"Unlike you, your boyfriend has already recognised the Night Demon Queen's charm." Ruri pointed at Riku with a huff. She'd noticed he'd watched the whole time without spacing out clearly, a comrade.
"Boy-boyfriend?" At the word, Sora's eyes lit up; her impression of this offbeat chūni girl improved all of a sudden.
"Sora is my little sister, not my girlfriend." Riku stroked Sora's silver hair and set the record straight.
"Hmph. Stupid Riku." Hearing him correct their relationship, Sora muttered in dissatisfaction.
"Little sister?" Ruri glanced back and forth between Riku and Sora, then said oddly, "Needing your little sis to tag along to a movie is kinda pathetic, isn't it?"
"I don't care to hear that from someone going solo," Riku shot back with an eye roll.
"Hmph. I am the Fallen Saint Black Cat of Chiba. I disdain mingling with ordinary people," Gokō Ruri sniffed.
"So basically you don't have friends," Sora deadpanned, landing a clean hit.
"Uh-heh-heh… friends and such, this Lady simply has no need." Ruri's face stiffened, then she forced her voice lower. Still, why did that smile carry a trace of loneliness?
"Sora, leave it. We should get going." Seeing Sora had more to say, Riku helplessly pressed a hand to her head and changed the subject.
And speaking of "no friends," Sora was much the same until very recently, when she'd gained Yui.
Sora let it drop.
In a somewhat heavy mood, the three flowed out with the crowd into the lobby.
"Kuroneko, what's your real name?" Riku suddenly asked.
"Why are you prying into my information?" Ruri took a wary step back.
"Just curious," Riku said blandly.
"Hmph. I'm not telling. All you need to know is that I am the Fallen Saint Black Cat," Gokō Ruri sniffed, starting forward.
"Kuroneko, we'll be meeting again soon. It's all arranged by fate," Riku said, lips quirking, borrowing a slightly chūni turn of phrase.
Hearing that, Ruri's steps paused. She didn't answer and slipped away into the stream of people.
She had a decent impression of Riku, but he was still a stranger.
"Riku, are you very interested in that girl just now?" Sora tugged Riku's sleeve, face sour more than a little jealous.
"I am," Riku smiled slightly. In this world, they'd known each other online; in his previous life, he'd always liked Kuroneko. He'd even once, full chūni, shouted: "Damn you, Fushimi the hack! I and Kuroneko share life and death!"
"Let's keep shopping." Hearing him admit it so calmly, Sora grew a bit glum, and a sudden sense of urgency welled up in her chest. More and more cute girls and beautiful women were appearing around Riku, while she had made hardly any progress herself.
Still tugging on Riku, Sora pulled him along to continue their day out.
…
Meanwhile, that pet shop on Chiba's shopping street had descended into chaos. The snow fox had somehow opened its cage and run.
The clerk was beside herself. Joking aside, that snow fox had already been sold; if it went missing now, not only would the shop's reputation take a hit, she'd owe a fortune in money she didn't have.
She asked a coworker to mind the store and chased after it. But when a yokai truly intends to flee, an ordinary human has no chance of catching it… In the end, she simply slumped to the ground, dazed.
"Hmph-hmph, mere humans, thinking they can catch this fox, how naïve." The snow fox preened, now in the form of a human girl of eleven or twelve.
A head of silver hair fell down her back; her features were exquisite; two dainty bells were tied atop her head. She wore a black-and-white gothic lolita dress, and her two slender, snowy legs were sheathed in white over-knee socks.
And as a fox-spirit, she naturally carried a touch of charm.
That cute yet bewitching look melted more than a few hearts. Walking down the street, she drew sidelong looks from shady uncles whose eyes weren't quite right.
Some otaku, especially, couldn't tear their gaze away like an anime loli had stepped into reality.
"And this is why humans are a pain." Rarely taking human shape, the snow fox still wore a look of disgust. She hated this form because the way humans looked at her was far too lecherous.
Come to think of it, that detestable man didn't seem affected by me at all, did he?
She thought of Riku again and couldn't help muttering. Even then, she'd been in her true form and had reined her yokai aura in, suppressing her charm to the minimum, but most human males would still be affected, at least a little.
Riku's gaze, however, had remained perfectly clear.
"A strange human," the snow fox said, shaking her head. He knew of the hidden world, yet had no special power. He had no special power, yet wasn't swayed by her. A contradictory existence.
"Ara, little snow fox. I've finally found you." A feminine voice brushed her ear, carrying a chill to the bone; the snow fox's body went rigid.
"So fast she found me already? Is this woman a monster?" Fleeing toward a deserted area, the snow fox's thoughts spun in panic.
"She's even kept me under watch for over a month… that patience is insane!" Feeling the chill behind her grow stronger and stronger, the snow fox grew more frantic.
Her pursuer was not someone she could resist. If caught, there would be only death.
Ka-shak!
In a shadowed alley, a slash ripped through the air; the wall split open, and the blade grazed the snow fox's leg, tearing a wide gash. Blood poured out in sheets.
She tumbled to the ground in a heap. She could use yōryoku to stanch the flow for a moment, but with her leg ruined, she had no hope of escape.
What rotten luck. Looks like I'm really going to die.
Bracing against the wall, she stared at the figure approaching and let out a bitter smile full of despair.
"What are you supposed to be? You're not an onmyōji, not a yōkai, and not an evil spirit. Why are you hunting me?" she demanded through clenched teeth.
At that, the figure halted and looked down at her, eyes cold.
To her surprise, it was a girl about 165 centimetres tall, black school uniform, black long, straight black hair. Yet the katana in her hand and the killing chill rolling off her made it plain she was no ordinary human.
"A monster, hm… that's not wrong," the girl said, lifting her blade with a faint motion, gaze flat. "But before I fall completely and become a monster, I still have a name: Isayama Yomi."
Though she looked like a high-schooler, her voice was sultry and frigid, sending a shiver through the bones.
"Isayama… Yomi?" The snow fox blinked, then her pupils shrank. Even in her youth, she'd heard the name.
The famed exorcist house Tsuchimiya, Isayama Naraku, head of the branch family, had adopted a girl. From childhood, she showed astonishing talent. Though adopted, she was designated by Isayama Naraku as the next family head.
Then, half a year ago, the rumour spread: Isayama Yomi snapped, slaughtered the entire Isayama household, and vanished.
To think the hunter tailing her was that madwoman. Colour drained from the snow fox's face. Faced with someone who had cut down even her benefactors, the last trace of hope evaporated.
"Why are you chasing me? At least let me die with an answer," she said, voice hollow.
Yomi's eyes remained indifferent. A small, dark-red stone surfaced at her brow, gleaming luridly. In an instant, an evil miasma soaked the air around them.
"That's… the Sesshōseki! And an impure one at that! You're human, how dare you fuse with a Sesshōseki!?" the snow fox cried, aghast the moment she saw the stone.
The Sesshōseki, legend says, is a crystallisation of yōki containing the soul of the Nine-Tailed Fox defeated a millennium ago by Abe no Seimei. Only pure-blood fox yōkai can safely absorb its power for cultivation. Embed it in a human body and you gain so-called "limitless yōki," but at the cost of soul erosion, self and flesh destroyed, turning into a malevolent spirit.
If even a pure Sesshōseki carries such a side effect, an impure one is worse.
No wonder this woman's aura was so strange, neither exorcist, nor yōkai, nor evil spirit. By absorbing a tainted Sesshōseki, she had become an aberration, a hybrid that mingled the traits of all three.
Sink any further and she would become a true monstrosity, a half-yōkai, half-evil-spirit horror.
"No surprise you'd be after me," the snow fox said with a bitter smile. She carried a large, perfectly pure Sesshōseki.
The stone gnawing at Yomi's reason would obey its own will, seek and devour other Sesshōseki.
Clearly, when she'd used her stone to train in the past, its breath had been noticed, and the hunter had fixed on her trail.
"If you understand, then hand over the Sesshōseki before I lose what little reason I have left. That way… you'll suffer less." The gem at Yomi's brow flared brighter, its hunger to devour thrumming in the air; pain carved across Yomi's face as she spoke.
She could only move about for a few hours a day. The rest of the time, she forced herself into sleep; exceed the limit and, within days, she would go completely feral, cutting down anyone she saw.
If that happened, the exorcists would surely hunt her down and kill her.
Not yet. Not until she seized the strength to take her revenge.
"Knowing what you are, there's no way I'm handing over my Sesshōseki," the snow fox said, pushing herself upright against the wall, voice firm.
If her stone fell into the hands of a teetering Isayama Yomi, the consequences would be unimaginable.
As she spoke, three snow-white tails unfurled just above the small of her back.
Among fox yōkai, tails mark power level. One tail is the lowest; nine tails the highest, said to roam the heavens and earth freely, capable of anything, the mightiest of great yōkai.
From the legends of the Nine-Tailed Fox Tamamo-no-Mae alone, her dread power is plain to see.
-
"A three-tailed fox is too weak." Isayama Yomi's voice was thick with killing intent.
Yomi's body flared with a mass of yōki tainted by malice. Gripping her katana, she loosed a single iai-draw slash.
A flash of steel at a speed the eye could hardly follow made the snow fox's scalp prickle. At the last instant, she instinctively gathered a torrent of white yōki before her and shaped it into a shield.
Ka-chak!
The white yōki barrier was cut through, but it barely managed to hold; even so, the sheer impact hurled the snow fox backwards into the wall, her small body driven deep into the masonry.
"So strong. I'm no match at all." She grunted, blood beading at the corner of her lips, and stared weakly at Yomi.
If only her power were higher, if she were a four-tailed fox, she might be able to fight to a draw, maybe even win. The jump from three tails to four is qualitative.
But at her level, even with the Sesshōseki, it would take a dozen years or more to reach that stage.
Now she had only two choices: wait obediently for death… or forcibly trigger the Sesshōseki's power for a desperate counterkill. The outcome would be the same; she would be consumed by the stone's raging evil will and transformed into a creature that knows only destruction.
Perhaps even worse than Isayama Yomi. As a pure-blooded fox yōkai, her compatibility with the Sesshōseki was high; fusing with it required constant caution, let alone force-triggering it in battle.
The snow fox abandoned that unrealistic thought and, gritting through the pain, cast the fox clan's illusion art.
"Useless." For Yomi, fused with the Sesshōseki, such a trick had no effect at all.
"A fox's life is really hard," the snow fox sighed, giving up on the struggle, her eyes going glassy.
As a rare member of the snow-fox clan, she had been hunted constantly by exorcists, by yōkai hunters, even by other yōkai.
Fox yōkai have a certain trait: in that act, they can drive the man to the limits of pleasure. Rarer still for snow-foxes, and they have other special qualities besides. In the occult underworld, a snow-fox's "value" is sky-high; many are willing to pay fortunes to buy one.
So their numbers dwindled, their rarity grew, and the desire for them only sharpened. At this rate, extinction was a matter of time.
"Enough. What's the point of thinking about it? Maybe dying would be a release. I'm tired of running every day. Why worry so much right before the end?" Calm returned to her face as she readied herself to accept death.
Corroded by the stone's malice, Yomi had no sympathy for prey. She simply lifted the blade in her hand and brought it down.
The edge hissed, carving the air. If nothing interrupted, the snow fox's head would be off in an instant.
Ding!
A figure appeared out of nowhere; two fingers lightly pinched the falling blade.
"…!" Yomi's pupils tightened. Even in her corrupted state, she hadn't sensed how this person had arrived.
"Uh…!" The snow fox's golden eyes flew wide. Standing there, holding Yomi's katana between two fingers, was the same man she'd wanted to bite a few chunks out of just hours ago!
Yomi tugged, just a little nothing. The blade, sheathed in yōryoku, remained clamped fast and unmarked. She grew more alarmed by the heartbeat. Whoever could do this was undeniably a strong one, and one she had no confidence she could defeat.
Crack!
Riku looked at her calmly. He slightly crooked his fingers, and the katana in Yomi's hand snapped clean in two.
"An exorcist?" Yomi's eyes shrank again. She sprang back several meters, clutching the broken blade, her wariness plain.
"Exorcist? I'm not one of those weaklings," Riku said evenly, looking at her. The Yomi before him was a tragic heroine, but knowing that didn't mean he would extend a hand for no reason.
"Leave now, and I'll let you go," he said, light as a breeze.
"…" What little reason Yomi still possessed flickered in her eyes. She turned without a word and fled.
"Yo, you okay?" Riku turned to the snow fox, amusement in his voice.
"Uh… thank you for saving my life, milord. I will repay you someday," she said awkwardly, praying inwardly that he hadn't seen through her.
"Little snow fox, if you want to bluff, make your face look a little more natural. You're already mine and Sora's pet, and you still dare run? Bold of you." Riku pinched her cheek with a half-smile.
Great. Out of the wolf's den and straight into the tiger's jaws. What a miserable fox I am.
The snow fox was on the verge of tears.