“What?!”
—only for the blades to shatter like fragile glass when they struck. Kirihime stared at her weapons, then looked up at the oni, who glared down at her with such hatred that her body froze for a single second—long enough for the oni to backhand her with its massive fist.
“Kirihime!” Lilian and Kevin shouted as their friend and maid flew through the air, crashing through several saguaro cacti before rolling across the ground like a ragdoll.
The oni tried to stalk over to Kirihime, who appeared dizzy as she sat up, her armor cracked. Kevin moved to intercept the monstrous yōkai, firing several rounds of youki projectiles at its face and the horns on its head.
“Celestial Art: World Order Distortion.”
Lilian also did what she could to help, casting an illusion on the oni. Kevin knew from sparring with her that World Order Distortion was an illusory technique that caused someone’s ability to perceive light to become distorted. It did this by intercepting the information sent from the photoreceptors in the eyes, then reinterpreted that information before sending it off to the brain, making that person think the world around them was becoming distorted.
Oni were incredibly powerful yōkai. Physically speaking, they were the strongest around. However, because all of their youki went into enhancing their physical attributes, they were highly susceptible to illusions.
Groaning, the oni fell onto its knees and held its head in its hands. Kevin didn’t hesitate to get in close and fire several rounds of projectiles at it. Unfortunately, his bullets seemed incapable of even harming it now that it was in a berserker rage. Gritting his teeth, Kevin shot its horn, which got a reaction, but not the kind he wanted.
“GRRAAAA!!!”
“Beloved!”
Kevin’s eyes widened when, without warning, the oni punched at him. The air around the fist became displaced, a visible ripple that closed the gap between them in a second. Kevin didn’t even have time to widen his eyes further before a wall of displaced air slammed into him. His chest felt like it was being caved in as he sailed backwards. He hit the ground seconds later, then rolled along the surface, kicking up dust and slamming into thorn bushes. The world around him blurred, then went white.
When he came to, Kevin realized he was lying on his back, staring at the sky. The coppery tang of blood filled his mouth and he couldn’t breath. All he knew was the pain in his chest. It hurt. A lot. Yet even as the pain threatened to send him into unconsciousness, he felt the pain being relieved.
A healing technique…
The realization made him tilt his head. Kirihime knelt beside him, her tails glowing an ethereal blue. If he looked closely, Kevin could see the tiny strands of youki traveling from her tails into his chest.
“Kirihime…” he coughed, feeling blood well up in his throat.
“Just a moment, Lord Kevin. Let me heal you before you speak.”
Kevin wanted to tell her that they didn’t have time, but when he opened his mouth, all that came out was choked gurgling. Kirihime shushed him again, and then concentrated some more. Kevin felt his bones mending, snapping back into place with a series of cracks. He soon stopped choking on his own blood.
“Lilian…” He rasped. “Where… where…?”
“She’s keeping the oni occupied,” Kirihime informed him. “It’s thanks to her that I’m able to heal you right now.”
Her words made Kevin turn his head, searching for his mate. It wasn’t easy spotting her, but it was easy to find her opponent. The oni was stomping around, rampaging like a bull with a red cloth over its eyes. It banged its fists on the ground, causing minor tremors to shake the earth and cracks to appear. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to its attacks, and it took Kevin a moment to realize why.
Illusions.
The reason he couldn’t see Lilian was because she was using an illusion to hide herself, and the reason the oni was attacking what appeared to be nothing was because it was trapped within an illusion. Lilian was using two illusions at the same time, maybe even three, if she was hiding him and Kirihime from the oni as well.
She really has come a long way.
He’d been training with Lilian for a while now, so he knew what she was capable of. That still didn’t make watching her handle the oni by herself any less impressive.
But she’s not the only one.
Kevin sat up, hacking out several globs of blood. He stood to his feet and stared at the towering monstrosity. The oni was still fighting against illusory figures. Kevin couldn’t see Lilian, but he could get a general sense of where she was based on where the oni attacked.
“We need to end this.” Kevin wiped at the blood running down his chin. “Kirihime, I need you to distract the oni for… ten seconds. Can you do that?”
“I can give you twenty, if you need it, Lord Kevin.” Kirihime stood as well, and Kevin shivered when he saw the sickly grin stretching her lips. Her eyes had become hollow shells of their former selves. “Though do not be surprised if I kill this oni myself.”
Is this what they call Yandere Mode?
As Kirihime rushed over to the oni, her body bent low to the ground, Kevin moved in the opposite direction. He didn’t know where Lilian was, exactly, but he knew that it would be away from her opponent.
“Lilian?”
“I’m here,” a voice called from his left. It was strained. Tired.
She’s running low on youki, Kevin realized. Two-tailed kitsune didn’t have much youki. They were, in fact, the weakest of the higher-tiered yōkai around. The fact that Lilian could use so many techniques was a testament to her celestial affinity. It was so high that what would take a normal kitsune several tails worth of energy, took Lilian a mere quarter of the same energy.
Kevin likened it to units. If a technique normally required ten units of power, then Lilian could cast that same technique using just two.
“We need to use that new technique we’ve been working on,” Kevin said. “It’s the only thing I can think of that will be powerful enough to put this thing down.”
“Right,” Lilian’s voice was a soft gasp.
She appeared before him, then, the illusion falling away. Sweat ran down her face and neck. He imagined she was sweating a lot inside of that bodysuit. His own body was coated in a layer of sweat.
“Ready?”
“Yes.”
Kevin holstered his black gun, then unloaded the ammo clip in his silver gun. He reached behind him and pulled another magazine into it, but this one appeared different from the others. For one thing, it was empty. For another, it had what looked like an IV drip attached to it. After inserting the clip, Kevin took the IV drip and stuck the needle end into his arm.
He breathed out. Ignoring the stinging pain in his arm, he held the gun in both hands and aimed the trigger at the oni currently trying to crush a very nimble Kirihime, who wove around the yōkai like a graceful dancer. He was impressed she could dance around her foe like that, but she was probably using minor illusions to keep one step ahead of the oni.
“Okay,” he said, “I’m ready.”
Lilian’s tails slithered around his torso, extending slowly up his arms, wrapping around them like a pair of snakes. Her arms then wrapped around his body from behind, and her soft, sweaty front pressed against his back. Kevin would’ve liked to enjoy this moment, but time was of the essence.
“This is going to hurt,” Lilian warned.
“I know.”
Lilian gripped him tighter, as if this was her way of apologizing for what she was about to do.
And then it happened.
Pain flooded Kevin’s nerves. An avalanche of agony tore through him. It felt like his heart was pumping acid through his bloodstream. Human beings were never meant to have the raw youki of a yōkai flooding through them.
Kevin clenched his teeth together until he felt blood welling up in his gums. Through the haze of pain, he could see the tube connected to his arm and the ammo cartridge glowing a red
dish-white. On the sides of his gun’s handle, a small gauge filled up.
Through numerous experiments, Kevin had discovered that human blood was an excellent catalyst for youki. He didn’t know why this was, as he wasn’t a scientist, but when injecting youki into his own blood, it created a stabilized form that, when fired from a gun, was immensely more powerful than regular youki projectiles.
He’d had Kiara convince the technicians working for Monstrang to craft him this cartridge, which allowed him to inject youki-infused human blood into the gun, where it would then be fired to devastating effect. Thus far it had proven effective against his targets. However, this would be the first time he’d used it against a living target.
Please work.
Kevin held his breath. His hands shook. His eyesight was growing weak. Darkness crept at the edges and blurs entered his vision. He blinked, eyes focusing on the large shape in front of him, a grayish series of blobs that he believed was the oni. A much smaller figure darted between the blob’s legs. Kirihime. Gnashing his teeth together, Kevin forced his hands to still. He inhaled once, took aim…
… and then he pulled the trigger.
A glowing red beam surrounded by a golden halo of energy lanced out of his gun, the air combusting, sizzling and crackling as if it was on fire. It struck the oni in the head, passing straight through the yōkai’s cranium and moving out the other side, where it continued to pass through several cacti like they were made of soggy paper. The oni stood stalk still, an unmoving statue until, like a video game character without a skeleton system, it collapsed into an unmoving heap on the ground.
Kevin slumped forward onto his hands and knees. Lilian, unable to support herself after putting all of her youki into their collaboration attack, went down with him.
“Ha… ha… urg…”
Blood pounded in Kevin’s ears. Everything was fuzzy. White spots appeared before his eyes, like static from a television.
“L-Lilian…?”
“I’m… I’m here…”
Kevin shifted until he was sitting down, legs spread out. Lilian sat down with him, sitting on his lap, her head resting against his shoulder. He used one arm to keep from falling, though it shook from the aftershocks of pain. The other he wrapped around Lilian, who was also shaking as she took several deep breaths.
Kirihime walked up to the pair, tired, but not to the same extent as him and Lilian.
“Lady Lilian. Lord Kevin. Are you two all right?”
“We… fine…” Kevin said between lungfuls of breath. Lilian didn’t even say that much. “Oni… is it…?”
“It’s dead,” Kirihime assured him.
Kevin closed his eyes. That was another life he’d taken.
He didn’t regret killing that oni. It had gone after a bunch of children. It had threatened to kill those children. It had nearly killed his friend. Someone like that, a monster who would willingly and gladly kill innocent people, couldn’t be allowed to live. The only thing Kevin felt regret for was the act itself. He still despised it when he was forced to take a life.
“Can you two move?” asked Kirihime.
“I think so,” Kevin grunted as he and Lilian climbed to their feet, using each other as support. They clung to each other, their bodies leaning into the other’s like they would fall over if the other person wasn’t there to support them. Kevin could feel the way his legs shook from the effort of standing, and he knew that Lilian was experiencing the same.
“There.” Lilian wrapped her arms tightly around Kevin, her left cheek pressing against his right. “We’re up.”
A rather large drop of sweat rolled down the left side of Kirihime’s face as she looked between the two, her expression uncertain.
“Well, if you two say so,” she said at last.
“We do say so,” Kevin and Lilian replied together.
“Very well, then. Let us get going, shall we? I’m sure Mack is getting tired of waiting for us.”
With a loud groan, Kevin and Lilian followed Kirihime back to their vehicle.
CHAPTER 11
NEW WORLD ORDER
Kevin and Lilian stood on the street in front of Lindsay’s house. Standing by their side was Lindsay’s friend Jessica, and directly in front of them was none other than Lindsay herself.
The two of them had been waiting for him and Lilian when they’d returned from their battle with the oni. Both had been suitably horrified by their disheveled appearance. While Jessica had quietly gawked at them, Lindsay had asked them all kinds of questions about their physical health and if they needed any help. It had gotten to the point where Kevin seriously considered ball gagging her—too bad he didn’t have a ball gag.
I’m sure Iris does, though.
Lindsay’s sniffling made Kevin snap out of his thoughts. The girl was staring at the three of them: him, Lilian, and Jessica. She looked seconds away from bursting into tears.
“So, this is it then,” the tomboy said. “You two are really leaving? Going back to wherever you disappeared to?”
“Ah-hahaha, you say that like we’re never going to see each other again.” Lilian, ever the cheerful one, presented the girl with her most stunning smile. “We’ll definitely all see each other again, so try not to look so depressed, okay?”
“Right.” Lindsay wiped her eyes of the tears that had gathered in them. “You’re right. I’m sure we’ll see each other again.” Even as she said this, her eyes shifted to Kevin. “I expect you to take good care of my friend and her parents for me, you hear?”
“I gotcha.” Despite his desire to head home and hit the sack, Kevin had enough strength to grin and pound a fist into his chest. “Don’t you worry about a thing. You can count on Lilian and me to take care of your friend.”
“Mm. I’m entrusting her to you. I… I…”
Had Kevin not been expecting it, he would have been bowled over when Lindsay slammed into his chest and began sobbing. He guessed she’d been holding her emotions in all this time, ever since she’d nearly been killed by that oni, or perhaps even before then. Not knowing what else to do, he hugged her back and allowed her to stain his outfit with her tears.
“S-sorry,” Lindsay muttered after nearly a full two minutes of crying. She took a step back, her cheeks burnished with crimson.
“Nah, it’s okay.” Kevin waved her apology off.
Lilian rubbed her cheek and sighed. “We should probably get going. You be careful too, okay? You might be a human, but I don’t know what the Sons and Daughters of Humanity will do once they learn you’re friends with yōkai.”
Lindsay nodded at her. “Don’t worry. I will.”
“Good.” Lilian pulled Lindsay into a hug, and even went so far as to wrap her tails around the blond tomboy. Lindsay returned the hug, burying her face in the redhead’s bosoms. Kevin couldn’t say for sure, but he thought his soccer playing friend spent a bit more time in Lilian’s arms than his—or maybe saying she spent more time in Lilian’s cleavage was a better way of putting it.
He shook his head, dispelling the odd thought, and turned to Jessica.
“Are you ready to go?”
“Ah, um, y-yes.” Jessica nodded, looking down at her feet in a very timid fashion. He didn’t let that bother him. Jessica had always been kind of timid.
Several more hugs were passed around before Kevin and Lilian directed Jessica back into the Hummer.
As they took off down the road, Kevin looked out of the backdoor window to see Lindsay standing in the driveway, crying. He watched her until she faded into the distance.
***
Justin knocked on the door to Commander Paine’s office. After hearing the commander’s gruff call of, “Enter!” he opened the door and stepped inside.
Commander Paine was sitting in his chair, reading several documents. Justin walked forward until he stood directly in front of the desk. He snapped off a smart salute, then waited for the commander to respond.
“At ease,” the gruff commander grunted. Just
in lowered his hand and shifted his stance to one that was more comfortable. “Report.”
“Everything went exactly as you expected, sir,” Justin started. “Monstrang’s group came to rescue all the students at the various schools that were being held hostage. Our forces are officially tracking them via satellite. We’ll have the location to all their bases of operation soon.”
“Good. Come with me, Verräter.”
“Sir.”
Commander Paine stood up and stepped around his desk, past Justin, and to the door. Justin trailed after him, not letting the commander know that he wasn’t thinking about the coming operation.
I wonder if I’m gonna see Kevin again. That would be nice.
***
Altogether it took about an hour to get back to base.
After leaving Lindsay’s house, Mack drove them to Jessica’s, where they picked up the girl’s parents. While neither of them were keen on abandoning their home and life, both were smart enough to sense the change that was coming. They knew they couldn’t stay there.
Kevin and Lilian had introduced themselves. Jessica’s parents seemed surprised to know that a human had willingly mated with a kitsune. He guessed it was because of the current turbulent climate.
When they arrived back at base, it was to be greeted by a worried group of kitsune. Kotohime stood in front, a welcome smile on her face. Iris, dressed in a pair of skimpy booty shorts and a black tube top that only covered her breasts, rushed forward and engulfed her sister in a hug. Lilian returned the gesture. Meanwhile, Camellia, wearing a white sundress, also rushed forward, her arms extended wide as if to engulf them all in a hug.
“Hawa! Kiri-Kiri! Lilian! Kevin-kyu—HAWA!”
“M-Mom!” Lilian shouted in shock as Camellia tripped and slammed into Kevin.
His vision went white as his head smacked against the floor, then it went dark. At first, Kevin thought he’d fallen unconscious, but then he realized that he wasn’t unconscious. If he had been knocked out, he wouldn’t have been able to think rationally like this.
So, then, what is…?
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