Kotohime almost sighed. While she had nothing against humanity, there were many who she took issue with. People like this woman, clearly jealous of her inhuman beauty, bothered her immensely. She probably thought Kotohime planned on stealing Abercio who, knowing him as she did, was likely sleeping with this woman.
Her dark eyes bored into the woman’s green ones, power flowing through them as she cast a minor enchantment.
“You will inform Abercio-san that Kotohime has arrived to speak with him on behalf of Pnév̱ma Delphine-denka.”
“Of course.” Eyes now glazed over, the woman pressed a button and began talking into her headset. “Abercio-san? Kotohime has arrived to speak with you on behalf of Pnév̱ma Delphine-denka.”
Kotohime almost giggled in amusement when the woman said “Pnév̱ma Delphine-denka.” She had almost forgotten that enchanted humans often quoted what the one who did the enchanting told them to repeat verbatim. How amusing.
The woman hung up the phone. She stared at Kotohime with her dull green eyes.
“He will see you now.”
“Ara, thank you for being such a great help.”
Kotohime didn’t bothering listening as the young woman tried giving directions. She instead marched straight up the stairs and ascended to the top floor. She could have taken the elevator, but she disliked using elevators. They made her feel lazy. After arriving on the top floor, she found herself in a large office that doubled as a suite. Extravagant and posh. Gaudy and ostentatious. The room reminded her that most male kitsune preferred living in opulence.
A large desk sat before the wall farthest from her. It was every bit as expensive as the rest of the room. Behind the desk sat a large window that spanned the entire wall, allowing her to view the expansive cityscape laid out before her. Sitting behind that desk and before that window was a man, his hair long and silver, eyes the color of emeralds. He was handsome, undoubtedly, but there was an arrogance about him, a sense of superiority in his posture that she often found revolting.
The man looked up as she walked in. Kotohime disliked the leering smile on his face.
“Kotohime!” His warm greeting was ruined by the lecherous twisting of his lips. “You should have told me that you were coming. I would have prepared for your arrival. How have you been?”
Pleasantries. She almost snorted. Kotohime hated pleasantries, at least with people she didn’t like.
“Abercio-san,” Kotohime spoke with feigned patience, “I am not here to make inane pleasantries with you. I come here bearing news from Pnév̱ma-denka and subsequent orders for you.”
Rather than become angered by her harsh rebuttal, the fox before her seemed to become overjoyed. His eyes sparkled like two stars and the smile he wore spoke of complete, utter, contentment.
Kotohime tried to ignore the way he shuddered in bliss. She didn’t want to know. She really didn’t.
“You are just as harsh as I remember you to be.” The man leaned back in his seat, forearms placed against the edge of the desk, fingers interlocked. “I am guessing this news you speak of is the attack that happened on the Pnév̱ma territory and the betrayal of our clansmen?”
Kotohime was not surprised that he already knew of the events that had transpired.
“You are well informed.”
“I keep an ear to the ground,” he agreed. “I am always interested in knowing how my family is faring.” He paused for a moment, collecting his thoughts. “Is the reason you’re here to test my loyalty?”
“No.” Kotohime shook her head. “Your loyalty was never in question. I am merely here to relay orders handed down from Pnév̱ma-denka.”
“Good to know.” The man shifted in his seat, leaning forward and placing his chin on top of his hands. “In that case, I suppose the next question would be: what orders does Mother have for me?”
Kotohime sighed as she began explaining the orders in great detail. This was going to take a while.
CHAPTER 3
MIDNIGHT ESCAPE
It was nighttime when Lilian decided to make her escape.
Ever since she’d arrived in this Inari-forsaken place, she’d been confined to a single room. That the room she happened to be imprisoned in contained Jiāoào, the two-tailed kitsune who’d harbored an obsession with her since their first meeting, only made things worse.
She glared at the two-tailed brat, whose blank eyes stared at nothing in return. The boy didn’t even seem to register her presence, hadn’t even glanced her way once since she had arrived—to the best of her knowledge. Lilian didn’t know whether to feel insulted or not, but she had decided not to bother worrying about some brat that she’d been unwillingly stuck with.
She gazed out of the circular window. Moonlight spilled onto her from above. A million stars sparkled like tiny diamonds in the night sky, motes of white canvassed across a sea of velvet.
After the Bodhisattva left, Lilian had immediately begun planning her escape. The door had been locked, which she had suspected before even trying to open it. Only an idiot didn’t lock the door where they were keeping a prisoner hostage.
She’d thought about using Jiāoào as a hostage herself and forcing them to let her go, but soon realized the stupidity of such an act. The Bodhisattva would not have let her stay with his son if he believed that she was a threat. Lilian was sure that, should she try to use Jiāoào as a hostage to escape, she would be killed before making it ten feet out of the palace. She would probably be killed the moment she touched Jiāoào inappropriately.
Hostage taking was out.
After that she had searched for a secret passage. Every cliché super villain living in a big ass mansion had a secret passage. Or ten. Or ten thousand. It was practically a requirement for antagonists to have them.
The Bodhisattva’s mansion did not have any secret passages—at least, none were present in this room. She wondered about that for a little while, but then moved onto her next plan. She called it: Operation Rapunzel.
Lilian looked proudly at her latest creation, the long thread of blankets, pillow cases, tapestries, and curtains that curled in a circle on the floor in front of her. She’d spent the past two hours painstakingly tying the fabrics together, forming a long rope that she planned on using to descend from this prison.
“If that jerk thinks he can make me a prisoner, then he’s got another thing coming,” Lilian muttered to herself.
She grabbed one end of the cloth rope and tied it to a leg of the canopy bed. She then grabbed the rest of the cloth rope in her arms, walked over to the window, and dropped the bundle out. Without checking its length, Lilian climbed onto the windowsill and tested to see whether the makeshift robe would hold her weight, also making sure it wouldn’t come undone while she climbed down.
Are you sure this is a good idea?
“Of course I’m sure this is a good idea,” Lilian said. “It’s my idea, so it has to be a good one.”
That’s what makes this so worrying.
“Oh, whatever.” Lilian scowled cutely. “This is going to work.”
It is clearly not going to work. Everybody knows that the Bedsheet Ladder never works.
“I think you’re just being pessimistic.”
More like being realistic. First off, have you even tested the rope to see if it’s the proper length to reach the bottom? And what about the guards? They might see you.
“If the rope isn’t long enough, then I will just use my tails to climb the rest of the way,” Lilian declared confidently. “And I wouldn’t worry about the guards. Everybody knows the Guards Must Be Crazy. Being a guard for an evil overlord is a low-status, low-paying, high-risk job in an unsafe work environment, with very little long-term job security. No one working a job like that is going to be the sharpest kit in the litter. I bet they could be fooled by tricks that even an average six-year-old can see through.”
If you say so.
“I do say so. Now be quiet and let me enact my escape.”
…
Lilian slowly descended the ladder. Her sandal-covered feet slipped against the unnaturally smooth surface of the wall. Her hold on the rope tightened to the point where the blood drained from her fingers. She managed to regain her purchase, but nearly slipped again when she started trying to descend once more.
“I wonder if I could stick to the surface by sending youki to my feet?”
Won’t work.
“Eh?” Lilian complained. “Why not?”
Different world mechanics. Youki isn’t chakra, you know? Or maybe it’s just because you’re not a ninja. Who knows. The only thing that matters is that it won’t work.
“Whatever,” Lilian grumbled and began traveling down at an even slower pace. Her feet still slipped, but she kept a careful grip on the rope, so she wouldn’t fall. “I think you just want to avoid copyright issues… cheapskate.”
What was that?
“Nothing.”
Lilian eventually reached the end of the rope. She looked down the rest of the way and saw that she hadn’t even covered half of the distance between her and the ground. Her tails couldn’t extend that far.
“Just how tall is this stupid tower anyway?”
She observed the area around her some more. The chilly night air hit her fair skin. Goosebumps broke out on her flesh. Lilian tried not to shiver, as she believed that doing so might make her slip some more, and she really couldn’t afford to do that. Another glance down revealed a lot of grass and a bed of flowers underneath. Maybe she could jump into the bed of flowers and use it to cushion her fall…
Won’t work.
“Oh, shut up. It could work. It works all the time in anime.”
This isn’t an anime.
“Well, it should be,” Lilian mumbled to herself.
The longer she continued standing there in the frigid night air, the more indecisive she became. She couldn’t go back up. She wouldn’t. To do so would be like signifying her defeat, and she refused to let this small setback defeat her. She hadn’t given up when chasing after Kevin’s heart. Now he was her mate. If she could spend over a month chasing after the boy she loved, then she could do this.
She glanced around some more before finding something that might be able to help her get down. While the ground was farther than she would have liked it to be, the roof of the main building was about parallel with her. There was around a fifteen or maybe twenty-foot distance between her and it. However, if she could swing herself onto the roof, then she could climb down one of those big Corinthian columns Mulan-style.
Taking a deep breath, Lilian began rocking her body left and right. Then she began lightly swinging to build momentum. She slipped several times, but kept at it, getting a feel for the action and the traction between her feet and the wall. Once she felt confident in herself, she reinforced her legs with youki, jumped several feet to the left, burst across the wall in a fast-paced sprint until she had reached the maximum length her makeshift rope could give her, and then kicked off the wall and let go of the bedsheet ladder.
She tumbled through the air like a graceless acrobat who’d had a few too many drinks. Her body flipped around, out of control, spiraling like a dreidel that had been thrown with little care. She reached the roof, nearly gasping when her back smashed into the red tiles. Her body bounced once, twice, stopped, and then began rolling down the side reminiscent of a child rolling down a grassy hill.
Reinforcing her fingers, Lilian stabbed them into thick brick tiles, perforating the tiles as a knife might impale a loaf of bread. Her descent halted, but the impact was jarring. Lilian clenched her teeth as the sockets in her arm were set ablaze with brief but intense pain. It was nothing she couldn’t handle; she’d felt worse before, but it still hurt. However, her actions also halted her downward momentum, keeping her from falling to a painful death.
Slowly, carefully, she pulled herself up, using muscles that had been worked out by Kotohime for the past several months. She’d never been more grateful that she’d asked for her maid to help train her. She didn’t even need to use reinforcement.
It didn’t take long for her to shimmy over to one of the columns. She wiggled down the side until she could grab onto the column’s lip.
Now hanging from the column, dangling like a fish on a hook, Lilian used extension. Her two tails elongated, coiling around the column from opposite sides like a pair of snakes. They met on the other side, entwining around each other, embracing like long lost lovers. She took a deep breath and prepared for what came next.
She tentatively let one hand leave the column’s lip, grabbed onto her tail, then took her other hand off. Almost immediately, Lilian found herself sliding down. Gritting her teeth, she dug her heels in both figuratively and literally, and reinforced both her legs and tails with as much youki as she could. Her feet dug into the hard marble surface. Trench-like abrasions appeared along the column’s length. By the time her downward momentum ceased, she was nearly halfway down the column.
A loud sigh drifted through her ears as she exhaled. That had been way too close for comfort. Still, she’d done it. All she had to do now was climb the rest of the way down and sneak out of the mansion. Simple.
Doing what she saw Mulan do in that Disney movie she’d watched a few months back, Lilian shimmied down the column, her tails looped around the thick shaft like a sling. She went down one foot at a time, her movements slower than a snail. Careful. Cautious. Her trip down took an agonizing amount of time, seemingly lasting forever, when in truth it only took her a few minutes to reach the bottom. When her feet did set down on the marble tiles, the relieved gust she unleashed echoed ominously loud within the hall.
Had she known what would happen if she let out so much noise, perhaps she would have done her best to hold it in.
She started walking down the hall, her back pressed against the wall as she slinked along like an actor from a bad spy movie. She reached the corner and was just about to peek around to see if anyone was there. That chance was taken from her when someone else walked out from around the corner first.
“I’m just going to check it out real quick,” he said to someone behind him. “I could have sworn I heard someone making noise over… here…”
The two-tailed kitsune dressed in the red and yellow robes of a Taoist monk blinked at her. Lilian blinked back. He then raised a finger to point at her, his mouth opening to scream.
Lilian slammed her youki-reinforced head into his nose.
The sound of cartilage breaking under the brutal and sudden assault was followed by the kitsune dropping like a sack of flour—or like a man who’d just been headbutted in the nose. Either way, he was down for the count, and Lilian didn’t waste a second. She turned around and quickly ran down the other way. She was just in time, too, because seconds later the person who’d spoken to the kitsune before ran up to check on his companion who’d she’d dropped like yesterday's garbage.
“Are you okay, Chang? Chang, speak to me!”
Lilian bolted down a random corridor, her movements, reinforced with youki, swifter than the wind.
Unfortunately, she ended up running into another person dressed as a Taoist monk, a female this time, one who’d decided to go all the way and shave her head. The two stared at each other for the longest time. Lilian made the first move.
“Extension.”
Before the woman even had time to shout, two tails slammed into her jaw. The woman might as well have received an uppercut from Mike Tyson. She flew into the air, her back arching painfully, and then slammed into the ground. She was still awake, however, still conscious. And she made a concerted effort to climb back to her feet.
“Extension.”
Lilian wouldn’t let her. The tails extended once again. Lilian raised them into the air and entwined them together. Then she slammed them down on the woman’s stomach like a mallet. Blood and bile shot from the bald chick’s parted mouth, along with all of the oxygen in her lungs. Her eyes rolled into the back of her sockets. Her body
twitched once, twice, then went still, save for the rise and fall of her chest that let Lilian know she was alive.
Lilian’s tails retracted as she wiped the sweat from her brow.
“Whew, that was too close.”
“Hey, what’s with all the ruckus over here?” Another Taoist monk kitsune stepped into the corridor. “Don’t you know what time it is? You’re supposed to be—” his eyes widened when he saw who was standing before him “—PRISONER! THE PRISONER HAS ESCAPED!”
Lilian released several foul expletives as she launched a tail at the man. This one, a three-tails, didn’t go down upon her first attack like the other two. He dodged her tail attack, showing that he had more combat experience than they did.
“Don’t think such a basic attack is going to work on—”
His words were cut off when Lilian’s second tail, which had a sphere of celestial youki hovering over the tip, slammed into his face—tip first.
“Celestial Art: Sphere of Light.”
A bright flash emitted between her tail and the Taoist guard. A ring of celestial energy was unleashed. The explosion that followed sent the man soaring backwards, blasting away like a baseball hit by Koharu Hotta. Lilian didn’t wait to see where he landed. She turned and raced down the only route she saw available.
Footsteps began congregating around her. Shouts echoed along the walls. They were after her now, she knew, just like she knew that she couldn’t let them catch her.
Lilian soon learned that the Bodhisattva’s palace was like a maze. There was seemingly no end to the amount of turns one could take. Several times she actually ended up looping around and found herself standing in a hallway that she’d already been in. Those times a guard almost caught her, and it was only quick thinking on her part and some anime-inspired attacks that let her escape with only a few scrapes and bruises.
She had no idea how long she’d been running, but Lilian soon began to feel the strain. Even though she hadn’t used much youki, trying to conserve whatever she could, her body was beginning to tire from constantly using reinforcement in short bursts.
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