A Fox's War

by Brandon Varnell

  Due to the number of times they had to switch trains, it took four days to travel from Ohio to Phoenix. Because Phoenix was one of the hotspots filled with fighting, they had to get off in Tucson. Kiara was waiting for them with several vans, which they were loaded into and driven to Neo Seiryuu in.

  Kevin was quite used to jet lag, having traveled a lot when he was younger, but he’d never traveled several days by train. He felt worn. His body was on the verge of collapse. All he wanted to do was head home and take a shower. Though they had been able to clean themselves off during each stop, none of them had been able to take a real shower in four days. He was feeling pretty rank.

  They were walking through a long hallway that contained a series of checkpoints. Their shoes thudded dully against the carpeted floor. Cream-colored walls made the place seem a little less dreary. It reminded Kevin of an airport terminal, minus the fact that there were no windows and it was practically empty.

  “Lilian-sama, Kevin-sama, Iris-sama,” Kotohime caught their attention. “Since you three look so tired, why don’t you travel back home? I can escort Orin-dono the rest of the way.”

  “Are you sure that’s okay?” Lilian asked. “I mean, Beloved, Iris, and I were the ones who were given this task, so…”

  “You three have done more than anyone could have ever expected from you,” Kotohime spoke with confidence. “I do not think Davin-sama will be displeased if you leave this to me. Besides, it has been a long time since you’ve seen Camellia-sama and Kirihime. I’m sure they miss you three.”

  Kiara agreed. “You’ve already been through a lot. He’s got no right to complain if we let you take it easy now that your task is over, especially since you three aren’t officially part of the militia.”

  “I don’t really care about Mom,” Iris started, “but a hot bath would be nice—oof! You two elbowed me!”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Lilian said as she retracted her elbow.

  “Are you sure that wasn’t your guilty conscience telling you to stop being mean to your own mother?” Kevin asked.

  Iris clicked her tongue. “You guys are horrible.”

  “Should I go with you?” Christine asked Kotohime, who pondered the suggestion before shaking her head.

  “I do not think that will be necessary. While you will have to be given your own apartment, we can do that later. In fact, I think it would be lovely if you stayed with us for the time being.”

  “That’s an awesome idea,” Lilian seconded the suggestion. “It’ll be just like those sleepovers that we used to have with Lindsay!”

  “Are you sure that’s okay?” Christine’s eyes flickered to Kevin. “I wouldn’t want to get in the way or anything.”

  Kevin assumed she was thinking back to when she’d burst in on him and Lilian having sex. While having her over would mean they couldn’t have sex—or they could, but it would get awkward fast—he didn’t mind letting her stay with them.

  “You won’t be in the way,” he assured her. “I think it could be fun. You girls could even gather some sleeping bags or something and have fun in the living room.”

  “Heh… it sounds like you want the bed all to yourself. Are you getting sick of us already?” Iris teased.

  “Only you,” Kevin shot back.

  Iris clutched her chest as if an arrow had just pierced her heart. “Ouch, Stud. That really hurt. Right here.”

  Cien looked from Kevin and his group to Orin and Kotohime. “Should I also go with them?”

  “I do not believe that would be a good idea,” Kotohime determined without taking even a second to think about it.

  “Yeah, Kotohime’s sister would probably kill you on sight,” Iris said.

  “What?” Cien stared stupidly at her.

  “I think you’d be more interested in living with Kiara anyway,” Kevin added before Iris could further shove her foot in her mouth. “She’s the one who trained me to be as strong as I am now.”

  “Flattery, isn’t going to get you out of my new exercise regime,” Kiara said, grinning her fanged grin.

  Kevin rolled his eyes at her, then sent Cien a smug look. “Who knows, maybe if you hang around her enough, you’ll actually pose a challenge to me.”

  The scowl on Cien’s face was like cake before Kevin’s eyes. “Are you saying I’m weak?!”

  “I never said that.” Kevin gave him a mockingly innocent look. “Did you hear me call you weak? I’d certainly never say something so rude. I only meant that, compared to me, you’re not really that tough.”

  “I think someone’s gotten a big head,” Cien growled. “Maybe I should bust that fat head of yours like a grape before you have trouble fitting through the door.”

  “You’re welcome to try. You’d fail, of course, but I’d commend you for putting in the effort.”

  Before their fight could degrade further, it was interrupted by Lilian giggling. “I haven’t seen you this competitive since you were on the track team with that Chasey guy.”

  “You mean Casey Chase?”

  “Yeah, him. I wonder whatever happened to that guy.”

  “I hear he’s still running track.” Kevin shrugged. “He’s probably the fastest person on there now. It must be boring having no one to challenge him.”

  “You’re still not doing track?” Christine asked. “I thought you enjoyed it.”

  “I did at one point,” Kevin admitted. “But after everything that happened to me, track stopped being as… challenging, I guess.”

  “Oh. I suppose that makes sense,” Christine said, though she seemed almost sad.

  After passing all of the checkpoints, the group split up. Kotohime went off with Cien, Kiara, and Orin to see Monstrang. Kevin and the others, including Phoebe and her group of warrior women, hopped onto a transit vehicle that would take them to the residential district.

  Neo Seiryuu was surprisingly massive despite being what amounted to an underground safehouse. It was built to look like a city, and it really did appear reminiscent to a mid-sized town. Because of how large it was, several monorails had been installed to let people traverse its limits.

  Neo Seiryuu was divided into four districts: North, south, east, and west, with Davin Monstrang’s tower smack in the middle of the whole thing. Each district was like an urban center. They had residences, business centers, a mall, and everything that one might expect from a regular city.

  After exiting the monorail, Phoebe’s group split up with them.

  “Farewell, Kevin Swift,” Phoebe said.

  Kevin waved goodbye. “See you later.”

  “Should you ever need someone to fill with your seed, be sure to let me—”

  “Just get out of here already!”

  As the two groups split up and walked in separate directions, Christine turned to Kevin. “I know I’ve already asked this, but what the hell is up with that girl?”

  “I wish I knew,” Kevin mumbled miserably. “She’s been like that ever since we first met.”

  “She’s part of Kevin’s harem,” Iris added helpfully.

  “There is no harem!”

  Kotohime stood in the elevator with Orin, Cien, and Kiara.

  Davin’s Tower, which Iris jokingly referred to as “Davin’s Phallus,” was actually not a tower at all, but a 200-story elevator that went several hundred feet underground, to several hundred feet above ground. After the underground area for Neo Seiryuu had been excavated, this tower had been built as an elevator to help bring in building supplies from the surface. Davin had then decided to keep it, built various rooms around it, and then made it his base of operations. Thus, it had earned the name Davin’s Tower.

  A soft ping echoed inside of the small circular elevator. The doors slowly slid open, allowing them to walk into a narrow hallway with a single door at the end.

  “Let’s get this over with,” Orin grunted as he walked up to the door and burst in. “I’m here, you damn drake. Let’s hear what you have to… say…”

>   Kotohime walked into the room as Orin grew silent. She didn’t know why he stopped talking at first, but as more of the room came into view, she finally located what must have been the source.

  Davin was not alone. There were two people in the room. She recognized one of them as Kuroneko, the famed Hellcat and a member of the Four Saints. The other was unfamiliar to her.

  She looked like a little girl. She was short, barely reaching up to the underside of Kotohime’s breasts. Likewise, her face appeared to be that of an adolescent child who’d yet to reach puberty. Long blond hair had been tied into twin-tails on either side of her head, tan skin poked out from underneath her jeans and T-shirt combination, and her blue eyes were sharper than any blade.

  It was the eyes that let Kotohime know that this seemingly small girl was no child.

  “SARAH!”

  It was Orin’s shout that told her the identity of this seemingly small girl.

  Orin ran forward, his hands outstretched, and hearts appearing in his eyes.

  “Oh, Sarah! How I’ve missed seeing that lovely face, those slender limbs, and that flat chest—GUWAGH!”

  “Who the hell are you calling flat!!?”

  With an enraged bellow, Sarah slammed a fire-coated fist into Orin’s face. Kotohime stepped out of the way when the monkey yokai was sent soaring backwards like he had a jetpack strapped to his back. She then turned around, watching as he slammed into the door, busting straight through it, then continued on for several more feet before slamming into the elevator door. Luckily, the door was reinforced with nearly ten inches of steel.

  I see. So they have that kind of relationship.

  An odd stillness settled over the room. The only sound was Sarah’s heavy breathing and Davin’s facepalm. Kuroneko giggled, breaking the silence.

  “It’s been a long time since that’s happened. Oh, how I’ve missed seeing this,” she said. No one answered her. Fortunately.

  Kevin wasn’t sure what to expect upon returning home, but he imagined that having a wet, voluptuous, and naked fox woman running around the house while her maid tried to dry her off with a towel was all par for the course.

  Camellia looked like what Kevin imagined Lilian and Iris would look like in a few decades. She was taller than both of them, and her breasts were several cup sizes larger. With hair the same color as Iris, and joyful eyes that were almost identical to Lilian’s, the woman before him defined beautiful. It was too bad she had the mind of a child.

  Kevin then turned his eyes on the maid. Kirihime was Kotohime’s younger sister. Like her sister, she had black hair, but it was shorter and had a single antenna jutting from the top. While her body was not as voluptuous as her older sister’s, she still cut an attractive figure that few human women would ever be able to achieve. The oddest thing about her was the French maid outfit that she’d chosen as her standard attire.

  “M-My Lady! Please come back and dry off! You’re going to catch a cold!”

  “Hawa! Catch me if you can, Kirikiri!”

  Bare as the day she’d been born, Camellia led Kirihime on a chase around the house. So much had happened that, even though Kevin had seen this so many times already, it felt like he hadn’t seen this in forever. He wondered if there was something wrong with him for the nostalgia that welled within his chest at the sight.

  “Do you think we should let them know we’re here?” Iris asked no one in particular.

  “There’s no need,” Lilian said, shaking her head.

  “Why is that?” asked Kevin.

  “Because Christine is about to explode.”

  Indeed, Christine looked ready to burst a blood vessel or two. Her face had gone icy blue. Several veins throbbed on her forehead, pulsing like stars ready to go nova. Her fists were clenched, her teeth were grit, and her left eye had picked up an intense twitching.

  Oh, boy. This looks like trouble.

  “What the hell is going on here?!!” Christine’s rage-filled scream made Camellia and Kirihime stop in their tracks. The two turned to the group of onlookers. They were silent for a moment, as if they couldn’t quite decide whether he and the others were a mirage or not. However, as the seconds ticked by, Kirihime recovered with a start.

  Offering the group a joyful smile, she bowed and said, “Lady Lilian, Lady Iris, Lord Kevin, it is a pleasure to see that you have returned safe and sound.”

  “H-hawa!” Camellia spun around, changing direction and racing toward them with outstretched arms. “Hawa! It’s my daughters! Lilian! Iris! I’m so relieved to see you’re back!”

  “M-My Lady, please don’t run, or you’ll—”

  “Hawa!”

  “Trip…”

  Time seemed to slow down as Camellia, in her haste to hug her daughters, tripped over her own two feet. Lilian and Iris saw it coming and quickly moved out of the way. Kevin saw it as well, but because Christine was the one in Camellia’s line of fall, he had to spend precious extra seconds pushing her out of the way. The next thing he felt was a pair of naked breasts smashing into his face like the ultimate pillow fight.

  N-not this time…

  Despite not being able to breathe, Kevin refused to remain as that cliché character who passed out from lack of oxygen. Gritting his teeth as he felt his torso bending backwards from Camellia’s weight and momentum, he wrapped his arms around her waist and clenched his buttox together, struggling to keep from falling.

  “OOORRRYYYAAA!”

  “HAWA!”

  Kevin let out a massive grunt. Camellia squawked in surprise as Kevin returned to an upright position and set her down. He hadn’t been crushed underneath her weight or smothered by her titanic titties.

  “Ha… ha…” With sweat dripping from his face and his breathing heavy, Kevin looked at Camellia, whose eyes had become wide and round. “Are you… okay?”

  Camellia started. “H-hawa! I-I am fine, I think.” Checking herself over, the mother of two determined that she was fine. “Yep! Camellia is okay! Thank you, Kevin-kyun.”

  Granting the woman a wan smile, he said, “You’re welcome.”

  Unexpected clapping suddenly broke out, causing Kevin to turn his head. The clapping was coming from Lilian and Iris. Both of them appeared to be rather impressed. Kevin actually shivered when he saw the seductive gleam in Iris’s eyes, making him ever so glad that they’d decided to let Christine stay the night.

  “Um, what’s the clapping for?” he asked.

  “For breaking the trope, of course!” Lilian answered with the kind of cheer he expected from someone who’d just earned a Best Mangaka of the Year award.

  “Um, what?”

  “You put on an excellent showing, Stud,” Iris added, clearly ignoring his confusion. “Now you can say that you’ve officially cleared one more cliché. You’re well on your way to becoming a true harem king. Nom nom nom.”

  “Stop with the harem king already!” Kevin cried out at the same time that Christine shouted, “Would somebody tell me what the hell is going on?!”

  It was going to be a long night.

  It was just the four of them in that room. Kotohime, Kiara, and Cien had left. Davin, for the first time in ages, felt nervous.

  He was not the kind of person who often let his emotions get the best of him these days. Ever since the Four Saints had broken up, he’d done his best to become a wall, an immovable object, a bastion that other yokai could use for protection. He’d done the best he could, securing Arizona as his base of operations and keeping an eye out for trouble.

  Part of his success had to do with Karen Swift, the woman who’d helped him in exchange for protecting her son, but he liked to think that he’d done an admirable job on his own.

  All of his accomplishments, all of his sense of self, flew out the window as he gazed upon the three people standing before him.

  “How long has it been since we were last gathered like this?” Kuroneko asked with a cat-like smile.

  “Seventy-three years, at my last estimation,”
Sarah spoke in a tone that could’ve frozen even hell over. “The last time we were gathered together was just a little after the Massachusetts debacle.”

  “I could’ve gone another hundred years without seeing your face,” Orin said to Davin… right before turning to Sarah and gushing over her. “But I’m so glad to see you again, my lovingly flat loli—UWACK!”

  “Don’t call me flat, pervert!”

  Davin sighed as Orin was sent face-first to the ground. There was a large lump on his head about the size of a baseball. The skin was burnt since Sarah’s fist had been covered in fire.

  Some things never change, even with time.

  However, even if some things never changed, Davin had finally realized that there were some things that must change.

  Standing up from his seat, he drew the eyes of the other three to him. He lumbered from behind the desk. The floor groaned as he walked. Moving until he stood in front of Orin, he waited for the oldest among them to notice his presence.

  “You’ve really let yourself go,” Orin said at last. “Were you always this fat?”

  Davin would have rolled his eyes, but it was not in his nature to commit such an act. Besides, he’d asked everyone here for two reasons, and one of them he was about to do now.

  The floor shook as he dropped down to his knees, then placed his hands on the ground and bowed his head to the three.

  “I am sorry,” he said, his voice a deep bass rumble. “I am sorry for not being able to see past my own stubborn ideals. I’m sorry for forcing those ideals on you three. Most of all, I am sorry for not realizing what I did wrong until well after we went our separate ways. I won’t ask for your forgiveness. I don’t deserve it. But I was hoping that you three would be willing to work together with me, at least until the threat we currently face is over.”

  Silence descended. No one spoke. Even the crickets seemed quiet.

  Davin remained where he was, as he was, prostrated on the ground. He could not see his fellow saints, though he could somewhat imagine the expressions on each of their faces. Kuroneko would be amused, no doubt. She always took things in stride. Sarah’s expression wouldn’t have changed at all, but she never revealed her thoughts—except when she was pummeling Orin. The most telling expression would be his, Orin’s, who was likely feeling shock at this very—