“I try,” he said dryly.
“Tch, if you two are done getting all googly eyed at each other, then maybe you can get ready. One of our guests are waking up.”
Even as Iris spoke, the man who Kevin knocked out first stirred, groaning as his eyes slowly fluttered open. He shook his head several times, as if trying to shake off the cobwebs, then glanced around the room—at least until his eyes locked with Iris’s.
“Hello there.”
Iris grinned, her eyes glowing with dark energy. The soldier tried to struggle, to turn his head and look away from the half-naked female, but one of Iris’s tails went underneath his chin and forced him to look at her.
“Don’t look away,” Iris said in a pouty voice. The man shivered. His face became flushed and his breathing heavy. “I like it when you look at me. Please, look at me some more, won’t you?”
“O… okay…” the man mumbled, his cheeks turning red as he unabashedly stared at Iris’s chest. Kevin felt a moment of irritation, but quickly squashed it as Iris used her tail to tilt the man’s head up, so he was looking at her eyes instead of her chest. Shortly thereafter, the man’s eyes grew dim and dull, lifeless orbs filled with nothing but admiration for the creature of incomparable beauty in front of him.
“Do you mind if I ask you a question?” Iris asked.
“Not at all,” the man said in a dull voice.
“You’re too kind,” Iris chuckled as she condescendingly patted the soldier on the cheek. “How many forces do you have stationed around this hotel?”
“All five hundred of our military personnel have been stationed around the hotel…”
“So your goal was to trap us in this little spot, wasn’t it?”
“Yes…”
“Ask him about their equipment,” Kevin said.
Iris did as told, and the man readily answered.
“We’ve got mostly infantry fighting vehicles, but we also have half a dozen tanks and three attack helicopters.”
“The helicopters must be in reserve,” Kevin determined. “Otherwise we would have heard them by now.”
“They must be trying to keep this operation stealthy,” Lilian said, and Kevin nodded in agreement.
“Iris, get him to tell you where all of their forces are hiding please.”
“You’ve got it, Stud.”
As Iris went to work again, interrogating their prisoner, Kevin wandered over to the window and peeked out. It was still dark. He could barely tell the trees from the ground. Certainly, if there were military vehicles hiding out near this building, he wouldn’t be able to tell where they were.
“What do you think we should do?” Lilian asked as she walked up to stand beside him.
“I’m not sure yet.” Kevin raked a hand through his hair. “If it was just a matter of fighting our way out, then I would say we should have Iris send those four back to their comrades with bombs strapped to them, and have them detonate several seconds later to sow confusion amongst the enemy. However…”
“You’d rather not kill if you don’t have to,” Lilian finished. Kevin nodded.
There had been numerous instances in this war where he’d been forced to kill. It was the regretful consequences of being in a war; one could not fight without killing. Despite this, Kevin tried to spare his enemies whenever possible.
It had nothing to do with altruism, though Kevin would admit that he disliked killing others. The true reason Kevin—and the other members of Neo Seiryuu—killed as little as possible was more pragmatic.
Everything that began had an end, and this war was no different. What happened after it ended would be determined not just by who won, but by how much the people who didn’t win lost.
Fathers. Mothers. Sons. Daughters. Brothers. Sisters. Aunts. Uncles. Whenever a person died, someone, somewhere, lost someone important to them. In losing that important person, those people began to feel hatred toward those who took that loved one away. It was inevitable, really, that people would hate the ones who killed those that they cherished. That was why Kevin—no, all of the members of Neo Seiryuu—only killed when they were left with no other option. When this war finally ended, it would make transitioning from war to peace easier. That was their hope.
“All right, you two,” Iris’s voice rang out, causing the pair to turn around. “I’ve got all the information you wanted. You got a map, Stud?”
He glanced at his mate. “Lilian?”
At his questioning tone, Lilian pulled a large, rolled up map out of her bosoms. “I’ve got a map right here, Beloved.”
“Thank you.”
Taking the map from Lilian, Kevin spread it out on the bed. Iris pulled a sharpie out of her cleavage, and then circled a spot on the map.
“This is where we are right now,” she said before marking several spots with x marks. “These spots are where the enemy forces are located. There are also two more teams located inside the hotel. One of them is stationed by the elevator, and the other is guarding the entrance.”
“They have us surrounded,” Kevin observed as he stroked his jaw.
Indeed, the small circle representing their position was surrounded by x marks. Not only were they surrounded, but there were two different rows, which Kevin took to mean there were two lines of defense.
He looked over at Lilian, who caught his eyes and held them with her viridian gaze.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Lilian asked, grinning.
Kevin matched her grin with one of his own. “I do believe that I am.”
“Ufufufu…”
“Hehehe…”
Iris stared at the chuckling couple with an expression of annoyance. “Would you two stop laughing like a pair of idiots and let me in on the plan?”
Kevin and Lilian shared another look, further annoying Iris, before turning back to the girl and explaining their plan. By the end of it, even Iris was grinning.
“This could work,” she muttered. “You two are devious.”
“We try,” the pair said in eerie synchronicity before all three of them got to work.
***
They stood exactly fifty yards from the Sheraton Suites, a line, an army, an encirclement of soldiers and tanks. Standing around the powerful military vehicles were soldiers. Dull clothes masked their presence. Even their weapons had been spray-painted a dull black to keep them from being spotted, and the tanks themselves had several camouflage nets thrown over them.
The military was waiting. They’d sent several elite squadrons in to dispose of a group of teens. This would have normally rankled them—it did rankle them—but the trio they were after were a group of yōkai, their enemies. Still, even if they were enemies, it didn’t make this task any less distasteful.
Four figures appeared from within the entrance, walking out and striding across the road, coming closer. All of the soldiers knelt down and aimed their rifles, while the tanks’ main cannons swiveled around to face the group moving closer to them. It was only after they’d reached a certain distance that everyone relaxed. The people coming toward them were the group they’d sent into the Sheraton Suites.
“Report to Captain Develin. Tell him that one of the teams we sent in has come back.”
“Yes, sir.”
As a soldier went over to the communications officer, the soldier who’d originally spoken, a lieutenant, turned back to the group. They were getting closer.
“Report, soldiers! Have the targets been neutralized?” The soldiers said nothing. They merely kept walking. “Did you not hear me? I said report!”
The soldiers stopped several feet from the lieutenant…
“Monsutaa monsutaa! Mon mon mon mon monsutaa! Monsutaa monsutaa mon mon mon mon monsutaazu raifu!”
… and started singing and dancing.
The lieutenant plus all the other soldiers present gawked as the four they’d sent into the Sheraton Suites lined up. They raised their left hand in the air, then brought it down and raised their right hand into
the air. After that, they took a step to the left, brought their left hand up so it was near their face, then stepped right and did the same to their right hand. Both hands were then brought together to form a heart, which they moved back and forth as if to represent their beating chest.
Then there was the singing.
“Hitotsu, hitome bakkari ki ni shitenaide! Daitan ni, katsu shinchou ni taagetto o kimeru!”
No one present had any idea what they were singing. Whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t English.
The situation took a whole new turn when the two girls suddenly stripped off their clothes and threw them into the air. Many of the men howled like dogs in heat, while the other women wrinkled their noses in disgust. Blushes warred on the faces of men, while grimaces were plastered on the women. Matters only became more intense when the men followed suit, tearing off their clothing and dancing alongside the women.
As the dancing and singing became louder and even more vulgar, the commotion it caused drew the attention of the other contingents arrayed around the Sheraton Suites.
***
“It looks like your plan is working,” Iris said to Kevin and Lilian.
After locating and enchanting the other soldiers who’d been sent in to try and kill them, the group had exited through an emergency exit and made their way around to the front, where they’d witnessed the results of Iris’s enchantments.
Several dozen yards away, the soldiers that Iris had enchanted were stripping and dancing and singing the opening theme song to an anime that Lilian liked to watch. Their display also drew the attention of the other soldiers, who drew closer to see what was going on, thereby breaking the encirclement.
Kevin and Lilian were back in their bodysuits, which creaked as they moved. Iris had opted not to wear hers, something about how the suit was stifling and didn’t allow others to admire her perfection. Instead she was wearing her normal booty shorts and tube top.
“Ufufufu, they look so funny.”
“That they do. Anyway, this is our chance,” Kevin determined after several seconds of staring. “There’s a huge gap in their circle now. Let’s go before your enchantment wears off.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Iris cackled. “My enchantment will last for another hour before going away. We’re good to go there.”
“Good to know,” Kevin admitted.
“Let’s go,” Lilian said.
Darting out from behind the wall, the group quickly dashed across the street and into a thicket of bushes and trees. From there, they slowly crept through the trees until they reached the end, where several soldiers lay in wait. There were six in total. Five stood around a large tank, while the last stood in the tank’s hatch, peering at the commotion from an elevated position.
“What do you think is going on over there?” one of the soldiers asked.
“I don’t know, but it looks exciting.”
“Man, I can’t believe that hardass told us to wait here while he checked things out. That is just too cruel.”
“I hear ya.”
“Shut up, you guys! We don’t know what’s going on here, so we need to keep our eyes and ears peeled for anything suspicious.”
The other soldiers grumbled but stopped talking. Kevin turned to Lilian.
“You’re up.”
“Right.” Lilian crawled forward. “I’m gonna take care of those two on the right.”
“Okay. Then Iris and I will deal with the rest once you’ve taken care of those two.”
Lilian gathered youki into the tips of her tails, which emitted a dim light. While it wasn’t that bright, the light still attracted the attention of the soldiers, who peered into the trees with their special goggles.
“Hey, isn’t that…?”
“Kitsune Art: Illusory Sleep.”
Two tails shot out of the darkness, extending until they’d reached two of the soldiers, who were too startled to do anything as the tails touched their temples. Their eyes fluttered, knees weakening and arms going slack. As their guns clattered to the ground, the soldiers dropped like a sack of bricks.
At that moment, Kevin burst out from the tree line. While he rushed forward, Iris’s black tails used his body as cover, masking their movements before darting past him. As Kevin reached the person he’d been shooting for—a woman who couldn’t raise her rifle in time—the tails latched onto the legs of two other soldiers, lifting them off the ground and slamming them back down. Both soldiers were knocked out cold.
While that was happening, Kevin closed the distance between him and his opponent. He slapped the woman’s gun aside, took a step forward, then elbowed her in the throat. As the woman began to gag, he grabbed her arm and threw her into a soldier who’d been trying to sneak up behind him. As the woman rammed into her comrade, the two tumbled to the ground, though they quickly scrambled back to their feet.
The soldier in the tank tried to duck back down, but Lilian was already on him like a dog on a fire truck.
“Don’t use such a vulgar simile.”
Sorry.
“Tch!”
Lilian grabbed onto the man’s arms with her tail, lifted him up, and tossed him into the air. Before the soldier had time to scream, one of the two tails slammed into his head, knocking him out cold. The other caught him before he could break his neck against the tank, slowly lowering him to the ground.
The two soldiers circled Kevin. They probably wanted to trap him between them. Loosening his stance, Kevin allowed the pair to attack him. Opening a hole in his defense, he presented them with an opening they would have been foolish not to take. The two charged in, heedless of the danger.
Pulling a knife from her belt, the woman tried to stab him in the chest, but Kevin already knew it was coming. He bent his torso at an angle, smacking the woman’s forearm and knocking her weapon aside. Before she had time to retaliate, he grabbed her arm and, using her momentum against her, tossed the female over his shoulder. A wheezing gasp escaped her lips before she was knocked unconscious with a kick to the face.
He then turned back around to face the second soldier—only to see that Lilian had already taken care of him.
Kevin pouted. “That was my opponent.”
Lilian’s lips twitched into a grin, seemingly amused by his petulant expression. “You were taking too long.”
“Whatever. Come on, let’s go.”
They ran away from the Sheraton Suites and into the city. There was one other blockade that they needed to worry about, but because it was further out, Kevin was positive the army’s forces would be spread out. They should be able to slip between the cracks.
Unfortunately, Murphy had a way of screwing people over without even trying.
This particular screw up happened when Kevin, Lilian, and Iris turned a corner—
“It’s them! The targets are escaping!”
—and ran smack dab into the middle of a large contingent that was currently patrolling the surrounding area. In hindsight, Kevin should have realized that the forces further out would be on patrol to cover the gaps in their formation. That being said, with hindsight being what it was, Kevin hadn’t even contemplated the possibility of the military going on patrol—his mistake.
There was no hesitation in Kevin’s movements as he brought his guns to bear. He fired off sixteen rounds from each gun. His silver gun contained fire bullets, and they flared against the Kevlar vests, setting them alight. The other, his black gun, contained wind. Wind struck the fire, feeding the flames with oxygen and creating a powerful combustion effect. The four soldiers who were unfortunate enough to have been his targets flew backwards as an explosion tore their vests to shreds.
The other soldiers didn’t panic as they raised their guns and prepared to fire. Kevin didn’t let that stop him and ran forward.
“Extension!”
Lilian’s tail coiled around two soldiers, then yanked them forward, directly into Kevin’s clothesline. They hit the ground, unconscious before they could blin
k.
“Void Art: Nightmare Circus!”
Several soldiers screamed. Their eyes widened in horror as sights imagined paraded before them. Phantasmic images born from the insane nucleus of an uncaring world, monsters of abysmal darkness that threatened to devour them, caressing their minds and tearing away at their sanity. They dropped to the ground, screaming and trying to claw out their eyes, as if doing so would stop them from seeing the terror-inducing images.
Kevin knocked them mercifully unconscious with a swift kick to the head.
They were going to have a major migraine tomorrow morning. They’d probably also need counseling.
“Was that a new technique?” Kevin asked as they began running again.
“Yep,” Iris answered. They turned a corner and rushed down a long alleyway. “Nightmare Circus is a technique that takes whatever someone is most afraid of and implants images of it directly into their minds. It’s a strictly void technique, so only a void user can use it.”
“Huh, interesting.”
“I prefer direct confrontation myself,” Lilian commented idly.
“That’s because you read too much manga.”
Lilian stuck her tongue out at Iris as they burst out of the alley and onto the main street. There wasn’t anybody present. No cars drove down the road, nobody was walking along the sidewalk. Only the lamps were around to give the empty street life. Kevin found this a bit disconcerting, but he assumed the military had forced everyone indoors.
“Hello, Kevin,” a voice said from above.
Kevin barely had time to react when a massive ball of fire slammed into the ground to his right. As an explosion went off and heat seared his skin, Kevin tumbled across the ground, turning it into a roll and landing back on his feet. Once he was standing again, he aimed his two guns at the sky.
Three figures were floating above them. While the two on either side of the middle, a man and a woman, were only vaguely familiar to him, Kevin knew the one hovering in the center.
“Justin.” Kevin’s tone was resigned. “I knew you weren’t dead, though I didn’t think we’d meet again so soon.”
“You really should have.” Justin smiled. “After all, any time a man self-detonates, it’s usually a ruse so he can retreat and live to fight another day.”
A Fox's Alliance (American Kitsune Book 10) Page 36