Chapter 8: Japan

Standing outside of an office door, I knock before opening it and walking in. "Hey mom. I plan to take the girls with me to Japan to find them some weapon teachers." I said to the woman sitting behind her desk reading a book.

She looked up at me with a surprised face before it turned serious. "Okay, but be careful. I know you're strong, but there's stronger out there. Especially being close to war with the angels and fallen, if you see any of them, leave and get back home immediately." She warned me with a stern voice, if only she knew, she would be pitying the people that threatened my girls.

"Alright mom, love you. We'll be back in a few weeks if nothing goes wrong." I say as I walk up to her, lean down, hug her and give her a kiss on the cheek. She smiled as we pulled back from the hug, "Well, since your leaving tomorrow, I guess we should have a special dinner tonight. I'll cook something instead of the chefs." I nod and walk out of the room, leaving her to read, and head back into the training room to continue with my training, which at this point, is my time magic training.

This is, by far, the hardest to master so far. Relearning space magic was hard, but time magic is in a league of it's own. I can speed up objects I'm in contact with by about 5 times, and slow down time in a 5 meter bubble around me to be 1/4 of the original speed, but anything farther and it's pushing my control. Though even though it had been unlocked by my system for the last three years, I was never able to actually use it. So first, I had to improve my control even more, which took me two and a half years, and I've only been training my time magic for about six months.

So continuing to spread my magic out around me, I tried to slow down time as much as possible around me while also slowly extending the range that it was going. I pushed it to about 4 meters before straining a little. Pushing it further, I reached 5 meters before stagnating there. Not going any further I started slowing down time even more around me, and once again, I got it to 4 times slower before stopping. I decided to work on the range of the time dilation first. Thus, I slowly pushed my magic out farther and farther, like pushing against a locked door to get it to open.

I kept this up for another three hours before feeling it push a bit further, not a full meter but part of one. Realizing I wasn't going to be able to push it any farther before it was dinner time, since it was around 3 when I started training, I stopped and left for my bathroom. After bathing, I headed down to the massive dining room, to find all four of the girls there waiting for me to start.

Seeing them waiting, I smiled wryly, "Sorry, I was training and wanted to bath first." My mother shook her head, "Don't worry about it, we didn't set a time and we were all talking anyways. Bring in the food, then take a break until we're done." My mother told the maids behind her, who bowed in response.

The maids brought out the food my mother made for us before walking out of the room. Leaving just the five of us. "I already told you all this, but if you all see any angels or fallen, even a two wing, leave. They are likely not alone, and even if they are, they are scouts. I don't want you all taking any chances. Got it?" Seeing us all nod, she relaxes a little and smiles.

"Good. Now on another note, what weapons did you all pick?" Thus the conversation took a more lighthearted turn about the weapons that they picked until we were all finished eating and left for our rooms. I spent the rest of the night relaxing and deciding where we would go first, which I decided would be the southern end of Japan, making our way north until we found a trainer for all three girls. Luckily, they were using weapons that were popular in Japan's feudal era, sans Kouko, so we could find them all there. I honestly wasn't sure where to find a teacher for Kouko's weapons, but I knew Japan had something similar, which was one of them, so I'm sure someone practices with two, and even if I can't find someone, her learning to use one is better than nothing.

I stopped myself from thinking about it too much, we would find someone eventually. I was getting ready to lay down when I heard a soft knock on my door before it opened revealing two girls in nightgowns. One with silver hair, and the other with black hair, they walked in before the silver haired one shut the door behind them.

"Hey Val, do you mind if we sleep next to you?" Serafall asked, with absolutely no shame. Though this isn't uncommon, I end up sleeping with one of them every night anyways. I give them a tired nod before they lay down next to me, resting in my arms. I felt that Serafall is just happy to lay next to me, but Grayfia was restless and kept repositioning, not able to get comfortable.

I turn and look at her, and tap her stomach to get her attention. She looked at me with an apologetic look. "What's wrong Grayfia?"

She fidgeted around a little before sighing and looking into my eyes, "I'm just worried that something bad is going to happen in Japan. It's the first time we've left the underworld, and it's on the verge of war. I know I'm being paranoid but still."

I sigh and pull her closer, giving her a long kiss. "Grayfia, nothing bad will happen I promise. Even if someone like Azazel or Michael finds us, we'll be fine I won't let anything happen and we'll get back here in one piece." I comforted her, which looked like it helped, but she was still uncomfortable.

"I know but... It isn't just the angels and fallen, we're going to Japan, which is the homeland of both the Shinto Pantheon and the Yokai, which while we aren't hostile with each other, we aren't on good terms either, some devils have done some pretty fucked up stuff there, just like everywhere else. I can't help but be worried."

I sighed at what she was really worried about. "Alright, tomorrow I'll have mother send a messanger letting the Youkai and Shinto factions know we are coming and that we won't cause trouble if not provoked, will that help?" She though for a second before nodding, "It will, thanks dear." She smiled before burying her face in my arm and falling asleep. I joined both of them into a deep sleep for the night.

The next morning, I went to my mom's room and told her Grayfia's concern and asked her to contact the different factions in Japan, to which she said she already had, and it took a little convincing the Yokai faction, but the Shinto Pantheon was easy to convince. Though I do remember my mom being good friends with Amaterasu and Inari, they even came to visit once when we were younger.

I went and got a few things ready to take with me, spare clothes mainly, before finding the girls who were, as expected, nowhere near ready... They were all three going through each others clothes figuring out what to bring and how much, I knew better than to get in-between them, so I went and spent some time with my mom until they were ready.

It took them close to three hours before they came out into the living room with three different bags each. I sighed before walking over and putting each of them into a pocket dimension I had made with my space powers. "Ready?" They all nod excitedly, even Grayfia. Worried or not, this is still the first time we are leaving the underworld, so she's excited to see the human world nonetheless.

My mother walks over and gives each of us a hug before backing away smiling, "Be careful there, even if I talked to the two Yokai factions, the East faction is much more brutal than the West. The West faction will welcome you, but the East might be a little more... hostile... in the way they welcome you. They respect strength, nothing else. The best I got from them is agreeing to not kill you, so if they do try to fight you, feel free to kick their asses, just don't kill them, okay?" She said with a grin that was rare to see on her face.

I chuckled slightly, "Gladly. Okay lets go girls." I finished by starting to activate a teleportation circle to a place my mother had given me the location for." The bright like engulfed our vision before dimming and we found ourselves a little bit off from a shitly maintained dirt road. It was a dreary day, with dark clouds in the sky, though it wasn't raining quite yet, it actually looked like it just stopped raining. Hearing voices further down the road, we decided to follow them and we arrived in front of a small group of raggedly dressed men, women and children running from a group of armored men dressed in red samurai armor, and blood drenched swords pursuing them.