Once the numbers had settled, the obvious question arrived on its own — what, exactly, was there to spend fifty thousand Void Points on, in a shop that had barely opened its doors.
Ai gestured toward the modest shelves lining the far wall.
“For now, this is what’s available directly here.
Vitality Pills, Health Pills, and Beauty Pills.
More will come as the city grows.” Sheldon studied the shelf with the flat disappointment of a man promised a laboratory and handed a vending machine.
“I have the purchasing power of a small national grant, and my options are three varieties of wellness supplement.
Where’s the technology category?” “You’re just mad ’cause your brain thing didn’t sell for more,” Naruto said, already inspecting two Vitality Pills he’d bought out of pure curiosity.
“That’s not remotely what this is about,” Sheldon said, in a tone that made it fairly clear that was exactly what this was about.
Cinderella, meanwhile, quietly bought a handful of Beauty Pills and tucked them away with the guilty economy of someone still working out whether wanting nice things for herself was allowed here too.
• • Hunger settled the debate faster than any argument could, and Ai steered them all toward the kitchen before Sheldon’s grumbling could escalate further.
Tsukasa’s kitchen greeted them properly finished now, gleaming and full of the smell of something already simmering.
He looked up just long enough to nod them toward the table.
“Sit,” he said, and somehow that was all it took.
What followed was, by unanimous and largely wordless agreement, the best meal any of them had eaten in longer than they could say — course after course, ingredients from a dozen worlds folded together into something that tasted like nothing any of them had encountered before and yet felt exactly right.
Sheldon treated it as an opportunity for interrogation rather than enjoyment.
“How does a kitchen source ingredients from worlds with entirely separate causal frameworks?
Is there a dimensional supply chain?
Because the implications for interdimensional trade theory alone are staggering.” Mary and Ai exchanged a helpless glance.
“That’s rather beyond what we were trained on,” Mary admitted.
“We just work reception,” Ai added.
Sheldon pivoted immediately toward the crystal’s pricing algorithm instead, and got no further there either.
Even Tsukasa, cornered at last, only offered, without looking up from his pan, “I only know cooking” — which, as deflections went, worked remarkably well.
• • Down at the far end of the table, well clear of Sheldon’s campaign for answers no one could give him, Harry and Naruto had settled into the easy quiet of two people who’d decided, without saying so, that they liked exactly where they were.
“This is the best food I’ve ever had,” Naruto said.
“Not even close.” “Better than ramen?” Naruto considered this with real seriousness.
“…Don’t tell anyone I said this.
But yeah.” They ate a while in comfortable silence before Harry said, quieter than before, the thing they’d both been circling.
“I don’t really want to go back.
Home, I mean.
Or the Dursleys’.
Whatever that counts as.” “Yeah,” Naruto said, no hesitation at all.
“Me neither.
Nobody looks at me like I’m some kind of monster here.” Then, as if embarrassed by how much that had given away, he added quickly, “Not that I care what they think.
I don’t.” Harry didn’t call him on the lie, mostly because it was the same one he told himself.
“We could still come back, though,” Harry said, working it out as he spoke.
“Time moves the same out there whether we’re here or not, but that doesn’t mean we can’t visit again.” Naruto brightened at once.
“Yeah!
Best friends who happen to live in completely different worlds.
Kind of awesome, actually.” “Kind of,” Harry agreed, and found, somewhat to his own surprise, that he meant it — even knowing every hour spent here was an hour he’d have to account for at home.
• • While that unfolded without her, Ari put her own new fortune to more practical use.
A listing caught her eye as she scrolled — a children’s facility, modest at first, somewhere small visitors could be looked after properly instead of trailing after adults with their own work to do.
She thought of a certain orphaned wizard and a certain loud jinchūriki she’d known less than a day and already liked more than she’d expected to, and decided the matter needed no further deliberation.
“Buy it,” she said.
[Childcare Center unlocked.
Recommended personnel: one designated caretaker.] She didn’t have to think hard about who.
She’d watched, through her usual quiet feed, the easy warmth Cinderella had shown both boys within minutes of meeting them.
[Message from City Lord, to Mary: New facility — Childcare Center.
Offer Cinderella the caretaker position, if she’s interested.
Let her know it’s paid.] Message sent, Ari sank deeper into her sofa, thoroughly pleased with herself, and made absolutely no move to go supervise any of it in person — particularly not with a certain physicist still out there, fully capable of trapping her in a conversation about causal frameworks the moment she showed her face.
• • By the time dinner wound down, the Exchange Center had quietly become something considerably more interesting than the marketplace it had been that morning.
Everything the five of them had sold to the crystal had reappeared on the shelves, priced now for buyers instead of sellers.
[Intellect & Specialized Knowledge — 20,000 Void Points.] [Wizarding Bloodline — 100,000 Void Points.] [Latent Chakra Seed — 100,000 Void Points.] [Uzumaki Bloodline — 150,000 Void Points.] [Faint Ōtsutsuki Trace — 200,000 Void Points.] [Consumable: Nine-Tails Chakra — 500 Void Points per unit.] [Immaculate Cool Aura — 15,000 Void Points.] [Fairy Tale Protagonist’s Halo — 50,000 Void Points.] Sheldon nearly choked on his drink.
“Ten times the original valuation.
Across every line item.
I sold my intellect for two thousand and the shop turns around and sells it for twenty thousand?” “That does sound about right,” Ai admitted, with the caution of someone who hadn’t set the markup and wasn’t eager to defend it.
“That’s not a marketplace, that’s predatory,” Sheldon said, though the protest lost most of its force as he leaned in to read the fine print with obvious professional interest.
His eye caught the chakra listing next.
“This one’s different.
Five hundred, sold by the unit.
Nowhere near ten times what the boy got.” “Consumables don’t follow the same markup,” Ai explained.
“They’re meant to be bought again and again, so they’re priced low enough that guests actually can.
It scales to whatever power system a guest’s world runs on.” Sheldon considered that with grudging respect.
“That’s actually a sound pricing model.” A handful of entirely new items had appeared as well — additions Ari had made herself, quietly, between the crystal readings and dessert.
[Star Wars Lightsaber — Functional Replica — 3,000 Void Points.] Sheldon went silent, reverent, and then visibly deflated the moment he checked it against his own balance.
“I have two thousand.
I have two doctorates, and I cannot afford a single lightsaber, because apparently this economy values my life’s work a thousand points below a glorified flashlight.” “You could sell something else,” Ai offered.
“I have nothing else to sell.” He stared a moment longer, then squared his shoulders.
“Fine.
I’ll return with something better.
This is not over.” Beside it sat an [All-Weather Garment Set — fireproof, dustproof, waterproof — 800 Void Points] that ended up in every cart within minutes, and two quieter additions that turned out to matter far more: [Standard Book of Spells — 1,200 Void Points.] Once opened, the contents merge directly with the reader.
No prior training required.
[Chakra Refinement Manual — 1,500 Void Points.] Once opened, the contents merge directly with the reader.
No prior training required.
Harry found the spellbook first, still turning over what the crystal had told him about himself.
“It just — teaches you?
On its own?” “That’s how skill items work here,” Ai said.
“You open it, and whatever’s inside becomes part of you.” He bought it before he could talk himself out of it, and held it a long moment before finally cracking the cover.
The change moved through him quietly — no flash, just a slow, settling warmth, like something that had always belonged in him finally arriving.
When it passed, he flexed his fingers and let out a disbelieving laugh.
“I think I just learned how to light a candle without matches.” Naruto found the Chakra Refinement Manual at almost the same moment and needed far less convincing.
He tore it open with none of Harry’s ceremony, and went still as the same warmth settled through him — something loose and wasteful in how he’d always drawn on his own strength finding its proper shape instead.
“…Huh,” grumbled a low voice from somewhere deep inside him, almost — almost — impressed.
“That’s actually not bad, brat.” Naruto didn’t hear it, but he grinned anyway.
What followed could only honestly be described as a shopping frenzy.
Sheldon, still smarting, settled for the fireproof clothing and pocketed the rest of his balance with visible reluctance.
Naruto bought an embarrassing quantity of ramen-adjacent food and a full set of all-weather gear, and still had points to spare, which he announced with considerable pride.
Harry allowed himself one modest extra — a simple, well-made pocketknife that had, he told himself, nothing to do with wanting something entirely his own.
Sakamoto, working within his own smaller balance, walked away with a single precisely tailored jacket.
Cinderella permitted herself one small thing — a soft blue hair ribbon — and looked faintly astonished at her own audacity for buying it.