Barnaby was currently back at Newt's house, while Newt held a letter from his friend Tanaka in his trembling hands, along with a copy (courteously translated into English) of a Japanese magical newspaper. On the table, there was an unopened box of sakura mochis and another box containing two elegantly adorned bottles.
Beside him, his wife Tina was frozen after hearing the contents, having dropped her teacup on the floor, where it shattered and spilled her favorite drink.
"First of all, thank you for the souvenirs you brought back from Japan," Newt said while still staring at the letter. "I'm also happy to hear you managed to accomplish all your goals and learned what you needed, having a mostly pleasant experience."
Barnaby added a sugar cube to a cup of tea, stirred the amber liquid with a teaspoon, and handed it to Sanshi, who was beside him. He then proceeded to pour himself a cup.
"Now, putting all that aside," Newt raised his gaze from the letter with a twitch in his eye, a defeated expression on his nearly century-old face. "Can you explain to us about this supposed attempted attack on the princess of the Japanese magical royal family, which ended with you emerging from the mouth of a giant island whale, scarred, on the beach near my house?"
Sanshi took a sip of tea, her eyes reflecting clear curiosity about the events mentioned in the letter.
"It's a funny story," Barnaby commented.
Tina and Newt gave him a look that said they didn't believe a word of it.
"Alright, alright, let's just call it a story," Barnaby didn't back down in the face of their skeptical looks and began summarizing the chain of events that led him to leave Japan in such a dramatic way. "It all started the day I went to the Occamy reserve and brought out the Mizutsune for them to play together..."
"Yes, I'll want to meet it later as well," Newt interrupted, then shrank back as Tina narrowed her eyes at him. "Please, continue," he added quietly with a gesture of his hand.
"Everything was going fine until a woman in her twenties came in and started acting like she owned the place. She seemed drawn to Mizutsune and, without thinking twice, tried to hug it and use it like a doll. But Mizutsune didn't like her sudden approach and kept pushing her away, sliding her across its foam."
"Yes, animals don't like sudden approaches, especially from strangers..." Newt murmured under his breath.
"The thing is, the woman seemed quite displeased with that, so she ordered her lackeys (or were they bodyguards?) to capture it, and naturally, I had to put a stop to that nonsense. The woman was surprised to learn that the creature wasn't part of the reserve and was mine, so she threw a check in my face and turned around while resuming her orders, demanding they put it in a cage to take it home," Barnaby shook his head in disgust at the memory. "She threw the check in my face!" he emphasized, offended. "Her behavior really irritated me, so I burned the check, stopped her men, and safely stowed Mizutsune away."
Those present were starting to get an idea of what had happened.
"Then she started spouting things like, 'Do you know who I am?' and other nonsense. I realized she was a spoiled brat with a lot of money, so I ignored her and decided to leave without saying another word."
"If that's the case, then how…?" Tina began to ask.
"I'm getting to that," Barnaby raised his hand to stop her. "The woman thought she had the right to detain me, and what followed was a small... confrontation. Fortunately, what seemed to be her butler acted as the voice of reason, and to get her to leave me alone once and for all, I gave her a gift so she wouldn't hold a grudge. Despite her lousy attitude… In fact, she should have given me something, not the other way around! And she should have apologized to Mizutsune!"
"And what did you give her?" Sanshi asked as she added more sugar to her tea.
"My famous rock cakes!" Barnaby replied with a proud expression. "Since I brought back several snacks from there, I thought, why not leave one of mine? Everything ended well when I left with Mr. Tanaka (who was sweating a lot for some reason), but for unknown reasons, then a whole bunch of people started chasing me, like, a lot, yelling something about a princess and broken teeth—a complete load of nonsense if you ask me! So, I had no choice but to leave Japan at Tanaka's emphatic suggestion, and since they were watching the ports, I called Laboon to pick me up and bring me here."
"Rock cakes, eh." Newt still had the ones Barnaby had given him last time, not knowing what to do with them.
They had become traumas for so many fierce creatures...
Well, at least everything was clear; he couldn't even be blamed for the outcomes.
"Honestly, if the Japanese have many people like the ones I saw, I feel sorry for them," Barnaby said as he stood up. "Thanks for the tea, but I need to check the land to see how Sanshi and Frieren's work has progressed, and then I'll head to Diagon Alley before I can return home."
"Aren't you worried this might become an international incident?" Tina couldn't help but ask as she used her wand to clean up the mess from her broken cup.
"No, at most, I'll just order online whenever I want something from Japan," Barnaby shrugged.
He was completely innocent of any false accusations!
Walking along the increasingly familiar path, he arrived at his property and saw that everything had been completed without too many problems. Only...
"Sanshi, didn't I say the cellar should be two hundred square meters?" Barnaby asked as he opened the oak doors that led to a staircase. "Why does it seem bigger?"
"I thought you said two thousand meters…" Sanshi admitted, rubbing one of her legs against the ground.
Barnaby didn't have the heart to scold Sanshi for an honest mistake that resulted in something larger, so he just patted her reassuringly, seeing the bright side.
"No matter, we'll just use the extra space as a storage area or something," he reassured her. "But, can you tell me what those purple bottles on the shelves are?"
"Oh, Frieren said it was an early wedding gift for you," Sanshi explained as she took a bottle and showed it to him up close. "She said it's for dissolving clothes."
Barnaby stared at the purple bottle intently.
"Why would I…? Never mind, let's just leave it as a curiosity," Barnaby decided to ignore the strange additional gift and moved on to inspect the garden, the pond, the barbecue area, and the small Quidditch field.
"Although we can't start building the house yet, Frieren and I have already laid down some strong foundations in advance," Sanshi pointed out as she showed a levelled area that covered what she hoped would be the size of the house. "Also, while I was taking care of applying the repelling and concealment magic you taught me, she added quite a few defenses around to ensure security."
"Did she say what kind of defenses?"
"No, but she gave me this scroll where she explains everything," Sanshi reached into her chest and pulled out a long parchment made of sheep leather.
"How did you…?" Barnaby hesitated and decided to drop the question; today was turning out to be a very strange day. "Let me see."
Barnaby read Frieren's notes carefully and couldn't help but raise an eyebrow when he finished.
"I need to get her a good gift when we see her again; this makes the protections on the homes of the old twenty-eight pure-blood families look like tissue paper," he commented. "And I'm talking about all of them combined. Any other surprises?"
"Hmm," Sanshi brought a finger to her lips and tilted her head as she thought. "Oh, a letter from Tonks arrived three days ago, but it was addressed to you, and since I was busy with the construction, I haven't opened it yet."
"I see, it seems I forgot to set up protections against things like owls," Barnaby mused.
Although he wasn't planning to isolate himself completely, owls made it too easy to find the place; he had to be more careful with these things.
"Since we're done here, let's head to Diagon Alley," he said as he took the letter and put it in his pocket. "It's been three days, half an hour won't make a difference."
"What for?" Sanshi asked before a look of realization crossed her face. "Is it Ollivander?"
"Yes, Mizutsune has shed its whiskers, and I thought of giving them to him this year since the new school year is approaching," Barnaby commented. "Besides, I need to stop by Gringotts for some business.
Japan is terribly expensive!"