“Yeah, what’s it to you?” asked Iris before computing the second half of what he’d said. “Wait. What?”
She’d turned back to Lilian and Kevin to see that what had once been a sparring session had now turned into an extremely heavy make out session. Lilian was lying on top of Kevin, presumably from tackling him. She was giving the blond boy an open-mouthed kiss. Iris could see their tongues swirling around each other, hooking and pushing and pulling. The saliva was dripping down their chins. Neither of them seemed to care. Lilian’s hands were making a mess of Kevin’s hair, while Kevin’s were firmly grasping the redhead’s deliciously tight butt.
“Damn it,” Iris swore under her breath before shouting at the two. “HEY! GET A FUCKING ROOM YOU TWO! BETTER YET, IF YOU GUYS ARE GOING TO DO THAT WHILE I’M STILL HERE, THEN AT LEAST INVITE ME TO JOIN IN!”
The two lovebirds jerked apart, and Iris realized with some irritation that they really had forgotten where they were. Honestly, it was like they just completely forgot about everything else once they started going at it.
“Sounds like you’ve got some issues with them being together,” Mack commented lightly.
Iris’s already irritated expression gained several levels of annoyance. “I have no issue with the stud being mated to my sister.” Then, speaking a bit louder, she said, “My problem is that they won’t let me join in on the fun!”
Kevin and Lilian had clearly heard her. Kevin’s face turned cherry red, while Lilian looked apologetic.
Iris sighed. She knew why Lilian was taking so long to speak with Kevin. He was a human. To him, being in a relationship meant having only a single partner. The idea of having more than one lover felt wrong to him.
It’s all because of the stupid society he grew up in. Inari damn it. Why couldn’t we have been born during the shogun period where polyamorous relationships were practiced? Stupid Americans.
“Uh…” the usagi—Mark, she thought his name was—looked somewhat uncomfortable. “Not to be rude, but isn’t that girl your sister?”
Iris tossed him a deadpan stare complete with half-lidded, bored eyes. “Yeah. So?”
Mickie stared at her for a little more before looking away. “No. It’s nothing.”
At this point, Kevin and Lilian walked up to them, and the blond teen got a good look at the pinkish-haired man.
“Hey, aren’t you Mack?”
“Yep. That’s me.” Mack grinned. Huh, so that was his name. “Good to see you again, brat.”
Kevin clicked his tongue. “Why does everyone call me ‘brat’?”
“Cuz you are one,” Iris quipped. “If you weren’t, you and Lilian would have done the nasty by now, and I would already be joining you two in your sexcapades.”
“Stop mentioning sexcapades!” Kevin shouted.
“So, Mark,” Lilian said.
“It’s Mack.”
“Yeah, that.” Lilian didn’t really seem to care. “Are you undergoing shōnen-style training, too?”
“Huh?” Mack looked genuinely befuddled. “Shōnen what now?”
“You don’t know what shōnen-style training is?!”
Lilian looked suitably horrified. Acting with haste, she stuck a hand between her cleavage and pulled out a book called TV Tropes for Dummies. After flipping through several pages and mumbling to herself, she eventually found the page she was looking for.
She coughed into her hand and adopted a lecture post. Kevin often called it Lecture Pose Number Twenty-One. It was where she held the book in her right hand while she held her left hand near her face and pointed at the ceiling like a teacher trying to make a point.
“Otherwise known as Training from Hell. This training method goes by the ‘harsher is better’ idea, stating that the more likely your training is to kill you, the stronger you’ll become if you survive. All shōnen manga heroes will undergo similar methods of training, though sometimes they undergo the Next Tier Power-Up, which is what shōnen heroes do to gain a new power.” Lilian snapped the book shut and placed it back in her cleavage. “However, Kevin is a human. He doesn’t have any kind of special power, so Training from Hell it is.”
“Kiara calls it the ‘Making His Whole Life About Fighting Even if He Dies’ training method,” Kevin added helpfully.
“Does she really call it that?” asked a curious Lilian.
“Yep,” Kevin said with a completely straight face.
“Huh, you think she’s ever watched Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me. Some of her training regiments are downright murder.”
“Uh-huh…” Mack looked back and forth between the young couple. “Um, no offense, but that didn’t really seem like Training from Hell to me. It looked more like you two were just making out.”
Kevin blushed at the mention of his passionate moment with Lilian. Iris would admit it was almost cute the way he still blushed even after everything he and Lilian had done.
“That’s because it was nearing the end of our training,” Lilian defended herself and her mate. “Before that, we were doing super hard training.”
“Really?” Mack seemed skeptical.
“Yes, really,” Lilian insisted. “It was really, really hard training. Just ask Iris.”
Mack turned to her, and Iris sighed, but nodded nonetheless. “She’s being honest about that, at least. I don’t know what turned my sister into such a big training nut, but I was questioning her sanity when I saw some of the stuff she and Kevin called training.”
“Right. Well, I guess I’d better head off,” Mack started. “I’ve got work to do. Anyway, it was interesting talking to you.”
“We barely said more than a few sentences,” Iris shot back.
“See ya.”
The trio all watched the man leave, his bunny ears bouncing along his head. When the door closed behind him, Iris turned to Kevin and Lilian.
“Please tell me we’re done here,” she begged.
Kevin and Lilian held a silent conversation with their eyes, then turned to her.
“We’re done,” Lilian said.
“Thank Inari.” Iris’s sigh of relief came out several decibels louder than normal. “I don’t think I could have withstood another minute watching you two. Now help me up. Thanks to your ridiculous training, I can barely even move.”
***
Kevin finished getting dressed, taking careful note of how snugly his clothes were beginning to fit him. The shirt was stretched taut over his chest, shoulders, and arms, but it felt looser along the hem. His black jeans also felt too small around his thighs and calves. It wasn’t quite uncomfortable, but still…
I’ll have to get larger clothes soon…
He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.
Exiting the locker room, Kevin bumped into Lilian and Iris. The raven-haired succubus was being half-carried by her fraternal twin. She looked haggard, more so than when he and Lilian had half-dragged, half-carried her to the locker rooms.
“Iris, are you feeling okay?” he asked.
Despite looking like someone whose soul had been half-severed by the Shinigami, Iris gave him a smile. “I’m fine. Just tired.” Her eyes, lacking luster and abnormally dull, gained a hint of mischief. “You wore me out, Stud. Congrats. Not many people can say that.”
Kevin stared at Iris for several seconds, his expression deadpan, then turned to Lilian. His girlfriend-slash-mate of one year smiled apologetically. “This is Iris’s problem to tell,” her smile seemed to say.
He sighed. “If you say so. Anyway, since it looks like you can’t even walk on your own. Let me help you.”
Iris fluttered her eyelashes. “You gonna carry me in your big, strong arms?”
“Yes.”
“Eh?”
Iris barely had time to squawk as Kevin lifted her into his arms, left arm under her knees, right arm around her back. Perhaps out of instinct, Iris wrapped her arms around his neck. Her wide eyes stared at him in shock for nearly a full fi
ve seconds. Then she chuckled.
“Uhuhuhu, falling for my charms, Stud? Careful now. You’ve got a mate, you know?”
“I am aware of that,” Kevin said, straight-faced. “And I have not fallen for your charms.”
“So you say, but your actions say otherwise.”
“Think whatever you want. I’m only trying to be—urk!”
Kevin stumbled forward as something leapt onto his back without warning. His legs, already somewhat exhausted by the exercising he’d done, buckled and threatened to collapse. Red hair cascaded down his shoulders, letting him know exactly who’d jumped onto his back.
“Lilian,” Kevin gasped, his voice strangled. “What… what are you doing?”
“Hmph. If you’re going to carry Iris, then you have to carry me, too,” Lilian declared impudently. “Dems da rules.”
“K-ku,” Kevin released a sound not unlike that of a man hanging from a noose. “What kind of rule is that? And don’t try to sound like a gangster!”
“Ufufufu,” Lilian giggled. Kevin shuddered, though whether from her warm breath hitting his ear or the creepy giggling, he didn’t know. “I’m just trying to sound like Worick.”
“You sound absolutely nothing like Worick!” Kevin argued. “He doesn’t have that weird Italian mafia way of speaking.”
“I’m gangsta.”
“You’re not gangsta, and that was a terrible anime reference.”
As he and Lilian continued to play “boke and tsukkomi,” Kevin found his lips threatening to curve upwards. Walking also became easier despite the added 180 pounds from the combined weight of Lilian and Iris. After taking the elevator to the fourth level, they made it to their wing, which was when they ran into Phoebe and Polydora as they were just about to enter their own room.
“Ah, Master,” Phoebe greeted in a hearty manner. Polydora just huffed and did her best to ignore them.
“I will never understand why you’ve taken to calling me ‘master,’” Kevin sighed.
“Because I want your babies, of course,” Phoebe said as if it should have been the most obvious answer in the world.
“I don’t think that’s how this works,” Kevin muttered.
“I will gladly wait for you to fill me with your sperm and impregnate me.”
“Don’t say things like that so readily!” Kevin tsukkomied. “In fact, don’t say things like that at all!”
“Yes, Master.”
Kevin’s right eyebrow twitched in annoyance.
“Uhuhuhu.”
“No laughing from you, Iris.”
“Tch.”
“Did you two just get back from reconnaissance?” Lilian asked, resting her chin on Kevin’s left shoulder.
“That is correct. We were scouting the city with Kiara to determine the general state of the city's populace,” Phoebe said.
“So how it is up there?” asked Kevin.
“It is… not good,” oddly enough, Polydora was the one who answered, shuddering while she did so. “There is a lot of tension up there. It’s everywhere. No matter where we went, everyone looked like they were waiting for someone to stab them in the back.”
Kevin could imagine why that would be the case. With the knowledge of yōkai existing, followed by the new act that had been put in place, everyone was now suspicious of everyone else. Watching. Waiting. Humans wanted to know who among them was a yōkai, and yōkai were afraid of being found out because it meant they would no longer be able to live normal lives. Fear. Paranoia. A sense of disparity had now engulfed the city—no, the world.
It was a tense situation.
“I guess things are getting pretty bad,” Lilian said, “but enough about that. You two should come back to our room.”
Phoebe and Polydora both blinked.
“Pardon?” Phoebe said.
“Ufufufu,” Lilian giggled some more, “I said you two should come back to our room. There is an important topic that I need to talk to everyone about, and since you two are secondary characters in all this, I think you have a right to be there.”
“And what is this important topic that you are speaking of?” asked Polydora.
Lilian’s grin stretched all the way across her face. “We need to decide on a theme song.”
… A moment of silence.
“Eh?”
There was no telling who that came from.
***
The stench of failure hung about Kiara like a plague. She moodily stomped through the underground base, her face set in a scowl that masked her abjection well. Yet inside her mind, turmoil boiled beneath the surface, a roiling sea of worry and defeat.
When she entered the command room, it was to find Kotohime and Monstrang talking about something. They stopped when she entered.
“Ara? Kiara-san, you look… not quite yourself.”
Kiara snorted. “That’s a very mild and inaccurate way of putting it. It’s okay to say I look like crap. I know I must right now.”
“I was going to say disheartened,” Kotohime replied mildly.
“I’m guessing you couldn’t find out where Juan was taken?” Monstrang asked.
Kiara shook her head. “No. I couldn’t. I was tracking them south down the I-10 towards Tucson when I lost their scent. They must have added scent killers or used some other means to confuse my nose.”
“That is disturbing news.” Kotohime hid her mouth demurely behind the sleeve of her kimono, dark eyes narrowed in pools of concentration. “I wonder… do you think they suspected you were on their trail?”
“Doubtful,” Kiara answered, shaking her head. “I think they were just being cautious. Perhaps they know Juan’s importance as an information broker and wanted to make sure no one followed them.”
“But they also kidnapped your brother, did they not?”
“Yeah, but Chris isn’t that important in the grand scheme of things.”
“That is a rather harsh thing to say about your own sibling.”
“Don’t fuck me with, Kotohime,” Kiara snarled before visibly shuddering. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to take my anger out on you, but I just—damn it!” She slammed her hand against the wall, denting it. Monstrang and Kotohime eyed the cracks spreading from where her fist had impacted against the surface.
Kotohime looked back at her friend’s face. “It is fine. I understand that you are upset. You may not like your brother as a person, but family is still family. It must rankle you to be unable to rescue him, especially now that he’s no stronger than a normal human.”
Kiara clicked her tongue and crossed her arms. “You can say that again. I still don’t know what your little ward did to my brother, but ever since she hurt him, he’s never been the same.”
“It’s a light-based technique called Divine Wave, Spiritual Sundering,” Monstrang grunted.
“Ara, ara. It seems you know celestial techniques quite well, Monstrang-dono. Ufufufu.”
“I know a few things.”
“So what is this Spiritual Sundering technique?” Kiara asked. “What does it do?”
“Celestial Art: Divine Wave, Spiritual Sundering is a technique that uses a Celestial Kitsune’s divine right to judge others and punish them. It reveals all the crimes someone has committed—how many people they have wronged, how those people were wronged in the first place—and then sentences that person. The level of damage done to them is dependent on the gravity of the wrongs they have committed.” Kotohime idly stroked the hilt of her katana. “I suppose you could say it is a technique with the sole purpose of making those who have committed crimes atone for their sins.”
As if gravity had suddenly increased around her, Kiara’s shoulders slumped. “I see. So that’s what happened. Chris has never been very benevolent, and I’m sure he’s picked on a lot of people and committed many wrongs.”
“Indeed. My guess is that the technique saw Chris’s many sins and decided to punish him by taking away the one thing he prides himself in above all else.”
“His str
ength as an inu,” Kiara said.
“Exactly.” Kotohime nodded, then giggled. “Though I must say, for Lilian-sama to have learned such a technique when I wasn’t looking, it is most admirable. That technique shouldn’t be possible for a kitsune with only two tails of power. As I recall, it requires at least four, maybe even five.”
“Your charge is fairly exceptional when it comes to using her abilities,” Kiara admitted. “She was quite talented when I fought her over a year ago, and it appears she’s only grown by leaps and bounds since then.”
“Lilian-sama has always been a determined kitsune. She wants to live her life without being confined by family obligations. I believe her impressive growth is also due to her desire to remain with Kevin-sama.”
“I’m just glad she’s finally started training in martial combat.” Kiara huffed. “If that girl hadn’t gotten off her butt and started getting better at physical fighting, I would've dragged her sorry ass onto the mat and kicked it around all over again.”
“Ufufufu, are you saying this because you would like Lilian-sama to be capable of fighting alongside Kevin-sama?”
Kiara gave Kotohime a look that all but said, “Duh.” This caused Kotohime to giggle some more.
“We’re getting off topic here,” Monstrang grunted. “We need to find out where the Sons and Daughters of Humanity are keeping Juan. Without him, we cannot gain accurate intelligence.”
“Ara? Do we really need that distasteful little cretin?”
Monstrang gave Kotohime a reproachful look. “Yes, we do.”
“Ha… very well. I shall take Phoebe-san and Polydora-san out tomorrow and begin investigating into his whereabouts. I’m sure the three of us can scrounge something up.”
“Good. By the way, are you sure you don’t want to inform Kevin and the others about Juan?”
“Yes,” Kotohime said. “Kevin-sama, Lilian-sama, and Iris-sama have enough on their plates right now. I do not wish to burden them any more than they already are, especially since you and I both know that things are going to get worse before they become better.”
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