Kevin didn’t say anything at first. He needed to contemplate this new information, so he stared at the passing trees. It seemed Orin was one of those perverted masters. He must have been a Dirty Old Man type of master, Kevin concluded, like Master Roshi.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said sympathetically. “If you want, I can write a very strongly worded letter to the author for you.”
“No thanks,” Christine said, then paused as she realized what Kevin had just said. “Wait. What did you just say?”
“… Never mind.”
Phoebe had long since stopped screaming. She wasn’t even sure if she could scream anymore. Her throat felt raw, like someone had poured boiling lava down it. She wouldn’t have been surprised if her esophagus had melted from screaming herself hoarse.
She dangled from the ceiling. Her arms, raised above her head, were shackled by a pair of manacles attached to a set of chains. With her feet dangling off the ground, her arms were carrying all of her weight.
The manacles had rubbed her skin raw. Blood poured from her wrists, leaving a glistening wet trail down her arms, the shoulders of which had popped from their sockets.
She wasn’t wearing any clothes. They’d stripped her clothes off soon after they’d arrived. Phoebe understood what they were trying to do. They wanted her to be as uncomfortable as possible. By exposing her body, she was supposed to feel naked and vulnerable, to better interrogate her. However…
“Our interrogation isn’t working,” a voice said from outside her field of vision. She never saw any of the people who tortured her. She guessed they were trying to give her a fear of the unknown.
“Have you tried enchanting her?” another voice asked, this one female.
“Yes, enchantments didn’t work either.”
“Great. Another stubborn prisoner. Put her in the cell with the other one. We’ll try interrogating her again later.”
“Sure thing.”
A blurry figure appeared in her field of vision. The manacles holding her opened, and she fell forward, into the arms of her torturer.
“Damn, this chick is fine. Hey, do you think I can—”
“Finish that thought and you die,” the female voice said.
“Tch.”
Phoebe would’ve winced as she was unceremoniously dropped to the ground, but she didn’t have the strength.
Her body was dragged along the stone floor. Skin peeled off her heels, and a thin line of blood was left behind like a trail from the B-budget movies some of her fellow yama uba liked.
The world spun in and out of focus. Phoebe knew this had more to do with her own mind than something else. Even though she was only semi-conscious, she was at least lucid enough to recognize that the pain and blood loss was causing her vision to blur.
Loud squeals emitted from steel bars as a door was opened. She was dragged through the bars and thrown into the room, where her head cracked against the pavement.
“Here you go,” her torturer said. “You two can keep each other company, fucking bitches.”
As the steel bars slammed shut, and Phoebe’s eyes unsuccessfully tried to adjust to the room’s darkness, a sound to her left drew her attention.
She was not alone.
Despite how much it hurt, Phoebe strained her senses, listening. She could hear the creaking of metal, the groan of steel, and the wind rattling through a set of bars somewhere in the room. Laughter from down the corridor informed her of the warden’s location. Closer to home, practically next to her ear was the soft, raspy breathing of someone who’d been through the same torture as her.
Creaking issued from somewhere to her left. Footsteps, slow and agonizing, followed. Then a face swam into her field of vision, though she was in too much pain to see.
“Phoebe?” a familiar voice asked.
Her lips dry, her throat parched and cracked, Phoebe barely managed to produce a single word—a name.
“… Heather…”
When Christine said that it would be a long drive, she really hadn’t been exaggerating. It took nearly an hour to reach the first point of their destination—a little, out of the way area that was not quite a parking lot, where Christine parked her truck. It was, in all honestly, just a small clearing surrounded by a lot of trees and bushes.
“We’re gonna be walking from here,” Christine told Kevin as she hopped out of the truck. He followed suit, and they both walked to the trunk. “All right, you two. Time to get out of the—”
Christine stopped talking. It seemed she needed several seconds of staring to properly understand what she was seeing. Kevin couldn’t blame her. It wasn’t every day you saw two vixens making out.
Kevin took several deep breaths as Lilian and Iris lay tangled in each other’s arms, legs, and tails. He wasn’t sure who initiated it—his bets were on Iris—but the two were having a full-blown makeout session. Iris had stuck her hands down Lilian’s shorts and was directly massaging her buttox, her fingers digging deep into the redhead’s plump tush. Meanwhile, Iris had plunged her tongue into the other girl’s mouth and was stirring up saliva between them. The loud moans they produced caused Christine to look like her brain had been fried.
“… What… this is… what is going on…?” Christine didn’t seem quite capable of thinking properly.
Kevin only sighed as his morals waged war against his libido. How was he supposed to feel about this?
“Buah!” Lilian gasped the moment Iris’s lips and tongue finally released their hold on her. This didn’t stop Iris, who didn’t hesitate to lick and nibble on her neck. “I-Iris! W-wait… if you keep going like this… I’ll—and all over Christine’s truck! OH!”
Christine’s face turned a shade of frozen tundra blue when one of Iris’s hands suddenly slipped further down Lilian’s shorts and pressed against her back entrance.
“A-aren’t you going to stop them?” she asked Kevin who, after a moment of staring, closed his eyes, took several deep breaths, and shook his head.
“There isn’t much that I can do to stop them,” he informed her. “If I tried, I would likely only make things worse.”
“A-AHN!”
Lilian’s body quaked as a mixture of sweat and juices leaked down her legs. The girl looked to be on her last leg. Her bosom heaved with each shaking breath she took. Well-developed thighs and slender calves shook in the aftermath of what must have been an impressive orgasm.
Christine’s face went poof! as massive amounts of steam rose from her head.
“H-how can this get any worse?” asked a highly embarrassed Christine.
The look Kevin gave her was more serious than anything she’d ever seen before. “Iris could always drag me into her shenanigans and turn that into a three-way sexathon.”
Christine blinked. Once. Twice. Three times. Her body shuddered. Her face swelled with color.
Kevin could practically see the girl’s thoughts as she imagined him joining in the threesome. Her face suddenly swelled with what appeared to be anger, but then, almost inexplicably, it relaxed. She looked back at him. He tilted his head and, as if that was some kind of stimulus, a massive amount of blood shot from her nose as she rocketed backwards, cracking her head against a rock before crumpling unconscious to the ground.
“Huh…” Kevin murmured to himself as he wiped the blood off his face. “For some reason, I didn’t expect that reaction from someone as straight-laced as Christine.”
Lilian, her mouth once again being thoroughly explored by Iris, moaned in agreement, or maybe she was begging for mercy. It was honestly hard to tell.
“You okay there, Lilian?” Kevin asked.
“Puagh!” Lilian somehow managed to pry her lips away from Iris. “B-Beloved…”
“Yes?”
“… I can’t feel my tongue.”
“Well, that isn’t good,” Kevin said, rather unnecessarily.
Christine woke up exactly five minutes later. Quite understandably, she couldn’t look at anyone else as s
he led them through the forested terrain.
Kevin found the experience absolutely fascinating. There was so much wildlife! He’d seen a number of animals in this area that he’d only ever seen at the zoo. Birds of all kinds flew through the canopy overhead. Deer leapt between large brambles, appearing and disappear as if playing hide and seek. Mammals roamed the forest floor, and reptiles clung to trees and rocks. They followed a small stream for several miles, from which Kevin could see plenty of fish and even a few amphibians lounging around, croaking strange tunes.
While Kevin took delight in traveling through the forest, Iris wasn’t quite as enthused.
“Who the hell would want to live all the way out here in the middle of freaking nowhere?” she asked.
“Someone who doesn’t want to be bothered, Skank. Orin’s a reclusive jerk who rarely ventures into human territory—except when he’s being a perverted bas—kya!” Christine screamed when she slipped on a rock. Lilian, who traveled by the girl’s side, caught her with a tail.
“You okay?” asked the redhead.
“Y-yeah…” Christine took a deep breath. “Thanks.”
Lilian beamed at the girl. “Anytime.”
“Hey, nature boy!” Iris called out to Kevin, who was lagging behind the rest. “Stop wasting time and hurry up.”
Kevin could’ve argued with Iris, but for the sake of keeping things peaceable, he merely quickened his pace.
This, unfortunately, turned out to be a mistake. As he passed Iris, she leapt onto his back, her arms locking around his neck, legs and tails coiling around his waist. More importantly, her twin mountains pressed into his back like two massive marshmallows.
“U-ugh,” Kevin grunted as he stumbled forward. “What are you doing?”
He could actually feel Iris grinning into his back.
“I’m tired. Carry me.”
“You mean lazy,” Kevin corrected. Even so, he reached underneath Iris and cupped her bum. His actions earned an appreciative moan from the fox-girl, who took a moment to grind against his back. “Stop that.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t concentrate when you do that, and I’d rather not have my clothes smell like your sexual secretions.”
“Oh, I like that. Sexual secretions. Very nice. Mind if I use it sometime?”
Kevin would have shrugged if he wasn’t carrying her. “Sure, whatever floats your boat.”
As Kevin swiftly caught up with the other two members of their party, Christine turned to Lilian. “Doesn’t it bother you?”
“What?” Lilian asked, clearly not understanding what Christine’s question was about.
“Those two.” The yuki-onna pointed at Iris as she nuzzled her nose against Kevin’s neck, making the poor boy almost trip again. “Doesn’t it bother you that your sister is getting so close to your mate?”
Lilian tilted her head, appearing genuinely confused. “Should it?”
“You didn’t like it when Lindsay or I got close to him,” Christine muttered bitingly.
“That’s because you and Lindsay were a threat to my position.” Lilian thrust out her chest. “If either one of you had become closer to Kevin than me, then he would have never become my mate.” She shrugged. “Iris isn’t trying to steal Kevin from me, so I don’t mind it when she’s like this.”
She looked back at Kevin, who was busy bantering with Iris.
“Say, Stud, have you ever wondered what it would be like if I gave you a tail job while you were driving?”
“I haven’t, though I suspect that’s more for my own sanity than anything else—and if you did give me a tail job while I was driving, I’m pretty sure it would lead to our deaths.”
As always, whenever Iris spoke with Kevin, it had something to do with sex. Lilian knew that her sister thought about more than just sex, but anyone else would’ve been appalled by how often it cropped up in conversation.
“Besides,” Lilian continued, “I trust Kevin.”
“O-oh…” Christine suddenly looked depressed about something, but before Lilian could ask her about it, she spoke again. “Anyway, we’re here.”
Lilian looked around, yet she couldn’t see anything that would point to this being their destination. All she could see were trees, bushes, and animals.
“Where is here exactly?” she asked, her ears twitching as Kevin stepped up beside them.
“Orin’s home,” Christine answered. “Where else?”
“You sure you’re not hallucinating?” Iris asked as she reluctantly climbed off Kevin’s back. “Because I don’t see anything.”
“It’s a barrier, isn’t it?” Kevin stated as much as asked.
Christine looked impressed. “Yes, there is a barrier here. I don’t really understand how it works, but I know that it not only creates the illusion that nothing is here, it also keeps anyone who isn’t tuned into the barrier from entering.”
“Then how are we supposed to enter?” asked Lilian.
“Don’t worry,” Christine assured her, walking up to a tree several yards to their left. “Orin taught me how to tune people to the barrier, though I’ll need a drop of your blood.”
“Sounds like some kind of kinky blood ritual,” Iris stated.
Christine glared at her.
“It isn’t, so get your mind out of the gutter.” She paused, then spoke in a softer, more contemplative voice. “Although I’m kind of surprised it isn’t. Orin’s a perv, so you’d think he’d make every ritual he has lecherous.”
“So, he’s like a really old version of Eric,” Lilian concluded as she pricked her finger, blood welling on the tip. “What do you want me to do with this?”
In response to the question, Christine removed a panel from the tree, revealing that, rather than a wooden hollow, this tree possessed what appeared to be a very complex network of glowing blue veins.
“Just place a drop of blood right on this little circle here.” Christine pointed to a small blue circle within the hollow.
“What is this?” asked Lilian as she allowed the drop of blood to fall from her finger. The tiny circle’s glow shifted from blue to red. Then the blood melted into the tree, and the color changed back to blue.
“It’s Scriptwriting,” Kevin said. Iris took Lilian’s place by the tree, nipping her thumb and letting some blood drop onto the circle. “It’s one of Orin’s special talents, the ability to externalize his techniques by infusing youki into writing.”
It was similar to a kijo’s ability to use spells through the use of kanji. Orin could take any spell that he knew and, by drawing a representation of the spell’s concept, infuse the technique into a living but non-sentient object.
Now I understand why Orin prefers living in a forest.
The abundance of non-sentient life within a forest far exceeded any place else. It wouldn’t surprise Kevin to learn that several more techniques just like this had been set up all around the forest, additional defenses, traps, and powerful illusions that could induce nightmares. Within this forest, Orin was practically omnipotent.
“You know a lot about Orin’s abilities despite having never met him,” Christine commented.
“Kuroneko told Lilian and me a lot about him and the other Four Saints when we were in California. I was interested in knowing what kind of yōkai the others were.” Kevin looked into the hollow before sighing. “Anyway, I’m afraid this won’t work for me.”
“What?” Christine didn’t appear to understand.
Kevin scratched the back of his head. “The truth is, barriers all break whenever my left hand touches them. If I walk through this barrier, even if my blood has been infused into it, the barrier will be destroyed.”
Christine stared at Kevin like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She then turned to Lilian and Iris, a question on her face.
“It’s true,” Lilian said. “Kevin has broken Kotohime’s barriers several times whenever they spar. It’s gotten to the point where she doesn’t even bother putting one
up anymore.”
Christine was still incredulous. Her very expression seemed to define how little she believed them. Kevin didn’t blame her. Even he didn’t know much about this power, not how it came to be nor how a human such as him had acquired such an unusual ability. However, she also seemed to sense that they were serious, for she eventually relented with a sigh.
“All right. Fine. I’m not the best at manipulating barriers, especially ones that don’t have some connection with ice or fire, but I can probably create a small gap in the barrier for you to pass through. It won’t last long though, and it won’t be very big. You’ll have to pass through it quickly.”
“That’s fine with me,” Kevin said.
“I can’t believe I’m actually doing this.”
Christine walked up to a small section of the forest. It didn’t look different from any other part, but there seemed to be something there, invisible, indefinable—a barrier.
“You two go on first,” Christine said to Lilian and Iris. “Just keep walking. Once you’ve crossed the barrier, wait for us.”
Lilian and Iris looked at each other. Grinning, Iris took Lilian’s hand, their fingers entwining. The two took a slow breath, then walked forward. One step. Two steps. Kevin watched, blinking several times when the pair disappeared. It wasn’t a fast disappearance either. It looked almost like their bodies were slowly dissolving until nothing remained.
“Well,” Kevin started, “you don’t see that every day.”
“Okay,” Christine released a deep breath, as if preparing herself for something strenuous. “I’ll only be able to open a hole for a second, so you’re gonna have to be fast.”
“Right.”
Kevin bent his knees and prepared to sprint. It had been a long time since he’d been in track. The affairs of yōkai had forced him to quit, but even so, his body still remembered how it felt—and it wasn’t like he’d gotten any slower. He still trained to strengthen his body every day.
Christine raised her hands in front of her body. It looked like she was getting ready to summon something.
The air shimmered in front of them. Ripples appeared as if someone had thrown a pebble into a lake, starting from her hands and steadily expanding. She took another deep breath, then released it. The air grew colder. Icy particles gathered in the atmosphere. Kevin shivered, but the coldness seeping into his bones didn’t last as a small line appeared in front of him. The line then expanded into a rectangle-shaped box.
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