While Kyle looked flabbergasted, Shuǐ chortled. “A most interesting human you’ve decided to mate with, Ms. Lilian, aru.”
“Of course.” Lilian puffed her chest out in pride. “My mate’s the best.”
Kyle stared at Kevin for a little while longer, then snorted dismissively. “Whatever. You might be okay in a fistfight, but you’re still human. I would crush you in seconds. I wouldn’t even have to lift a finger.”
“Oh, yeah!” Kevin got up in Kyle’s personal space. “That sounds like a challenge to me. Why don’t you back up those words with some action?”
Kyle butted his head against Kevin’s, glaring at the blond teen. “I would be more than happy to, except fighting against a powerless human isn’t really my style.”
“Sounds to me like someone’s afraid of getting his butt handed to him by this lowly human.”
“What was that?!”
“You heard me. If you want to prove your strength, then do so with your actions instead of your mouth, because all I see right now is a Ninja Turtle wannabe whose only talent is jabbering!”
“I’ll show you Ninja Turtle wannabe when I blast you away with a Hydra Cannon!”
“Pfft! You won’t get a chance to before I introduce my fist to your face!”
Shuǐ looked at the human and the kappa who were seconds away from fighting. He sighed. That youngster Kyle had always been a little too hot-headed for his own good.
“Checkmate!” Lilian declared with a happy smile.
“Eh?!” Shuǐ looked at the board in shock, then despair, when he noticed that, indeed, he’d been bested. “I can’t believe I lost to a yōkai younger than I am, aru!”
Lilian just grinned as she held up her hand and formed the victory sign with her fingers.
***
Night had fallen. Nights in Los Angeles were never pretty. The lights were so bright that you couldn’t see the stars. The sounds of constant traffic grated on the ears. Even further out of the main city, beyond where most of the activity took place, the mass of humanity overran everything.
Within one of those outlying districts, a group of kitsune had gathered. It was a small gathering. The main group had set up shop elsewhere. They’d been stationed there to keep an eye on things, to make sure the kappa didn’t try to launch a surprise attack or something similar. None of them really understood the need. They’d been doing an excellent job of pushing the turtle yōkai back, but their matriarch didn’t want to take any chances, and what the matriarch wanted the matriarch got.
There were only six of them. Four of those six only had two-tails, like most of their clan, but two of them had four.
The group resided in what, to anyone not capable of seeing through illusions, appeared to be nothing more than an old, abandoned warehouse. In truth, it was actually a spacious compound that had been converted into a living space. Red bricks and a flat roof made up the exterior, while the interior had been decorated to look a little more like a home.
“How’s that job of yours, Ken?” asked one of the four-tails. Short blue hair sat upon his head in a messy bed of spikes. Bangs framed a face that any human female would have fallen for. They hid light blue eyes behind them, giving him an aura of mystery.
The one called Ken leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on his thighs. His long blond hair fell over his shoulder, but he flicked it behind him again with a shake of his head.
“Meh, it’s alright. I wouldn’t call it a great job, but the pay is good, and I’ve met a lot of gorgeous women.” His eyes lit up. “I did meet this one chick. She’s fucking gorgeous. Long red-hair, green eyes, and a body that I would happily mate with well into the night.” The light dimmed, and his joy was replaced with a scowl. “Too bad the bitch has a boyfriend. Still…” he shrugged. “Gimme a few more days. I’ll have her eating out of the palm of my hand, and her boyfriend will find himself somewhere in Canada.”
“Why Canada?” one of the other two-tails asked.
“Why the hell not?”
“Good point.”
“There is another problem that I ran into,” Ken added, almost as an afterthought. “This group is traveling with an inu, a dog.” The group wrinkled their noses in disgust. “They’re with that bitch, Kiara.”
“Fucking dogs,” one of the four-tailed kitsune scowled. “They should all just do us a favor and die.”
“This world would definitely be a better place without them.”
Before the group could get going on their collective rant, the doors were blown wide open—along with a good portion of the wall itself. Despite their surprise, the group responded quickly, hopping to their feet and leaping away as the table between their chairs was crushed by a particular large chunk of bricks.
“Sorry about that,” a female voice said from beyond the dust created by the explosion. “I guess I don’t know my own strength.”
Two women walked into the room. One of them, a female with shaggy brown hair, dark eyes, and a feral appearance, clapped the dust off her hand by slapping her pants. Oddly enough, she was wearing a dark gray business suit. What startled the kitsune wasn’t her attire, but the fact that she only had one arm.
The other woman was a kimono-clad femme: dark hair, pale skin, and a figure curvaceous enough to entrance all who gazed upon her. She came to a stop beside the one-armed woman. She was holding a sheathed katana in her left hand.
Both of them were clearly yokai. The woman in the kimono had four tails and fox ears, and the one in the business suit possessed a single bushy tail and floppy dog ears.
“I know you two!” Ken shouted as he pointed at them. “You’re that bitch Kiara, and you’re one of the women who was with her. What the hell is a kitsune doing with an inu?!”
Kiara laughed as she stared at Ken, who flinched under her ferocious gaze, which seemed to promise violence. “I remember you. You’re the punk who was trying to hit on my student’s mate at Sobre el Natural. To think that you would be one of the little kitsune whose asses I’m going to kick.”
Kiara’s lips peeled back into a fanged grin. Ken took a step back.
“This is going to be fun.”
Chapter 8
The Ocean Colored Red
For one solitary second, no one moved. The two groups sized each other up. The group of kitsune seemed stunned that one of their own would work with an inu, while the other simply stood there as if they were expecting something to happen.
When nothing happened, Kotohime decided to make the first move.
A flicker of light was all the warning that the kitsune closest to her—a two-tails with brown hair and dark eyes—would get before Kotohime vanished and reappeared behind him, slowly sheathing her katana.
Click. The sound of her katana fully entering its sheath echoed almost ominously in the quiet room. Exactly one second later, blood gushed out of the severed stump that used to be where the two-tailed kitsune’s head was. The body stood still for a second, crimson ichor spurting from its neck. Then it fell forward, first onto its knees, then toppling to the ground. It twitched once, twice, and then it was still.
Kotohime turned to face the other stunned kitsune.
“That’s one down.”
They kicked into action. The three other two-tails moved back, while the two four-tailed kitsune moved forward. One prepared for battle with Kotohime. The other found himself being pitted against Kiara. That one grimaced.
“Great, I’m fighting the one-armed dog.”
“Now that’s just rude,” Kiara commented, seemingly not bothered by the insult. “This one-armed dog can still kick your ass.”
The kitsune narrowed his eyes. “We’ll see.”
***
Kotohime moved with incredible grace as she crossed the distance between herself and her opponent. She slid her katana out of its sheath, the weapon arcing out in a slicing attack meant to bisect her target. Blade bit into flesh, carving through muscle and bone—or so she thought. It wasn’t until a second late
r, when water spouted from the wound, that she realized what was happening.
She jumped back just in time to witness the water clone exploding. Unlike regular water, which would have sprayed everywhere, this water formed into several streamers that followed after her.
Like the swordswoman that she was, Kotohime remained calm. She moved with alacrity, cutting down each streamer in succession. Unfortunately, the streamers that she cut did not disperse. They simply turned into more streamers, which turned into more streamers. Before Kotohime knew it, she was surrounded by a dome composed entirely of swirling water.
“Hmmm… this is Water Art: Water Prison.”
Much like the name suggested, the technique created a prison composed entirely out of water. In some ways, it looked similar to her technique The Water Temple’s Ancient Realm; however, the execution was far different. For starters, Water Prison did now allow for perfect control over all water in a given vicinity. It simply created a prison. Kotohime’s technique could do that, but it could also accomplish so much more. Any three-tailed River or Ocean Kitsune could use this technique.
Kotohime didn’t bother using a stance. Wielding her katana, she slashed at the dome, tearing the prison apart with ease. The water dispersed, unable to remain cohesive, and Kotohime found herself in the center of an empty room. She frowned. Something was wrong. What happened to Kiara? She should have still been fighting that other four-tailed kitsune. And what happened to her own opponent? He should… her eyes widened.
This is an illusion.
Realizing that she’d been caught within an illusion, Kotohime began the process of breaking it. Illusions were the byproduct of a yōkai injecting their own youki into you, then using it to control one or more of your five senses. To break it, all one had to do was expel the foreign youki.
The illusion vanished. The world returned to its original state. Kiara and her opponent were fighting. The inu smashed her fist into her opponent’s face, sending him flying through a wall. She laughed as she chased after him. Kotohime almost shook her head. That woman was enjoying herself far too much.
A noise came from behind her. Kotohime spun around and swung her blade upwards. Her sword met a wave of water that appeared out of nowhere. The water split apart as she cut it, then began swirling around her, circling her almost like a shark did with its prey.
Holding her blade in front of her, Kotohime shifted into a very basic kenjutsu stance, one that offered balanced strength and stability. It was the best stance to use for what she planned on doing next.
Water rose up as massive pillars that surrounded her on all sides, almost reaching the ceiling. Kotohime knew this technique. Water Art: Entrapment. Contrary to its name, the technique didn’t just trap a person like the Water Prison did. This technique trapped a person, and then the constantly spinning pillars would slowly migrate inwards, eroding whatever was stuck inside. The technique had some decent power, but it wasn’t particularly tough to break.
“Ikken Hissatsu. Ougi.”
Using her stance’s stability, Kotohime swung her blade while twirling around in a full circle. A powerful shock wave of condensed air, generated from nothing more than the momentum of her swing, greeted the water pillars. Much like with the water prison technique, the pillars were sliced apart and dispersed.
Her opponent remained hidden.
“I suggest you stop sulking and come out to face me.”
Kotohime turned around slowly to keep track of her surroundings. Her opponent could not be far. Those techniques he’d used required a direct line of sight to the person they were being used on. Without knowing the position of your opponent, you would never be able to trap them. That meant he was hiding underneath an illusion, or maybe a technique that used the moisture in the air to bend light.
“Now why would I do that?” a voice echoed around her.
Several spears composed of water materialized around her. They flew at her, and she struck them down with lightning quick slices of her katana.
“I might have never seen you before, but I know who you are,” the voice continued. “You’re The Kitsune Swordswoman, The Blood Moon Princess, The Monster with Four Tails. I am well aware of your skills with a blade. They’re legendary. I also don’t much care for close quarters combat, so I think I’ll stick to striking from a distance.”
As he said this, the puddles of water that littered the ground came alive. They moved along the floor, tentacles crawling and creeping at an impressive speed. The water tentacles latched onto Kotohime’s legs, but they were cut down before they could do anything to her. It wasn’t until she’d done this sixteen times that she realized that the tentacles were only a distraction.
Surrounding her on all sides, filling enough space that her vision appeared distorted and blurry, were thousands, possibly millions, of water needles.
“Do you like it? I call it Water Art: Tide of One Million Water Needles. I created this technique myself. Impressive, isn’t it?”
“Hmm…” Kotohime eyed the surrounding needles warily. “This could pose a problem, yes.”
The needles descended upon her like a swarm of locust, and Kotohime found that she had no more time to think.
***
“Come on, foxy! Why are you running away?!”
Kiara grinned as she chased after her foe. After the satisfaction of feeling his face cave in against her fist and watching him get blasted through a wall, she’d taken off after the kitsune in the hopes of finishing him off quickly. It turned out that the four-tails had a bit more fight in him than she gave him credit for. He had survived her initial attack with only a bit of bruising. She suspected he’d used reinforcement to protect himself.
Now she was chasing him through deserted side streets and back alleys. She wondered where he was going. Was he leading her into a trap? Perhaps he wanted to fight her in a more open space? She didn’t really care either way. Her only desire was to fight, defeat, and make this fox suffer for the hand he’d played in killing her disciple.
The kitsune jumped onto the roof of a building, and Kiara did not hesitate to follow. The moment she touched down, however, several spears of water were launched at her left flank.
Grinning viciously, Kiara swiped at the spears, causing them to explode in a shower of water. She turned to look at the fox standing several feet away and raised an eyebrow.
“Is that it?” She clicked her tongue in disappointment. “I’m rather disappointed that you thought such a weak attack would do me in.”
The kitsune smirked. “What makes you think that was my only attack?”
“What?” That was when Kiara noticed the water surrounding her, a thousand tiny droplets hovering in the air like celestial bodies. “Ho… what’s this?”
“Water Art: Dance of Timeless Erosion.”
The tiny droplets surrounding her began to spin, slowly at first, but quickly picking up speed. Soon they became nothing but a blur, then a streak, and then a continuous flash of neverending streams of shimmering light. She’d been caught within a powerful maelstrom of youki-enhanced water, which began shrinking around her.
“I think I saw Kotohime use this attack during our spars once,” Kiara commented. She wasn’t worried, and the reason became clear when she unleashed a short but intense burst of youki. Water exploded in all directions, scattering on the wind. “Hmph. What a pathetic attack. Did you honestly think that—”
Kiara’s eyes widened. A hand went to her throat as she found herself incapable of breathing. She tried to take a breath, to inhale a lungful of oxygen, but she couldn’t. What was going on? This was…
An illusion?
She tried to dispel the illusion. She’d fought Kotohime enough times that she could break them easily. It didn’t work. No matter how many times she tried to overpower the illusion with her own youki, she still couldn’t breathe.
“It’s not an illusion, dog.” The kitsune sneered, staring down his nose at her with a sense of superiority. “It always amazes me
to see how easily duped your kind is. I cannot possibly fathom why most kitsune are so afraid of your species.” She glared at him, but considering she couldn’t breathe, the glare didn’t do much. “Now why don’t you do me a favor and die?”
From her blurring peripheral vision, Kiara saw another kitsune standing a little ways off. It was one of the two-tailed ones. What was he doing here? Backup? No. Like most supernatural species, kitsune were exceedingly arrogant, and the one that she was fighting was definitely of the pompous ass variety. He wouldn’t ask for help. So, why was that one standing there? What was…
Her eyes widened. Water gathered around her and formed into thirteen tridents, their tri-pronged tips gleaming with an evanescent sheen.
“Goodbye, dog,” the kitsune said, gesturing with his hands.
The tridents flew forward, intent on impaling Kiara from every angle.
***
After finishing up their conversation, Shuǐ promised to have someone take them back to Sobre el Natural in the morning. It was late now. The sun had gone down several hours ago. Even though Kevin and Lilian wanted to leave right that instant, to go back to their friends and family, they agreed to leave in the morning.
It had nothing to do with the fact that Shuǐ offered them access to a private hot spring. Nothing at all.
Kevin sat in the steaming water, enjoying the jets as they pushed air against his back. It felt wonderful. He wondered if this was what he’d missed out on when he had turned down the chance to use the hot springs at Sobre el Natural.
Lilian sat next to him. She leaned into his side, using him as a pillow. His left arm was wrapped around her shoulders, pulling her into a half-hug. Like him, she was naked.
“Our friends are probably worried about us,” Kevin mused.
“Yeah…”
“They might even think we’re dead.” The thought caused a tight ball of guilt to settle in his stomach. “We did get crushed by that water, after all. I doubt most people could have survived something like that. The only reason we’re even alive is because you used that new technique of yours.”
A Fox's Vacation (American Kitsune Book 5) Page 20
