CHAPTER 13
A BATTLE OF IDEALS
“Yes,” Kevin murmured softly. “I suppose that is true.”
“Yep.” Justin nodded several times. “You really should have seen this coming from a mile away, Kevin. I’m kinda disappointed that you didn’t.”
Kevin observed his former friend and his two companions. Justin, decked out in an all-black bodysuit that reminded him of a streamlined Iron Man, hovered in the air on invisible repulsors. The light seemed incapable of touching him. His entire body was covered in darkness, the strange material seeming to absorb all light within the area, like a form of protective camouflage.
His two companions floated beside him. Their armor wasn’t as advanced. Shiny chest plates, vambraces, and shin guards protected them. Beneath their armor, elastic black spandex made it look like they didn’t have bodies. Large tanks sat on their backs, attached by several straps—fuel tanks, Kevin presumed.
Unlike Justin’s armor, which seemed capable of controlling gravity itself, these two maintained their airborne state with visible jets shooting from their feet. One of them, the woman, carried a massive rifle in her arms. The other gripped two daggers that glinted with an ominous obsidian gleam.
“Lilian. Iris.” The pair switched their gazes from Justin and the two soldiers to him. “Could you please leave Justin to me? Go after the other two.”
“Beloved…” Lilian bit her lip for a moment but slowly nodded. “Okay. We’ll take care of Justin’s companions.”
Kevin looked at Iris. The girl pouted for a second, but then crossed her arms and huffed.
“Oh, fine. I suppose I can take the guy. He looks like a flake anyway.”
“Bitch!” said flake spat.
“Thank you,” Kevin said before turning back to Justin.
“Whatever.” Iris waved a lazy hand in the air. “You so owe me for this.”
Lilian fired a ball of light at her foe, the woman, who shot into the air, dodging the attack. Unfortunately for her, Lilian had hidden a second sphere behind the first one, and she flew straight into the real attack, which slammed against her armor. Kevin’s eyes narrowed when he saw how the armor didn’t receive so much as a scratch.
What sort of armor is that?
It didn’t look like anything special—aside from the obviously advanced tech being used. Yet it was clearly incredible armor. He studied the thing on her back, which he initially thought was a fuel tank for the jets.
Perhaps…
Lilian took off, bolting down the street with youki-enhanced muscles. Iris followed suit, but she went the other way. Unlike her sister, she got the man’s attention by wrapping a tail around his leg and throwing him into a wall.
“Go after them,” Justin commanded. “I’d like to settle things between Kevin on my own.”
“Yes, sir!” Jill saluted before using the jets on her feet to speed after Lilian. Jack did the same after prying himself from the wall, though he didn’t say a word or offer a salute. He seemed angry.
Several lights had turned on now. People, drawn by the commotion happening around them, peered out their windows to see what was happening. Many pointed and many more jabbered excitedly, or nervously, as they watched Justin hovering in the air like something straight out of a Marvel movie.
“Are you ready for us to settle the score, Kevin?” Justin asked, his lips twisting in amusement.
Kevin clenched his hands, fingers curling around his guns until they were shaking in his grip. He didn’t want to fight his friend. Yet that’s what was happening. War had forced him and Justin into conflict. It made him sick.
Kevin aimed both his guns at Justin—because even if he hated the idea of having to fight his friend, he hated the idea of his mate and Iris dying even more.
“There isn’t any score to settle,” Kevin said at last. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to back down when the people I love are in danger.”
“Heh, I’d expect nothing less from you,” Justin declared as the material covering his hands twisted. No longer were they a pair of hands. Instead the area where his hands should have been were now a pair of barrels, from which fire and lightning converged like the manifestation of elemental gods compressed into a miniscule tube.
Kevin felt a bead of sweat run down his neck.
Lightning crackled while fire roared.
The first shots were fired, and the sounds of battle followed soon after.
***
The chase was on.
Lilian looked over her shoulder at the woman following her. Jet propulsion systems flared underneath the woman’s feet, tiny tails of fire bursting from miniature engines of some kind. Having fought all manner of technological war machines since the war started, Lilian wasn’t surprised by this new one. She only felt a burning determination.
“Celestial Art: Chameleon Masquerade.”
Youki flowed out of her tails as she spun it around her body like she was weaving a tapestry. Light bent. Using her celestial powers, Lilian distorted the way others viewed light, moving it around her, but not letting it touch her. This made her all but invisible to human eye.
Jill took aim and fired bright yellow bullets. Lilian yelped as she was forced to avoid having a hole blown through her head. The technique she created vanished as her concentration slipped.
So, she can see through my illusion? Is that it?
Deciding to test the waters, Lilian cast another illusion, this one a technique that she implanted directly into Jill’s brain.
“Celestial Art: Perceptive Fault.”
When light enters the eye, it first passes through the cornea, then the aqueous humor, lens, and vitreous humor. Ultimately it reaches the retina, which is the light-sensing structure of the eye. The retina contains two types of cells called rods and cones. Rods handle vision in low light, and cones handle color vision and detail.
Perceptive Fault was an ocular-based illusion that distorted the cones ability to perceive light, or rather, it tricked the brain into thinking the cones in the retina could no longer perceive color.
A technique like this, while seemingly pointless as it didn’t mess with a person’s depth perception, was perfect when fighting in the middle of a dark night. Lilian’s opponent shouldn’t be able to see her anymore—as colors had disappeared—and should only be able to see in black and white.
Several veins that ran from the tank on Jill’s back glowed vibrantly before fading away. A gun went off in the night. Lilian almost squealed when it whizzed right past her ear.
How is she doing this?!
Illusions were one of the more varied techniques used by yōkai. They were techniques that affected one or more of the five senses. Touch. Taste. Sound. Scent. Sight. By sending their youki directly into their opponent’s brain, a kitsune could manipulate these senses. Humans had no resistance to it. Even Kevin was not immune to illusions. His ability to break out of them was the result of intense training to recognize and resist illusions placed on him.
There were two ways to break an illusion. Either someone did so externally by injecting youki into the body, thus neutralizing the illusion, or the person who the illusion had been cast on injured themself. The pain sent a shock to the brain, which disrupted the illusion.
This woman had not hurt herself. She’d not even taken her eyes off Lilian since this chase had started, nor had she let go of the large rifle in her hands.
Why aren’t any of my illusions working on her?!
While the question pounded in her mind, Lilian didn’t let herself get depressed. If illusions wouldn’t work, then she would just have to use her celestial techniques.
“Celestial Art: Light Sphere.”
Two spheres formed over her tails. Lilian’s tails shot forward like a trebuchet and launched them at her foe. The attacks never hit. They were dodged when the woman manipulated her limbs to perform a barrel roll, swerving around the two spheres with ease. That was fine. Lilian pulled her tails back, and the spheres instantly
reversed course, as if being drawn back to their creator. Jill didn’t even see them coming until it was too late.
Light flared briefly as the two celestial spheres burst against her back. The force of the attacks threw her forward.
Lilian expected her enemy to slam into the ground, but that wasn’t what happened. Instead of hitting the street like a doll thrown by a child having a tantrum, Jill flipped around, orienting herself so that her feet pointed at the ground, and then she used the jets to slow her descent until she landed on the black top. She didn’t remain stationary for long. The second she hit the ground, Jill fired off the jets in her feet, blasting herself straight for Lilian, who squawked and threw herself out of the way.
Several bullets whizzed by Lilian’s ear. The tips of her hair were burned as the bullets barely missed their mark, and the acrid smell of singed follicles filled her nose, causing it to wrinkle.
As Jill shot past Lilian, she spun around and fired several more rounds.
“Celestial Art: Half Barrier.”
A barrier sprang to life. Golden luminescence shone brightly in the night. The bullets, which Lilian had finally identified as lightning youki shaped like bullets, crackled against her barrier, which dispersed seconds later.
“Extension!”
Wrapping one of her tails around a lamp post, Lilian pulled herself away from the place she had been, which was a good thing because that spot became riddled with lightning bullets soon after.
“Extension!”
Lilian’s other tail shot forward and smacked Jill’s weapon out of her hand. The rifle clattered to the ground, and Lilian didn’t hesitate to close the distance.
“Celestial energy in my right tail… and more celestial energy in my left. Combine the two to create… an even bigger celestial attack! Dang it! That sounds so much cooler when Natsu says it.”
A massive ball of light hovered over Lilian’s two tails, both of which had extended far above her head, and which she didn’t hesitate to throw at her opponent.
“Celestial Art: Big Ball Sphere.”
It was like a supernova going off in the middle of the night. The sphere exploded against the ground, releasing several shockwaves that tore apart the street. Lilian had closed her eyes, lest she be blinded by her own attack. When the light died down, she saw the damage her attack had caused—a large crater several yards in diameter spanned the street in front of her, and lying in the middle of that crater was the woman, who appeared alive but unconscious.
Lilian, her breathing heavy from using up most of her youki in that last attack, wiped the sweat that had accumulated from her brow.
“Ugh, who knew my new technique would use so much youki?” she asked no one in particular.
New technique? You stole that from Natsumo Shinobi.
Lilian twitched. “No, I didn’t.”
Yes, you did. And you call yourself an aspiring manga artist.
“Shut up! All the cool technique names have been taken. I’d like to see you come up with something original.”
Don’t get upset when someone tells you the truth.
“Do you want me to Gomu Gomu you?”
Eek! I’m good!
“Then be quiet.”
…
Nodding in satisfaction, Lilian slowly clambered down the crater she’d made. It wasn’t all that deep, but the ground had been badly damaged, and loose gravel made her footing precarious. She made it to the bottom and walked over to the woman she’d defeated.
“Time to tie you up,” Lilian said to herself.
She was just about to reach into her Extra Dimensional Storage Space, when the unconscious body of her foe moved, leaping to its feet. Lilian only had a moment to realize her mistake, that her enemy had been playing possum, before the barrel of a handgun was shoved into her face.
“Say goodnight, kitsune.”
The sound of a gun going off echoed across the barren street.
***
Iris used her incredible flexibility to avoid her opponent, who lunged at her with both his knives. She bent her entire torso backward, moving into a bridge, then kicked off the ground and tried to knock the two weapons from his hand. It didn’t work like she’d hoped, but it did get him to back off.
“You’re pretty good for a vixen,” the man, who’d introduced himself as Jack, complimented her.
Standing back on her feet, Iris winked at the man. “Thanks, honey, but you haven’t seen nothing yet.”
Jack laughed. “Ho ho, now I’m really looking forward to see all that you have to offer.”
He swiped at Iris with the knife in his left hand, then tried to thrust the other knife into her chest. Avoiding the first swipe was easy, and the second was dodged when Iris used a tail to knock his arm wide. This didn’t deter her opponent, however, who came at her with several more slashing motions, which came close to tearing her clothes. Once again, Iris used a tail to keep him from getting too close, wrapping one around his leg and tossing him away. Jack flipped through the air, landing on his feet and skidding across the ground.
“Heh, it looks like I got you,” Jack said, grinning.
“What?” Iris didn’t know what Jack was talking about, until she pressed a hand to her cheek and realized she was bleeding.
This guy…
“So you have.” Iris smiled, bringing her fingers to her mouth and licking the blood from them. She then drew her fingers down her chin, her neck, and between the valley of her breasts. “But don’t get too confident because of that. I might not be as good a fighter as my lovely twin sister, but I’m no pushover either. Mess with me, and I’ll make sure that you don’t live to regret it.”
“I suppose we’ll have to see if you can back those words up,” Jack said before rushing back into battle.
Despite her words, Iris wasn’t all that confident in her ability to defeat this guy. He’d already proven capable of somehow negating her illusions, and enchantments weren’t working on him either. Those were the most powerful weapons in her arsenal. She couldn’t use the Void much since it was indiscriminate and would devour more than just him. Aside from that, they were supposed to not kill humans.
Neo Seiryuu was an alliance of humans and yōkai trying to bring peace between their two races. They understood that, in order to bring about this peace, they needed to keep killing down to a minimum. If they killed a bunch of humans, it would only cause humanities hatred of them to spread.
However, that wasn’t helping her here. Iris wasn’t a fighter. She never had been, and she never would be. It simply wasn’t in her nature. Even if Lilian dragged her onto the sparring mat every day for practice, even if she occasionally trained with her sister and the stud every so often, it didn’t change the facts. Iris had no desire to fight. In a battle, purposely holding back would only hinder someone like her.
A knife came very close to piercing her chest. Iris dodged it, barely, by using that incredible flexibility of hers. She flipped over, doing a perfect handstand as she also performed the splits. She then wrapped her legs around the arm before it could retract, while her tails caught the other arm like a pair of vices. Her plan was to use this new position to flip Jack over and slam him into the ground.
Things didn’t work out like she’d planned.
“Woah!”
Jack grunted, his muscles straining, and suddenly, Iris’s hands left the ground as she was lifted into the air. The arm then came back down, and Iris realized his intention. He wanted to smashed her face-first into the ground!
Screw… that!
Iris clenched her teeth as she reinforced her hands and arms. The pavement cracked underneath her, and she bent her arms to absorb most of the impact. Her reinforced muscles took the rest. Thin fingers clawed into the ground, and Iris used her grip on the road to lift Jack into the air and attempt to return the favor.
That bodysuit of his must have been enhancing his muscles as well. Rather than break his neck against the ground, he ripped his left arm from her tails�
�� grasp, and used it to perform a one-handed handstand. Then he pulled his other arm out from between her enhanced thighs. The next thing Iris knew was the stinging pain of a knife cutting across the bridge of her nose.
They broke apart. Iris flipped back onto her feet, while Jack leapt away from her. Lifting a hand to her face, Iris determined that the cut wasn’t serious—it wouldn’t even leave a scar.
“Void Art: Fires of Oblivion!”
Knowing that to fight someone with this much skill at hand-to-hand combat was suicide, Iris tried to use another illusion. Despite calling out the name Fires of Oblivion, the technique she used was actually a void-based illusory technique called Infernal Illusions of a Waking Horror. It used void youki to create false images. The imagery could be of anything Iris wanted, so long as it was based on void fire.
Jack didn’t even bother running away. Several veins on the strange backpack glowed briefly. Iris felt a surge of annoyance when her illusion traveled right through him and was negated. It felt like something had destroyed the youki before it could affect him.
“Illusions aren’t going to work on me,” he informed her.
“I’ve noticed,” Iris responded dryly, a small bead of sweat running down her face.
It looked like this was going to be much harder than she’d hoped.
***
Lilian glared at Jill, who glared right back. One of her tails had wrapped around the woman’s wrist, and it was only because of her tail that Lilian had avoided getting a bullet put in her head. Using the incredible strength of her reinforced tail, she tossed the woman away from her. Jill flipped through the air, using minute thrusts of her jets to regain her balance. She then landed on the ground and fired several rounds at Lilian, who avoided them by using Flash Step.
“Celestial Art: Many Sun Droplets.”
Nine spheres appeared around Lilian. Glowing gold, they buzzed forward like giant, basketball-sized gnats. Jill’s lips peeled back, revealing her gritted teeth as she dodged the many spheres. Gunfire echoed as she shot the spheres over and over again. While her handgun only fired steel bullets, if enough struck one of the spheres, it would be overwhelmed by the assault.
A Fox's Alliance (American Kitsune Book 10) Page 37