’t tell anything had changed until I tried to cast a small tickling charm at her and nothing happened. In fact all subtle spells just seemed to wash over her before dissipating including a mental compulsion which made me very interested. She was pretty much immune to everything I was comfortable throwing at her. I wasn’t actually going to throw lethal spells just for a test, after all.

As she was the strongest here, I gestured for Holly to give it a try. After a few more minutes of testing, we found that Holly could power through the ring’s defense, but it reduced the effect significantly.

Lara then tried placing the ring under her tongue and we waited while nothing happened.

Yet before anyone suggested anything else Luna actually blinked several times before she blurted out. “You are gone from the weave. Not even the Wrackspurts can find you.”

I paused but it was Sabah who actually figured it out. “I don’t think it makes you invisible, I think it makes it so you aren’t viewable by divination-like ability…”

I actually facepalmed at that. I had completely forgotten to follow up on how Lockhart had managed to avoid Luna and Dinah’s abilities for nearly half a year. For a moment I actually considered giving the ring to either Holly or Lara… well after I had studied it to maybe find a way of reproducing it, but I realized that the prophecy probably wouldn’t care if she was invisible to divination or not. Prophecies seemed too powerful for that. On the other hand Lara was being tracked by Muggles where, once again, immunity to divination wouldn’t do anything.

In the end, we were just going to have to help them as best we could if they didn’t join us… from the sidelines if we could help it.

After a few more questions on our experiences jumping worlds we let the five girls head back to the women’s tent for dinner, once again reminding them to practice defending their minds.

That left our Family to decompress in our pocket home. After a dinner together I ushered the adults to the upstairs bedroom to relax in the carnal way while Luna and Dinah watched various movies until they fell asleep on the couch.

Yet, despite being well and truly satisfied… I couldn't sleep.

The knowledge of how many people we had killed was still horrifying to me somehow. We hadn’t actually needed to go around wiping out the remaining cultists after rescuing Sam as the Samurai did it for us. The disorganized cultists were just no match for zombies running at them through the jungle.

Finally deciding to distract myself I got up and walked down the stairs to our basement where I had stored our treasures.

I really wanted to know how that sword worked and how to destroy the Samurai dagger.

As I worked through the night, trying to inspect each and every rune and engraving on the ring and dagger I also inspected what I could see about the magic floating around it. Yet the dagger resisted all attempts to tease out its secrets.

That was disappointing, but fortunately it wasn’t the only thing I had to study. So, I took a look at the sword the Tengu had been swinging around. I mean, being able to cut through my spells was impressive, even if the ability to redirect spell fire with my wand was probably more useful. In the end, the sword was actually still fascinating to study, but much more straightforward to understand.

The runes which vaguely translated into disruption, strength, and sharpness were looped around the hilt and were etched into the blade itself. The etchings were then made so the characters looped into each other as well. It was a lot like the Ofuda paper talismans I had seen in our trip to Japan before this rescue mission.

The engraved runes and lines didn’t end there as additional lines then looped around each of the characters before following them to the tip of the blade and back down again, while being mostly hidden in the wavy pattern created from what Ahri had explained was the blacksmithing processed of folding the steel over and over again to create this type of blade.

My enchanting abilities were way, way beyond that of a standard first year, but still were not nearly good enough to just recreate the sword here and now. However, I was getting the feeling that I might be able to create one fairly soon. Maybe in only another year or two of careful study. At the pace I had been studying, I hoped to be nearly done with all 7 years of ancient runes at Hogwarts within that time frame… then again, it was cheating pretty heavily to be able to read them like cursive english even if I couldn’t write them or create groupings without practice.

I continued my studies, trying to make careful notes. Maybe I would be able to use this on armor as well as the sword. It seemed difficult as the choice on what to disperse was made by what to slash through, but I felt it could probably be done.

With all of that, it was nearly daybreak when I pulled out the ring to inspect. However, I was immediately overwhelmed. The protections against enchantment seemed just barely understandable, but the immunity against divination was completely beyond me. I pulled out the runes for ‘see’, ‘detection’, ‘space’, ‘connection’, ‘purpose’, and others that didn’t even seem to make sense.

I supposed that was why it had gone down in history as an enchanted historical artifact impressive enough that even the Muggles apparently knew about it. It made me wonder if I could figure out Ravenclaw’s diadem and reproduce it, even if we had to destroy the one with Tom’s soul.

It was then that I heard the noise from outside our tent through the still-open-portal and I walked outside to look around. The source of the noise was pretty much immediately obvious as I was greeted by the sight of a coast guard ship sailing up to the beach while some of the survivors were already waving, trying to get their attention.

That was our cue to pack up and leave the survivors behind. A few more memory charms would see them forget who exactly had helped them along with our third tent. We didn’t need to erase everything about us, just our names and faces. Not when Lara was doing most of the leading within the group already.

The catch was that, with everyone leaving, Holly, Hermione, and Ginny would need to join us in our tent until we could get back to England. We were still hiding our pocket home, but the tent was a comfortable place to wait while I pushed a portal out to a place where we could get a set of porkeys home.

I mean they had gotten pretty close to Lara, but even Hermione understood there wasn’t a good explanation on how the three of them arrived here on this island that wouldn’t raise all sorts of questions and despite the trios current uncertain feelings about our offer, we had helped both groups multiple times.

We ended up watching with little smiles as the survivors and a half dozen cultists that we hadn’t felt were bad enough to abandon to the Samurai when we found them, but were still guilty enough to be tied up were loaded onto the ship before it set sail.

The magical disturbance had apparently been felt, as I noticed one of the coast guards was a wizard and was inspecting people and wiping memories. One or two wizards left the ship and started exploring the island. Probably searching for anything magical they thought they needed to remove. I wished them luck, we had searched the island and other than that small ancient chest and a few gems and golden trinkets we hadn’t found anything.

All in all, pretty disappointing in terms of loot.

Then again, the trinity conspiracy and the Japanese navy had landed here with enough forces to build houses and fortifications and still made it off the island again. Between the two of them, they had probably already looted almost everything worth taking.

All this time I had been pushing our portal back to Thailand. In fact, as we watched the rescue ship steam away, I was already preparing to portal us to the outskirts of Bangkok’s magical district.

Yet before we could go home, I noticed a small little black bird flying towards us through the trees.

My eyes widened as I realized it wasn’t a bird, but a little miniature Tengu.

I didn’t know what to do, and so I just pulled my wand out and waited.

Apparently that was enough that everyone noticed what I was looking at and tensed so when the Tengu actually arrived, he met a wall of people who had their wands and weapons ready.

Yet to my surprise he actually chuckled in an almost squeaky voice. “Peace, peace, I am not here to fight. I just want to strike a bargain for my sword back.”

I blinked and looked again at the almost cartoony figure in front of us. It had the same black wings, long nose, and red tint to his skin, but otherwise looked almost nothing like the one I had fought. Instead, it was almost like looking at a child wearing a very convincing Tengu costume, complete with traditional Japanese clothing.

Apparently he had either seen this before or could tell what we were all thinking, because he simply scoffed. “You didn’t think you could actually get rid of me that easily, did you?”

I swallowed. I was pretty confident that we could take him as he was, but he was right. I didn’t know how to actually kill a demon if they operated under the summoning paradigm.

In a lot of stories you can’t actually kill demons with mundane methods. Even cutting off their heads or stabbing them in the brain just banishes them back to their home dimension where they can recover and plot their revenge. In fact, in many ways they operated under the same rules we did as we could strike back after being ‘killed’ as well. However, just like anyone trying to fight our Family, there were a few weaknesses we might be able to exploit. The question was if any of them would work as we really, REALLY, didn’t want to make the Tengu even more angry at us when we wanted to stay in this world.

On the other hand, I shouldn’t have been surprised. I had already realized that this version of the Tomb Raider and Harry Potter worlds had a lot more magical beings, than the books or games suggested.

I mean, I could try to somehow capture his soul and pop it. I was pretty sure that would kill him somewhat permanently, or at least for the next century or two. However, I didn’t want to try and pop him to only find out he could slip out of my grasp before I could finish.

Finally, I cleared my throat and tried to gently get some information. “So the smaller shape was because you lost some of your power then?”

The Tengu simply shrugged, not looking like he cared one way or another. “The soul they fed to me to summon me here helped a little, but yeah, I lost most of my strength and needing to push my way back here with my own power took more so I am back down to my base state.”

I swallowed while I considered. If he wasn’t too worried about us knowing that it really drove home the fact he didn’t think we could do anything to permanently stop him. I doubted he knew about my soul abilities, but I really didn’t want to show them off until I knew he couldn’t just leave at the drop of a hat.

Hermione, predictably, was the next to ask a question. “What do you do with the souls then?”

The face the Tengu made was almost comical with how nonchalant he was as he answered. “Eat it, of course.”

Hermione actually took a small step back before getting a hold of herself. With that reaction, part of me was glad we hadn’t explained that Ahri ate souls as well, yet.

The problem was I was completely out of my depth. I knew there were rules to dealing with magical beings. I just didn’t remember most of them.

However, as I was racking my brain for the rules, I suddenly remembered the third year elective about relations with magical beings. Suddenly the separation between that class and the care of magical creatures made a lot more sense. Yet it didn’t help as I had obviously not taken it nor even read any of the texts from the subject.

I couldn’t even remember if there were any differences on how to behave when dealing with devils, fae, demons, and spirits.

Taking a deep breath I considered for a moment. I was pretty sure there was something about not ‘giving’ them your name. There was also something about not ‘thanking’ them. Finally something about Hospitality.

Deciding that It was best to pull everyone aside, I turned to the Tengu. “We might be able to make a deal, but I need to confer with the others. However, before we talk, what may I call you?”

The Tengu smirked. “You may call me Ryu.”

As I ushered the girls away I saw Luna nod at me before smiling at Ryu. That made me relax a little, but I didn’t want to wait too long. Luckily for me Luna seemed to know what I wanted and instantly started expanding on what little I knew.

She actually pulled out a pair of her comically huge and ornate glasses before starting to give her lecture. Said glasses in question were painted several different colors, but were mostly silver with glass so thin it looked like a piece of plastic wrap for the lenses. There were several buttons glued to the frames but most interesting of all, there was a blue crystal butterfly slowly batting its wings across the nose bridge like it had just landed there.

Shaking my thoughts away I focused on what Luna was saying. “You never give them your name because then it is theirs. Names have power, it is tied with your essence and story. If you lose it, it will be difficult to earn it back. You should also be careful with yours and not to demand names from others. You need to guard your essence carefully and only share it with those you love.”

As I blinked, I realized that I only understood about half of that, but somehow was still blushing. I really needed that class at Hogwarts.

Luna didn’t even slow down though as she continued. “Thanking a Devil or Fae implies that you are not fair in your last deal. Your thanks is an open-ended signal that the deal is not complete and that the other party is rightfully allowed to take more. Since you have not specified what that something is that is required to balance the scales, they are permitted to take anything the weave deems might be sufficient. The branch that this comes from is always shady so that might include much more than you would want.”

Glancing around the clearing, I realized that everyone except for Ahri seemed to be even more confused than before, but was still obviously listening hard.

Luna then sniffed. “You must never lie as if you lie you have tied your essence in a knot and you both limit yourself and prove yourself unworthy of the interest of your betters. Why would someone bargain with someone who can’t even keep themselves straight?”

Blinking, I actually felt like there was something profound there, but before I could focus on it, Luna simply continued. “Really though, we should always invite our new friend into our home to break bread with us. There can be no hostilities then. What kind of monster would break hospitality, after all?”

Ryu who had obviously been listening actually nodded at that. Not having any better ideas we all went back inside the tent and he followed to the door before we invited him inside.

Once we sat down at the kitchen table that Hermione magically expanded, I wondered if there was something specific I was supposed to do. Yet, Luna once again answered for me. “Welcome Ryu, we offer you Hospitality under the old rules and ask you to break bread and partake of our salt with us.”

Ryu was obviously amused, but still impatient because after the bread and salt had been eaten he simply leaned forward and started talking. “I am willing to provide two night’s stay at the best Bathhouse in the spiritual world for my sword.”

I glanced at my girls as I blinked and felt a small smile start to grow. “That does sound interesting. Where is this bathhouse?”

Ryu actually smirked at that and pulled out a large pile of wooden tokens before plopping them down on the table in front of us.

Something about that started to ring a bell in my mind.

Looking at Luna I tilted my head in question, but she simply grinned up at me.

Turning to Ryu I asked another question. “What is the name of the Bathhouse?”

“Aburaya”

‘Oil House,’ I thought, before I asked, “Who runs it?”

“The Old Lady, Yubaba”

That nagging feeling got stronger.

“Why would you recommend it specifically for us, then?”

“Both because you are strong enough to not be overly concerned with most other visitors and because your girls look like they could use a good day off and a soak in a tub. Plus I always like to accommodate one of us.” Ryu said, while nodding towards Ahri.

Not knowing what to do with that revelation, I hummed to myself as I realized this was pretty much exactly what I had been hoping for. So much that I actually narrowed my eyes at the bird. “I do not appreciate attempts to read my mind.”

The smirk on Ryu’s face actually grew at that. “I can’t read you, but if you don’t want the Baku to eat your dreams then you need to actually spend some time protecting your mind.” Ryu said before he paused and then grudgingly continued. “Although they did admit that your minds were much harder to get to than normal wizards.”

I swallowed. I guess that proved that having our souls mostly sequestered away in our gems didn’t protect us as completely as I had hoped from mind reading nor other magical interrogations. Honestly, it was probably only luck that Cauldron on Earth Bet had struggled as much as they had in shutting me down. The fact I was ‘outsider’ problem to them was probably the only reason I was still alive. Or at least I assume it was them that had attacked us at the end there. At least the messages we had gotten from Dragon seemed to imply that the PRT had calmed down since then. Since that branch of the government was basically Cauldron’s cat’s paw, we were probably alright now.

Turning to the Tengu I asked Ryu another question. “Where is this bathhouse?”

“Now you are asking the right questions. It is in the Yokai spiritual realm.”

I felt my eyes shoot open as suddenly everything started clicking together. The bathhouse, the owner’s name. The wooden tokens used for services…

He was offering a chance for us to stay in the Bathhouse from the famous Miyazaki movie, Spirited Away.

Instantly, I snapped to look at the tokens. Yet I didn’t grab them nor did I agree to anything.

“We are interested. I think my girls deserve it, but I have some conditions.”

Ryu narrowed his eyes before he smiled and nodded. “Let's hear them then.”

I considered for a moment the wording before I spoke. “I want an oath that this isn’t a trick and that you won’t attempt to attack us or ours unless you feel we mean you harm.”

He glared for a moment, but nodded “...Done… and you have it.”

“We want a guarantee of safe passage to and from the bathhouse.”

Ryu pulled out a length of rope. “...Done”

“You don’t share any information about us or what we can do unless we give you permission.”

This time Ryu looked disappointed, but finally he sighed. “... Done.”

I didn’t pick up the rope and instead asked. “What does the rope do?”

Ryu shrugged. “Hold this as you walk through any Tori gate here on the island and you will be able to enter. Walk through that same gate while you all are holding it to return.”

Nodding at him, I got up and walked away to discreetly enter our pocket home and came back with his sword.

We wrapped up quickly after that.

Yet, as we watched him fly away I had to keep my snickering down. Some of the other girls didn’t even manage that.

Watching a one and a half foot Tengu try to carry a three-foot sword would probably always be funny.

Packing up our tent I dropped a stone with a portal attached in Thailand, so the chance of me losing that portal was much smaller.

Then with a last look at each other, we walked through the portal to our mini-vacation.

Interlude Ahri:

Ahri could feel something as they walked through.

It almost felt familiar.

She didn’t think it was where she had come from, exactly, but she felt like she could maybe… finally… get some real answers.

Interlude Dumbledore:

Dumbledore sighed.

He hadn’t had time to investigate what had happened at the end of last year.

The ICW had been called to clean up after a massive dragon breach in the mountains of Chile.

Then, Egypt had started increasing tensions with the Arabians over magic carpet sales.

Now he had received word that some explorer had found the long-hidden island of Yamatai.

He also had to deal with the fact that Holly was turning 17 this summer and he would have to find a place for her to live next year once she turned 18.

He knew her childhood had been difficult, but he didn’t know where to put her. With so many people being Imperiused into betraying family he had needed to hide her away.

Yet looking at her now, he couldn’t help but care for her.

He sighed.

He was just so busy with everyone demanding his attention when he just needed to help Holly… She would need his guidance with the prophecy hanging over her head.

It was her fate after all.