Zhìlì shattered the illusion with youki. The dome of flower blossoms disappeared to reveal reality—or what looked like reality.
Daphne stood in front of him, her right hand almost gently touching his chest. Then several dozen ghostly white spikes erupted from Zhìlì’s body.
A body which dispersed into a flock of golden rabbits.
The rabbits bounced away, then gathered in front of her, merging and taking on an anthropomorphic shape. The rabbits soon melted away to reveal an unharmed Zhìlì. Daphne frowned, then a stake erupted from the ground underneath Zhìlì, who dispersed into particles of light, which took on the forms of spears that soon impaled her body at every unimaginable angle.
Except that wasn’t Daphne.
The real Daphne seemingly emerged from the ground some distance away—or at least, what seemed like the real Daphne. When several golden spears struck her, Daphne’s body split and formed several silvery foxes that ran toward a specific point and bit down on something invisible.
Zhìlì reappeared in a shimmer of light. The foxes bit down harder, but despite their teeth sinking into his skin, no blood came out. That was when several dozen dragon heads erupted from his body and bit down on the foxes, which burst into mist.
Daphne and Zhìlì reappeared, standing in the same place they had been at the start of this battle.
Zhìlì blinked several times and shook his head as if a slight dizziness had come over it.
“It seems my technique is finally beginning to affect you,” Daphne declared.
“Spirit Art: Central Half Vision.”
Just as the name suggested, Zhìlì’s vision had narrowed significantly. He could see absolutely nothing in front of him, yet he still possessed a peripheral view on both sides. There was a medical name for this condition: binasal hemianopsia.
Zhìlì’s frown was that of someone faced with a minor annoyance. With the front of his vision completely gone, that meant he would have to turn his head like a parrot to see what was in front of him. The moment he did that, however, Daphne attacked. This did not bother him as it might have bothered others. Having his vision limited like this did not hamper him. He could predict where Daphne would attack with some degree of accuracy; after all, logic dictated that she would always attack from his blind spot.
He turned around and several beams of light erupted from his tails, forcing Daphne to move back. In return, he was forced to dodge seven glowing silver fox tails that extended toward him. He couldn’t see them, but he could feel the youki from them.
When he leapt back a safe distance, one of his tails launched a spear that it conjured at the place where Daphne had been standing. The sound of his spear sinking into sand told him that Daphne was no longer there.
His head swiveled before he eventually spotted Daphne coming in from his left. He turned and several golden discs flew from his tails. They struck Daphne and tore through her like she was made of paper—or an illusion.
Zhìlì jumped back just as Daphne descended to the ground with a mighty heel drop. If the sudden physical attack surprised him, he did not show it. His seven tails curled around him and shot beams of energy that forced her to backpedal. The beams then curved around in mid-flight and struck Daphne from behind. When Daphne burst into ghostly white mist, he knew that he had been tricked.
His seven tails spun around and created an impenetrable barrier of golden light. Something struck the barrier and shattered like glass. The youki emitted from the tails were released in a wave that caused several other illusions, which he had not been aware of, to shatter.
“Damn.” Zhìlì whistled. “This woman really is impressive.”
Despite facing off against a talented illusionist, Zhìlì did not appear the least bit concerned.
“Seriously, I never imagined I would be facing someone with this much talent. I guess that’s what happens when we’ve got so little intel to go off.”
Just then, several ghostly white spikes erupted from the ground and impaled Zhìlì with ease. Daphne appeared before him, then, her form emerging from within a ghostly pale mist that formed from nothingness.
“This battle is over,” she declared.
Zhìlì’s nod surprised Daphne. “You’re right. This battle is over.”
Before Daphne understood what was happening, her mind erupted in pain as something impaled her through the back. The world around her shattered to reveal her standing in the same place she had been at the start of their illusionary battle. Zhìlì was nowhere to be seen. She looked down and saw the end of a golden sword poking out of her belly.
“What… what…”
“You’re good,” Zhìlì’s voice said from behind her. “Honestly, you’re probably even better at illusions than I am. But however enviable your skill is, none of that matters if you lack the experience to properly use that talent. This battle was over the minute you were caught within my illusion.”
Daphne turned her head to look Zhìlì in the eye. “Are you so sure about that?”
Zhìlì opened his mouth to respond, but he couldn’t. His mouth refused to open. In fact, his body seemed incapable of moving at all, like his muscles refused to respond to his brain’s commands.
“You might have more experience in combat, and you might have been extensively trained to fight other yōkai, but you forgot something very fundamental when battling me.” Blood leaked from Daphne’s mouth as she spoke, dribbling out of the corners and dripping down her chin. “I am a Spirit Kitsune. My specialty lies in manipulating souls.”
Zhìlì noticed the problem only after she spoke. Her tails. All seven of her tails had pierced his body. They had not torn flesh or penetrated skin. They did not damage muscles and break his bones. If he looked closely enough, he could see how the tails turned ethereal centimeters before entering his skin.
Her tails were grabbing his soul.
Zhìlì would have spoken. This would have been the perfect time for a witty one-liner about her tails and how she’d captured his heart. He couldn’t speak, however, as the tails did not let him.
“Spirit Art: Persephone’s Prison,” Daphne declared the name of her technique. “This is the pinnacle of Pnév̱ma Clan illusions, one of only five seven-tailed illusionary techniques that are unbreakable by anyone who does not possess at least eight tails of power. Right now, your soul believes it is outside of your physical body. It believes that you are dead.”
Ah, so that was how it was. Zhìlì would admit to being impressed. He hadn’t known there were illusions like that. While he might have been a talented illusionist, his specialty lay in the celestial-specialized techniques of his clan and hand-to-hand combat, which he had only used a little bit of during this battle.
The tails were pulled from his body, and Zhìlì, no longer held up by something, collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut.
***
Daphne stared impassively at the motionless form of her opponent.
“You are very lucky that I do not have the youki necessary to pull your soul from its body,” she declared seconds before collapsing onto her stomach. Inexperienced as she was with combat, she’d ended up wasting a lot of youki. What’s more, she still had a sword piercing her back.
Speaking of that sword…
With the last of her strength, Daphne used one of her tails to pull the sword from her back. Seconds after that, the sword dispersed as the youki holding it together ran out. She blinked several times as she stared at the spot where the sword had been lying.
“Tch.” She clicked her tongue. Daphne couldn’t believe she’d just wasted so much effort on a useless gesture.
***
Violet woke up when ice-cold water drenched her face.
“Buagh!”
Shooting into a sitting position, her eyes widened as she searched the area for the soon-to-be-dead kitsune who’d done it.
“I am glad to see you’re awake, Violet.”
Emotionless eyes stared down at her. Violet noticed the bu
cket in Jasmine’s hand.
“Did you have to dump a bucket of water on me?”
“Yes.”
“Tch.”
Violet gazed around the field, her eyes eventually landing on the motionless form of Hayate. He lay on his back, sightless eyes staring at nothing. She could tell that he was still alive because his chest rose and fell, but his mind was clearly not there anymore.
She turned back to Jasmine. “Did you do that?”
“I had help.” Jasmine felt no shame in admitting this. “Ayane held him down while I used Soul Ravager. I lack the power necessary to pull a soul from a body, but it was more than sufficient to temporarily shut down his mind.”
“Oh.” Violet grasped at the ground beneath her as her hands clenched into fists.
“Is there a problem, Violet?”
“No.” Violet shook her head. “I was just thinking about Hayate. I was just trying to figure out why he attacked me.”
“I do not know,” Jasmine admitted. “However, I do know that this was not an isolated incident.”
“Really?”
“Indeed.” Jasmine nodded. “Cadmus tried sneaking into my dwelling to kill me. Were it not for Ayane being constantly on guard for such things, he may have succeeded.”
Cadmus was another of their half-brothers. He, Palladius, Hayate, and Caleb were the only male kitsune currently allowed inside of the Pnév̱ma Clan ancestral home.
“I see. So Hayate isn’t the only one who’s betrayed us. What about Palladius and Caleb? Did they also try to kill anyone?”
Jasmine’s shrug was that of someone who lacked answers. “I don’t know. It doesn’t look like anyone else was attacked. I went to check on Holly and Ivy, and the twins. Holly and Ivy were conducting experiments, as usual.”
“And the twins?”
“They were eating each other out.”
Violet twitched. “Same as usual, then.”
Jasmine didn’t really need to nod, but she did anyway. “Indeed.”
***
Fan ran through the forest. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been running, though it must have been for a while. Sweat had broken out on her brow and skin. The cold air hit her glistening wet body and chilled it, making goosebumps break out.
The canopy above her blotted out the stars. She could barely see more than five feet in front of her. Everything around her was cast in shadows so dark it was like staring into a black hole.
Her mind jumped at shadows. Everything around her seemed as if it was trying to grab her. A vine latched onto her wrist. Roots rose from the ground to trip her up. The entire forest was out to get her!
She rushed past a tree. That was when she ran into someone. He appeared before her like an apparition, standing naught but a few yards away. It was the human boy she’d been fighting. His smirking face inflamed the hatred within her soul like gasoline on a fire.
“DIE!”
A qiāng flew from one of her tails and went straight through the human, who vanished into particles of light. He reappeared again, several yards from where he’d been standing. He was still smirking, as if saying, “You are inferior to me.”
“Damn you!!”
She launched two more qiāngs. They, too, went straight through Kevin’s body like he wasn’t there. The boy vanished.
Was that an illusion? It has to be an illusion!
“Come out!” she yelled at the darkness of the forest. Her eyes darted back and forth frantically. They were hiding somewhere in here! They had to be! “Come out now! Come out and face me!”
Bang! A gunshot went off somewhere to her right. It flashed red, striking a tree, bark exploding and bouncing off her skin. Fan screamed as she used her arms to shield her eyes and ran in the opposite direction.
Several more shots followed her. All of them missed, but a few came close enough to make her scream.
“Extension!”
Something long appeared in front of her. Because she’d been running full tilt, she couldn’t stop in time, and thus she ended up crashing straight into it. She gasped in asphyxiated agony as she ran neck first into the thing, a tail. Her feet flew off the ground, carried by momentum. They swung like a gymnast swinging around a high bar. The tail retracted, then, and Fan flipped end over end before landing flat on her stomach.
“G-gu…”
The crunching of footsteps appeared in front of her. She looked up to see glowing blue eyes staring down at her. She recognized those eyes and the face they were attached to.
“Y-you,” she tried to growl, but it was hard to speak. She could hardly breath. “Y-you damn human!”
Fueled by hate, she surged to her feet and charged at Kevin with a defiant roar.
Her fist was dodged. The boy seemed to flow around her attack. Her head then snapped back as his right fist smashed into her face.
She stumbled backwards, shaking her head, and then charged back in.
“Damn you—gu!”
All the air was expelled from her lungs when a fist was embedded into her gut. She spit out bile and saliva, hacking and coughing. That punch, it hurt so much, like her insides were being turned into pulp. How could a human hit so hard?
When the fist was removed, she fell to her knees, arms curling around her abused stomach. She looked up to snarl at the human boy, but she was unable to turn her malicious intent on him when a tail wrapped around her throat. She grabbed at the object as she was lifted into the air. Her feet kicked out uselessly as the tail rose higher and higher. Then she screamed as the tail slammed her face first into the ground.
After that, Fan saw nothing.
***
Kevin stared at the unconscious kitsune.
Once she’d entered the forest, defeating her had been surprisingly easy. With her mind already in a panic from their previous bout, it had been simple for Lilian to ensnare her with a basic illusion. Fan hadn’t even realized that she’d been trapped by the time he appeared before her.
“It looks like we won,” Lilian said as she walked out from behind a tree.
“Yeah.” Kevin ignored the discomfort that speaking caused to his ribs. “It certainly seems that way, doesn’t it?”
“How are you feeling?” Lilian asked as she gazed at him with the concerned eyes of a lover.
Kevin wanted to lie. He wanted to tell her that everything was okay, that he felt fine, but he couldn’t. Lilian was his mate. She didn’t lie to him. He would not do the injustice of lying to her.
“I think… I’ll be a lot better once we get some sleep.”
Lilian accepted his answer with a slow nod. “Then let’s go back home.”
“Right.” He looked down at the unconscious Fan. “What should we do with her?”
Lilian opened her mouth to speak.
Someone else spoke first.
“You shall do nothing with Lady Fan,” a male voice came from behind him.
Kevin felt one moment of intense, white-hot pain the likes of which he’d never felt before. His body then went through a moment of weightlessness. The world around him seemed to spin. Then he crashed into something hard and unyielding.
“BELOVED!”
The last thing Kevin heard was Lilian screaming out to him.
CHAPTER 12
THE CHOICES WE MAKE
Delphine Pnév̱ma sat on her throne-like chair in the reception hall. Because Daphne was still injured, Marigold was the one kneeling before her and giving a verbal report on the events that had transpired while she was gone. This would have actually been Holly’s job, seeing how she was the second eldest, but Delphine couldn’t count on that one to do this. She supposed that was the price one paid for having a scientist for a daughter.
“This is quite the mess,” Delphine said with a sigh. “My own sons have betrayed us for the Shénshèng Clan; my eldest daughter, two of our faithful vassals, and Violet were injured in battle, and Lilian has gone missing, presumably kidnapped by the Shénshèng Clan. Problematic does not really do this situation
justice, does it?”
Marigold did nothing more than shift uncomfortably. Delphine waved the girl’s concerned gaze off.
“Do not worry, dear daughter. I am not blaming you for what happened. This isn’t really anyone’s fault. No one could have foreseen my sons betraying our family.”
She frowned at the disquieting thoughts this knowledge caused. In all her years as matriarch, Delphine had never expected to be betrayed to a rival clan by her own kin. Why had they betrayed her? How many more traitors were in her midst? How long would it take to root them out and dispose of them? She could already see a long and troubling road ahead of her.
“What happened to the Shénshèng Clan members who attacked us?” she asked, returning to the matter at hand.
“They disappeared, Momma,” Marigold told her. “Kotohime and Kirihime have checked the entire island and haven’t found a trace of them. We can only assume they left shortly after acquiring Lilian.”
That was troubling. Lilian was a very special kitsune, along with her sister. Delphine couldn’t allow anyone else to have her. That was the whole reason she had allowed the girl to become Kevin’s mate.
Speaking of the boy…
“And how is young Kevin Swift doing?” she asked, resting her right cheek on her hand.
“Mukyu, we’ve healed all of his injuries, but he hasn’t spoken since waking up.” Marigold wilted as though she understood Kevin’s pain first hand. “I believe he is feeling a combination of heartbreak and guilt, though without actually speaking to him, I cannot be sure. But, mukyu, knowing what I do know about Kevin’s nature, it is likely that his inability to protect his mate is eating away at him. Kotohime is currently staying by his side.”
“Hmm…”
Knowing of the katana-wielding maid’s past, she was not surprised by the dedication and loyalty Kotohime showed the boy. It was good that he had someone by his side right now. She couldn’t afford to let him lose himself to despair.
“Very well.” She stood up from her throne.
Marigold’s startled eyes rose to look at her. “Momma?”
“Let us go see how young Kevin is doing.” A placid smile graced her face. “I believe our human friend could do with a pep talk.”
A Fox's Revenge (American Kitsune Book 7) Page 39
