A Fox's Rescue

by Varnell, Brandon

  “You’re a real prick, you know that?” Iris declared rudely. “Let me guess, you’re the brother that no one in your family likes because you’re such a douchenozzle.”

  Chao twitched at her words. “Such a rude girl.”

  “I might be rude, but I don’t act like something crawled up my ass and died there,” Iris shot back.

  “It seems I must teach you a lesson before sending you off to the Sanzu River.”

  “You can try, but I’m not going down without a fight.”

  Iris’s words seemed to befuddle Chao, who actually paused to give her an almost flat stare.

  “Your words might be brave, but I can sense your fear. It’s practically rolling off you in waves. You know that you cannot beat me. The idea of a two-tails beating an eight-tails like myself is laughable. Your power is so inferior to my own that it doesn’t matter how skilled you might be. A kitsune with only two tails of power can never beat one with eight. What can you possibly do on your own?”

  “She’s not on her own,” a male voice said seconds before the thunderous chugging of two handguns echoed through the devastated hallway.

  Taken by complete surprise, Chao had little time to react before nearly sixteen black bullets struck him in the back. The eight-tails grunted as four of his tails speared the ground to keep him from falling, but that seemed to be exactly what his foe wanted.

  Rushing out from behind a fallen pillar, Kevin’s handguns chugged some more, reverberating through the ruins like thunder. Chao managed to raise his Aegis this time, but in doing so, forced himself to remain in place, as the Aegis only worked when the person casting it was completely still. Kevin continued firing off a barrage of bullets, which splashed harmlessly against the shield.

  Chao gritted his teeth from behind his Aegis, while two of his eight tails moved to the fore. Lilian saw what was happening and tried to warn her beloved of the impending danger.

  “Beloved! Get out of there!”

  “Celestial Art: Celestial Shot.”

  It was not a cannon that was fired from Chao’s tails, but a ball of tightly compressed youki. Its golden radiance was blinding as it raced across the space that separated the eight-tails from Kevin in a split instant. There was no time for him to move, no time for him to avoid the attack. It was inevitable, then, that Kevin would be struck by the powerful celestial technique.

  “BELOVED!”

  Lilian watched in horror as the attack hit the space Kevin stood on. Her eyes widened and her knees weakened as a mighty explosion tore the area apart like it was made of flimsy paper. Smoke and dust and photonic energy scattered, and when the dust settled, all that remained was a crater.

  Lilian could do nothing but stare at the spot Kevin once stood, her mind refusing to believe what her eyes told her. There was no way her mate could have been killed. There was… just… no way!

  “It happened so fast…” Iris whispered, the same look of shock that Lilian felt etched upon the raven-haired girl’s beautiful face.

  “B-Beloved…”

  Her beloved. Her mate. The man who meant more to her than anyone else had just been wiped from the face of existence in less than a second. Gazing at the crater, Lilian felt something sharp and painful stab into her heart. She wanted to cry, and yet the tears would not come.

  “Pesky human,” Chao mumbled under his breath. “That is the fate that awaits all humans who dare to think they can stand up against the might of someone beyond their station.”

  Something inside of Lilian snapped as she heard the arrogant voice.

  “Celestial Art: Orbs of an Evanescent Realm!”

  A dozen orbs of light flared into existence like stars being born. They quickly flew at Chao, who merely clicked his tongue and swatted them away with his tails.

  “Do you really think such a pathetic attack would work on—”

  Chao said no more when a giant ball of void fire slammed into his face and detonated.

  Void Art: Big Ball Void Fire!”

  “Useless.”

  The smoke cleared to reveal Chao, completely unharmed. Even his clothes remained unruffled.

  “You might be a Void, but your powers are too weak to—”

  “Extension!”

  Two crimson tails smashed against the underside of Chao’s chin, lifting him into the air. Those same tails moved up, lengthening even more, before smacking him again, sending his body shooting straight into the ground, which ruptured when he struck.

  “Celestial Art: Divine—urk!”

  Lilian’s next attack was cut off when a golden tail wrapped around her throat, blocking her air passage.

  “You are truly a most annoying girl,” Chao said from his prone position. He was not prone for very long, though, as he quickly climbed back to his feet, his form still pristine and unharmed, as if none of the attacks had done a single hint of damage to him.

  “Grk… you… urk!”

  “Get your hands off my sister!”

  Chao clicked his tongue as he absently swatted the void fire that Iris launched at him aside, negating the all-consuming flames of oblivion with his celestial youki. One of those same tails then struck Iris with enough force to launch her body through one of the few walls that were left standing.

  “I-Iris…” Lilian choked the word out in despair before finding herself unable to say anything else as the tail wrapped around her throat tightened. She kicked her legs and struggled, grabbing onto the tail that was choking her to no effect.

  “Struggling will only make it worse,” Chao said. “You should just give in and accept your death. It will be easier that way.”

  “Ngg…” Lilian gritted her teeth. “N-not…”

  “Not going to happen?” The tightening of Chao’s tail produced a strangled gasp from Lilian. “Why do you continue to struggle when you know it is pointless? You cannot defeat me. You lack the power, the skills, and the experience to match me, never mind surpass me. Everything you do is pointless. All of your struggling, it means nothing in the end. You are just a two-tailed kitsune, a weak little kit standing before someone who’s only one step away from being a Kyūbi.”

  Despite Chao’s words, Lilian continued to struggle, continued to fight. But, even as her legs kicked and her hands clawed at the tail wrapped around her throat, her body was shutting down. Her muscles were weakening, her legs losing their strength, her arms growing limp. Saliva leaked from her mouth, dripping down her chin as her eyes started to glaze over. Blackness creeped at the edge of her vision, slowly encroaching upon her sight.

  This… Is this it?

  Her arms soon fell limply at her side, dangling bonelessly.

  I’m going to die…

  Her legs stopped moving, except for the occasional muscle spasm.

  Beloved…

  Lilian closed her eyes.

  “Ikken Hissatsu. Ougi.”

  Lilian couldn’t begin to guess what happened. One moment she was being held in the titanically strong grip of Chao’s tail, and then the next she was landing harshly on her butt, sucking in lungfuls of much needed oxygen, the tail hanging loosely off her neck.

  “GRAAA!”

  A scream of pain caused her to look up. She needed to blink several times to rid her eyes of the black spots that invaded them, and several more blinks were required to fully comprehend what she was looking at.

  Chao was screaming his head off in what sounded like a combination of shock and pain. Blood spurted from the stump that used to be one of his tails, spraying the ground all around him in arterial fluid.

  What…?

  Lilian barely had time to fully appreciate the sight before several familiar looking pellets of black light struck Chao in the face, causing the man to stumble back.

  A figure darted into her field of vision from the left. Lilian’s heart soared into her throat when she saw him, his blond hair whipping about his face as he closed the distance between him and Chao, leaping into the air and decking the eight-tails in the face with a fl
ying kick that caused his opponent’s head to snap back. While Chao stumbled backward, Kevin landed on the ground, and then ducked low and swept Chao’s feet out from underneath him.

  “Out of the way, kid!” a shout came from above. “Spirit Art: Heptagram Spirit Cannon!”

  Kevin jumped away, taking several long leaps backward at the same time as a massive beam of white light descended from the sky. It struck the spot Chao lay with a ferocious howl that rent the air. Lilian gritted her teeth and covered her ears with her hands to try and block out the sound. It hardly made a difference, however, as Lilian could feel blood trickling down her ears and between her fingers.

  And then there were another pair of hands covering her ears, helping block out the noise, albeit, they only helped a bit. Lilian looked up into the dark eyes of her maid-slash-bodyguard.

  “K-Koto—”

  Kotohime shook her head. The swordswoman’s ears were bleeding much like her own.

  The beam of ectoplasmic energy soon died down, revealing the massive crater that had been formed by the attack. It looked like one of the gods had taken an ice cream scooper to the ground. Lilian couldn’t judge the size, but it had to be at least a dozen meters in diameter.

  “Hmm.” A voice caused Lilian’s head to turn. “Not as powerful as I would have liked, but, considering the circumstances, I suppose this will do. Don’t want to have the deaths of any allies on my hands, after all.”

  “Uncle… Abercio…?”

  Abercio looked down at Lilian and grinned. “Well now, here’s a face I haven’t seen in a while. How’ve ya been, Lily?”

  “Um, I’m good,” Lilian’s voice sounded shocked even to her own ears. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m here to help rescue you, of course.” Lilian blinked at that incongruous statement, while Abercio just grinned. “Speaking of rescuers, it looks like your mate’s coming over.”

  Lilian’s head swiveled before locking on to Kevin. The young man was running toward her, a barely conscious Iris in his arms. He stumbled several times, and even from this distance, Lilian could see blood leaking down his ears, a sure sign that Abercio’s Heptagram Spirit Cannon had done damage to his eardrums.

  “Beloved!”

  It didn’t appear that Kevin could hear her, but he could see her. Their eyes locked for a moment, and in that single second, hundreds of emotions passed between them: relief, joy, love. She and Kevin silently communicated these feelings to each other.

  A shadow appeared behind Kevin, who appeared oblivious.

  “Beloved! Watch out!”

  Kevin still couldn’t hear her, but he obviously took something from her frantic shouting. He didn’t even bother turning around as his body swerved, barely avoiding a cannonball of golden youki that shot past his head.

  Standing behind Kevin, a bleeding Chao gritted his teeth and tracked the young boy with his tails. More golden orbs formed along their tips, incandescent and crackling with power. Before they could be launched at Kevin, however, Abercio intercepted him, appearing before the other eight-tails like a wavering phantom.

  “Abercio,” Chao snarled.

  “So sorry.” Abercio’s smile was far sharper than any blade. “But I’m going to have to ask that you stop trying to kill my niece’s mate. Your opponent today is me.”

  ***

  While Abercio battled against Chao, the others fled the scene, though Kevin was not necessarily pleased about this. It felt to him like he was running away.

  “I understand why you’re feeling this way, Kevin-sama.” Kotohime blessed him with a placid smile. “However, in this instance, a tactical withdrawal is the best option for us. Abercio and Chao are both eight-tailed kitsune. A battle between them is not something that lesser yōkai and humans should become involved in, lest we end up being destroyed simply from the power of their presence.”

  His hearing had healed thanks to Kotohime’s river techniques. Kevin’s lips curled, his frown deepening.

  He knew about yōkai auras, the oppressive power that came when a yōkai unleashed their youki in an unrestrained show of power. Kiara had an impressive aura, one that he’d been subjected to many times during training in order to “acclimate to the feeling of this power and be able to resist the compulsion that comes with it.” Every yōkai’s aura was different. While Kiara’s was simply a feeling of massively overwhelming and destructive force, Kotohime’s felt like a gentle stream that sometimes turned into a raging river. Even Lilian and Iris had an aura, though they had no skill at controlling it.

  Kevin knew that the combined might of Abercio’s aura and Chao’s aura would probably turn him into a paste simply from being near them.

  That didn’t mean he liked it.

  “Muu…”

  At the strange sound coming from his left, Kevin turned his head… and promptly felt a large drop of sweat trail down his face when he found Lilian staring at his arms.

  “Lilian?”

  “Beloved should be carrying me in his arms,” she mumbled, causing the drop of sweat to increase in size.

  “I’m injured,” Iris pointed out. “I can’t walk right now, so it’s only natural that the stud carries me. Kotohime is already carrying those five—” she gestured to the yama uba caught within Kotohime’s furry embrace “—and therefore can’t carry me.”

  “She could too.” Lilian pouted. “She’s got a pair of arms. And I don’t mind if Beloved carries you,” she added as an afterthought. “I just want to be carried too.”

  “Let’s not get into this right now,” Kevin interjected before Lilian or Iris could say anything else. “I’ll make it up to you when we get home.”

  “You had better,” Lilian mumbled. “I’ve gone too long without feeling your touch. I need to recharge my Lovey-Dovey Kevin battery.”

  “Uh huh…” Kevin didn’t want to know. He really didn’t. “Let’s just get out of here.”

  “I am afraid that I cannot let you leave.”

  Kevin, Kotohime, and Lilian stopped in their tracks as a figure stood before the bamboo forest. Li’s body had suffered what looked like a series of massive burns. The skin around his face was a grotesque red. Skin flaked off of him to reveal the hideous layers of boiling flesh underneath. His Shaolin monk robes were in tatters, and Kevin could see that his face wasn’t the only part of his body that had been burned from Chao’s attack.

  “Lilian!”

  “Right!”

  Without warning, Kevin tossed Iris at Kotohime. The raven-haired girl squawked in shock and indignation, while Kotohime released a startled noise as she caught the girl. He and Lilian then dashed at Li in a full-on sprint.

  “Celestial Art: Spears!”

  Several spears made of light shot forward, set to impale Li through the chest. They didn’t make their mark because the five-tailed kitsune moved out of the way. That hardly mattered, however, as Kevin used Li’s distracted state to close the distance before the much older being could do anything against him.

  Before Li could react, Kevin had the kitsune in a clinch, grabbing Li’s head in both hands, and brutally brought Li’s nose into his knee. The loud crunching of cartilage echoed ominously as blood sprayed from Li’s broken nose. Kevin let go of the five-tail’s head and backed away.

  “Celestial Art: Orbs of an Evanescent Shrine!”

  A dozen orbs appeared around Li, floating like Christmas ornaments. They fluttered to and fro. Li, dazed and confused from Kevin’s brutal clincher, tried swatting at them with his hands. He kept missing, or so it seemed. Every time his hands swatted at one of the orbs it just seemed to… slip away. Even when he was sure that he hit one of them, the orb somehow managed to slip through his hands like water.

  Then the orbs vanished, exploding in a shower of golden light, and the last thing Li saw was a large metal case filling his vision.

  ***

  Kevin and Lilian stood over the unconscious form of Li. Sharing a grin, the two high-fived and complimented each other on their impeccable
teamwork.

  “Awesome job with the illusions,” Kevin said. “I don’t think Li ever realized those techniques of yours weren’t even real.”

  “He was only susceptible to my illusions because he was injured and low on youki.” Lilian shook her head. “You’re the one who got in close and fought him head on.” Her eyes sparkled like gems. “You were amazing!”

  “Ah-hahahaha!” Kevin rubbed the back of his head in a very sheepish gesture, his cheeks stained a mild red. “You think so?”

  Lilian’s smile, so bright and vibrant, slowly shifted to loving and gentle as she gazed into her mate’s eyes. “I know so. You really have become an amazing person, Beloved.” She used her term of endearment with great affection suffusing her voice. “I’m really, truly blessed to have a mate like you.”

  “I think I’m the blessed one,” Kevin admitted, his blush receding, lips curling to match her smile. “I would have never become the person I am today without you. You make me want to become a better person, a stronger person. I’m grateful to have you in my life.”

  “Kevin.” Lilian’s eyes glistened with unshed tears of joy.

  “Lilian.” Kevin’s head slowly tilted down, his eyes closing.

  “Ahem!”

  Both of them jerked away when a loud cough reminded the pair that they weren’t alone.

  “While I normally wouldn’t have a problem with you two expressing your mutual love for each other,” Kotohime started, “I really do think you should wait until after we are out of danger to start playing tonsil hockey.”

  “And you just had to put it in such a grotesque manner,” Kevin groaned, hiding his face with his hands. Lilian simply glared daggers at her maid.

  “Ufufufu.” Kotohime would have probably raised a hand to hide her smile—too bad her hands were full of Iris. “This humble maid does nothing but her very best to help you every single day.”

  “Whatever.” Kevin ran a hand through his hair. “By the way, wasn’t there someone else with you when you guys rescued me? What happened to that guy in the armor?”

  “Do not worry about him,” Kotohime said dismissively. “He had something else that he needed to take care of.”