Christine, Iris, Justin, and Lilian came out from behind their cover and met up with the others alongside Kevin.
“What should we do now?” asked Kevin.
“We make for the White House,” Kotohime determined.
“As if that wasn’t the obvious choice,” Justin added.
“Is it just me, or has your snark gotten worse?” Kevin asked.
“Definitely just you.”
Iris leaned over to Lilian. “I think I liked Slowpoke better when he was slow.”
“I heard that!”
The group was about to start traveling again, but before they could go anywhere, a low whine filled the air. Everyone looked around, wondering where this noise could be coming from. Then they realized that it was coming from above them.
They looked up.
Nearly one dozen YK units were hovering in the air. All of them had morphed their appendages into different weapons: scimitars, broadswords, axes—one even had a cannon on its hand, which very much reminded Kevin of Mega Man’s hand cannon. As Kevin stared into the brightly glowing nozzle, which was emitting enough energy to power a house, he only had one thought on his mind.
I should have stayed home today.
Monica Demonica was a human woman, a news reporter who was always looking for the next big scoop. Her dream was to one day become the most famous reporter in the whole world.
Unfortunately, her dreams of becoming a groundbreaking reporter were slowly evaporating before her eyes. Rather than reporting important news on the war with yokai, she was stuck doing small-time gigs at the local animal shelter. She might love cute animals as much as the next woman, but damn it, that didn’t mean she wanted to be stuck newscasting for zoos and animal shelters!
A massive explosion rocked the area, shaking her desk. Monica fell to the floor with a thud and a shriek. Wincing as her bottom jolted with pain, she scrambled to her feet and look out the window.
There, in the distance, were several objects flitting through the air in the distance. She recognized them. Yokai Killers, the infamous automaton units that had been created by the Sons and Daughters of Humanity to kill yokai. What were they doing…?
Don’t tell me there’s a battle happening near the White House?!
“Andrews!” she shouted.
“What?!” Andrews, her cameraman, shouted back.
“Get your ass out of that chair and grab your camera!” Monica snatched up her jacket, put it on, then grabbed her purse.
“Why?!”
“What do you mean why? There’s only one reason I would ask you to grab your camera.” Monica presented him with a fierce grin. “We’re going to get a scoop!”
It was like something out of a sci-fi movie—a giant beam of destruction ripped straight through the street. Kevin and the others rushed off the blacktop, which exploded as if geysers of iridescent light were bursting from beneath the surface.
“Lilian!”
“On it!”
Kevin leapt into the air. At the same time, Lilian cupped her hands and, as he landed on them, launched him into the air with her reinforced strength.
He felt a moment of weightlessness before he hit the roof. Rolling forward, he absorbed much of the impact before standing to his feet as Lilian and Iris leapt onto the roof with him. Iris had Christine wrapped up in her tails, and the yuki-onna’s terrified shriek was quite loud.
She must not like heights.
Two of the YK units spotted them. Each had formed two different weapons out of their arms—one had a claymore and a pistol, and the other had an an axe and mini-cannon. As they came in, both attacked, firing off several rounds that gouged chunks out of the building.
Kevin rolled along the roof as fire detonated behind him. The heat was blistering. As he leapt onto his feet, he exchanged his spirit cartridges for water ones, then came up firing. His aim was dead on. The bullets splashed against the YK unit with the fire youki generator, causing it to sputter and fall from the sky.
“Christine! Stab it!”
Though startled, Christine still complied with his order, creating a large icicle of death, which jutted from the ground underneath it. The spear impaled the machine. Gravity had already taken hold, so it could do nothing as it fell onto the spike. Wanting to make sure it was dead, Christine created several more spears and sent them into the YK unit, turning it into a pin cushion.
She must have destroyed the core. The light in its visor quickly went out, and its body soon morphed into liquid quicksilver.
While Kevin and Christine dealt with their enemy, Lilian and Iris demolished another YK unit.
“Celestial Art: Heaven’s Prison!”
Several anomalies like swirling eddies appeared around the YK unit. From within those eddies, chains shot out, wrapping around its arms, waist, legs, and neck. It struggled against the bindings, but Lilian bit her lip and charged more youki into her chains, reinforcing them.
“Void Art: Void Fire!”
And that’s when Iris struck. The void fire slammed into the YK unit, and, due to the volatile nature of the Void and Celestial youki, a spectacular explosion was generated. There was no heat from this catastrophic detonation, nor was there a displacement of wind. The Void howled as it consumed everything within that small sphere of influence. Beams of light erupted from within it, remnants of Lilian’s chains, which the Void could not consume thanks to their opposing nature. When the lightworks finally died down, it was to reveal that there was nothing left. The YK unit was gone.
“Ugh… I’m so tired,” Iris complained as she hunched over. Sweat poured from her body in thick rivulets, and her skin had become ashen. Kevin knew that it was a result of using the Void. Thanks to his interference, she hadn’t been able to complete her trials, though that was probably a good thing, considering how she’d almost been consumed.
“I’m afraid there’s no time to rest just yet,” Kevin said.
Iris groaned. “Why not?”
“Because of that, probably,” Lilian said, pointing at where Kotohime and the others were fighting around eight more YK units.
“Oh, fuck me sideways,” Iris muttered.
“Maybe later,” Kevin and Lilian responded at the same time. As they grinned and gave each other another high five, Christine wrinkled her nose in disgust.
Kiara didn’t know how long she’d been fighting, but she knew that she was running out of juice.
Her aura flickered wildly. Sometimes it would defend her from attacks and sometimes it wouldn’t. Blood ran freely from numerous cuts on her skin, dripping down her body to create crimson tails.
Her breathing had grown heavy, and her body felt like it was being weighed down by ten one-ton anvils. Despite this, she fought on. Even as blood flew from her fingers, mixing with her youki, even as several holes appeared in her torso from beams of condensed youki that penetrated her flesh, even as the accumulated damage that her body had taken racked up, Kiara still fought. She had to.
Behind her were the remains of her squad. Most of them were beaten, lying unconscious on the ground. The ubagami was bleeding the remainder of his life out, and Cien was lying defeated against a steel wall. The others were fully hidden inside the burnt-out train car.
Oddly enough, the ones that were still fighting aside from her were the humans. It was thanks to them that she was still alive. They’d utilized incredible teamwork to trade taking pot shots at all of the YK units that were harassing her.
However, they were still outnumbered, and she was still the one doing all the heavy lifting. That put a serious damper on her mood.
Gritting her blood-stained teeth, Kiara wove between beam attacks as she tasted copper on her tongue. Her left thigh, a hole punctured straight through it, felt like murder, but she ignored it and kept moving. Gathering her meager amounts of youki left, Kiara reared her fist back and launched it forward.
A flickering red claw shot from her fist. It latched onto the YK unit as she clenched her fist, then she yanked her han
d back. The YK unit shot straight toward her, and she drilled it with a kick that caused the entire thing to break. Before its liquidized form could recover, she stomped on its core, crushing it.
One more down. Only six dozen more to go.
Kiara moved as fast as she could. Two YK units peppered her with youki projectiles. Left. Right. Spin. Duck. Her body moved quicker than her mind, running on instinct. She couldn’t think anymore. Thinking only got in the way. Movement was what she needed. Faster. She needed to be faster.
Unfortunately, Kiara’s strength was waning. Her youki was running out. Two more YK units landed on the ground. They charged her, swinging their weapons. One wielded twin batons, the other a whip.
Stumbling as her footing struck something behind her, Kiara barely avoided the twin slash attack from the baton wielder. She turned her fall into a roll. Landing back on her feet, Kiara raised her hand and blocked the whip, grunting as she felt her skin get ripped off. Barely withholding her grimace, she grabbed the whip and yanked the Yokai Killer off its feet, then slammed her foot into the YK unit’s face.
She’d put a lot of youki into her attack. The results were that the Yokai Killer flew backwards, smacking into its brethren and sending them both blasting off. It also left her vulnerable.
Kiara gasped when she felt an intense burning in her back, as if magma was dripping inside of her skin. She looked down and blinked. Dripping with vermillion liquid, the sword that poked out of her chest appeared to be quite large.
Youki surged through her veins. It energized her. With one last push, Kiara spun around, pulled the sword from her chest, then attacked. She felt her knuckles break through the unit as she rammed her fist into its chest, broke through the chest, grabbed the core, and crushed it.
As the YK unit morphed into liquid metal, Kiara fell to the ground. All around her, YK units continued to hover. Some landed, others stuck to the sky, all of them were closing in on her and her comrades.
Glancing over at the people under her command, Kiara saw what she expected to see—the people that she was protecting huddled inside of a damaged train car; Cien lying unconscious, the humans continuing to fight, the other yokai bleeding from numerous wounds. They were going to die. She couldn’t protect them anymore. She was out of juice, injured, and her body was slowly shutting down. There was nothing she could do anymore.
Damn it…
She hated it, this feeling of helplessness. Kiara had trained herself into the ground so that she would never feel like this again, so that she wouldn’t have to watch the people who were counting on her die, so that she wouldn’t be responsible for the death of others. It seemed that, even when someone was strong, they could still fail.
It’s over…
Before her thoughts could fall into even more despair, several explosions ripped through the afternoon sky. Kiara blinked. Then she blinked again when she realized that she was lying on her back. She would have pondered how that had happened, but seconds later, as if descending from the heavens, a giant military hummer flew over her head and several people jumped out.
“Kiara!” a booming voice said. A figure appeared over her seconds later. Blond hair done up in ringlets. Blue eyes. A beautiful face that reminded her of a supermodel.
“Phoebe,” she slurred.
“Do not worry!” Phoebe boomed again. Kiara winced. “We are here to aid you! Just leave the rest of this fight to us!”
“Right…”
Kiara felt herself being lifted off the ground. She wondered who was carrying her, but she honestly didn’t care.
Exhaustion hit her like a sucker punch to the tits, and she passed out, her last thoughts of her team and how she hoped they would survive this day.
“Monica, I really don’t think this is a good idea!”
“Oh, can it! We’re never going to get another chance like this!”
Traveling against the flow of panicking civilians, Monica dragged her poor cameraman through the streets. Washington, DC, looked very much like a warzone right now. Frightened citizens aside, many of the streets had been demolished, the asphalt broken and gouged out as if something had torn it apart. A couple of buildings had holes in them, and several walls had collapsed.
They eventually found out where most of the fighting was taking place: Near the White House. Five people were currently fighting against a horde of those fangled Yokai Killers that the military had spoken of days after the war began. There were six in total—make that five—and the people battling them were…
“Aren’t those just a bunch of kids?” Monica asked herself.
Indeed, the people fighting off the YK units were, in fact, nothing but a couple of kids. Sure, the woman with the Japanese sword was fully grown, but the others didn’t look older than sixteen. One of them even looked like she was fourteen!
“Lilian!” a young teen shouted. He had messy blond hair, blue eyes, and surprisingly broad shoulders that weren’t hidden by the skintight leather suit.
A red-haired, green-eyed beauty with two tails, fox ears, and the same skintight suit, responded to his call.
How can a girl so young have such huge tits? Monica asked herself, eying the girl’s bust enviously.
“On it! Celestial Art: Light Sphere!”
A sphere of light flew from one of her tails. Striking against one of the YK units, it sent the thing into an out of control spin. The blond boy fired off multiple rounds from his two pistols. Beams of light blasted from the barrels, slamming into the machine, piercing it. The YK unit hit the ground with a splash.
“What is that substance?” Monica asked. However, her attention was pulled away from the strange silvery liquid by her cameraman.
“Are they… protecting people?” he asked no one in particular.
Monica took another look. Indeed, they were not just fighting the YK units, but protecting citizens from them. Even as she watched, the young man engaged in hand-to-hand combat with one of the machines, which had been about to attack a father and his son.
Aren’t those things supposed to protect the people? Why are they attacking civilians?
“Look out, Stud! Void Art: Void Fire!”
The blond, who was apparently called “Stud,” leapt out of the way as a raven-haired vixen—whose sex appeal made even Monica hot under the collar—launched a black ball of frightening flames. The fire consumed the YK unit, devouring it whole. Then it dispersed to reveal that nothing but a large black patch on the ground was left.
“Quickly, you two,” Stud shouted at the father and his son. “Get out of here before more of those things come!”
The father nodded. “Thank you!” he shouted, picking up his awestruck kid and running like a bat out of hell.
“Are you getting all this?” Monica asked her cameraman.
“Y-yes!”
“Are we live?”
“...”
“Well?!”
“I think so…”
“What do you mean ‘you think so’? Either we’re live or we’re not.”
“Then we’re live.”
“Good.”
After making sure they were a safe enough distance away, Monica fixed up her hair as best she could, then moved in front of the camera and began what she hoped would be the report of a lifetime.
“This is Monica Demonica reporting from Washington, DC, and I am witnessing something unbelievable right now…”
The fighting on the streets had caused the citizens to panic.
Kotohime had not really thought about how the citizens would react until well after the fighting had started. However, now that she had seen it, she knew that something needed to be done.
“Cassy-san,” Kotohime said during a lull in the battle. “Please take your squad and protect and evacuate the civilians.”
One of the things that Kotohime appreciated about Cassy was that she didn’t question orders. When Kotohime told her what to do, she simply nodded and made the four people—two men and two women—in her squadron
follow her. The soldiers, men and women who’d abandoned the military to protect their yokai spouses and children, didn’t question the orders either. They followed Cassy as she rushed to protect the panicking civilians.
“Kotohime!” Kevin shouted as he and the others ran up to her.
Several YK units spotted them and tried to attack. Arms morphed into cannons, and cannons were aimed at the four youngsters. The kids were quicker. Kevin fired several youki projectiles using the barrels of his guns, Lilian restrained them with her Heaven’s Prison technique, Christine blasted them with ice, and Iris consumed them in void fire. Kotohime was impressed by their teamwork and reflexes.
“I’m glad to see that you are a safe,” Kotohime said. Yet even as she said this, several more YK units entered their sights. “However, it seems that now is not the time to talk. Come! We need to lead these things away from the civilians!”
It was impressive how none of the youngsters argued with her. Perhaps she and Mack gave them too little credit—but no, Kotohime knew of their talents. She just didn’t like children getting mixed up in war.
They ran down the street. Kevin fired at the YK units, his guns chugging away, bringing the attention of their enemies onto them and away from the civilians.
“Lilian!”
“Right! Celestial Art: Light Spheres!”
Two spheres of light erupted from Lilian’s tails and slammed into the visors of their enemies. This didn’t damage them, but it did scramble their vision. Kevin used that moment to change ammo cartridges, then he held down the triggers of his guns before releasing them, unleashing two beams of incandescent light, one blue and the other brown. The beams tore through the YK units like they were made of soggy toilet paper. Kevin must have also hit their cores, because the units quickly dispersed into liquid metal.
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