“What do you mean when you say that Iris’s void fire disrupted his technique?” asked Phoebe.
Lilian finished healing Polydora and moved to Kevin’s side. She looked at him curiously. He smiled at her before looking at everyone.
“I mean that when Iris hit him with her void fire, the place she hit broke apart,” Kevin said. “That technique of his seems to turn his body entirely into celestial youki.” A pause. “From what I have seen thus far, youki can behave similarly to a wave, a stream of single particles, or a non-Newtonian fluid. I’ve seen yōkai, and kitsune in particular, do a lot of amazing things with youki, from creating crescent waves of fire to making giant tentacle monsters out of nothing but water—”
“Tentacle monsters made of water?” Phoebe had to interrupt.
“Don’t ask,” Kevin said hurriedly.
“This is all very nice and sounds incredibly scientifical or whatever,” Iris started, “but it doesn’t really tell us anything.”
Kevin sent the girl leaning against the wall a small frown. “I was getting to that.” He shook his head and continued. “Youki, from what I have seen, shares with fluids the same annoying tendency to try and fill as large a volume as possible. Unless it is being used for a technique, the externalization of youki results in its pointless dispersal. Which begs the question: how is Li’s technique able to work?”
Everyone was silent. The girls looked at each other, their befuddled expressions mirrored in everyone else’s eyes. Kevin wondered what his science teacher would think if the man heard him trying to explain the concept of supernatural energy like this.
“From what I’ve seen, Li’s technique turns his entire body into celestial youki. However, by all rights, he should not be able to maintain a form like that.” He gave them a moment to ponder his words. “I believe Li’s technique isn’t as complete as he would like everyone to believe.”
“What do you mean?” Lilian asked the obvious question.
“I mean that his form is unstable,” Kevin answered. “It is impossible to change the composition of your body into energy, yōkai or not. Doing so has left Li with an imbalance, which has caused his entire body to grow unstable. I suspect Li is holding himself together through sheer willpower. However, that kind of technique has to be draining, both on his youki and his mentality. I can only imagine the kind of mental strain he’s putting himself under right now.”
A moment of silence.
“I didn’t understand any of that,” Iris declared.
Kevin stumbled. “Y-you didn’t?”
“I didn’t either,” Lilian said. “Sorry, Beloved.”
“Neither did I.” Phoebe raised her hand, which was quickly followed by the hands of Menippe, Thoe, and Euryale.
Kevin felt like pouting. “You guys are mean.”
They also ignored him.
“So, stupidly scientific explanations that make no sense aside…” Kevin glared at Iris. “… I’m guessing you have a plan to deal with this guy?”
“I do, in fact, have a plan to deal with him.” Kevin clenched his hands into fists as he explained his plan to everyone there. He’d come all this way here to rescue Lilian, and he refused to let himself be defeated after finally getting her back.
***
It didn’t take long for Li to find them.
They’d been running down one of the many hallways when he burst onto the scene, plowing straight through a wall, tearing it apart like soggy toilet paper. Kevin and Lilian were alone, or rather, the others had hidden before Li had arrived. He didn’t know where they’d stashed themselves away, but he honestly didn’t need to know. So long as they stuck to the plan, things would go smoothly.
Please, for the love of all eight million Shinto gods, let this go smoothly.
Li paused. Standing in the middle of the hallway, his head turned left, then right, as if he was looking for something. Kevin couldn’t be sure because Li’s face never changed expressions in this new form, but he felt certain their foe was looking for the other members of their troupe.
“Lilian,” he whispered. “You’re up.”
“Right.”
“Celestial Art: Caged Bird.”
Kevin could not truly explain what happened in that instant. The technique that Lilian used was an illusion, one that created a barrier around a person in the shape of a bird cage. He could not see the technique being cast—he was not the recipient of it, but he could see the effect it had on the one who fell under its sway.
Li walked up to a certain point before stopping. His hands came up and pressed against something that Kevin couldn’t see. They moved around like a mime pretending to be trapped within a box.
It’s time.
“NOW!”
Five people coalesced seemingly from thin air. Phoebe, Polydora, Menippe, Thoe, and Euryale rushed in from all sides to attack Li. Polydora’s spear slashed through his chest. Phoebe’s club caused the youki particles composing his head to disperse. A club to the left knee courtesy of Menippe made Li fall onto his knees as the leg broke apart into light particles. Euryale attacked with a flying spin kick, both of her feet slamming into Li’s back. Then Thoe appeared before him, impaled him with a kunai, and vanished just as quickly. All of the attacks went through Li, but true to Kevin’s observations, the attacks displaced the energy that comprised Li’s body.
“Iris!”
“Void Art: Void Fire.”
The all-consuming black flames burst from above. Li’s agonized roar resounded as the fires consumed his head. He fell to his knees, thrashing and braying. The attack was doing damage. Light particles wafted off his head like vapor, the head itself slowly disintegrating as the flames of darkness consumed it before spreading to the rest of his body.
Light shot from his body, snuffing the flames. His leg grew back, as did the remnants of his head and back. He then tried to stand up.
“Lilian!”
“Right!”
“Celestial Arts: Entrapment.”
Before Li had time to recover, several dozen illusory chains burst from the ground and wrapped around him. Once more, Kevin couldn’t see the chains, only their effects on Li. His arms became constricted, as if something was coiling around them. Like a bodybuilder curling dumbbells, his muscles strained as he tried to lift his arms to no avail. Kevin could almost picture the chains as they dragged Li down onto his hands and knees, and then pulled him further until he lay on his stomach.
“AGAIN!”
They came out again, the five female warriors. Coming in from five sides, they attacked Li once more. His golden head exploded as it was struck by a club. His back was shredded as Polydora’s spear slashed it apart. Euryale stomped on the back of his knees and, because they were composed of youki, the unstable appendages disintegrated. That was when Menippe and Thoe attacked him from above and behind, shredding the back of his head with a furious assault.
“Iris!”
“Void Art: Void Fire.”
More fire descended on Li after Phoebe and the others darted away from his prone form. Li’s howls rent the air. He writhed in place, the imaginary chains still keeping him pinned to the ground, until the illusion was shattered by Li’s flaring youki. The flames were snuffed out again, and Li stood back up.
“AGAIN!” Kevin shouted, and once more the cycle repeated itself. Over and over again, Li would become trapped within Lilian’s illusion; his body would be broken apart by the yama uba, and then set on fire by Iris. Over and over again, Li would destroy the illusion, disperse the fire, and get back up, his body reforming.
What had once been a well-thought-out plan on Kevin’s part soon became a battle of attrition. It wouldn’t be superior tactics or prior planning that won the day, he realized, but who had more youki.
Li, as a five-tails, had far more youki than Iris and Lilian combined.
“U-ugh…” Iris was the first to give out. Falling to her knees, sweat pouring down her brow, the raven-haired vixen’s chest heaved. “Ha…
ha… I can’t… can’t go on… I’m nearly out of youki…”
Kevin didn’t swear out loud, but he really wanted to. “Lilian, how are you holding up?”
“I’ve got energy to spare.” Lilian’s reassuring smile only made him feel a little better. “Illusions don’t cost much, so I can keep this up for a while longer.”
“That’s not going to help us.”
Kevin’s mind was a raging typhoon. Lilian was eventually going to run out of youki, and he didn’t know how long it would take before Li ran out. Something needed to be done.
Li tried getting up again. He raised his left hand like he was trying to grasp a ledge above him to pull him from an abyss. His hand was subsequently sent back to the earth, cracking it when Lilian conjured another illusory chain.
“Beloved…” Lilian’s voice was strained.
“You’re running low on youki, aren’t you?”
Lilian didn’t say anything, but her nod told him all he needed.
“Dammit!”
Kevin knew there was no more time to think. Perhaps it was reckless haste that led to him doing what he did next. He didn’t know and, if asked later on, would never be able to answer with anything other than “It felt right at the time.”
Darting across the ground at a full-on sprint, Kevin ignored the shouting of his mate and her sister. He pulled his guns out of their makeshift holsters. His carrying case felt heavy against his back. He ignored it, and aiming both weapons as he leapt into the air, Kevin unleashed a barrage of youki bullets into Li’s body. Black and gold energy flashed from the barrels like water spraying from a hose. Holes appeared on Li’s golden body. His back began to resemble Swiss cheese and his head exploded in a spray of golden light particles. Kevin continued to unload his entire payload into Li until his guns ran out of youki.
Breathing like he’d just run a marathon at a full sprint, Kevin stared down at the holey mass of golden youki, wondering if that would be enough to put this man down.
It wasn’t.
Like a zombie from a horror movie, Li slowly stood back up. The holes all over his body slowly closed, leaving his golden form unblemished, pristine.
Moving in slow motion, Li turned around to face him. Kevin felt as if a ball of lead had suddenly dropped into his gut, for though Li’s face remained impassive, Kevin could practically feel the negative intent pouring from him.
I am so dead.
A noise suddenly filled the air, a tremulous wine akin to a high-turbine engine. Li must have heard it, too, because his head turned toward where Kevin had perceived the noise to come from.
Then came the voice.
“Celestial Art: Divine Cannon.”
A flash of white filled his vision. Immense pain struck his body. Every nerve ending flared with an intensity that shocked him, or would have shocked him, had he not been in such immense pain. He thought he heard someone screaming his name, but he couldn’t be sure. The pain overrode his senses. It overrode everything. The white was soon replaced with black.
He saw nothing after that.
CHAPTER 12
THE BODHISATTVA
Lilian’s ears were ringing; she could feel something warm and wet trickling down them. It took her awhile to realize that she was bleeding. Whatever had attacked her had clearly damaged her eardrums. Her brain also felt like it was oozing out of her skull. Everything hurt.
Opening her eyes, Lilian saw a clear blue sky marked by devastation. The part of the mansion that she had been in was gone, nothing more than a pile of rubble. Columns had collapsed, broken heaps of marble that appeared to have been pulverized by a warhammer wielded by Susanoo-no-Mikoto. Walls were completely gone, while some barely stood, with large chunks missing entirely.
“What…?”
Lilian’s coughed as pain flared in her throat. It felt raspy and dry, as if she’d been screaming nonstop for the past hour.
She tried to stand up, only to hiss as pain flared in her left thigh. A glance down revealed the source of her agony, and Lilian didn’t hesitate to grab the sharp fragment of marble embedded in her thigh and yank it out, gnashing her teeth together as she fought against the tears pricking her eyes.
Tossing the shard away, Lilian glanced at her surroundings once more, at the many piles of rubble that had once been majestic columns, at the walls which no longer stood, at the floor that had split like the demons of hell had decided to open a chasm and invade the human world. It looked like something out of an apocalypse. In the midst of surveying this most horrifying scene, Lilian noticed something missing.
Her lips trembled.
“Kevin…”
Where was her beloved mate?
“Iris…”
Her sister… her most cherished sister, where was she? What happened to her?
“Kevin! Iris!”
“… Not so loud,” a voice groaned from somewhere nearby.
“Iris!” Lilian rushed over to her sister’s fallen form and knelt. “Are you all right?”
Her sister groaned again. “I’m fine… I think.”
Iris did her best to wave off Lilian’s concerns, but it wasn’t so easy. Blood leaked from a rather massive cut on her forehead, and her body was half buried under a pile of rubble. Liberal application of enhancement and extension fixed the rubble issue, but not the bleeding. Fortunately, Iris’s legs still seemed to be in working order, albeit, she wobbled precariously several times as she stood up. Lilian didn’t know if it was due to the head injury or if there might have been another reason.
“I feel funny.” Iris wiped at the blood running down her face. “I think I might have lost too much blood.”
“At least you’re alive.” Lilian tried to be optimistic. “That’s something.”
Iris grimaced. “I guess.” A pensive look appeared on her face as she realized something. “Where’s the stud?”
“The stud… Kevin?!”
Lilian frantically looked around in search of Kevin. She saw those girls that he and Iris had come with. They lay about in various states of entanglement, groaning softly as they slowly came to. However, no matter how much she looked, she couldn’t find Kevin anywhere.
“Beloved?!” Lilian called out. “Beloved, where are you?!”
“He’s probably dead,” a voice said with the coldness of a void.
Lilian whirled around to face the source of this new voice.
Short blond hair swayed while his Shaolin monk robes rustled behind him as he stalked toward them, his gait akin to that of a lion stalking its prey.
Lilian remembered him. Chao. The man who tried to kill her during her ill-fated escape attempt.
Fear struck her like nothing else ever had before. Her body began shaking. Her pupils dilated. She wanted to run, to get as far from this man’s presence as she could, but her legs refused to work, held in place by her inexplicable fear and the sense that, if she did move, this man would kill her faster than she could blink.
“I see that you’re causing problems, as usual,” Chao said in a calm, cold voice that reminded Lilian of a tundra. It was enough to make her shiver. “I told Father that you were no good. I told him that we should have just killed you and been done with it, but he never did listen to me. For a Kyūbi, my father is awfully soft-hearted.”
Blood dripped down Lilian’s fingers as she clenched her hands into fists. Her mind was screaming at her, telling her to get away, to run far away and never look back. Her body, however, refused to move from its spot. It was pinned in place by this man’s baleful stare, and by the eight writhing tails, the symbols of a kitsune’s power, which let her know that running would be a futile gesture.
“I will not allow myself to become weak like him.” Chao stopped several feet away, his tails going still. “Unlike my soft father, I will kill you here and now.”
Lilian became alarmed when she felt an intense spike of youki. Before Chao could actually launch whatever attack he planned on hitting her with, Phoebe rushed forward, having seemingly re
covered from the damage done to her by Chao’s technique.
“No, wait!” Lilian shouted at the girl. “Don’t—”
But it was too late. Before Phoebe could heed her words, if she’d ever had any intention of doing so, one of Chao’s brilliant golden tails slammed into her with a sickening crack. The yama uba’s limp body flew across the destroyed hall and slammed into one of the many broken pillars, demolishing what was left of the marble construct.
“Phoebe!” Menippe, Thoe, and Euryale shouted at the same time before turning vengeful eyes on Chao. “Damn you!”
The three didn’t get more than ten feet before Chao struck.
“Celestial Art: Divine Punishment for the Sinful.”
Lilian didn’t know what technique that was. She only saw its effects; the way Menippe’s, Thoe's, and Euryale’s eyes widened in terror, how their mouths opened to release simultaneous screams of agony. The three fell to their knees, then dropped the rest of the way to the ground, where they writhed as if suffering under the most excruciating torture ever conceived.
“Bastard!! I’ll kill you!!”
Chao didn’t even look at Polydora as she shouted. He sent his tails at her. Polydora dodged four of them, but the fifth one wrapped around her leg, lifted her off the ground, and slammed her into the earth so hard that the ground around her cratered.
Polydora did not get back up. The tail uncoiled from around her leg, and Chao looked back at Lilian.
“Now that that’s out of the way—”
“Void Art: Void Fire!”
Half a dozen black flames converged on Chao’s location.
“Celestial Art: Golden Aegis.”
They harmlessly struck the spherical dome that suddenly sprung forth around him, exploding against the bright golden barrier and dispersing.
Chao’s stare went from Lilian to Iris.
“I had almost forgotten about you,” Chao said, his tone uncaring. “The twin sister who can wield the Void.” His nose wrinkled in disgust. “It is just another reason why I must rid this world of you two. You’re clearly tainted existences who will disrupt the harmonious balance of this world if you continue living.”
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