Christine swallowed heavily. “C-couldn’t Lilian just use her celestial powers to heal her?”
“I-I can’t,” Lilian whispered, her voice sounding anguished even to her own ears. “Iris is a Void Kitsune. Our powers are polar opposites of each other. If I tried to heal her, it would make her injury worse.”
Christine dithered. “I-I don’t… I’m not sure if I—”
“You can do it,” Kevin interrupted the girl. “You can do this. I have faith in you.”
“B-but what if I make it worse? What if I accidentally freeze her heart or something?”
“If you don’t trust in yourself, then trust me. I know that you can do this, so you should trust me when I tell you that you can do this.”
“O-okay. I’ll try.”
Christine walked between Lilian and Kevin. The spear had penetrated Iris just below her left breast. It looked like a large slit. The skin had peeled open like a red flower, revealing blood and muscles and bones. Kevin pinched it shut. Christine then placed her hands over the wound and channeled her youki.
Ice slowly formed over the frayed edges of torn skin. Iris didn’t even let out a whimper, which worried Lilian because it meant her sister couldn’t feel what was happening. That was never a good sign. She placed her hands on her knees and clenched the fabric of her skirt. Rarely had she ever felt more helpless than she did now.
“Okay,” Kevin said as he removed his hands from Iris. A thin layer of ice had formed over the wound, keeping it shut. As he shook his hands, which had turned a pale blue, Kevin continued speaking. “Let’s seal her back now. Lilian, help me push Iris onto her back.”
***
After they cleaned Iris’s back and sealed the wound shut with Christine’s ice powers, Kevin left the two yōkai alone. He told them that he was going to try and find a needle and thread to sew Iris’s wounds shut. They could hear him pulling out drawers and opening cabinets in the next room over.
Lilian sat on the examination bed next to her sister’s prone body. In an effort to keep herself distracted, she’d taken to wiping off the rest of the blood covering Iris. A little way to her left, wringing her hands together as she sat on a padded blue chair, Christine appeared to be experiencing a combination of shock and stress.
Iris was lying on her back again. Her torso was exposed to the elements. Lilian gently wiped away the blood that had gotten on her stomach and breasts. As the carnelian liquid was wiped off, pale white skin became visible. Iris’s skin was cold and clammy. Lilian tried to pretend this didn’t mean her sister was knocking on death’s door, and instead tried to imagine what her sister would do if she were awake right now.
She’d probably be moaning in orgasmic bliss and saying something about how her Lily-pad had finally accepted her love.
The amusing thought only lasted for a second before the situation sent her crashing back to reality. They’d been attacked by a member of the Shénshèng Clan, and Iris had almost died. She might still die if they didn’t do something soon.
Once she finished wiping off all the blood, Lilian stood up and took the rags to the sink. Kevin nodded at her, but that was the only greeting he gave. He was still busy searching for a needle and thread. Lilian couldn’t even bring herself to nod back; she merely dumped the rags in the sink and turned on the faucet.
“It doesn’t look like there’s a needle and thread here,” he said at last. “I’m going to search the home ec room. They might have some.”
“Okay.”
Kevin hurried out of the room. The door closed behind him. Lilian turned off the faucet and returned to the room where her sister lay comatose. She sat back down on the bed and grabbed one of Iris’s hands.
A stifling silence filled the air. With nothing to do but think about their situation, Lilian found her mind locked within a fierce struggle of self-recrimination. If only she’d been stronger. If only she’d been more capable. If only she hadn’t let Iris fight with her. Lilian’s mind tormented her with all the things she could have done to prevent this from happening.
“I’m sorry.”
The silence was broken. Lilian turned to Christine. The yuki-onna was gripping the fabric of her lolita dress. Her head was bowed, hair falling in front of her face. Her shoulders were trembling.
“I’m… I’m so sorry,” she whispered again.
Lilian tilted her head. “For what?”
“It’s my fault Iris got hurt.” This was the first time Lilian had heard Christine call Iris by name. She would have been shocked had their situation not been so dire. “When Kevin started shouting at us, I couldn’t do anything. We yuki-onna are susceptible to illusions because our only ability is conjuring ice and affecting the temperature. Iris broke me out of the illusion and pushed me out of the way. She… she took that attack for me.”
Lilian felt like she should have been mad at Christine. A part of her wanted to blame the yuki-onna for what happened to Iris, but she couldn’t.
“That sounds like something Iris would do,” she said, looking back at her sister. “While she might not seem like it, Iris is a really good person who cares deeply for her friends. When we were living in Greece, Iris would always protect me from the men and women who lived in the village next to our clan’s estate, even if it meant getting hurt. This isn’t your fault.”
Christine looked up at her, and Lilian finally saw the tears that had gathered in the yuki-onna’s eyes. That’s when she understood.
Despite how they acted around each other, Christine and Iris were friends. They argued and fought and bickered like really foul-mouthed children, but they also hung out together, did things together, had fun together. Their constant fights, reminiscent of the way she and Christine used to fight over Kevin, was just what they did. It didn’t mean they weren’t close. If anything, it proved to Lilian that Iris and Christine were good friends because they weren’t afraid to fight.
“Come here.” One of Lilian’s tails extended and coiled around Christine’s wrist. The snow maiden squawked as she was pulled to her feet and over to Lilian.
“W-what are you… oh…”
Christine soon found herself sitting on the bed with Lilian, trapped in a one-armed hug. Her head rested against Lilian’s right breast, and Lilian used her free hand to tenderly pet Christine’s hair.
“Everything’s going to be okay,” Lilian said softly. “You’ll see. Kevin will return to patch up Iris. Then we’ll find a way out of this mess.”
The first tear to fall was soon followed by a second and then a third. Christine’s tears chilled her skin. Lilian tried to ignore the coldness that seeped into her as the tears soaked her clothes and frosted over. Yet even as she comforted her friend, offering her platitudes and reassurances, Lilian wasn’t sure if she believed them herself.
She felt like a hypocrite.
***
Kevin returned to the nurse’s office almost five minutes later. He entered the room where Lilian and Christine sat with Iris, a case in his hands. He stopped when he saw them both sitting on the bed, the yuki-onna holding Lilian like a lifeline while she tenderly stroked the girl’s hair.
“Did something happen?” he inquired.
“No.” Lilian shook her head. “Nothing happened.”
“I see.”
Kevin didn’t ask any more questions.
Perhaps he’s more focused on helping Iris.
Kevin moved over to the bed, Lilian and Christine scooting away so they could make room for him. He set the case, a small plastic box with a clear lid, on the bed, and then opened it. Gleaming within were several silver needles plus numerous multicolored threads.
“Christine, can you get another rag?” asked Kevin.
“Um, okay.”
Christine stood up and walked toward the door. Kevin could have asked Lilian, but she knew why he asked Christine. Giving the girl something to do would help calm her down.
“Make sure to soak it in hot water,” Kevin added.
“I got it.”
“Oh, and be sure to wring it out thoroughly, too. It’ll be hard to sew Iris’s wounds shut if her skin is wet.”
“Right.”
“Lilian,” Kevin said softly as Christine left, the sound of running water soon echoing from the other room. “After the ice around Iris’s wound melts, I’m going to need you to pinch it shut while I sew it closed.”
“Whatever you need me to do, Kevin, I’ll do it,” Lilian told him. “Right now, I think following your lead is the only thing I can do. You’re much calmer and more level-headed than I am at the moment.”
“Am I?” Kevin asked. “I suppose… I suppose that is good to know.”
Lilian frowned at Kevin’s words. She took a moment to study him, and then began noticing things she hadn’t noticed before. The way his left leg shook. The minor tremors in his hands. His unsteady breathing. His pale skin with trace amounts of cold sweat clinging to it. That’s when she realized the truth.
He’s just as frightened as I am. He’s scared too, but he’s not showing it because of me and Christine. He’s presenting a strong front because he knows that someone needs to be strong in this situation.
It should have been obvious, really. How could anyone not be scared by what had happened? Kevin especially should have been frightened out of his mind. He was a human, albeit, one who’d been through a lot more than most humans. But even though he was scared, even though he was worried, he was doing everything he could not to show it, so that she and Christine could have a pillar of support to lean against.
Despite the situation, Lilian’s heart felt like it was going to burst. “I love you, Kevin.”
Kevin looked startled for a moment, but his face soon softened, and he stared at her with adoration clear in his eyes. “I love you, too.”
Christine returned with a rag that was so hot steam wafted from it. She gave it to Kevin, who used the steaming hot rag to melt the ice that kept Iris’s wound shut. Blood started leaking out, but Lilian acted quickly, reaching out and pinching the skin shut with reinforced fingers.
They worked in silence, her and Kevin. She kept the skin pinched closed, trying not to grimace as Iris’s warm blood stained her fingers. Kevin quickly threaded a needle and—after taking a slow, calming breath—got to work.
Lilian did everything she could think of not to quake at the sight of the needle puncturing her sister’s skin. Being a kitsune, she’d never seen this method of treating an injury. Before, whenever she’d been injured, it would always be either Kotohime or herself who healed the wound with their techniques. This method seemed so primitive in comparison. It didn’t seem like it could help.
However, help it did. Kevin stitched the wound closed, the thread crisscrossing to form multiple X-patterns until he reached the end. Then he pulled on the thread, tightening it as one might tighten his shoelaces, before snipping the end and tying it so it wouldn’t come undone. After that, Kevin rolled Iris onto her front, and, repeating the same process as before, he sewed the back shut as well.
Kevin released a slow, shuddering breath as he finished sewing the injury on Iris’s back. A single glance at his hands revealed how horribly they were shaking. Even so, he didn’t let her or Christine know how he felt, merely putting the needle and thread back into the case and closing it. He then stood up and woodenly walked out of the room before returning several seconds later with a blanket that he laid over Iris.
“Okay,” he said, a minor tremor in his voice. “There isn’t… there’s not much more we can do for Iris right now, except to find a way out of this situation and get her to Kotohime or Kirihime. I might have sewn the wounds shut, but Iris probably has internal injuries too. I can’t heal those.”
“What about that woman?” Christine asked in a surprisingly soft voice. Lilian imagined the snow maiden was feeling subdued by everything that had happened.
“She’s obviously going to be coming after us,” Kevin said. “We’ll need to deal with her if we want to make a clean getaway.”
Lilian felt something heavy push down on her shoulders, a metaphorical weight that made them droop. “By deal with her, do you mean…?”
“I… if that is what it takes.” Kevin’s shaking worsened for a moment, but he quickly mastered himself, clenching his hands until his knuckles turned white. “Iris’s life is more important to me than hers. If I have to kill that woman in order to save Iris, then so be it.”
Lilian wondered if the sharp pain in her chest was caused by his words or Iris’s perilous predicament. She knew that Kevin hated killing. Despite everything they had been through, despite having already taken two lives, he was still just an abnormally kind high school student. Killing was anathema to him.
Yet she knew that he would. For her, for Iris, for any of their friends, Kevin would kill his heart and take the life of another. It made her feel guilty.
Kevin wouldn’t be forced to kill if he and I never met.
Almost before the thought had fully formed, Lilian shook her head to dispel it. She couldn’t think like that. Kevin had accepted her. He had decided to become her mate of his own volition. Even after being forced to take his first life, Kevin still remained by her side, still continued to accept her and return the love that she felt for him. Allowing herself to wallow in guilt would be doing him a disservice.
“We need a plan to deal with Fan,” Kevin started. “So long as she’s around, we’ll never be able to get Iris somewhere she can get proper treatment.”
He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. Carefully unfolding it, he set the paper on the floor, allowing her and Christine to see what it was—a map of the school. As he sat down, Lilian and Christine shared a look before also sitting on the floor.
Lilian sat cross-legged as Kevin began making marks on the map with a marker that he pulled out from his other pocket. The map was pretty basic. It showed all the rooms on each floor and their room number, but it didn’t reveal anything more than that. According to the map, there were three floors plus one basement.
“I found this map while I was searching for the needle and thread,” he explained. “I’ve already come up with a basic plan that should work against our opponent. She’s injured, probably upset from letting us escape, and I doubt she’ll be thinking clearly. That should work to our advantage. Here’s what we’re gonna do. Lilian, I’m going to need some of your hair…”
***
Kotohime could almost feel her ribcage collapsing as Li smashed a fist into her chest. Her feet left the ground and her body soared backwards. She managed to swing her legs around, flipping until her feet were oriented toward the ground.
Her landing left much to be desired.
Kotohime’s geta sandals had long since been lost. She winced as her now bare feet skid along the hot black top. She winced again when she took in a breath and gurgled up blood, which dribbled down her chin. A third wince came when she sent youki to her fragmented ribcage. While she felt her ribs reform and snap back in place, the dwindling of her reserves was a cause for concern.
Several feet away, Kirihime lay unconscious against a broken wall. Her hair had fallen in front of her face and her eyes were closed. From where Kotohime knelt, she could see the blood leaking from her sister’s mouth. Kirihime’s French maid outfit had long since been reduced to tatters.
She turned her gaze away from the sight of her sister and onto her opponent. Li remained pristine. His clothing had yet to receive a tear, and he didn’t have so much as a smudge marring his skin. The wounds that Kotohime had dealt during her surprise attack were all healed.
It must be some kind of specialized technique.
That was the only explanation she could conceive. Kotohime knew for a fact that he wasn’t using illusions. She would have sensed the invasion of foreign youki long ago. That could only mean that some kind of special technique was being used to make his body become incorporeal.
But there was a problem with this line of thought. Only Spirit
Kitsune had the power to make themselves incorporeal. The very act of making oneself incorporeal meant that the person in question was turning themselves into an intangible being akin to a disembodied spirit. In other words, a specter. The Ghost Step, the most basic Spirit Kitsune technique taught to kitsune that have gained their third tail, could accomplish this task, though with limitations. However, Celestial Kitsune could not learn spirit techniques. Therefore, he could not be using Ghost Step or any other spirit technique to do this.
So how is he doing this?
“You will never find out the secret behind my technique,” Li informed her as if reading her thoughts. “You are a skilled kitsune, Kotohime. Your talent with a blade is unmatched and your techniques are incredibly destructive. However, that is your only talent. Fighting. One such as yourself, who has dedicated her life to combat, cannot even begin to fathom the nuances of my technique.”
The way this man spoke irritated her. It told her that he wasn’t taking this fight seriously. Even now he continued to stand in that one spot. He had yet to so much as lift his feet! And he only ever attacked after her attacks failed.
That’s what had gotten Kirihime. She had charged headlong into battle with Li, her weapons passing right through him like he didn’t exist. Then he had delivered a brutal palm thrust at her head, and Kirihime had found herself being slammed into the mountain of rubble that had once been their apartment. She’d been unconscious before she hit the ground.
All around them were the ruined remains of the parking lot. While their battle had not expanded far, the damage done by Kotohime’s techniques had been catastrophic. No fires burned, but many cars lay in ruins, twisted lumps of metal. The walls surrounding this part of the complex had crumbled as if a tsunami had engulfed them. The ground was full of holes from her powerful water techniques. It was a wonder no one had seen their battle and come to see what was happening.
She stared at the man whose immaculate appearance taunted her, as if telling her that she was powerless against him.
“I will ask you one more time.” Li’s voice was still calm. His tone hadn’t changed throughout their entire battle. “Do you concede?”
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