Chương 66: Book 1, Chapter 66: Strife

Ten thousand different worries curled around John's heart as he stumbled over to the downed kitsune, Rin close to his side.

"Yuki, are you alright? Yuki!" he worriedly called, stepping around the bloody smear where Kiku once resided. The kitsune was slumped over on top of a heap of broken earth, the eldritch clarity of the surroundings having faded alongside… whatever the hell that "Transcendental Alchemy" nonsense was. Rin didn't exactly have much time to explain before John started improvising, and the way it looked like reality was bleeding when he gazed upon those twin pillars made him not want to.

Grabbing Yuki gently, John placed an ear upon her chest to ensure she still lived, a knot he was not aware of coming undone once he felt the slow, but powerful beat of her heart and heard the gentle flow of her breath. But was she still the kitsune he knew? John cast a glance toward the bloody stain that used to be Kiku, frowning uneasily. Was that monster truly dead, or had she escaped and was waiting nearby, ready to pounce once they dropped their guard?

Was some small part of her malevolence nestled within Yuki's soul now, inextricably bound to her? He wasn't sure which terrified him more. Haltingly, fear coursing through his veins like poison, John drew his Kiku detector up, pointing it at his friend, only to be greeted with dead silence. Still, some traitorous part of his mind insisted that it didn't prove anything; that there just wasn't enough of that demon in there for it to pick up. He would have to wait and see.

First, though, he had to get her back to the fort, back to relative safety. John glanced over his shoulder worriedly at Rin.

"We need to get back to the fort," John said, rubbing his newly unarmoured wrist uncomfortably. Going by ground was a no-go. The only effective combatant they had was Rin, and she would be hard-pressed to protect both him and Yuki if the Nameless decided to push their luck. Yet, even with his disc, he couldn't carry everyone back at once. Leaving Yuki was clearly unacceptable, and Rin would have no idea how to fly his disc.

"Rin? Would you mind doing something for me?" John cautiously asked.

"Of course, sensei!" came the near instant response, the sheer trust in her voice almost unnerving given how much he still hid from her. When she had explained what the two were doing, how they were clashing by overwriting how the world should be, he had almost broken down on the spot. What the hell would he do if someone pulled that out on him?

It seemed like having an Aegis provided some protection, but it wasn't as if he was gifted with one of those, nor did he have any clue of how to work that protection into his warding. Fuck, he hoped that was just misinformation on Rin's part about how this "Transcendant Alchemy" worked.

"Please, head into town," he said, pausing before realizing how bad that sounded, given last time.

"The ofuda should be rekeyed to allow you and Yuki now, with nothing else yokai-related permitted." Perhaps a bit more hesitantly, she nodded, turning around, steeling herself before marching straight past where the edge of the barrier used to be, not even stumbling in the process. Yes! A wide grin spread across John's face.

"Perfect! Stay right there while I get Yuki to safety, then I'll come back for you! Don't you dare leave the protection except if I come for you, and I can tell you what snack you shared with me before we left, plus one of the weather facts I taught you! Just ask me for the password, don't explain anything; if I can't do that, it's something mimicking me!" Placing the flying disc down, he awkwardly heaved Yuki onto it before tying her to it with rope.

Thankfully, he could still place his foot in the appropriate spot to control it if he just wedged his boot under her ribs a bit, and it wasn't as if the disc had any form of "conventional" lift to speak of, so he had no fear of any of her fur getting inhaled by a turbine.

"Sensei?" Rin confusedly asked as he stepped on the disc.

"We have to get back to the fort as fast as possible, and going by ground is too risky!" he responded.

"If you have a better idea than two quick trips, I'd be happy to hear it!" The dragon-blooded Unbound tensely shook her head.

"Don't trust strangers, either! As far as I can figure, Unbound without yokai features can still fight in the field just fine!" he called down to her as he twisted his foot, lifting off the ground on his telekinetic sled. And with one last wave, he was off, shooting into the sky like he was on borrowed time. By John's feet, Yuki jolted, and for a second, he thought she might be stirring, but she remained limp. Perhaps it was better that she stayed asleep while tied down like cargo.

A kitsune waking up confused and angry while strapped to an undersized table a few hundred feet off the ground might cause one hell of a crash, but he was committed now. The flight, unfortunately, gave him plenty of time to think, and he could feel paranoia's claws sinking into his mind once more, leaving gashes that whispered about everything that could go wrong. He needed a plan and he needed it now. If Kiku somehow lived through that, that meant that he had an uncontrolled variable on the loose.

He had seen her turn into meat-mist to dodge an attack, although he was unsure of how strong that power was while she wasn't doing that Transcendent Alchemy… thing. Still, the nogitsune was the type to plot and plan, and there were pretty good odds that she would abandon this whole venture after her defeat today. Kiku probably needed time to recover enough to travel safely, assuming she couldn't just heal herself back up on the spot with her powers over her body.

Perhaps the damage somehow stuck due to the method Yuki used. Compound magic struck him as a language laden with symbolism, after all, and what Yuki did made one hell of a statement. On the other hand, if Kiku were dead, that would mean that Yuki was compromised, and the Nameless were off whatever leash they had been on. In theory, they should see a dramatic shift in behaviour.

Either they'd immediately flee or double down and try to wipe out the town—something that was hopefully impossible now that he had screwed with the wards. However, he would have to find a way to put that ofuda under around-the-clock guard, complete with anti-tamper alarms that would alert him if anyone tried to break in. He should have also put Yosuke on the list, now that he thought of it, but that would hopefully be something he had the time for later.

In either case, they would be best served by bombing the Nameless hive entrances closed and implementing the new currency. At worst, they'd end up not trapping enough of the Nameless but would still cut their numbers. It might force a long, bloody campaign to exterminate the escapees, but surely they couldn't be worse off than the status quo of just having the borderline demonic body snatching spiders run free across the region. The real question: What would he do if Yuki had absorbed some part of Kiku?

Would he even be able to tell? She could already run circles around him in conversations without much effort; it wouldn't be hard for her to fake being the same Yuki as before. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. The best he could do was watch how the Nameless acted, but by the time he had an answer, she could already have the barbs dug deep into him. The question consumed him for the rest of his flight.

John descended over the walls, and Yosuke was almost immediately by his side. It was always hard to tell what he was thinking, no eyes and all, but you could almost feel the way he lingered on the passed-out Yuki. Now that John was more clear-headed and looking more closely at her, he could see numerous little scratches across her body, barely visible through her fur, most of which had already begun to close. That was probably a good sign, he hoped. Perhaps she'd even be awake when he came back with Rin!

He could only hope.

"Yuki was in a fight and pushed herself past her limits," John explained.

"She should be fine, but she needs rest." Untying her, he hefted her bulk and was immediately struck with the image of trying to navigate her up the stairs, and either smacking her head on every step or clunking her digitrade legs and fluffy tails on every single obstacle, pulling them along like a broom.

"Mind giving me a hand? I need to get her to bed." The man nodded his head and grabbed her legs while John got her shoulders, hoisting the fox-woman into the air and following John's lead as they awkwardly maneuvered the large woman into the main building like one might shuffle a couch into an apartment complex. Thankfully, they only had a few sets of stairs to go through. Along the way, he briefly explained the situation to Yosuke, though John left out a few details, like his internal struggles.

At the very least, the man would know that the nogitsune—he really should learn what that meant—behind all this was maybe dead and definitely injured, and that things were about to pick up. John led them past Yuki's room. No, they were going to his. It was reinforced. Defensible. A knife sat at the bedside, in case she needed it. Unfortunately, he wouldn't be able to bar the door to properly ensure her safety, but it would have to do.

He should set up real locks so that they could secure the room from the outside at some point, but he had to account for the absurd dexterity of yokai and Unbound, which would likely make bypassing any conventional defences a breeze. Perhaps he could figure out some lock that you could only open with magnets or telekinesis, with no obvious external mechanism, entirely stopping anyone who didn't know how to open it already.

Then again, with his last fully functional gauntlet destroyed, something like that might very well lock him out of his own room, too. Gently, John tucked Yuki into bed, pulling the sheets up over her shoulders, although he had to place her on the mattress at a strange angle to accommodate her sheer length. Yosuke followed him out, swinging the heavy door shut behind him with a quiet ease, making sure that it didn't slam shut.

"Thank you," John said, "I have to get Rin now that the disc should be full again. I'm sorry to have asked you to be on guard duty so much these first few days, but can I—" The undead soldier raised a hand to stop him before nodding his head, turning around to head back outside.

"Thank you," John said with a smile. Fuck, he wished he could make the man some sort of text-to-speech. He swore that the second he had time, he'd find a better way for the man to communicate. There had to be some sort of illusion screwery way to record audio; at the very least, John could lend him a voice, even if he couldn't give the man his own back.

Hurrying back to the disc, he double checked the capacitors before stepping back onto it, shooting back off into the sky sans his extra passenger, a tug in his chest calling him to ensure she was still safe. Even so, his duty to Rin weighed more heavily on his shoulders. Yuki was as secure as he could make her without standing guard at her bedside.

The Unbound had no such protections, and right this second, she might be being harassed by some of the Unbound that the strange, dog-like yokai had mentioned were lurking outside of the forest. John had to get back there, in case his student needed saving, damn it! With the lighter load, he could push the disc's speed further without having to worry about fuel economy, making sure he was high enough in the sky that he would have plenty of time to evade in case a projectile came shooting up from the forest below.

What had he been thinking when he went into the city, anyhow? That amount of bravery seemed rather unlike him, to say the least. Even a few weeks ago, he would have pulled back and found a better answer. There must have been some way to protect Rin and Yuki from the effects of the ofuda. Perhaps he could have figured out a charm that designated an area in which they were allowed, and used that to pave a path straight into the heart with full support.

Fuck, it might have saved the militiamen who Rin said got too close to Kiku before she showed everyone just how much of a monster she was. John had to do something for their families. He hoped Yashiro had funds put aside to help their families; he'd have to ask the next time he saw him. If not, John would have to work to build something for them.

There was no way in hell that he was going to let some poor folk who had their brothers, husbands, and sons die in defence of their people die alone in the cold come wintertime. As the village finally came back into view, John let out a breath he didn't know that he was holding. Rin stood on her own, still within the town's protective barrier. He quickly parked the disc a respectful distance from the young woman.

She stood on guard, her gaze steely and her hand placed on her blade's hilt, although she made no motion to draw it.

"Password, sensei?" she tersely asked.

"Celery," John stated with a smile, "And hot air rises, cold rushes in to fill the gaps." The Unbound's shoulders slumped, and the tension bled out of her face.

"Thank you," she said, walking out from the protective shroud of the ofuda. Almost absentmindedly, John vaguely waved his arm in her direction, quickly giving her a scan with the Kiku detector. She came up clean, much to his relief.

"Come on now, Rin," he said, stomping on the disc, awkwardly shuffling back to give the woman a facsimile of room. She reddened a bit, but obeyed, awkwardly shuffling onto the disc, standing as well apart from him as she could, looking away. She had never ridden on the disc, had she? He would have to be careful.

"You know, if you want, we could lay you down and tie you to the disc," John jokingly offered.

"Sensei!" she loudly whined. It'd be rather strange for a dragon to be afraid of heights, but it wasn't as if she were always a dragon.

"I mean, if you're afraid of falling, it'd be the easiest way to keep yourself safe!" he hurriedly defended himself, slowly lifting the two of them off the ground.

"If you don't want to, though, would you mind pulling your legs in a bit? You're too close to the edge." To be honest, she almost certainly had better balance than he did. Still, perhaps he would have to stay a bit lower on the flight back. The increased risk of an ambush might be worth the trade-off.

"It's not that, I'm not scared of heights," she hurriedly responded, glancing down casually as John started gently accelerating, flying higher yet off the ground.

"It's just… aren't you mad at me, sensei?" The question almost knocked him off balance.

"W-what?" he sputtered.

"Why would I be mad at you?"

"I let both you and Lady Yuki down," she muttered, looking at the green sea below as John moved them out of town, back into the wide wilderness.

"I couldn't go with you, and you had to fight alone. Lady Yuki told me to step aside, too. I wanted to help her, I really did, but then the nogitsune… her sister performed Transcendent Alchemy and—" She cut herself off, swallowing roughly.

"I wanted to help her." Yet, there was a note of bitterness in her tone.

"You're conflicted," John stated.

"She helped me. She's helped you, sensei!" the woman spoke.

"Did you know she's a nogitsune, the same as her sister? Did you know they're both parts of the same legendary monster who once terrorized the continent, only struck down by a coalition of all the forces of heaven and sealed away where she could do no harm? What about how the heavens burned the city at the mountain's base, trying to kill her when she broke free?" John took a deep breath. Truthfully, that last little factoid was new to him, but he wasn't too surprised.

"It wasn't my secret to tell. The city never came up, but…" he trailed off, looking off somewhere in the distance, toward where the sun would set in a scant few hours.

"It's hard. Trusting her, I mean. I'm scared that she's going to wake up one day and be a lot less like the person I've come to know and more like Kiku or some other sister I don't know about." In the distance, a small flock of birds drifted on the breeze, heading south.

"But she's been kind, even when she didn't have to be. When she first showed up, I was in a deep, dark pit that I couldn't crawl out of, and one of the first things she did was extend a hand in kindness. She introduced me to others. She helped me speak your language. It would have been so easy for her to keep me isolated from the world, utterly dependent on her, a tool for her own purposes. I won't say you have to trust her, but I think I do."

Rin lapsed into a deep, contemplative silence, crossing her arms across her stomach, and time seemed to stretch on unto infinity as they flew together. Red eyes met his as she finally looked over her shoulder.

"When the City of Glass burned, people passed by my family's compound, sensei. So many had these terrible, arching burns from the divine fire, like they were logs that didn't catch quite right. I thought a few were ghosts clinging to corpses, before they fell over and didn't get back up. There was only so much my family could do." She stopped, looking forward once more.

"We only found out why the Celestial Court did it a year later, and they said that they destroyed the monster that crawled out from under the mountain."

"Do you think Yuki, the Yuki we know, would have split herself apart to free herself if she knew what would happen?" The question raced out of John before he could react, too late to regret as it hung heavily in the air. It was quiet once more, the song of birds and the breeze their only companions.

"No, I don't think she would," Rin quietly answered. Together, they descended to the fort.