A Wizards Misadventures

~~Level Twenty Four~~

The minor god Gabriel was talking to, an Indian asura with horns like a buffalo's, looked nervously over her shoulder at me enough that she finally turned around to see me. I waved happily at her and she grimaced. Then Michael noticed and, to his sister's relief, stepped forwards to speak to me.

"Abyss, It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Michael, as I believe you know." We shook hands for a moment. His was a bit stiff.

"Of course, though I've mostly talked to your sister as I'm sure you know."

"Yes… I do." Oh right, the video of our first meeting.

"Not that. I meant the last time we talked." He blinked once and blushed.

"No, I was… nevermind. It's come to my attention that we have some things to discuss in private."

"Right now, then? Because this isn't exactly the place and I have an appointment to get to soon. How about we meet tomorrow?"

"Perfectly fine. In fact, would you mind if we spoke in heaven?"

"I don't mind at all. I've always wondered what it looks like up there." He smiled.

"I'll see you then. For now, though, would you care to meet Rambha?" The man smiled at me stiffly.

"Maybe some other time." I smiled.

"Then good luck with your appointment." We smiled at each other once more and I walked off. Yasaka was looking at me suspiciously and I hurried a little harder, almost bumping into Ajuka Beelzebub on the way out.

I opened up the door to the portal room and made my own, slipping through space to Yasaka's apartment gleefully.

"I'm back!" I announced.

"Finally!" The girl raced across the apartment to me, her fox tails swishing excitedly behind her, the outer ones batting against the walls weakly. "Can we do more runes now?!"

"Put on a cartoon. I'll grab some snacks." She cheered as she ran back towards the living room. I walked into the kitchen and grabbed a few sodas and food. I hadn't ever had dried seaweed before but it looked crispy and would probably do as a snack.

"Adventure time?" I asked as I walked close to Kunou, who was moving the coffee table away from the couch. The show she had on was something I had never seen before.

"I don't always like the older stuff." She puffed her cheeks out childishly.

"Sure, sure. Here. Your mom isn't one for unhealthy food, is she?"

"But iced tea is unhealthy, isn't it?" She asked confusedly.

"Only the really sugary kinds. But I was eating way worse things than you when I was younger. Ruby used to live off of cookies and sugary cereal."

"Ruby?" I winced.

"My younger sister. I'll tell you about her later." Kunou was smart enough to recognize how I didn't want to talk about her and simply nodded.

"So you mentioned logic gates last time. Also, how do you make delayed effects?" I grinned.

"Logic gates are something I snagged from engineering. Here," I pulled a textbook from my soul space and dropped it on the table, flipping it to the right page, the one with pictures. "And as for delayed effects, what have you tried so far?"

"Making longer lines. I tried spirals but I spent ten minutes on a line and it only held off the effects for a second or two. Maybe one and a quarter, to be specific."

"You have to use obstacles."

"Huh?"

"Slow down the magic running through the runes with an impediment. If it's ink on paper like we're using that means adding a few dashes through the lines. The thicker the dash the longer the pause, though you could also add more lines. I use lines thick enough to last one second and add more dashes for more time."

"Oh, that's like the opposite of onmyōdō!" She said, staring at the logic gate diagrams. Her tails were still swishing behind her.

"What do you mean?"

"You're supposed to never cross any lines in onmyōdō or everything goes boom."

"I thought they went boom if you mixed in mundane blood to your ink?"

"That too. It also explodes if your scribbles are completely circular, if they're full of breaks at the wrong points, if you design it to release too much energy… onmyōdō seals explode a lot."

"Runes don't explode. They just don't work half the time and you have to do everything again."

"Bleurgh, so boring."

"Can onmyōdō break space and time?"

"Yes!"

"Can it hold a portal in a fixed portion of space?"

"I-no, well, not for long but yeah!"

"Runes can do that."

"Can your runes fit on a paper?!"

"Of course not. That's what enchantments are for!"

"Onmyōdō can do everything an enchantment can and more." Kunou's tails swished while her ears folded down, a smug expression crossing her face.

"Throw some water at those scribbles and they're toast. They also rely on a divine power source."

"Who has just a bunch of water laying around?"

"Mages." She grimaced and sighed shortly.

"That's why combat onmyōdō talismans are stored in pocket spaces." A familiar voice said behind me. I stood a little straighter and Kunou swallowed thickly.

Show time. Like Kunou claimed, kisses solved everything.

I stood up, faced Yasaka, and gave her a peck at the edge of her lips. Her tails stood straight. "You're just on time! Kunou was learning runes. I'm sure you have a lot to contribute." I gently swept her feet from under her and she was too stunned to fight back, just as planned. I gave a look to Kunou and she started babbling about runes versus onmyōdō and some of her ideas on using both or combining them. I chimed in from time to help out in overwhelming Yasaka.

By some miracle Kunou managed to draw her mother's attention to the runes, rather than me. I gave her a grin and we kept working together. It took hardly any time at all before Yasaka's own expertise was added to our experiments.

[|||| =-= ||||]

"Shouldn't there be a horizont…-al line here?" Kunou paused mid-sentence to yawn, showing off her canines. Her head was resting on her right hand and she was slowly sinking lower to the table by the minute.

"No, it can be slanted. Keeping it horizontal just makes it simpler to do, a shorthand I tend to use." I explained. Yasaka was only half listening, more interested in taking pictures every few minutes of her sleepy daughter.

"Oh… why not teach it that way, then?"

"Because it's really easy to mess up."

"Mh… can you show me another rune? I think I've got this one." The girl really needed to go to sleep but I doubted that she'd just go to her bed. She was too eager to spend time with me, even if it wasn't productive for her… ah, I've got a trick.

"Sure, but look closely." I encouraged her. Her head rose from her hand with a glimmer of interest. I started drawing a compact rune, keeping the lines close together, and she leaned in close. Just as planned, she laid her arms on the table and leaned close. It only took a moment before she dropped her head on its side, staring at my hands drifting across the paper. I wrote in silence.

Half a minute later she was out cold, snoozing on the table. Yasaka quietly snickered and stood up, circling the table to pick up her child. "So sweet." She whispered with a smile.

"Should I leave now or…"

"You're staying the night."

I wasn't against that.