Part 5

  It was night, and it was the perfect time to go on the hunt with my current allies. I was surrounded by a squad of tengus, a Yuki onna, and Turtle yokai; Lady Yasaka was protected in the middle of the formation they employed. Besides Yasaka and Kunou, I didn't see any other Kitsune. Why?

  Yasaka teleported us 1 km away from a nondescript forest with a river separating it from a rge castle that I don't recognize. It looked dipidated to my eyes; some of the walls were falling apart, and one of the towers was missing tiles. It was surprising to see such an ill-cared base; my opinion of my enemies fell further.

  There were almost no sentries in the forest, at least ones whose life force I was unable to sense. I only learned to do that at the end of my training with Kunou, and it was already an indispensable skill. “Huh, lightly guarded.”

  Yasaka who was next to me said, “Appearances are deceiving, Usagiyama-san. There are fewer guards because they are using magical formations all over that forest that monitor the four cardinal points around the forest and castle.”

  *So if I went there alone, I would have been discovered right away?* I was lucky to have asked Yasaka to accompany her and help her people. Something tells me that they will need my participation…

  “I see… I really need to learn more about magic.” That was all I said in reply.

  In the meantime, Yasaka's tengu guards started disarming the traps and spoofing the formation they found on the way to the castle. It's crazy that they found barriers that made normal humans go away, or manipute your senses to create some kind of byrinth inside the forest. There were some arms too, but fortunately, no one activated them; as for me? I firmly stayed at Yasaka's side to not fuck up anything.

  I looked inside my duffle bag, there was my newly bought rawhide baseball glove and ten professional balls bought at great cost. Yasaka and the tengus had stared at me as if I were crazy for a while, but I will show them that I was not pying…

  I noticed how everyone seemed to ignore me or raise their nose in the air as if they were superior to me. How strange, were they bigots? I remember that humans are food for some of those yokai; not that they can treat me like that, after all, they didn't look so tough, I think I can take them on.

  How do I know that? That's because they don't give me the same sense of crisis when I face them compared to the creatures Witchbde makes me fight in our shared mindscape each night. While I thought that, we were made to wait in a clearing while the scouts and the magic users worked on the defenses.

  One of the Tanuki yokai in our party ran toward Yasaka, put himself at attention, and reported, “My Lady! Our specialists finally breached the forest's defenses!”

  The nine-tailed kitsune stood up from the rge root she had found and put on a predatory expression. “Excellent, good work, everyone. It is time to put those rebels to justice.”

  Witchbde's gem on my bracelet glowed with a fiery crimson glow at Yasaka's words. The entity was getting excited, I didn't know if it was a good thing; however, the result was that I stopped being so rexed.

  We moved at speed toward the castle, walking on tree branches without disturbing the forest floor. Some of the yokai looked at me strangely when they saw that I could keep up with them. But I could hear what they were saying…

  “Who is she?”

  “Don't know…”

  “One of those strong humans, huh?”

  “Shut up! Focus on the operation!” The tengu in charge shouted at the unprofessional conduct of the yokai surrounding me.

  We used the rge thicket of trees facing the wall to hide since the nine-tailed fox wished to attack from this spot. Yasaka turned and asked, “Jin, can you take care of the sentries on the walls?”

  The tengu fred his wings and nodded, “Yes, my dy.”

  He turned toward the small squad of tengu archers behind him. “Boys, you heard Lady Yasaka! Spread out around the castle wall and take out the guards, thank Tsukuyomi-Sama that we have a moonless night this evening.”

  The tengus took flight, readying their bow and notching their arrows. Lady Yasaka then turned to the magic users she brought with her, with a thoughtful expression while fanning herself with her beautiful fan, she said, “After that, we will need to take out the castle's eastern wall.”

  The Yuki onna in the magic user group raised a hand. “Lady Yasaka, could you assist with this? This would spare our energy for the coming battle.”

  “Yes.” Yasaka then turned into a giant nine-tailed golden fox towering over us and the biggest trees in that forest.

  The ruckus created by Yasaka's roar had not gone unnoticed. The nine-tails opened her mouth and quickly formed a ball of fire that coalesced into existence, a ball of foxfire which Yasaka unched and...

  BOOM!! The castle wall exploded, and even some of the stone melted with its high temperature. The tengu started shooting the enemy yokai on the walls with youki or touki imbued arrows.

  I yelped when Yasaka used one of her fluffy tails to grab me and put me on her back. I guess it was time to attack! The kitsune ran toward the opening she created, crossing the river by walking on its surface, Naruto style.

  “You're amazing,Yasaka!” I yelled in joy while holding on for dear life onto the fur on her back.

  I heard an amused chuff sound coming from the giant kitsune just as we entered through the melted walls of the enemy castle, the tengus had covered our approach, taking down anyone targeting their Lady. The magic users and warriors were behind, crossing the river. At the same time, Yasaka started throwing clusters of foxfire balls at the enemy yokai, burning them to a crisp.

  Some escaped the onsught by air and counterattacked against the tengu from our side, picking them from the sky. I slid from Yasaka's back and nded on my feet, spreading my senses around the battlefield. This reminded me of the war I participated in in the mindscape with Red Sonja. I spotted the nearest enemy, a humanoid badger, and used the ripped-off instant movement technique inspired by One Piece's Rokushiki technique Soru, that I imbued with my touki.

  I jumped into the air and dived right foot first at the badger's head and… I decapitated the Yokai; the body under the head… it turned into meat chunks. I nded on the ground in a skid and stared at my handiwork and said out loud, “Huh, aren't they supposed to be super tough?”

  My instincts screamed to duck, and that's what I did, and rolled forward. Some kind of Turtle yokai was attacking me with a katana, his attacks were fas,t but… I entered his space and kicked the bottom of the pommel, disarming the yokai.

  I loomed over him as he was shorter than me and struck him over fifty times at rapid speed. “Atatatatatatatatata!! Ho wata!”

  The turtle's yokai body was more fragile than I thought because each strike created a hole in its body. He fell dead, and I stood over him with his blood on my fists and my face. Breathing in and out, I turned to confront my next target and… there was no one.

  Or at least they were fleeing from me when they saw what I did to their compatriots. That was at this moment when the tide once again shifted, a rge boom armed me, and I turned to see that on a tower of the castle stood a rge, monstrous figure with multiple arms, with long red hair, and its face had the appearance of a gruesome, horned mask.

  “Muhahahahahahahaha!!!! You're finally here you damn fox!” The figure jumped down the tower and enshrouded himself with some kind of bck energy that I had no idea what it was.

  He punched two tengus into a bloody mist when they attempted to intercept him. The hideous figure started ughing and shouted, “Come, sve of the West! Come and be killed by Tsuchigumo!”

  Fear spread into our camp, and the fighting heated up as the yokai cultists counterattacked us.

  # # #

  (Yasaka)

  She had expected those cultists to have strong combatants, but not one of the legendary yokai from the west. The kitsune asked herself if she and her people were going to pay for Nurarihyon's sin of not having already killed his enemies by now.

  Tsuchigumo, also known as ‘an ayakashi one must never encounter’, is originally from Kyoto and was one of Hagoromo Gitsune's minions. He always seeks a good fight and a strong opponent, regardless of race, size, or gender. Finding a worthy adversary drives him into a frenzy; he treats potential opponents as fodder until they prove themselves, but once he gets serious, he is an abominable force.

  Yasaka teleported out of the way of the tengus, about to be crushed by the ayakashi's fists. The nine-tails flicked her tail, killing cultist that had attempted to kill her while climbing her body. Tsuchigumo wasn't the only one they needed to worry about, there was an uncharacteristically powerful yokai that appeared suddenly that pushed Yasaka's group back.

  Then there was Usagiyama-san zipping around killing the fodder with her bare hands. They tried to run away from her, but she would catch up and kill them by aiming at their vitals and piercing through them. To think that this is the result of 2 days of touki training under her tutege.

  Tsuchigumo finally chose to fight Yasaka as he breezed toward her; the nine-tails swiped a paw at him that the ayakashi evaded. He suddenly spewed sticky spider silk that stuck to Yasaka's right paw, it was so sticky that it limited her movement for a second.

  Before he could strike Yasaka, Jin, her tengu commander unsheathed his bde and struck Tsuchigumo's offending hand and somehow sliced it from his arm.

  “You won't touch Lady Yasaka!”

  Tsuchigumo swore. “Aaaah! Fuck!” Then he began ughing like a Demon. “Oooh, it hurts so good! So that means that they're actually strong guys here besides the kitsune! Good, good~!”

  “How disgusting.” Yasaka surrounded herself with foxfire, burning the mass of spider silk, limiting her movements.

  The fire surged around Yasaka as she controlled it to target the stronger yokai. Screams rose in the air as the nine-tails started burning them to a crisp.

  “Oi, oi! Kitsune! Focus on me! Not the rabble.” Tsuchigumo cried out like a jealous husband finding his wife entertaining someone else.

  Yasaka harrumphed. She raised one of her tails and shot a stream of touki at the presumptuous ayakashi and sent him flying on to the castle's central pace. The pace exploded, and Tsuchigumo exited its ruins with an ugly ugh. “More! Entertain me, kitsune!”

  Yasaka used youjutsu to create chains to entrap Tsuchigumo; it succeeded, however, the ayakashi was struggling and the chains were creaking dangerously, they will not st long and are about to break. Some of the tengus took the chance and fired their enhanced arrows at Tsuchigumo, but they barely pierced his hide.

  “We need to do something!” The Yuki onna, Mio, shouted at their group.

  Someone blurred between Yasaka and Tsuchigumo; it was Usagiyama-san. Her hands were covered in the blood of her enemies, and she looked rather terrifying.

  “I’m here! Let me do it!” Usagiyama-san had a baseball glove on her right hand and a ball in her left. She faced the struggling Tsuchigumo, and the chains restraining him finally cracked, but at the same time, the young girl readied herself. Firmly taking a step forward, she twisted her waist while shifting her weight… to transfer the force toward her shoulder… “And there!”

  FWOOOSH! Like a comet, the ball left her hand, surrounded by a yellow fiery halo, and with great momentum streaked toward Tsuchigumo's head. The gruesome horned mask distorted on impact, and the head of the ayakashi simply disintegrated, leaving only the top of the monster's neck.

  The ball continued its course until it hit the main castle wall. Then a big explosion went off. BOOOOOM!

  “Mhm, he wasn't so tough.” Yasaka heard the scary young woman say.

  The nine-tails lowered her head and looked at the girl. “Usagiyama-san! What was that?”

  “I put an end to a masochist monster?” The girl answered Yasaka's question with another question by tilting her head cutely.

  Yasaka found the girl really refreshing with her naive perspective, she just ended someone akin to a natural disaster with complete ease. She heard as the yokai aligned with her start discussing with each other.

  “She… she killed that big brute with a throw?!” Jin, who had barely been able to fight against Tsuchigumo, looked dazzled at the young woman.

  Mio, the Yuki onna, shouted while pointing a finger at Usagiyama-san, “There’s no way you’re human!”

  The girl was wearing a gray hoodie covered in blood and her hands were simirly stained; she did look quite gruesome right at this moment. Yasaka knew that there was something peculiar in Usagiyama-san's lineage; she doubted that it was a youkai, but her intuition told her it was a God…

  “But… I am human?” The girl replied with a question again.

  Usagiyama-san shrugged and turned to the cultists. She fetched a baseball from her duffel bag and threateningly said, “Hello, cultists… I'm sorry to ask, but won't you allow me to take your heads as well?”

  The remaining yokai looked at Usagiyama-san, frozen by fear or indecision. Until a courageous Oni raised its cudgel and brandished it and shouted, “A-attack!”

  However, not a one followed that order, some yokai even prostrated themselves or threw their weapons on the stone tiles of the inner castle.

  “No way! I am out of here!”

  “We give up!”

  “Ara, that's a strange development.” Yasaka found herself mumbling, but she frowned.

  By instinct, she raised a barrier around herself, and a jet of magical fme struck it. Yasaka raised her head and saw that, standing in the air, floating were three people and they didn't look like allies.

  # # #

  (Cao Cao)

  A handsome young man with short bck hair and blue eyes walked outside of his courtyard. He wears a combination of a Japanese school uniform and ancient Chinese hanfu attire. He could be called handsome, but currently a stormy expression was etched on his face.

  His name was Cao Cao, the inheritor of the will of the greatest figure of the era of the three kingdoms in China.

  Receiving news that their operation had been foiled hadn't been good to Cao Cao, this set back would force them to be more active in Japan. However, Cao Cao decided to not let it be so! It was all for the cause, all for the depredation of the supernatural race upon humanity.

  Their association with the cult of Hagoromo Gitsune was facilitated by their joining the Khaos Brigade, the organization which Cao Cao's team, The Hero Faction, was operating under. The young man didn't like it, but orders were orders and he would lend a hand to those incompetent cultists.

  Cao Cao grabbed Georg and Heracles to respond to the distress call sent by the cult. They teleported from their HQ in China to Japan, over the castle of the Cult. What the three of them saw was pandemonium, it was yokai against yokai tearing each other apart with magic, fear and weapons.

  They arrived just in time to see a girl deliver the finishing blow to one of the cultists’ best fighters. She didn't have the same atmosphere as those monsters and Cao Cao guessed that she might be human. But what was she doing here, assisting them?

  “Ooh, interesting. Did you see that, boss? She's strong.” Heracles' competitive streak seemed to have been stimuted.

  Cao Cao sighed, this was not good for the girl. “Indeed and that's just her physical abilities.”

  Finding competent help was really hard, either they refused or had stipution to join Cao Cao's faction that he couldn't afford. At least Heracles' wants and needs were quite simple. Cao Cao was interested in this girl, she seemed strong and quite used to fighting; the yokai seemed surprised by the fact that she was dangerous.

  Didn't they know who they were partnered with? Cao Cao turned to his other companion, he looked to be quite in thought. “Georg, your opinion?”

  Georg, a young man with bck hair and spectacles. Like Cao Cao, he wears a combination of a Japanese school uniform and wears a mage-style robe over his uniform with a feathered cape. He is the descendant of Johann Georg Faust, the man who made a pact with the legendary Devil, Mephisto Pheles.

  He is a talented Magician that Cao Cao personally scouted and his friend. Georg straightened his gsses on his nose as he spoke. “She's using some kind of fire manipution. Baseballs don't explode by themselves, I need to look closer to study her ability.”

  “A talented woman, this is rare. We will give her the usual recruitment speech. Georg, announce our presence.” Cao Cao decred as he made his sacred gear, the true longinus appear in his hand.

  Heracles was getting antsy and wanted to fight and sughter, it was all written in his body nguage. Steering that loose cannon has become a full time job for him.

  “Alright.” Georg manifested four magical circles and shot a scorching fire spear at the nine-tails.

  Cao cao saw a barrier manifested by the gigantic fox which blocked the shot. The Leader of the Hero Faction smiled, knowing that this fight will be interesting. Everyone who was in the castle raised their heads and looked at them.

  “What have we here, trespassers?” Cao Cao intoned cockily.

  The one to reply to him was obviously the fox, she opened her mouth and a string of words came out. “Who are you, interlopers?”

  “I thought that that bit of magic would have been enough to show you that we’re the cult’s ally, maybe I overestimated your intelligence.” Cao Cao said as he and his team lowered to the ground to face the small contingent of yokai.

  Just as expected his words have infted the anger of one of the nine-tails’ tengu. “How dare you disrespect Lady Yasaka?!”

  *How predictable.*

  “Shut up, crow.” Cao Cao thrust his spear at the tengu, immediately targeting his chest.

  “Aaaah!” The tengu who hadn't seen Cao Cao move cried out when the bde of his longinus was about to pierce him. But just as the hero was about to plunder the life of the winged yokai the bde of his sacred gear was diverted by another.

  Kiiiiiin! It was a long curved bde simir to a katana's; it was attached to a gorgeous silver gauntlet with encrusted blue and red gems. Furthermore, the gauntlet was at the arm of the beautiful bck bck-haired young woman who had caught Cao Cao's attention earlier.

  Her cold, ruby-like eyes focused on Cao Cao, her words icy. “You won’t kill anyone on my watch.”

  Cao Cao was surprised; this woman had seen him move and diverted his blow. Not only was she powerful physically, but she also had sacred gear! “Oh, I knew it. A sacred gear holder.”

  But before he could say anything more, her bde was coated in golden fmes and unleashed a singur horizontal ssh directed at Cao Cao's neck for a decapitation strike.

  FWOOOOSH!!! With a grin, the leader of the hero faction ducked and rolled away from the fme-wielding beauty.

  He stood back up and ughed. “Haha! What a warm reception!”

  And this is the exchange that restarted the hostilities between the cultists and Yasaka's force. Georg's job was going to start to neutralize the fox, thus reducing the risk of being overwhelmed by Yasaka's abilities. She was still an ultimate css being after all…

  The girl was on him already, moving like the wind and Cao Cao started exchanging blows with her; their weapons cshing at high speed.

  “Lady Yasaka!”

  “What's happening?!”

  The cries of despair made Cao Cao's adversary waver and loom behind her. A dark mist spread around the area where the rge kitsune had been and surrounded her and some of the yokai around her. They were all locked in the dark space.

  Cao Cao ughed maniacally, “Your biggest advantage has now been removed. It is now time for all of you, Yasaka's minions, to die!”

  “Heracles! Mow them down!”

  “Finally! Die you weaklings!” The giant of a young man immediately activated his Bance Breaker and cd himself in dark armor of his Detonation - Mighty Comet sacred gear. Multiple missile-like objects unched toward the unprepared yokai horde.

  The armored giant killed most of the foot soldiers while the tengus got out of the way by taking to the air. However some created shields to protect themselves from the missiles. Heracles clicked his tongue and started hunting and fighting his foes.

  Cao Cao parried an arcing downwards vertical ssh, but was clipped by the following kick to his fnk by the bck haired girl he had been fighting. The girl was looking at him pcidly, her sacred gear slowly covering her arm in silver armor, shredding the left sleeves of the gray hoodie she was wearing. The Chinese hero frowned, and asked, “What is your name? I’m Cao Cao, leader of the Hero Faction; why is such a powerful woman like you allied with those beasts?”

  “I guess you should know the name of the one who will choke the life out of you. My name is Usagiyama Iori, and I am Yasaka’s daughter's babysitter.” The woman decred without shame as the weapon on her arm changed form from a katana to a straight short bde.

  Cao Cao blinked when he heard that Iori-girl introduce herself. So she was hired? Isn’t that great? “Hahahahaha! How presumptuous! But I like that! I shall fight you at my best, Usagiyama-san.”

  She sighed tiredly, then speared him with her ruby-like gaze. “I don’t like you, but just this once… I will be merciful. Free dy Yasaka, take your goons and leave Japan, and I won’t kill you all.”

  Cao Cao’s hand tightened around his spear, and his facial features distorted into a furious expression. He twirled his spear and put himself in a stance. “Arrogance! I shall show you Mount Tai, girl.”

  For the first time, he saw a modest smile on the girl’s face. “Really? Then in a nguage you’ll understand.”

  Her clothes suddenly were shredded by bdes sprouting from her body… no, her body was covered in silver armor and golden fme surrounded her form, turning the destroyed clothes into cinders.

  *So this girl has already reached Bance Breaker? How talented. But…* When Cao Cao says covered? It was completely sarcastic as the armor left nothing to the imagination as it was quite revealing and provocative. It wasn’t good for a girl to be seen in such a state!

  Cnk. Cnk. Cnk. Usagiyama slowly walked toward Cao Cao, another bde sprouted on her other gauntlet and she decred.“You are a frog in a well, Cao Cao.”

  And before he could react, she was on him.

  A/N: Time to fight and derail canon more!

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