“Lily!” Iris’s head popped out from the hole above her. “Did I get them?”
“Yes, you got them,” Lilian said.
“Nice.”
Lilian allowed relief to sweep through her. The battle hadn’t been as tough as she’d expected. Certainly, she’d been expecting something a little more difficult. Maybe all of her training really had paid off, or perhaps those two weren’t really fighters. They were working in this place, a tiny base located in the middle of nowhere. Clearly, they were not front-line fighters.
Now Iris and I can find Kevin and Christine, she thought. They’ve probably already located Phoebe and Heather. We’ll want to—
“Lilian, look out!”
“Eh?”
Lilian was startled when something wrapped around her left ankle. She looked down to see a thin white string attached to her. She then looked further down, past her leg and into the hole, where two enraged jorogumo were hanging from a silk thread attached to the edge of the hole. There was only a moment to comprehend her situation before Hilda, whose extended hand made the person responsible for the thread attached to her leg obvious, yanked her hand back.
Releasing a loud yelp, Lilian was pulled off her feet. Stars swam in her vision as her head cracked against cement. Iris screamed, but it was indecipherable. Lilian felt her stomach climb into her throat as the sensation of weightlessness came over her. A moment of panic caused her body to seize up.
The world passed by in a blur. Hilda and Katrina grinned as she fell past them. Reacting more than thinking, Lilian extended her tails and grabbed onto the pair before she could get too far. Her body jerked to a halt, and she cried out when pain lanced her backside and tails. The two arachnids yelled indignantly as they, too, were jerked around by the sudden weight added onto them.
A loud cracking sound, like something breaking, caused Lilian to look up. She was just in time to see the ceiling that Katrina was keeping them connected to break.
Lilian, Katrina, and Hilda all fell down into the depths below.
“Lilian!”
Iris felt her heart freeze. The world seemed to collapse on itself as she stared at the spot that her sister had disappeared.
Her breathing picked up as her mind struggled to understand what had happened. There was just no… there was absolutely no way her sister could have just fallen like that! She refused to believe it! She couldn’t… not Lilian.
She’s still alive. She has to still be alive.
Just then, the entire base was rocked by a massive explosion, and a feeling unlike anything she’d ever experienced slammed into her. It was disgusting, repulsive—a vile killing intent that embodied all of the negative emotions the world had to offer.
Kill… I want to kill… need to kill… let me kill you… kill everything…
The whispers, which had been silent since Kevin saved her, came back. Iris fell onto her back and held her head in her hands, spasming as the fierce desire to slaughter everything in sight threatened to consume her.
Kill… kill… you know you want to… you must… kill… we’ll kill… you kill… EVERYTHING MUST DIE!
Her eyes rolled into the back of her head. Drool leaked down her mouth to form a puddle underneath her body. Her spine felt like it was snapping as her back arched painfully against the floor.
“Shut… s-shut up…” she pleaded. The whispers grew stronger. Redness impeded her vision. “Shut up… I don’t… I don’t need you! I don’t want… this… no… stop it!”
Breathing became a struggle as her esophagus closed on itself. She could barely see, she couldn’t breathe, she could hardly think. Her mind was shutting down. The world was growing dimmer by the minute and the voices were getting louder and the killing intent was getting stronger and if this didn’t end soon then she would—
The killing intent stopped, suddenly, swiftly. Iris sucked in a deep lungful of air. The taste of copper filled her mouth. She must have bitten her tongue. She rolled over and hacked several times, coughing up the blood that had trickled into her throat. The voices had gone mercifully silent.
“W-what… was that…?” Iris asked, even though no one was around to answer. The answer didn’t matter anyway.
Stumbling to her feet, Iris began to walk. She needed to rescue Lilian.
Lilian couldn’t see. She was falling stomach first. Wind whipped by her on all sides as tears streaked from her eyes and her lips flapped in the wind.
Is this… how I die?
The thought appeared before she could dispel it.
No…
She struggled against the fear clouding her mind.
I won’t…
She wouldn’t give up like that. There was still too much for her to do.
I refuse to give up!
“C… Celestial Art: Light!”
Light appeared on her tails. It was dim, however, and did little to show her anything. Gritting her teeth, Lilian pumped more youki into her technique, causing the entire area to brighten.
She was falling down through a massive cavern. The ceiling was covered in stalactites, and down below was a massive lake, its waters almost black it was so dark.
Not knowing what else to do, but understanding that she needed to do something, Lilian pumped youki through her body, as much as she dared. Then she covered her face with her arms and prepared for impact.
Pain slammed into her as icy water engulfed her body. Lilian couldn’t stop herself from opening her mouth to release a cry of pain. Water flowed into her mouth as she instinctively tried to suck in oxygen. As liquid filled her lungs, Lilian fought her way to the surface, kicking her feet and flailing her arms.
Breaking the water’s surface, she hacked up several lung’s worth of water. Her throat burned and her agonized lungs felt weighed down, but she channeled her celestial youki to her chest. It didn’t heal it, as there was nothing to heal, but it soothed the aggravation enough that she didn’t feel like she was dying.
Lilian didn’t know where to go, so she started swimming in a random direction. The water chilled her bones. She fought against the chill by pushing herself harder, and she was eventually rewarded by reaching a rocky shore. Pulling herself out of the water, Lilian shivered as the cold air hit her dripping wet skin. It was only after she pulled her legs up to her chest that her circumstances finally sunk in.
“I… I almost died…”
She took a shuddering breath and withheld the desire to cry. Crying wasn’t going to solve anything right now. Instead of bawling her eyes out, she needed to focus on rejoining Iris, Kevin, and Christine.
“I wonder how far down I fell.”
She looked up and was unable to see the top. It was too far up. This cavern was too high.
“Just how far below the ground is this place? I must be below the lake.”
Standing up and withholding her wince, Lilian looked around, using the light technique as a makeshift flashlight. She located a tunnel several yards to her left and headed in that direction.
As she walked through the tunnel, which was even wider and taller than the hallways in the base above, she flashed her light all over the place. There was no sign of Hilda or Katrina. Had they fallen into the lake and drowned?
“No…” Lilian shook her head. “There’s no way I’m that lucky. They’re probably wondering around here somewhere, waiting for the right moment to strike.”
“How intuitive of you,” a voice said in her ear.
Spinning around and leaping back, Lilian fired off several light spheres. Hilda manipulated her fingers. As she twitched them, several dozen strings glinted before her, turning into an impenetrable barrier. Lilian clicked her tongue as her light attack splashed against the shield, dispersing harmlessly.
“Now, now, is there really need for such violence?” Hilda asked, her smile revealing sharp teeth.
“How did you survive that fall?” Lilian demanded.
“Tch, such a rude little girl you are.” Hilda shook her head, as if sadde
ned by Lilian’s lack of decorum. “Katrina and I survived because we didn’t fall like you did. We can shoot webs, in case you forgot. Think of us as spiders, except a lot sexier.”
Lilian would have snorted at the sexy comment, but at the mention of Katrina, her instincts screamed at her to move.
Reinforcing her legs, she leapt back. Something whizzed past her ear and impaled the ground. Lilian felt an arc of fear race through her when she saw that it was a large spear made from jorogumo silk.
If that had hit me…
Lilian was forced to move again as another spear shot into the ground, vibrating from the force it was thrown with. Having seen it again, Lilian made a general guess as to Katrina’s location, and raised her tails to unleash a Divine Double Helix Cannon .
“Ah, ah, ah! We can’t have you using your techniques on us!” Hilda crowed as a dozen needles flew from her spinneret.
“Celestial Art: Barrier that Protects the Princess!”
A half-sphere of golden energy appeared in front of Lilian. The needles struck the shield, bouncing off and clattering to the ground. She then dispersed the shield and leapt to the side as another spear struck rock with enough force to stab straight through it.
“Celestial Art: Orbs of an Evanescent Realm!”
Half a dozen golden orbs appeared around Lilian before shooting off toward her foes. Three went to Hilda and three to Katrina. Neither appeared that concerned. Katrina slashed at the orbs with her sword while Hilda manipulated the webs attached to her fingers, forming a shield.
The orbs went straight through them.
“What the—kya!”
Exploding in their faces, the orbs flared with the brilliance of a sun. It was all an illusion, of course. Lilian hadn’t created an attack, but used a basic illusory technique to make them think she had attacked. It was merely a distraction.
“Celestial Art: Flash Step.”
It was only for a brief moment, but Lilian turned her entire body into light. And in that split second, she appeared before Hilda, who she’d deemed the most dangerous of the two. Reinforcing her limbs until it felt like youki might burst from her pores, Lilian slammed both fists into the woman’s stomach, just below her chest.
While her body might have been stronger than a human’s, it wasn’t strong enough to protect her against a reinforced physical attack like this. Blood spat from Hilda’s mouth as her ribs shattered and her internal organs liquified. Lilian jumped back as the jorogumo coughed. Hilda brought her hands around her waist, her eight legs giving out.
Knowing better than to let her have a chance to recover, Lilian channeled youki through her tails, prepared to use—
Her instincts screamed at her. She leapt back. A spear slammed into the ground where she’d been standing. It quivered for several seconds before going still. By then, Lilian had spun around to face Katrina, who dropped from the ground and attacked without restraint, her expression murderous.
“I’m going to kill you!” she shrieked. “I’ll murder you for hurting my sister!”
A sword flashed in front of her face. Lilian jerked her head back, feeling the weapon glide through the space where she’d been. Another sword came in from out of nowhere, and it was all she could do to avoid the next attack.
“Die! Die, die, die, die!”
An ugly snarl twisted Katrina’s face as she came at Lilian, a sword in each hand. Lilian did her best to dodge, but she was running low on youki and could no longer afford to use reinforcement.
She twisted her body around a strike that would have split her from top to bottom. Sweat flew from her bangs, drizzled down her face, and stung her eyes. Yet she didn’t blink. She moved back, shuffling along the ground as she’d seen Kevin do several times, avoiding several lightning quick swipes from Katrina’s twin swords.
Her sides stung as she moved. Her breathing was a heavy rasp, and each exhale burned her lungs from the exertion. Left. Right. She danced around several more attacks that would have cut her in half, then rolled along the ground, dodging a strike that was meant to cut her open from right collar bone to left hip.
“Doof!”
Lilian exhaled heavily when one of Katrina’s legs slammed into her stomach. She hadn’t been expecting it, and her world spun around as she was sent flying backwards. A scream tore from her lungs as her back impacted violently with the ground. Her shoulder blades felt like they were cracking as she rolled across the rocky cavern, only coming to a stop when she smacked into a boulder protruding from the ground.
Clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack. Katrina stalked toward her, appearing far larger than she had several seconds ago. Her murderous expression, the look of indiscernible rage in her seven eyes, shook Lilian to her core.
“I’m going to kill you,” Katrina spat.
Lilian struggled to stand up, but her spine felt like it had been snapped. Her body refused to move. She could do nothing as Katrina raised her swords above her head.
“Prepare to die—gurk!”
There was a moment of silence. Lilian stared at the long spear, which protruded from Katrina’s chest, dripping with black blood. Katrina was also looking at the spear, her eyes holding a sort of confusion, as if she wasn’t sure what to make of the thing sticking out of her chest. She looked back at Lilian, who met her gaze, equally confused. Then blood gushed from her mouth and she fell to the ground, her torso slumping forward until she was lying face-first on the cold stone.
“Art thou all right?” a voice asked.
Lilian looked past Katrina’s body to see a woman standing several feet away. Her long blond hair was covered in grime, and her body was littered with bruises. Eyes the color of jade stared back at her from beneath a dirty fringe. Leather armor, once gleaming as if freshly polished, was covered in a black substance and had numerous dents. Lilian recognized her, and also the person she was carrying on her back.
“I’m fine, Ioxeia,” she said, standing up on shaky legs. “Thanks for the save.”
“Thou art welcome,” Ioxeia said with a gracious nod.
Lilian looked at Thoe. “Is she okay? She looks hurt.”
Now that she was looking, Thoe really did look like she was in bad shape. Blood dripped from her thighs and ran down her legs. Even without seeing more than the parts peeking out from behind Ioxeia, she could tell that the other yama uba had suffered a lot of damage.
“Thoe has indeed been injured. ‘Twas actually the hope of myself and my companions to ask if either you or Kotohime would be willing to heal her.”
Lilian didn’t have much youki left, having used most of it during her fight. That being said, she should have enough to at least heal a few of Thoe’s injuries.
“Set her down over there,” Lilian instructed. “I’ll do what I can, though I don’t know how much of her injuries I’ll be able to heal. At the very least, I should be able to stop her bleeding.”
“I thank thee.”
As Ioxeia went over to a flat part of the cavern and set Thoe down, Lilian wandered up to Hilda, who hadn’t moved since Lilian delivered her crushing blow. The spider woman’s raspy breathing let her know that the damage done was extensive, and the way blood continued to spill from her lips meant that she had internal bleeding in her lungs, or stomach.
“My… my sister,” the woman croaked. “She’s… she’s dead, isn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“I see.”
Hilda closed her eyes. Lilian saw the pain on her face, and for a moment, she sympathized. How much would it hurt her if Iris died? She didn’t want to know.
“I know that I have no right to ask this of you, but would you do me a favor?” Hilda opened her eyes again.
Lilian thought about it for a second. “I guess it would depend on the favor. And why do you sound like you’re about to die? I didn’t hit you that hard.”
“You hit harder than you think,” Hilda said, smiling without mirth. “Or did you not notice that you infused celestial energy into your fi
sts?”
Lilian blinked. She had not noticed herself doing that. Strange.
“What’s this favor you wanted to ask?”
“There’s a… a person that I want you to rescue. She’s like a sister to me and Katrina. We… we were raised alongside her.”
“Who is this person?” Lilian asked.
“Her name is Kandice. She is… she is… currently being held captive… at…”
“Hey! Hey, hey! Don’t die when you’re trying to tell me something important!” Lilian shouted at the woman, though she knew it was pointless. Hilda had ceased to breathe. Her eyes, still open, were glazed over, the light of life no longer burning within them. She was dead.
She stared at the dead body with mixed feelings. Regret and relief merged together. She took a deep breath and expelled it all in one go. Regret would do no good right now, and this woman had been an enemy. There were more important things to worry about.
Turning from the sight of her defeated foe, Lilian ran over to where Thoe lay. She had a job to do.
In most situations, when the heroine is being used as a hostage, it was perfectly acceptable to whip out a pair of pistols and pop a cap in the ass of the jerkwad doing the hostage holding.
Unfortunately for Kevin, this situation wasn’t normal. His foe wasn’t human.
Bright yellow and bulging eyes dripped with conceit. Kevin didn’t know much about toad yōkai, but he understood the fundamental difference between humans and yōkai. Most yōkai were stronger than humans—stronger, faster, and capable of reacting more quickly.
In battle, the more powerful person usually won. Kevin had trained himself to be capable of fighting creatures more powerful than himself on equal footing, so he was confident in his ability to defeat a gama. What he wasn’t confident in was his ability to put a bullet between this toad’s eyes before he did something to Christine.
He stood several feet from the gama, who had a fierce grip on Christine and was covering her mouth with one hand while the other pointed at her temple like it was a gun. His own guns were out and trained on the gama’s head, though he didn’t fire.
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