《Azure Chronicles: Apocalypsium》


 Chapter 0: Counterpart Wish Bestower

    An oddly soothing numbness washed over Zalroth; he slowly began to regain his consciousness and felt his body surface from the endless expanse of the glowing azure-coloured aether ocean. Zalroth opened his greyed-out eyes and stared up at the starry night sky. He continued to look up at the sky as Chronia(in her young form) slowly drifted over to Zalroth until the two lightly bopped heads


    "The sky here sure looks pretty," Chronia half-heartedly remarked as she lightly chuckled.


    "It probably is if you''re saying so," Zalroth mentioned calmly whilst Chronia climbed onto Zalroth''s tails on the left side of Zalroth''s body. Chronia jokingly asked if Zalroth had gone blind in the few hours the two of them were separated but audibly gasped when she saw Zalroth''s blind eyes.


    "So, you used Luri''s special technique before coming here did you?" Chronia asked. Zalroth heartedly said it was the best thing he could think of at the time. Chronia deeply sighed and rested the back of her head on Zalroth''s chest; she asked Zalroth if he believes they''ll run into Lurioku and the others. Zalroth said it was unlikely given the reincarnation process is pretty fast. Chronia mumbled it sure is a bummer that they won''t be able to celebrate any more of Lola''s birthdays or meet Lola''s future children; Zalroth agreed with her but added there is a possibility they could meet them in their next life or even their descends, with Chronia saying it wouldn''t be the same since they won''t have their memories.


    "I could help with that," a voice that sounded eerily similar to Lola''s said; Zalroth and Chronia darted their heads around before Chronia spotted Codex(from(Un)Lucky Box) sitting on a small dinghy made from her small pink cluster cubes. Chronia relievedly sighed when she registered that Codex wasn''t Lola.


    "I almost died there... again," Chronia mentioned.


    "Yeah... it sure would be heartbreaking if after all your efforts your own daughter ended up here... well your world''s Lola," Codex remarked. Chronia asked Codex what she meant by that but Codex said she was just being semantic.


    "Anyways, so you want to see this Lola person''s birthdays and also would like to meet your grandchildren?" Codex asked; Chronia nodded her head affirmatively and passionately grabbed Zalroth''s face.


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    "You can do that?" Zalroth asked as he pulled Chronia''s hands off his face; Codex nodded her head and gathered a few of her cluster cubes into a box.


    "Although I''m not actually one, you can sort of think of me as the god of wishes," Codex remarked. Chronia asked if there were some sort of strings attached; Codex explained that under normal circumstances people usually have some sort of physical toll placed on them when she grants their wishes: loss of senses, temporary loss of body/body parts, literal loss of body parts and other stuff she''d rather not describe, given that she is a child after all.


    "But given that you two are really strong those things won''t happen... probably," Codex awkwardly stated as she lightly tapped the tips of her fingers together and nervously giggled.


    "Then what would happen... would we be required to fight some sort of super strong force of nature?" Zalroth cheekily inquired, which made Chronia sigh with an unsurprised tone.


    "That''s not likely... actually would that be an appropriate balancer?" Codex asked as she darted her eyes down at the cluster cube box; Codex appeared to have a revelation as she looked up from her cluster cube box.


    "So... do you guys want to make a wish?" Codex asked. Chronia smugly grinned and pressed her cheek against Zalroth''s face; Chronia continually rubbed her cheek against Zalroth''s face until Zalroth smugly sighed.


    "I suppose we could give it a try," Zalroth uttered. Codex happily clapped her hands and made the cluster cube box hover over to Zalroth and Chronia; Chronia grabbed one of Zalroth''s hands and guided it over to the cluster cube box.


    The pair placed their interlocked hands on the box; The box began to glow and as its components began to shake the aether around the duo started to circle and form into a whirlpool. The whirlpool continually expanded and its ferocity drastically increased as a bright light deep beneath the aether ocean began to rise to the surface. Chronia glanced down at the light before turning to Codex to ask her a question; however, all Chronia could do was watch Codex as she sailed away on her cluster cube dinghy.


    "Have fun you two~" Codex cheerfully exclaimed as she waved at Chronia. Chronia defeatedly exhaled and muttered that Codex somewhat reminds her of a more carefree Lola.


    "I''d say she''s more free-spirited," Zalroth remarked. Chronia agreed before a strong rumble from deep below the aether ocean caught the couple''s attention; The two looked downwards and were greeted by a massive geyser of super concentrated glowing cyan liquid aether that completely obscured Chronia and Zalroth as the light from the hundreds of erupting geyser illuminated the sky.

 Chapter 1: Skyscraper Adventurer

    An eeriness-instilling, chilling wind slithered its way through the desolate, dilapidated and overgrown cityscape; the echoes of skyscrapers slowly cracking and crumbling from decades of built-up erosion. Kannachi (a short girl miruku that has bronze gold scruffy spikey hair, dark gold eyes with dark bronze pupils, tanned and five golden bronze plated miruku head tendrils; she¡¯s wearing a scruffy beige cloak, a lightly tattered dark beige scarf, brown blacksmith gloves, a pair of blacksmith goggle (with zoom capabilities), an oversized dark brown hoddie with four pockets, a light brown shirt with dark brown suspenders, light beige hiking shorts with extra pockets, darksteel tights and dark brown hiking boots with metal toe tips) stood at the edge of a destroyed wall and stared down at the dark blue blur that filled the streets far below.


    "That was a close one; if we had been any slower, those freaks would have got us," Kannachi remarked as Crystal and Merrybel finished collecting the rainbow-coloured mushrooms into their backpacks.


    Crystal (a short girl half-demon that has long purple hair tied up into two hair buns with black stylized rope, black eyes with purple pupils, light skin and a slightly short thin purple tail with a club (like on a card) shaped end; she¡¯s wearing a sun straw hat, black hoodie with dawnite shoulder pads, dawnite gauntlets, green shirt, black cargo hiking trousers and green hiking boots) asked Kannachi if she was going to help with collecting the lumoshrooms.


    Merrybel (a super short girl sharkling (a human with shark features) that has super long light rose tied into two long braided ponytails, pink eyes, light skin, sharp shark-like teeth and a light pink shark tail; she¡¯s wearing a pair of pink scuba goggles, white hoodie with a pink inside, a dawnite ring necklace with a red gem, pink shirt, red cargo hiking trousers and red hiking boots) reminded Crystal about the last time Kannachi tried to pick up a lumoshroom.


    "Hey, you said you wouldn''t-!" Kannachi shouted before instantly halting her speech when a loud creek and faint rumbling tremors emanated from the hallway; the trio stood in silence and cautiously turned their heads to the room''s entrance as the multitude of heavy scuttling footsteps from outside the room abruptly seized.


    One of the double doors to the room slowly etched open; Seven large sharp dark blue bone-like fingers slithered their way through the gap between the double door and followed by them wrapping around the entirety of the door. The door was pushed ever so slightly more open and a large glowing blue beady dot glared into the seemingly uninhabited room. The dot methodically surveyed the room, intently inspected every inch of it and only glanced away when it heard the faint sound of explosions off in the distance; the fingers ripped through the door, leaving large claw-like marks, as the creature they belonged to stormed off after the sounds of the explosions.


    The unseen creature''s movements shook the very frame of the skyscraper as the sound of it smashing through the concrete walls and floors, along with the sound of marble tiles smashing against the ground, blasted throughout the skyscraper. Kannachi and co peeked their heads out from behind a knocked-over, table and barely managed to catch a glimpse of a dark blue tail racing past the slightly opened door. Once the trio confirmed that the monster was gone, they hid back behind the table; the girls slumped their backs against it and relievedly sighed while heavily breathing.


    "That was... a freaky one," Merrybel timidly said as she huddled up next to Kannachi.


    "Yeah, that was too close for comfort; if Kannachi''s boyfriend wasn''t such a bombastic hunter we-," Crystal remarked; she stopped herself when she felt Kannachi staring her down.


    "Sorry... I mean destined lover...," Crystal muttered half-heartedly, which appeared to satisfy Kannachi. Crystal quietly groaned in annoyance and asked Kannachi why''s so insistent on calling a guy she''s only known for five days her lover. Kannachi smugly placed a finger over her mouth and stated it was a secret. Crystal defeatedly slumped her head and rhetorically asked why she had to have such a weird sister.


    Crystal''s glooming was cut short however when the room''s double doors were violently forced open, with one of the doors even breaking off its hinges and slamming into the ground with a loud thud. Hard footsteps stomped their way into the room and an ear-piercing blackboard scratching sound screeched through the panic-stricken sisters. The sound of the footsteps paused and Kannachi signalled she was going to check to see what it was.


    Kannachi coated her body in dark bronze mana before her body became invisible and before either of her sisters could protest; however, they wouldn''t out of fear of giving away their position and Knnachi popped her head over the flipped-over table. Kannachi froze on the spot as her face was mere inches away from the barebone and denatured-looking face of a slightly deformed dark-blue-skinned humanoid. A nerve-racked Kannachi blankly stared into the completely black eyes, save for the glow blue dot, of the creature that was seemingly unaware of Kannachi''s or her sisters'' presence.


    The humanoid eventually staggered off, dragging its lanky arms and abnormally long claw-like fingers against the ground; the creature meandered its way to the other side of the room as it was drawn to the buzzing TV static from the broken wall-mounted TV. Kannachi slowly crouched back behind the table and dispelled her invisibility as Merrybel tightly grasped the TV remote in her tiny hands. Kannachi quickly took one last look, through a hole in the table, at the distracted humanoid creature; she then looked over at her sisters and signalled towards the destroyed wall that led outside.


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    The three rose to their feet and, while remaining crouched, slowly snuck over to the edge of the room. Kanachi''s sisters followed her onto the edge of the skyscraper and she picked them up with her miruku tendrils before she began to manoeuvre across the ledge of the skyscraper. Kannachi slowly shuffled across the ledge until she was next to a large window frame; she peered into the room and saw that it was an abandoned laboratory. Kannachi teleported into the laboratory and carefully set her sisters on the ground. The sisters let out quiet relieved exhales and pessimistically looked at each other.


    "I can''t believe we were almost caught by two separate aether beasts," Crystal whispered as she rubbed her face. Merrybel sombrely nodded her head in agreement with Crystal.


    "I know... I wish big bro Temtem, would hurry back," Merrybel meekly muttered before a loud explosion sent tremors through the building; the explosion startled Merrybel and she panically flailed her tail around and it slammed into a table. Merrybel collapsed to the ground and painedly wrapped her arms around her tail as she struggled to stop herself from crying out in pain, from the piece of glass that had punctured her tail; however, despite her best efforts, she was incapable of doing so and, as tears ran down her face, she let out a painfully strained yelp. Before she could scream any further, Crystal covered Merrybel''s mouth as the loud sound of concrete breaking and sporadic thrashing emanated from the room they had just escaped from.


    The sisters worriedly listened as they heard the thrashing get closer and closer to them before a loud thud slammed against the wall dividing the two rooms. Crystal picked up Merrybel before she and Kannachi were about to run away. However, they paused when they saw the humanoid aether beast being flung out of the skyscraper and splatting into the side of the adjacent skyscraper like a bug would against a moving car.


    A blade of dark green wind mana pierced through the wall, followed by a storm of mini wind slashes slashing through the wall that effortlessly shredded the wall into dust and left a perfectly spherical hole in the wall, shrouded by a cloud of dust.


    ¡°I was only gone for five minutes; it¡¯s a miracle you three were able to survive on your own before you met me,¡± Temperance jokingly snarked with a hint of callousness in his voice. The sound of Temperance¡¯s voice excited Kannachi and she became even more excited when she saw a faint glimmer in the cloud of dust.


    Temperance (a tall young male fallen angel that has sparkily long silver hair with glowing golden tips, sparkling silver eyes and pale white skin; he¡¯s wearing a cloak made from sparkly silver feathery wings with black feather tips, darksteel wrist gauntlets, sleeveless black shirt, darksteel thread cotton gi, darksteel thread silk socks and silverwood getas) emerged from the dust cloud whilst Kannachi whimsically danced over to him; Kannachi cheerfully climbed onto Temperances back.


    Temperance noticed the shard of glass in Merrybel''s tail and asked her if she''d like him to heal her. Merrybel embarrassedly shook her head and stated she''ll be fine since most aquatic demi-humans have faster regen as she pulled the glass shard out of her tail; shortly followed by her falling onto her side in a fit of pain as she grabbed her tail. Temperance amusedly exhaled in disbelief at Merrybel''s oddly endearing attempt to act tough as he crouched down and channelled some of his mana into Merrybel''s wound to make it heal faster.


    "Didja find it? Didja find it?" Kannachi asked enthusiastically as she sat on Temperance''s shoulders and rested her chin on his forehead. Temperance rolled his eyes and stood up as Merrybel thanked him for healing her.


    "Yeah I found you the stupid blue rock," Temperance remarked as he handed the empty azure gem frame to Kannachi, who seemed slightly offended by Temperance calling the azure gem frame a stupid blue rock.


    "It''s not just some stupid rock it''s an azure gem frame; you know the thing you should be able to make," Kannachi condescendingly said with a slightly offended-sounding voice; she shoved the azure gem frame in Temperance''s face while extensively pointing out how the frame is more of a glass-like material that was mixed with crystals and various minerals. Temperance unamusedly rolled his eyes and lightly moved the azure gem frame away from his face while itching the back of his right hand.


    "Yeah-yeah, I hear you it''s not just some rock," Temperance muttered as he itched the back of his left hand.


    "Well..., at least you understand," Kannachi stated; she quickly stored the azure frame core in her backpack as Temperance glanced upwards, when a few small concrete chunks fell past his face, and glared at the ceiling, with Kannachi confusedly looking down at Temperance. Temperance continued his staredown with the ceiling before noticing the cracks forming on it; he quickly lunged forwards and picked up Merrybel and Crystal, right before the ceiling above where Temperance was previously standing collapsed.


    Temperance front flipped mid-air to narrowly avoid hitting a table and landed behind it; he glanced over at the thing that caused the ceiling to collapse and confidently smirked when he heard the distorted breathing-like sounds of multiple humanoid aether beasts. The dust cleared and a handful of humanoid aether beasts rose to their feet as multiple large reflective glowing blue dots stared down at the group from the pitch-black room above.


    "I guess the whole being sneaky thing''s over now," Temperance remarked with Merrybel mentioning he wasn''t really doing a good job at being sneaky, which made Temperance flinch. Temperance rhetorically thanked Merrybel for her comment before placing Merrybel and Crystal on his back, followed by him getting into a combat-ready stance as the aether beasts sprinted at him.

 Chapter 2: Walker Thrasher

    Temperance cracked his right knuckles when he tightly clenched his fist; he pulled his fist back as the humanoid aether beasts swarmed around and sprinted at him. One of the aether beasts lunged at Temperance before it was instantly socked in the face by Temperance and had its face sent straight into the floor. Another one of the aether beasts attempted to slash Merrybel with its claw finger before it got a face full of Temperance''s foot.


    Temperance roundhouse kicked the aether beast''s head into the head of another aether beast before he sent the two aether beasts flying across the room and smashing through a brittle wall; Temperance smirked as he hopped over another aether beast before grabbing its face and slamming the back of its head into the floor; the ground shattered upon impact and the aether beast plummeted into the room below while Temperance hopped to the side to avoid also falling in the room below.


    The remaining aether beast tried to attack Temperance from behind but was interrupted by being struck in the face by a pipe wrench. Kannachi repeatedly bashed the aether beast in the face followed by Temperance mule kicking the aether beast in the stomach and launching it away; it rocketed through the air before slamming its back into a laboratory desk (the kind that''s just a block of concrete with gas nozzles on them) and was split in half followed by its upper half flopping onto the ground, on the other side of the desk.


    "Woah, he made those aether walkers look like chumps," Merybel muttered in astonishment; Crystal joked if she knew Temperance was capable of fighting aether beasts without the need of an Aether Drive she wouldn''t have made them all take the sneaky approach.


    "I told you so didn''t I; TemTem''s super strong," Kannachi proudly proclaimed as she smugly glanced at Crystal, making Crystal unapologetically roll her eyes and half-heartedly groaned.


    ¡°Well, I¡¯m ever so sorry for not being so receptive to the words of a biased individual,¡± Crystal boldly said before finishing her sentence with a pouty huff. Kannachi tried to tease Crystal but only managed to say a single word before Temperance swiftly hopped backwards to avoid a claw slash. Temperance effortlessly evaded the claw slashes before backflipping onto another laboratory desk; followed by him raising his foot high into the air and axe kicking the aether walker¡¯s claw into the laboratory desk when the aether walker swiped at him. The aether walker repeatedly tried to pull its claw free from underneath Temperance¡¯s foot as a sinisterly devious grin grew on Temperance¡¯s face.


    ¡°You almost got me there you sneaky¡­¡± Temperance confidently uttered as he placed a wind mana-covered finger in front of the aether walker¡¯s face.


    ¡°Pop tart!¡± Merrybel blurted out before Temperance could finish his sentence, while also telling Temperance that swearing was bad. Temperance apologized as he flicked the aether walker¡¯s forehead and obliterated it with a mini wind blast. Temperance quietly chuckled to himself as he hopped off the laboratory desk and peacefully whistled as he walked towards the spot below the hole in the ceiling. The group stared into the hole in the ceiling, and the sisters relievedly exhaled while Temperance sighed disappointedly when no more aether walkers fell in from above.


    ¡°Guess that''s that then,¡± Temperance disappointedly muttered as he felt Merrybel tugged on his shoulder. Temperance sighed as he reluctantly manifested his seven large kitsune tails (that are double the length of Temperance''s height and has the same colour gradient as his hair); The sisters happily let go of Temperance and contently dropped onto Temperance''s tails. Kannachi cheerfully wrapped Temperance''s tail fur around herself and excitedly blushed as she sniffed the fur.


    "Why do you always have to make things weird?" Crystal asked as she crossed her arms; however, her question fell on deaf ears as Kannachi was wholly engrossed in sniffing Temperance''s tails. Crystal rolled her eye and grumbly muttered something inaudible while Merrybel lightly patted Crystal''s forehead to comfort her. Temperance continued to stare up at the hole in the ceiling before sighing again when it seemed the creatures that they previously saw were gone.


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    "What a drag; I was hoping to fight whatever those things were," Temperance complained as he aimed his hand at the wall that led outside.


    "Given the noise they were making, they were probably aether weavers or it could even the Scrawl Crawler, given the warning I saw about it at the adventurers guild in the town we stayed at a few days ago," Crystal remarked.


    "A Scrawl Crawler?" Temperance and Merrybel perplexedly asked, with Temperance somehow being the more confused of the two. Temperance went to open his mouth by Crystal agitatedly huffed in frustration.


    "And before you ask, unless you join the academy and become an S rank hunter you won''t be allowed to fight it, not that that would stop you from trying," Crystal callously stated.


    "Tsk, don''t get me wrong I''m all for rules that keep people safe but do you really think I need some silly card to fight strong monsters?" Temperance asked with a rhetorical-sounding tone. Crystal unamusedly raised her crossed arms over her chest and pointed out to Temperance that he was about to blast a hole in an unstable building when he already has a clear path to get outside. Temperance''s body and fingers embarrassedly flinched, and he slowly lowered his outreached arm before lightly coughing.


    "Point taken," Temperance muttered as he walked into the adjacent room and over to the missing wall that led outside. Temperance glanced down at the ground and, with his superior vision, looked down at the mass of aether walkers that filled the streets.


    "Well, walking out of the city-" Temperance stated before he abruptly darted his head behind himself. The sisters concernedly asked if something was wrong; Temperance shrugged and said he thought he heard something. Temperance went to turn around but was stopped by Merrybel waving her hands in front of his vision.


    "No big bro, no more fighting today!" Merrybel adamantly demanded while she tried to rotate Temperance''s head back towards the outside. Kannachi reluctantly agreed with Merrybel, stating if they don''t hurry back they''ll only get half the reward for the collection request. Temperance defeatedly sighed before looking outside.


    "Three per cent should be enough to get out of the city in a single jump," Temperance muttered to himself as he seemed to calculate something. Temperance nodded his head, once he was confident with his calculations, and activated a Lightning Amp (3%) cloak as Merrybel asked if Temperance was going to do the cool long jump thing.


    Temperance confidently nodded his head before he hopped out of the skyscraper and landed on a wide sparkly gold and silver magic barrier, that appeared beneath his feet. Temperance spun on the spot before stopping and flexing his legs, which caused more Lightning Amp lightning to swirl around his legs.


    "Hold on tight!" Temperance said. Temperance pulled a foot back before he sprinted across the magic barrier lept off the magic barrier and catapulted himself while the three sisters desperately clung to his tails although for different reasons: Merrybel being filled with thrilling excitement, Crystal being absolutely livid that Temperance didn''t give her a chance to mentally prepare herself and Kannachi was obviously just holding on tightly so she had an easier time keeping the tail fur in her face.


    Back within the skyscraper, the sound of squishy munching echoed throughout the rooms littered with the corpses of the aether walkers as aether-infused blood began to pour down from the hole in the ceiling. A pair of eyes (a golden-coloured left eye and a crystal blue right eye) stared down at the bodies of the aether walkers as the short kid-sized figure, who was covered head to toe in aether-infused blood, salivated from the mouth.


    "That guy''s... mana seemed familiar," the aether blood-covered figure muttered with a quiet monotone girl voice. The figure pondered over something as she nibbled on a large spider leg that was made of gelatin aether. The figure paused and sniffed the jelly spider leg before their kitsune ears perked up.


    "Maybe he kills those aether thingys for fun... or he-," the aether-infused blood-covered kitsune murmured with a slightly less monotone voice. The kitsune went to bite the spider leg but the gelatin leg managed to slip through the kitsune''s fingers; the leg plummeted to the floor below and splatted against it. The kitsune''s ears defeatedly slumped downwards as she sombrely stared at the splattered blue jelly bits that covered the floor.

 Chapter 3: Collection Completion

    Temperance soared over the ruins of the city as the boundary of the city came into view, along with the towering medieval-themed metalic castle wall that seemed to surround the entirety of the ruined city. The sisters (surrounded by a single dark maroon coloured, dome-shaped magic shield) sat on Temperance''s tails as if they were a magic carpet and were sorting through the materials they''ve collected: Lumoshrooms, darc-runes (black metalic herbal grass) and Kuzakuti (glowing bright purple flowers).


    "Fifty lumoshrooms, seventy darc-runes and six kuzakuti. It seems we just barely got enough for the request," Kannachi muttered as she and her sisters recounted the various materials. Crystal glanced ahead of Temperance and saw they were close to the boundary wall; she sighed as she and her sisters started to pack the materials back into their backpacks.


    The magic shield disappeared right as Temperance touched down on the top of the boundary wall. Temperance strolled across the top of the wall and peeked over the other side of it; the sisters also peaked their heads over the edge of the wall and peered down at the small town at the base of the wall directly below the group. Temperance placed a foot on the mini wall of the boundary wall and was about to jump off the boundary wall before being stopped by Merrybel waving her hand in front of his face. Temperance looked at Merrybel''s hand and noticed the red metalic ring between her fingers.


    "Fine we''ll use your warp rings," Temperance said as he took his foot off the mini wall. Merrybel happily clapped her hands and tossed the red metal warp ring off the wall while dropping another red warp ring a few centimetres away from the group. After a few seconds, the warp ring floated into the air before rapidly expanding and depicting the town at the base of the boundary wall.


    "You know, now that I think about it couldn''t TemTem have just tossed one of Meri''s warp rings across the city?" Kannachi mentioned with Merrybel disapprovingly shaking her head at her sister''s question.


    "But then we wouldn''t have been able to check the stuff we found," Merrybel stated. Kannachi slowly scratched the back of her head and said that Merrybel''s statement made sense, as the three sisters climbed off of Temperance''s tails. Temperance retracted his tails into his body before the group walked through the warp ring portal.


    Later that day as the sun began to set, Kannachi exited a large building fashioned with a sign that indicated it was part of the adventurers guild. Kannachi happily stared at the contents of her cyan-cat-head-themed coin purse before closing it and placing it in one of the many pockets of her hiking shorts. Kannachi hurried over to the others as Merrybel used her tail to hang upside down on Temperance''s arm.


    "Took you long enough," Crystal remarked unenthusiastically as Merrybel dropped from Temperance''s arm and flipped onto her feet.


    "Aren''t you being a bit over the top; I wasn''t gone for that long," Kannachi replied as she crossed her arms and slightly stuck her tongue out at Crystal, insighting Crystal to do the same back at Kannachi.


    "So what took you so long, sis?" Merrybel asked as she peeked over at the adventurers guild building. Kannachi explained that there were a lot of people crowded around the bulletin board and were listening to a high-ranked adventurer talking about their upcoming expedition into a high-rank magic dungeon located in the ruined city.


    "Is that really the reason; you didn''t strike me as a person who''d be interested in dungeon raids," Temperance remarked as Merrybel agreed and seconded Temperance''s remark.


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    "Oh, is that what they were talking about, but no that wasn''t the thing that caught my attention," Kannachi stated. Kannachi''s sisters apprehensively thought of asking what had got Kannachi''s attention but they were both convinced it was going to be something weird. Kannachi narrowed her vision, knowing what her sisters were probably thinking and pulled out a flyer from one of her pockets. The others stared at the flyer before Merrybel and Crystal relievedly exhaled at what the flyer presented; the flyer was an advertisement for an auction in Lumios City.


    "That''s cool and all, but we''re saving money for the academy''s entrance fee remember?" Crystal asked sternly and made Kannachi sombrely slump her head.


    "I know... and speaking of money, with the additional funds we got from that collection request, we''re only five hundred Valt short," Kannachi stated while also adding they''ll probably need to do at least four C ranked, which was around the same amount of money as forty E ranked collection quests.


    "That seems like a hassle," Temperance muttered in a slightly frustrated tone.


    "And that''s why you should also enter the academy too, so you can become a hunter and be able to take on hunter quests instead of fighting monsters just for the fun of it," Kannachi proposed, and Temperance simply shrugged in response.


    "Wouldn''t that mean we''d need to acquire yet another five hundred thousand Valt?" Crystal chimed; Kannachi paused for a second when she realised that Crystal was right and she defeatedly sighed.


    "Maybe when we get there the people at the will see how strong big bro is and will give his a scola sip," Merrybel cheerfully said. Kannachi confidently nodded her head and said the examiners would have to be pretty blind to not see how strong Temperance is, making Crystal once again exhale in disbelief.


    "And before you say I''m being biased again; because that''s obvious, I was referring to the mana sense technique," Kannachi stated.


    "I figured; but I did hear they have those power measuring devices all over Lumios City for anyone to use, although they do only go up to about C rank for safety concerns," Crystal replied. The sisters collectively yawned and the group agreed they should call it a day on their money-collection mission.


    Later as the sun was halfway behind the horizon, the group found a small clearing in the middle of a forest.


    "Sweet this place will do fine for our campsite," Kannachi happily said.


    "I wouldn''t class what we do as camping," Crystal remarked as she raised her hand and began to gather black mana in front of herself. The mana spiralled and condensed into the shape of a door; the mana became completely opaque before Merrybel opened the door and happily skipped into the pocket dimension the door led into. As Crystal and Kannachi were walking into the pocket dimension, Kannachi noticed that Temperance was walking over to a large rock.


    "Aren''t you coming in?" Kannachi asked.


    "Nah, I think I''ll do some chakra control training, for a change; besides someone (me) has to keep watch," Temperance replied before he rolled the rock over so that its flat side was facing upwards before kicking it until it had been slightly dug into the ground.


    "Oh... ok," Kannachi said slightly disappointedly before she entered the pocket dimension and closed the door. Temperance quietly chuckled to himself before he slammed his fist together and closed his eyes. Temperance concentrated and focused his sparkly gold and silver chakra through his blood veins and bones; his muscles slightly bulked up for a second before they reverted back to their original lean state.


    "Got it first try, this time, and he said it would take half a mon-" Temperance snarkily stated before cutting himself off when he tried to walk forward but he accelerated faster than he expected; his foot got caught on the large rock and he was sent flying when he tripped over it. Temperance spiralled through the air and slammed his back into a tree; he crashed into the ground and fell onto his side as he stopped channelling his chakra.


    "Maybe my predecessor had a point...," Temperance uttered as he staggered to his feet and slowly limped back towards the large rock.

 Chapter 4: Training Partner Tryouts Part 1

    Deep within the confines of his azuregate, Temperance patiently stood still with his eyes closed and meticulously sensed his surroundings as the ever-rising blue shapes rose from the surface of the watery ground. Four beach-ball-sized spheres made of cyan and dark green mana formed before instantly accelerating towards Temperance from different directions. Temperance sensed the movements of the mana spheres and began to slowly exhale from his mouth as the mana spheres drew near.


    Temperance slightly adjusted his foot and coated his hands in sparkly gold and silver mana before creating two small magic barriers on the back of his hands. One of the mana spheres sped up and rocketed for Temperance as he flexed his right arm before he blocked the mana sphere. The mana sphere pressed against the magic barrier and pushed Temperance slightly to the left. Temperance''s body buckled under the force of the mana sphere for a split second before he regained his composure and pushed back against the mana sphere.


    Temperance ducked downwards while sliding his arm under the mana sphere before he catapulted the mana sphere over himself and off into the distance. He watched the mana sphere he had countered as it began to slow down before it circled around and raced towards him, along with the other mana spheres. Temperance adjusted his stance and continued to deflect the mana spheres, as a young girl-sized six-tailed kitsune made of sparkling gold mana, and an adult male sized, male nine-tailed kitsune made of cyan and dark green mana watched Temperance train.


    Temperance sighed and complained about how tedious this training was, right before all the mana spheres froze in place and the small kitsune mana silhouette disappointedly pouted.


    "So, you find my training recommendation insufficient?" the adult mana silhouette asked with a slight distortion in his voice as he spoke. The adult mana silhouette snapped his fingers and all of the mana spheres around Temperance disappeared.


    "Yeah, do you?!" the younger mana silhouette asked with a sassy tone in her echoey voice. Temperance clicked his neck as he dispelled his magic barriers and the mana around his hands.


    "No-no, you''re training has been really helpful, Teach, ... but it''s just...," Temperance muttered aloud as he started to walk over to the others.


    "Just...?" the adult mana silhouette said as his left ear twitched in anticipation.


    "Well... it''s just sometimes I wished I had a sparring partner, who couldn''t knock me out at any moment," Temperance explained. Teach nodded his head as he pondered Temperance''s words with a smug smile on his face while recalling multiple times he defeated Temperance in all of their sparing sessions.


    "That''s true... it would be more effective for you to train with someone on a similar level of power as yourself, but there isn''t much I can do unless one of your egos awakens and turns out to be a more conventional fighter than Nakamai here," Teach remarked as Nakamai''s defeatedly slumped her head downwards while sadly saying she wishes she had a simpler Azure Ability. Temperance agreed that Nakamai''s Azure Ability was definitely something else and would even give professional mathematicians a hard time. Nakamai was a little annoyed at Temperance''s remark since she had no idea what a mathematician was but got distracted when a thought entered her mind.


    "Say, Temperance?" Nakamai said as she climbed up onto Teach''s back.


    "Yeah...?" Temperance asked with a hint of apprehension.


    "Why are you going by your title-name-thing you got instead of your name sister-," Nakamai managed to say before Teach loudly cleared his throat.


    "It''s because he''s going through his edgy emo phase like all fantasy MCs do, where they go solo and temporarily forsake their name so they can''t be tracked by those who know them," Teach smugly explained to which he was greeted by the annoyed glares of Temperance and Nakamai. Teach lightly chuckled as he crossed his arms and sighed, with Temperance eventually sighing as well.


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    "But he''s not wrong about the-," Temperance started to say before stopping when he noticed Teach was staring up into the dark hights of Temperance''s Azuregate. Teach''s expression became an odd mix of multiple concerned ones before he put on a forced smile.


    "It seems we''ll have to cut your training short for now, you seem to have a visitor," Teach mentioned as he uncrossed his arms. Temperance tried to ask Teach who it was but was only greeted by Teach''s hand as it had its ring finger loaded behind its thumb.


    "Let''s just say, it looks like you''ll be getting that sparring partner you wanted sooner than expected," Teach remarked, and before Temperance could ask what Teach meant he was flicked on the forehead and was instantly snapped awake.


    Temperance blinked a few times as he sat on top of the flat bolder with his legs crossed. He rubbed his eyes before, a split second later, remembering what Teach had said and instantly activated his mana sense. Temperance immediately sensed a source of mana he didn''t recognise and glanced in the source''s direction only to be greeted by a golden-coloured left eye and a crystal blue right eye, both with narrow cat-like pupils and black sclera mere inches away from his face. The person the eyes belonged to blinked a few times as she continued to mindlessly stare into Temperance''s eyes.


    "Can I help?" Temperance asked, which caused the person''s eyes to snap out of their trance state and their pupils to widen into a circular shape. The person hopped away from Temperance and onto the adjacent rock, allowing Temperance to get a better look at them; they were a short, young-looking, girl kitsune: she has obnoxiously long curly bone-white hair with pale green and pale cyan tips, a golden coloured left eye and a crystally blue right eye with a five-pointed star shape pupil, covered head-to-toe in a thin pale snow white fur, four snow textured kitsune tails and two kitsune ears with pale green and pale cyan tips.


    The girl inquisitively stared at Temperance before she glanced down at his legs; she quickly mimicked the way Temperance was sitting before she look back at Temperance. The two silently stared at each other as Temperance wondered if the girl was going to say anything or was just going to stare at him.


    "..., I forgor...," the girl mutter as her tails wrapped around her waist. Temperance blinked a few times in disbelief at what the girl just muttered.


    "You... forgor?" Temperance said in response. The girl nodded her head and brushed her tails with a hairbrush that had a bone-like appearance.


    "Yeah... I forgor what I was going to say," the girl said as she brush her tails. Temperance slowly rubbed his eyes and yawned.


    "Since you don''t seem to remember what you wanted to ask, why don''t we introduce ourselves and talk until you remember?" Temperance offered while stating his name. The girl froze before facepalming and muttered about how rude it was for her not to introduce herself the moment Temperance had woken up.


    "Y-yeah ok, ... I''m Skullnaia but if that''s too long you can call me something else," Skullnaia shyly muttered as she increased the frequency of her tail brushing.


    "Ok..., I''ll call you Skull and you can call me... whatever you like as well, " Temperance stated. Skull paused for a second before she stored her hairbrush into her body and pulled a notepad out from her abdomen area.


    "So, all the fur on her body can be used to enter her tail pocket dimension," Temperance muttered, as Skull swiftly wrote in the notepad until she came to a stop.


    "How about sparkles?" Skull asked, to which Temperance unamusedly blinked in response. Skull quietly giggled and said it was a joke. Temperance asked if Skull had any other nicknames in her notepad. Skull nodded and recited the many nicknames she thought of until eventually finishing on TemTem and Tempster.


    "How come only the last two had any sort of semblance to my name?" Temperance asked as he rested his chin on his hand. Skull stated she thought the last two were too obvious and boring.


    "So, which one are you ok with?" Skull asked. Temperance said either was fine and Skull stated she''ll switch between the two. Temperance sighed before his and Skull''s ears perked up as they sensed a high concentration of mana gathering nearby. Skull sporadically spun around and her fur stood up as she loudly hissed. Temperance sighed as he stood up, which made Skull peek back at him as her fur lowered.


    "Seems like a Magic Dungeon is about to form nearby; I think it''s in a nearby cave," Temperance stated as he created multiple dome-shaped magic shields around Crystal''s opaque mana door. He clicked his neck and began to walk in a straight line towards the forest.


    "Can I come with?" Skull asked. Temperance continued to walk which made Skull sadly exhale thinking Temperance''s lack of words was a no.


    "What are you waiting for; you don''t need my permission, it''s not like I''m your dad am I?" Temperance stated. Skull''s tails happily wagged before she ran on all fours after Temperance.

 Chapter 5: Training Partner Tryouts Part 2

    Temperance slashed through some large foliage with a Reining Winds sword and dispelled the sword before continuing to walk, with Skull trailing behind him on all fours. As he continued to walk, Temperance felt something cold touch his left hand, and when he glanced down to look, he saw that Skull was sniffing his left hand. Temperance rolled his eyes followed by Skull abruptly climbing onto Temperance''s left arm and continuing to sniff it.


    "Do you mind?" Temperance asked with a mildly irritated tone. Skull peered up at Temperance as she climbed up Temperance''s body and laid belly-down on Temperance''s head.


    "Something''s odd about your...," Skull muttered before she sniffed Temperance''s hair.


    "My...?". Skull quietly purred as she mused over what it was she found odd about Temperance.


    "Mana... yeah your mana and other energies smell peculiar," Skull muttered as she buried her face in Temperance''s hair. Temperance mentally groaned and remarked to himself that Kannachi said the same thing when they met. Temperance felt Skull get heavier as she pressed her body against the back of his head.


    "Could you not-," Temperance muttered before he realised Skull had fallen asleep. Temperance rolled his eyes and decided he''ll wake her once they get to the mana source.


    A few minutes of non-stop walking later, Temperance arrived at the entrance of a large cave that he knew was an entrance to the magic dungeon, as he saw mana (of various colours) spiralling around and into the cave. Temperance crossed his arms as he examined the dungeon''s mana flow and confirmed he could probably handle it, even if he were alone. Temperance went to speak but was interrupted by the vibrations of Skull silently snoring.


    "We''re here," Temperance stated as he raised a hand in front of Skull''s head before he snapped his fingers, making Skull''s ears perk up. Skull kept her face in Temperance''s hair and even pretended to still be asleep by fake snoring. Temperance rolled his eyes with a fed-up demeanour.


    "Just to let you know, you didn''t make any sound when you were asleep," Temperance stated loudly, shortly followed by Skull slowly raising her head and glaring into the large cave in front of the duo. Skull flopped off Temperance and landed on her feet.


    "Alright! First to reach the boss room gets to fight them!" Skull cheerfully exclaimed; she blitzed off into the cave with Lightning Amp lightning trailing behind her before Temperance could even respond. Temperance sighed and muttered something under his breath before activating his own Lightning Amp, at a low level, and rushing after Skull.


    As the two kitsunes disappeared into the cave, a tall reflective metalic humanoid figure loomed high in the sky above the cave as they stood on a floating magic platform (a platform made of mana). The figure''s single large glowing red dot-shaped eye examined the cave.


    "Magic Dungeon Type: Complete. Dungeon Level: B. Calculating probability of unit needing to interfere with Lady Skullnaia''s antics... .... .... 43%," the figure stated with a deep synthesized male voice, which was immediately followed by a large explosion and a large plum of dark smoke erupting out from the cave, as the sound of Skull maniacally giggling accompanied the smaller explosions.


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    "61%," the figure stated as they heard a beep in their head. The figure sighed and pointed one of their hands into the air behind themselves before firing a concentrated dark blue ion energy beam; shortly followed by the body of a large winged monster plummeting behind the figure and crashing into the ground below with a loud thud.


    A thin laser-pointer beam shot out from the figure''s eye before the beam formed into a screen (like the floating ones seen in sci-fi movies/shows) that showed Temperance.


    "Individual known as Temperance diagnostics show that 2% of his magical energy, 3% of his kai and 10% of his qi is not his own, is what you were going to say right Neo Xero?," Hika (wearing a super sci-fi, magic highschool outfit) remarked cheekily as the glowing red dot stared at the floating Hika. Hika complained it was too dark and proceeded to create a ball of light that illuminated the area while revealing Neo Xero (he had slightly large black spikey metal hair with dark blue tips, slightly large plated dark silver arms and legs; darksteel chest, armoured arms and feet, dark blue gems embedded in his hands).


    "Your commentary is not required, Hika-01," Xero stated monotonously, making Hika poutingly squint her eyes and stick her tongue out at Xero. Hika asked Xero why they were waiting outside the dungeon given Skull''s track record. Xero explained that since Skull has a companion with her then he doesn''t need to assist unless something dire happens.


    "Dire... like?" Hika asked. Xero went through a variety of different circumstances that Skull put herself in where Xero needed to intervene, until coming to one that applied to this situation.


    "A cave-in," Xero stated. Hika thought about Xero''s answer before nervously giggling upon remembering the event Xero was referring to. Xero crossed his arms and Hika silently read a text message on her phone-shaped lime-green floating screen.


    Inside the magic dungeon, torrents of lightning-coated fireballs rocketed through a stone-brick corridor and straight for a group of worn-down armoured skeleton soldiers; the fireballs slammed into the skeletons before they were instantly obliterated by the resulting explosion. Dust clouds littered the hallway before Skull pierced through the dust clouds and maniacally laughed as she soared through the air before she landed on the ground and surfed down the hallway on a metal shield.


    Skull deviously grinned with her sharp shark-like teeth as she watched Temperance zip past her. Temperance brandished two mana swords (a Raging Blade sword and a Lightning Phantom sword) before swiftly slashing through the horde of skeleton soldiers and only leaving charred bones behind as Skull rode past them on the metal shield. Temperance stopped at a T-shaped cross-section before the shield Skull was previously on slammed into the wall when Skull jumped off it and landed next to Temperance.


    "Urrm...," Skull uttered as she looked between the two hallways. As Skull continued to look between the two paths, Temperance was looking at the wall the shield struck and noticed one of its bricks was slightly pushed back. Temperance started to walk toward the slightly damaged wall and Skull looked at him with a confused expression. Temperance pulled his swords back before dual-slashing the wall and creating a mini explosion from the mixing of fire and lighting mana. The wall instantly crumbled and revealed a hidden tunnel.


    "Woah, a secret tunnel," Skull murmured as she peered down the new tunnel. Seemingly remembering she had challenged Temperance to a race, Skull quickly jumped in front of Temperance before booking it down the tunnel while cheerfully singing the phrase secret tunnel. Temperance sighed and slashed the head off the skeleton standing behind him before jogging down the secret tunnel.


    Meanwhile, in Crystal''s pocket dimension, the three sisters were wearing animal onesies and laying in sleeping bags while being in a room that was simulating being in a forest. Crystal had an annoyed expression on her face while Kannachi and Merrybel were sleeping like rocks.


    "Should have figured this was what she meant," Crystal murmured before she closed her eyes and angrily went to sleep.

 Chapter 6: Impromptu Race Break

    Rapid sets of sharp, lightning crackles accompanied footsteps echoed through the secret tunnel. The lightning sounds caught the attention of the many skeleton soldiers, making them get into combative stances, only for them to be smashed to pieces as two dark lightning-covered objects barreled through the skeletons, and continued through the corridor.


    Temperance and Skull (running on all fours) were neck and neck as they booked it through the secret tunnel, unintentionally steamrolling any unfortunate skeleton soldiers that they ran into. Skull glanced over at Temperance, making sure to do it in such a way she wouldn''t be caught by Temperance, and was still able to see where she was going.


    "Impressive...," Skull murmured to herself. Temperance raised an eyebrow at Skull''s works before he looked over her.


    "Impressive?" Temperance asked curiously before he ran slightly ahead, turned around, and ran backwards in front of Skull. Skull energetically nodded her head, pushing herself upright, and continued to run on her feet.


    "Yeah! The only people I know who are faster than me are my parents, my older siblings, and Mr Xero," Skull explained. Temperance nodded his head as he listened to Skull''s explanation; he was moments away from replying to Skull but his attention was diverted as Skull frantically pointed at something behind Temperance. Temperance''s ears perked up, attempting to pick up any source of noise that could be the thing Skull was pointing at.


    Temperance tilted his head at Skull with a lost look on his face; he slowly turned his head and didn''t have the chance to see what was in front of him before he slammed face first into a darksteel metal door, sinking a few inches into the door, with a loud clang. Temperance felt the heat in his face rapidly flee from his body and into the door. Skull, surrounded by a ball of her tails, bounced against the wall before unwrapping her tails from around her body, and hurrying over to Temperance, as he pulled himself out of the door.


    "You good? That sounded... kinda... ba-" Skull uttered, freezing mid-sentence along with her tails spiking up as her body shivered when her eyes locked with the small amount of blood coming out of Temperance''s nose. Temperance attempted to ask Skull what was wrong, but when he took a step towards Skull she instinctively moved away from Temperance.


    "What''s wrong?" Temperance ask as his nose twitched, making him rub his nose, and feel a burning sensation when he did. Temperance blanketed his face with a thin veil of water mana and washed away the blood on his face.


    "Better?". Skull cautiously approached, crawling towards Temperance on all fours with glaring at Temperance''s face with unwavering focus. Skull shuffled up to Temperance, scaling up the side of Temperance''s body, and eyeing Temperance''s face. Skull let out a meek, relieved sigh as she looked at Temperance''s bloodless face.


    "Yeah..., just be more careful next time," Skull murmured in a huff as she pouted and frowned.


    "What''s wrong now?". Skull disgruntledly huffed, rolling her eyes away from Temperance, and jumped down to the ground as she held her tongue.


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    "You won...," Skull uttered under her breath as she sat down on the ground, and crossed her arms. Temperance''s eye widened, upon remembering the whole race thing. Temperance gazed down at Skull as she moodily swayed her head from side-to-side, and muttered about her supposed loss. Temperance playfully rolled his eyes, as a vague vision of a girl, possessing long and spikey, pale lime and dark teal hair, sitting on a grassy green hill appeared in front of him.


    "If you had to choose, would you rather me act like a tsundere who''s garbage at being one or a kuudere who''s on the verge of...," the girl said with a formal yet tomboyish tone, lightly biting her bottom lip as she pondered over what the last word should be.


    "How about you just act like a house cat, then you''d be doing both," the person, whose POV Temperance is looking through; along with him having a voice that was a mix of Teach''s and a person who Temperance didn''t recognise. The girl aggressively flailed her arms about at hearing the POV male''s remark, cursing to herself as it donned on her the options were just how her pet cats act.


    "You still there, Tempster?" Skull asked, lightly tapping Temperance''s face until he came back to reality. Temperance blinked a few times and instinctively placed a hand over his left eye.


    "Yeah..., just thinking about...,". Temperance shook his head, the vision he saw becoming nothing but a blur as he forced it out of his mind. Skull tilted her head and lightly tapped Temperance''s shoulder, as he continued to be silent.


    "I was just thinking, the race technically isn''t over given neither of us has entered the boss room yet," Temperance muttered, intentionally using an air-head sounding tone. Skull''s ears perked up and her eyes widened, having a wave of realising washing over her face as the implication of Temperance''s words donned on her. Skull lept off of Temperance and rushed the metal door.


    She pressed her hands against the door, and rapidly shook on the spot as she pushed against the door with all her might, causing her face to turn red from the exertion. Her feet slid backwards as she continued to push against the door before she started to run on the spot when she was about to fall over.


    "Umm...," Temperance slowly uttered as he looked at the hinges of the door. Skull heard repeated finger snapping next to her ear; she push herself off the door, slumping back onto her tails with sweat running down her face. Skull breathed heavily and meandered her gaze over at Temperance. Skull followed Temperance''s hand with her half-open, heavy eyes until her eyes met with the sign that said pull door.


    "O-ooh; I... feel... could we put the race... on hold?" Skull murmured, struggling to keep her eyes open until they eventually faltered and closed despite her efforts. Temperance blindly stared at Skull as she lightly snored. Temperance rubbed the back of his head muttering to himself about his situation. Temperance crossed his arms, swiftly sat on the ground, crossed his legs, and unleashed a disgruntled exhale.


    "What''s with all the females I''ve met being sleep-loving, children?". Temperance mused over his situation, joking it must be some curse as he closed his eyes, and meditated.


    "You think you''re cursed?" Nakamai asked. Temperance opened his eyes and was greeted by Nakamai being a few inches away from his face. Temperance lightly guided Nakamai away from his face with his hand and looked around the surrounding area of his azuregate.


    "Where''s Teach?". Nakamai shrugged as she floated around Temperance.


    "The same place he goes when he''s not training you," Nakamai said with a stern tone.


    "I see....". Temperance lowered his head and stared deeply into the palm of his left hand. He clenched his hand and asked Nakamai how she was doing on manifesting her physical body. Nakamai paused for a split second before her cheeks glowed a faint red, and she nervously giggled.


    "You haven''t been trying, have you?". Temperance stared at a motionless Nakamai, who slumped her head downwards as she meekly confirmed Temperance''s suspicions.

 Chapter 7: The Boss Snatcher and The Escort Transferencer

    Skull cooed in her sleep and rolled on the blanket-covered section of the floor with her tails wrapped around her body like a sleeping bag. Temperance exhaled heavily and placed the side of his foot on his opposing leg before he rhythmically tapped the base of his geta.


    "Aren''t you going to head on into the boss room?" Nakamai''s disembodied voice asked. Temperance groaned and picked up the pace of his geta tapping.


    "She requested to put the race on hold, so I''ll wait," Temperance stated.


    "But you''ve been sitting here for three hours. What if she sleeps so long that Kannachi and the others wake up and leave Crystal''s pocket home?!" Nakamai asked worriedly. Temperance sighed and rubbed one of his knuckles against his forehead.


    "I sent a drone. So, if anything were to happen, I''ll know and can teleport back," Temperance muttered as felt something fuzzy press up against his leg. Temperance glanced down and emotionlessly stared at the sleeping Skull as she rubbed her pudgy cheeks against his leg. Temperance sighed and itched his head.


    "Heads up the babysitters are here," the voice of Nakamai said, causing Temperance to shoot his eyes open and swung his head up to see a dark reflective being approaching without making a decibel of noise nor the sound of any small debris being disturbed.


    "Oh... see, Xero, she just fell asleep... again, nothing to worry about," Hika-01 said as Neo Xero walked into the lit section of the tunnel while Hika-01 sat on his shoulder.


    "So, it would seem...," Neo Xero uttered as he stopped nearby Temperance. The two stared at each other and were in a staring deadlock. Hika-01 floated between the two and cut off the staring deadlock.


    "Woah-woah-woah! No need for hostility here," Hika-01 said while pleading with Xero to cool his thrusters. Neo Xero''s visor large-dot eye flickered before he glanced to the boss door and marched over to it. Hika-01 sighed, making a neon-sign style exhale energy emoji puff out her mouth, and she swerved around towards Temperance.


    "Sorry about him. He tends to stare like a hawk at things or people when he scans them, you know, robot stuff," Hika-01 explained nervously while rubbing the back of her head and repeatedly bowing in the air.


    "Yeah... if you say so," Temperance muttered as the sleeping Skull clambered up his body and flopped onto Temperance''s tails. Temperance rose to his feet as a bone-shattering shriek erupted inside the boss room. Temperance and Hika-01 glanced over at the open boss room door and watched as dark green sludge slowly seeped out from the boss room. Xero exited the boss room while hovering over the sludge using the dark blue plasma thrusters in his feet.


    "So, it was a slime-type monster... gland neither of you went in," Hika-01 uttered, with Temperance reluctantly nodding at Hika-01''s comment.


    "I guess you''ll want to take Skullnaia back now?" Temperance asked. Temperance turned his upper body and reached over to grab Skull, but Hika-01 landed on the back of his hand.


    "Nah... we''re more like onlookers than... um, escorts, so we can''t force Naia to go anywhere unless her parents give us orders to," Hika-01 said while lightly patting Temperance''s hand. Hika-01 hopped off Temperance''s hand and floated in front of him.


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    "So... would you, by chance, be heading towards Lumios City?" Hika-01 asked while placing her hands behind her back and doing a shy posture.


    "Yeah...? What do you want me to take Skull there for you?" Temperance asked, causing Hika-01 to nod enthusiastically.


    "Most definitely... if you would please, although she''s been heading there on her own... she gets easily sidetracked by... mostly food, and it takes ages to get her anywhere. So, I beg you... you seem to be able to peak her attention and divert it from distractions....".


    "So, you want me to help speed up Skull''s pace by being a moving distraction to distractions?" Temperance asked to gain confirmation. Hika-01 nodded while meekly poking the tips of her index fingers together.


    "Would you?". Temperance sighed softly and rubbed his cheek.


    "I''ll have to see what the others say, but I guess I can do that," Temperance murmured. Hika-01 happily clapped her hands before she shook one of Temperacne''s fingers with both of her hands.


    "Thank you so much. I was getting worried we wouldn''t be able to get her to Lumiheart Academy before the school year started... but I wonder why they changed the light to heart," Hika-01 said while continuing to mutter about why the king decided to change the academy''s name.


    "Academy, huh?". Hika-01 raised an eyebrow at Temperance''s remark, and neon sign-style question marks appeared around her air space.


    "Oh, are you planning on attending too?".


    "Not me myself, but my companions are," Temperance stated, causing Hika to loudly huh, which caught Neo Xero''s attention while he plasma beamed the escaping sludge.


    "Wait, really? But your spiritual energies are like bam. You''d have no issues graduating, especially given how evenly paced you were with Naia earlier," Hika-01 said whilst she had a puzzled look plastered on her face while more question marks formed around her. Temperance lightly itched his human ears while remaining silent.


    "Is it a money issue?" Hika-01 asked.


    "Yeah....". Hika-01''s question marks warped into exclamation marks before they dispersed into particles.


    "I see....". Hika placed her hand on her chin before she waved at Temperance to get his attention.


    "Well, I think I know a way you could get in even without money," Hika-01 said. Temperance tilted his head and crossed his arms.


    "Which is?".


    "Every year on the first day of term, there are public tournament-style events where the winners of each mini-tournament get given a scholarship, although you''d only be interested in the Hunter ones... right?" Hika-01 asked. Temperance moved his hand to his cheek and mulled over Hika-01''s words.


    "How do you even have a tournament for Explorers and Gatherers? Not... practically but functionally?" Temperance asked with an intrigued tone.


    "Parkour courses and mapping them as detailedly as possible within a time limit for Explorers, and collecting certain hidden objects within a time limit for Gatherers," Hika-01 explained. Temperance nodded his head and lowered his arms.


    "I''ll think about it," Temperance remarked. Hika-01 happily spun in the air before she floated onto Neo Xero''s shoulder as he walked past her.


    "Cya around. We''ll be close by if you ever need us?!" Hika-01 proclaimed as she and Neo Xero disappeared into the dark corridor. Temperance sighed and raised his left arm as a void black tattoo formed all over it except for a circular gap on the entirety of his hand.


    Pale pink qi funnel through the magic tattoo, gathering into the circular gap and forming into a glowing pale pink circle with a glowing white galaxy-shaped insignia within the circle. Temperance snapped his right hand''s fingers, and a pale pink qi bubble formed around Temperance before it, Temperance, and Skull teleported away.

 Chapter 8: Back On The Move Towards The Academy

    "So... who''s your friend, TemTem?" Kannachi asked while she and Temperance watched Skull finish her break dance routine and led on her side.


    "I''m Skullnaia," Skull exclaimed playfully before she flopped onto her back in an exhausted and dizzy state.


    After a few minutes, Kannachi and her sisters listened to Temperance explain the situation with Skull and why she''d be travelling with them to the Lumiheart Academy.


    "So?" Merrybel uttered.


    "So... to what?" Temperance asked.


    "And why would Kannachi be violent towards Skull?" Temperance asked mentally as he lept between the tops of trees.


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    "I... never mind," Nakamai uttered defeatedly.


    "What do you think she''d see Skull as a love rival?" Temperance asked mentally, causing Nakamai to gasp in utter shock.


    "Wait, you know she likes you?".


    "Yeah? What do you take me for an-".


    "Oh, so it''s just like when-" Hika-02 managed to say before Lola gave her a disapproving stare.


    "Say... where is my hubby anyway?" Lola asked.


    "Wished I didn''t ask..., that means he''ll be gone for a whole day," Lola whined as she slammed her kitsune tails against the floor and disapointedly dragged them behind her as she left her bedroom.

 Chapter 9: A Short-lived Road-bump

    Temperance traversed over the expansive forest''s roof while he carried Kannachi, Merrybel, Crystal, and Skull on his kitsune tails. The squad of girls talked amongst themselves while occasionally trying to get Temperance to join, but he deflected the offer by telling the group he needed to focus on where he was going. Kannachi asked the others how much further they thought the city was. Skull raised her hand while saying she knew the answer.


    "You don''t need to raise your hand, Naia," Crystal stated.


    "Oh...," Skull uttered as she lowered her hand, "Well, it''s about um....". Skull quickly checked the terrain far in the distance, ahead of the group, before deciding once she saw the fair-off collection of mountain-high hills with long extremely worn down windy roads.


    "About..., well, I don''t know the distance, but we''ll be there in an hour based on the speed Temtem is going," Skull stated while pointing ahead of the group. The other girls looked into the distance but had a hard time seeing anything Skull was pointing at.


    "I can''t see anything...," Merrybel complained.


    "That''s a given since kitsunes are one of the many races with better vision that are specialised in spotting things at a range," Temperance remarked as he tapped one of his kitsune tails before three sets of binoculars stuck out in front of the non-optically gifted girls. Kannachi looked through her binoculars and was easily able to see the worn-down roads and the mountain-high hills they led upon.


    "Oh, we''re already that close? That means we''ll be at Lumios City by mid-day," Kannachi explained. Temperance glanced to his side before he rolled his eyes.


    "Heads up!" Temperance proclaimed. The others, aside from Skull, made confused huh noises before Skull grabbed them and lept into the air, causing the other girls to let out shocked eep noises.


    Temperance spun around and Roundhouse kicked the dark blue blur behind him. The blur rocketed over the trees before it plummeted into the forest below. Skull landed on top of a tree while Kannachi and her sisters were clinging to Skull''s kitsune tails as they sat on them.


    "Was that an aether beast? But how? We''re outside of that city place!" Skull shouted whilst she looked over at Temperance. Temperance got into a fighting stance as he stood on the tip of a tree while balancing on a single foot.


    "Actually, ruined cities are just where loads of aether beasts are, but they can really appear anywhere," Crystal stated, causing Skull to rub her head with a puzzled and embarrassed expression.


    The leaves of the trees around where the aether beast fell began to rustle before the aether beast lept onto a tree, revealing the aether beast to have the appearance of a werewolf.


    "That one should be around a C-Rank. This won''t take long after all," Temperance uttered as he raised his hand to the side and conjured a sword made from a dark azure blue-coloured crystally metal filled with rainbow-coloured stars. Skull widened her eyes at seeing the sword Temperance conjured, and she slightly drooled at the sight of it but quickly wiped her mouth.


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    The aether beast howled and lunged at Temperance as Temperance bent his knees before he dashed at the aether beast with equal intensity. The aether beast fired a barrage of shockwave-shaped dark-blue energy projectiles from its mouth at Temperance.


    Temperance manoeuvred around the shockwave-shaped aether projectiles and slashed them with his sword in tandem as he evaded the attacks. When they both were within each other''s striking range, the aether beast swung a fast right hook, but Temperance swiftly counted the attack with a block.


    While the sword and the aether beast''s claw were still pushing against each other, Temperance used the force of the collision to pole-vault himself and his sword over the aether beast. Before the aether beast could react, Temperance delivered a devastating sword slash right down the aether beast''s spine, followed by a decapitating slice to the aether beast''s neck.


    The headless body and the severed head continued to travel in an arch before slamming into a tree and plummeting to the obscured ground below. Temperance clicked his neck with his free hand as Skull hopped back onto Temperance''s kitsune tails and placed the others back on them as well.


    Temperance felt Skull tap his shoulder, causing Temperance to roll his eyes. Temperance flipped his sword around and handed it to Skull, with the four-pointed star-shaped pummel side aimed at her. Skull cheerfully took the sword and thanked Temperance, before Skull immediately started nibbling on the sword.


    "Say, Big Bro Temtem," Merrybel asked as she tapped Temperance on the shoulder.


    "Yes, Merrybel?".


    "Have you thought of a name for your magic sword yet?".


    "And why would I need to name it?" Temperance asked. The girls looked at Temperance with disappointed expressions, causing Temperance to roll his eyes dismissively.


    "Fine... um Aether Requim or something," Temperance uttered.


    "I think the name would be better if you got rid of the um, and the or something," Skull remarked before she resumed nibbling on the aether requiem sword. Temperance rolled his eyes with a fed-up expression before he lept off the tree and continued to parkour over the forest roof.


    A few hours later, Temperance sprinted down the worn-down roads of the mountain-tall hills and ran past a bungalow surrounded by a cobblestone wall with a garden which was in pristine condition. Kannachi thought for a second before glancing back at the bungalow.


    "You think someone lives there?" Kannachi asked.


    "Doubt it that place gave off the frozen-in-time feel," Crystal remarked. Kannachi squinted her eyes and noticed a faint veil of teal and lime qi [qi is an energy with a particle effect] over every surface of the bungalow and its garden.


    "Wonder who did that?" Kannachi uttered.


    "Sister, look!" Merrybel proclaimed while she shook Kannachi''s shoulder. Kannachi swung her head around and saw the walls of Lumios City and the large glass dome of the city''s central tower. Kannachi blinked a few times before rubbing her eyes and making sure she was seeing things correctly as Lumios City flickered between its current look and how it looked centuries ago.


    "Weird...," Kannachi uttered mentally as Temperance continued to follow the remains of the road as best he could with the occasional stretch of land where no road remained anymore.

 Chapter 10: Somehow Its Not As Bad As Airport Checkpoints

    Temperance jogged down the last stretch of ruined concrete roads before arriving at the foot of the large cathedral-like archway with a glassy membrane energy thing inside of it. Aside from Skull, Temperance and Co tilted their heads at the membrane energy door thing in the towering archway.


    "You know you can just walk through, right?" Skull uttered. Temperance looked at Skull before back at the archway.


    "You''d think there''d be someone to act as gate guards," Crystal remarked.


    "But the scanner does those gate guard things and scans for anything dangerous," Skull explained while smugly grinning. Temperance shrugged and walked through the archway''s scanner before a blaring siren activated. Everyone aside from Temperance covered their ears, while Skull disapointedly frowned.


    "This happens every time," Skull sulked as a platoon of androids (which looked like cyan and white, and slightly less armoured versions of Neo Xero) shot out from Lumios City''s boundary wall and landed around the group. A separate female-looking android (which looked like a tall adult version of the Hikas with rainbow-striped hair and rainbow-changing eyes; which sported a bulky swat-coloured mech-like armour) landed in front of the group.


    Neo Hika inspected the group while walking around them like a tyger before she spotted Skull sinking into Temperance''s kitsune tails from sheer embarrassment. Neo Hika waved her index finger in the air, and the Xero Drones flew away whilst the siren''s alarm seized.


    "Lady Skullnaia, you really need to refrain from eating aether beast," Neo Hika uttered. Skull sunk even further into Temperance''s kitsune tails whilst she sulked.


    "But I made sure not to eat any for the past three days...," Skull muttered stroppily.


    "However, clearly, you still consumed something made of aether recently, correct?". Skull was silent before quietly whining like a kitten.


    "I knew it tasted familiar...," Skull uttered to herself. Neo Hika sighed as she rubbed the side of her head.


    "Just try not to inconvenience your... friends with your weird food cravings," Neo Hika stated before she flew into the air and back into the Lumios City''s boundary wall. Temperance looked down and gazed at his raised left palm while the others comforted a defeated Skull.


    "So it really was fighting fire with fire," Temperance uttered before he lowered his hand, and looked at the contemporary city a little off in the distance past the marble Greek town the group were currently in. Temperance asked the others if they were ready to continue, and once the others confirmed his question Temperance continued on his way through the Greek-looking town made of white and blue marble.


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    Temperance continually walked down the surprisingly well-paved marble-tiled path as Teach slowly walked past Temperance. For a brief moment, Temperance didn''t notice Teach until he began to speak.


    "Pretty impressive how many people are here given the circumstances," Teach remarked, causing Temperance to flinch. Temperance glanced over at Teach as he had a more see-through appearance compared to how he was when inside Temperance''s Azurescape.


    "What''s the matter?" Teach asked calmly.


    "Aren''t you worried someone might see you?" Temperance said mentally.


    "What''s there to see?" Teach remarked boldly as he manoeuvred around a guy walking in the opposite direction who didn''t even register Teach''s presence or voice.


    "Right... only I can see you," Temperance uttered in his head.


    "Correction, you''re hallucinating me being here, I''m still in your Azurescape.".


    "Yet you knew to walk around that guy earlier," Temperance uttered, causing Teach to snicker.


    "Anyway, do you intend on participating in that tournament to win that recommendation?" Teach inquired.


    "Maybe... but I''m still not sure," Temperance thought. Teach sighed disappointedly while placing his hands on his hips.


    "Such indecisiveness... besides, wouldn''t your friends miss you?". Temperance looked to his side contemplatively, causing Teach to sigh again.


    "How about this... you participate, and I''ll allow you to use the Gods'' Plightful Shackles outside of life-threatening situations, and I''ll also teach (heh) you more divine marks for your Dotoma Mark, deal," Teach stated boldly, causing Temperance to freeze on the spot for a split second before he quickly walked on again.


    "You''re being uncharacteristically pushy...," Temperance uttered.


    "Nakamai''s fed up with your lone wolf phase, and she wants you to make friends for her once she eventually manifests, so you know my hands are tied," Teach stated while he shrugged. Temperance unamusedly rolled his eyes.


    "I swear whenever it comes to kids, you become a complete pushover," Temperance uttered aloud as Teach faded away, knowing Temperance''s mind was made up now.


    "Who''s a pushover!" Kannachi asked as she rested her head on Temperance''s shoulder.


    "I- I was talking to someone else," Temperance uttered.


    "Ooh~ mental talking, cool," Kannachi murmured as her eyes slowly shut and she conked out.


    "Geez... big sis always falls asleep at the weirdest of times," Merrybel stated as Crystal rolled her eyes.


    "More like she turns into a sleepy capybara when she''s in contact with Temtem," Crystal remarked snarkily. Temperance continued to walk down the marble path leading him to the contemporary city centre while muttering to himself about when the recommendation tournament thing was. Temperance groaned as he remembered it was today.


    "I better get a move on. I won''t hear the end of it from Nakamai if I don''t at least participate," Temperance uttered. After he rubbed his forehead, Temperance picked up his pace and jogged towards the city centre of Lumios City.

 Chapter 11: Lets Hope The Only Thing He Has Is A Broken Leg

    From the street of open-air garage-esque blacksmith stores, the sounds of clanging metal and screeching chings polluted the air. Temperance dragged his heavy feet behind him as he gazed at the various specialized blacksmiths surrounding him while the others trailed a little behind him to muse at the stores'' wares.


    "Talk about going at a snail¡¯s pace," Temperance murmured under his breath; he halted his stride and looked back at the others as they gathered around the sole ice cream cart on the street, making Temperance squint at them and itched the roof of his ear.


    "If only you said they were as slow as slugs then I could¡¯ve made a sluggish pun¡­ for shame," a deflated girly voice whined. Temperance paid the voice no mind before a sharp pain in his side made him flinch and dart his head at the originator of the voice. Temperance mentally paused as his eyes locked with the mass of wool-like dark-green to lime green to snow-white gradient hair with a metallic-esque appearance.


    Temperance tilted his head to one side before slowly swaying it to the other side; he gazed at the mass of hair as a pair of small light-tanned arms poked out from the front of the hair mass. The pair of hands parted the mass of hair to reveal the super short, young-looking female teen underneath. (she''s a humanoid being who has crystal-textured golden-coloured eyes with her left pupil being in the shape of a five-pointed star and is a glowing cyan colour)


    "Do you know how to tie hair using this?" The girl asked as she held a silver fur cloth with cyan ends at Temperance. Temperance mindlessly took the cloth from the girl, and she smugly turned around while commenting on how straightforward Temperance was being. Temperance felt his senses return, and he stared at the cloth before sighing and begrudgingly tying the girl''s hair for her.


    Despite the monstrous amount of hair, Temperance found it surprisingly easy to guide and move the hair around into a tidier state until Temperance finally finished. Temperance took a step and gazed upon the new state of the girl''s hair: the hair was tied behind her head in the shape of an eight-petalled lotus.


    Thanks to Temperance''s handy work, he was now able to see a few things on the girl which were previously hidden: such as the two large tuffs or purely metalic snow-white hair on the sides of her head, which vaguely resembled mammoth tusks and the girl''s extremely large woolly snow-textured dark-green kitsune tail.


    The girl spun around on the spot and giddily smirked as she fluffed up her hair with her hands.


    "Thanks... erm buddy or should I call you bud since you''re older than me?" the girl remarked as Temperance forced his face to remain as neutral as possible.


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    "I think you should deal with your... well, I don''t think you can call it a wardrobe malfunction in your case," Temperance uttered as he stared straight at the girl''s evidently perplexed face. The girl raised an eyebrow and gazed down to see she was for lack of a better term in her birthday suit.


    "Oh, guess I got too relaxed while you were messing with my hair," the girl uttered as some of the fur from her tail curled back from the rest before coiling around her body and taking on the shape of a fur coat hoodie, baggy trousers, and leggings.


    "There we go~," the girl said as she held out a hand to Temperance, "I''m Xenazuki by the way.".


    "Temperance.". Temperance raised a hand to shake Xenazuki¡¯s hand, but the remnant pang in his side made him pause and mull over whether he should shake Xenazuki¡¯s hand.


    "It would be rude to not reciprocate her gesture, so I suggest a fist bump if you want to keep functionality in your hand," the voice of Teach in Temperance¡¯s mind recommended. Temperance sighed and balled up his hand into a fist, causing Xenazuki to giddily giggle at what she viewed as Temperance¡¯s shyness to a simple handshake. Xenazuki curled up her fingers and reciprocated Temperance¡¯s fist bump.


    "And with the introductions out of the way, I''m gonna punch you now~" Xenazuki announced as she took a step back and reeled back her fist. Temperance nodded as Xenazuki began winding up her arm like a boxer. Temperance sighed and shook his head whilst he placed his hands on his hips.


    "Honestly, why do kitsunes have the strangest social custo -.". Temperance was interrupted mid-sentence as Xenazuki¡¯s small fist socked him in the face. Her punch sent loud ripples through the air before it was shortly followed by a thunderous shockwave exploding through the air and blasting everything not bolted down in every direction.


    Meanwhile, on a nearby repurposed radio tower into a watch tower, an adult male who appeared to be in his thirties with pale skin stood on the top of the radio antenna of the tower as he watched the shockwave Xenazuki created far in the distance launching things high into the sky. (The guy is a humanoid ice/wind elemental: he has slightly long pale cyan hair with an icy texture tied back into the shape of an eight-petalled lotus flower and crystal-textured ocean-blue eyes)(He''s wearing a dark-green fur ninja face mask which covers his mouth and nose, a full-body aside from his head black jumpsuit, fuzzy dark green fur baggy trousers, and darksteel [black metal] boots)


    "Looks like Zuki found the fellow Hika-01 and Neo Hika informed me about," the ice/wind elemental remarked with a deep voice and a faint feminine voice mimicking his words. He tilted his head to the side before a basket of fruits flew past him. The elemental sighed before teleporting beside the basket and catching it by its handle. Snow sprung forth from his back, collecting together and forming into large wings made solely from snow.


    "Best head over and minimize the collateral Zuki''s caused," the elemental uttered defeatedly before he flexed back and soared towards the source of the shockwave.

 Chapter 12: An Orthodox Offer?

    Knocked-over stands, dazed people and various belongings of said knocked-over people littered the blacksmiths/artisans store-filled street with the groans of disgruntled citizens floating in the air.


    "Urg... not again, this is the fifth guy the Capital Virtue of Diligence has punched in the face this month," a man in blacksmith attire uttered as he and many others helped restore the area to an orderly state.


    Xenazuki blinked in utter bewilderment as she balanced on the tip of her fuzzed-up woolly tail with her fist firmly placed against Temperance''s face. Temperance faintly puffed up his chest before slowly letting out a heavy exhale from his mouth. Xenazuki''s eyes lit up and sparkled like stars as she removed her fist from the ticked-off Temperance.


    "Thanks... for interrupting me with that punch," Temperance said snarkily with an obnoxiously sarcastic tone. Xenazuki averted her gaze and timidly giggled at Temperance''s tone.


    "Erm... punch line... insert punch line here?" Xenazuki uttered nervously. Skull nawed on a femur bone while she and Kannachi glared at the giggling Xenazuki.


    "She''s setting her sights on my future man/Sis is trying to steal my sparring partner," Kannachi and Skull grumbled simultaneously before sharply looking at each other. The duo slumped their heads to the side and defeatedly sighed at each other. Xenazuki instantaneously ended her giggling before she rotated her head and glared at the duo with an angered/disgusted expression on her face.


    "You''ve got some nerves thinking I''ll be participating in your harem squabbles because you best think again, dumb-dumbs," Xenazuki stated as her voice became deeper and deeper with every syllable; Kannachi and Skull felt a wave of pressure weigh down on them which emanated from Xenazuki.


    "Zuki, what have you been told about exerting your azure abilities on others especially when punching them," the ice/wind elemental said sternly as he landed on the street and dispersed his snow wings. Xenazuki flinched, and her pupils bulged as she released the pressure she was exerting on Kannachi and Skull. Xenazuki swung her head at the ice/wind elemental and stared at him while she was on the verge of tears.


    "But Papa... he didn''t even flinch from my greeting punch that basically makes us a couple," Xenazuki whined in a high-pitched voice. Temperance unamusedly closed his eyes and furrowed his brow while Kannachi crossed her arms and held her tongue.


    "Did your mother tell you that''s how it works or something?". Xenazuki nodded, making Xenazuki''s father defeatedly exhale before looking at Temperance.


    "Do you have any problems with my daughter''s declaration, sport?" Xenazuki''s father asked. Temperance let out a meek groan and opened his eyes into a half-hearted glare.


    "I mean I already... have someone who calls themselves that, but given how kitsunes operate I doubt that would matter, right?" Temperance snarked jokingly, managing to get a chuckle out of Xenazuki''s father.


    "I hear you. Once a kitsune or alkorian sets their sights on someone that''s that, for better or mostly for worse" Xenazuki''s father added before he raised a hand to Temperance.


    "My name''s Magistrate Yokuza Sakamoto.". Temperance looked at Yokuza''s hand and reluctantly shook it.


    "Temperance...". Yokuza raised an eyebrow while trying to keep his growing smug dad demeanour in check.


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    "I would say only telling me your title is rude, but I''m mostly referred to as Magistrate, so I shan''t judge," Yokuza stated telepathically, causing Temperance to flinch. Yokuza smirked at Temperance as the two ended their certified awkwardly prolonged handshake. Temperance felt light thuds on his chest, making him look down to see Xenazuki tapping her head against his chest.


    "Yeah?" Temperance uttered politely.


    "Why''s your spiritual energies all funny?" Xenazuki uttered timidly.


    "Medical condition," Temperance stated sharply. Yokuza amusedly huffed and rubbed the back of his head.


    "I was going to ask that myself, but I figured as much, and since you''re functionally family why don''t I have my sister do a medical examination on your condition?" Yokuza offered.


    "I appreciate the offer... but there''s no need, my... teacher said it would pass after a certain point in my life," Temperance stated.


    "That''s a weird way to say it, Tem-Tem," Skull remarked as she, while carrying Kannachi on her back, crawled up Temperance and settled on his kitsune tails.


    "Not my words; he''s just weird like that," Temperance uttered before he agitatedly glanced to the side as he felt the faint visage of Teach looking over Temperance''s shoulder. Hika-01 appeared on Yokuza''s shoulder from a cluster of silver before she leaned to his ear and whispered into it.


    "She said what...?" Yokuza mumbled before he covered his eyes and sighed, "...honestly what is she thinking.". Yokuza rocked his head from side to side while mulling over the relayed request he received from Hika-01.


    "On an unrelated note, I take it you''re still planning on participating in the extra entrance Hunter Tournament, Temperance?" Yokuza asked. Temperance glanced back at his tails as Merrybel and Crystal climbed onto them before Temperance lightly sighed.


    "You should choose your next words very caref-" Teach managed to say before being cut off mid-sentence.


    "It would seem like that," Temperance replied. Teach violently facepalmed, dragging his fingers across his face as he groaned to himself.


    "It would appear your ears aren''t working, given you couldn''t hear what the main Hika said to the snow fairy here," Teach remarked, with Yokuza flinching and shivering upon Teach uttering snow fairy despite being incapable of perceiving Teach. Teach faded away, and Yokuza rubbed his cheek as Hika-01 teleported away.


    "Didn''t think I could still get chills. Anyways, I take it you don''t seem too thrilled about that, so I have a proposal for Temperance," Yokuza stated. Temperance lifted and lent an ear to Yokuza.


    "I''m listening; if it happens to involve circumventing the need to do that tournament.". Yokuza nodded.


    "It seems we''re on the same wavelength then. I''m willing to get not only give you a scholarship but also to your friends given the... heh... severity of mine and my partner''s request," Yokuza stated with Temperance and Kannachi nodding as they listened.


    "Which is?" Temperance asked. Kannachi tilted her head as the gears in her brain turned before her face lit up as she thought of something.


    "Let me guess; you want my Tem-Tem to add all of your daughters to his recently formed harem." Kannachi stood triumphantly on Temperance''s tails and felt a wave of pride as she saw Yokuza smirk with an equal amount of surprise.


    "Impressive, and that saves me the trouble of trying to word it more subtly. But yes, what you said is indeed what the request entails.". Yokuza held out his hand for a handshake, and Crystal smirked.


    "Talk about making a deal with the devil," Crystal said in an upbeat tone, causing Yokuza to snicker and lower his hand.


    "Well, we all can''t be made of virtue; now can we?" Yokuza retorted with an equal amount of glee in his voice, which made Xenazuki defeatedly curl up into a ball and encase herself with her tail fur.


    "How is Papa so much better than me at puns?" Xenazuki whined as Yokuza picked her up and placed her on Temperance''s tails.


    "So, what do you say?" Yokuza asked once more.

 Chapter 13: Tormented By The Cards

    Temperance groaned and covered his eyes with his hands as he led on the floor of his azuregate. Temperance rubbed his eyes before he raised his hands to the swirling galaxy-looking masses of sparkly gold and silver qi(it''s an energy with a particle effect), kai(it''s an energy with a liquidy effect), and magical energy(it''s an energy with a spikey effect) high in the fake pitch-black sky.


    "Why are you so bent out of shape?" Nakamai asked as she sat next to Temperance and poked his face. Teach strolled up behind Nakamai and patted her on the head.


    "He''s feeling the consequences of his actions for not heeding my guidance and going against his own... character for the sake of his allies," Teach stated.


    "Huh?" Nakamai murmured perplexedly. Teach rolled his eyes and ruffled Nakamai''s hair before he removed his hand from her head.


    "He decided to agree to the snow fairy''s request without thinking about said agreement which led to six more girls being added to his unintentional harem," Teach explained which made Temperance flinched before he rolled onto his side.


    "Lay off, would you? At least now I won''t have to worry about using my Azure Abilities or the shackle magic tattoo against another person for the time being," Temperance said snarkily. Teach shook his head and pulled a leg back before swinging it forward and punting Temperance across the azuregate like a football.


    Temperance soared through the air, barrel rolling as he fell towards the ground before landing on the top of his head. Temperance remained upside down and balanced on the top of his head like a bowling pin. Temperance sparingly inhaled before sharply exhaling through his nose.


    "What was that for?" Temperance uttered disapprovingly while making his discontent with Teach''s action extra known through his disapproving tone. Teach strolled towards Temperance while Nakamai clung to one of Teach''s kitsune tails and let it drag her across the watery-texture floor.


    "I won''t have your edgy phase negatively affect you and make you refuse to use all the cards you have available to you just because you screwed up in the past," Teach stated sternly, with his voice drumming into Temperance''s ears. Temperance scoffed and crossed his arms as he adverted his eyes.


    "I don''t know how you can refer to what I did as a screw-up," Temperance uttered poutingly as his face shifted from an angered expression to a sombre one.


    "I won''t say what happened isn''t something to be reflective about, but I can assure you things will certainly get worse when a similar situation occurs," Teach stated coldly, making Temperance groan in frustration as he covered his face with his hands.


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    "Why couldn''t you have said if.".


    "You know why, dummy. Now psych yourself for a time-skip''s worth of training in a single hour!" Nakamai excitedly exclaimed as she raised a dodgeball over her head.


    Hours later, Temperance exhaustedly groaned as he opened his eyes and blankly glared at the wooden ceiling of his dorm room. Temperance sat up in his bed and gazed around at his well-furnished bedroom, which showed no additions added by Temperance. Temperance yawned and rubbed his face as he felt something rustling under his bedsheets. Temperance lifted his bedsheets to see Nakamai (with the physical form of a short nine-year-old girl) staring straight at him. (Nakamai has pale white skin, super long sparkly golden hair with glowing silver stars pattern all over her hair, six short fluffy sparkly golden fox tails, two fox ears, and sparkling golden eyes with black scleras)


    Temperance silently stared at the naked Nakamai as she led on Temperance''s chest.


    "Aah, the fabled waking up to see a naked girl in your be-" Nakamai uttered before Temperance wrapped one of his kitsune tails around Nakamai and lifted her onto the floor. Nakamai crossed her arms and pouted as Temperance''s tail unwrapped from around her.


    "You could''ve at least pretended to be flustered," Nakamai complained as she repeatedly huffed. Nakamai stood up and tried to climb back into Temperance''s bed, but she was halted by Temperance moving his hand in front of her face. Nakamai raised her head over Temperance''s hand and silently gave Temperance a judgmental stare.


    "Put on some clothes first.".


    "Why? it''s not like I''m indecent," Nakamai whined as she pointed at her nippleless chest.


    "No clothes, no bed.". Nakamai gritted her teeth as she stomped across the room, and picked up a, in comparison to herself, super oversized white shirt with black text saying the phrase Master Gamer in the comic sans font. Nakamai shuffled back to the bed before climbing back under the sheat and snuggling up against Temperance''s arm. Temperance rolled his eyes and led back down as Nakamai repositioned herself to be more comfortable.


    "Victory for Nakamai~," Nakamai murmured cheerfully as she drifted to sleep while Temperance remained perfectly awake in a groggy state.


    Meanwhile, in her own dorm room, Kannachi was lying wide awake in her bed with stacks of boxes in the centre of her bedroom. Kannachi excitedly stared at the ceiling with sparkles in her eyes as she rubbed her cheeks.


    "Wow~ I can''t believe not only did I get to keep all the money we saved for our enrollment fees thanks to Astr- I mean Tem Tem, but I also got a bedroom right next to him," Kannachi remarked giddily as she buried her face under her bedsheets. Kannachi let out a content sigh before she raised a fist to the ceiling with a confident smirk.


    "In a week, I''ll be his main- wait no I mean... urg I make my declaration when I''m not tired," Kannachi murmured as she rolled onto her side and went to sleep.

 Chapter 14: Settling Visage

    Early in the morning, Kannachi and Skull contently snored in their sleep as in the adjacent bedroom, on the opposite side of Temperance''s, Crystal lied on her back like a stiff action figure in her bed with her hands clasped over her ears. Unlike Crystal, Merrybel was out cold and sleeping like a baby while having her legs hanging off her bed.


    "Who needs an alarm clock when you have Kannachi for a sister and Naia for a friend," Crystal whispered snarkily, only for her actual digital alarm clock to begin beeping. Crystal groaned as she pulled a hand away from her ear and slapped the large square button on top of the alarm clock. Crystal glanced over at Merrybel before she shook her head and decided to let her sleep in.


    Crystal begrudgingly removed herself from her bed, swiftly got dressed and exited her room into the shared living area; it contains a connected living room and kitchen, which are styled after a nineteen seventies bungalow, and a double glass door which leads to a balcony. Crystal swivelled her vision across the shared living area and counted the three doors on the left and right walls of the shared living area.


    "Mornin'', Crystal," Xenazuki announced cheerfully as she slithered out from under a sofa while having her large tail wrapped around her head. Xenazuki bounced to her feet and waved at Crystal, who returned the gesture.


    "Good morning, Zuki. I see you couldn''t sleep in the same room as Kannachi and Naia.". Skull mildly giggled as she unwrapped her tail from her head.


    "Nah, my antie''s snoring is way worse, so I could''ve handled that on its own," Xenazuki stated, making Crystal raise an eyebrow while pondering on how someone''s snoring could be worse than Kannachi''s.


    "Then what was the problem?".


    "Well, I''m not sure; I woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, but as I was heading back to bed I heard a female voice in our dorm room I didn''t recognise.".


    "Yeah...?".


    "So, I searched all over the dorm room; I even peaked outside the front door, but nothing.".


    "But why were you under the sofa though?". Xenazuki shrugged dismissively and shook her head.


    "Beats me, but I probably had an energy crash and eventually rolled under there.". Crystal nodded as she glanced towards Temperance''s bedroom.


    "Now that I think about it... I think I heard Temperance speaking to himself last night as well," Crystal remarked as she placed a hand on her chin.


    "Unknown female voice... Temperance seemingly talking to himself... that could only mean one thing," Crystal murmured as she nodded, and Xenazuki nodded in rhythm with Crystal. Xenazuki''s eyes filled with fire and willpower before she sprinted over to Temperance''s bedroom and knocked on the door.


    The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    In Temperance''s bedroom, Nakamai cooed and quietly moaned in her sleep as she tightly wrapped her kitsune tails around herself and squeezed her body. The knocking of Xenazuki echoed through the bedroom, making Temperance slowly exhale through his nose as he rolled onto his side.


    "Answer the door, would you," Temperance instructed groggily. Temperance placed a foot against Nakamai''s back before he kicked Nakamai out of his bed.


    "Gah!" Nakamai blurted out as she slammed into the floor before rebounding and bouncing all over the bedroom. Crystal and Xenazuki listened to the sound of Nakamai bouncing around Temperance''s bedroom before the noises abruptly ended once Nakamai banged against the door. The door''s doorknob jolted and jostled about before the door slowly crept open. Nakamai peeked her head around the side of the door while she dangled off the floor as she held onto the door''s doorknob.


    "Hi-oh~," Nakamai announced cheerfully as she released her grip on the doorknob and dropped to the floor. Xenazuki balled up her shaking fist and puffed up her cheeks while Crystal cockily smirked and fist pumped.


    "Told you she''d be a kitsune visage," Crystal said smugly as Xenazuki slumped her shoulders.


    "But... I didn''t want to believe the implication of someone who gets a visage before an ego would apply to Tem Tem," Xenazuki uttered sulkingly. Crystal and Nakamai puzzledly stared at Xenazuki while the two made huh sounds.


    "Implication?" Crystal and Xenazuki asked in unison. Xenazuki spun on her heel and loudly huffed.


    "It''s not important!" Xenazuki exclaimed, her voice shaking everything and everyone in the academy''s dormitory block as she shouted. The door to Kannachi and Skull''s bedroom opened, and the duo poked their heads through the gap in the door.


    "Hey, don''t be so loud! Some people are trying to sleep here," Skull whined as Kannachi lazily rubbed her eyes.


    A few minutes later, after everyone got dressed, Temperance glanced at the set of three vacant bedrooms on the opposite side of the group''s bedrooms.


    "How come your siblings aren''t in those rooms?" Nakamai asked as she sat on Temperance''s shoulders and pointed at the vacant bedrooms. Xenazuki and Skull shrugged in response while Skull was nibbling on a red chicken wing.


    "Well, aside from Saigo, I can only guess they haven''t returned to Lumios City yet," Xenazuki said as she also mentioned they''ll probably want to do what she did to Temperance when she met them. Temperance sighed at the prospect of having to let six more girls punch him, but he eventually raised his vision to the wall-sized balcony window to see a blurry object far off in the distance waving at him.


    "Is she the Saigo you mentioned?". Xenazuki and Skull turned around before Xenazuki worriedly groaned while Skull waved back at Saigo.


    "Oh gods... this is bad," Xenazuki muttered as she grabbed her hair and squished it against the sides of her head.


    "And why might that be?" Nakamai asked as she playfully kicked her legs back and forward.


    "Because she''s supposed to be in the middle of a spiritual energy stabilisation procedure that''s why," Xenazuki stated as she turned to Temperance with worried eyes. Temperance went to rub the back of his head but paused when he grabbed Nakamai''s back instead.


    "Good grief... Fine, I''ll go get her," Temperance uttered as he picked Nakamai up by the collar of her shirt and tossed her onto the sofa. As he walked onto the balcony, Temperance flexed his fingers, causing his angel wings to sprout from his back before he blasted off the balcony and soared straight for Saigo. Crystal shook her head and turned her head to speak to Kannachi before Crystal realised Kannachi was gone.

 Chapter 15: The Smol Ladybug

    Temperance pierced through the sky over Lumios City''s cityscape as he flew straight for Saigo. Temperance''s eyes flinch as he felt an invisible pressure push against his body, making the speed of his flight slightly decrease. Temperance heightened the intensity of his scowl as he looked at the palm of his left hand and considered using his Dotoma Mark (the void black tattoo which forms on his right arm except for a circular gap that takes up the entirety of the back of his hand) to teleport closer to Saigo. However, before he could decide, Temperance was coated head to toe in a thin veil of dark bronze mana, and he felt the effects of the invisible pressure subside.


    "Why are you being a stowaway, Kannachi?". A spot on one of Temperance''s kitsune tails sharply rustled as Kannachi made a panicked eep noise. Kannachi slowly stuck her head out of the disturbed/unkept section of Temperance''s tail. Kannachi puffed her cheeks as she stared at Temperance.


    "I figured I should come with you given how your solo introduction with Zuki went," Kannachi stated before she huffed at Temperance. Temperance thought of responding, but as he pondered on it he figured Kannachi would have better luck than he would.


    "Very well, but is this mana veil necessary, you doof?". Kannachi couldn''t help but giddily smirk at Temperance calling her a doof and even giggled slightly about it.


    "Depends, define necessary," Kannachi asked cheekily.


    "Isn''t it obvious?".


    "Oh... I dunno I am just a doof after all, so I wouldn''t know," Kannachi remarked snarkily as she climbed out of Temperance''s tail while covering herself in her dark bronze mana. Temperance playfully rolled his eyes and put his focus back on flying.


    "Just make sure to remove it before you knock yourself out," Temperance requested. Kannachi tried to argue with Temperance but she reluctantly agreed to his request. Satisfied with Kannachi''s cooperation, Temperance relaxed his angel wings before he fanned them backwards and propelled himself past the speed of sound with a sonic boom.


    Meanwhile, Saigo playfully balanced on the top of the repurposed radio tower watch tower with her tail using it like a kangaroo would do to stop herself from falling. Saigo''s radiant ever-present girn accompanied her joy-filled giggling. (Saigo''s a humanoid-short-kid-looking creature; she has light tanned skin, super long snow-textured dark pink hair with pale metalic purple, dark metalic purple and dark green metalic ends, a golden and black gradient left eye, a dark pink and pale cyan gradient right eye with both eyes having five-pointed star-shaped pupils, snow textured dark purple metalic angel wings, has pale purple ladybug wings that cover her angel wings, dark purple metalic ladybug like exoskeleton that covers her body (forearms, back of hands, her feet, legs, hips area, back, and breast areas), and a super long tail that is able to morph into various shapes with different abilities)


    "The outside world is a lot more muted compared to Antie Yumi''s lab, definitely more gently on the eyes," Saigo uttered in her head with a condescending tone. Saigo giggled once again followed by the watch tower shaking when Temperance landed on the watch tower''s metal walkway, which wraps around the top part of the watch tower.


    This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    "Hiii~," Saigo said giddily with a childish tone. Temperance took a single glance at Saigo before he forced back an annoyed groan.


    "Why is she naked too?" Temperance complained mentally as he rubbed his forehead, and Kannachi removed her mana surrounding herself and Temperance.


    "Is something wrong... Mr... no you seem more like a bro material than father material," Saigo muttered aloud mindlessly as the end of her tail morphed into a hand before she had it grab the roof of the watch tower, and Saigo dangled herself upside down in front of Temperance. Temperance rolled his eyes


    "Well, to be fair, Tem Tem, her exoskeleton is acting more like clothing than a part of her body," Kannachi mentioned as she poked one of the plates on Saigo''s exoskeleton making it wobble and making Saigo giggle from the sensation.


    "So, this is the guy Father mentioned... he was a lot easier to find than I calculated; it was certainly worth sneaking out to find him, hehe," Saigo said mentally as she stared at Temperance with childish googly eyes.


    "Are you guy my papa mention?" Saigo mumbled as she stumbled over her words while she mentally screamed and cursed out her mouth for failing to function the way she wanted.


    "He sure is, if by guy you mean the pushover who-" Kannachi managed to cheekily say before Temperance bopped her in the face with one of his wings.


    "Knock it off, would you?". Kannachi frantically pushed Temperance''s wing out of her face and gasped for air.


    "Careful, your wings function like your tails minus the atmosphere part," Kannachi grumbled. She flumped backwards onto Temperance''s kitsune tails with heavy eyes and proceeded to fall into unconsciousness as Teach appeared next to Temperance.


    "She''s more resilient than expected to be able to withstand a vacuum is nothing to scoff at," Teach remarked as he glanced over at Saigo, to see her perplexedly staring at him. Teach smirked a booped Saigo on the nose before he disappeared. Saigo mindlessly stared at the spot where Teach previously resided before her eyes lit up with glee and she swung her head at Temperance.


    "Was zat you Het...su...kou Mike...t...zu guy?" Saigo said as she struggled to say the longest part of her question.


    "Were you trying to say Hetsukou Miketzu Spirit?".


    "Yah~," Saigo said excitedly before her expression swapped to a shocked one. Saigo made her hand-shaped tail let go of the watch tower before she dropped down in front of Temperance and apologetically bowed to him.


    "Sorry, I never indoduced myself. My mama and papa gave me the name Ky¨±kyoku Saigo Sakamoto," Saigo stated. A proud grin grew on Saigo''s face at the realisation of her saying her name correctly on her first try. Saigo raised her fist to the air, making her wings spread out and flutter about as her excitement oozed out of her. Saigo looked back to Temperance before her gaze slowly drifted from him; she tilted her head to the side and stared at something in the distance.


    "Oooh, funny blue creatures.". Saigo excitedly bounced into the air before instantaneously zipping past Temperance and flying off, leaving Temperance to lostly blink as he registered Saigo''s departure.


    "She''s... fast," Kannachi mumbled as she groggily sat on Temperance''s kitsune tails while she rubbed the side of her head.


    "You don''t say, and I hope she isn''t doing what I think she''s doing," Temperance remarked defeatedly as he balled up his right fist before his Dotoma Mark formed along with a large glowing pale pink ring on the back of his right hand. Temperance snapped his fingers, which caused him and Kannachi to be covered by a veil of pale pink qi. The duo disappeared in a flash of pale pink light, leaving no one aside from the annoyed Hika-07, who didn''t appreciate being completely ignored.

 Chapter 16: A Getaway Cut Short

    Saigo pierced through the sky like a speeding bullet as the distant flashes of blue lights over the border wall of Lumios came into view. She took in a deep breath, a greedy grin forming on her face as she drooled a little at the thought of eating some aether beasts.


    "The gummy monsters are nearb-". Saigo''s body jolted forward as her momentum was cut short. Saigo tilted her head upwards until she was looking behind herself and saw Temperance holding onto her tail.


    "Gummy monsters?" Kannachi asked. Saigo nodded as she flipped over and tugged on her tail until Temperance let go of it.


    "Yah~ The tasty squishy blue monsters made of gummy-like jello stuff," Saigo stated. Temperance rubbed the back of his head at how nonchalantly Saigo referred to aether beasts.


    "Good grief, what is with these siblings and wanting to-".


    "She''s flying away," Kannachi stated as she tapped Temperance on the head. Temperance looked at his empty hand and sighed as he watched Saigo flying off like a fighter jet. Temperance shook her head in defeat before he teleported using his pink mode Dotoma Mark.


    Meanwhile, on the outside side of the border wall, Neo Hika and a platoon of xero drones stood strong against the incoming pack of wolf-like aether beasts. The aether beasts unleashed a torrent of aether energy bombs from their large viscous liquid tails. The front row of xero drones slammed their fists together and activated their ne-lon barriers. The aether bombs slammed into the ne-lon barriers and violently exploded like overly inflated balloons.


    Neo Hika crossed her arms and tilted her head to the side before an aether energy projectile flew past her head. Neo Hika raised a finger and fired a ne-lon energy beam from it. The ne-lon energy beam pierced through the head of an aether beast causing a domino effect behind it of aether beasts crashing into each other.


    "What a bore, at least when the wyvern types attack it''s entertaining watching them spla-". A notification icon appeared in Neo Hika''s vision. Neo Hika opened the message: The Ladybug is on the loose. Neo lowered her head slightly and played a displeased tune.


    "What''s the matter, squadron captain?" a female with a sassy voice asked. Neo Hika glanced over at the human child-sized, and oddly curvy slimling sitting on a table-sized floating golden dish with a tennis ball-sized black crystalline sphere and a glowing white cat paw print randomly on it.


    (The cat slimling''s entire body is made of opaque snow white slime with a snow texture, they have thick black rings around the top of their thighs with decreasingly smaller rings down to their knees, thick thighs, glowing maroon red tongue, and glowing maroon red eyes with pitch black scleras)


    (She''s wearing fuzzy maroon-red armbands covering her forearms and the lower half of her legs)


    Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    "Master Ky¨±kyoku Saigo Sakamoto has escaped from her medical checkup again, Lady Zumi," Neo Hika explained. Zumi half-heartedly sighed and shook her head.


    "Honestly... that Saigo is such a handful, though it is surprising she''s the only one of Antie''s and Uncle''s children who act like how mother described Anite''s parents," Zumi uttered as she noticed a Saigo-shaped silhouette dive bombing from above.


    "Speak of the devil," Zumi remarked. Neo Hika, along with the stationary Xero Drones, glanced upwards and watched Saigo''s descent before dive-bombing into the pile-up of wolf-like aether beasts. The impact smushed the aether beasts into pancakes and exploded them into a towering pillar of liquid aether. The liquid aether splashed all around the ground as Saigo sat at the centre of the mess while munching on an aether wolf leg.


    "Good grief, do they all eat things made of aether?" Kannachi grumbled as Temperance landed at the end of the aether liquid splash zone.


    "And who might you two be?" Zumi asked inquisitively as she approached the duo on her floating dish-shaped shield. Zumi floated around the duo as she inspected Temperance and Kannachi with her eyes.


    "That would be the boy whom Magistrate Sakamoto has an agreement with," Neo Hika explained. Zumi flopped her head to the side like an unsupported puppet to look at Neo Hika.


    "You mean the one who''ll be all of their training partner for the academy?" Zumi asked half-heartedly. Kannachi turned her head and stared at Zumi like a deer in headlights.


    "Huh? But Mr Sakamoto said he wanted Tem-Tem to get engaged to Naia and her sisters," Kannachi mumbled. The duo watched as Zumi''s unamused face slowly morphed into a smirk she struggled to hold back. Zumi covered her face as she snickered, causing Kannachi to pout.


    "What''s so funny?" Kannachu mumbled as Zumi rubbed her face.


    "Oh, nothing but do you honestly think he was being serious?" Zumi asked smugly; however, when she glanced upwards, Zumi''s expression became that of a nervous wreck as she leaned back and fell off her floating shield.


    "Are you implying I''m being untruthful, my free-spirited niece?" Yokuza asked as he descended and hovered above the group. Zumi clambered back onto her floating shield and meekly looked up at Yokuza.


    "N-no... uncle...," Zumi mumbled. Yokuza smirked as he dropped down and landed on his feet.


    "Because I was only repeating what Nola and Kusana forced me to say," Yokuza remarked with a hint of annoyance in his voice. Yokuza''s ears perked up while Kannachi''s eyes lit up.


    "Sooo the whole engagement thing wasn''t serious?" Temperance asked, causing a mortified look to form on Kannachi''s face as she wondered why Temperance was even asking such a question. Yokuza shrugged as his form flickered for a second before the still-eating Saigo appeared in Yokuza''s hand.


    "I mean I won''t stop it if you lot want it to happen but just know I only said it because those troublesome elves wouldn''t let up about me saying it," Yokuza grumbled adamantly before he spread out his snowy wings and took off with Saigo playfully waving to the group as Yokuza took her away. Temperance watched Yokuza''s silhouette fly over the boundary wall and off in the direction of the city. Temperance placed a hand on his forehead and shook his head in disbelief.


    "At least... I only have to do the training partner part of the agreement," Temperance uttered as he glanced back and saw a mentally drained Kannachi laying face down on his kitsune tails, "What''s wrong with you?". Kannachi angrily grumbled into Temperance''s tails, leaving Temperance to scratch his head while thinking Kannachi was being over dramatic.

 Chapter 17: Overexertion Recoil

    As the duo returned to their shared dorm common room, Temperance closed the front door behind himself with one of his kitsune tails and uttered a deflated groan while Kannachi lazed about on Temperance''s other tails.


    "What do you think caused that tremor from earlier?" Crystal asked while standing by the three-panel sliding door separating the common area from the balcony. Nakamai smooshed her face against one of the glass doors, struggling to focus her gaze in the vague direction she felt the tremor come from with her kitsune tails swishing against the floor and dusting the small amount of dust away.


    "No clue but that Astrotho is going to regret not inviting me to see," Nakamai chattered aggressively, her face stifled into a forced grin as she repeatedly slammed her tails against the floor to release her growing frustration. For a brief moment, Crystal nodded her head in response but gradually slowed her nodding, her expression turning to one of confusion as something occurred to her before she turned her head to Nakamai.


    "Who?".


    "That certainly was a roller coaster," Kannachi uttered under her breath while swishing a finger through Temperance''s tail fur. Temperance half-heartedly scoffed at Kannachi''s remark, mentioning that Kannachi would be the only one who''d feel that way given how overreactive she is. Kannachi, not liking her transporter''s tone, poutfully huffed back at him, showing her distaste and refusal to accept the notion she was overreactive.


    "Nu-uh, I''m not overreactive, if anything you''re underreactive, I mean hwo-.". Kannachi was caught off guard by her sentence being cut off short as Temperance flopped over a sofa, dragging Kannachi with him, and crashed out on the sofa, flinging Kannachi across the room in the process. As she flew through the air, Kannachi closed her eyes and cupped her hands together in resignation of her impending death, mentally saying her prayers as she wished to be reborn in a reverse harem anime but with normal harem partners.


    However, before the miruku could have her request fulfilled, Kannachi came to an abrupt stop, crashing into the dark green mass of super fluffy fur situated on another of the sofas before she slowly sank into the fur. Wearing only a towel around her waist and another wrapped around her head with only her tusk-like hair poking out the bottom, Xenazuki raised her gaze from the super fluffier shampoo bottle in her hand. She glanced behind herself before slumping her head and sighing at seeing Kannachi''s legs flailing out the side of her tail.


    "I know fluffy tails are irresistible but can''t you people wait for them to at least dry first?" Xenazuki asked rhetorically in a pout. Her body abruptly seized up, the chilling sensation similar to a bucket of freezing water being dunked on her head coursing through her, before she glared at her tail. Her tail violently shot open, splitting into eight smaller tails some of which were coiled around the participants who dived into it: those being Skullnaia, Mochiko, Merrybel, and unintentionally Kannachi.


    (Mochiko is a short ten-year-old feminine-looking humanoid kitsune/honey badger ice elemental; they have slightly short scruffy dark grey and white hair, a bright cyan left eye with a five-pointed star-shaped, a dark purple left eye, pale snow white skin, short scruffy dark grey snow-like fur over most of their body excluding a large five-pointed star spot on their back, a super long fluffy dark grey honey badger-looking kitsune tail covered in white five-pointed star spots, and large snow wings covered in small dark purple five-pointed star spots)


    (Mochiko is wearing a pink sleeveless vest with a large five-pointed star hole on the back, pink baggy short shorts, cartoony red rubber rain boots, and two five-pointed star-shaped hairpins on the sides of their head)


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    "They''ve actually been dry for a while, it''s just because me and Naia are in her so it''s tricking your temperature receptors into thinking your tails are wet," Mochiko mentioned, talking with such vigour he didn''t even notice Xenazuki walk towards the balcony sliding door, slide it open before hurling Mochiko off the side of the building; Mochiko continued to talk in blissful ignorance to their situation as they plummeted towards the ground, crashing with a deafening bang and rupturing the already fractured ground into a mini sinkhole bearing Mochiko''s shape.


    "Is he going to be alright...?" Merrybel asked worriedly while peering over the balcony''s handrails and down to the hole left by Mochiko.


    "Hasn''t hurt him so far," Xenazuki quipped offhandedly, showing her lack of care for her sibling''s well-being given it appeared to be a regular occurrence. Xenazuki turned on her heel and marched back into the shared common room, slamming the sliding door shut behind her with one of her unencumbered tails. Unlike how she treated her honey badger sibling, Xenazuki gently placed the others on the floor, releasing her tails on them and brushing them off with her tails before slapping her tails back into their large single-tail mode.


    "Now I demand a... proper sparring... match," Xenazuki said, her words devolving into a mumble as she saw Temperance not only had fully passed out but that Nakamai was gnawing at his head. Breaking eye contact with her target, Nakamai darted her eyes to the side, her mouth remaining firmly planted against Temperance''s head. Her eyes wandered enough to spot Xenazuki''s solemnly exaggerated expression with her shoulders and tail slumped towards the floor, making Nakamai release her mouth from Temperance.


    "Looks like Tem-Tem''s done for today," Kannachi remarked as she stepped out of the bathing room with a towel wrapped around her like a dress. The remark only served to sink Xenazuki''s mood to the pits of despair, finding the word of anything Temperance''s pre-academy friends say to hold significant weight and fully cementing the fact she wouldn''t be getting her sparring match with Temperance.


    "The day''s barely started though, how can he already be so exhausted!" Xenazuki complained, whining and flailing her arms with enough force to generate mild gusts of wind that flung the pillows off the nearby sofas. One of the pillows plopped against Kannachi''s face, bouncing off her and landing back on the sofa before she rubbed her nose.


    "Well, that lady was no joke, to think someone with such a lackadaisical demeanour... although, she was some sort of kitsune so I suppose that underestimating one was idiotic from the get-go," Kannachi remarked cheekily while rubbing the back of her head. The mention of a kitsune with a lazy disposition caught Skullnaia and Xenazuki completely off guard, sapping all the strength from their beings as they fell back onto their respective tails in abstract horror, startling Kannachi and her sisters from the overblown reaction.


    "I''m surprised he''s even alive, what could he have even done to anger her?" Skullnaia murmured meekly, clasping her four kitsune tails together and thanking her grandfather Temperance was still with them with Xenazuki joining in her sister''s praying. Bewildered by the sisters'' bizarre actions, Kannachi flopped her head to the side and confusedly hummed, trying to figure out what was wrong with them.


    "Anger? Pretty sure that was the last thing she was experiencing when she left," Kannachi said puzzledly. The kitsune hybrids froze, halting their shared prayer as they swivelled their heads with as much confusion as Kannachi was experiencing.


    "Huh? Then why is he like that?" Skullnaia muttered while loosely pointing at Temperance with a chicken leg in her hand.


    "Well, anyone would be exhausted after having to battle someone that str-". The kitsune duo sprung from their tails, catapulting themselves at Kannachi as the girl staggered back from the sudden movement; they tackled Kannachi, almost knocking her over but catching her with their tails as they shot behind her.


    "HE FOUGHT OUR MOTHER!?" Xenazuki and Skullnaia exclaimed in existential horror and major surprise at the revelation Temperance''s situation was even worse than they could have ever imagined. Kannachi could only help but mildly release a nervous laugh to ease her nerves, wondering if the girls'' shared reaction meant Temperance was actually in a life-or-death situation earlier.


    "I don''t think fought is a good way to describe what happened," Kannachi uttered nervously as a drop of sweat ran down her head, the recollection of the prior events adding to her rising worry along with the kitsune sisters'' stares only making her feel even more uneasy.

 Chapter 18: Trial By Lola Part 1

    Not even an hour prior, Temperance dragged his feet across the carpeted floors of the dorm building''s halls, his brow furrowed in an exhausted frown as he clung to his head, his brain still rattled beyond belief from whiplash after his conversation with Yokuza and Zumi along with his last encounter. As he meandered his way with the still dazed Kannachi sprawled out on his kitsune tails, Temperance raised his half-hearted gaze from the ground and spotted a short individual up ahead, hitting the avian kitsune with a dread-inducing sense of deja vu, the feeling reminiscent of when he first ran into Xenazuki.


    (Lola is wearing a black skin-tight T-shirt, fluffy green fur leggings with grey moons all over it, and green metal getas )


    The individual in question, Lola lazily shuffled her way through the hallway, walking in opposition to Temperance''s direction, her eyes downtrodden and filled with despair as she glared at the floor and dragged her nine majestically long kitsune tails behind her, the floor and surrounding objects narrowly avoiding destruction from the squad of different coloured/dressed(but mostly just different types of maid dresses) Hikas lifting the in dangered objects out of the tails'' path.


    Mentally jolting at the sight presented before him, Temperance couldn''t help but feel an unexplainable sense of respect for Lola, leaving him in a state of awe. Although faintly, he did recall Teach mentioning something about the meaning behind the length of kitsune tails but just couldn''t put his finger on what it was the guy said. Lost in thought from racking his brain, Temperance failed to notice Lola walk past him, followed by her tails winding past him while tuffs of its fur stuck up as if to grab him with the section closest to Temperance rising the most.


    Despite being in deep thought and intentionally trying to ignore his surroundings, the sudden tug on his tail did catch Temperance''s attention. Still, he simply chalked it up to being Kannachi and paid it no heed, getting Lola to pout and huff in annoyance at being ignored. However, the brief instance he had that assumption was swiftly shattered when the mild tug on his tails elevated to an overwhelming force, hurling Temperance backwards and flinging the dazed Kannachi into the air as Temperance''s tails were straightened out.


    In one swift act, Temperance landed upon Lola''s trailing tails, finding himself bouncing on it as if it were a bouncy castle and leaving him struggling to find his footing. Before he could get any leeway, Kannachi crashed down from above, headbutting the guy in the abdomen and knocking the wind out of him; the duo gasped in pain as Kannachi tumbled off Temperance, the pain induced in her bringing her back to reality.


    Kannachi writhed on the green tails, clasping her forehead as the impact of headbutting Temperance permeated through her. She felt like her head was splitting but as the pain reached its apex it abruptly vanished, almost making Kannachi question if the pain even existed. Even feeling her hazy mind dissipate, Kannachi swung herself up, breaking through the mist of dense particle-like energy seeping out Lola''s tails. Within seconds, Kannachi threw her hand back to her forehead feeling the head pain return with a fickle vengeance.


    "I suggest you lie back down until our lady says you''re healed unless you like pain," a Hika in a dark red Japanese highschooler outfit with blonde hair and eyes, known as Hika-03, barked before flying to Kannachi''s head and trying in a vain attempt to push Kannachi back down.


    "There''s no need to force her, if she needed it she wouldn''t have been able to refuse," Hika-02 the secretary stated calmly and collectively as she pinched Hika-03''s ear and dragged her away from Kannachi.


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    "Ok-ok, I''ll stop just let go of my ear, idiot!" Hika-03 exclaimed while throwing her fist around in a frenzy but failing to land a single hit on Hika-02, not that she needed to more to avoid the punches. Kannachi was briefly distracted by two Hikas before shaking her head and crawling over to Temperance, dangling her head over Temperence''s face.


    "Hey! Aren''t you going to do something?" Kannachi asked gesturing to Lola with both her hands. Temperance exhaustedly exhaled as he pushed himself to a sitting position. Temperance took a peek at Lola, seeing how unphased she was carrying both the two with her tails and feeling a tinge of frustration, especially with how easily she knocked him over.


    "And do what? She not so figuratively dragged me off my feet like it were nothing," Temperance remarked before flopping back to lying down with a mild bounce. Besides, that seems more like your area of expertise. " Kannachi pouted, her cheeks reddening as she found the guy''s proposition preposterous before rapidly swiping the air above Temperance''s face.


    Seeing she wasn''t getting any reaction from the avian kitsune, Kannachi eventually turned her focus to Lola, who had a faint smirk on her face but quickly got rid of it. The kitsune tail Kannachi sat upon had a slight rustle, parting itself from the others and raising the girl upwards before it curved around Lola, bringing the two girls face to face.


    "I take it you wanna know why I snagged your guy?" Lola asked nonchalantly, her voice so lax Kannachi couldn''t register she referred to Temperance as Kannachi''s guy.


    "I suppose?" Kannachi said in a mumble, her tone utterly confused as she struggled to focus on Lola''s words with how almost sleep-inducing they were. Lola faintly chuckled at the girl''s mumble of a response as she lightly rubbed the bags under the two''s eyes, coating them with the green particle-like energy and seemingly wiping the bags away.


    "It''s rather simple, I''m just following family tradition and ensuring a suit is suiting as my mother would say," Lola explained, despite it explaining absolutely nothing and leaving Kannachi even more confused. Lola pinched the tip of her ear and sighed in annoyed amusement, "I''m going to check if he''s not going to die when being Skull and the lot''s sparring partner while at the academy.". Kannachi nodded, sort of following Lola''s explanation, even if it made her wonder why Lola would care.


    Given Lola''s appearance and height, Kannachi simply assumed Lola was one of Skullnaia''s sisters; however, Lola''s disposition made that conclusion seem vastly wrong to Kannachi but she couldn''t think of any other answer, the thought Lola was the kitsune siblings'' mother never crossing her mind, unlike the terror-stricken Temperance who was too stunned to speak and wishing he''d not gotten out of bed as he knew what was to come.


    After a little bit of walking, Lola brought the duo to the flat white rigged floor beside the dorm building Temperance and Co were lodging at. She hopped over the cuboid hedge surrounding the elevated grid floor, plopping Kannachi and Temperance on a bench with two of her kitsune tails.


    "When you''re ready, step onto the arena, got it?" Lola said cheerfully, a tinge of excitement escaping her lips. With a wag from one of her tails, Lola skipped onto the gridded arena and bounced to the other side of it. Watching her wrap her kitsune tails into a large doughnut shape and drop onto the doughnut tails like a bag of rocks, Temperance raised his hands off his head and tightly clasped the back of it as an impending sense of doom weighed down on his mind.


    "This is going to be torture," Temperance grumbled, lowering his head to his knees in resignation while Kannachi narrowed her brow at him.


    "You''re being hyperbole, if she was going to do that wouldn''t she have been more aggressive in getting you here," Kannachi remarked, her voice full of snark as she wagged her finger at Temperance. Raising his head slightly to get Lola in his peripheral vision, Temperance mildly sighed, finding no inherent flaw with the girl''s remark but deep down he knew sparring with Lola was going to be just as, if not more, ruthless as Teach.

 Chapter 19: Trial of Lola Part 2

    Temperance took a single step onto the gridded arena, the white tile beneath his foot faintly bobbing under his weight as he fully stepped onto the tile. While Lola exuded a contentiously smug aura at watching the guy''s antics, Temperance lightly hopped on the spot, the mechanism below the tile clicking with a satisfying leaf-crunching sound itching the very back of his brain. A flicker behind him caught his eye, and Temperance turned around to stare at the pale energy grid whilst Kannachi waved to him. As his hand instinctively moved on its own and waved back, Temperance raised his gaze, following the energy grid as it sprouted from the arena frame and rose a fair bit off the ground before shooting off to create an energy cage.


    "Pretty nifty, right?" Lola remarked, her voice full of pride as she rolled onto her back and stretched her dainty limbs until her joints popped. Her arms and legs went limp, slapping against her tails, as relief flooded through her with a smile on her face at relieving herself from the stiffness in her body.


    "What even is this?" Temperance asked, cautiously raising a hand to the energy grid and lightly pounding his knuckles against it. A toothy grin formed on Lola''s face, her pride tantalizingly indulgent as it fuelled her ego and filled her with energy.


    "Nana made these Recoil Rumble Arenas...," Lola replied. As she tensed her wrists and ankles, Lola remarked, "... I don''t really get how they work on a functional level, but the floor dissipates impacts and the energy cage nullifies anything deemed a threat.". Temperance slumped his head and faintly murmured under his breath, pushing off the energy cage wall before walking away from it. Kicking her legs playfully against her tails, Lola whistled a faint tune, the resulting notes bouncing through the air and instilling mild drowsiness in Temperance.


    "Are you trying to put me to sleep with that?" Temperance remarked, his voice a mild slur as he felt the drowsiness building in him. His remark stirred a playful snicker from Lola, making her halt her whistling which relieved Temperance of its sleep-inducing clutches.


    "You''re not telling me, you''d be done in by such a minor technique?" Lola taunted teasingly, playfully winking at Temperance as she stretched her arms to the ground. With effortless grace, Lola placed her hands against the floor before cartwheeling herself to her feet, her tails following her smooth motion as they unfurled from their doughnut formation. She clasped her hips, swaying her tails around her petite frame to shield her from the rising sun.


    "...hmm, what other two should I choose? I wonder," Lola mumbled aloud, rocking her head from side to side as she mulled over her options, leaving Temperance to stand nearby at a loss for words.


    "Two what?" Temperance mumbled. Putting a brief pause on her decision, Lola pitched a thoughtful glance to Temperance, a smug smirk on her face as she rolled her eyes; seeing the puzzled look in his eyes, she amusedly placed her fist against her cheek while tilting her head.


    "The academy has a special kind of duel students and the like do when using Recoid Rumble Arenas, although I don''t get why everyone else refers to them as Battle Grids.". Lola began to explain her prior remark but partway through she derailed from it, poutfully mentioning how no one calls it by the name Nana-Ka gave them. With a loud huff that almost knocked the unprepared Temperance over from the resulting shockwave, Lola stomped her foot against the tile, making it bob as her kitsune tails and ears frizzing up in proportion to her frustration.


    "It''s all Yozu''s fault for misreading the speech note I left for him when unveiling Nana-Ka''s creation...," Lola grumbled in spite, completely losing track of Temperance''s question for her, in favour of continuing to complain about how bad her handwriting has gotten in the past hundred years. Temperance couldn''t help but slowly blink, turning his head to a non-existent camera before sighing aggressively enough to snap Lola back to reality, resulting in her facial hue shifting to a faint shade of pink.


    "Oops, seems I got a little side-tracked," Lola remarked with a jitter, nervously rubbing the rim of her kitsune ears. With a sheepish giggle, Lola averted her eyes, darting them around the arena to ensure no eye contact with Temperance was had as she soothed her nerves with rapid ear scratches. Clearing her throat, Lola released her ear from further scratching before lowering her hand and clasping her hands together with a musical clap.


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    "Basically, a duel takes place on a stage like this one. Both participants are only allowed to use three different types of magical abilities; whether it''s an Azure Ability, Elemental Magic, or other types, like those magic marks of yours for example. Oh, and if you use more than three you instantly lose," Lola explained, her explanation to the point it didn''t allow for her to get derailed again.


    Temperance nodded with mild amusement, taking in the rules of the academy''s unique duels and finding them interesting to a small extent. As his brain stalled on the rule part, Temperance violently flinched, a tremor of dread flowing through him at Lola''s use of the word marks. With the briefest narrowing of his pupil, Temperance swiftly leapt away from Lola, startling the petite woman mildly before that morphed into glee, the misbelief Temperance was ready to spar fueling her excitement.


    However, in contrast to Lola''s belief, Temperance was mentally in a stun lock, the chill gnawing at his senses as he couldn''t wrap his head around how Lola knew he had multiple types of magic marks. Whilst Temperance was completely wrapped up in his mental confusion, Lola retracted all but two of her kitsune tails and her kitsune ears into her body, the anticipation growing within her as she raised her arms to the side and contently exhaled through her nose.


    "As a sign of good faith, I''ll let you have the first move," Lola said, her face beaming and shimmering as she basked in her benevolence; However, Temperance''s constant muttering, blatant disregard for her word and completely ignoring her, the last being the most aggravating transgression, slowly filled Lola with an indescribable destructive sensation, one she felt could cause a headache for her if she let spill out. Feeling her annoyance reaching its first serious level, Lola slowly raised her tails from the ground, spiking up from Lola''s building vexation. She narrowed her eyes into piercing daggers of rage with dark green dense particle-looking energy spitting out from her tear ducts as she pressed her tails against the floor, priming them to launch her at her target.


    "... ... ... wait...," Lola muttered, her annoyance stifled as she mulled over something, picking up on Temperance''s muttering before Lola slapped her tails on top of her forehead with an audible clap of shame. The tail-sheltered kitsune murmured in frustration, her fury fizzling out as it dawned on her while Temperance was so panicked. In an elegant flash, Lola appeared right before Temperance, moving with such grace to not disturb the air, and raised a hand to Temperance''s face without him noticing her.


    "Oi, Mumbler, is it not rude to ignore people where you''re from?" Lola barked before flicking Temperance on the forehead, forcing his gaze upwards and snapping him back to his senses. Temperance winced slightly, clasping his chin in pain and lowered his head as Lola continued. "Don''t go overthinking things, dumb-dumb. Even if they have vastly different abilities, if the magic marks are subsections of an overarching power then it would be classed as one; you know, like how a Swiss Army knife is one tool."


    "A what?" Temperance asked, his voice affixed with mild pain as he pinched the red spot on his chin. With a nonchalant attitude, Lola dismissively raised her shoulders in a shrug, slapping her present tails against the ground to straighten out their frenzied appearance.


    "Some multitool an otherworlder made or brought from their world eons ago, but that''s not important now is it," Lola remarked, casting a toothy grin to Temperance before slamming her tails against the ground and flinging herself back to her original position on the arena''s stage. Although relieved it was merely a misunderstanding, Temperance couldn''t muster the mental strength to keep his kitsune ears raised as they slumped to the sides of his head, the mental whiplash of thinking Lola knew about his other mark being too much to bear for even a second longer.


    At seeing her fellow kitsune''s sinking demeanour, Lola couldn''t help feeling a little bad at inadvertently causing him grief. She felt compelled to ask him about it, hoping to find a way to help with the thing troubling him but knew any further attempt to prob him would be ill-advised, given how sporadic an indirect prob made him. She begrudgingly slumped her head to the side with defeat apparent on her face, muttering how her mother would''ve gotten answers by now. With a half-hearted sigh, Lola tried to steel her nerves, not wanting to disrespect Temperance by being off her game during their spar before a vaguely relevant memory resurfaced, forcing her to recall something her father had told her from a long time ago.


    "Using people for reference is a good starting... point but... don''t let... um... these inspirational quotes are so hard to remember," the voice of her father played in her mind. His failure to recount a simple quote filled Lola with sickeningly sweet nostalgia and melted all her nerves away as a faint mist of dense particle-shaped pink and golden energy oozed from her tails.


    "Geez, how''d I end up using my keither on mys- shoot! That means I don''t have any available ability slots left!" Lola exclaimed, clasping her head in frustration at how careless and lax her body had gotten after her prolonged nap. Lola''s out-of-the-blue remark left Temperance at a loss for words again and mildly troubled, leading him to close his eyes and hope he''d never sleep long enough as to experience it himself.

 Chapter 20: Trial With Lola Part 3

    Lola hurled her foot, raising it high above her head before bringing it down with hammering force as she slammed it against the ground before her; donning a combative fighting stance, Lola stared down Temperance with an unwavering fighting spirit. Her eyes were filled with a reserved blaze, her body exuded shimmering shiny silver mana(wavey-looking energy) and it surged from her with destructive power. The eruption of mana was a sight for the eyes, leaving Temperance with bated breath and slightly blinded by the intensity of the mana''s luminosity.


    "And to think she''s only using two tails," Temperance murmured, shielding his eyes against the blinding intensity of Lola''s mana. Lola couldn''t contain her rising arrogance, the visual reaction Temperance gave her and the apprehensive tension she sensed from him fueling her already conceited demeanour. With a contentious sparkle to her grin, Lola let out an amused sigh as she flexed her two exposed kitsune tails which, despite being purely fur, somehow made a cracking sound with every flex she did.


    "To beyond with it, if you can land an impressive move on me I''ll concede, and just for fun, I won''t use any of my... totally intentionally chosen abilities until a whole five minutes have passed," Lola stated, affirming her statement with a slick flick of her tails to waft away the surging mana encasing her. Her tails danced behind her, waving in tune with her heart as it pounded in her chest as she added to her prior statement with, "And to spice things up if you can entertain me for ten minutes, I''ll even throw in a whole smackeroo.".


    Temperance paused at her additional statement; the shock brought a tremor of apprehension to the guy, who found it hard to believe Lola actually said something so outlandish as his face turned slightly red. Lola, noticing the guy''s strange reaction, tilted her head with a puzzled look on her face, conveying to Temperance that she had no clue about the meaning behind what she said.


    "Is money not to your liking?" Lola asked confusedly. She turned her head, rotating it so far it almost went upside down, her face deeply filled with bewilderment. Wondering what could be the cause, a hint of revelation came to Lola, her eyes slightly lightening. She couldn''t hold back her curiosity any longer, hopping over to Temperance again as she continued, saying, "You''re not saying Kimmi-Ka...". Temperance felt what little composure he had left go up in smoke.


    Before he could even make a response, Temperance felt a burst of throbbing pain pierce through his left arm, forcing him into a daze, and drowning out any other sensation and only leaving a chaotically spontaneous wave of dread as it overtook him.


    His eyes were glued to the floor, unmoving as he clasped his head to steel himself. His mind spiralled, his body staggering and growing increasingly heavy as he felt his insides go awry.


    He threw his tails to the floor, stabilizing himself with them as the uncontrollable feeling of the world spinning became too overwhelming. He fell to his knees, and the thumping of his heart reached unnatural levels of speed as the world slinked away from him and was replaced by darkness encroaching and surrounding him.


    He felt the darkness claw at his arms, digging directly into his soul like a calculating surgeon and suffocating him with their authority over him. As the darkness clinging to him took on the form of heavy-duty chains, their grip tightening and constricting Temperance with every passing second. With their grip on him secure, Temperance felt his legs sinking into the darkness.


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    The vortex of shadows enveloped his legs, numbing the feeling in them amidst the frigid storm of stinging slashes seeping into his bones. It was like being stabbed over and over from all directions, and he couldn''t help himself from grimacing; the pain itself wasn''t the cause of his reaction but the image of a rundown temple blind sighting him, forcing a sinking feeling in him.


    As he slumped his head, sighing in contempt, the searing pain coursing through his arm, a reminder of his past, Temperance''s right arm slowly turned void-black from activating his dotoma mark with its blank spot turning red. As he involuntarily tensed up his arm from the chains coiling around his left arm, Temperance coiled his fingers up, forcing them into a fist before he socked himself in the face. A tsunami of red keither smashed through his soul, obliterating all the darkness around him, and voiding all the numbness in him as the dotoma reverted to its keitherless mode.


    Glaring directly at a window, Lola angrily murmured for a bit, throwing up fake punches towards something. But when she heard Temperance''s self-punch, her angry demeanour swiftly converted from rage to overwhelming conceited smugness before turning around and disrespectfully waving her tails at her prior target of aggression. She eventually stopped her taunting, placing her hands on her hips and pushing her hand into her back, forcing a click in her back as she fixed her posture.


    "So, ya ready to quit pulling on my tails or do you plan on having another edgy episode?" Lola asked crassly, which made Temperance shiver at how calmly she referred to him almost losing control. But despite her tactlessness, Temperance felt a strange comfort from her words, nearly as if she understood it better than he did.


    "With a remark like that, it makes me think you''re either obnoxiously insensitive or are making light of something to be insensitive," Temperance retorted, his usual snarky self returning as the last bits of the freezing darkness dissipated. Lola snickered a cheeky response, finding Temperance''s retort equally amusing as she finished concocting the battle strategy in her head.


    "Who knows, but I don''t think you should be worrying about such silly things now. After all...," Lola retorted, her voice oozing a sinisterly delightful energy. Although not immediately apparent, Temperance quickly learned the meaning behind Lola''s words as he watched her emit green keither from her tails, the ferocity of the keither increasing in intensity with her growing ear-to-ear grin.


    "... It''s been five minutes!" Lola bellowed, her body seemingly bursting at the seam as crack-like keither veins sprawled all over. Lola threw her head back, a manic laughter exploding from within her very core. As the droves of green keither gushed out her tails, the pink of her tails was stained with the keither''s colour, and one by one her tails sprouted back to reality.


    With a drop of sweat running down his head, Temperance reluctantly raised his head and deflatedly sighed, watching the surging keither tower high behind Lola. A tsunami, a monsoon even, the only comparison Temperance could describe the sight before him as the surging mass that was Lola''s green keither pervaded across Lola''s half of the arena.


    Outside the energy grid, Kannachi sat on the bench, utterly still and unfazed. Her face remained perfectly neutral as she slowly rocked to her left and fell onto her side, her body retaining its position only with a new orientation before her soul started floating out of her.

 Chapter 21: Snipped Complaints

    Back in the present, Skullnaia and Zenazuki slumped back onto their respective kitsune tails in shock, sinking slightly into their tails as they listened to Kannachi speak. Zenazuki slapped her hands over her face while letting out a frustrated pout. As she brought her recount of the event to an end, Kannachi tilted her head, confusion etched on her face, wondering why the kitsune sisters seemed so disappointed.


    "What do you mean you passed out right before Mother used her life and creation keither!" Zenazuki exclaimed angerly, throwing her arms up in contempt before her tail split into its multi-tail mode, forcing her to fall through the gap in them and banging the back of her head against the floor.


    "Yeah... and how''d you know what was going on in Temperance''s head?" Mochiko asked amusedly, plucking a branch from his hair as he sat on a nearby sofa. Kannachi nervously chuckled, frantically rubbing the base of one of her miruku tendrils while darting her head to the side and avoiding eye contact.


    "Well... you see, umm....," Kannachi mumbled, constantly stumbling over her words as her face turned a burning red. Seeing Kannachi''s embarrassed colouration, Nakamai slowly rose up from behind the blushing girl, her eyes sinisterly playful as she wore an ear-to-ear grin.


    "Oh, it''s nothing serious. It''s just that Kannachi constantly has her telepathy connected to Temper so she can constantly know how he''s fe-gah," Nakamai remarked teasingly. Her attempts to embarrass Kannachi only halted once one of Temperance''s tails landed on her tail, snagging onto it with an aggressive tug. The touch from her kitsune essence''s tail startled her, sending ripples of dread through her as she knew what was about to happen.


    "Uh-oh," Nakamai uttered, droves of sweat running down her face as Temperance slowly dragged her away from three girls. Temperance raised his grabby tail, dragging Nakamai off the floor and dangling her upside down as he brought her to his face. His exhausted glare pierced right through her, frightening Nakamai to her very core, leaving her to force out a pitiful shiver along with a meek chuckle.


    "Be grateful; I''m too mentally drained to bother to toss you into one of the walls," Temperance grumbled into the seat of the sofa he led upon, his angered voice muffled by it as he turned his face away from Nakamai.


    "I''m... grateful," Nakamai murmured, a hint of annoyance hidden beneath her pitiful mask. Temperance released Nakamai''s tail, her eyes widening as she dropped towards the floor and slammed face-first into it. Her legs and tails twitched, the stinging sensation sprawling from her face and across her body overriding her manual control of her body, leaving her to flop onto the floor with a sad slap.


    "But seriously, how could you pass out right before the best part?" Xenazuki grumbled disapointedly, her tone a vain attempt to deflect any attention from her hitting her head. In one swift movement, she flipped herself up onto her feet, her tail coiling around her body, wobbling about a bit before they popped off and showed her donning her usual attire. Kannachi sighed once again, although slightly more on the aggressive side as she placed her hand on her hips, her miruku tendrils following suit.


    "Well, unlike you lot, me and my sisters have normal reactions to seeing things that can kill us with a stray bump," Kannachi barked back, eyeing Xenazuki as the gears in the kitsune''s head started to grind to life. After a minor pause, Xenazuki slumped her head to the side in reluctant resignation.


    "Touch¨¦," Xenazuki uttered, begrudgingly admitting she wasn''t in any position to argue such a point given her lineage and extended family.


    In one of the many halls of the academy, Lola marched with aggressive force in each of her steps, sending minor tremors throughout the building. The quakes rushed past the many people in the immediate area, knocking them to their knees, forcing Lola to retract all her tails and both her kitsune ears in hopes of mitigating the impact of her footsteps.


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    "My-My, what''s got you in such a tail twisted mood, my fifth part kitsune brethren," a condescendingly smug feminine voice remarked, the voice crept around the corner ahead of Lola and brought her to a stop. The emergence of the voice, coupled with how it stabbed her eardrums, Lola threw her hand onto her hips and aggressively clicked her tongue at the projector of the voice.


    "And who do I have to thank for that?" Lola murmured before swinging her fist to the side, striking the spot behind her with a metalic crack as she lowered her hand. The cracking persisted longer after Lola lowered her fist, the air appearing to crack and shimmer before the section of the air shattered, briefly revealing the topaz-coloured crystalline object as its dust fell to the floor. A sinisterly endearing snicker echoed from around the corner, abruptly jumping behind Lola as a tall shadow formed behind her from a flash of pink.


    "Had fun with him did you?" the figure asked as she placed her slender hand on Lola''s shoulder with a playful squeeze. Lola slumped her shoulder before not-so-gently shooting it upwards and flinging the hand off her shoulder.


    "No thanks to you experimenting on him every time he was ready to go, Kimmi-Ka," Lola grumbled as she dug her foot into the floor, spinning on her heel, and starring up at Kimmi-Ka contentiously smirking at her.


    (Kimmi-Ka is a tall fair-skinned adult humanoid wu-ling[humanoids with wool-like hair], miruku [usually dark grey-skinned kid-looking humanoids with plated mouthed-tendril], and kitsune[humanoid with fluffy kitsune tails and ears]; she has long woolly hair [left half is snow white and right half is blond hair all with lime hair tips], pure gold right eye with pink/lime gradient pupil, a glistening deep blue left eye with the right pupil being multiple concentric white stars, wide hips, nine large and long [tripple her height] blond to snow white gradient coloured fluffy fur-miruku tendril tails with lime coloured tips, glowing fingertips, and slightly curved upwards glowing ram-like horns)


    (Kimmi-K is wearing a golden thread jumpsuit, a super long fuzzy white scarf with a scale texture and covered in golden and red poker dots, a lab coat with three muted golden rings around its sleeves, and sunglasses made from pure black gelatin with glowing white dots all over it)


    "That get-up again? Tsk and I thought I was the gamer," Lola remarked dismissively, scoffing at Kimmi-Ka as she hopped away from her. Kimmi-Ka raised a hand to her ever-present neutral face, her eyes lighting up with ecstatic glee at Lola''s discontent for her being on full display and as potent as ever.


    "The only thing she plays with is people," Hika-03 grumbled as she pouted, slapping her hands against her schoolgirl skirt and having them clipping/phasing through it. With a middle quither of her tails, shaking like the rattle of a rattlesnake, Kimmi-Ka raised her chin, casting down a looming stare at Hika-03, staring daggers into the holographic entity. With a robotic beep, Hika-03 dramatically popped into red cubes as she teleported away.


    "Huff, the nerves to slander me with such ludicrously sybaritic misinformation," Kimmi-Ka stated, her voice forced to sound even slightly offended but only ended up sounding like she was mocking someone actually angry. Not buying her act in the slightest, Lola rocked her body from side to side, fluidly moving like water as she processed her upcoming well-formulated response.


    "She''s right though," Lola muttered perplexedly, her confusion so strong cloudy question marks of pale pink keither bundled around her head. Not having any of Lola''s antics, Kimmi-Ka lowered her head, one of her tails crawling over her face to cover it, and grumbled under her breath as she couldn''t fathom how little critical thinking she inherited from her mother but somehow inherited all of her father''s lack of common sense.


    "Lola... she''s not talking about my experiments on the bodies of different races," Kimmi-Ka murmured, her despondent voice muffled by her tail before she pulled it away from her face; she slammed it against the floor with an unintentionally loud bang that caught the attention of some academy students but they dared not to look, fearing incurring Kimmi-Ka''s attention before they all booked it. Utterly oblivious to the implication, Lola tilted her head to the side, reaching the perfect hundred-and-forty-five-degree angle without a hint of understanding on her face, leaving Kimmi-Ka to turn her face pure red with how hard she slapped herself in the face.

 Chapter 22: Post Check-up and Nakamais Arch-Enemy

    High above the city''s skyline, Yokuza soared through the sky, the wind a gentle breeze brushing against his skin as he pierced through the sky. His snow wings spread out in an impressive wingspan, primed to slice through any foolish clouds daring to cross the elemental''s path. Sat upon her father''s back, Saigo playfully murmured, blissfully swaying from side to side, lost in her own world as her tail flailed and whipped in the wind.


    "See, Antie Yumi wasn''t scary now was she?" Yokuza remarked teasingly, snapping Saigo out of her dazed state. Her cheerful demeanour turned to a sour pout as she grabbed her tail and hugged it for support.


    "I''m not scared of her," Saigo murmured her cheeks turning slightly pink from embarrassment. Sensing his daughter''s embarrassment, Yokuza couldn''t stifle his amusement in time, letting out a quick snicker and pushing Saigo''s pink colouration to a radiant glow.


    "I''m not!" Saigo exclaimed. Raising her hands, and forming them into small fists before lightly pounding them against the back of Yokuza''s head, her strikes rebounding off the guy''s head while leaving only messy hair as a result of her efforts. Seeing her efforts weren''t yielding any results, Saigo gave up, her attempt to get back at her father for laughing at her being nothing but a failure. With a defeated huff, Saigo sat back on her butt before wrapping her tail and wings around herself into a cacoon, resembling a flower bulb moments away from blooming.


    "Father, you really shouldn''t tease her. She might stop going back willingly for check-ups and start running away more," a snarky and condescending female voice asked, making Yokuza snicker again.


    "Come now, Nana. She''s just playing up in hopes my resolve will crack and make me take her to the nearby Aether Zone Naia constantly goes to," Yokuza remarked. His remark coaxed a sudden shiver from the Saigo cacoon, its form and stability mildly faltering as Saigo let out a meek whimper at being found out.


    (Nana-Ka Sakamoto is a slightly short seventeen-year-old humanoid kitsune/snow leopard; she has slightly long bubblegum-textured pink hair with pale cyan ends, golden eyes with small pink five-pointed stars in her pupils, a slight hourglass figure, faintly tanned skin, a trailing thirty-five centimetres long extremely fluffy pink cat-like tail covered in pale cyan leopard spots with the end of the tail splitting into eight kitsune tail-looking extensions, fuzzy cat-like pink ears with cyan ends and spots which are a cross between a snow leopard and a kitsune, and tanned leopard spot-looking marks all over her body)


    (Nana-Ka is wearing a pale pink tank top, poofy black fur knee-low shorts, pale pink rubber rain boots, and a puffy golden fur coat filled with many pockets on its inner side)


    Nana-Ka lowered her eyebrows into an unamused frown, disappointment oozing from her eyes. Her stare was only sparsely interrupted by the cool breeze of her elevated location brushing her face and forcing her eyes closed. As she fluttered her eyes open and turned her gaze to the land below, the tech whiz sighed in solemn resignation, the sights below her mixed with her father''s ignorance fueling her already sunken mood. She stood atop her floating maroon-red magic barrier, creasing her brows with her fingers as she rubbed her eyes in frustration.


    Slumping her shoulders under the weight of her shame from her father''s apparent ignorance, Nana-Ka could only muster a tilt of her head before she leapt in front of her father, conjuring another magic barrier beneath her feet (magic barriers are made from condensed mana[wavey energy] usual formed into circles).


    Reacting before the girl even jumped, Yokuza halted his momentum in an instant, catching the Saigo cacoon flinging off his back with one hand before he stood up straight in the air. Yokuza placed the Saigo cacoon upon his head, an amused grin on his face, the gift of his poutful daughter''s face giving him a joy like no other.


    "Father, we went over Lumios City''s border wall ages ago," Nana-Ka grumbled, wafting her tail to the side before flicking it in the ground''s direction in a contemptive manner. She narrowed her eyes, watching the grin on her father''s face remain set in its ways and making the girl''s tail bend at multiple acute angles from her rising annoyance before stating, "Do you like annoying us or...". Without a word, Yokuza swiped his arm up, uppercutting the attacking crow-like aether beast in the face, shocking Nana-Ka at the creature''s sudden appearance before it was sent flying towards its flock.


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    "You say that like I didn''t intend to," Yokuza remarked smugly as he lowered his arm before adding, "Also, it''s the second thing.".


    "Huh?" Nana-Ka uttered in confusion, still feeling the effects of her prior shock. Taking a moment to collect her thoughts. Nana-Ka mulled over her father''s response, her expression souring as she picked it apart before slumping her shoulders the second she realised what he was implying.


    "More like both," Nana-Ka grumbled in frustration, slapping at her swaying tail and knocking the kinks out of it. As she tried to refocus on her conversation with Yokuza, Nana-Ka felt her composure crumble, reducing her to a grumbling bundle of frustration before smashing her tail through a small cloud behind her, reducing it into cyan rain that sput out sparks and crackles.


    "So, hyper-focus is bad outside of making stuff?" Saigo uttered. She poked her head out the top of her wing cacoon, instantly closing her eyes as the ambient sunlight blinded her. Adverting her eyes, Nana-Ka heavily exhaled, her tail frizzing up in tandem with her rising displeasure at being outed by her father. Still, her attention was momentarily diverted from herself as she noticed two sections of the crow-like aether beast flock bursting into a dark blue mist.


    "Took them long enough...," Nana-Ka grumbled under her breath, the pops of the exploding aether beasts ringing in her ears and forcing her to cover them.


    Meanwhile, Temperance groaned in pain, not from anything physical but from watching Nakamai struggle to solve basic subtraction math questions, enthused on the basics. The young-looking kitsune clung to her head, the treacherous challenge of twenty-five minus eighty-seven too daunting for even her mind. The girl mentally clawed at her brain, racking the few practical brain cells she had left after the rest were barbequed to nothing while Temperance and the Sakamoto siblings watched her.


    "I don''t get it...," Nakamai uttered, sulking and pressing her pen against the touchpad covered in math equations matching her skill level. She stared at the droves of her working out, the tension building in her making the very numbers dance before her in a teasing manner. Xenazuki slowly blinked, gauging if Nakamai was serious or not, before leaning forward onto the low table and staring at the touchpad in Nakamai''s hands.


    "What''s there not to get? Just subtract the smaller number from the bigger number then put a minus symbol behind the answer," Xenazuki remarked, absently pointing at the original equation on the touchpad''s other tap. However, despite the concise and clear instructions given to her, Nakamai was no closer to figuring out the answer. Xenazuki slapped her forehead before flopping back against her large tail, unable to believe a kitsune of any age could be bad at basic mathematics.


    "Nakamai''s more anxious about math than Tem-Tem was fighting against the Dream Savant," Kannachi remarked amusedly, the remark bringing a small smirk to the gaggle of girls. Temperance silently swivelled his head towards his friend, judgement oozing from his very soul and glancing at Nakamai''s tails as they steadily turned red and redder. Without wasting time by responding, Temperance rose from his sitting position and made his way straight for the hallway door, retracting his non-human body parts into his body as he left the room.


    "Come on, Tem-Tem. That was supposed to be a compliment...," Nakamai mumbled to herself, feeling slightly guilty and upset with herself for believing she offended Temperance.


    However, her feelings swiftly froze up, the sound of a whistle reminiscent of a kettle catching her attention as Nakamai''s tails turned bright red. But the second Kannachi turned to look at the source of the noise, all the girls were hit by an audible flashbang, a clash of a deafening whistle and Nakamai''s scream of frustration racing straight into everyone''s ears.


    The deafening clash was nauseating, smashing against the girl''s senses and turning those senses inside out. In an instant, all the other girls present in the room were out cold. After what felt like hours, Nakamai''s screaming slowly tittered out, into an exhausted murmur before she collapsed to the floor but retained enough energy to land on Xenakuzi''s tail intentionally. Left as the sole survivor of Nakamai''s outburst, Mochiko sat on the sofa in shock but otherwise unaffected, surrounded by his knocked-out siblings and friends. He took one look at the touchpad and instantly got a dumbfounded expression.


    "Why are there letters?" Mochiko uttered.

 Chapter 23: Prelude To The Last Bairns

    Along a wide brick path with the occasional student or faculty member populating it, Temperance strolled through the academy''s courtyard, the distant ring of Nakamai''s whining drumming against his brain as he held his head with mild disappointment at not getting away fast enough. He sighed, feeling mild shame at himself for even getting mad given he was no better at her age. With a shake of his head, He gave his noggen a light knock, making him flinch as he reset his head pain.


    "But damn that brat and her indexing nonsense," Temperance uttered as he kneaded his fingers against his temples, hoping the pain would be gone by the time he returned to the dorm room. While rubbing his head, Temperance eventually found himself in a mini-plaza, a large flat disc constructed from curved bricks with smaller inactive Battle Grids surrounding its perimeter.


    He dragged his feet against the floor, creating a small spark as his getas repeatedly struck the paved ground. With a bitter smirk, he threw his gaze to the sky, the influx of frustration coming from Nakamai finally subsiding and taking the headache with it. Now feeling relieved that he was pain-free, Temperance watched the passing clouds without any interference and could finally think again.


    "Now, I think it''s about time you quit messing around, I didn''t agree to help you so you could angst around," Teach remarked, his energy silhouette forming right in front of Temperance and staring the guy straight in the face.


    The spiritual energy being''s sudden appearance mixed with his sudden words startled the angelic kitsune, causing Temperance to stagger back, almost losing his balance but managing to stabilise himself by throwing his arms out to his sides. Once he fully stabilized himself, Temperance let out a huff, its delivery making his annoyance at Teach unmistakable and without any room for it to be mistaken for simple exertion, as he straightened out his posture. Temperance rested a hand on his side, swaying his head to calm his nerves while waiting for Teach''s incoming witty remark with mild amusement.


    "Do you really think so little of me as to make a remark at your expense when I was the cause?" Teach asked unamusedly. Temperance simply averted his eyes, figuring a response was obviously part of Teach''s plan to get around his self-imposed rule on how to tease him. Temperance''s silence, quiet as it was, brought a smirk to Teach''s face, not that anyone other than Nakamai would be able to tell.


    "It seems you can learn things without me needing to spell it out for you," Teach remarked. Temperance scoffed in disbelief, momentarily thinking Teach was complimenting him before the realisation hit him and he slumped his head in defeat.


    "Thanks for that...," Temperance grumbled, forcing himself to stand up straight.


    "Don''t sweat it, Astrotho. Now-". Teach couldn''t even finish his sentence before Temperance socked Teach''s projection in the face, forcing the projection to fizzle away and violently disperse into pieces.


    "Yeah-yeah, I get it, figure out who my unknown parent is," Tempererance grumbled in frustration, his face mildly red from being referred to by his actual name. Clenching his fist against the unscathed pillar he punched, Temperance winced in pain, the delayed pain coursing through him as his temper simmered down.


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    "Honestly... why is he even interested?" Temperance muttered mentally, "I mean, how is having me promise to figure out the answer to my request a proper reward?". Despite his constant questions on the matter, Temperance knew he''d never get a straight answer from Teach and scoffed as he removed his fist from the pillar, his fingers twitching as he released his grip.


    "Is this really necessary?". The nearby despondent murmurs caught Temperance''s attention, and he turned his head to see three students standing by a Battle Grid, two girls and one boy.


    "Come on, Faithilia; it''s not that serious...," the other female student grumbled to Faithilia, who had her arms firmly crossed and sticking to her guns.


    (Faithilia is a super short, dark-tanned, sixteen-year-old humanoid dragonoid shibaru with slightly thick thighs; she has hip-low bright royal blue curly hair with dark grey blue gradient tips tied at the end with a violet purple breve-shaped hairclip, a violet purple left eye with a thick slit-shaped iris, a bright royal blue right eye with a thick slit-shaped iris, dark grey blue shiba inu ears with bright royal blue gradient tips, slight sharp canine teeth, and three poofy, big, fluffy dark grey blue tails with bright royal blue gradient tips, dark grey blue and bright royal blue striped scaled-covered body parts[forearms, hands, entire legs, feet, and hips], two super large dark grey blue right dragon wings, two super large bright royal blue left dragon wings, and a three-foot long dragon tail with dark grey blue and bright royal blue striped scales)


    (Faithilia is wearing a violet-purple fur sweater with a super large hood and bright royal blue inside)


    "You two were knocked out with a single attack in that tournament thingy for a scholarship which isn''t the main issue...," Faithilia stated boisterously, scratching the scales of her forearms against each other as she increased the tightness of her locked arms. The scratching scales created a minor screeching noise, mild enough to not cause any irritation but still enough to be annoying for everyone else.


    "Then what is?" the girl asked as she clasped her fox ears to protect them from the screeching. Faithilia huffed defiantly, disappointment oozing from her every action at the nerve for the duo to not know what they had done wrong.


    "The. Issue. Is that you''re not trying to get any stronger!" Faithilia exclaimed calmly, as calmly as someone yelling can be. The two students grumbled under their breaths, their movements reserved and timid.


    "That''s easy for you to say, you made it to the final round of that very tournament," the boy remarked before walking off, shortly followed by the girl taking the chance to flee with him. Watching the duo''s lackadaisical escape attempt, Faithilia was left at a loss for words and could only put on an annoyed expression at failing to get the duo to train. The girl brought a hand to her face, relief on her face, gratefully mentioning to the boy that Faithilia wasn''t in the same classes as them. The remark sent a shiver of frustration down Faithilia''s spine, making the dragonic shiba contemplate taking more drastic.


    However, as she pondered, Faithilia''s attention was ripped from the two students, sensing a collective of spiritual energies comparable to her own. She spun on the spot using her tail, excitement gushing from her beaming grin which only increased in intensity as she locked her eyes on Temperance.


    "Well-well-well, what do we have here?" Faithilia asked amusedly, her words sultry as she couldn''t contain her building elation before adding, "How would you like-".


    "Not interested, already had my share of training for today," Temperance uttered, watching the excitement from Faithilia mildly sour.


    "Oh... well... at least you are training, unlike some people," Faithilia uttered, raising her tail slightly and striking the floor to relieve some of her tension. However, the dragonic shiba got an idea, a sinister grin appeared on Faithilia''s face which brought an equally resentful frown to Temperance, who already regretted his decision to approach Faithilia.

 Chapter 24: Incorrect Stop

    With a spring in her step, Faithilia sprinted down the streets of Lumios City at blinding speeds, fluidly dancing around every obstacle and individual in her path. While it seemed to have a mind of its own, the dragonoid''s tail flicked and thrashed about, slashing the air with violent ferocity. She slapped her wings against the tail, hoping to reign it in enough to save her any potential liability payments to the shop owners.


    As she managed to stabilize her tail with precise muscle movements, Faithilia continued on her way while decreasing her speed, aiding in keeping herself in check. Despite all Faithilia''s antics, Temperance continued to be dragged behind her, snagged to her tail as it was coiled on his ankles to keep him in place. Even though he expected to slam against the floor, especially earlier with how crazy Faithilia''s tail moved, Temperance never once met the ground, the speed Faithilia moved at being fast enough to keep the guy suspended off the ground.


    "Still, I can''t believe our names sort of match," Faithilia remarked cheerfully as she effortlessly vaulted over a crate, swishing her tail upwards, taking Temperance with it and narrowly saving the crate from being smashed to pieces but did accidentally knock its top off.


    "Huh?" Temperance uttered.


    "You know since our names are the same as the ones in the six prophecy thing," Fathilia explained as she reached out to her side. With a soapy pop, a rose-red transparent mana bubble formed at the base of her palm. Faithilia reached into it before pulling out a book adorned in anthropomorphic chibified cats with extremely stylized letters all over its cover.


    "See," the girl added, pointing to the book''s title with one of her wings. Despite having it pointed out to him, Temperance could barely see any detail of the book, let alone the title. He mumbled in fake acknowledgement, knowing that asking any questions to a person with an even more energetic demeanour than Nakamai would undoubtedly lead to his ears falling off.


    As abruptly as she slammed her foot into the ground, Faithilia slid to a grinding halt, a small trail of dust left in her wake before a light thud sounded behind her. With a flowery flick of her wrist, Faithilia pointed towards the nearby building, not even bothering to look where she was pointing as Temperance hopped to his feet.


    "Care to explain why you not-so-basically kidnapped me?" Temperance asked whilst smacking the dust and dirt out of his hair. Faithilia dismissively huffed, flicking her dragon tail in Temperance''s direction before gently patting the guy''s chest with it.


    "My good fellow, it''s only kidnapping if the person doesn''t want to be taken; so, in this case, it''s an unexpected trip~," Faithilia said cheekily, leaving Temperance with a dumbfounded expression.


    "... I suppose it''s not inherently incorrect," Temperance uttered as he brushed the girl''s tail off his chest and turned his head to the building he had been brought to, "So... why''d you bring me to a bakery?".


    "That''s-". Taking a moment to think, Faithilia felt her brain buffer, leaving her frozen with a rigid smug grin on her face as she forcefully turned her head to look where she was pointing. The imposing form of the large golden teddy bear head loomed over her and she turned faintly pink, especially when she saw the sign displaying a deal for couples with equal strength would get a free order. Struggling to hold back her embarrassment, Faithilia swung her head back to Temperance, defensively throwing up her arms and flailing them around as she realized how things looked.


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    "This- this isn''t where I meant to point!" Faithilia exclaimed, shouting loud enough that it briefly caught some passersby''s attention. Temperance glanced at the Golden Bear Bakery''s sign bearing its name, feeling every inch of its existence exuding a sense of nostalgia as the scent of baked goods filled the surrounding air.


    "That''s a shame, I kind of wanted to see if that deal is real," a pompously obnoxious male remarked nearby.


    A terror of shock shot up Faithilia, forcing her body to tense up before she shivered at recognising the voice. With her fight or flight instinct kicking in, she sprung from her spot and jumped near Temperance, throwing her fists up into a boxing stance as she stared down the two males before her.


    (Kalkino is a tall, tanned eighteen-year-old humanoid kitsune/polar bear hybrid; he has glowing super long dark pink to purple to green gradient hair with cyan ends styled like waves, azure cyan eyes with bold slit-shaped pupils with seven small three-pointed stars on the edge of his eyes, dark grey areas of skin [palms, soles, and around eyes], seven long[double his height] extremely fluffy kitsune tails that match his hair colour with large sphere-shaped ends, fuzzy animal ears which are a cross between a kitsune and a polar bear, and metalic opaque ice-looking fangs)


    (Kalkino is wearing a large white fur coat with dark cyan fur around its collar and cuffs, black jeans, black sunglasses, large golden shackles around his ankles, and black winter boots)


    (Yosuken is a slightly tall twenty-year-old humanoid kitsune/harpy hybrid; he has fluffy neck-low dark green hair with a metalic texture and pale purple ends with a snow texture, cyan to crystally ocean blue gradient eyes with six-pointed star-shaped pupils, pale skin with crystal-textured ocean blue engravings running down his arms and dash-shaped engravings under his eyes, eight long [twice his height] and slim kitsune tails that matches his hair colour with large ring-shaped ends, and two large and long[triple his height] made of snow which matches the colours of his hair)


    (Yosuken is wearing an ocean blue bodysuit [covers his torso, legs, and feet], baggy white fur trousers, and cyan silverwood getas)


    "Given how you scare females away with that demeanour of yours you''ll never know," Yosuken whispered under his breath, his voice only intelligible to those with super hearing. Kalkino slowly swivelled his head towards Yosuken, an agitated smirk on his face, finding his older sibling''s remark vaguely amusing as he turned his grin into a toothy grin filled with contempt.


    "It almost sounds like you''re trying to pick a fight, murmur bird," Kalkino barked, his voice emanating competitive aggression. The male siblings stared each other down, one erupting with explosive fury, the other with silent antagonism. As the tension in the air heated up, Faithilia nervously darted her eyes between the duo, streams of heavy sweat running down her face. In contrast to the nervous girl, Temperance itched his head in confusion, feeling nothing but bewilderment at how suddenly the situation changed.


    Without warning, the duo lunged at each other, leaving a thunderous whiplash as they forced the air out of their way. They smashed their foreheads together with a violent bang, their collision kicking up enough force to create a mini-shockwave and kick up the nearby dust from the ground. Being situated closer to its epicentre, the shockwave slammed into Faithilia like a raging bull, flinging her off her feet and sending her flying. Temperance ducked, taking a moment to calculate his options before letting Faithilia hurtle over him. Groaning in anger as she went, Faithilia spiralled over a food cart and crashed face-first into the open crate of gelopines(various coloured pinecones made of gelatin).


    "Don''t think just cause you two are big shots I won''t get my revenge on you for this!" Faithilia exclaimed as her dragon tail slumped over the side of the crate.

 Chapter 25: An Ego of The Past

    The half-kitsune brother''s auras oozed from their bodies, exuding their respective malice for each other clashing like treacherous tsunamis of gold and cyan mana and spilling out into the street. The animosity-fuelled mana seeped into the air, distilling a heavy and suffocating tang of dread in anyone unlucky enough to inhale it. With a veil of purple keither stemming from his Dotoma Mark to shelter himself and the crate-cladded Faithilia from the mana''s intoxicating clutches, Temperance lowered his shoulders solemnly, regretting his decision to go outside even more as Faithilia struggled to free herself, flailing her legs like a track runner.


    "I''m already missing only having to deal with Nakamai...," Temperance grumbled, pulling at his face. Contemplating how to get himself out of his current predicament, Temperance took a second to notice the knee-high trail of pink dust slivering under the brothers'' mana and heading directly for the unsuspecting half-kitsunes.


    Almost like something clicked in the duo, the brothers snapped away from each other, cutting their aura clash to an air-slapping stop while putting on forced ear-to-ear smiles, straining every fibre of their beings like their lives depended on it. Although only slowing at first, the pink mist stopped its advance before dispersing away from the brothers, making them sigh with enough force to let their souls briefly leave their bodies.


    "Honestly, can''t you two go five years without squabbling over nonsense?" a feminine, elder-sounding kitsune asked, her voice airless and fuelled by mental exhaustion. The woman''s tone of voice sent waves of dread through the brothers, the lack of force behind her words spelling an all too familiar fate to come for the duo if they made even a single error.


    The woman lazed atop the Golden Bear Bakery sign, the pluming mass of her kitsune tails splitting off into ten large tails. The five with pink tips pointed at the brothers with sass-filled sways and the cyan ones pointed at Temperance with a reserved hover.


    "If you apologise to everyone here, then I''ll refrain from putting you through training your gramps would''ve deemed standard," the elder kitsune stated calmly. The brothers didn''t utter a word, choosing to silently nod, their tails slumping to the ground in shame as they walked off to fulfil their punishment. Temperance rubbed the back of his head, confusion still clouding any form of understanding of what happened but decided to let any interest he might''ve had go.


    "I do hope you''ll do well and reframe from making my great-grandkids with disdain for each other like those two," the elder remarked half-amusedly. Temperance frowned at hearing the lax kitsune''s remark, shivering instinctually in frustration before swinging his unamused gaze up to the elder kitsune, intending to give her a piece of his mind.


    Temperance couldn''t get out a single word as the juxtaposition of the sight before him so outside his realm of expectation it left the guy speechless, long after his initial shock had worn off. Atop the bakery''s sign was not the diligent old lady Temperance expected to see, given the voice he heard, but a young-looking girl swarmed by her wafting kitsune tails. The girl''s tails towered above the bakery, surprising Temperance at the absurdity of finding a kitsune with tails that could dwarf Lola''s.


    "I take it you must be their gr-".


    Temperance was cut off by a loud crash behind him, followed by pained and angered murmurs of Faithilia as she staggered past, still stuck in the crate and dropping gelopines along the way. Temperance watched Faithilia trip over a knocked-down stand-up sign before one of the elder kitsune''s tails dived for the crate girl and wrapped around her, stopping her fall before it could begin.


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    "You could say I am, but familial relations between kitsunes can get rather confusing when egos and visages get involved," the elder kitsune ego remarked cheekily; her voice now more cutesy and child-sounding, matching her adolescent appearance. Temperance mentally jumped at the elder''s shift in vocals and demeanour, which left him minorly unnerved.


    "That''s better than some people''s situations," Faithilia mentioned with a muffle, huffing in exertion as she pulled her head out of the crate of gelopine, "Right, Temper?". A brief silence followed the girl''s question as she and Temperance stared at each other.


    "What are you implying?" Temperance asked while raising an unamused eyebrow. Not expecting such a response, Faithilia could only stammer, turning bright red and deciding to book it across the street, diving into the adventurers guild branch building to escape the situation. Temperance raised a hand to the back of his head, scratching it and saying, "Is everyone here so weird?".


    "Heh... can''t say you''re wrong but isn''t self-insults even weirder, Kiddo?" the elder kitsune ego remarked as she rolled off the sign, flipping to an upright rotation while her tails rapidly retracted into her body to a partial exstent. Landing at the foot of the bakery''s entrance, the elder''s appearance became more clear to Temperance, and he could easily make out the kitsune''s familial resemblance to Lola and her kids.


    "Oh where are my manners, my name''s Zalina, but Ina will suffice my future grandson-in-law," Zalina remarked smugly, leaving Temperance to frown in annoyance.


    (Zalina is a four-foot and two-inch tall humanoid female kitsune with the appearance of a fourteen-year-old; she has neck-low almost white-in-colour pink mane-worth hair with pale cyan and magenta ends, pale magenta eyes, and ten large almost white-in-colour pink kitsune tails [five foot when short/fifty-four when long] with five having pink ends and five having cyan ends)


    (Zalina is wearing an oversized long white fur coat, black sports shorts, a large strip of her tail fur covering her chest, and silverwood getas)


    "I already know that marriage thing was a joke," Temperance remarked bluntly. Zalina froze before her body shook like a sprite-styled platformer character after being hit, followed by her collapsing on the ground with a thud.


    "It was a joke?!" Zalina asked in disbelief, her voice pitiful and small as the revelation hit her like a world-transporting truck. The woman rolled onto her back and stared up at the clouds for solace, small bursts of dust escaping from under her tails. But her sulking was brought to a halt, a sight above cleaving her mind from her prior sulking.


    "Guess her check-up is done.".


    "Who''s?"


    "Tem!" Saigo exclaimed from above, her voice kicking up a frenzy in the surrounding citizens as they booked it from the area. He could barely lift his head in time as a barrelling projectile collided with his chest, knocking the wind out of him. Before he knew what hit him, a loud impact exploded in front of the bakery, hurling a pillar of debris into the air as Zalina remained in place.


    As the debris rained back to the ground, Saigo ripped her face out from the mini crater of her making, amused confusion evident on her face at the lack of Temperance in her presence. Nana-Ka descended to the ground on her hoverboard, rolling her eyes at the messy state before her.


    "So, you''re the guy Saigo wouldn''t shut up about?" Nana-Ka remarked snarkily while carrying the winded Temperance by the back of his shirt as embers of pink keither flaked off the guy.


    "And you must be the Recoil Rumble Arena maker, since you''re the seventh I''ve met," Temperance retorted, hitting Nana-Ka with as much sass as she gave him. Nana-Ka remained stoic in her expression, but the gradual flushing of her face showed her hidden embarrassment at getting back what she gave out.


    "I can see why Mother likes you," Nana-Ka grumbled with minor embarrassment before releasing her grasp on Temperance and dropping the guy on Saigo, easily flattening her like dough and into a pancake on impact.

 Chapter 26: A Bees Target

    Inside the Golden Bear Bakery, Zalina sauntered her way into the building with a playful stride. Her tails swirled, funnelling through the bakery''s double glass door like ice cream being dispensed from a machine but in reverse as they shrunk into their comparably smaller form. Once reaching their five-foot lengths, Zalina''s curled-up tails unfurled into ten separate tails, revealing the starry-eyed Saigo hidden within before she scaled up her fellow kitsune''s back and sat on her shoulders.


    "Orange and pineapple crepes!" Saigo exclaimed with unadulterated glee, followed by her throwing her fist into the air. Saigo''s gleeful demands brought a content smile to Zalina''s face; the girl''s lack of hesitation and simple order made Saigo her favourite client. Before long, Zalina reached the counter with an adjoined freestanding cake display and set down Saigo on one of the many bear-looking stools. Letting out a tempered huff, Zalina peered over to the entrance as something behind her drew her attention.


    "There''s no need to be shy; this isn''t a temporal anomaly or something," Zalina remarked smugly, sensing the nervous shaking from Faithilia. The half-dragonling cast her cautious gaze at the various teddy bear-themed furniture as she found it hard to believe something so pre-apocalypse could exist. The dining room''s layout was a collage of a traditional diner mixed with a cottage bakery, all smothered in a layer of bear aesthetic.


    "I don''t get it why a bear theme?" Faithilia murmured as she clung to the door frame and looked at the colourful tiles lining the lower half of the walls.


    "You''d have to ask Grandma Ina, also stop blocking the door," Nana-Ka remarked sternly before kicking Faithilia in the butt, sending the canine dragonling flying into the building and directly in front of a free-standing muffin display with distinctly non-bear products.


    "Oh, this one even looks like... me?" Faithilia remarked, her cheerful expression turning to one of confusion as she looked at the other muffins, which also oddly resembled Temperance, Saigo, and her siblings. "I feel muffin me is kinda out of place in there.". Faithilia slumped her shiba ears, unable to decide if her muffiny counterpart should be weirding her out; but, ultimately let it go with a sigh as Nana-Ka marched into the building.


    "Come on you, my sisters will know you''ve been in the bakery''s vicinity and would give you hell if you don''t bring them something from here," Nana-Ka stated as she dragged a reluctant Temperance inside by his wings, clutching at his feathers with such a firm grip it made the guy mildly wince in discomfort.


    "And how would they know?" Nakamai asked as she abruptly popped her head out from one of Temperance''s kitsune tails.


    "Naturally, this place is covered in Granny Ina''s spiritual energies so they-". Nana-Ka froze, darting her head down and locking eyes with the unsuspecting Nanakai, obliviously unaware of the trillions of neurons in Nana-Ka''s brain she had just fried with her presence alone. Nakamai defensively slumped back and rested the back of her head against Temperance''s tails, the crazed look in Nana-Ka sensing a wave of unease through the small kitsune visage.


    "Can I hug her?" Nana-Ka requested bluntly and devoid of shame as her infatuation-filled eyes bore down on the small kitsune visage. Nakamai shot her eyes open at hearing Nana-Ka''s coldly excited request, causing the little visage''s tails to involuntarily spike up as she pitifully looked up to Temperance for help with her puppy dog eyes.


    "If you release my wing," Temperance stated swiftly before Nana-Ka released her grip on him so fast someone would accuse her of exploiting/hacking if they were in a game. Nakamai gasped in betrayal, not that she judged him, before freezing up as she felt Nana-Ka''s focus flutter back to her. With a sparse side eye, Nakamai sprung from the safety of Temperance''s tail, landing on the eco-friendly spruce floorboards before booking for the exit while screaming, "I regret summoning myself to the tail space!".


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    However, try as she might, the distance between Nakamai and the door remained consistent even when she picked up her pace. Confused, Nakamai peered backwards and instantly frowned at seeing the transparent energy hand holding onto one of her tails.


    "Crud...," Nakamai uttered disapointedly as she continued running in place. Following the arm of the energy hand, Nakamai''s eyes locked onto Naka-Ka''s outreached hand, now sporting a fingerless glove with a clear magical pearl from which the energy hand projected from.


    Cut to a few minutes later, Nakamai had gladly accepted being captured in Nana-Ka''s vice-like bear hug as she opened her mouth and allowed the snow leopard kitsune to feed her her seventeenth slice of cake. Temperance held his hand to his forehead and let out a disappointed sigh.


    "What a sweet-toothed baby," Temperance said in a disappointed tone.


    "You got a problem with sweets, bub?" Miya uttered coldly as she hovered her face right beside Temperance''s head. With the demanding buzzing of wing flaps in his ear, Temperance turned his head with a ticked-off expression. He intended to ask Miya to give him some space but the sight of Miya''s face caused his heart to stagger with terror. Despite having the appearance of a kid, Miya was the spitting image of Lola, even more so than her children, and Temperance felt his fight or flight instinct kick in and leapt away from Miya.


    (Loumiya is a kid-sized, adult kitsune ego of aggression with the appearance of a five-year-old human girl; she has neck-low extremely curly dark cyan hair with metalic silver ends, golden eyes with five-pointed star pupils and silver rings around her eyes, dark cyan skin with dark areas[forearms, hands, and from the knees down], six large dark cyan bee wings with metalic textured ends, fuzzy silver bee antennae, an hourglass figure, and a football-sized dark cyan and silver striped bee-abdomen-shaped tail with a metalic bee stinger)


    (Miya is wearing white see-through stockings with dark cyan silk suspenders, silver baggy cuffed shorts which the suspenders are attached to, a silver baggy shirt, and a cyan apron)


    "Lola must have done a number on you for Miya to make you jump," Zalina mentioned smugly as she placed a plate stacked with orange and pineapple crepes in front of a greedy Saigo. Saigo''s eyes beamed with joy, her swishing and lashing through the air at a deadly speed which would spell a death sentence for anyone stupid enough to enter its range.


    "You''re saying that like Little Miss Face Presser here isn''t sporting a permanent frown," Temperance grumbled exhaustedly as said frowner pressed her cheek against his face. Miya pulled back, giving Temperance the false impression she was going to leave him alone only to slam her face into him seconds later. Her headbutt hit him with the force of a semi-truck, knocking him off balance before the two of them went tumbling into a nearby booth bench.


    "Miya, how many times must I tell you? Most people don''t function like plants so you can''t get their magical energy or kai from smashing your face into them," Photon barked as she stuck her head out from the doorframe behind the counter that led to the kitchen, one filled with hectic bangs and clanging of utensils. However, much to the kitsune visage''s spiteful annoyance, Photon slumped her lips into an annoyed pout as Miya stonewalled her and even nibbled the cheek of an unfazed Temperance.


    (Louphoton is a rather short, humanoid kitsune visage[dragon serpent of family] with the appearance of a four-year-old girl and an identical face to Miya; she has slightly long unkempt purple hair with metalically silver hair tips with bangs long enough to cover her eyes, golden eyes with five-pointed star pupils, pale white to the point it''s faintly cyan skin, two thin metal fifteen-centimetre pale purple horns on her forehead, a dark purple and purple scaled fifteen-foot-long snake-like tail with a pale purple kitsune fur end, and two on her back and eight dark purple dragonic wings along her tail with pale purple wing membrane)


    (Photon is wearing a black apron, black bear paw-themed oven mits, three multi-coloured[purple, pink, and yellow] banana-shaped beaded bracelets, and a sleeveless dark purple bodysuit that also covers her legs and feet)


    "Guess she really is a bee if she''s trying to bite me," Temperance murmured, a deadpanned glint in his eyes as he led on the booth bench.

 Chapter 27: Forgone System

    The orange leaves of the approaching autumn adorned the trees, occasionally plucked from their branches by a mild breeze. Tranquillity and silence staked their claim upon the autumn forest, allowing peace to spread and prosper unperturbed. However, the peace wouldn''t last, given the unfolding antics of a certain trio. In contrast to the once overbearing silence, the mortified cries of a child pierced through the trees. Her wails were unrelenting and contested only by the relentless torrent of aggressive buzzing.


    A silver blur zipped between the trees at a frantic pace, trailed by a faint tremor that grew in intensity before a swarm of bees spilt out through the trees like water and after the fleeing trio.


    "Why are you crying, this was your idea!" Kid Temperance exclaimed excitedly as he glared back at the crying Faithilia sitting on one of his three small kitsune tails. The girl continued to wail while desperately clinging to a sizeable chunk of solidified honey in her arms.


    "Fai didn''t spec all the bees from the other bee-homes to attack," Child Faithilia cried, balling her eyes as her four small dragon wings shivered in terror at the closing in buzzing.


    "Asty, this is all your fault!" Alexstrala pouted calmly, concluding her sentence with a reserved and contentious huff.


    (Alexstrala Umbrou is a short, kid abyssal vampire; she has slightly long spikey-tipped black hair, dark topaz eyes, very pale skin, vampire fangs, and a jet-black scarf-like appendage that''s attached by the back of her neck)


    "And how did you come to that conclusion?" Kid Temperance remarked teasingly. Alexstrala glared downwards, casting contempt upon Temperance. She found his sense of danger lacking, but what really ruffled her scarf-like appendage was Temperance''s complete disregard for etiquette when talking to her, given their respective standings.


    As beams of sunlight began falling upon the trio''s path, Alexstrala commanded her scalf-like appendage with the flick of her wrist and she whipped it over her head before morphing its form into an umbrella in preparation for the sun.


    "It''s your stupidly condensed spiritual energies that attracted the bees," Alexstrava murmured disapprovingly. But, even with her misgivings for the guy, her agitation slowly faded, replaced with giddy delight as she watched Temperance''s small angelic wings flap and flutter. The smol vampiric child reached out a tentative hand to touch one of the wings, her cheeks flushing slightly as she recalled how fluffy and soft to the touch Temperance''s wings were.


    "If you touch my wings right now, we''ll all be eating the dirt," Kid Temperance stated before going completely limp as Alexstrava failed to restrain herself from touching the fluffy angel wings.


    Kid Temperance swung to the ground like a sack of potatoes and smashed face-first into a tree.


    Snapping back to consciousness, Temperance shot up from a lying position, flinging Miya off his head and across the bakery like a ping pong as she bounced off every surface she collided with.


    "Woah, he was out for six minutes dead-on, talk about a power nap," Faithilia remarked as Miya crashed into the booth bench behind her, bringing her bouncing fit to an end.


    Photon''s tail slivered up from behind and over the counter, its scales glistening like stars in the reflection of a lake as it travelled towards the bee''s crash site. The fur at the end of her tail wrapped around the sulking Miya, who was utterly defeated at not getting even a drop of spiritual energy, before carrying the bee girl into the kitchen before she regained her confidence to try again.


    Temperance rested his head in his palm, covering half of his face as he rubbed the tiredness out of his eye. The brief encounter in his dream was fresh in his mind but the finer details of it illuded him while the occupants of his dream blurred into unidentifiable blobs with each passing second. He could only groan, desperately trying to patch his dissolving daydream back together but only managing to give himself a headage¡ªthe searing pang as his desperation to bring back his short-lived dream.


    "You good, dude?" Faithilia asked with concern. Temperance remained silent, lost so deeply in thought he didn''t hear Faithilia. Realising she wasn''t getting through to him, Faithilia began to slightly lean forward, her eyes wobbling with fear at seeing the unnervingly heavy look in the guy''s eyes. But luckily for her, a loud metalic clang from the kitchen jumped Temperance back to reality and registered the question.


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    "Yeah... just felt like I slammed my face into a tree.". Temperance rubbed his face one last time before dragging his hand down his face until letting it drop onto the table with a thud. Faithilia mentally sighed in relief, returning to a sitting on the booth bench as realised her concern was unfound.


    "Well, that bee girl did headbutt you like her life depended on it," Faithilia remarked cheekily before taking a bite out of her muffin counterpart.


    "Say, what made you ask if I was ok?". Faithilia choked on her muffin at the sudden question and she rapidly punched her chest to dislodge the muffin before she could suffocate.


    "I-I um, didn''t like the look in your eyes, that''s all," Faithilia mumbled as she took a smaller bite out of her muffin, anticipating further questions and wanting to avoid choking again.


    Detecting Temperance''s emergence from his slumber, Saigo whipped her crumb-covered face around with a beaming smile. She leapt off her stool and bounced her merry way over to Temperance with a half-eaten crepe in hand. Her wings giddily flutter, lifting herself off the ground as she scaled the booth bench and one arm crawled over to Temperance. While finishing her last crepe, Saigo nudged her tail under Temperance''s right arm, subconsciously allowing it to coil the guy''s arm as her mind became filled with the anticipation of combat.


    "Big Bro, let''s go play at Big Sis Nana''s playground thingy," Saigo pleaded as she wrapped her tail even tighter around the guy''s arm. The grip of the young girl''s tail was surprisingly firm against his arm, forcing Temperance to mildly wince from the pain.


    Intending to decline, Temperance steeled his nerves and pushed past the pain. But, he was blind-sighted by some of the biggest puppy dog eyes he''d ever seen. Despite the surprise, Temperance was far too familiar with the form of relentless persuasion the little girl had employed on him, thanks to Nakamai and Kannachi''s presence in his life. Temperance kept his gaze locked on the kid, his mind plagued with dread, and fearing if he diverted his focus for even a second that his barely held-together resistance would immediately fold like a pushover parent.


    "Are you really losing a clash of wills against a kid?" Faithilia asked teasingly, finding it hard to believe someone in the academy''s Hunter Department could be susceptible to a kid''s puppy dog eyes of all things.


    Temperance snapped his focus to Faithilia from her provocating question. He mentally pondered on how to respond, going over various resorts of increasing ferocity with a tempered yet sinister visage forming in his mind. Seemingly sensing her essence''s train of thought, Nakamai''s complexion turned a timid shade of blue while Nana-ka gleefully stuck a spoonful of ice cream in the ego''s mouth.


    "Oh, Gods. I got a brother," Nakamai uttered muffledly as Nana-Ka pulled the spoon out of the girl''s mouth. The spoon-wielding girl couldn''t help but let a hearty sigh escape her lips, unable to hold back her excitement at the prospect of having another being as cuddly as Nakamai appearing in front of her.


    "I hope he''s just as huggable as you~" Nana-Ka proclaimed with glee, letting a coe of endearment at imaging a mini-version of Temperance with different hair colours/different creature features while absent-mindedly sticking the spoon into the tub of ice cream.


    "I doubt it...," Nakamai grumbled as Nana-Ka brought another spoonful of ice cream to the ego''s face which she gladly consumed.


    Temperance''s deranged comeback to However, a second opinion entered his thought process, flinging his train of thought off its very rails and crashing in a ditch. But, despite his comeback going up in smoke and leaving him minorly peeved, the simplicity of the new voice in his head''s idea turned his sinister grin into a normal one.


    Employing the use of his free limbs, Temperance placed an angelic wing atop Saigo''s head. He gently cupped her head, ensuring his grip wasn''t too firm before he turned head to face Faithilia, leaving the on-looking teen to raise a shiba ear in confusion.


    The half-dragon''s confusion only rose as she watched Temperance bring his free hand to Saigo''s face. And once the guy was certain Faithilia was only focusing on Saigo, Temperance squished the little girl''s cheek, flinging the lingering crepe crumbs from her face as she made a "Wah" noise.


    Faithilia widened her eyes in unadulterated awe with her brain lagging behind her as the image of Saigo''s goofy face and cute noises flooded into it. Adding to the prior flood of stimuli, the overwhelming might of Saigo''s big ol'' eyes forced Faithilia''s brain to reboot. But, along the way, her brain must have bluescreen from the cuteness overload she received before she lost all control of her body and slammed face-first into the booth table.


    "Woah... I killed her," Saigo mumbled through her squished cheeks, before losing interest and glancing to the side as she heard Zalina place a large pastry box on the counter.

 Chapter 28: Room Arrangement?

    The following morning, Kannachi let out a hearty, drawn-out yawn in her sleep and stretched her limbs out across her bed as she arched her back like a cat into the shape of a C. As she inched closer and closer to her bed''s edge, a drool ran down the girl''s guilty grin-covered face, the inner machinations of her slumbering mind bringing her nothing but pure glee. Her dream, nothing short of a perplexing sight to any rational person, depicted Kannachi stated in a tropical mansion and sitting on a padded longeing chair underneath a clear blue sky.


    But despite the normalcy of the location, there was one glaring discrepancy with the place, and that was everyone other than Kannachi was an alternate version of Temperance, aside from the single Nakamai who was bossing the Temperances around. Be it a different skin tone than the original, a different hair/eye colour or even their various non-human features, the strangest part about them was their attire or more accurately the fact their attires were blurry messes.


    In her dream, she let out a content sigh, filled with absolute joy that no matter where she looked there was a Temperance to greet her. However, as she led back and closed her eyes to bask in the sun of her dreams, a shadow crept inbetween her and the sun. Kannachi pulled her glasses down with a huff of frustration, intending to give the Temperance blocking her sun a talking too. But, she froze before even a murmur could escape her lips. As the terror-inducing visage of Teach loomed over her, the built-up tan she worked so hard for melted off her body and left her struggling to process why the Temperance-shaped being was scaring her silly.


    "I would suggest you wake up otherwise that woman might show up, also you''ll be late for class," Teach stated coldly before he unceremoniously kicked the side of Kannachi''s chair and knocked it over along with her.


    Snapping awake, Kannachi tumbled out of her bed and barely missed a kiss with the floor as she was tangled up in her bedsheets during her tumble. Regaining her senses, she allowed her upside-down face to rise into a defeated frown, silently grumbling under her breath at her predicament.


    "Geez... why does that ghosty Tem-Tem have to ruin all my good dreams... wait did he say-.". Before she could finish her sentence, a loud ringing knock rippled through her bedroom door. The sudden knock startled Kannachi, causing her to jump and free herself from her blanket''s confines.


    "Oi, wake up you delirious dreamers," Crystal yelled as she relentlessly pounded the Kannachi''s door before pausing mid-swing when she heard a loud thud in the bedroom, followed by a groggy Skullnaia groaning about being woken up. "Good, they''re up.". Crystal turned on her heel with a relieved huff and hurried back to her own room to get changed.


    While the antics of the sleeping duo concluded, a fierce debate raged through the common area of the dorm room. For once the hostility wasn''t due to the two eldest Sakamoto brothers'' hatred for each other, despite them being on opposing sides like usual.


    "And I''m telling you, it makes more sense for Kannachi to be in that angel-winged kitsune''s room and put Skull and Saigo in the same room," Kalkino explained explosively whilst pointing at the needlessly complicated diagram sketch on the dining table, displaying the "optimal" bedroom arrangement to ensure the minimal friction between everyone.


    "And I''m telling you it''s first come-first dibs, so they stay in the rooms they chose," Yosuken barked back with a side-eye. Holding back his bubbling rage, the half harpy ruffled his own feathery wings which caused them to detach from his arms and turn into normal back wings.


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    Xenazuki could only groan in frustration as she covered her face with her tail, utterly embarrassed the argument was even happening. She could feel her gears being ground to dust at having to listen to the two guys'' bickering along with the constant brushing sounds piercing her ears from Nana-Ka''s brush. The thought of tossing them off the balcony, like she did Mochiko earlier, crossed her mind multiple times but she never reached the strength to do it with the relentless bickering sapping her strength.


    "But I wanna be in Big Bro Tem-Tem''s room," Saigo complained in a pouty strop, flailing her tail up and down with unbridled, child-like glee.


    All it took were those simple words from the little girl and the two aguring brothers were silenced. Their eyes widened in dread-filled horror, unable to muster another sound let alone a word. Collapsing to their knees, the pair slumped on the dining table, reduced to hollow husks of despair at the mere notion that the angel that was their little sister would want to share a room with some random guy.


    "At least they''ve stopped bickering now," Nana-Ka murmured as she combed Nakamai''s super fluffy tails with a modified dog brush. The duo continued to grieve, clambering at the dining table for support as they couldn''t rationalize or possibly conceive why Saigo would want to bunk with this "Tem-Tem" guy and not them.


    "Well, maybe if you two weren''t at each other''s throats all the time she''d like you more," Xenazuki remarked muffledly beneath her fur-covered face while cladding her school uniform in her tail fur before morphing it into an oversized hoodie.


    "But who... who''s the guy that''s trying to steal our little sister?" Kalkino uttered, his voice underlined with a festering rage as he clawed his fingers across the dining table.


    "Ok, even I think you''re being a bit dramatic," Yosuken grumbled unamusedly whilst side-eyeing his brother. Hearing the guys discussing Temperance''s identity, Xenazuki pulled her hands up to her face-covering tail before ripping it off her face while glaring in the guy''s vague direction. For a moment, she considered just staying seated on the sofa, but the glaring fact that the guys hadn''t used Temperance''s name angered her more than the bickering itself. With a reserved pout, Xenazuki pulled herself from the sofa and stormed over with a renewed fire in her eyes.


    "Did you guys seriously forget his name?" Xenazuki asked exhaustedly while marching up to the guys and plucking them off the ground. Standing in the kitchen area, Temperance scratched the back of his head in confusion, utterly bewildered at the scene transpiring before his eyes. But, despite his confusion, he found some form of respect for the guys for being protective of their younger sibling, even if their reactions were... what they were.


    "To be fair, that Zalina lady scared them off before they could hear my name... that and their fighting was their main concern at the time," Temperance remarked condescendingly before being tackled by an excited Saigo. As she dive-bombed into his chest, she knocked the wind out of him and sent the two of them tumbling to the kitchen''s tiled floor.


    "Oh, he''s Temperance...," Yosuken uttered as he planted his feet on the floor and stood up, elevating Xenazuki off the floor and Kalkino by proxy.


    "Yeah, I can see why she''d choose him now," Kalkino murmured sulkingly, resigning to defeat but finding solace in the silver lining upon realising he''d get a bedroom all to himself.


    "My guess is she wants to sleep on his tails since the tails of kitsune hybrids with wings tend not to overheat," Mochiko mentioned as he clambered over the outside of the balcony''s railing before flopping face first on the floor.


    "Thanks for the input, Bagel," Nana-Ka stated as she continued brushing Nakamai''s unruly fur which was somehow more messy than when she started. The teen slumped her head defeatedly at yet another one of her brushes failing to tame the unkempt fur.