by J. J. Pavlov
Hestia extends a hand toward Dregana, the gesture serving both a practical and symbolical purpose. She looks at it, then up at the black Fata's face, which shows a determined expression rather than a smile. She's not being invited to peace and safety, but a life in which enemies will come after her - all for the sake of freedom and being able to stay by Hestia's side.
Finally, Dregana hesitatingly stretches out her hand like a hurt animal scared to trust a human. But when she takes hold of it, for the first time since their journey together touching the Fata, a smile inadvertently enters her features. For her entire tenure as a teacher at the academy, she has maintained professional distance and refrained from expressing friendliness.
Now that Hestia sees it again, she's taken aback at how innocent this dragonkin with the mean glare can look when she opens herself up to somebody.
Chloe will surely like this gift.
"I'm sure we can talk about this." Asoko lifts both hands with a casual smile on her face to take the edge off the situation. "I'm not who you think I am."
"I can tell from your stench." Tamariki begins to walk forward while stating with an angry gaze. This causes the Crawling Chaos to lift an arm and sniff at herself in surprise.
"Maybe the smell of the undead still clings to me?" She wonders with a shrug.
"Take this more seriously." Senka would have kicked her shin if she thought she could take her eyes off this opponent.
"Tamariki, we don't need to do this." Lenoly takes a step forward and pleads, only to receive a glare in return that causes her to flinch. The two of them barely ever talked in the Demon Mages Society, so it's no surprise that their relationship isn't one of friendship.
"Without your intervention, Master Laiota wouldn't have died." Pointing at the little bakari in accusation, Tamariki makes her stance clear.
"But Vitalis was killed!" Lenoly throws this back into the horned demon's face, who's stunned by the reversal. Her eyebrows furrow, but she takes only a moment to find an answer.
"She was killed when she aided an enemy." Tamariki comes to this conclusion and continues to advance. It's clear that she has made up her mind.
"Well, the same happened to that Master Laiota of yours - from our perspective." Asoko states with a shrug, causing Senka to stare at her with eyes wide open. The tone she employed was sassy at best, and it wouldn't be a surprise if that just destroyed all their chances for negotiations.
"What was that about Master Laiota?!" It would appear that Tamariki thinks the same, as her face distorts in anger and she roars, exposing her sharp teeth.
"Are you doing this on purpose, or are you really that much dumber than your top half?" The doll girl kicks Asoko's shin after all, but it doesn't show any effect on the latter.
"Well, what thoughts normally occupy somebody's lower half?" She replies while growing to match her opponent's size and body shape. "She's the physical type, so I got this."
Running forward, Asoko charges at Tamariki, who follows her example and runs toward her. They meet in the middle, and each throws a punch at the other. However, it would appear that the horned girl is unexpectedly nimble for her size. Instead of the seemingly intended cross-counter, the fist of the Crawling Chaos whiffs while Tamariki's finds its way into the former's solar plexus.
The explosive force of her swing blows a hole straight through Asoko, blasting open her back like an invisible cannonball going through drywall. It causes the other girls to stare in utter surprise, but to even Tamariki's surprise, that wasn't enough to kill her opponent.
"I guess going at it with a half-assed attitude was a mistake." The Crawling Chaos speaks as her body loses its human form and turns red, upon which the hole in her chest closes itself around the arm. "But this is the end."
Asoko begins to pull her in, but Tamariki's arm and shoulder suddenly burst out into flames, causing the former's shape to recoil from the heat. Lenoly recognizes what that ability is, and her eyes go wide. The horned demon is using a bakari's inborn magic of igniting parts of their body. It's used as both an intimidation tactic and to protect against enemies that would try to devour them. The best among them can use it for combat.
But this demon is definitely not a bakari.
Daica suddenly tosses her uncorked flask at the burning Tamariki, who switches off the fire in the last moment and catches the glass container in her hand with an unexpectedly nimble motion. It causes the dark elf's jaw to drop, but Lenoly comes to the rescue as she quickly chants a spell.
"Mico Ignis!" She points her staff at the horned demon, who looks at her in surprise. But instead of a flame going off in Tamariki's face, it starts inside the flask, which bursts from the pressure and causes the green liquid to spill over her hand.
"That wasn't something flammable?" Asoko asks as she consolidates herself into a humanoid form again.
"T-that was acid." Daica says while taking out another vial. As if stating the contents was the signal for it to take effect, Tamariki's hand begins to sizzle audibly and create smoke. She shakes her arm in apparent discomfort that's not yet an expression of pain, but it clings to her.
"That's gruesome." Lenoly comments with an apprehensive gaze. Although they aren't friends, seeing a fellow member of the Demon Mages Society lose an arm to acid is still going to cause her nightmares. She's ignoring the fact that she just tried to explode her hand, if not her whole arm, when she thought the liquid in the flask was explosive.
The entire affected area on Tamariki's arm suddenly begins to glow from the inside before the sizzling stops. Everybody stares at it in surprise, but that seems to be a regular occurrence for Tamariki, who doesn't even pay it any attention anymore. Moments later, the remaining acid begins to drip off her arm, no longer having an effect on her. The discolored patches on her skin quickly regenerate and return to normal.
"Seems mighty convenient." Narrowing her eyes, Asoko stares at the horned demon. Clearly, she's thinking about getting her template.
"I think you're way too calm about this." Senka covers her face with her palm and sighs. Although an enemy who can punch through a human body stands before her, the Crawling Chaos seems to feel no tension.
"Would it help to worry?" Tilting her head, Asoko asks with a shrug. Then she pumps herself up by balling her fists, a grin erupting on the blank mask that covered her face thus far; her façade is crumbling as her battle mania is showing. Despite coming from peaceful Japan, she enjoys fighting more than is normal - most likely a result of the body her mind now occupies.
In the next moment, Tamariki charges forward again to initiate the second clash. Asoko follows her example and meets her head-on, their hands slamming together before their foreheads do. For a second, they seem to be evenly matched, but then the horned demon draws back and pulls her opponent toward her before bringing down her head like a hammer.
But Asoko obviously saw it coming and intercepts it with the top of her head covered in dragon armor. Even then, she's cracked open like an egg. But the impact was enough to cause Tamariki to stagger - her forehead once again glowing as it did before when the acid lost effect.
"She's adapting." Senka yells while pointing at the fading glow, accompanied by the reddened skin from a developing bruise turning back to her normal shade of red.
"Mico Ignis!" Lenoly chants quickly, creating a spark in front of Tamariki's face. The latter reacts immediately and snatches it out of the air with her mouth before it can explode, causing the bakari's jaw to drop.
Right after, Daica throws a vial at the horned demon, who slaps it straight back at the dark elf without breaking it, causing her to jump out of the way. When it hits the ground and shatters, a blue cloud explodes around it, causing the grass to wilt in an instant. That involvement put her back on Tamariki's radar; she rushes past Asoko to take her out first. The Crawling Chaos quickly latches onto her with a multitude of tentacles but is repelled by flames bursting out all over her body.
"Limit Break." Senka mutters while slapping her flat c
hest with her palm once as if beating a drum. Upon the reverb of the impact, time seems to slow down to a crawl. The doll girl runs over to Daica and pulls up her skirt to reveal the thigh strap holding about a dozen vials.
Taking the same ones that the big dark elf used earlier to create the napalm-like substance in her shop, she mixes them together by shaking them. Since time is slowed, so is gravity; that's why she has to risk mixing it violently.
In the meantime, Tamariki has taken three more steps toward Daica, and Asoko covered her arms in dragon armor to grab onto her. Lenoly is in the middle of chanting a spell but will most likely not make it in time to stop the demon from punching a hole into the big dark elf at this rate.
When the mix is done, Senka jumps up into the air to throw the vial straight into Tamariki's face. Even if she can adapt to it, the flames will cling to her and rob her of her vision for a time. However, just before she can perform the motion, her eyes widen in utter surprise; she's being watched despite moving at super-speed.
When the vial leaves the doll girl's hand, Tamariki slowly brings up hers and catches it in her palm before crushing it, causing flames to burst out. It's then that Senka realizes her mistake in jumping, as she can only evade when on the ground.
Twisting her body just in time to dodge the full brunt of the flaming punch coming at her, she's barely nicked by Tamariki's knuckle. It sends her into a spinning flight across the field, and time returns to normal. She impacts the ground and rolls across it, causing her limbs to twist in unnatural directions before she comes to a stop and remains lifelessly in the grass.
Due to that short delay and change in targets, Asoko manages to grab the horned demon's arms to prevent her from tearing Daica apart. Covered in dragon armor, she's no longer affected by the flames.
"Get off me!" With the muscles on her arms, shoulders, and back bulging visibly, Tamariki fights against the grip of the Crawling Chaos. While it appears that she isn't able to free herself even with her incredible strength, it takes Asoko everything to keep her in check.
"Do it!" She yells at Lenoly. The little bakari has finished her spell and is hovering a ball of fire over her staff, unsure of whether to use it or not.
"B-but-" With palpable apprehension in her voice, the little bakari hesitates to unleash her biggest spell as Asoko will be caught in it.
"I'll be fine; I got magic resistance!" The latter uses a term that people in this world most likely won't understand, but her confidence instills Lenoly with newfound determination. She points her staff forward and throws the fireball straight at Tamariki.
"Explosion!" She shouts, upon which the ball of fire bursts into a massive pillar of flames that creates an inward draft from all the surrounding air before erupting upward. Daica catches Senka out of the air just as she's about to be drawn in as well. Being so close to it, Lenoly is nearly pulled in but can brace herself until it subsides.
But within the scorched circle, Tamariki is standing naked, her whole body glowing from her strange ability to adapt rather than from the heat. Within moments, her blistering skin regenerates fully, and she glares at the bakari, who shies back after seeing her magic prove ineffective.
"You got to be kidding." Asoko, still clinging onto her, mutters after opening the visor with which she covered her blank mask of a face.
"Prepare for brain overload." Senka's voice suddenly echoes in Asoko's head, and she very nearly lets go of the horned demon in surprise. "Memory sharing incoming."
As she finishes speaking, the doll girl held in Daica's arms twists her head around to look at Tamariki before bursting out in laughter. She knows from experience that in the middle of a battle, that sound always causes everybody to look. And sure enough, the demon's eyes lock onto her big blue marble-like ones.
Senka's pupils dilate to their maximum before the black holes seem to spill their dark contents across her irises and sclerae. The darkness spreads across her face in a butterfly pattern, and the world around her seems to blacken from Tamariki's point of view. Their minds are connected, and thoughts become mixed.
The only reason the doll girl can keep her mind intact is that this is a power originating from her. She has done this many times before, and speaking telepathically is an expression of it. Without blood, all she can do is establish a link through sight, which can be easily broken when it's physically severed. But there's more than enough time to exchange a few thoughts.
"You got the wrong person." Senka's words echo into Tamariki's mind, driving in this singular thought like a stake - an idea that takes hold and won't let go.
"Get out of my head!" With a wild swing that accidentally rips Asoko's head off her shoulders, Tamariki roars to regain her senses. With this, the connection is broken. Senka goes lifeless immediately after, and the butterfly pattern on her face disappears.
"Rewera?" Asoko asks through the new head that pops out of her severed neck. At the same time, as if it's an automated process, a tentacle grows from her back, collects her severed head, and integrates it back into her body. No mass goes to waste, but it's also to make sure no more clones are born.
"Why do you know that name?!" Tamariki turns her head to look at the Crawling Chaos with an expression that suggests anger and surprise.
"She's the maid leader in the demon castle." Asoko tilts her blank mask face while replying. It's been so long since that morning she woke up in this world, still part of her other half that she had already forgotten the name Rewera. But it was quite distinct inside Tamariki's head, so she was made to remember.
"How do you know that?" The horned demon tries to fight against her restraints, but Asoko doesn't quite let go just yet, even though the overall atmosphere seems to have shifted from trying to kill each other back to talking.
"Well, I happen to be the princess of that castle." The Crawling Chaos speaks with a hint of pride, although her current status is still unclear; after all, there's another her somewhere who holds equal, if not more claim to the throne.
"I'm more inclined to believe that you aren't Chloe Marcott than that you're the demon queen's daughter. But in either case, I don't believe you." Tamariki frowns with a slight pout on her lips. That's not the face of somebody out to kill them, and it takes everybody by surprise. Asoko even loosens her restraints and steps back from her. The flow of the conversation seems to have reached a point at which she doesn't have to fear a fist through her face.
"What would it take for you to believe me?" Returning to her human appearance and looking up at the horned demon with her head tilted and brow furrowed, Asoko asks.
"Hard proof." Tamariki crosses her arms and demands like a brat asking for the unreasonable.
"Then come to Arkaim with me." The Crawling Chaos shoots back in retaliation.
For a moment, they size each other up, and the tension rises again. But eventually, the horned demon blinks before looking away in thought. She seems to consider the options laid out before her: Kill them now and never find out, or go with them and kill them later if it turns out to be a lie. The answer is simple.
"Alright." Nodding in assent, Tamariki comes to a decision with a surprisingly nonchalant expression. Daica and Lenoly stare at her flabbergasted, unable to comprehend how this demon girl could go from wanting to kill them in one moment to agreeing to travel halfway across the world with them in the next.
"Talk-no-Jutsu is still the most powerful ability in the universe." Senka speaks without moving her mouth, causing the big dark elf holding her to remember her mangled state.
"A-are you alright... n-no, you can't be a-alright in that state." She places the doll girl on the ground and stares at the broken body with a teary expression, unsure what to do to help her.
"Sorry about that." Tamariki calls out to her but doesn't sound very apologetic. They were enemies until moments ago, after all.
"Don't worry. It's going to be back to normal in a bit." With these words, Senka's limbs start creaking before they snap back and forth to return to their normal
forms. It looks painful, to say the least, as her arms and legs twist around themselves, her neck cracks several times, and her spine seems to pop back into place. "Good as new."
Daica's eyes are round as saucers, and Lenoly is shivering all over while staring at the horror doll. The latter gets back up on her feet as if she hadn't been reduced to a twisted corpse only moments ago. Tamariki's eyebrows shoot up as if trying to touch the bases of her horns, but she manages to keep her mouth closed. Asoko is hiding behind her broad back, eyes pressed shut in distress.
"Don't you ever do that again!" She shouts while shaking her head. Just like her upper half, she can't deal with the type of horror that Senka seems to represent.
"You prefer me all twisted and broken, huh?" Shrugging, the doll girl pats off the dust from her clothes. If she had been hit by the full force of the punch, she would most likely have been scattered into all the pieces that are even now only held together by her stitches. "Now, what happened to Hestia?"
"Should I go take a look?" Asoko grows wings from her back and tilts her head in the direction of the island on the lake where she lured the dragonkin toward earlier.
Just as she says that, a black-winged figure rises from among the trees. As it slowly flies toward them, they see that it's Hestia, carrying a naked Dregana in her human form.
"Oh my." The Crawling Chaos mutters while zooming in with the Fatas eye template to get a better look. "I guess the situation over there has been settled without anybody getting hurt as well."
"Am I a joke to you?" Senka grumbles. She then looks at the approaching pair with a sigh. "If only everything could be resolved peacefully..."
Chapter 77 - A New Fellowship
"It was you, after all!" Tamariki roars after getting over the initial surprise of seeing Asoko take the tentacle-bound Ninlil out from inside her stomach when they settle down for the first night together.
