“DAMN YOU!”
Another woman came in, her blond hair whipping about her face like frenzied snakes. She rushed at him from the left, hoping to take advantage of his blind spot.
He ducked under her initial attack. He stretched out his left and slid into her instep, halting the woman in her tracks. Then he latched onto her black leather jacket. With a grunt of exertion, using her forward momentum and the power in his arms and legs, he tossed her over his shoulder. The sound of her back hitting polished wooden planks was akin to a mallet smacking sashimi. The sound of all the air leaving her lungs reminded him of a vacuum in reverse. A swift kick to the temple while she was still grounded knocked her out.
While the women he fought proved little challenge by themselves, they weren’t alone. One-on-one, maybe even three-on-one, Kevin would have no trouble defeating them. However, these women were many. They were legion. Against such a massive group, he stood little chance of victory.
Already his breath was growing heavy. Pants escaped from dried lips as he continued being forced back. Sweat poured down his face and into his eyes, stinging them. His sundress clung to his skin, soaking wet as he strained his muscles to keep up with the massive group of women attacking him from all sides. Before long, Kevin found himself pressed against the edge of the ship, surrounded and far from the help of his allies.
The sea of women suddenly parted down the middle. Kevin warily eyed the woman walking toward him. Felia seemed to have calmed down now that he was on the ropes. She stalked forward, her gait reminding him of a serpent set to attack. Everything from the alluring sway of her hips to her delicate, feminine steps seemed to enhance the aura of deadly intent pouring from her like black miasma from an evil jinn. Dark reptilian eyes stared at him from beneath a curtain of writhing hair.
Kevin glared at the woman who glared right back, refusing to back down.
“Have you forced these women into doing your bidding?” he asked through gritted teeth. The woman, all of the women, recoiled as if struck.
Felia’s expression took on a truly terrifying quality. “You dare to suggest that I would use my powers to manipulate such beautiful, innocent women, you fiend?” she hissed, and Kevin saw a forked tongue flicker out of her mouth in anger. “I cannot believe your gall!”
So this woman wasn’t controlling these other women through some form of mind control? That was good to know… maybe.
“You can’t blame me for thinking that.” Kevin used the small lull in combat to get his breathing back under control. “Anyone would think that after they saw the way you ordered these women around.”
“That’s just like you men.” Felia practically spat out the word “men” like it was poison. “You’re always assuming the worst in others.”
“And how is that any different from you?” Kevin fired back, absently reaching behind him. He could feel his guns hidden within the small makeshift holster he’d made for them. “You always assume the worst in men, don’t you? You believe all of us are violent, perverted pigs, right? How is that any different?”
“It is different because unlike you, I have proof that men are evil.” Felia gestured at the women surrounding them. “Almost all of the women you see before you are girls who’ve been abused by men. I help these women by taking them in and sending them to shelters for abused women. This ferry you are standing on is but one of my many operations to help protect women who’ve been injured mentally and physically by a male.”
“Just because there are men who abuse women doesn’t mean every man abuses women.” Kevin shook his head, sweat flying off of him. “You can’t lump us all in together like that. It would be like saying every yōkai is an evil, violent, self-serving tyrant who uses humans for their own purposes just because they can.” His fierce blue eyes narrowed at the woman, who blinked in shock. “But that’s not true, is it? Sure, there are some yōkai who use humans, but there are others who help humans. Don’t go around accusing every man of being an abusive jerk when you haven’t met every man on the planet yet.”
Felia hissed. “Shut up, you filthy, disgusting pig! I’m not going to listen to you! Now die!”
If Kevin had known beforehand what Felia was, he might not have been hit by her first attack. He didn’t know, however, and because of that, when something shot out from underneath her red dress, it smacked him in the chest with force reminiscent of a rocket launching into space. He didn’t even have time to gasp in pain before his back struck the metal rail, denting it.
He fell to his knees, gasping and clutching his chest. Each breath he took caused sharp jolts of agony that traveled straight to his brain like electric currents. He didn’t know if anything had been broken, but his ribs certainly felt like they’d been crushed.
Looking up at the woman, his teeth grit, Kevin saw the appendage that had attacked him: a scaly white tail that reminded him of a snake. The woman, Felia, no longer stood on two legs. The tail slithered out from underneath her dress, the tip writhing with a mind of its own. No longer confined to her human form, she towered nearly two yards over him, her dress torn from the girth of her snake-like form.
“N-naga…”
“Close.” Felia’s voice sounded much more snake-like now that she was in her true form. She spoke with a soft, sibilant hiss, her forked tongue flicking out between sharp teeth. “I’m actually a nure-yomejo, a race of sea serpents and servants of Princess Kiyo.”
Once Felia mentioned Princess Kiyo, Kevin nearly groaned. Now it all made sense. He knew well the story of Princess Kiyo. Long ago, during the reign of Emperor Daigo, a young priest named Anchin traveled from Mutsu to Kumano on a pilgrimage. Every year he made the journey, and every year he would lodge at the manor of the Masago no Shōji family. He was incredibly good-looking and caught the eye of Kiyohime, the manor lord’s daughter. Anchin joked to her that if she behaved herself, he would marry her and take her back to Mutsu.
Every year she waited for Anchin to come again for his pilgrimage. When she finally came of age, she reminded him of his promise and asked him to marry her. Anchin, embarrassed that she had taken his promise seriously, lied that he would come for her upon completing his pilgrimage. On his return, however, he avoided the Masago no Shōji manor and headed straight for Mutsu.
When Kiyohime heard of his deception, she became overcome with grief. She ran after the young priest, barefoot, determined to marry him. Anchin fled as fast as he could, but Kiyohime caught him on the road to the Dōjō-ji temple. There, instead of greeting her, Anchin lied again. He pretended that he didn’t know her. Kiyohime’s sadness turned into furious rage. She attacked the lying priest. Anchin prayed to Kumano Gongen to save him, and a divine light dazzled Kiyohime’s eyes and paralyzed her body, giving him just enough time to escape.
Kiyohime’s rage exploded—the divine intervention pushed her over the edge. She transformed into a giant, fire-breathing serpent. When Anchin reached the Hidaka River, he paid the boatman and begged him not to allow his pursuer to cross. Then, he ran to Dōjō-ji for safety. Ignoring the boatman entirely, Kiyohime swam across the river after him.
Seeing the monstrous serpent, the priests of Dōjō-ji hid Anchin inside of the large, bronze temple bell. However, Kiyohime could smell Anchin inside. Overcome with rage and despair, she wrapped herself around the bell and breathed fire until the bronze became white hot. She roasted Anchin alive inside the bell. With Anchin dead, the demon Kiyohime threw herself into the river and drowned.
That was how the legend went. He didn’t know how much of what he knew was true, however, as everything he learned about Kiyohime came from anime. Still, most anime based on historical Japanese legends held at least a modicum of fact—at least, as far as the legend itself was concerned. If this woman was, indeed, a servant of Kiyohime, Princess Kiyo, then her hatred of men made all too much sense.
I am so screwed, Kevin thought to himself as Felia raised up to her full, intimidating height, her fangs bared and ready to tear into him like a horde of en
raged orcs.
***
The first thing that Kevin learned about fighting against a nure-yomejo was that he shouldn’t underestimate their speed just because of their size.
Felia was huge, a giant half-snake, half-human creature with a long, boneless body covered in white scales. He couldn’t estimate her length, but it had to be at least over six yards long. When not using her tail’s length to increase her height, the prehensile appendage could swipe at him from incredible distances, meaning it was nearly impossible to get in close.
The second thing he learned was that her tail was fast. Incredibly fast.
Kevin rolled along the floor once more, the giant tail descending on the spot he’d been standing like the fist of an angry god. Wood panels shattered under the assault, showering him in splinters as he landed back on his feet.
“Stay still, you damn, dirty male!” Felia’s hissing voice spat out the words like a snake spitting venom.
“Why does every yōkai I fight say that?” Kevin questioned out loud in honesty curiosity. “Seriously, it’s like you guys actually expect me to stay still just because you demanded that I do. I don’t get it.”
Felia’s answer was to swipe at him with her tail. Kevin hopped over the swipe like a hurdler. The tail came back, horizontally this time, as he landed on his feet, and he was forced to fall flat on his stomach, lest the giant appendage slam into his back.
The women had all stopped fighting him, determined to leave his defeat to Felia. Instead they had taken to joining their comrades in fighting against Phoebe and the other yama uba, who were beginning to tire out.
Phoebe had already worked up quite the body count. A pile of groaning, moaning females surrounded her; a wall of human flesh; a fortress made of blood and bone and muscle and skin. All of them appeared to be alive, thankfully, as he didn’t want any deaths on their hands. She wove her way around the battlefield, somehow keeping herself from tripping over the bodies in her path. Each swing of her club clocked someone across the head, knocking them for a loop and sending them to the floor in blissful catatonia.
Her red hair whipping around her body like tendrils of fire, Euryale moved with a dancer’s grace, taking down her targets with methodical ease. Unlike Phoebe, she fought bare-handed. Her hands were shaped into knife edges, and she used them to great effect. They struck nerve clusters and throats in equal measure, clogging air passages and discombobulating people by screwing up their nervous system. Many attacking females went down because they weren’t smart enough to stay away from her.
With a spear as her weapon of choice, Polydora had the greatest reach. The long, pole-like weapon spun in her hand, a dizzying blur of polished wood. She didn’t strike with the sharp end, didn’t impale her victims upon the hardened razor of steel, which Kevin was thankful for. Instead, she attacked with the flat end. Her spear knocked foes to the ground in large sweeps, the shaft spinning around her body as she twirled it about like a fire dancer did batons.
Menippe used a club, much like Phoebe. However, where the chieftess was the personification of grace and elegance, she epitomized brutality at its finest. Her swings were like wrecking balls smashing against a building. There was no subtlety to her movements. No grace. She swatted women away like flies. For every swing of her club, someone went soaring through the air, only to crash onto the wooden planks with a sickening thud.
Kevin didn't see Thoe at first, not until he noticed her slipping through the horde of women. Unlike the others, she used stealth to attack her assailants. She snuck up behind them, knocked them unconscious with a swift jab to the neck or temple, and then moved on to the next victim. What the hell? Was she a ninja or a yama uba?
“You’re awfully slippery for a human, boy, but you’re not the only one who is slippery.”
Felia hissed as she lunged at him. That proved to be a mistake on her part. Like all yōkai, Felia had the instincts of a hunter, and all hunters went for the throat, the weakest part of the body. The unguarded part. When he presented her with an opening, she, in her frustration, took it, seeking an end to their confrontation.
“GRAA! MY NOSE! YOU BROKE MY NOSE!”
The woman reared back, shrieking in pain, thrashing in surprise laced with agony. Blood poured from her nose, which had been on the receiving end of the weapon case that Kevin had swung at her with all his strength. She hadn’t even seen the object coming until he’d already slammed it into her nose.
“It’s just as I thought.” Kevin narrowed his eyes. “You might be extremely powerful, and your body might be stronger than that of a human’s, but the human part of your body is still vulnerable just like ours is.”
“Damn you! Damn you, damn you, damn you!” Felia’s shrieking grew more deranged by the second. “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you dead!”
She attacked him with renewed vigor. Her tail came in faster than before. It also didn’t limit itself to strictly linear movements. Kevin soon realized that her tail was far more flexible than he’d initially judged it to be. He found himself being attacked from all sides, from every angle. It came in, lashing at him with speeds that he couldn’t follow, from directions that he could scarcely comprehend. It cut the air, the wind providing little resistance.
Kevin’s ability to avoid certain death came only thanks to his fighting style. Even though he could no longer follow his foe’s movements, he was still the one directing the flow of combat, still presenting her with openings that she was all too happy to take. It allowed him to dodge her speedy strikes, avoid her swift tail jabs, and maneuver around her attempts to squash him beneath her tail.
What it didn’t do was allow him to avoid her trap.
Because he could only focus on the parts of her that were attacking him directly, Kevin at some point lost focus of the woman herself. He didn’t even realize that she’d been circling around him until the tip of her tail, which had been harassing him, suddenly retracted. He never suspected that she would outmaneuver him until her long, thick tail suddenly coiled around him from behind.
“A-ah!” Kevin released a strangled gurgle that echoed across the deck.
“Kevin Swift!” The shocked cry came from Phoebe.
“Now this is much better.” Felia seemed to have calmed down now that she had him in her grasp. “Yes, I think I like it so much more when you’re not scurrying around me like a mouse. Don’t you?” She didn’t give him time to respond. “Now what to do with you? I suppose I could just crush you until your bones are turned into a fine powder.”
Kevin groaned as the tail tightened around him. He could hear his bones creaking like rotting wood, could practically feel them beginning to crack under the pressure being placed on them.
“Then again, I’m not sure I want to clean your innards off my ship,” the nure-yomejo mused. “Blood stains are awfully difficult to get out of wood, you know.”
“Doesn’t… matter…”
Felia twitched. “What was that?”
“I said…” Kevin could taste the iron tinge of blood as he gritted his teeth, “… it doesn’t matter. You’re not going to win.”
The snake woman looked bemused, frustrated even. “And why is that?”
“Because I’ve been slowly making you weaken the floor of this deck with your tail. I doubt it will hold your weight for much longer.”
“What?”
Felia realized too late what Kevin meant. With a loud groan, the floor around them broke. Snap! Felia screamed as she and he were sent plummeting to the deck below. While the drop was not far, especially for a snake-woman like her, it was startling. She ended up letting go of him, her tail uncoiling, allowing him to roll away.
While Kevin wouldn’t say he had an advantage in this new battleground, he believed the tiny hall would grant him more leeway than it did Felia. With her large form, it would be difficult to move around unless she was willing to risk doing more damage to her ship.
He ignored the pain flaring in his chest like a lance of fire spearing him t
hrough the heart. He reached into his sundress with his free hand and grabbed the handle to one of his guns, the black one, he soon found out when he pulled it from its makeshift holster. Kevin didn’t hesitate to point it at the woman and fire off a round.
Before boarding the ferry, Kevin had changed out ammunition packs. He’d decided to charge the black gun with spirit youki from Delphine, who’d been kind enough to fill up two of his cartridges. Kevin soon found out that having a gun filled with chakra from a Kyūbi was far different from having it filled with chakra from a four-tails.
A beam of white energy shot from his gun, a streamer of spirit matter condensed into the shape of a cylinder. It was like cannon fire from a Star Destroyer. The conical beam of youki lanced out of the gun and blasted into the snake woman with a ferocious roar akin to an enraged dragon. The woman’s yell was completely overpowered by the roaring of his gun, which continued blasting the beam out until, finally, it tapered off into a light drizzle, and then stopped altogether.
“Woah…”
Kevin stared at the damage his weapon had caused. The entire hallway had been decimated. The walls and floor had caved outwards as if some great force had pushed them away. Cracks and abrasions littered the surface. The outward bending of the wooden walls and flooring gave the hallway a convex appearance.
Lying on the ground was Felia. As Kevin walked up to the snake woman, he saw that she was still breathing, though her body had been greatly injured. Her left arm was missing. Greenish ooze leaked from the stump. Her scales were burnt, and some patches appeared to have melted off, or been disintegrated entirely. The entirety of her torso had been burnt. Black skin, charred beyond recognition, flaked off her body like dark snowflakes.
Kevin sighed.
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