As fun as it was to wander through Japan, taking a few minutes here or there to investigate the shrines and stores, it was soon late enough that we headed back to the manor for dinner and to sleep.

  The next morning we continued to work our way around Sarayashiki prefecture, looking for anything out of the ordinary. The same group of Amy, Taylor, Ahri, Hinata, Holly, Ginny, and Lara travelled with me. As for those who stayed, Ahsoka continued her meditation, Chell and Hermione were engrossed in a secret project, while Pyrrha, Tonks, Fleur, and Alma focused on more training.

  I had avoided going straight for downtown Tokyo because, well to be blunt, Sailor Moon was a setting where some fairly air-headed teenage girls had the powers of lower ‘g’ gods towards the end of their story. I mean, for being arguably one of the forerunners in the magical girl romance genre, it had power scaling right up there with the most intense shounen battle anime.

  So I decided it would be best if we worked our way around the edge before addressing the blonde elephant in the center of Tokyo.

  However, as if to mock me for trying to avoid one potential nascent god, it was less than an hour later when I realized where I had heard of Karakura prefecture before. I really should have found it sooner, especially after doing a quick search through our media… although I had been enjoying our date time so much I might not have been looking as hard as I should have.

  Regardless, Karakura prefecture, or as it was known in the anime Karakura town was from Bleach. So, of course their soul reaper BS also involved a power curve that led teenagers into becoming lower ‘g’ gods.

  I didn’t mention it to my girls as, again, I was enjoying our date time. However, at least in the privacy of my own mind, I could admit that I was a bit scared.

  My very soul was unstable, so what would the spiritual pressure do to someone like me? And what would it do to my girls, who all had their souls working to support and contain mine?

  …needless to say, it didn’t make me more eager to run headfirst towards that sort of power scaling. But as we hadn’t seen anything too crazy in the news, that meant neither the Sailor Moon nor Bleach timelines were at the end game yet, even if there were certainly still threats out there.

  Instead I had tried to keep this as much of a vacation as I could. Just spending time with each of my girls that had come out with me by wandering through the Sarayashiki district.. However, even keeping half and eye out, we still saw nothing.

  It was as we finished lunch at a traditional ramen shop and moved on to a group of outdoor market stalls that I started to wonder if Nabiki had given us bad info when something finally happened.

  Specifically, I was holding Hinata’s hand and ignoring the grandmas who seemed to be annoyed with our minor PDA when my girls and I felt an explosion of energy.

  We twitched at the feeling of magic, but I also noted a lot of it seemed to be soul related. That meant the energy source was probably even stronger since it didn’t seem to fit into either category… which meant that it might be spiritual pressure, the exact thing I had been hoping to avoid.

  Glancing at my girls, it seemed like none of them had any idea of what was going on so there really wasn’t much to do except carefully investigate it.

  Taking a deep breath to steady my nerves, I gestured for Ahri to cover our movement and we stepped away from the open air market we had just been enjoying and we jumped up onto the nearby roof tops. Spending a moment to determine where exactly I had felt the pulse, we began to run towards the source of the explosion.

  We really hadn’t had much chance to move at our top speed before now, and I was a little amused to note that we were leaving moving cars behind as if they were standing still. True they were moving through surface streets, so we weren’t Flash levels of speedster yet. But it was definitely fast, maybe even approaching my portal speed, which seemed somewhat locked to 100 miles per hour.

  Soon enough, I spotted our first clue. Specifically, a woman with light blue hair, in traditional Japanese robes, floating on an oar.

  It was weird enough that I caught myself stopping short, just staring up at the sky. It wasn’t every day that you spotted someone flying through the sky.

  With all of our training, my girls caught themselves quickly as they scanned the surroundings, apparently not able to see what I was looking at. Most focused on the still smoking house in front of us.

  I ignored all of that as I thought hard, where had I seen this before?

  Said spirit woman who hadn’t seemed to have sensed us yet. All of her focus was on the smoking house… one that looked like it had just been put out…

  I frowned as I thought about it, I knew I had seen this before…

  That was when we all noticed a Japanese girl who was struggling to make it out of the building was being fussed over by a floating boy in a green student uniform… a very familiar looking green uniform.

  Ah, this was YuYu Hakusho… I reached up and smacked my own forehead.

  So much for trying to avoid stories with characters that would eventually reach a demigod level. Yusuke was definitely up there with Sailor Moon and Ichigo in terms of absurd levels of power.

  Actually, wasn’t he supposed to be the great grandson of the king of hell or something? So he could literally meet the classical definition of demigod as well.

  Pulling my hand down, I breathed in deeply before smacking my forehead again for good measure. Eventually I would learn to stop raising flags like declaring that I was trying to avoid demigods.

  Amy was the one to ask, even if she looked more amused and excited than concerned. “So what Anime are we in this time?”

  I sighed, “Its YuYu Hakusho.” Then, ignoring the look of realization from Amy, I looked up at Botan. As I did, said woman on the flying oar jerked around to look in our direction. She almost seemed able to see through Ahri’s illusions, or at least sense them, as she didn’t meet our eyes but was just looking in our general direction.

  Moving forward and jumping down from the rooftop, I walked towards Yusuke and his girl, who was apparently named Keiko, as he kept yelling, “Keiko! Keiko-chan!” as she struggled to drag his blanket-wrapped body to safety.

  On the other side of her, we spotted a classic 90’s anime delinquent with red hair and wearing a blue uniform also helping Keiko carry Yusuke's body. As they struggled to escape from the remaining fire and smoke, his voice contained poorly hidden concern as he yelled, “Yukimura-san, we are almost there, just keep going!”

  Keiko coughed as she responded. “Hai, Kuwabara-san.” Making one last dash she cleared the still smoking doorway and the street we were now on. Even if the release of spiritual pressure had put out the majority of fire, the smoke was still deadly and the building looked like one stiff breeze from falling down.

  However, regardless of the tense situation, I couldn’t help but relax realizing that this was just the beginning of the story. Yusuke was just like Ichigo. Specifically, the fact that by the end of his canon story he would easily be able to crush my current soul with spirit pressure alone. But at this point, he was just a slightly stronger than average delinquent. Not to mention that he was currently dead and just a floating soul.

  Quickly walking up so we were only a few meters away, I gestured for Ahri to drop the illusion. Then smiled as I interjected. “Good evening, you two.”

  Immediately Kuwabara spun around with his fists up, putting himself between Keiko and me.

  I snorted, as while I could appreciate the valor, he was also at the start of his journey and wasn’t a threat. It did, however, demonstrate that despite his hard exterior and delinquent appearance, Kuwabara really did care.

  He was a lot like Ranma, in fact.

  Behind them both, the ghost of Yusuke flew forward to try and get in my face, and probably to protect his girl as well, but all three of them were shocked when I reached out as quick as I could, and yanked Yusuke’s ear while rolling my eyes. “Don’t you sass me, Yusuke Urameshi, not when we are here to help.”

  Instantly all three teenagers froze at my declaration, along with Botan, who had been floating down on her oar. Although Botan and Yusuke were probably a lot more shocked that I was touching a ghost at all while the others couldn’t see what I had grabbed.

  Huffing a laugh, I released Yusuke's ear before stepping past a very confused Kuwabara. Bending down, I picked up Yusuke’s body like it weighed nothing while gesturing for Amy to check Keiko and Kuwabara over. Smoke inhalation was no joke.

  Amy didn’t bother sugar coating it either as she clicked her tongue while fussing over Keiko, “You have severe inflammation within your trachea and secondary bronchus, with somewhat significant carbonaceous deposits throughout both lungs. At least you don’t have any obstructions present within your bronchioles. You also have pretty severe first degree burns across your face, hands, and legs.”

  The medical talk got the trio of natives to stop and really look at the soot-covered girl.

  Keiko had the grace to blush slightly. Running into a house fire alone had been a pretty dumb decision, but like in canon, it had ended up working out so I guess she thought it was worth it.

  Kuwabara hadn’t been in the burning building nearly as long and wasn’t affected as badly, so Amy only needed a few seconds with him.

  As she finished, the blare of a firetruck's siren could be heard growing closer. I gestured for everyone to follow me, leading us toward the nearby apartment complex, wherein a discrete unlocking charm let us take the stairs up to the roof of the second floor without anyone being the wiser.

  Pulling a few chairs out of my ring to form a rough circle, I put Yusuke’s body down in the center and sat down. As everyone except Yusuke and Botan sat down, since those two just floated to the side, I couldn’t help but study the group a bit. Keiko really was a classical Japanese beauty. Silky black hair, long legs, very cute face. Maybe not supermodel level, but well above average.

  Kuwabara looked the very image of a delinquent, scraped up high school uniform from fighting and everything.

  Yusuke on the other hand was a bit more of a pretty boy, but still was clearly a fighter.

  On the other hand, Botan’s simple pretty girl appearance seemed less and less real as I stared. Almost as if there was something more there… something I might have not been ready to see yet.

  Even after sitting, Kuwabara still looked like he didn’t know whether to punch me for grabbing Yusuke’s body or thank us for helping Keiko.

  In their spirit states, Botan and Yusuke were both hovering to the side, unsure what was going on. They were probably still shocked that I could touch Yusuke. Keiko on the other hand was just looking worriedly at Yusuke.

  Clearing my throat, I smiled. “Ok, introduction time. My name is Max, these are my girls.” I said while gesturing towards the girls to either side of me.

  One by one, my girls introduced themselves. “Amy.” “Taylor.” “Ahri.” “Hyu-, I mean, Hinata.” “Holly.” “Lara.” “Ginny.”

  I noticed that Hinata was blushing, having almost introduced herself as Hyuga Hinata, with her last name first in the Japanese style, before she caught herself.

  From the way she then glanced at me, I suspected that Hinata was wondering if she would eventually take my last name. While that was traditional in the west, a lot of east asian communities didn’t have the same custom of the wife changing her name.

  That made me realize that I had never actually picked a surname for the Family. I had sorta settled on one, but never actually committed to it. Instead, the various girls and I had used either Allcott, Herbert, or their original surname.

  Nodding at them, I smiled. “You can refer to us as the Walker Family if you wish.”

  I could feel the surprise from my girls. I probably should have consulted them, but picking a last name for the Family was something that I wanted to do myself. It was selfish, but it was my name and my Family.

  Botan studied me intently and caught my phrasing. “You say that like ‘Walker’ isn’t your actual family name.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t technically have one, but after considering a lot of options, I felt like picking something that kept me humble while being accurate. I am a simple planeswalker after all, nothing more.”

  That got Botan to stiffen in surprise, even as Yusuke, Keiko, and Kuwabara just looked confused. Apparently Botan knew what a planeswalker was.

  … Interesting.

  I gestured towards them, “I think I caught part of your names, but we still haven’t been introduced.”

  That got Kuwabara and Keiko to snap out of their confusion and introduce themselves. “Kuwabara Kazuma.” “My name is Yukimura Keiko,” Keiko said with a polite bow. “It is nice to meet you.”

  I bowed back towards Keiko in response, ignoring Kuwabara as the delinquent crossed his arms and scowled.

  Then, to confirm I could still see them, I faced Botan and Yusuke. “And you two?”

  The pair of spirits looked at each other before looking back to me. Botan spoke first. “It is nice to meet you, Mr. Max Walker. My name is Botan.”

  Yusuke just huffed a short, “Yusuke.”

  I nodded at them. “It's nice to meet you, Botan, Yusuke.”

  At that Keiko practically threw herself towards me, getting right up into my face. “You really aren’t just messing with us, right? You can actually see him, can’t you?”

  I sighed, edging back a bit. “Yeah…”

  Keiko then burst into tears, and Ahri stood up and made her way around to wrap her into her arms.

  Then we waited nearly a full minute for Keiko to calm back down and Ahri to guide her back into her chair. Everyone feeling a bit awkward to talk with a crying girl in the center of us.

  When she eventually settled into sniffles, I decided to explain to my girls what the situation was. I started from the beginning, since even Amy hadn’t recognized this setting immediately. I couldn’t really blame any of them though, as YuYu Hakusho wasn’t nearly as big a name as some of the others.

  “Ok,” I said, before pointing at Keiko. “We have the classic childhood friend trope where she is way too kind and too good for the somewhat useless high school boy MC. At least in this one, unless Yusuke royally screws up, she will be his girlfriend soon enough...” That got Keiko to blush, but I didn’t stop.

  Gesturing at Kuwabara, I continued, “Here is Yusuke's delinquent rival that starts out as the antagonist, but will become the best friend and a partner in their efforts to keep the human world safe. It doesn’t stop him from being a complete idiot though.”

  I ignored Kuwabara’s indignant, “Hey, do you want me to punch your face in!” as I pointed at Botan’s position.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  “Over here,” I said while making an illusion of her next to her so everyone could see what I was talking about, “This is Botan, a classic pretty girl who is Yusuke’s spiritual manager. A bit scatterbrained at times, but she is probably the nicest person in this setting after Keiko.”

  Lastly, I pointed at Yusuke while making another illusion. “This is Yusuke. He is a delinquent with a long-buried good heart that will eventually gain enough power to save the world. Oh, and I think he is the descendant of one of the kings of hell or something.”

  The silence was incredibly amusing. Especially as the four of them seemed equally stunned and unsure how to address everything I'd just said. Not to mention the fact that none of my girls seemed even a little bit surprised. By now, they had all definitely seen weirder stories.

  With a shrug, I thought through the rest of my memories about the beginning of YuYu Hakusho. “I don’t remember everything that happens here, but the explosion of power we felt was Yusuke throwing the golden egg he was holding onto. It was supposed to resurrect him. But it's gone now, sacrificed to save Kuwabara and Keiko here.”

  Keiko looked horrified while Kuwabara just grit his teeth.

  I rolled my eyes. “It was actually a good thing as it wasn’t going to work the way he hoped. He was too much of a sourpuss and it would have backfired, probably permanently killing him. Instead because he nobly sacrificed the only way he knew of to get his body back, the powers that be will give him another chance. Pretty sure that Spirit King Jr., or whatever his actual name is, will contact him soon.”

  Botan eyes had gone even wider at that. I doubted that her boss’s name was actually secret, but to predict what would happen next was a much bigger deal than just describing people’s personalities and being able to see and touch spirits.

  I tapped my chin, watching carefully for their reaction as I said, “However, he will need a living soul that he is connected to to kiss him. Kuwabara, are you up for that?”

  The three younger natives in front of me practically flipped out with that reveal. Despite suggesting the very much male and straight delinquent Kuwabara do it as a joke more than anything, I was forced to note how big a deal a kiss was to high schoolers, especially in Japan.

  As they continued shouting, I lowered my voice and addressed my girls. “Unfortunately, that egg might have actually been a good option for getting me a soul core. Good enough that I almost wish we could have stolen it before he used it.” However, I noticed Botan heard my whisper as she snapped her head towards me.

  Waiving her down before she got defensive, I flashed a grin. “Just another joke. I wouldn't really have done that since it would have screwed over Yusuke here and the rest of this world by proxy.”

  “That does make me curious though,” I continued more seriously. “What do you see when you look at my soul, Soul Reaper?”

  Botan frowned and studied me for a second. “You look like a church’s window.”

  Taylor spoke up. “Like the stained glass ones right?”

  Botan glanced at her and then nodded, looking uncomfortable the longer she studied me. “Yeah.”

  I sighed. “I have heard a similar description to that before. I've been healing, so I had hoped my edges might be unifying.”

  Botan peered at me for a bit longer before she nodded again, begrudgingly. “The edges might be a little blended together…now that you mention it.” She snapped back to Taylor for confirmation. “Wait, you are saying it was worse before? How in the spirit king’s name are you still alive?”

  I huffed a laugh and then shrugged as I considered what we would do from here.

  A thought crossed my mind and I looked up sharply at Botan. “Wait! We already know the soul society of Bleach is here. How does having two separate afterlives work?”

  That finally got Yusuke, Keiko, and Kuwabara to stop panicking about who needed to kiss who and actually pay attention.

  Even if Botan didn’t know exactly what I was talking about when I mentioned Bleach. Forcing me to clarify “Sorry, I mean Soul Society.”

  Her face was one of distaste at the mention of soul society. “They are the… Shinto afterlife, basically.”

  I blinked and thought about that for a moment before nodding. “And you are definitely more of the Buddhist afterlife.” Then I tilted my head. “Do you just take each of your own believers then? What about other religions?”

  Botan looked uncomfortable, fidgeting upon her flying oar. “It depends. Shinto and Buddhism are so intertwined here that we sometimes divide the area up by district, since most people believe in both to a degree.” Then she winced. “I don’t really know about other religions.”

  That was when all of us heard a voice that came from nowhere. It was clearly male, and slightly higher pitched like a little kid. Yet it definitely was powerful. Powerful enough that the world itself seemed to shiver.

  However, after being exposed to Arceus, it barely felt stronger than Alma in the depth of rage… Actually I should probably be more careful. Despite getting a lot stronger over the last few months, getting too cocky was a bad idea in a world like this.

  The voice of Spirit King Jr. sounded amused. “Interesting, I wanted to see what you would say, but you are indeed correct. It has somewhat ruined my test of seeing if he could convince someone he has a connection with to kiss him. That requires him to experience both being vulnerable and being on the petitioner's side with a 24 hour deadline to further intensify feelings. However, if you say you have seen him fighting to save others, then I will take it as confirmation.”

  Looking up to the sky, for lack of a better place to address, I asked. “I believe I recall you could only obtain one golden egg this century. Is there perhaps another way of getting one if it could solve my soul problem?”

  There was a pause as Spirit King Jr. seemed to be thinking or inspecting me, but I felt my heart sink as he responded. “No. While I was not lying, just exaggerating the length of time before I could get another, it would be at least another decade before I would have another free one I could give out.”

  I hummed. “Well, could I …”

  That was when Yusuke flew into my face, “Yeah, yeah... Can we focus on getting me back in my body?” His voice was firm, but I could tell that his ghost was blushing despite not having blood… somehow.

  I sighed and reached down to unwrap Yusuke’s body. “Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Turning, I smiled sheepishly at Keiko since she couldn’t see him since I hadn’t bothered to make my illusion follow everything his ghost was doing. “Sorry, your boyfriend is being impatient.”

  That got her to blush so red that I wondered if she was going to faint.

  It also got Yusuke to back down, realizing what he was asking for. “She’s not…”

  I sighed again, then rolled my eyes. “Save us the teenage angst fest.” A hand wave saw Yusuke’s body float up and move a little to the side, before I gestured again and conjured a simple curtain between us and his body. Then I apologized to the now panicking Keiko. “Sorry, I didn’t want to make this awkward, but we all know you like him. Even the idiot knows you are his only real shot.”

  When she didn’t move, I tried to consider how to help her get over her fears. However, before I could come up with something witty or whatever, Amy surprised me by walking over and sitting on my lap. “Keiko, look at me.” Keiko did, actually doing the classic anime pose of covering her eyes and then peeking between her fingers. Amy didn’t care, “Guys are usually kinda dumb. You need to get used to taking what you want.” Then she leaned over and kissed me soundly for several long seconds.

  While it was enjoyable, I wasn’t sure why she had decided to put on a show as a demo. Maybe she saw something of her own past in the girl. Embarrassed about wanting affection or wanting to feel loved… or maybe she was just getting tired of the teenage drama. Dealing with Ranma and crew yesterday had been a lot.

  Regardless, Amy's demo worked as Keiko blushed one last time before she looked over at the curtain and then marched over and around the sheet.

  A moment later, Yusuke, who had hesitated and remained hovering just above, not sure where to look, was suddenly drawn down towards his body.

  What I didn’t tell Keiko was that this was the moment that I had been waiting for as I stared through the simple sheet with my soul sight as hard as I could. It wasn’t like a cloth sheet or his clothes actually stopped me from seeing souls.

  Specifically I wanted to observe how to bond souls with organic matter. I hadn't yet figured it out, having had issues when I tried it with Tonks, and Lara’s friends Sam, and Jared. It didn’t seem to be hurting those three, but I also didn’t want to keep using a gem as a crutch for anyone that wasn’t being recruited into the Family.

  As Yusuke's spirit reunited with his body however, what I saw was less of a manipulation of the soul and more a manipulation of the body. Specifically, it seemed like the body itself was filled with a kind of spiritual power. It was somewhere between HP magic and my soul abilities, close enough that I could probably imitate it. Then the spirit was just bonded back down. Not too dissimilar to what I did with gems… just with a hell of a lot more finesse.

  That got me thinking. We knew that my first instinct to hide our souls into gems was a bad decision. However, now I was starting to think I hadn’t gone far enough in the other direction. Chakra was better but it wasn’t enough. I needed to drive my soul even further into my body if I wanted it to grow to be truly superhuman as well.

  As the two blushing teenagers stepped back around the curtain, I dropped the soul sight and ignored Kuwabara’s exclamations of surprise as I ran a hand over my eyes.

  Still, as interesting as this was, it was worth remembering that I wasn’t going to be able to bring souls back from the dead once they were fully gone since I didn’t have a connection with the various afterlives. So my resurrection limit was still only a few minutes to an hour based on what I had seen in various realities.

  Clearing my throat, I spoke up. “Anyway, before we part ways, I can’t give you the exact future, but Yusuke will train as a spirit detective for several weeks before he goes and eventually meets with a master spiritual martial arts lady named Genkai. At some point, he’ll meet a demon fox reincarnated as a human named Kurama and a demon named Hiei. Including Kuwabara, the four of them are then going to be involved with several underworld tournaments and end up saving a lot of people… assuming they train hard enough. If they don’t, a lot of people die…”

  Once again, the three teenagers and one soul reaper were rendered speechless.

  I tried to think of anything else we could provide or get from this situation when I recalled some of the insane stuff future Yusuke would get to learn. “If you have gotten something from our help, I do have a small request.” I saw Botan in particular grow tense, maybe assuming I would ask something ridiculous, but Yusuke, Keiko, and Kuwabara just looked confused.

  I smiled, directing my next words towards Botan. “In the future, Lady Genkai, Yusuke's eventual teacher, is going to be looking for disciples to pass her teachings to. Yusuke needs to be her primary student, but we would be very grateful if we could meet with her first. I am very interested in learning from her, even if we don’t have time to learn everything. Specifically, I would be interested in spirit gun, spirit tracking, flight, and spirit cuffs for resistance training. In return, we can promise to carry her teachings across the universe and even reverse her aging if she so wishes.”

  Several of my girls blinked in surprise when I mentioned that Genkai could straight up fly, but really they shouldn’t have been that surprised since the soul reapers from Bleach could more or less do it too.

  Botan looked nervous, but agreed. “I can try…”

  “Good, we can hopefully make it work. If nothing else, we can reverse her aging if she wants a bit more time.”

  Botan was a bit shocked, to say nothing of the teenagers, but after biting her lip for a moment, she slowly nodded. “I can’t guarantee anything, but that offer will probably be enough to get her attention.”

  I smiled. “Yeah, I suspect it will. However, we are only planning on staying here for a few days after poking around downtown and the edges of the soul society.”

  Botan frowned, but then nodded. “Alright, I will try to contact you, but that will be difficult if you leave the area.”

  I smiled before reaching into my pocket and pulling out a primitive cell phone. One that Thea optimized for situations like this. Specifically a burner we could leave behind where we needed to let the local people contact us. “Just use that cell phone, our number is on the back.”

  Yusuke and Kuwabara looked at the phone for a moment and shrugged, but Keiko gasped as I handed Yusuke the phone. It seemed like she was the only one up-to-date on technology, as if I remembered correctly, our little knock-off Nokia was actually cutting edge for the time period. She was also still unable to hear Botan and so was only getting half the conversation which must have been confusing.

  I made a note to figure out how to let my girls see spirits as well. If I did, then I might stop by and give her the ability as well.

  Regardless, it was time to move on and we stood up, said our goodbyes, and hopped down from the roof of the second floor like it was nothing. That may or may not have been a bit of a flex on the still mostly human Yusuke, since he had been grumpy the entire time we had been trying to help him.

  Leaning over, it was Ahri who then asked, “Where are we going now?”

  I sighed. “We have avoided it long enough. We need to go check out Karakura prefecture.”

  Amy definitely knew this anime based on her response. Or at least now that I had jogged her memory by mentioning Bleach “Are we aiming for the Hogyoku then?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, something tells me that it might be what I need to make a soul core.”

  Then I paused and actually stopped walking as I looked down at myself. “... I wonder if I am forming a core by myself. I have been feeling a lot more solid recently. More than the extra support from Hinata, Hermione, and Ahsoka now that they joined the Family.”

  Everyone looked a little excited about that, but I frowned. “The thing is, if I am, it is progressing extremely slowly. Three years is a long time… probably because my soul was still settling during most of that, but I don’t want to have to hold all you back for years until it solidifies enough.”

  I turned and looked at my girls. “This option was something I considered a while ago, but I was worried we weren’t strong enough to steal it. However, it might be the right time if they are also in the beginning of their story. Regardless, in Bleach there is a little soul gem called the Hogyoku. It was created by an exiled soul scientist and hidden in a girl named Rukia’s soul, and I believe it would be able to act like a crystal seed and allow mine to form a lot quicker.”

  Ahri frowned, “Why have you been avoiding it then?”

  I glanced at her and nodded. “Ah,yeah sorry.” I took a breath and then sighed. “Actually, let me take a step back. Bleach is a setting where the afterlife looks like Meiji-era Japan.”

  I wasn’t surprised that most of the girls looked interested in that, Lara in particular and I continued my explanation. “There are three main factions in that story, all of which hate each other and would like to see the others dead. That can’t happen for a number of reasons, but for now the groups are the Shinigami AKA soul reapers, the Quincy AKA mostly human spirit hunters, and the Hollows AKA the restless and mostly murderous dead spirits.”

  Amy nodded and I looked at her to ask. “Did you get to the thousand year war arc?”

  She frowned and then shook her head “No, it was still running in Earth Aleph when we left.”

  Sighing, I pinched my brow. “A shame, I am not as clear on the timeline after Aizen’s defeat. We may need to see if that is in our media library.”

  Looking around again, I continued. “Well, long story short. The Quincys attacked soul society a few hundred years ago, the Shinigami nearly genocided them in retaliation two separate times. Don’t feel too bad for the Quincys as they are more than happy to destroy the world as long as they can rule what's left again. On the other hand, the soul society that the Shinigami protect isn’t really better and is horrifically corrupt with the nobles living in luxury while the common people scrape by in 80 city sized ghettos in each of the cardinal directions. Worse, one of the Shinigami leaders is planning on rebelling, killing a lot of people and sacrificing this city in order to become a god. As for the Hollows, they are crazy and murderous ghosts, but if they eat enough other souls… thousands of them, they can gain sapience and power. They are usually still pretty murderous though and would like nothing more than to kill everyone and eat their souls. So yeah… everything in Bleach sucks and there is no real true good side.”

  I could see the disbelief on my girls' faces, and so I snorted a laugh. “There are actually decent people on all three sides though, which helps keep the number of deaths to a minimum.” Then my face hardened. “As much as I would like to just fix things. We don’t have the power or numbers to outright fight any of those groups quite yet, much less all three.”

  Hinata frowned. “That is… a lot. But how does that involve the ‘Hogyoku’ you mentioned then?”

  I nodded at her. “Yes, instead of fighting, I think we should go after the Hogyoku, which might be able to fix me. Depending on when in the Bleach timeline we’re at, it could still be in the human world and obtainable. If we can steal it away from this reality and give Ichigo and company some warning, then a lot less people should die."

  Taylor looked like she was considering what I had just said. “But how exactly does the Hogyoku work?”

  “Ah, sorry, I should have explained better. It can be attached to a soul to give a Shinigami the powers of a Hollow and vice versa. It awakens or expands the soul, redefining what a soul is and what it might become.” I shrugged. “You could even call it a reality marble.”

  Over the years we had discussed a few other settings besides Dr Who where we would immediately bail out. This list included Warhammer, Doom, the Cthulhu Mythos, Exalted, and obviously the ridiculousness of the Nasuverse. So pretty much all of my girls understood what an insane item a reality marble was. Something that forced the reality around it to bend to its own rules.

  Taylor took a breath and nodded. “Let's go then.”

  “Yeah… let’s get going-”

  I was cut off as a chorus of voices called out from behind us. “Wait! Wait! damn it…”

  For a moment, I thought it was going to be Yusuke and gang following me for more questions. However, it was actually Ranma, Akane, Xian Pu, and Xian Pu’s great grandmother Cologne (or as she was probably actually named, Ke Lun). All of which were jogging up to us.

  I stared for a solid minute before I spoke. “How in the hell did you all get together and then find us? Xian Pu, weren’t you going to China?”

  Taylor was even more gruff. “Seriously, it has only been a bit over 24 hours.”

  Ranma, who was of course in girl form, came to a stop. “We wanted to warn you that Ryoga is out to kill you. Akane punched him when she found him as a pig in front of her room. He probably hoped she forgot that and was going to sleep with him again. So now that they had a big fight, he is blaming you.”

  I raised my eyebrow at her. “I am not really surprised, that boy is touch starved to the extreme. But, first I have to know… why are you a girl again? Did it stop…” I paused as I spotted the chocolate on her face and realized she must have been begging treats again. Ignoring her sheepish look I focused on what she had said. “Wait, doesn’t he have the curse of misdirection? I doubt he could find us even if…”

  That was when a storm drain cover near us lifted up, and out popped Ryuga walking up as if he was leisurely walking up stairs… somehow.

  I opened and closed my mouth several times, wondering how I managed to raise another flag so quickly. “...Seriously?”

  Upon hearing me, he spun around and scowled before kicking the heavy metal lid towards my face. “You ruined the love I had with Akane. Die, Max!”

  He was physically strong, I would give him that, but I simply leaned to the side, letting it fly harmlessly by.

  I was about to ask why the hell he was attacking me, when we heard a grunt of pain from behind us. “Ah! What the HELL!”

  Everyone turned around to see a pissed Yusuke rubbing what looked like a broken nose and glaring murder at the rest of us.

  I didn’t even think and just pointed towards Ryoga.

  The growl that Yusuke gave off was actually a little intimidating, despite us still being well beyond his level.

  Instantly Yusuke jumped towards Ryoga, forcing him to dodge back. Then the two jumped over the fence and we heard a crash as something broke, probably a wall.

  Blinking, I think I managed a sweat drop as I looked around at everyone still standing here. “Ah, well… I think it best if we just move on…”

  Xian Pu glanced back and forth between where Yusuke and Ryuga had gone and us, considering something for a moment before leaping forward. She smiled brightly as her large mace-like weapons swept out for a double strike. “Why lose opportunity for spar? Fight now!”

  I didn’t remember her being this eager to fight, but she was from an Amazonian tribe so I guess it made sense even if it was a bit out of character.

  Still, just like before, she wasn’t on our level yet and I caught the first mace with a small grunt of effort and let the second whip past my head from her downward swing and embed itself into the street.

  Stepping on the second while tossing the first mace to the side, I gently shoved Xian Pu towards Ranma. “Sorry, you should probably just spar with your fiancee. We have business we need to take care of in Karakura prefecture.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Ke Lun was grinning and a shiver ran up my back.

  And so, before any other interruptions happened, even as Ranma spluttered out a “She’s not my fiancee…”, my girls and I jumped up onto the roofs and dashed toward the train station.

  As amusing as the last hour was, we still had a mission to accomplish here.

  And as much as I was worried about Bleach, it was time we got serious.

  Interlude Ahsoka:

  Ahsoka could admit that joining a harem was just about the last thing she had planned on doing when she was training in the Jedi temple.

  However, here she was with the Family around her, and she was… happy.

  Max had definitely had a point when he told her, way back on Tatooine, that feeling emotions in moderation was key.

  It had definitely helped center her.

  It hadn’t stopped the pit in her heart from widening though.

  She had tried her entire life to stop the empire…and then just left.

  Max had been clear she would not have won, despite her best efforts, but…still.

  Was that why the both the Jedi and Sith holocron wouldn’t fully open for her?

  In desperation, she tried again and…nothing.

  Sitting back, she tried to figure out what else it could be.

  She reached out to the force for guidance and then suddenly paused…

  The force… the force was so different here.

  She felt like banging her head against the wall.

  What if the holocron never fully opened for her because she wasn’t in her universe anymore?

  Yeah, she could sort of be excused for not realizing it, since she could still use her force abilities to one degree or another in each world, but she should have thought of this possibility before now. It had been almost half a year with little to no progress.

  She just needed to go back and try the holocron in the Star Wars universe where their force impressions still existed.

  She sat back, mulling over her options.

  Luke was supposed to have stopped the Empire in that reality…

  So, what if she went to another? Before the Republic fell, before Order 66 was implemented.

  She felt something stir in her heart. A feeling of direction again…was this why the force had told her to join Max?

  If so, she felt like it certainly would have been worth it…

  Then she smothered a smile as she ran a hand across her lekku. Plus the sex had been pretty good too.

  Interlude Chell:

  Chell stared at her calculations.

  She hadn’t exactly planned on sticking around. A part of her had wanted to leave the moment they reached Hogwarts.

  Yet Tonks had been shot and she had gotten caught up in the revenge.

  Then she had stuck because she had enjoyed some of the girls' company. Hermione and Taylor in particular.

  She looked at Hermione who was still running through arithmancy calculations for what they were trying.

  It was an insane idea, but it would mean that they would never have to leave their homes again.

  She could also admit that she wanted it so badly because she felt she had something to prove.

  She wasn’t as good at fighting as Ahsoka. Hell, even Tonks and Fleur were better at fighting even if she was faster having trained with Chakra for longer.

  She didn’t even have abilities like Hinata, Taylor, Ahri, or Amy.

  The one thing she had was her mind. She knew that she had been considered a minor genius by her parents. Her 2nd grade science project for ‘bring your daughter to work day’ had just been a potato battery, but she had created the actual hypothesis, and run the data and analysis herself.

  Being captured by Glados and then stuck in the Aperture Science Center had forced her to learn or die and she had learned. In fact it was the only thing she had done. Every moment she was awake, she had studied everything she could on the quantum mechanics of portals on the off chance it would give her the edge to survive and maybe even escape.

  Hermione must have been feeling similar things about proving herself because she was just as invested in their project as she was.

  She didn’t think this would actually work without her. Hermione understood the actual theory of magic better than anyone else and their project would definitely need those protections and stabilizations.

  Together they were going to prove that they were just as useful as the others…

  Then… then she might ask to formally join the Family.

  Seeing what they had done for Alma had made her want to help.

  To be able to fight…

  But also to be able to contribute to the Family’s efforts in the multiverse.

  To save other people like they had saved her from Glados…

  AN:

  First, WOOOOOO 500k words! Thank you everyone for following, commenting, kudos, likes and support in general. Your support has pushed me to get this far.

  Next, again, thanks be to my beta. Also sorry for the delay. RL in general and work in particular smacked me in the face this month.

  Topics

  1) I got a few comments that the repeated explanations for new girls of the Family and explanations of each of the new worlds gets old. Yeah, it gets really REALLY old for me too. Having to write that all out is exhausting…

  The problem is that I try to write this story with the assumption that at least part of the audience won’t know anything about a setting and I want it so that you can still more or less follow the action.

  So, hopefully I am getting better at making the explanations feel less bloated.

  2) Recommendation:

  I just find it funny that even as I was writing this, I saw that “death battles” put out a new YouTube video on Ichigo vs Yusuke… so that was extremely well (if weirdly) timed.