So when a teenage girl appears in this world (let's ignore the unfortunate pre-transition body), she winds up here.

Along the way, swirling constellations revolve through her mind and pour molten starmetal into her soul.

Mechanic (Fast and Furious) 100

Machines, especially ones that go fast, just speak to you. You have no problem fixing up and tuning any motor vehicle, and can rebuild them after the most devastating crashes. You can keep anything in top condition with just a few simple tools. Of course, you also need to understand the electronics, so hotwiring cars (and sometimes, alarm systems) is not a problem either.

<Did anyone get the plate on that truck?>

<Too late for that. We're not where we were.>

They look around. This is definitely not a New Orleans sidewalk on the way to a bus stop after school. Oriental characters on signage? Probably Japanese? How the ink-damned void did they wind up in Probably Japan, and does anything look remotely indicative of where in Sudden Foreign Country they are?

That depends on how much they know about Japanese architectural trends, geography, and zoning! If the answer is quite a lot, then they're obviously in a semi-urban area of eastern Honshu, and will be only hampered in identifying exactly where by the fact that up until about a minute ago the only sources that would tell them about this place were strictly fictional. If not, well, it's unfortunate they weren't lucky enough to land beneath a sign conveniently welcoming them to their new location.

It's definitely not a backwater, though, so probably finding out more is just a matter of finding out who to ask? Or where to look, considering that there are almost certainly going to be businesses named after or with signage otherwise referencing the city in which they're located.

Well, hopefully an English sign turns up eventually, because they can't read this probably-Japanese language. She sets a moderate scowl of "I know what I'm doing and I'm not a fan" on her face to discourage troublemakers, and sets off walking in whichever direction looks more populated.

Along the way she contemplates the ability that got jammed into them — they're quite sure they could be a mechanic to make money, but where the hell did it come from?

Once she gets into the commercial district proper, there's a lot more English lettering on signs! Most of it is not terribly useful for orientation - brand names, translation of the store's name, numbered bus stops, and so forth - but if they're patient it won't be too long before they find a sign pointing the direction to "Karakura Hospital," which might be the name of the town? The Kanji written above the english translation seem to show up on some of the other signs, at least, but that doesn't totally rule out it being a local family or something.

Karakura? I mean, possibly a major family or something that shows up throughout the town, but Karakura? Like Karakura town? Void-damned Karakura town!?

<Girls, we may be in Bleach.>

Coooooool!

<It is, but we also do not know how to find Urahara, do not speak the language, and do not have anything more than mysterious constellations in our souls and a granted mechanic power. We do not know the name of his candy shop. We do not know if there is a phone book at all, let alone an English edition. We only have a hunch that our outside context status will inspire Urahara to take us in. We have options, but this is not a sure thing.>

Ruby pouts.

They do have the pieces necessary to make a plan, though. Step one, find sufficiently unbusy shopkeeper that might speak English (based on the presence of English-language signage) to ask a few questions. She looks around.

Even if they limit themselves to places with English signage, there's a fair bit of options. Do they have a preference between a fast food place, a probable-coffee shop, what looks like an art supplies store, or sporting goods?

Coffeeshop, preferably.

Then they can try the Excelsior Caffe! It's not especially crowded at this time of day, but there are two people nursing their drinks and a somewhat bored looking young man behind the counter. The aesthetic is a mix between recognizably Japanese and an italian bistro. Most of the items have their names solely in Japanese, but some also come with their English meaning underneath them, like their panini or lemonade.

"いらっしゃいませWelcome!!"

Sable switches in for this. She knows maybe three phrases in Japanese (which that greeting sounds like), and one of them in particular will hopefully be useful here. "Gomen nasai," she replies with an apologetic smile. "I don't speak Japanese. Do you speak English?"

Ah, a tourist.

"Yes, English is fine. What will you be drinking today?"

Their accent is pretty thick and they're clearly speaking more slowly, but it's perfectly understandable.

"Thank you. I'm very new in Karakura town and unfortunately a bit lost. I'll buy whichever drink you recommend and pay extra if you would please take US Dollars and also help me find a particular store."

Tourists. Still, it's not like he has anything else to do right now, she's not holding up a line or anything.

"We don't take American dollars here. If you want to exchange your money, go to the bank or post office. Where are you trying to find?"

"My apologies for the hassle when I can't even pay for your time. I'm trying to find a store called Urahara. I would normally be more prepared, but this trip was on extremely short notice."

"Urahara."

He pauses, testing out the word.

"I haven't heard of it. What do they sell?"

She smiles lopsidedly. "A variety of things, from what I understand. I've heard everything from appetizers to candy to things you need around the house. I just know I need to meet my friends there."

While she's been in here, has she seen anyone using a portable internet device like a smartphone or a laptop? She doesn't remember for sure when Bleach is set but she thinks it's too early for that.

Neither of the people in the store have laptops or phones out, and there's no advertisement for public wifi she can recognize, so probably it is indeed too early for that.

"I haven't heard of that store. Maybe stop by the library or post office, check a phone book? Or call your friends."

"A phone book would be great. Do you have one, along with the patience to help my non-Japanese-speaking foolish self look through it, or should I be asking you for directions to a library?"

She just not going to touch the bit about calling her friends and hope he doesn't notice it.

"The library is... 3 streets that way, one street that way. By... not road, metal, train runs on it."

He points rather than give cardinal directions or street names, but at least in this area of Karakura the streets are mostly a grid.

"Ah, by the tracks. Thank you!" She gives him the closest thing to a brilliant smile she can manage still in this body (which is honestly still pretty great, just takes deliberate effort), then steps back and waves. "I'll head there. Have a nice day."

It’s not an especially hard trip once they have directions; the streets are still not especially crowded for a town of this size, likely due to the time of day, and the train tracks are easy to identify. the library helpfully also has a its name in English; Karakura Town Library, if they still had doubts about the name of their location. The building - a two story structure of weathered stone -has lights on in the windows; across the street is a grocery store, and further down the town seems to open up into a park of some kind.

In they go. It's a little scary to be in a country where they don't speak the language, but they're resourceful girls and they'll make it work.

Is there a librarian? They'd love to find a librarian.

They can find a librarian! The front desk itself is empty, but the person who would otherwise be there is easy to spot helping an old man find a book they're looking for.

Well that's very nice to see. They'll wait out of the way by the front desk until the librarian is properly done helping the old man. When the librarian returns, Sable says, "Hello. Do you speak English?"

"Some. Do you need help?"

Her accent is a bit stronger than the barista's, but she speaks slowly enough to make that not prohibitive.

"I do, thank you. I need to look up a particular store in a phone book."

"Do you know the Kanji for it, or just the name?"

She shakes her head regretfully. "Just the name. I think I can pronounce it mostly correctly, and I know the Roman transliteration, but that's all."

"That makes it harder."

The librarian gets out a large reference book and flips it open.

"What was it called?"

"Urahara. Sorry for the trouble."

"Let's see, not 心Ura. Maybe 裏Ura... ペンキ屋 Urahaku Penki-Ya? Or 浦Ura, with 浦原商店Urahara Shōten?"

She pauses a moment to think.

"Do you know if it is an art store or a candy shop you're looking for?"

"Candy shop. Other things are sold than candy, but I know for certain they sell candy, and have never once heard of them selling art supplies."

"Then I think you want 浦原商店Urahara Shōten. Poor dear, you’re on the wrong side of town."

She gets a tourist map from the front desk, then marks it with a pair of pens and brings the map over to Sable.

"You're at the red, and you want to get to the green, Karakura-Mitsumiya 8-ban 6-gō. Follow the main road until you get to Mitsumiya, then..."

She squints.

"Then the second left, first right."

"Thank you so very much." She smiles gratefully at the librarian. "I think I'll head that way now. Best to hurry if I want to get there before dark."

"I'm glad. Good luck!"

The librarian will get started on a bit of the re-shelving then, until the next person needs help.

While Sable and her headmates go back outside and start following the directions they've been provided. They've got a decent walk ahead of them. They pass the time people-watching, trying to pick up distinctions in body language they might not be familiar with, and contemplating how they'll approach Urahara himself.

<First question, are we open about coming from another world?>

Neo's against it, on the basis of being a dangerous secret.

<But what if he can tell?>, Hailey counters. <We have no way to know if that's detectable, and if anyone in this world can detect it, it's Kisuke Urahara. If we try to conceal it and he can tell, that damages trust early-on — though he'd probably understand. On top of that, why is a transfemme plural system on the other side of the planet if not from being isekaied? We'd be replacing a true mystery with a false one, and we don't know anyone better to get us initially situated in this world than him.>

She gives the other girls a mental headshake.

<Next question, do we tell him about our limited scraps of metaknowledge?>

<Urahara is more likely to cope with it than anyone else we know of off-hand, and as far as we recall he is more-reliably on the side of Good than our other options. Further, how do we explain knowing to go find him without that? It would take an increasingly complicated set of lies. What about initial presentation?>

<Probably we don't want to reveal the secrets in public. Ask for him, ask to speak in private once we get him, reference there being more weirdness than we feel comfortable talking about in public?>

Neo shrugs. It's tolerable. Sable can wing it if all else fails.

And so they keep walking and watching their surroundings.

It’s a beautiful day! Most of the kids are at school, and the adults at work, but there are still some people on the streets, and the sky has puffy clouds occasionally offering shade.

After a bit of a hike, they can arrive at the location indicated on their map. It’s an unassuming building on a side street, and the sign is in Japanese, but the kanji on it matches the phone book at the library. 

This looks like where they meant to be, it looks loosely like they remember the store looking like in the anime, so they'll head inside. Sable switches in for first impressions and such.

“ いらっしゃいませWelcome!!"

Manning the shop is a young boy, probably in middle school or late high school, with red hair. His greeting is flat and unenthusiastic, but he does uncross his legs and stand up. 

She smiles. That looks like Jinta. She doesn't remember the girl's name, which is a pity, but that's what she gets for getting isekaied to a show she hasn't watched in a couple years. "Hello! Do you speak English?"

“‘Course I can. What are you looking for, souvenirs?”

"I'm looking to talk with your boss, Mr. Urahara."

“Eh, what for? I can ring you up.”

"It's about slightly spirit-related weirdness."

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the boy says, lying unconvincingly.

”But I guess I can tell him you’re here.”

There’s the sound of some yelling in the back, followed a few minutes later by a garishly dressed man emerging.

”Ohoh, a new customer is it?”

She looks around, confirms that there's no one else here, then nods. "Hello, Mr. Urahara. My name is Sable, and when I woke up this morning, I was in America. I have no idea how I got here, and my explanation of how I knew to come to you for help will be difficult to believe."

He flutters his fan.

”America? I didn’t know my shop had that kind of a reputation. I’m just a humble shopkeeper, though; if you think you were kidnapped, you should call the police!”

She's amused despite herself and giggles a bit. "Okay. Would you like me to show off knowing a bunch of things I really shouldn't have any way to know? Because as much as I love the routine you're doing — and I really do — I do actually need specifically your help, with you taking the situation at least somewhat seriously."

The fan vanishes up a sleeve, and Urahara is suddenly all business.

"Let's talk then. A warning, though; some kinds of knowledge can be dangerous."

"Yes, it can. Feel free to stop me when you believe I've merited your attention. You are Kisuke Urahara, former head of the science division in Soul Society. You're either the best or only place to get a gigai in the mortal world. You work closely with Yoruichi, former head of the intelligence division who also left Soul Society. She can turn into a cat—"

Urahara claps his hands, cutting her off.

"I think that's enough. You have my attention, and even here the walls sometimes have ears."

He gestures to the back room and walks through the doorway, not bothering to check if they're following. Once they're through, however, he closes it behind them and does... something.

"So what can this retired soul reaper do for you, then? I wasn't kidding about being a candy shop owner these days."

"I know a few things about probable future events that you're going to want to be involved in, and I'd like to trade that knowledge for five gigai — is the plural gigai or gigais? — and assistance transplanting me and the other girls in my head into them. We'd also be glad to help you with the coming events however we can."

"Five gigais! That does explain a few things; you have an unusual amount of spiritual pressure for someone with your accent. Still, though, that's quite the goal you're asking me to help achieve; I hope you're ready for a lot of hard work~"

His voice gets a bit less singsongy.

"Still, now you've got me curious. You're not just claiming to be an unusually informed individual, but someone who knows the details about certain people's plans?"

"Here's the implausible explanation of that: as best I can tell, I'm from another world, one where a work of fiction exists that suspiciously resembles this world. No guarantee how accurate the oddly-similar fiction is, and I don't remember it perfectly, nor did I watch all of it, but your presence here as a retired soul reaper running a candy shop inclines me to suspect that at minimum the broad strokes will hold."

"You're right, that is implausible! So implausible that I in fact don't believe it, but either you do or you're a really good liar. This puts me in a bit of a conundrum, or at least it would if I felt a need to be taken seriously. Since I don't, though, let's hear it; what happens next in this supposed story of yours? I don't suppose I'm lucky enough to rate inclusion in a slice of life work."

"Would that we all had nice, pleasant, slice-of-life storylines. No, we are not that lucky. Ichigo Kurosaki, who has been seeing ghosts his whole life and is the son of a retired soul reaper and a tragically dead one, finds himself forced to choose between letting a hollow kill his family or letting Rukia burn her powers to awaken his, starting a variety of unpleasant events into motion and eventually embroiling him and his friends (who insist on helping and turn out to have some spiritual powers of their own) in existing awful messes like Aizen's conspiracy against Soul Society."

“You’re in luck, that first prediction of yours has already been borne out. But if you know that much? I imagine you understand why that makes me suspicious, and who that makes me suspicious of, when I get information suggesting that my plans won’t work but things will work out anyway. Do you have any suggestions to help me resolve this conundrum?”

"Okay, hold on, we're calling Rukia awakening Ichigo's powers the first prediction? Has Ichigo met Ishida, the Quincy boy, yet? Has Rukia's brother come down here with what's-his-name to take her back to Soul Society and maybe execute her yet? Where in the timeline are we? If I remember correctly, Ichigo loses the fight against Rukia's brother, possibly breaking his zanpakuto, and insists on training to rescue her. Eventually he connects with his true zanpakuto spirit and restores it in time to finish training before mission time."

"Yes, and no, respectively. The additional predictions do help, but they don't solve the issue that from my perspective all your knowledge revealed thus far is either stuff Aizen knows or could arrange to happen. I suppose this is the downside of playing coy, so I'll be a bit clearer than my usual here. Ideally, I'd have you make a prediction that distinguished things; something that was revealed in your show that there's no way for him to have learned, or that him knowing would mean everything was lost, like my one secret weakness that would bring my efforts crashing down no matter what I did. Any secrets of his that I could confirm would help too, of course, but that would still mean I couldn't trust you with anything more valuable to me than the secret in question is to him or else I'm setting up something of a bad incentive here."

She nods at him in understanding. "Ah. Extremely reasonable of you. I probably would've picked that up, but I was worrying about nailing down the timeline first."

Then she starts pacing and brainstorming out loud. "Let's see. Gonna have to iterate through things to refresh my memory, because it's been a few years since I watched the show at all. Read some fanfiction more recently but no way to know whether any of that applies and the show and original manga are what the fanfics all draw from so stick with those. Does Aizen know Ichigo will become a vizored yet? Mm, not really sure but probably he can find out. Does Aizen know Ichigo also has Quincy elements to him? Fullbringer? Those he might not know. I don't know if those count as what they are, though, 'cause I never watched far enough to see if they did anything other than just being part of his zanpakuto spirit. Fuck, I should've watched more of this. If I'd known I was coming here I would've binge-watched before getting isekaied. Have to assume asshole knows damned near everything there is to know abour arrancar, so none of the scraps I remember about them are helpful right now. Hmm. What about the name of Ichigo's zanpakuto? Well, maybe useful for practical things later but not world-shaking. You know how to make mod souls? Zanpakuto are made of soul reapers? Quincy powers are made of the divine asshole, whatever his name is, starts with a Y? No, none of those are what we need here. Cute little girl on Kenpachi's shoulder isn't just a lieutenant but also his zanpakuto spirit? No, why would I think that would help. Ugh, this is what I get for stopping watching after the first Soul Society arc and only learning deep lore from a bestie infodumping at me."

She twists her hands a bit. "C'mon, what am I forgetting. C'mon, idiot girl."

The voice changes abruptly, becoming smoother and almost serene as Maya cuts in. "No, beloved, berating yourself does not help. Be patient with yourself."

Sable switches back and takes a slow breath. "Thanks, Maya."

Pace, pace, pace.

She suddenly pauses and twists to face him. "Does future technology count for anything? Portable computing device bundled in a phone?"

She reaches into her messenger bag and pulls out a 2020s-era smartphone, turning it on and unlocking it where he can see.

"Also have textbooks with copyright dates in the future, but I doubt those count for much."

She passes the phone to Urahara and resumes pacing. "Okay what about arties? Artifacts are always a good bet. What was that plotrock bestie was always going on about? The hogyo-whatsis? The hoagy? Kinda reality-warping just a bit, can be used to cheat at transformations, important macguffin, was that what they plan to use to execute Rukia or am I mixing it up?, ink and salt what was it she was trying to shock me with about it, I loved the reality-warping but one reality-warping rock isn't enough to make her rant... one? tw—"

She turns and locks eyes with Urahara suddenly. "You made a second one. Eventually, sometime late-game, Aizen figures that out, steals it, combines it with the original, and uses the result to ascend and replace the divine asshole with his own assholishness."

"Oh, an excellent idea. Aizen is smart enough I wouldn't bet against him being able skip out a bit ahead of human technology if he works at it, and there's nothing that would prevent him from recruiting someone more specialized, but there's inherent differences between artisanal designs of a genius and the work of a team of iterating engineers. I'll have to actually look this over to make sure this is what you say it is, but I'm not convinced he could manage to fool me at all and it would definitely involve tipping his hand to do it. I assume it's rather fragile, but are there things other than the obvious that would break it in ways it would take me a while to get working again?"

"The Hōgyoku, on the other hand, is a more worrying sign. Aizen knows full well I have one, and him getting his hands on it is practically the worst case scenario. Do you remember anything else about how he managed it?"

"The smartphone is fragile against the usual things that would affect delicate technology, although this model is moderately water resistant. I can't guarantee that that will persist if you disassemble it, though. There is data on it that's particularly important to us, more than the device itself, so if you can preserve that for us we won't object to losing the device itself. As far as the Hōgyoku, I have no idea. I didn't watch far enough into the series to see that myself, just heard about it from my friend ranting about the events. I... I'm reaching the limits of things I know about this world. I really wish there was more — wait fuck did you hide your Hōgyoku in Rukia?"

"Don't you Americans have a saying about this? A magician never reveals his secrets."

She snickers.

"Yep, you did. I think my friend said something about that, and as cute as this is it doesn't throw me off that far." She rolls her eyes and shakes her head, but smiles just a bit. "Fun. Well, if it turns out we have useful spirit talents, we certainly like your side better than fucking Aizen's, assuming you can trust us. I'm out of shiny secrets I haven't already referenced, though. What d'you say, Urahara-san? Have we earned getting our own individual bodies that suck less than this frustratingly masculine one?"

"Well, I should probably go about confirming your device really is from the future before I get sucked into a project, seeing as I am occasionally a responsible person. If that comes out like I expect it to and my verification of your story starts to match? Then yes, I do believe I owe you lot a thank you."

"With that being said... how much do you know about Gigai? Because when I said you had a lot of work ahead of you, I wasn't kidding~!"

She smiles gratefully at him and lets out a relieved sigh. "I don't know nearly enough. Assume it's the basic bullshit that would show up on screen in the first two seasons of a shonen anime following Ichigo, and half-remembered at that. Eager to learn, though."

"Oh, excellent; that means you probably don't have to unlearn as many of the things that everyone thinks they know. Indulge an old coot for a minute and put your brain to work on the problem; why does a soul need a gigai in the first place?"

She's getting an abbreviated lesson in metaphysics from Kisuke Urahara. Her life has taken a turn for the awesome.

"Let's see... very first guess says something to do with souls not being able to interact with mortal world crap without a physical body. Second guess is that spending too much time as an unattached soul in a non-spiritual realm may not be good for you."

"Good thoughts both. The first one is true to an extent, but it's nothing that someone with spiritual pressure couldn't overcome. It's just harder to interact with physical objects without a body, not impossible, and almost anyone can do it at least a little if they work at it enough. Likewise with talking to people; sure, you mostly couldn't talk to the living, but most people have died and even with those who haven't yet it's just a matter of waiting. No, it's the other one that's the kicker, and the answer is hollows.

"The trite explanation is that they'll eat you, and while a gigai isn't quite as good as being alive on that score it still means leaking much less reiryoku all over the place, bringing you from an all-eat buffet advertisement to a snack they have to work for. The better answer is that you're leaking reishi, not just reiryoku, and if you spend long enough in the mortal world as a just spirit there's only really one thing that lets you keep up with the loss. But that just raises further questions, doesn't it? If those are the biggest problems with sticking around after you die, and a gigai helps deal with both of them, why does anyone actually die without their soul being destroyed?"

She facepalms just a little. "Can't believe I forgot about hollows. As for dying... maybe gigai aren't generally available due to being expensive/complicated, and maybe synchronizing a generic body to match your soul takes a bunch of effort?"

"Those are issues, especially if you're like Mayuri and just fundamentally aren't as talented as I am. You can make a bad gigai very cheaply; even many kinds of animal corpses can work on a temporary basis with the right treatment, and when you've got the infrastructure in place it's entirely possible for an organization like soul society to crank them out. But if you want to beat a living human body already attuned to your soul as a container? Even I need years of work to pull that off. Without that, you're still leaking at least a little, and the average human simply doesn't have enough spiritual power to keep up with that indefinitely. I could house the lot of you together in one gigai without a problem, since together you have almost thrice as much as the average person and your souls are used to supporting each other. But if you want long term independent manifestation? Well, I foresee quite a bit of training in your future~"

She grins and arches an eyebrow. "And I assume that training has some overlap with what it takes to not be useless in the ongoing mess? One body that at least suits us better than this," she gestures indicatively at the current masculine mess, "would definitely be an upgrade, but being able to hold each other in our arms is the ultimate goal. And if training for that leaves us better able to fend off the various assholes that siding with Ichigo and you will surely piss off, so much the better."

"What have I done to earn this kind of distrust from you? I'm just your average shady shopkeeper who never explains any of their plans and always seems to know more than they're advertising. Does this look like the face of a liar?"

He shakes his head.

"That would be a happy outcome, from my perspective, but if your story checks out and you decide what you really need is a place to hide I'd still see what I can arrange. As you probably know my situation isn't so secure that I'd turn down willing allies, but I've never been one to like asking for help."

She giggles. "No, not a liar, just a man who knows better than turn away an incorrigible meddler who hopes to become useful when she asks nicely to get involved in his shadow war."

"Well, I can't deny that particular charge. I'll do my due diligence on your device, probably learn a few fascinating things from the engineering they did to solve the various inherent difficulties involved, and hopefully come out having quieted my niggling doubts about you being a trick. In the mean time, you're welcome to stick around as long as you don't try to bypass any of the barriers or take advantage of your new opportunity for tourism and explore the town as you prefer. Don't try to talk Jinta into letting you make off with too much of the candy, though, since I'm still trying to make a profit here!"

She shakes her head. "As tolerant as people have been of our linguistic difficulties, I'd rather not throw myself on too many people's mercy unnecessarily. No yen, don't speak the language, and nowhere to go but here. Is there anything useful a dimensionally-displaced girl with the skills of a mechanic could be doing around here?"

"I can't say I have a lot of need for a mechanic; I mostly just fix things myself whenever they get broken, so everything should be functioning right now. If you're looking for employment, though, I do happen to be a business owner!"

"Well, that sounds pretty great. If I'm going to function in this country I need local currency, and working for you sounds like a decent way to earn a place to stay, and staying near you is a great way to learn more about how everything else works and become more useful than grunt labor or fighting people. Which is honestly a major goal, despite how fun as fights can be."

"Excellent! Jinta! Ururu!"

"Yes, Urahara-san?"

"We've got a new employee! Would you two mind showing them the ropes while I go do some research?"

"Heh, easy. We can do that no problem!"

"Sounds fun. Have fun with our phone, Boss. Try to at least save the data if you break it."

She turns to Jinta and Ururu. "Hi. I'm Sable, one of five girls crammed into this awful boyish body. Hopefully the boss helps us fix that, but for now, what do we need to know about working at the store?"

"First rule is that as your senior, you need to listen to everything I say."

"That's not a rule."

"Shush, she doesn't know that!"

"I inexplicably know enough about the two of you to know that Ururu is the sensible one, although you're both great and anyone who underestimates either of you is a moron."

Jinta preens at the description.

"I knew you were smart. Alright, so here's the till; when someone wants to buy something, you scan their items like this and then ring them up. We sweep the shop twice a day, once at lunchtime and once in the evening when we close. Ururu and I usually switch off that, but we can put you in a rotation. For most of the day you're just sitting around, but you can't be asleep when a customer comes in or Tessai will get mad. If someone needs help, you're s'posed to help them find it, but that'll probably be harder for you if you can't speak or read Japanese. In the evenings, we go restock everything from the back - we'll show you where stuff is later - and make sure everything is neat. Oh, and if an orange haired girl with a red hairclip comes in you gotta come get me."

"All makes sense so far. Two questions: can you two help me learn Japanese, and who's this orange-haired girl?"

"Yuzu Kurosaki. Jinta has a crush on her."

"No I don't! Shut up! You just don't understand how to treat the goddess with respect."

"I've never taught anyone to speak Japanese before. I could translate things for you if you needed? But maybe you'd be better off asking Tessai for help."

"Okay!" Honestly Jinta and Yuzu could do worse than each other? But she can't rule out that they could do better, either? She'll help them have chances to interact but that's it.

"Hopefully I wind up having impressed the boss enough that he lets us stay here and helps us get a body that we don't hate. That'd be great. Anything I should be doing while we wait?"

What time is it? Close to lunch?

Assuming she knows how to read an analog clock, she can learn that it's a little after 11 am!

"I dunno how much isn't obvious? If there's nobody here and there isn't a mess, mostly we just wait. Uh, quick notes: don't be rude to the cat, don't talk about spirit business in front of normal people, don't snap at customers even when they totally deserve it?"

She nods. "I've worked at a store before during summer break. All this is fairly straight-forward."

Not even quite lunch yet, so nothing to do at all. "Let's see how many products I can identify without being able to read the language."

She can probably recognize a few of them fairly easily from the brands or english lettering or appearance, such as a number of kinds of kit-kats, chocolate covered almonds, chocolate bars, and of course pocky. If she's familiar with japanese candy brands, that will net her a handful more, but even that seems woefully insufficient to categorize the place due to that fact that someone seems to have made it their mission to fill the store with as many weird candies as possible. The stock spans the gamut from peppermint-chocolate lollipops to caramel gummies with strawberry jelly. It's not just sweets though; there's also a wide variety of other snacks, like chips or something involving breaded shrimp.

That is a deeply impressive collection of snacks and candies. And sure, she can't manage many names, but she can figure out types and categories and how those are organized.

"Who makes the stocking decisions, the boss or Mr. Tessai?"

"Urahara does most of it, including stuff he makes himself, but sometimes Tessai puts his foot down."

"That's honestly impressive. This is a pretty great selection of candy and snacks."

She looks around with a hum. "I've got a decent idea of where different sorts of things are, at the very least. What're we going to do about the fact that I don't speak Japanese, though? I doubt customers will expect an English-speaker to be working in a store."

"It's easy! All you gotta do is say Irasshaimase whenever someone comes in and then read out the price whenever you're done scanning, so you only have to learn the numbers."

"Jinta! You're supposed to be helping customers if they have questions. Maybe you could start out working with me and we could make some note cards of common questions- hey, stop messing with my hair!"

"Then you should stop being such a goody two shoes about it. 'Sides, all the important stuff you need to get the boss for they'll be able to talk to you just fine."

"Notecards are a good idea," she agrees with a nod at Ururu. Cute how they mess with each other. Although huh. "Everyone in the know can speak English?", she asks with a questioning headtilt.

"Y'know, spirits? They don't really talk the normal way, just communicate directly. Course they gotta learn the normal way if they want to read or listen to recordings, but face to face is easy."

"Huh, that's really cool! Does that mean that if Urahara-san sets us up with a gigai we'll be able to do that too?"

"I dunno, maybe? You should ask the boss."

"Will do. Any other advice for me, or should I try to track down Tessai-san to see if he has any suggestions for learning Japanese?"

"Not that I can think of. Occasionally we get drop-ins, but mostly customers are only here in the afternoon or weekends anyway."

She nods. "Okay. Where should I go to find Tessai-san?"

She's trying to get in the habit of using the Japanese suffixes going forward, since this is her life now.

"He's probably tinkering with the barriers. I could help you look if you can't find him."

"Okay! I'll come ask you for help if I can't find him. Where roughly would the barriers be to be tinkered with?"

"He's probably in his office, unless he's tweaking one of them in particular in which case he could be anywhere."

"Okay. Will it be obvious which one is his if I head back to the back rooms?"

"His is the one that isn't a total mess. Plus the boss usually works in the basement anyway, so his won't have anyone in it."

She nods. "Simple enough, thanks!" She waves to the two kids and heads back to the back rooms, looking for Mr. Tessai's office.

As predicted it's easy to identify which one is his, though the door is currently shut.

She knocks, firmly but not too loudly, just twice.

The door opens, revealing a man with a very impressive mustache, who blinks upon seeing her.

"Did something happen?"

"Hello Sir. I'm a new employee, pending Mr. Urahara verifying something about my story, and Ururu suggested that you may have an idea what to do about my not speaking Japanese yet."

"That certainly sounds like him; you'd think he could at least tell me when he does it. I'm not sure how helpful I'll be with speaking it, but I had to learn reading the hard way and I've taught a number of people before to get by. How much time do you expect to have a day to work at it?"

"If things go how I expect, speaking won't be an issue, so reading is very much the focus. I can use my downtime between customers and chores on shift, and maybe an additional hour a day, at a guess? I expect to have to do a bunch of training to be able to occupy a gigai efficiently, so that will take some time. Also technically we're five people sharing one body."

Tessai nods.

"I'll have to ask you to let me know if one of you is struggling with something then, since I won't be able to check body language. Do any of you have familiarity with any writing systems or languages?"

"American English, and some French."

"Then you're going to want to start out with reading hiragana. Writing - especially with kanji - can come later, ideally once you can actually read a dictionary and can use it to learn unfamiliar symbols on your own."

Tessai produces some notecards from his desk, and jots down a handful of hiragana and their phonetic equivalents:  あ a   え e   い I   お O   う U

"Try and find something visually memorable to associate them with, like that one looking like a sideways U, and practice sounding them out. Make a note of where you see them in writing, so you can learn to recognize the symbol in a sentence or word, and then once you feel comfortable you recognize them in context you can move on to the next set."

She examines the cards, nodding. "Hmmm. Person walking across a bridge over a hole, person dabbing, flint and steel, person falling into a hole, sideways U or a talky mouth."

Tessai looks politely baffled at the descriptor of 'dabbing,' but will then guide her through the pronunciation - vowel sounds in Japanese don't change based on context like english - and get her a second notecard with her first set that includes consonents (か けき こく, which mirrors the above pronunciations but with a k affixed to the front) to go through once before going back and checking how much of the vowel memory they maintain.

They retain the vowels pretty well, it turns out. Languages and writing systems are fun.

That's a good start; this is much faster than for first time readers. He can expand her list of characters to practice to include the s and t strings, which if she masters them will put her on track to recognize all the Hirigana in a few days, and walk her through the pronunciations a few times to make sure she has everything before telling her she can stop by whenever she has questions or finishes the list, but he won't always be in and if the door is sealed he's not interruptible for anything except an emergency.

She thanks him with an appreciative smile and heads back out to the front of the shop.

She gets back just as Jinta is setting the sign to what by context probably says 'out for lunch' and locks the door.

"You've got good timing, new girl. Or, new girls? Whichever - you're not a vegetarian, right?"

"Either works, and no we're not vegetarian. Lunch time?"

"Yep! Ururu, we're making Tempura."

Jinta grabs a container off the shelf with what looks like... a mix of flour and cornstarch, and unscrews the lid on a container of oil.

Ururu just nods, but brings out a container of soup, strips of chicken, eggs, and... seltzer, apparently, which the two busy themself with.

"It shouldn't take much longer; could you tell Tessai it's time for lunch?"

Ooooooh. Tempura. "Sure!"

She heads cheerfully back to Tessai's office, knocking again. "Mr. Tessai, it's lunch time!"

"It's noon already?"

He shakes his head to collect himself, and then glances at the hands of the clock on his wall; it happily confirms her account.

"Thank you for the message. I'll just be a minute while I finish this bit."

She nods and smiles. "Okay!"'

When she gets back to the front, she reports, "He says he'll be just a minute finishing the current bit. And since it's Mr. Tessai and not Mr. Urahara, we can probably believe him, I bet."

"Yeah, never listen to anything Mr. Urahara says about time."

As promised, about a minute later Tessai emerges - just in time to get some of the tempura, miso soup, and rice that the kids are serving.

"Excellent work as usual, you two."

Ururu simply nods quietly rather than verbalize a response.

She sits down and enjoys her own lunch. "This is delicious. Thank you both."

"You know it!"

Once the dishes from lunch are put in the dishwasher and the food eaten or stored, Jinta disappears off somewhere and Ururu reopens the shop for the afternoon.

Sable practices intermittently with her flash cards, unless interrupted by a customer arriving or a someone trying to talk to her.

There is an irregular flow of customers into the shop, all of whom presumably have a rich inner life of their own and none of whom are really able to demonstrate it across a language barrier while acting as customers. A few of them try to ask her questions, but Ururu is able to answer them until she and Jinta swap places at some point mid afternoon and he takes over the task.

"We do stay open later than this, but mostly only because that's occasionally spirit business. If you want, once you handle the sweeping you can step out, but if you want to roll the dice on today being interesting it's fine to stick around."

"Might head back then, just to see if Mr. Tessai has suggestions about where he wants lost teenagers to sleep, or if we can get a tiny bit if today's pay as an advance to buy basic daily living supplies with."

She grabs the broom and gets to sweeping.

When she finishes her cleanup and heads back into the building, Urahara is waiting for her. The first time she sees him, it's like her eyes pass over without seeing them, but then half a second later she double takes and he's clearly visible.

"You've certainly been keeping busy."

Oh, there he is. Waaaait, was he...? Doesn't matter.

"Oh, hi boss. Yeah, well, I got dropped into a shadow war that's older than I am, no point wasting time. Having fun with our phone?"

"Oh yes, it's a fascinating bit of hardware; I even had to make a new etching machine when it turned out my old one wasn't precise enough to imitate the microchip. The only real disappointment was the display; I had hoped they'd catch up more given another 20 years."

He flutters his fan slightly, and then the phone appears in his other hand. The device looks intact, but when he hands it over the casing is recognizably different from how it looked just a few hours ago.

She smiles, a hint of relief flickering through her as she examines the new casing for a moment and then turns it on and inspects the software and the data. "Glad you had a good time. Judging by your comment I take it you believe us a bit more?"

"Oh yes; if the hardware wasn't enough of a sign, the software was incredibly clear about that. You being a ploy of his would imply that he not only has time travel but also decided to warn me about it in advance, in which case I've already lost anyway! That, I believe, leaves us two items on our agenda; first, making sure you don't know of anything time critical that I need to respond to as soon as possible, and second, getting you a gigai!"

He pauses a beat.

"Normally this would be where I tossed you an item to separate you from your body, but I actually need to take a few measurements first to make sure the shape imitation function plays nice with five souls until you're ready for individual bodies long term."

She bounces in place. "Eeeee! Yay!"

Wait there are things to address here.

"Ahem. Um. The version of events I remember has him fake his death when the team busts into Soul Society on a rescue, and I think Ichimaru and Tousen are his collaborators. Also I think he's recruited a whole bunch of arrancar?"

"Oh. Also. How's that even going to work? Will it respond to changes in who's fronting? Or will it try to find a compromise between us? Or something else?"

"It's hard to imagine what his goal could be with recruiting Arrancar; there just aren't that many of them, frankly. I'll have to see if I can figure out what he's up to there. As for the Gigai appearance, that depends on exactly what the internal relationships of your souls expressions are to each other and how similar your self images are. They can handle relatively small changes to self image just fine, but they're designed not to shapeshift freely. Make them too sensitive, and you have people's appearances fluctuating wildly with their mood, and you wouldn't believe the issues we had with dysmorphia and the uncanny valley when I tried letting people design their appearances by hand. Plus, some people are just not meant to be artists."

Urahara shakes his head solemnly.

"If I calibrate things properly, switching who's in front might mean changes to hair style, eye color, and a bit of flex on body shape, but you'll probably end up looking similar to each other; more variations on some kind of central template than unrelated appearances."

She giggles a bit at the artist comment, then tilts her head thoughtfully. "We're not very similar in body, ideally. Different builds and figures. We're a polycule crammed into one brain, not branches off a tree. But we can tighten it up to a narrow set of variations. Hmmm. No point listing it, you won't be coding 'em in, but thinking through it a little gets us cozier with where we'll end up, makes it less of a surprise and might make the process easier. How much flex is there on hair color? Length? Presumably height can't go more than an inch or three, how far can figure stretch?"

“A fascinating question, but one that's not the easiest to answer. The more you change along one axis, the less you'll change along another, but you can get more total changes from a bunch of small things than from one big one; someone who changes their face shape and hairstyle and height all just a little will tend to look more different than someone who just gets taller, especially if you also consider non physical factors like posture and expression. Fundamentally, it's not really designed to have one gigai end up unrecognizable though, so you're not going to get more than a few inches in any measurement except hair."

She contemplates for a moment, and then nods. "Yeah, I think I see how we'll all fit into that. We can get a lot done with hair color, length, and eye color. Little bitty changes to everything else are plenty."

"So what sort of measurements do you need to take?"

"Oh you know, the usual. Reishi distribution, Reiryoku color pattern, reishi-kishi harmonics, psychospacial equilibrium, frabjus quintessence, Bluetooth connectivity..."

As he speaks, he goes through an array of handheld devices, starting with one that wouldn't look particularly out of place scanning barcodes at a grocery store and picking up steadily more bizzare modules from there.

Her expression starts off curious and interested, but becomes increasingly skeptical. "Were you feeling particularly fond of mortal poetry when you named 'frabjus quintessence'? And 'bluetooth connectivity', seriously?", she asks him, amused.

"You'll be happy to learn that I have confirmed you are entirely unconnected to bluetooth! Anyway, now I'm going to need you to stay patient while I finish editing this gigai to the proper specifications."

He pauses for a second.

"And we're done! Don't mind the appearance, it looks like that for everyone until someone's used it."